Adult development and social experiences are intertwined, which has implications for social policy, health, and well-being across the lifespan. This dissertation explores the benefit and risk that close social partners bring to adults' lives, and the efficacy and consequences of engaging social resources to maintain well-being in the face of...
The social aspects of older adults lives are strongly linked to well-being outcomes. Social relationships in older adulthood are rewarding, but also complex, and to maintain a positive social environment, older adults must reconcile long relationships histories, negotiate changing roles, and deal with increasing dependencies. Older adults are known to...
Close social partners may contribute to or detract from older adults’ health and well-being, in part because daily emotions are closely coupled to the quality of daily social interactions. This study examines variation in this sensitivity to interactions with social partners across the contexts of emotional closeness, interactions with others,...
The goal for this study was to examine within-person processes driving individual development related to social goals. We examined how social regulatory processes travel together over time to understand if daily social goal progress is sensitive to variation in experiences of support and hindrance, and the extent to which maintenance...
Age based self-stereotyping is associated with a variety of long-term physical health and psychological well-being outcomes for older people. However, little is known about how older individuals’ day-to-day experiences of functional limitations may be related to concurrent self-appraisals on dimensions representing negative age stereotypes. We examined how distal personality traits...
Personality traits and daily self-regulation of health goals, social goals, and perceived stress were examined over 100 days to better understand how traits may influence self-regulation. This study was conducted with a sample of 99 older adults via web-based surveys. Results showed that, as predicted, traits of neuroticism, conscientiousness, and...
Anaerobic co-digestion of fats, oils, and grease (FOG) for increased methane (CH4)
production has been of increasing interest to municipal wastewater treatment plants
(WWTP) due to the potential economic benefit of using the produced biogas for
cogeneration of energy. FOG loading increase must be done carefully to mitigate the
risk...
Identifying effective strategies for increasing access to quality care for children from low-income families has important implications for society. This study examined the effectiveness of expanding child care assistance for low-income families (capping expenses at 10% of income and raising eligibility to 200% of the federal poverty line) to purchase...
Debris flows have typically been viewed as two-phase mixtures of sediment and water, but in forested mountain landscapes, wood can represent a sizable fraction of total flow volume. The effects of this third phase on flow behavior are poorly understood. To evaluate whether wood can have a significant effect on...
Quality relationships among families and teachers in early care and education (ECE) hold
promise to nurture resilience among children impacted by adversity. However, little is known
about how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may also affect the interactions between
families and teachers. This study uses quantitative survey data from families (N...