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Description
Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain condition characterized by debilitating fatigue. This study examined the dynamic relation between interpersonal enjoyment and fatigue in 102 partnered and 74 unpartnered women with FM. Participants provided three daily ratings for 21 days. They rated their fatigue in late morning and at the end

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain condition characterized by debilitating fatigue. This study examined the dynamic relation between interpersonal enjoyment and fatigue in 102 partnered and 74 unpartnered women with FM. Participants provided three daily ratings for 21 days. They rated their fatigue in late morning and at the end of the day. Both partnered and unpartnered participants reported their interpersonal enjoyment in the combined familial, friendship, and work domains (COMBINED domain) in the afternoon. Additionally, partnered participants reported their interpersonal enjoyment in the spousal domain. The study was guided by three hypotheses at the within-person level, based on daily diaries: (1) elevated late morning fatigue would predict diminished afternoon interpersonal enjoyment; (2) diminished interpersonal enjoyment would predict elevated end-of-day fatigue; (3) interpersonal enjoyment would mediate the late morning to end-of-day fatigue relationship. In cross-level models, the study explored whether individual differences (between-person) in late morning fatigue and afternoon interpersonal enjoyment would moderate within-person relations from late morning fatigue to afternoon interpersonal enjoyment, and from afternoon interpersonal enjoyment to end-of-day fatigue. Furthermore, it explored whether the hypothesized relationships at the within-person level would also emerge at the between-person level (between-person mediation models). Multilevel structural equation modeling and multilevel modeling were employed for model testing, separately for partnered and unpartnered participants. Within-person mediation models supported that on high fatigue mornings, afternoon interpersonal enjoyment was dampened in the spousal and combined domains in partnered and unpartnered samples. Moreover, low afternoon interpersonal enjoyment in both the spousal and combined domains predicted elevated end-of-day fatigue. Afternoon interpersonal enjoyment mediated the relationship of late morning to end-of-day fatigue in the combined domain but in not the spousal domain. Cross-level moderation analyses showed that individual differences in afternoon spousal enjoyment moderated the day-to-day relation between afternoon spousal enjoyment and end-of-day fatigue. Finally, the mediational chain was not observed at the between-person level. These findings suggest that preserving interpersonal enjoyment in non-spousal relations limits within-day increases in FM fatigue. They highlight the importance of examining domain-specificity in interpersonal enjoyment when studying fatigue, and suggest that targeting enjoyment in social relations may improve the efficacy of existing treatments.
ContributorsYeung, Wan (Author) / Aiken, Leona S. (Thesis advisor) / Davis, Mary C. (Thesis advisor) / Mackinnon, David P (Committee member) / Zautra, Alex J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
In order to analyze data from an instrument administered at multiple time points it is a common practice to form composites of the items at each wave and to fit a longitudinal model to the composites. The advantage of using composites of items is that smaller sample sizes are required

In order to analyze data from an instrument administered at multiple time points it is a common practice to form composites of the items at each wave and to fit a longitudinal model to the composites. The advantage of using composites of items is that smaller sample sizes are required in contrast to second order models that include the measurement and the structural relationships among the variables. However, the use of composites assumes that longitudinal measurement invariance holds; that is, it is assumed that that the relationships among the items and the latent variables remain constant over time. Previous studies conducted on latent growth models (LGM) have shown that when longitudinal metric invariance is violated, the parameter estimates are biased and that mistaken conclusions about growth can be made. The purpose of the current study was to examine the impact of non-invariant loadings and non-invariant intercepts on two longitudinal models: the LGM and the autoregressive quasi-simplex model (AR quasi-simplex). A second purpose was to determine if there are conditions in which researchers can reach adequate conclusions about stability and growth even in the presence of violations of invariance. A Monte Carlo simulation study was conducted to achieve the purposes. The method consisted of generating items under a linear curve of factors model (COFM) or under the AR quasi-simplex. Composites of the items were formed at each time point and analyzed with a linear LGM or an AR quasi-simplex model. The results showed that AR quasi-simplex model yielded biased path coefficients only in the conditions with large violations of invariance. The fit of the AR quasi-simplex was not affected by violations of invariance. In general, the growth parameter estimates of the LGM were biased under violations of invariance. Further, in the presence of non-invariant loadings the rejection rates of the hypothesis of linear growth increased as the proportion of non-invariant items and as the magnitude of violations of invariance increased. A discussion of the results and limitations of the study are provided as well as general recommendations.
ContributorsOlivera-Aguilar, Margarita (Author) / Millsap, Roger E. (Thesis advisor) / Levy, Roy (Committee member) / MacKinnon, David (Committee member) / West, Stephen G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Including a covariate can increase power to detect an effect between two variables. Although previous research has studied power in mediation models, the extent to which the inclusion of a mediator will increase the power to detect a relation between two variables has not been investigated. The first study identified

Including a covariate can increase power to detect an effect between two variables. Although previous research has studied power in mediation models, the extent to which the inclusion of a mediator will increase the power to detect a relation between two variables has not been investigated. The first study identified situations where empirical and analytical power of two tests of significance for a single mediator model was greater than power of a bivariate significance test. Results from the first study indicated that including a mediator increased statistical power in small samples with large effects and in large samples with small effects. Next, a study was conducted to assess when power was greater for a significance test for a two mediator model as compared with power of a bivariate significance test. Results indicated that including two mediators increased power in small samples when both specific mediated effects were large and in large samples when both specific mediated effects were small. Implications of the results and directions for future research are then discussed.
ContributorsO'Rourke, Holly Patricia (Author) / Mackinnon, David P (Thesis advisor) / Enders, Craig K. (Committee member) / Millsap, Roger (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Random Forests is a statistical learning method which has been proposed for propensity score estimation models that involve complex interactions, nonlinear relationships, or both of the covariates. In this dissertation I conducted a simulation study to examine the effects of three Random Forests model specifications in propensity score analysis. The

Random Forests is a statistical learning method which has been proposed for propensity score estimation models that involve complex interactions, nonlinear relationships, or both of the covariates. In this dissertation I conducted a simulation study to examine the effects of three Random Forests model specifications in propensity score analysis. The results suggested that, depending on the nature of data, optimal specification of (1) decision rules to select the covariate and its split value in a Classification Tree, (2) the number of covariates randomly sampled for selection, and (3) methods of estimating Random Forests propensity scores could potentially produce an unbiased average treatment effect estimate after propensity scores weighting by the odds adjustment. Compared to the logistic regression estimation model using the true propensity score model, Random Forests had an additional advantage in producing unbiased estimated standard error and correct statistical inference of the average treatment effect. The relationship between the balance on the covariates' means and the bias of average treatment effect estimate was examined both within and between conditions of the simulation. Within conditions, across repeated samples there was no noticeable correlation between the covariates' mean differences and the magnitude of bias of average treatment effect estimate for the covariates that were imbalanced before adjustment. Between conditions, small mean differences of covariates after propensity score adjustment were not sensitive enough to identify the optimal Random Forests model specification for propensity score analysis.
ContributorsCham, Hei Ning (Author) / Tein, Jenn-Yun (Thesis advisor) / Enders, Stephen G (Thesis advisor) / Enders, Craig K. (Committee member) / Mackinnon, David P (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
ABSTRACT The phenomenon of cyberbullying has captured the attention of educators and researchers alike as it has been associated with multiple aversive outcomes including suicide. Young people today have easy access to computer mediated communication (CMC) and frequently use it to harass one another -- a practice that many researchers

ABSTRACT The phenomenon of cyberbullying has captured the attention of educators and researchers alike as it has been associated with multiple aversive outcomes including suicide. Young people today have easy access to computer mediated communication (CMC) and frequently use it to harass one another -- a practice that many researchers have equated to cyberbullying. However, there is great disagreement among researchers whether intentional harmful actions carried out by way of CMC constitute cyberbullying, and some authors have argued that "cyber-aggression" is a more accurate term to describe this phenomenon. Disagreement in terms of cyberbullying's definition and methodological inconsistencies including choice of questionnaire items has resulted in highly variable results across cyberbullying studies. Researchers are in agreement however, that cyber and traditional forms of aggression are closely related phenomena, and have suggested that they may be extensions of one another. This research developed a comprehensive set of items to span cyber-aggression's content domain in order to 1) fully address all types of cyber-aggression, and 2) assess the interrelated nature of cyber and traditional aggression. These items were administered to 553 middle school students located in a central Illinois school district. Results from confirmatory factor analyses suggested that cyber-aggression is best conceptualized as integrated with traditional aggression, and that cyber and traditional aggression share two dimensions: direct-verbal and relational aggression. Additionally, results indicated that all forms of aggression are a function of general aggressive tendencies. This research identified two synthesized models combining cyber and traditional aggression into a shared framework that demonstrated excellent fit to the item data.
ContributorsLerner, David (Author) / Green, Samuel B (Thesis advisor) / Caterino, Linda (Committee member) / Atkinson, Robert (Committee member) / Nakagawa, Kathryn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
The purpose of this dissertation was to develop a Compassionate Communication Scale (CCS) by conducting a series of studies. The first study used qualitative data to identify and develop initial scale items. A series of follow-up studies used exploratory factor analysis to investigate the underlying structure of the CCS. A

The purpose of this dissertation was to develop a Compassionate Communication Scale (CCS) by conducting a series of studies. The first study used qualitative data to identify and develop initial scale items. A series of follow-up studies used exploratory factor analysis to investigate the underlying structure of the CCS. A three-factor structure emerged, which included: Compassionate conversation, such as listening, letting the distressed person disclose feelings, and making empathetic remarks; compassionate touch, such as holding someone's hand or patting someone's back; and compassionate messaging, such as posting an encouraging message on a social networking site or sending a sympathetic email. The next study tested convergent and divergent validity by determining how the three forms of compassionate communication associate with various traits. Compassionate conversation was positively related to compassion, empathetic concern, perspective taking, emotional intelligence, social expressivity, emotional expressivity and benevolence, and negatively related to verbal aggressiveness and narcissism. Compassionate touch was positively correlated with compassion, empathetic concern, perspective taking, emotional intelligence, social expressivity, emotional expressivity, and benevolence, and uncorrelated with verbal aggressiveness and benevolence. Finally, compassionate messaging was positively correlated with social expressivity, emotional expressivity, and uncorrelated with verbal aggressiveness and narcissism. The next study focused on cross-validation and criterion-related validity. Correlations showing that self-reports of a person's compassionate communication were positively related to a friend or romantic partner's report of that person's compassionate communication provided cross-validation. The test for criterion-related validity examined whether compassionate communication predicts relational satisfaction. Regression analyses revealed that people were more relationally satisfied when they perceived themselves to use compassionate conversation, when they perceived their partner to use compassionate conversation, and when their partner reported using compassionate conversation. This finding did not extend to compassionate touch or compassionate messaging. In fact, in one regression analysis, people reported more relational satisfaction when they perceived that their partners used high levels of compassionate conversation and low levels of compassionate touch. Overall, the analyses suggest that of the three forms of compassionate communication, compassionate conversation is most strongly related to relational satisfaction. Taken together, this series of studies provides initial evidence for the validity of the CCS.
ContributorsRamos Salazar, Leslie (Author) / Guerrero, Laura (Thesis advisor) / Roberto, Anthony (Committee member) / Millsap, Roger (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Daily dairies and other intensive measurement methods are increasingly used to study the relationships between two time varying variables X and Y. These data are commonly analyzed using longitudinal multilevel or bivariate growth curve models that allow for random effects of intercept (and sometimes also slope) but which do not

Daily dairies and other intensive measurement methods are increasingly used to study the relationships between two time varying variables X and Y. These data are commonly analyzed using longitudinal multilevel or bivariate growth curve models that allow for random effects of intercept (and sometimes also slope) but which do not address the effects of weekly cycles in the data. Three Monte Carlo studies investigated the impact of omitting the weekly cycles in daily dairy data under the multilevel model framework. In cases where cycles existed in both the time-varying predictor series (X) and the time-varying outcome series (Y) but were ignored, the effects of the within- and between-person components of X on Y tended to be biased, as were their corresponding standard errors. The direction and magnitude of the bias depended on the phase difference between the cycles in the two series. In cases where cycles existed in only one series but were ignored, the standard errors of the regression coefficients for the within- and between-person components of X tended to be biased, and the direction and magnitude of bias depended on which series contained cyclical components.
ContributorsLiu, Yu (Author) / West, Stephen G. (Thesis advisor) / Enders, Craig K. (Committee member) / Reiser, Mark R. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Despite the wealth of folk music traditions in Portugal and the importance of the clarinet in the music of bandas filarmonicas, it is uncommon to find works featuring the clarinet using Portuguese folk music elements. In the interest of expanding this type of repertoire, three new works were commissioned from

Despite the wealth of folk music traditions in Portugal and the importance of the clarinet in the music of bandas filarmonicas, it is uncommon to find works featuring the clarinet using Portuguese folk music elements. In the interest of expanding this type of repertoire, three new works were commissioned from three different composers. The resulting works are Seres Imaginarios 3 by Luis Cardoso; Delirio Barroco by Tiago Derrica; and Memória by Pedro Faria Gomes. In an effort to submit these new works for inclusion into mainstream performance literature, the author has recorded these works on compact disc. This document includes interview transcripts with each composer, providing first-person discussion of each composition, as well as detailed biographical information on each composer. To provide context, the author has included a brief discussion on Portuguese folk music, and in particular, the role that the clarinet plays in Portuguese folk music culture.
ContributorsFerreira, Wesley (Contributor) / Spring, Robert S (Thesis advisor) / Bailey, Wayne (Committee member) / Gardner, Joshua (Committee member) / Hill, Gary (Committee member) / Schuring, Martin (Committee member) / Solis, Theodore (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
This simulation study compared the utility of various discrepancy measures within a posterior predictive model checking (PPMC) framework for detecting different types of data-model misfit in multidimensional Bayesian network (BN) models. The investigated conditions were motivated by an applied research program utilizing an operational complex performance assessment within a digital-simulation

This simulation study compared the utility of various discrepancy measures within a posterior predictive model checking (PPMC) framework for detecting different types of data-model misfit in multidimensional Bayesian network (BN) models. The investigated conditions were motivated by an applied research program utilizing an operational complex performance assessment within a digital-simulation educational context grounded in theories of cognition and learning. BN models were manipulated along two factors: latent variable dependency structure and number of latent classes. Distributions of posterior predicted p-values (PPP-values) served as the primary outcome measure and were summarized in graphical presentations, by median values across replications, and by proportions of replications in which the PPP-values were extreme. An effect size measure for PPMC was introduced as a supplemental numerical summary to the PPP-value. Consistent with previous PPMC research, all investigated fit functions tended to perform conservatively, but Standardized Generalized Dimensionality Discrepancy Measure (SGDDM), Yen's Q3, and Hierarchy Consistency Index (HCI) only mildly so. Adequate power to detect at least some types of misfit was demonstrated by SGDDM, Q3, HCI, Item Consistency Index (ICI), and to a lesser extent Deviance, while proportion correct (PC), a chi-square-type item-fit measure, Ranked Probability Score (RPS), and Good's Logarithmic Scale (GLS) were powerless across all investigated factors. Bivariate SGDDM and Q3 were found to provide powerful and detailed feedback for all investigated types of misfit.
ContributorsCrawford, Aaron (Author) / Levy, Roy (Thesis advisor) / Green, Samuel (Committee member) / Thompson, Marilyn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
Research methods based on the frequentist philosophy use prior information in a priori power calculations and when determining the necessary sample size for the detection of an effect, but not in statistical analyses. Bayesian methods incorporate prior knowledge into the statistical analysis in the form of a prior distribution. When

Research methods based on the frequentist philosophy use prior information in a priori power calculations and when determining the necessary sample size for the detection of an effect, but not in statistical analyses. Bayesian methods incorporate prior knowledge into the statistical analysis in the form of a prior distribution. When prior information about a relationship is available, the estimates obtained could differ drastically depending on the choice of Bayesian or frequentist method. Study 1 in this project compared the performance of five methods for obtaining interval estimates of the mediated effect in terms of coverage, Type I error rate, empirical power, interval imbalance, and interval width at N = 20, 40, 60, 100 and 500. In Study 1, Bayesian methods with informative prior distributions performed almost identically to Bayesian methods with diffuse prior distributions, and had more power than normal theory confidence limits, lower Type I error rates than the percentile bootstrap, and coverage, interval width, and imbalance comparable to normal theory, percentile bootstrap, and the bias-corrected bootstrap confidence limits. Study 2 evaluated if a Bayesian method with true parameter values as prior information outperforms the other methods. The findings indicate that with true values of parameters as the prior information, Bayesian credibility intervals with informative prior distributions have more power, less imbalance, and narrower intervals than Bayesian credibility intervals with diffuse prior distributions, normal theory, percentile bootstrap, and bias-corrected bootstrap confidence limits. Study 3 examined how much power increases when increasing the precision of the prior distribution by a factor of ten for either the action or the conceptual path in mediation analysis. Power generally increases with increases in precision but there are many sample size and parameter value combinations where precision increases by a factor of 10 do not lead to substantial increases in power.
ContributorsMiocevic, Milica (Author) / Mackinnon, David P. (Thesis advisor) / Levy, Roy (Committee member) / West, Stephen G. (Committee member) / Enders, Craig (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014