Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2012, Computer Science

This work investigated the effects of interface closeness on abstract problem solving and learning. Interface closeness is the degree to which an action performed via the interface differs from the action performed to achieve the desired result in the natural world. Interface closeness has numerous theoretical problem solving and learning benefits, though empirical investigations have found weak and conflicting results. A comparative study between interfaces at three levels of closeness (mouse, touchscreen,and tangible) on a novel abstract problem solving task was conducted. We found that the tangible interface was significantly slower than both the mouse and touchscreen interfaces. However, the touchscreen and tangible interfaces were shown to be significantly more efficient than the mouse interface in problem solving across a number of measures. Overall, it was shown that the touchscreen condition was the best interface, but also that closer interfaces in general offer significant benefit over the traditional mouse interface on abstract problem solving and learning.

Committee: G. Michael Poor PhD (Advisor); Laura Leventhal PhD (Committee Member); Guy Zimmerman PhD (Committee Member); Dale Klopfer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2019, Marriage and Family Counseling/Therapy

The purpose of this quantitative research study was to examine the potential moderating role of boundaries between adolescents (N = 46) and their parent(s) in the families of African American adolescents who have experienced trauma, and the effect it had on the adolescent's self-esteem, through the lens of Structural Family Therapy (SFT). The 2014 wave of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth - Children and Young Adults was used to conduct the study. A comprehensive review of the literature was conducted examining the intersection of poverty, race, trauma, the individual and lifespan development of adolescents and their families and family systems theory. The direct effects of experiencing trauma upon the parent-adolescent relationship and the self-esteem of adolescents were examined using simple regression analysis. The moderating effect of the perception of boundaries in the parent-adolescent relationship was examined using a multiple regression analysis. The regression results were mostly statistically insignificant, except for the moderating effect of the parent-adolescent relationship. It was found that African American adolescents who reported being closer to their parents were protected from the expected results of experiencing trauma. Additional research should be conducted within the field of Marriage and Family Therapy with respect to the intersection of trauma, poverty, protective factors and African American adolescents and their families.

Committee: Karin Jordan PhD (Advisor); Heather Katafiasz PhD (Committee Member); David Tefteller PhD (Committee Member); Wondimu Ahmed PhD (Committee Member); John Queener PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Behavioral Sciences; Black Studies; Counseling Education; Families and Family Life

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2019, Communication Studies (Communication)

This dissertation examines Saudi social networking site (SNS) users' online communication attitudes (OCA, specifically online self-disclosure, OSD, and online social connection, OSC), the influence of those attitudes on relational outcomes (e.g., friendship closeness) for friendships maintained purely online, and what makes users hold those certain attitudes toward online communication. Specifically, this dissertation first investigates what do the associations between attitudes toward online communication and communication use with online-only friends look like in the context of online-only friendships among Saudi SNS users?; and to what extent does the use of online communication with online-only friends through SNSs promote or reduce relational closeness? I examine the link between OCA and friendship closeness through the mechanism of online communication use, or interactive and meaningful behaviors of relational maintenance. Secondly, I consider to what extent does collectivism, at the individual level, influence SNS user attitudes toward online communication, particularly in the context of Saudi society? Thirdly, as family communication patterns (FCP) influences one's communication generally (e.g., Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002a, 2002b), I examine the extent to which patterns of family communication influence SNS users' attitudes toward online communication. Using an online survey, 854 Saudi SNS users participated to complete a questionnaire that included several adapted scales. The results demonstrate that attitudes toward OSD or OSC—which are important motivators of online communication—explain the role of cognition in online communicative behaviors and in the resultant relational closeness of online-only friendships. The present findings suggest that positive feelings about self-disclosure and making social connections with SNS users could boost online communicative interactions and relational closeness with SNS-only friends. Moreover, the results demonstrate (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Stephanie Tikkanen (Advisor); William Rawlins (Committee Member); Angela Hosek (Committee Member); Gordon Brooks (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2017, Human Ecology: Human Development and Family Science

To understand the roles of parent-child relationships in child adjustment, I examined the trajectories of father-child and mother-child relationship closeness and conflicts, as well as their associations with child depressive symptoms and optimism for boys and girls in middle childhood. Resident mothers and fathers from 685 families reported relationship closeness and conflicts with children across middle childhood at Grades 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. In each family, one study child reported on his/her depressive symptoms and optimism at Grade 6. Parent-child relationship conflicts increased, whereas closeness decreased across middle childhood, regardless of parental or child gender. Mother-child relationships were characterized as closer but more conflictual than father-child relationships for both boys and girls. After controlling for socioeconomic status (SES), maternal and paternal depressive symptoms, and mother-rated externalizing behaviors and internalizing behaviors at Grade 1, the trajectories of father-child, but not mother-child, conflicts predicted child depressive symptoms at Grade 6, after accounting for the conflicts between child and the other parent. The trajectories of father-daughter closeness predicted girls' but not boys' depressive symptoms after controlling for mother-daughter closeness. The trajectories of both father-child and mother-child closeness predicted boys' and girls' optimism. The findings highlight the important roles of both father-child and mother-child relationships in child adjustment.

Committee: Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan (Advisor); Xin Feng (Committee Member) Subjects: Developmental Psychology; Families and Family Life

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2016, Physics

The use of social network analysis in physics education research seeks to advance understanding of how students' collaborative tendencies influence trends of learning. Common useful measurements are network size, density of connections, and centrality measures that describe the importance of nodes' positions. This study compared four different centrality measures at the beginning and end of seven sections of an introductory calculus-based physics course. The Force Concept Inventory was used as a measure of conceptual learning at pre- and post-course administrations. The main focus of this study was to identify if differences in network centralities and conceptual learning/knowledge exist with respect to students' designations as non-traditional or traditional (age 22+). Various class sizes, styles, and instructors were included in the data. Results showed some common and conflicting trends for the different class types, with non-traditional students generally at a disadvantage in network position but comparable in conceptual scores.

Committee: Adrienne Traxler Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Doug Petkie Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jason Deibel Ph.D. (Committee Member); Eric Rowley Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Physics

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2014, Psychology

There has been a debate in the rejection literature about whether social exclusion causes hurt feelings or instead a numbing of emotion. Paralleling this dispute, there have also been mixed findings on whether social exclusion affects self-esteem. This study attempted to discern whether the severity of social rejection causes emotional numbing. Severity was manipulated by having participants interact for 0 or 15 minutes with a group before being rejected by them. It was predicted that social exclusion after a longer period of interaction would be more severe than social exclusion after a shorter interaction. This greater severity of reaction to exclusion was hypothesized to lead to emotional numbing. It was also hypothesized that the rejection feedback would elicit self-presentational concerns, such that explicit self-esteem would be affected by the rejection, but implicit self-esteem would. The present study tests these two hypotheses. The results did not provide support for either the numbing hypothesis or the self-presentation hypothesis. Instead, participants showed increased hurt feelings after rejection compared to those who were not rejected, irrespective of the duration of the interaction that took place prior to the rejection manipulation. There was no effect of the manipulation on explicit self-esteem as expected, but there was also no effect on implicit self-esteem. Implications for social exclusion's effects on hurt feelings and self-esteem are discussed.

Committee: Baldwin Way (Advisor); Jennifer Crocker (Committee Member); Lisa Libby (Committee Member) Subjects: Social Psychology

Bachelor of Science, Ashland University, 2014, Psychology

Embodied cognition is a theory indicating that thoughts, feelings, actions, and behaviors are grounded in physical experiences. Embodiment suggests that what individuals experience physically translates into a related mental representation of that experience which influences how they react to the world around them (Landau, Keefer, & Meier, 2010). Particularly, recent research in embodiment has attempted to examine the intrapersonal association between physical and cognitive experiences. Much research has examined this phenomenon with regards to judgments or perceptions of acquaintances and strangers, but has not heavily focused on close interpersonal relationships with others. The current research aimed to activate the schema for closeness and assigned individuals to engage in a variety of postures, some ended in a "hug" position and others ended on a neutral position. Then, participants were asked a variety of questions about their feelings of closeness in their intimate relationships. I hypothesized that those ending with a hug posture would rate greater feelings of closeness to others than those who ended on a neutral posture. However, results suggested that the manipulated posture had no significant effects on closeness ratings. It is possible that previous postures primed a logical flow of thought toward shapes which may have interfered with the intended priming effect of the "hug."

Committee: Brent Mattingly Ph.D. (Advisor); Diane Bonfiglio Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, Sociology

Using three waves of data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this dissertation conducts a detailed examination of the effects of stable family structures and family structure disruptions during adolescence on adolescent delinquency and young adult criminality. In conducting this comprehensive examination, I investigate how school attachment, closeness to parents, and subjective distress mediate the effects of adolescent family structure and family structure disruptions on adolescent delinquency and young adult criminality. Family process and social control theories serve as the foundation for this examination. In the short-term, living in a stable married stepfamily or a stable single-mother family significantly increases T2 delinquency compared to living in a stable two biological parent family. Experiencing any disruption in family structure, transitioning from a single-mother family to a two-parent family, and transitioning from a single-mother family to a cohabiting stepfamily between T1 & T2 increase T2 delinquency. In the long-term, experiencing any disruption in family structure or a single-mother family to two-parent family transition increases T3 self-reported criminal involvement. Living in a stable married stepfamily during adolescence (compared to living in a married two biological parent family) increases odds of a conviction in young adulthood. Experiencing a transition from a single-mother family to a two-parent family, single-mother family to married stepfamily, and single-mother family to cohabiting stepfamily also increase odds of a conviction between T2 & T3. All of these effects disappear once school attachment, closeness to parents, and subjective distress are introduced in the models. Subjective distress matters in both the short-term and the long-term. Closeness to father matters in the short-term for self-reported delinquency, while closeness to mother matters in the long-term for self-reported criminal involvement. Im (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dana L. Haynie PhD (Committee Chair); Lauren J. Krivo PhD (Committee Member); Chris Knoester PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Social Research; Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2010, Psychology (Arts and Sciences)

The purpose of this study was to assess the association between gender and closeness of the support provider on cardiovascular reactivity to acute stress. Volunteers were randomly assigned to undergo a laboratory visit with a close friend, acquaintance, or stranger. During the testing session, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) and impedance cardiography assessments of heart rate (HR), stroke volume, cardiac output, pre-ejection period, and total peripheral resistance were assessed during a fixed order protocol: baseline, adaptation baseline, math task, intermediate baseline, speech preparation period, speech task, and recovery. The support provider was present from adaptation baseline throughout the remainder of the protocol. During speech preparation stress, support from acquaintances produced the lowest HR reactivity for male individuals and support from strangers produced the lowest HR reactivity for female individuals. Also, individuals receiving support from a female support provider displayed less MAP reactivity than individuals receiving support from a male support provider. No significant effects for support provider type or gender were found during the math or speech stressor. Unexpectedly, assigned support provider type group differences were found for resting cardiovascular function at baseline, even though the support provider was not physically present during the cardiovascular assessments. Resting MAP was higher for the friend condition compared to the stranger condition, but no differences were observed with the acquaintance condition. Also, an interaction of support provider type by participant gender was found for resting HR, which illustrated that HR was lowest among males who were assigned to receive support from an acquaintance, but highest among females who were assigned to receive acquaintance support. Although these differences in resting cardiovascular function may be merely coincidence, it (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Stephen M. Patterson PhD (Advisor); Christopher France PhD (Committee Member); Bruce Carlson PhD (Committee Member); Kathi Heffner PhD (Committee Member); Robert Shelly PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Health; Physiological Psychology; Social Psychology

Master of Science, Miami University, 2010, Computer Science and Systems Analysis

In private data publishing, privacy schemes and generalization techniques are widely used approaches to protect against the individual's privacy leakage as well as to keep the released data useful to data analysers. We made two distinct contributions in the thesis. With regards to privacy schemes, we propose a new privacy scheme called (ai,bi)-closeness that improves t-closeness - a recently devised privacy scheme. Specifically, our scheme provides more flexibility to data publishers in specifying various privacy policies, and it results in higher quality datasets when preventing common privacy leaks. Regarding generalization techniques, we analysed the claim in trivial sanitization that negated the usefulness of generalization techniques in producing the high quality datasets. Our claim is supported by both theoretical analysis and experimental results.

Committee: Keith Frikken PhD (Advisor); Lukasz Opyrchal PhD (Committee Member); Valerie Cross PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science

MA, Kent State University, 2009, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Psychological Sciences

Previous empirical studies have found that participation in extracurricular activities is associated with lower levels of antisocial behavior (ABEA association). However, why participants in extracurricular activities have lower levels of antisocial behavior is unclear. The current study aimed to clarify the ABEA association by investigating the role of two dimensions of adolescent peer and friendship relationships-deviant peer affiliation and perceived friendship closeness. The current study used data from the National Study on Adolescent Health (Add Health, N = 1,729). Path analyses were conducted in Mplus and indicated that deviant peer affiliation did not mediate the ABEA association. However, results from negative binomial regressions conducted in STATA showed deviant peer affiliation moderated the ABEA association—deviant peer affiliation was associated with higher levels of aggressive antisocial behavior for music non-participants and higher levels of nonaggressive antisocial behavior for sports participants. Negative binomial regressions conducted in STATA also indicated that perceived friendship closeness served as a moderator in that higher perceived friendship closeness was associated with higher nonaggressive antisocial behavior for creative participants. The results of the current study show that deviant peer affiliation and perceived friendship closeness play a role in further understanding the ABEA association. An in depth investigation of peer dynamics within extracurricular activities is suggested to further disentangle the role of activity cultures and peer relationships within extracurricular activities.

Committee: Manfred van Dulmen PhD (Advisor); Josefina Grau PhD (Committee Member); Daniel Flannery PhD (Committee Member); Beth Wildman PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Developmental Psychology; Personal Relationships; Psychology

PHD, Kent State University, 2005, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

Guided by the uses and gratifications (U&G) perspective, this dissertation had three major purposes. First, it tested a model of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) use for online relationships by investigating the influence of dispositions and motives on CMC use for communication and relationships. Second, it examined differences in CMC motives for interpersonal communication among those who had different dispositions. Third, it investigated differences in CMC use and interaction between participants in two types of online relationships. The findings supported the model of CMC use for online relationships and the U&G theoretical framework, and suggested the contribution of dispositions, CMC motives, and CMC use and interaction for predicting outcomes of using CMC. Overall, participants who perceived their face-to-face communication to be rewarding, used CMC for self-fulfillment, and disclosed their personal feelings to others tended to feel close to their online partners. Moreover, participants who used CMC for self-fulfillment and affection purposes and intended to disclose their feelings to others felt satisfied with their communication in online settings. The findings also suggest differences in CMC motives for interpersonal communication among those with different levels of communication avoidance and loneliness. Among those with low levels of communication avoidance, participants who were situationally lonely and nonlonely were more likely to use CMC for affection than those who were chronically lonely. Furthermore, online relationships influenced how CMC was used for social interaction. Participants in non-traditional relationships disclosed more information than did those in traditional long-distance relationships. However, they did not differ in their CMC use, or in their depth, honesty, intent, and positiveness of self-disclosure. The associations among the constructs in the model of CMC use for online relationships extend our knowledge of the U&G model, (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alan Rubin (Advisor) Subjects: Mass Communications

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2013, Counseling Psychology

The current study explored the theoretical underpinnings of the Relationship Attachment Model, an alternative model to understanding closeness in relationships, using deductive qualitative analysis (DQA; Gilgun, 2010). Qualitative data from married couples was used to explore whether the five bonding dynamics (i.e. know, trust, rely, commit, and sex), proposed by the RAM, existed in their marital relationships. Additionally, this study examined whether the RAM could explain fluctuations in closeness and distance in the couple’s marriage and how married couples described and talked about love in their relationship. The findings of this research indicated that the five bonding dynamics put forth by the RAM did exist in marital relationships of these couples and that the complicated dynamics that occur in marital relationships could be captured on the RAM. This research supported findings from past research on close relationships and added to the literature by proposing another model to understanding and conceptualizing close relationship dynamics. The findings of this study are discussed in terms of implications for therapists who work with couples and relationship researchers.

Committee: John Quener Dr. (Advisor); Susan Hardin Dr. (Committee Member); David Tokar Dr. (Committee Member); Ingrid Weigold Dr. (Committee Member); Francis Broadway Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Counseling Education; Counseling Psychology; Psychology; Psychotherapy; Social Research