The present dissertation project investigated relationship enhancement following a brief self-disclosure task (i.e., the Fast Friends Procedure; FFP) via self-report and observational data. Thirty-three undergraduate couples dating for less than six months asked and answered questions that required increasingly higher levels of self-disclosure for…

During dance, endorphins, the so-called happiness hormone, are released--a fact that undoubtedly favors contacts with others as well as is an excellent opportunity to establish or strengthen them. Nowadays, with dynamically progressing digitization, dance has also found its place on the Internet. Both individual users and organizations see the…

Recent descriptive work suggests the type of college education (field or institution) is an important but neglected pathway through which individuals sort into homogeneous marriages. These descriptive studies raise the question of why college graduates are so likely to marry someone within their own institution or field of study. One possible…

Conventional systematic reviews offer few insights into for whom and how interventions work. 'Realist reviews' examine such questions via examining 'context-mechanism-outcome configurations' (CMOCs) but are insufficiently rigorous in how evidence is identified, assessed and synthesised. We developed 'realist systematic reviews', addressing similar…

Black youth in America must overcome many systematic obstacles to function successfully in American society. Racist social views and racist structures significantly impact Black youth's access to equitable education and resources and lead to disparate educational outcomes. One intervention that may help protect school age Black youth from the…

Past research has shown that body gaze behavior is marked for being a central feature of sexual objectification and that it may be associated with the sexual self-concept and tendency for sensation seeking among both men and women. The purpose of the present study was to assess the role of body gaze, interpersonal sexual objectification and…

Objective: Previous research demonstrates that sociocultural appearance pressures and internalization of appearance ideals lead to disordered eating (DE); however, only a subset of individuals exposed to these influences develop clinically significant DE. Identifying moderators of these associations may increase efficacy of targeted preventions…

This study is a phenomenological study that explores the impacts that racial affinity groups and varsity athletic teams have on the perceived sense of belonging, social capital development, and identity development of students at one New England independent boarding school. The rationale for this study comes from the notion that many independent…

This article seeks to rekindle a version of the age-old view that aesthetic education can contribute to the development of virtue. It proceeds as follows. First, it introduces the moral beauty view, whereby the moral virtues are beautiful, and the moral vices ugly, character traits. Second, two ways in which moral beauty and ugliness can manifest…

The current study examines whether peer victimization experienced in early adolescence is associated with compromised social functioning 14 years later in young adulthood. The sample involved 1533 young adults (65.1% female, M[subscript age] = 27.06) who had participated in a large research project as middle school students (7th and 8th graders,…

The aim of the study was to explore the extent to which the length, status and importance of current romantic relationship, the number of previous romantic relationship, as well as individual factors, such as levels of self-compassion, and anxiety about social appearance, are predictors of the romantic relationship satisfaction of young adults.…

This dissertation uses constructivist grounded theory to illuminate the practices and activities-namely, those tied to the information creating and the informal information provider roles-of"serious YouTubers", specifically "serious beauty and lifestyle" YouTubers. A "serious YouTuber" is defined as an individual who…

Whether birds of a feather flock together or opposites attract is a classical research question in social and personality psychology. In most existing studies, correlation-based techniques are commonly used to study the similarity/dissimilarity among social entities. Social network data comprises two primary components: actors and the possible…

Studies on the socialization of American college students indicates a pervasive trend in hookups as opposed to the traditional dating. Hookups are associated with fraternity and sorority parties in which two individuals "hook up" and have a sexual encounter without the commitment of developing a formal relationship. This research was…

The dialogic nature of human beings has widely been argued in the scientific literature. Language, as a cultural and psychological tool, has the potential to construct social meanings, including those related to love, attraction and desire. In these emotional dimensions of the self, people use 'the language of desire', defined as the capacity of…