This thesis investigates the reported communication experiences of married women transitioning to motherhood. The study involves a series of focus groups in which new mothers share their communicative experiences, explaining how they are navigating their new roles as mothers while also performing roles as wives, daughters, and workers. Informed primarily...
Typologies of intimate violence are part of an emerging paradigm towards a multifaceted, multi-theoretical approach to understanding the causes and effects of intimate violence. For this new paradigm to be implemented into research and practice, there are several gaps in the knowledge base that must be addressed. In particular, there...
In this creative non-fiction thesis, I present a collection of personal essays that examine my significant moments of awkwardness with failed communications or frustrated relationships when I wanted to draw people closer with language, but was unsuccessful. In the twelve stories, I discuss these issues in my interpersonal communication interwoven...
Online shopping is one of the fastest growing forms of shopping with sales reaching $141.4 billion in 2004 (Shop.org, 2005). With the tremendous growth of online retailing, and the prevalence of impulse buying today, this study's purpose was to investigate the internal and external factors of impulse buying in an...
The death of a child is a traumatic family event. This qualitative study examined the experiences of parents and grandparents in 10 families who had lost a baby to SIDS, stillbirth, or birth defects. Key questions focused on support given and received, meanings attributed to the loss, continuing bonds, and...
In this paper, my aim is to call attention to the meanings women attach to their
birthing experiences using the symbolic interaction perspective in conjunction with a
feminist lens. I argue that the obstetrical model of childbirth defines the course of the
relationship between the laboring woman and attendant, limiting...
The purpose of this research study was to test a psychological theory of motivation called the Flow Theory by Csikszentmihalyi as it relates to non-industrial textile production activities. In using the Flow Theory, researchers attempt to explain why individuals continue participation with a specific activity; namely that the activity induces...
I assessed influences on women's attitudes toward and experiences with menarche and menstruation using feminist qualitative methodologies. Bronfenbrenner's ecological model interpreted through a feminist lens was the organizing framework for the study, focusing as it does on the sociohistorical and multilayered context wherein the women developed. Fourteen college women between...
Self-determination theory suggests that social contexts that promote a sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness will increase internalization of behavioral regulation and lead to more self-determined forms of motivation, the prototype of which is intrinsic motivation. A positive relationship between internalization of exercise behavior regulation and actual levels of exercise...
Substantial research has shown deficits in the quality of end-of-life care in the U.S. In response to evidence of these deficits, efforts have been made to improve quality of end-of-life care. One approach has been to ask the question, "What is a good death?" Data on views of a good...