Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Psychology

Teasing is a regular part of everyday conversation between friends and family members, and recent research has sought to understand teasing in terms of how children develop their abilities to comprehend and respond to teases. According to cross-sectional studies, tease comprehension develops with age, but it has not been examined in longitudinal data following the same children across those ages. Possible mechanisms and covariates involved in this development are also underexplored, despite research showing that tease comprehension development follows the social information-processing model and thus information processing theories and aligns with irony comprehension development, all of which imply their own specific, theory-based mechanisms and covariates could apply to tease comprehension development as well. The current study sought to address these issues by utilizing secondary analysis to investigate the development of tease comprehension across early and middle childhood. Specifically, this study uses data from the National Head Start/Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration Study (Head Start Bureau, 1999), which includes an item assessing appropriate responding to teases at all four waves of data from kindergarten to third grade as well as a variety of variables that align with mechanisms and covariates that are expected to affect tease comprehension if tease comprehension development is indeed explained by the social information-processing model, information processing theories, and the parallel-constraint-satisfaction framework from irony comprehension development (namely, the roles of age, family interaction experiences, receptive language ability, social skills, child mental health, and bi/multilingualism). Results generally support previous cross-sectional findings as children were reported as appropriately responding to teasing more often as they get older and generally support possible roles in tease comprehension development for family in (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Gibbs (Advisor); Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan (Committee Member); Laura Wagner (Committee Member); James Bonus (Committee Member) Subjects: Developmental Psychology; Psychology

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2021, Psychology

Teasing is a common but complex part of communication, especially when needing to distinguish between prosocial and antisocial intents/types. Its complexity may also explain the protracted development of prosocial-antisocial tease comprehension (PATC) into late childhood and continued difficulty with PATC into adolescence and adulthood. To understand this comprehension process, its development, and its difficulties, a measure is needed to study the nuances of PATC, but previous PATC measures are undermined by the lack of a theoretical basis and more intensive testing of and/or support for validity and reliability. This pair of studies begins the process of developing a new PATC measure based in social information processing theory (e.g., Dodge & Crick, 1990), which postulates that contextual and situational cues are used to navigate and comprehend complex, ambiguous social interactions. The measure features prosocial, antisocial, and ambiguous teases that vary in the number of cues and the specific cue categories (i.e., facial expression, gesture/body language, and relationship information) included. Study 1 tested the preliminary measure with a small sample, focusing on evaluation of tease types and participants' explanations for those evaluations to move beyond face validity and test the expectations for the measure. Study 2 improved the measure and identified items for a more finalized measure by having a much larger sample evaluate the tease types of possible items. The expectations for the measure from social information processing theory and past research were all supported to some extent and replicated across the studies. Namely, participants used cues present in a tease scenario to guide their reasoning about PATC. The more cues an item had, the better the PATC and accuracy were. There were differences in item and general measure performance by tease type, and, finally, different cue categories had different effects on PATC and accuracy. Altogether, these fi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Gibbs PhD (Advisor); Stephen Petrill PhD (Committee Member); Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2020, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Criminal Justice

Bullying victimization is a well-documented social problem, whose consequences foster changes in public policy, and drive the implementation of intervention programs and empirical research. Traditionally, researchers have focused on identifying the individual and environmental factors that shape youth risk of being bullied. A more recent body of work has turned to using theory to better understand how individual and environmental factors shape pathways of risk for some youth. Specifically, researchers have used the lifestyle-routine activities, low self-control and target congruence paradigms to better understand peer victimization, such as bullying, among youth. While the importance of theoretical integration has been confirmed by this body of research, few studies have explicitly tested the applicability of target congruence, along with lifestyle-routine activities and low self-control to better understand the most commonly reported type of bullying—teasing.

Committee: John Wright Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Francis Cullen Ph.D. (Committee Member); Bonnie Fisher Ph.D. (Committee Member); Pamela Wilcox Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology

Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.), Xavier University, 2012, Psychology

The present study investigated the self-reported coping strategies of preadolescent children in an urban, predominantly African American school environment when faced with a tease/provocation targeting family versus personal attributes. A sample of 102 students in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades completed two versions of the Self-Report Coping Survey (Causey & Dubow, 1992). In contrast to some existing literature, there were no significant findings with regard to the impact of gender or grade level on participants' use of approach and avoidance strategies. There were also no significant differences in approach and avoidant coping responses according to the target of the tease. Potential implications are discussed as well as future directions for research focused on the complex nature of "teasing" as it occurs in urban environments, where there is a rich history and social contest for trading insults among peers.

Committee: W. Michael Nelson III Ph.D., ABPP (Committee Chair); Anna Cash Ghee Ph.D. (Committee Member); Joy McGhee Psy.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Social Psychology

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2002, Arts and Sciences : Psychology

Successful peer relations are widely recognized as crucial in the development of social competence. Two indicators of peer relations, peer acceptance and friendship, have been associated with positive emotional and behavioral outcomes. A good sense of humor and teasing behavior are two types of social behavior that may influence peer acceptance and friendship. Humor is thought to facilitate opportunities for group membership, allow children to combat embarrassment, and provide a tool for navigating social situations. Such skills are likely to contribute positively to peer acceptance and the establishment of friendships. Conversely, humor can be used for aggressive purposes, such as amusing some while disparaging others. Such teasing behavior may hinder peer acceptance and friendships.The current study examined the associations of children's sense of humor and teasing behavior with their level of overall peer acceptance (Like Ratings) and number of friendships (Best Friend Nominations). The data provided by the participants represented observations of 278 children, including 102 fourth grade children and 176 fifth grade children. Sense of humor and teasing behavior were measured via peer nominations on class play roles, peer acceptance by peer nominations on a like rating scale, and friendship by total number of best-friend nominations. It was hypothesized that sense of humor would be positively associated with peer acceptance and number of friendships, and that teasing behavior would be negatively associated with peer acceptance and number of friendships. It was also hypothesized that an interaction would be found indicating that teasing would be more strongly associated with lower acceptance and fewer friends the less often peers see them as having a good sense of humor, but teasing would be less strongly associated with lower levels of peer acceptance and friendships the more often peers see them as having a good sense of humor.These data suggest that sense of hum (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dr. Robert Noll (Advisor) Subjects:

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2002, Arts and Sciences : English and Comparative Literature

Using facework theory this study seeks to explain how relationships and individual face wants affect the interpretation of adolescent teasing incidents. Specifically, this study seeks to determine what differentiates a positive versus negative experience while teasing,the motivation behind teasing in a face threatening manner, how intimacy affects face threatening teasing and perceptions of teasing, and how social power affects the amount and type of teasing. A qualitative analysis of high school students' narratives was done to examine these dimensions of teasing. These narratives were gathered through an in-depth interview process. Overall,it was found that friends tease quite a bit as a means to relate, adolescents with more power tease more and in a face threatening manner, and an individual will experience negative emotions when face wants are ignored while teasing.

Committee: Dr. Cindy Berryman-Fink (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Textiles and Clothing

Teasing related to weight may occur more often than many other types of teasing during childhood and adolescence. Because people tend to compare themselves with their peers, they may be inclined toward lower body image and self-esteem if they perceive they fail to compare favorably. When overweight or obese individuals compare themselves to their peers, they may discover that a stigma exists against the obese based on subjective cultural ideals of beauty and slenderness. The current study examined weight-related teasing phenomena based on the recollections of adult females with Body Mass Indices from underweight to morbidly obese. A mailed survey assessed respondents' levels of body image, self-esteem, proneness to hurt feelings, and perceptions of teasing. Open-ended questions provided narratives of teasing incidents related to appearance and weight. The goal of the research was to explore the possibility of weight-related teasing as more pervasive than other types of appearance-related teasing, and that the impact on body image and self-esteem would be more negative among respondents in the overweight, obese, and morbidly obese categories. Results revealed moderate correlations between variables. Analyses of variance indicated differences between underweight and normal Body Mass Index categories and the overweight, obese, and morbidly obese categories. Narratives provided support for the statistical evidence and revealed a greater understanding of the experience of teasing about weight.

Committee: Nancy Rudd (Advisor) Subjects: Psychology, Social