M.A. - Speech

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    A social integration perspective on expressive writing : how the perceived relationship between writer and reader affects outcomes
    ([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [August 2011], 2011-08) Wisner, Amy Marie
    Recent research suggests that the expressive writing paradigm, which was assumed to be anonymous and intrapersonal, may actually be a communicative and social event. The social integration theory of expressive writing assumes participants increase interactions with their social networks resulting in psychological and physical health improvements. The present study tests the idea that social integration is invoked at the moment the writer perceives the presence of another person (e.g., a reader) in the expressive writing process. Based on the salience of one's social network in instantiating the perception of emotional support, it can be expected that participants who write for a relationally close reader (i.e., close friend or romantic partner) would report stronger and more numerous health outcomes than participants who write for a non-relational reader (e.g., a researcher). Thus, the goal of this study was to investigate how perceived relational differences between writer and reader may affect expressive writing outcomes. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions designed to induce perceived relational differences with their readers. A third group served as the control. Depression, interpersonal sensitivity, physical health, cognitive intrusions and avoidance were measured. Findings successfully replicated psychological improvements and fell just shy of significance for cognitive benefits. Physical health benefits, however, were not replicated. Additionally, though the findings were not sufficient to reject the null hypotheses, this study poses important theoretical questions regarding the boundaries the social integration theory of expressive writing. Practically, it informs researchers and clinicians of the potential importance of treating expressive writing as a communicative event.
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    The influence of personality traits and self-construals on Facebook use
    ([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [May 2011], 2011-05) Lau, Julie Jung
    This thesis examined personality traits (conscientiousness, openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), narcissism, self-construals (independent and interdependent), and motivation (fun, time, communication, job, relationships, popular, and information) on Facebook use. Personality traits on frequency of Facebook use, amount of Facebook friends and profile length, and factors that may influence motivation to use Facebook were also examined. A survey was conducted with students from a large US western university. Results from the study showed that narcissism was significantly related to the amount of Facebook friends. Agreeableness and independent self-construal, however, were not significantly related. In this study, extraversion was associated with communication as a social-motivation to use Facebook. Conscientiousness and neuroticism, though, did not have any significant relationship with frequency of Facebook use. This finding supports the need to examine the influence of "personality traits," "motivation," and "self-construals" when interpreting social media use behavior. Suggestions for future research are addressed.
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    Proclivity to intentionally embarrass others and self scales
    ([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [August 2011], 2011-08) Koo, Michelle I-Vee
    The present study validated the factorial structure found by Sharkey and Hamilton (2011), and extended their research by testing the scale's convergent validity by examining the relationships between the proclivity to intentionally embarrass others and self and a number of personality constructs. One hundred thirty nine University of Hawaii at Manoa students enrolled in Speech Communication classes answered online questionnaires that contained the proclivity to intentionally embarrass others and self, Machiavellian, communication apprehension, social desirability, and gelotophobia scales. The results suggest that increases in communication apprehension were correlated with reports of lower proclivity to intentionally embarrass others and oneself as well as lower proclivity to intentionally use mild face threatening tactics to embarrass others and mild and severe face-threatening acts to embarrass oneself. Results also suggest that individuals high on social desirability will be less likely to intentionally embarrass themselves and to intentionally use severe face-threatening acts to embarrass themselves. The findings in this paper have implications in regards to understanding the types of people who are willing to disrupt the working consensus through the use of intentional embarrassment despite the possibility of negative social sanctioning from other interactants.
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    The effects of multi/biculturalism and dehumanization on human-to-robot communication
    ([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [May 2011], 2011-05) Heo, Hyun Hee
    The present study investigates the effects of cultural orientation and the degree of dehumanization of robots on the preferred conversational styles in human-to-robot interactions. The 203 participants self-reported on questionnaires through a computerbased online survey. The two requesting situations were intended to simulate the participants' interactions with humanoid social robots through an internet video phone medium of communication, where the viewer can see the robot's face. Structural equation modeling was performed to examine the mediating role of mechanistic dehumanization between multi/bicultural orientation and conversational constraints. The findings reveal that between the two dimensions of multi/bicultural orientation, only openmindedness inversely influences mechanistic dehumanization, whereas cultural empathy does not. Mechanistic dehumanization, in turn, negatively affects three face-related conversational constraints, thereby leading to a lesser concern for robots' feelings, a lesser concern for minimizing impositions on robots, and a lesser concern for avoiding robots' negative evaluations. The implications of our findings on humans' relations with virtual robot entities and on the future development of humanoid robots are discussed.
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    Teacher friendliness and student learning
    ([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [May 2011], 2011-05) Hamada, Michele M.
    The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between instructor friendliness and student learning. Although students tend to rate friendly instructors as more effective than less friendly instructors, whether teacher friendliness impacts student learning remains unclear. The theory of communicative responsibility was used to further explain the relationship between teacher friendliness and student learning as well as help to reconcile the previous findings. Instructor friendliness was predicted to increase perceptions of common ground and influence judgments of communicative responsibility. And as students increase their perception of personal communicative responsibility, they should engage in behaviors that promote student learning. As predicted, as perceptions of instructor friendliness increased, perceptions of homophily, communicative responsibility, and affective learning increased. In addition, the more students felt responsible for their learning in the classroom, the more students reported experiencing cognitive learning. This study provides support for the notion that instructor friendliness is related to student perceptions of learning and might help contribute to theory building about learning.
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    An investigation on the effects of parent friending on self-disclosure, privacy settings, editing behavior and topic avoidance on Facebook
    ([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [May 2011], 2011-05) Cabico, Marjorie Ann Ocariza
    Social networking sites (SNSs) have changed the way we communicate and keep in touch. While there is ongoing and existing research on SNSs, few have looked at the effects of having a parent in one's friend network. The current study looks to further explore the effects that parent friending on Facebook has on user's self-disclosure and impression management on their profile. It was hypothesized that user's who have a parent on Facebook would demonstrate a greater amount of editing behaviors, would be more likely use the privacy settings, and would decrease or withhold information. This study also posed several research questions regarding user's information sharing on Facebook. Two hundred and eleven participants completed an online survey examining Facebook usage, self-disclosure, parent presence in their friend network, and topic avoidance. Results did not support the proposed hypotheses but provided interesting insights into the research questions. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
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    Nonverbal communication competence and music training
    ([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [May 2011], 2011-05) Badua, Audrey Shoko Mendoza
    Individuals who are competent in nonverbal communication are those who are able to accurately and effectively express, interpret, and regulate emotion in everyday conversation. Scholars have argued that acoustic cues such as pitch, tempo, timbre, rhythm, and tone in nonverbal communication share similarities with acoustic cues in music when expressing, interpreting, and regulating emotion. Recent studies in music training have shown that individuals who received music training were more accurate in sending and detecting emotion through the use of acoustic cues than individuals who have not received music training. This investigation examined the relationship between years of formal music training with nonverbal communication competence, overall communication competence, and emotional intelligence. This study also tested the notion that individuals with music training will report higher scores in nonverbal communication competence, overall communication competence, and emotional intelligence than individuals who have not had music training. The results suggest that more years of music training was correlated with higher competency in nonverbal communication as well as overall communication. Results also suggest that individuals with music training reported higher competency in nonverbal communication competence and overall communication competence than individuals with no training in music. The findings in this paper have implications in regards to music training in schools and further understanding of the relationship between communication and music.
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    Dance in the Society and Hawaiian Islands as presented by the early writers, 1767-1842
    (1951) Costa, Mazeppa King
    This paper is a study of European influences on dance, in the Society Islands and the Hawaiian islands through collected works ranging from 1767, the date of the arrival in Tahiti by Samuel Wallis, and 1842, the date that marks the end of the United States Exploring Expedition under the command of Charles Wilkes.
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    Cyber-intrusions : strategies of coping with online obsessive relational intrusion
    (2007) Tokunaga, Robert S.
    The current study explored how victims of Internet-related stalking crimes cope with relational intrusions. Using a communication privacy management framework, research questions examined strategies that victims used in response to the relational pursuit, the effectiveness of these strategies, and the relationship between the coping strategies and the online obsessive relational intrusion behaviors. Participants were either college students who were victims of online pursuits or victims who were directed to an online survey from a support website for cyberstalking victims. The results indicated that victims used eight coping strategies, of which ignore/avoidance, technological disassociation/disengagement, and help-seeking, were the most common. A technological privacy maintenance strategy was perceived as the most effective of all the strategies. The association between the eight coping strategies and 19 online relationally intrusive behaviors, and implications for the broader domain of privacy management and mediated communication are discussed.