Browsing by Subject "Relationships"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Beyond The Barriers: Women-To-Women Mentoring In/To Secondary School And Central Office Leadership
    (2015-04) Anderson-Hume, Bobbi
    Despite the fact that the pool from which most school leaders come is made up of a majority of women, most school leaders are men. Notwithstanding extensive research regarding this issue, the number of women principals in secondary schools and in the office of the superintendent remains low. The barriers, for those women not hired, identified by the reviewed literature can be classified as issues of job structure, age, and career paths. Because these issues are ones connected to women's family and domestic responsibilities, a simple solution for increasing the number of women school leaders has remained elusive. However, one barrier, a lack of mentors, has not been as widely explored. The impact a mentor has is undeniable and having a role model serves to make positions of school leadership more achievable. Further, having a woman mentor not only identifies the barriers, but also allows an aspiring women school leader assistance in their navigation. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the concept and practice of women-to-women mentoring through the perceptions of women school leaders who were seated secondary school principals, assistant principals, and superintendents, and are or were mentored by other women school leaders. Specific questions included: 1) How do study participants perceive the concept and practice of mentoring? 2) What are the lived experiences of women who have been mentored by women school leaders? 3) Why and how are or are not study participants supporting, through mentoring, other women who aspire to school leadership? This qualitative study, used interviews, observations, and documents/artifacts to gather data regarding the concept and practice of women-to-women mentoring. A phenomenological approach, including bracketing and reduction, was used to bring forth the prominent themes. Findings emphasized and illustrated original learning in the areas of: 1) mentor theory, 2) the practice of mentoring school leaders, 3) women-to-women mentoring, 4) the specific needs of women school leaders, 5) the gender of the mentor, 6) benefits to mentoring for women, 7) misuses of mentoring, and 8) a seated woman leaders choice to mentor.
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    Individual Differences in Social Cognition and Behavior: a Personality Psychology Framework
    (2021-08) Blain, Scott
    Though humans are universally social, we vary considerably in our ability and motivation to form and maintain relationships. One approach to explaining this variation looks to identify the mechanisms that facilitate social behavior, including social cognition and reward sensitivity. Much of this work, however, is methodologically lacking and fails to provide comprehensive explanatory frameworks. This dissertation applies insights from personality psychology to improve our understanding of individual differences in social cognition and interpersonal functioning, focusing on the broad traits most descriptive of social behavior: Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Trait Affiliation. Across four studies attempting to elucidate the neurocognitive mechanisms of these traits, various methods—including questionnaires, behavioral tasks, fMRI, and psychometric techniques—were used to elucidate how and why individuals vary in their social abilities, behaviors, and associated outcomes. Study 1 was a multi-task investigation of how three Agreeableness-Antagonism subfactors differentially predict social cognitive ability. Study 2 used fMRI, along with personality questionnaires and behavioral tasks, to examine associations among Agreeableness, social cognitive ability, and function of the brain’s default network, applying structural equation modeling and a Bayesian individualized cortical parcellation approach. Study 3 failed to replicate classic associations demonstrated between measures of depressivity and reward sensitivity, suggesting that instead, reward sensitivity is related primarily to Extraversion. Finally, Study 4 explored Trait Affiliation, an important dimension at the intersection of Agreeableness and Extraversion, and presents a new Trait Affiliation Scale, along with evidence for its reliability, validity, and practical utility. Collectively, this work represents a high standard of statistical power and methodological rigor, utilizing a total of eight independent samples ranging from N = 195 to N = 25,732. Across these studies, social cognitive ability and reward sensitivity are further established as important psychological mechanisms underlying individual differences in social functioning. The work presented here also offers methodological contributions and broader theoretical insights into the understanding of personality and its relation to psychopathology. In sum, this dissertation paves the way to a better understanding of how and why individuals vary in our social abilities, interpersonal interactions, and relationship success, in addition to serving as an argument for the broad utility of personality psychology’s methods and theories.
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    Political Attitude Similarity and Change in Early Romantic Relationships
    (2022-06) Fleck, Cory
    It has been well-documented that people tend to be attracted to others who are similar to them and that people in romantic relationships tend to be similar to their partners on a variety of domains. One area with particularly high levels of similarity is the domain of political attitudes. Although it is known that married and cohabitating couples are highly similar in political domains, little is known about the exact mechanisms that drive that similarity. The present study examined the reciprocal influences of political similarity and relationship quality for people in newly formed, committed, monogamous relationships. Across a variety of measures of perceived and actual similarity, there were no effects of similarity on changes in relationship quality. However, even in newly formed relationships, similarity in political domains was high. This suggests that matching on political similarity may occur before relationship initiation. Implications for relationship research, as well as for measuring political attitudes, are discussed
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    Principals and Their Supervisors: Relationships that Support Development
    (2022-05) Olson-Skog, Peter
    Principals can have a positive impact on student achievement by employing specific actions targeted at improving teaching and learning. District offices can have a positive impact by helping principals develop and grow as leaders, but how and under what conditions? While growth and development are entwined with relationships, little is understood about the relationship between principals and their supervisors, the focus of this study. Through interviews in four suburban school districts, a grounded theory emerged that described the relationship needed for superintendents (and others who lead principals) to play a meaningful role in principals’ growth as leaders. A trusting relationship was a pre-requisite to facilitating principal growth through a balancing of “push” and “support”. However, this trusting relationship (from the principals’ perspective) was more elusive and required more intentionality than many supervisors understood. The grounded theory that emerged from this study details the specific actions and characteristics that undergird both core concepts of a “trusting relationship” and achieving a balance of “pushing and support”. Four actions and four characteristics were identified as critical in establishing a trusting relationship. Five actions and two characteristics were identified as effective in achieving a balance of push and support. Examples of identified actions include “investing time” and “co-creation”. Examples of identified characteristics include “vulnerability” and “caring”. The ground theory illustrates how the different actions and characteristics interconnect, as well as compares the differences in emphasis between principals and their supervisors.
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    Relationships with Females and Attitudes Towards Sexist Language
    (2018) Strafelda, Ellie
    This study aims to find a relationship between female influence on one’s life and that individual’s attitude toward sexist language. The literature documents conflicting opinions about politically correct language. Those in support of inclusive language argue that sexist or offensive language has larger social implications that affect the population, and it should be removed from everyday speech. Specifically, that superiors in work environments who allow sexist language give the impression that this language is a signal that sexist actions are also acceptable. On the other hand, opponents of language change state that exclusive language is used when there is a strong discriminatory feeling, and changing the word in question does not combat the problem. Also, free speech is threatened when language is restricted. Studies also show that specific variables are telling of attitudes towards sexist language, including gender, work environment, and feminist identity. This study analyzed the influence of female relationships in their lives on subject’s attitudes towards sexist language. Subjects completed a survey asking them questions about their relationships with females in order to calculate a composite score for the amount of female influence. Subjects then completed the Inventory of Attitudes Toward Sexist/Nonsexist Language-General Version and a composite score was calculated that reflects the individual’s attitude toward sexist language. When analyzed for a bivariate correlation, no significant relationship was found. It is suspected that there were several limitations of the study that may have influenced the results and future studies should take these into account when further searching for correlation between these two variables.
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    Teacher Educator Identity: Emotional enactment and engagement in preparing teachers for diverse students
    (2016-05) Tobin, Jessica
    Being an educator in the moments that are the most challenging and the most defining involves a deep understanding of human relationships, self-awareness, and ultimately, human interconnection. There is significant literature regarding understandings and related practices for teachers to meet the needs of diverse student learners in schools. However, specific knowledge regarding how teacher educators teach, facilitate, and coach such content is much less developed. This qualitative case study embeds elements of autoethnography to better understand how multiple teacher educators (acting as PLC leaders) developed elements of their own identity to teach and support equity-minded teacher candidates. Throughout the study it also became necessary to understand and theorize the influential dimensions of affective reflexivity and emotional labor within teacher educator enactments and engagements.
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    Wall of me: facebook self-disclosure and partner responsiveness resulting in confirmation or violation of expectations and consequences for intimacy and relationships.
    (2011-11) Freeman, Linda Kramer
    In a study of self-disclosure and intimacy on Facebook, research in a survey of 274 undergraduates found interaction processes generally conformed to those found in face-to-face interactions. However, four findings from this study, in particular, elaborate how self-disclosure operates in a Facebook social media context. First, as in the face-to-face context, self-disclosure and partner disclosure were directly related to greater feelings of intimacy. But in contrast to face-to-face communication, in a test of the interpersonal process model of intimacy (Reis & Shaver, 1988), perceived partner responsiveness fully mediated the effect of self-disclosure on intimacy for a self-disclosure Facebook status update. Second, those who self-disclose on Facebook tend to expect and receive positive responses from Facebook friends, and self-disclosers generally classify this positive feedback as an expression of emotionally supportive caring, respect, and/or liking. Third, when participants receive unexpected responses to status updates, these surprise responses (expectancy violations) are generally viewed as positive. Expectancy violations to a self-disclosure status update on Facebook were significantly positively correlated with perceived partner responsiveness and greater change in intimacy toward those who responded unexpectedly. Fourth, in contrast to face-to-face communication, no gender differences were found in self-disclosure behavior, closeness with Facebook partners, or change in intimacy on Facebook as a result of a self-disclosure status update. Additionally, associations between attachment, frequent Facebook participation, relationship type, self-monitoring, and intimacy in Facebook interactions involving participant self-disclosures and responses from Facebook friends resulted in weak or inconsistent findings. The survey also explored participants' motivations for posting a status update, finding that sharing news, posting humorous information, and seeking emotional support were common reasons to post a status update. Motivations for responding to someone else's status update included sharing close feelings and humor.