Browsing by Author "Casper, Deborah M"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Everybody Likes Them: Exploring Popularity in an American Middle School
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2024) McCane, Maegan Victoria; McClure, Stephanie M
    This study uses a mixed-methods approach to understand the role that friendliness plays in the popularity of popular, friendly, liked American middle school students. Popularity is a prolific topic of study, as it is an important factor in the overall organization of the peer group, and students actively seek out being popular or being friends with popular people. Popularity is also highly context-specific, but despite this, it is not frequently studied in the field of anthropology. Furthermore, characterizations of popular students as being both prosocial and aggressive have led researchers to try to better understand why some popular students are aggressive, but not if or why some popular students are prosocial. Therefore, this study offers an anthropological, ethnographic approach to understanding popular students who are prosocial that can both add to the existing literature in anthropology, as well as serve as a reliable approach to studying popularity in different contexts. Results show that popular, friendly, liked students can be motivated by intentionally inclusive behaviors that they feel will create a more welcoming social environment for all of their peers. Secondary to the principal research question, it was also found that popularity is made up of different aspects, but all popular students do not possess all of these aspects; there is no “correct” combination to be popular.
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    Examining the Relationships Among Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms, Sluggish Cognitive Tempo Symptoms, Internalizing Problems, and Friendship Features in Emerging Adults
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2023) Greenberg, Nicole F; Jarrett, Matthew A
    Previous literature has demonstrated that those with ADHD show difficulties in social functioning including obtaining and maintaining quality friendships. Sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) symptoms, which have been studied in relation to ADHD, have also been shown to influence social functioning, and are often related to social withdrawal. SCT symptoms have also been connected to internalizing problems (i.e., anxiety and depression), which have been shown to be related to social functioning. However, much of the work in these areas has only been conducted in youth populations. Considering that friendships have been shown be related to positive outcomes in adults' lives generally, and especially in those with ADHD, it is important to examine factors related to friendship features and problems in adults. The present study sought to explore these factors by examining the role of internalizing symptoms in the relation between ADHD symptoms and friendship features as well as the potential impact of SCT symptoms on that relationship. Additionally, to add to the measurement tools needed to study friendship in adults, this study conducted confirmatory factor analyses to validate a measure of positive and negative friendship features. Overall, the findings are somewhat consistent with previous literature. The confirmatory analyses with the current sample demonstrated acceptable fit with the simplest 11-factor model. Our results demonstrated that ADHD symptoms and internalizing symptoms both generally impact positive and negative friendship features directly and internalizing symptoms mediated the relationship between ADHD symptoms and friendship features in most models. SCT symptoms moderated a few of the models in which SCT symptoms were found to buffer the effects of ADHD on negative friendship features.
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    Positivity Beyond Absence of Negativity: Social Competence Mediates the Association Between Positive Parenting and Adolescent Friendship Quality
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2023) Odom, Korina Renee; Xia, Mengya
    Parenting is important for adolescent friendship development. However, previous research has focused on the adverse effect of negative parenting on adolescents' behavioral problems that undermines their friendships (e.g., Cook et al., 2012). Positive parenting, beyond the absence of negative parenting behaviors, intends to empower the child and strengthen their competencies, including promoting their independence and acknowledging individual strengths. These assets could enhance social competencies that are needed to form and maintain high quality friendships during adolescence (Batool & Lewis, 2020). We propose gratitude (i.e., showing appreciation for others) and empathy (i.e., understanding others perspectives) are two critical social competencies for adolescent interpersonal relationships. Therefore, this study focused on autonomy-supportive and strength-based parenting as two dimensions of positive parenting to examine their predictive effect on friendship, through the mediation of social competence. We used a path model to analyze data of 506 late adolescences (85.4% females; age: M=18.4, SD=0.68) from the student participant pool collected via SONA program. Participants were asked to report parents' autonomy support and strength-based parenting during adolescence, their social emotional competencies (gratitude, and empathy), and current friendship quality. The latent mediational model of positive parenting, social competencies, and friendship quality had a good fit with the data. Autonomy-support parenting was significantly associated to social competencies of gratitude and empathy. Strength-based parenting was not significantly associated to gratitude and empathy. Both indicators of social competencies significantly predicted adolescent friendship quality. Lastly, latent mediational model suggest that social competence partially mediates the relationship between positive parenting (i.e., strength-based, and autonomy-supportive parenting) and adolescent friendship quality. This study will contribute to the underdeveloped topic of positive parenting from a strength-based approach and will provide insight how positive parenting influences adolescent friendship quality through the mediation of social competence.