Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Agricultural Communication, Education and Leadership

The COVID-19 pandemic thoroughly disrupted the U.S. food supply chain, ushered in a new set of social norms, and reoriented how individuals interacted with each other. A need to find how severely these phenomena changed during and since the pandemic continues to exist. Existing literature suggests significant shifts in social norms and social exchange occurred because of the pandemic. But a gap in research exists in understanding the nuances of these shifts and their continued alterations. This study sought to understand food purchasing behavior changes during the pandemic and how social exchange and adherence to pandemic-time social norms were valued. This study also created a comprehensive chart creating a timeline through the pandemic of how social exchange and social norms shifted through the pandemic. Through this study, an investigation of food purchasing trends and experiences from before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic was conducted. To examine social exchange and social norms, a non-experimental quantitative study was conducted using Social Exchange Theory and Social Norms as guides. A convenience sample of 419 primary U.S. household food purchasers was taken via online survey offered on Amazon's Mechanical Turk service. The results of this study indicate a significant relationship between time during the pandemic and adherence to social norms and willingness and desire of social exchange. Findings of this study suggest the pandemic caused temporary higher adherence to social norms and an eventual drop in social exchange. This study supported SN and SET through its findings of social norms adherence and social exchange changes in relation to social norms. Further research of the relationship between SET and SN during the pandemic and other crises should be conducted.

Committee: Joy Rumble (Advisor); Kareem Usher (Committee Member); Emily Buck (Committee Member) Subjects: Agriculture; Behavioral Psychology; Behavioral Sciences; Communication; Economic Theory; Economics; Food Science; Sociology; Urban Planning

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2021, Environmental Studies (Voinovich)

In Norms in the Wild: How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms, Cristina Bicchieri outlines a novel amalgamation of elements to form an updated conceptualization of social norms (2017). The purpose of this study aimed to determine how social norms influence public dialogue about environmental issues by elected officials in counties that (1) extract coal through surface mining, (2) contain no town larger than 35,000 residents, (3) contain no major four-year university, and (4) voted for Trump in 2020. The ultimate goal of research was to assess whether or not, in a highly polarized political culture, norms prohibit elected officials in conservative communities from addressing topics of environmental concern. Data was elicited via interviews with elected officials from counties with coal mining legacies in West Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Through analytic, descriptive, and open coding, qualitative analysis focused on perceptions about climate change, pollution, and economic transitions away from coal. Results indicated that a majority of interviewees, 56%, viewed climate change as a topic to be avoided in public settings. Of the 33% of interviewees who lived in communities where they perceived they could openly discuss climate change, 67% of the subset identified climate change as an existential threat, which accounted for 22% of the total number of interviewees. While pollution was named a subject to be avoided in public by 22% of interviewees, pollution was only reported to be a public concern by 11% of the total sample. The remaining 89% contended that pollution did not exist in, or posed no risk to, their communities. In conclusion, analysis suggested that social norms aligned with community leader preferences. Thus, Bicchieri's blueprint for behavior change, which hinges on identifying maladapted social norms, will not serve practitioners who hope to employ Bicchieri's social norm concept as a st (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Geoffrey Dabelko Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Risa Whitson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Liang Tao Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Studies

Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.), Xavier University, 2016, Psychology

Mental health concerns are highly prevalent in the college student population, yet only a small percentage of students seek help. Given the negative consequences associated with untreated mental health problems, it is essential to identify effective interventions to increase psychological help-seeking. This study investigated the efficacy of a brief social norms intervention (SNI) on changing students' help-seeking attitudes and behavior by comparing a social norms approach to a more standard provision of campus psychological resources information intervention (PRI) and a no-intervention control (NIC) group. One hundred fifty-six college students were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions: SNI, PRI and NIC. Participants' help-seeking attitudes were assessed pre-intervention, post-intervention and 2-weeks post-intervention using the Beliefs About Psychological Services Scale (BAPS; Ægisdo'ttir & Gerstein, 2009). Between subjects ANOVAs showed main effects for condition immediately post- intervention, p < .01, and at 2-weeks post-intervention, p < .01. At post-intervention and at 2-week follow-up, participants in the SNI and in the PRI conditions showed more positive attitudes toward help seeking as compared to participants in the NIC condition but did not differ from each other. Results indicated the SNI and PRI were both effective in improving help-seeking attitudes. Future research should focus on identifying which normative beliefs should be targeted within a social norms approach to maximize help- seeking attitudes and behavior.

Committee: Susan Kenford Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Mental Health; Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2014, American Culture Studies

This dissertation reveals the commonality of public and active women who used creative trades to substantiate their lives in Virginia from 1716-1800. A creative tradeswoman, an existence identified by this scholarship, was an individual who used her musical, dancing, and singing abilities to incur wages. This study focuses on prominent creative tradeswomen such as Mrs. Sully and Mrs. Pick, a traveling musical duo; the singing actresses of the Hallam; Mary Stagg, assembly manager and contributor to the first theater in Williamsburg; Baroness Barbara deGraffenreit, who competed for Williamsburg's premier dancing manager position; and Mrs.Ann Neill, an enterprising music teacher. Despite times of subordination, these women showcased unique forms of creative agency such as acquiring widespread idolization or organizing traveling musical duos. Creative tradeswomen challenged the conventional oppositions between trade and gentry women, education and creative ability, submission and dominance, amateur and professional culture, public and private spaces. The histories of creative tradeswomen demonstrate the fluidity between these binaries while also remapping cultural and social identities as informed by power, subjectivity, trade, music, and dance. As a result, this dissertation illustrates creative tradeswomen as situated within paradoxical systems of power and subordination. The archives at the Rockefeller Library, Virginia Historical Society, New York Historical Society, and the Library of Congress supported the research. This dissertation utilizes a feminist historiography methodology, incorporating a consideration of cultural and social conditions that bring forward creative women’s untold histories. Interdisciplinary in nature, this study makes points of contact between women’s history, cultural history, and gender studies. Creative tradeswomen expands the research on women's labor while locating gender and class as major influencers informing a wom (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Andrew M. Schocket Ph.D. (Advisor); Katherine L. Meizel Ph.D. (Other); Mary Natvig Ph.D. (Committee Member); Clayton F. Rosati Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Studies; Gender; Gender Studies; History; Music; Performing Arts; Theater History; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2013, Counselor Education (Education)

Research has shown that college student wellness is a priority among administrators and mental health professionals on college campuses. There is mounting concern surrounding the emerging mental health issues that plague college age individuals. Researchers have made effort to provide explanation for the gap in mental health treatment as many people with mental health issues do not receive treatment, specifically those in the college population. Many barriers to receiving services have been identified, but none have been considered to be as important as stigma. The perception of stigmatization of individuals who suffer from psychological problems deters them from seeking services. Research shows that peer attitudes and beliefs have tremendous influence over individual decision making. The issue of mental health is no exception. Social norms theory asserts that individuals often misperceive the attitudes and beliefs of their peers allowing these misperceptions to dictate individuals' behaviors and thought process. In order to further investigate the impact of social norms on attitudes toward mental health help seeking among college students, the current study administered the Inventory of Attitudes Toward Seeking Mental Health Services to Ohio University college students; one time asking them to answer questions about themselves and one time asking them to answer based on their perception of their peers attitudes. The results were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA and revealed that college students perceived their peers to feel less favorably about mental health help seeking than they do. Investigation of the demographics showed that gender did impact that way that students answered questions, however, still students believed that they had a more favorable view of mental health help seeking than their peers. Data from this research serves to advance the application of social norms theory and shows the efficacy of applying this theory to the issue of mental healt (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mona Robinson (Committee Chair); Greg Janson (Committee Member); Christine Bhat (Committee Member); Nikol Bowen (Committee Member) Subjects: Academic Guidance Counseling; Behavioral Psychology; Behavioral Sciences; Counseling Education; Counseling Psychology

MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

This study examines how young women's attitudes towards health are influenced by normative patterns and network heterogeneity. It assesses the role of discussion network heterogeneity in shaping health beliefs and scrutinizes the varying impacts of communication in familial and social media contexts. The study focuses on (a) understanding women's perceptions of different descriptive norms across communication contexts, (b) analyzing the influence of these perceptions on their intention to undergo gynecological examinations, and (c) investigating the effect of network heterogeneity on these perceptions and intentions.

Committee: Nichole Egbert (Advisor); Erin Hollenbaugh (Committee Member); David Silva (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Environment and Natural Resources

The killing of nonhuman animals is a routine and widespread practice in many contemporary human societies. In the context of wildlife specifically, this practice can occur under legal circumstances, such as through the authorized application of lethal control or illegally through the killing of wildlife in violation of state, federal, or international law (i.e., poaching). Regardless of legal status, the decision to support or engage in any action that results in the intentional death of a wild animal is influenced by a range of cognitive, social, and cultural factors. Thus, this dissertation draws upon theoretical frameworks established within the fields of sociology and psychology to advance, and refine, the application of social science concepts to better understand factors that influence individual judgments and decisions about the appropriateness of killing wild animals. Specifically, Chapter 2 assesses unexplained support for the lethal (and legal) management (i.e., punishment) of both human and nonhuman (wild) animals accused of violating social expectations or rules, via the application of capital punishment and lethal control respectively. Demonstrating that certain individuals report greater support for punishment irrespective of species or circumstance (i.e., experimental condition), results suggest that heuristic processing in the absence of detailed information upon which one could deliberate leads to significant consequences for the punishment of others. Exploring the ways in which perceptions of the illegal killing of wildlife are shaped by one's social landscape, Chapter 3 engages social norms theory to examine normative beliefs regarding the frequency, acceptability, and accountability one may expect if choosing to engage in wildlife-related noncompliance. Revealing the perceived power of informal sanctioning via one's community, results indicate that while increasingly punitive “tough on crime” anti-poaching policies may be widespread, learning and (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alia Dietsch PhD (Committee Chair); Jeremy Bruskotter PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Linda Lobao PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Conservation; Environmental Studies; Psychology; Sociology; Wildlife Conservation; Wildlife Management

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Political Science

Social influence shapes the political opinions people form and the norms they adopt. I show that three key types of social networks drive the type of social influence people face: fully-connected deliberative networks, social hierarchies based on status, and star networks that group up around a central opinion leader. In chapter one, I lay the foundation for thinking of public opinion as emerging from people's social structures. I then apply the theory to international norm adoption and show that the type of network an individual is placed in has a direct effect on the norms they adopt, over and above partisanship. In chapter two, I use a custom-made Twitter-like environment to show experimentally that hierarchies foster the adoption of partisan-leaning norms as members pursue status. Stars, in contrast, inoculate their members against false claims due to the reputations costs opinion leaders face in misleading their followers. In chapter three, I expand on these findings by priming subjects in a survey experiment with an image of their social structure, and show that placing a political independent in a social hierarchy at the individual-level makes them favor U.S. isolationism, international competition in domains such as trade, and overall unilateralism on the world stage. The conclusion of these two studies is clear: social hierarchies prime competitive political thinking, often leading to the adoption of norms based on false premises, and star networks help their followers sift through the noise and misinformation that prevails in online fully-connected networks. These findings highlight the importance of viewing norm adoption and opinion formation as a social endeavor that is deeply influenced by one's reference network. As online social networks continue to expand, identifying the types of networks that characterize these social environments becomes imperative for students of public opinion and international relations that seek to understand why some norms an (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Skyler Cranmer (Committee Chair); Christopher Gelpi (Committee Member); Richard Herrmann (Committee Member); Jon Krosnick (Committee Member) Subjects: International Relations; Political Science

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2019, Linguistics

Meanings are in some sense conventional, but they change over time. If conventions of meaning are game-theoretic equilibria of signaling games, a diachronic study of meaning can be formulated in full generality by investigating how equilibria changeover time. Lewisian conventions, whether from a rational choice perspective or from an evolutionary perspective, are too resistant to change: conformity among coordinators drives a population to equilibrium, establishing (semantic) order spontaneously. Some variation may be introduced within Lewis's framework by allowing for randomly occurring learning mistakes. However, there is a class of phenomena, characterized as semantic social change, on which conventions of meaning undergo change not by chance,but because of shifts in the attitudes of language users. Because of the agents' ever-changing practical goals, new linguistic policies may be adopted. This is a central force driving semantic change, albeit somewhat overlooked: semantic social change is a reflection of social change that becomes visible in the lexicon.In order to account for semantic social change, dynamic conventions may be defined, as a temporal generalization of Lewisian conventions. Agents who synchronically behave as coordinators, are diachronically in conflict with each others. A population of speakers is divided in different groups, or profiles, determined by different pratices and goals. In particular, despite the existence of a Lewisian convention about the meaning of a word, a small group of innovators might appear, who start a new convention for its use. The new convention may then spread to the rest of the population, provided the innovators are in a position to exercise enough societal pressure on linguistic peers who belong to their social network, to force them to comply. On the resulting model, linguistic agents are playing a game of conflict, in which the balance of competing forces moves a community of speakers from an equilibrium to the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Craige Roberts (Advisor) Subjects: Linguistics; Philosophy; Sociolinguistics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, Communication

In this dissertation, I offer a social-psychological approach to analyzing the experience of individuals' judgment and decision-making processes about their engagement in low-cost but high risk online political behaviors. Drawing on social norms and risk judgment and decision-making frameworks, I propose a theoretical model to address citizens' experiences with networked authoritarianism in the context of online political expression. Online surveys conducted in two networked authoritarian contexts provide empirical evidence to test the proposed theoretical model in two separate studies. My findings suggest that how individuals feel about online political expression influences individuals' decision to engage in it more so than how much risk they think there is. Moreover, while salience of regime's repressive injunctive norm impacts both affective and cognitive risk components pertaining to online expression, it indirectly influences intention to express political opinions online via citizens' feelings about the behavior. The findings also reveal the conditional impact of regime opposition and involvement with the content of expressive behaviors on these relationships. Overall, by bringing the focus back to individuals, this project offers a more nuanced understanding of how online political expression contributes to endeavors to deal with repression at the citizen level.

Committee: Erik C. Nisbet (Advisor); R. Kelly Garrett (Committee Member); Robert M. Bond (Committee Member); Emad Khazraee (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2018, Clinical Psychology (Arts and Sciences)

Sexual assault is a significant problem on college campuses and, recently, prevention efforts have focused on promoting bystander intervention. These programs, although promising, are in their infancy and could benefit from further research on factors related to bystander intervention in sexual assault related situations. Social anxiety is one such variable that warrants attention. Defining features of social anxiety, such as fears of evaluation and behavioral submission, intersect with theories about factors that influence bystander behavior. However, no research to date has examined the question of whether and in what circumstances social anxiety influences bystander behavior in situations related to sexual assault. The present study addresses these questions by having participants (1) report their actual behavior as a witness to sexual assault related situations and (2) respond to a vignette depicting a potential sexual assault scenario. As expected, social anxiety was negatively related to perceived opportunities to intervene and positively related to perceived barriers to intervening when given the opportunity. However, perceived social norms about intervening and social dominance of the perpetrator interacted with social anxiety in an unexpected manner to predict bystander intervention. Specifically, some results suggested that when the perpetrator was socially dominant, likelihood of intervening trended upward as social anxiety increased. In addition, some analyses indicated that, as perceived social norms about intervening became more negative, bystander intervention decreased, and this effect became stronger as fears of negative and positive evaluation decreased. Possible explanations for these findings and future directions are discussed.

Committee: Christine Gidycz Ph.D. (Advisor); Ryan Shorey Ph.D. (Committee Member); Peggy Zoccola Ph.D. (Committee Member); Chantel Weisenmuller Ph.D. (Committee Member); Thomas Vander Ven Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Economics

The simple and traditional approach in economics is to model individuals as making decisions that maximize their own (expected) material payoff. A large part of research in behavioral and experimental economics is concerned with studying additional motivations that may drive human behavior, especially in situations where there is tension between selfish and prosocial behavior. The first two chapters of this dissertation are a contribution to this literature. In the first chapter I study visibility. It is known that visibility (as opposed to anonymity), promotes prosocial behavior: we are more likely to cooperate, to give, and to vote if we know that our choices are not anonymous. I hypothesize that the power of visibility to induce prosocial behavior depends on the size of the group that is being observed. I test this hypothesis experimentally and find evidence in favor of the hypothesis: individuals that behave selfishly under anonymity are significantly more likely to behave prosocially when their choices and identities are visible in small reference groups instead of large reference groups. Strikingly, individuals in large reference groups that were given the opportunity to adjust their choices after observing the behavior of others were more likely to behave selfishly than under anonymity. However, this was not the case in small reference groups. I could partially attribute this difference between group sizes to the inability of shame to induce prosocial behavior in large groups. Motivated by this results, I propose a theory where the psychological cost of being seen transgressing a norm (behaving selfishly) is dependent on the number of norm-transgressors and norm-followers in a group. I find additional conditions for the theory to yield results consistent with the hypothesis: there must be a sufficiently high proportion of baseline transgressors ("bad apples") in the population and a transgressor should exert more psychological influence on a decision maker t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Paul J Healy (Committee Chair); Lucas Coffman (Committee Member); John H Kagel (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Economics; Experiments

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2015, Antioch Santa Barbara: Clinical Psychology

This study examined how negative media influenced Evangelical Christians and their attitude toward evangelism practices. Using self-questionnaires, participants identified their level of in-group identification and type of internalized motivation for engaging in religious practices. After viewing a negative media clip about the professional football player, Tim Tebow, and his public expression of faith, 412 Evangelical Christians rated their fear of negative evaluation about engaging in evangelism. A control group of 31 participants completed questionnaires but received no media exposure. Consistent with previous research, the current study found that media exposure activated internalized social norms and feelings of oughtness, which were shown to be statistically significant predictors of anxiety as measured by BFNE-II scores. Internalization types were not found to be significant predictors for control group scores. Although 82% of Evangelical Christians highly identified with their in-group and 72% endorsed voluntary participation in evangelism practices, 59% of all participants registered clinically significant anxiety about evangelism regardless of exposure to negative media. Evangelism anxiety appeared be influenced by a sense of moral duty (Johnston, 2003), feelings of oughtness (Lindenberg et al., 2011), the risk of interpersonal rejection (Ingram, 1989), and fear of prejudicial treatment (Bobkowski & Kalyanaraman, 2010). Results indicated exposure to negative media activated obligatory expectations for conformity with evangelism practices. The electronic version of the dissertation is accessible at the Ohiolink ETD center http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd.

Committee: Steve Kadin PhD (Committee Chair); Sharleen O'Brien PsyD (Committee Member); Christopher Rosik PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Mass Media; Psychology; Religious Congregations; Social Research

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2014, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

The degree to which the climate continues to change will largely be determined by choices made by individuals and nations regarding greenhouse gas emissions. Many Americans engage in energy conservation actions. But, the political will in the United States to adopt emissions reduction policies is unlikely to exist without public demand. Therefore, public mitigation actions of individuals (e.g., contacting elected officials in support of emissions reduction) are critical to induce legislative response. The majority of individuals who are most concerned about climate change (the “Alarmed” segment) do not engage in public mitigation actions, but some do. The purpose of this study is to examine the social-psychological factors that drive the public mitigation actions of the Alarmed. This was done through a comparison of the original value belief norm (VBN) model to eight author-created models that added predictor variables to the VBN. The objective was to determine which model was most effective at explaining public mitigation action. Drivers of these actions were also assessed by comparing those who took action (“actors”) with those who did not (“non-actors”). Electronic survey responses of 702 Alarmed Vermonters, analyzed with structural equation modeling, revealed that the modified VBN that included four efficacy variables and descriptive social norms was the best fitting and most explanatory model. Additionally, actors had significantly higher efficacy scores and descriptive social norms scores than non-actors. Results suggest that individuals are more inclined to engage in public mitigation action if they feel capable of taking action, believe that their individual and collective efforts are effective, and think others are participating. Two core contributions of this study are: (1) an improved VBN model in the context of climate change, and (2) greater understanding of the precursors to public mitigation action. These findings have broad implications for climate c (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Thomas Webler PhD (Committee Chair); Anthony Leiserowitz PhD (Committee Member); Carol Saunders PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Climate Change; Communication; Environmental Studies; Psychology; Social Psychology; Social Research; Statistics

Master of Arts, University of Toledo, 2014, Psychology

Descriptive, injunctive, and personal norms impact emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in a variety of contexts (e.g., alcohol consumption, recycling). However, no single experimental study has simultaneously 1) compared the relative impact of all three types of norms, 2) examined the impact of these norms in consumer-related domains, and 3) explored moderators of normative influence. In the current research, we utilized a 4 (norm type: descriptive, injunctive, personal, or no-norm control) X 2 (self-regulatory capacity: high or low) between-subjects factorial design to examine the impact of normative messages and self-regulatory capacity in a consumer-based evaluative context. Participants participated in a study ostensibly involving student preferences and decisions about a particular set of stimulus products (i.e., artworks), and completed measures assessing their evaluations and recommendations of, intentions toward, and willingness to pay for the artworks. Participants with low self-regulatory capacity had more favorable ratings of the artworks, but there were no effects of norm type or of the norm type X self-regulatory capacity interaction. Possible explanations and implications are discussed.

Committee: Jason Rose (Advisor); Andrew Geers (Committee Member); John Jasper (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Psychology; Social Psychology

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Popular Culture

One of the most powerful arenas where the construction of ideal femininity gets constructed is through the depiction of women on television. My thesis investigates one of the most popular television shows in the 21st century, Desperate Housewives. It explores how the female protagonists are depicted through the ways they attempt to maintain power within their suburban worlds. My thesis discusses how certain power is allotted within the narrative of the show. I investigate the implication that power is a good thing, and also offer analysis with some of the problems of gaining power. We not only see constrained power, but also see women in positions of status. Power within family dynamics, romantic love/marriage, and domestic and professional activities are central to my thesis. I focus on beauty and image through consumption, the struggles for women balancing their domestic and professional worlds, and alternative depictions of femininity through the repression of emotion. I use textual analysis to examine dialogue, plot and narrative, character development, genre, and aesthetics/formal elements within production, which include costumes, make-up, cinematography, editing, acting, lighting, and sound. My thesis draws on feminist scholarship within media studies and popular culture studies; specifically elements of sociological and psychological theory within the context of gender.

Committee: Becca Cragin (Committee Chair); Marilyn Motz (Committee Member); Sandra Faulkner (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Film Studies; Gender; Gender Studies; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Personal Relationships; Sociology; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2013, Sociology

This dissertation explores the form and function of social capital, both theoretically and empirically, to understand how it operates within the context of socio-demographic groups based on race, gender and class. Specifically, this study (1) examines major theories of social capital to identify points of comparison and contrast; (2) operationalizes social capital in ways that are theoretically consistent with each approach; and (3) examines each theoretically structured empirical model to determine the extent to which it captures the meaningful experience of social capital across race, gender, and class. The study uses data from the 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey to create and examine three distinct models of social capital drawn from the theories of Robert Putnam, James Coleman, and Pierre Bourdieu. Confirmatory factor analysis is used to test how well the theoretical models fit the data and multi-sample structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test hypotheses regarding significant differences in the structure of social capital across race, gender, and class groups. Structural differences in social capital were found for all three socio-demographic groups. However, the findings were not consistent across models. For example, although differences by race were found across all three social capital models, class and gender did not generate similar results. Theoretical and empirical implications for future work on social capital are discussed.

Committee: Rebecca Erickson Dr. (Advisor); Cheryl Elman Dr. (Committee Member); Clare Stacey Dr. (Committee Member); Xi Juan Dr. (Committee Member); Kaltenthaler Karl Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Sociology

M.A. (Master of Arts in Liberal Studies), Ohio Dominican University, 2012, Liberal Studies

Written in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts: Liberal Studies.

Committee: John Grant Ph.D. (Advisor); R. W. Carstens Ph.D. (Other) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2024, Communication Studies (Communication)

SIKAPOKOO, GRACE O., Ph.D., May 2024, Communication Studies Helping Black Breast Cancer Survivors Make Healthy Lifestyle Changes: How Family Communication Influences Progression Through the Stages of Change Director of Dissertation: Amy E. Chadwick In this dissertation, I set out to understand how family communication could influence and motivate behavior change for Black breast cancer survivors (BCSs) to improve their overall well-being and quality of life (QoL). Using the stages of change (SoC) model, the theory of planned behavior (TPB), and social support, I developed a model by integrating the SoC model with the TPB variables as a first layer on behavior change and take social support as a second layer to the model to hypothesize how family communication, through social support could help with the behavior change process for Black BCSs. To determine the role of family communication in behavior change, I conducted semi-structured interviews, which lasted between 45-75 minutes each on average. I interviewed 20 Black BCSs who had completed their breast cancer surgeries and treatment, had recovered, and were living in the United States. The interviews were conducted via video conferencing with automatically generated transcripts from Otter AI. The study found that family communication through social support can support Black BCSs to change their behaviors and improve their overall well-being and QoL. The study confirmed that family communication can positively influence TPB variables. As the variables change positively, they increase in behavioral intention alongside the progression of the stages of change, leading to the adoption of a new behavior. The study also found that social support received through family communication can help to progress people through the stages of change, to achieve behavior change. In addition, the study identified four domains for well-being that had had specific differences regarding the types of social support receive (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Amy Chadwick (Committee Chair); Angela Hosek (Committee Member); Lynn Harter (Committee Member); Anna Kerr (Committee Member) Subjects: Black Studies; Communication; Families and Family Life; Health

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Business: Business Administration

Consumers value objects not only for their features and functions, but also for reasons that are external to the product (i.e., nonfeature utility). The present work introduces a novel form of nonfeature utility, based on perceptions that an object was meaningfully (vs. ordinarily) used. I first develop a framework that conceptualizes meaningful usage as a violation of normative usage and identifies three inherent elements of usage (i.e., user, object, context). This enables instances of meaningful (vs. ordinary) usage to be formally defined according to the flexibility of the elements of usage across usage occasions. The empirical investigation is then focused on a particular form of meaningful usage—patterned usage, which is defined as one specific individual using one specific object in one specific context. Six experiments demonstrate that patterned usage is perceived as more meaningful than ordinary usage, leading to greater perceptions that the user's essence is imbued in the object and greater object valuation. These results contribute to various areas of consumer information processing, including sources of nonfeature utility, psychological essentialism, and attribution-making/inherence judgments. I also provide practical implications via empirical evidence showing that perceiving usage as more meaningful improves consumers' product evaluations and experiences.

Committee: Joshua Clarkson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Chung-Yiu Peter Chiu Ph.D. (Committee Member); Rashmi Adaval Ph.D. (Committee Member); Noah Van Bergen Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Marketing