MA, Kent State University, 2019, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Psychological Sciences

Rumination is thought to play a central role in affective disorders such as social anxiety disorder (SAD). Past research indicates that rumination tends to exacerbate negative emotions and increase the risk of engaging in maladaptive coping behaviors, e.g., avoiding social activities. However, little is known on how to effectively protect against the negative outcomes of rumination. Previously, Zaki, Coifman, Rafaeli, Berenson, and Downey (2013) found that negative emotion differentiation (NED) protected against rumination and non-suicidal self-injury in borderline personality disorder. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether this protective effect would extend to other populations and behaviors. Therefore, the present investigation sought to replicate and extend Zaki et al. (2013)'s findings in the context of SAD. In two studies, we examined if NED would moderate the relationship between rumination and the frequency of social avoidance. Study 1 involved 29 individuals who met criteria for SAD with or without major depressive disorder, while Study 2 involved 190 college students who responded to a self-report measure of social anxiety. All participants completed a dispositional measure of rumination and an experience-sampling diary, which provided indices of NED and frequency of social avoidance. The results from both studies were unanimous: NED significantly moderated the relationship between rumination and social avoidance such that the positive association between rumination and social avoidance remained significant only for low NED. Overall, the findings provide a conceptual replication of Zaki et al. (2013) and further evidence for the protective effects of NED against the maladaptive consequences of rumination across populations.

Committee: Karin Coifman (Advisor); Jeffrey Ciesla (Committee Member); John Updegraff (Committee Member); Christopher Was (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2014, Sociology

This dissertation addresses the practice of informal social control in neighborhood settings by integrating extant theory with constructs from outside the mainstream of criminology. Empirical support comes from an ethnographic project conducted over a period of five years in an urban neighborhood setting. Detailed knowledge of this local context is used to frame informal social control as produced and enacted by residents in ways that both reflect and create the larger neighborhood social and cultural dynamics. Specifically, three ethnographic accounts are offered as separate papers to provide different lenses on the neighborhood dynamics. Each account can also be read as demonstrating the variability of ethnographic methodology. Taken together, these empirical papers not only report findings, but also illustrate various aspects of the unfolding process of constructivist grounded theory-building. For example, the first paper highlights how a serendipitous finding gave shape to further data analysis, illustrating the nature of “emergent” findings in grounded theory analysis. The second paper reports findings from more advanced stages of analysis and demonstrates the preliminary stages of theory construction. Finally, the last paper emphasizes the reflexive nature of ethnographic (re)presentation by presenting “findings” in the form of an evocative autoethnography. The dissertation contributes to the criminology scholarship by introducing theoretical constructs that have heretofore not been connected directly to practices of informal social control. Moreover, this dissertation is also a statement in support of the integration of more “first-person ethnography” (Venkatesh 2013) into the core of criminology. Future work will continue to build on current scholarship to provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between individuals and communities.

Committee: Kathryn Feltey Dr. (Advisor); Matthew Lee Dr. (Committee Member); William Lyons Dr. (Committee Member); Tiffany Taylor Dr. (Committee Member); Brent Teasdale Dr. (Committee Member); John Zipp Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology; Sociology