Organizational sociologists have long argued that informal and formal rules around emotional displays within the workplace seek to maximize employee effectiveness and productivity; however, these rules have also been observed to have negative consequences in the context of employee emotions. These feeling rules establish the workplace emotional…

Hearing the painful stories of clients (indirect trauma) has been described as an occupational hazard for professionals working with trauma survivors and is becoming more common among mental health professionals. This might include counselors struggling with intrusive thoughts and having flashbacks of victimization, counselors viewing the world as…

This dissertation in practice focuses on the cost of compassion in a classroom. It explores the secondary traumatic stress impacting special education teachers as they support middle and high school students daily. More specifically, this program evaluation examines how an intervention can increase teachers' understanding and awareness of their…

In the United States, students of Spanish-speaking descent classified as Hispanic, Latino, or Latinx attending public school districts continue to demonstrate alarmingly high academic underachievement and dropout rates. Standards-based learning environments and related assessments tend to marginalize people whose lived realities already make the…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to determine whether middle school math teachers, as members of a community of practice (CoP) engaging in a collaborative inquiry (CI) intervention, could identify and make practical changes to specific classroom-centered factors that may have inadvertently promoted perceptions of performance-focused…

Conflict resolution education tends to emphasize the analysis of conflict dynamics, and skills for communication and problem-solving. The role of emotions, and practical strategies for one's own emotional self-management have received less attention. Emotional dysregulation in conflict may interfere with the use of learned conflict resolution…

Recognition of spontaneous emotion would influence human-computer interaction and emotion-related studies in many related fields. In any given environment, the spontaneous generation of expression are more often observed than their prototypic counterparts.This thesis explores methods for detecting emotional facial expressions occurring in a…

The purpose of this study is to expand research on persuasion 1) by examining psychological reactance as a function of threats to positive identity above and beyond threats to freedom and 2) by examining the role of positive emotions. An online survey recruited 478 students from undergraduate courses at several universities in the U.S. The study…

Parenting stress may be inevitable for any parent. However, stress can be even greater for parents with children who have disabilities. Among parents of children with disabilities, parents of children with autism are particularly at risk of feeling overwhelmed due to the specific developmental condition and characteristics of children who have…