Social groups

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to measure the impacts of attendance in a three-month series of social groups on the self-perceptions of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptomology, social skills, and loneliness for adults with ASD. The study also measured the impacts of attendance in a three-month series of social groups on perceptions of ASD symptomology and social skills for the caregivers of adults with ASD. This study utilized a convenience sample of adults that were existing members of Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (FAU CARD) Adult Social Group and an identified caregiver. Data was collected over a period of four months. This was the first study to examine the impacts of participation in a semi-structured social group on perceptions of ASD symptomology, social skills, and loneliness for adults with ASD, as prior studies had focused on more structured, clinical interventions. Variance in perceptions over the three-month series was analyzed using a repeated measures MANOVA. Significant differences were reported over the three month period on both adult self-perception and caregiver perception for ASD symptomology, social skills, and loneliness (N=76).

Living in complex social environments consists not only of sets of individuals
with their own dyadic relationships but also whose own dyadic relationships with other
group members must be observed and inferred from. Credibility enhancing displays
may provide one effective tool for dealing with complex social environments by
extracting and integrating adaptive information from an immense range of potential
social partners. Organized religious beliefs typical of routine rituals and standardized
religious ideologies may serve as one type of credibility cue. The aim of this study was
to assess how others judge adult's expressing a religious, spiritual, or natural
explanation on traits associated with Positive Affect, Negative Affect, and Intelligence.
Results from the study revealed that religious explanations were more affective than
spiritual explanations at influencing perceptions of Positive-Affect and Negative Affect
for those high and low in religious beliefs.

This dissertation suggests that network governance theory may have reached an impasse, and in order to pursue its advance, new methods need to be used. It tests the viability of actor-network theory on providing new insights on network governance, which could contribute to the strengthening of network governance theory. The author suggests that actor-network theory may offer both an epistemology and ontology that intents to not impose current definitions and divisions of traditional social science. By doing so, actor-network theory focuses on the performance of associations rather than on the traditional categories of structures, institutions, individuals or groups -- characteristic of most network governance studies.

Three studies use interaction in groups to test macro-level phenomena of the type predicted by computer simulations of dynamic social impact theory, an interactive, reciprocal, and recursive extension of Latane's (1981) theory of social impact, which specifies how individuals are affected by their social environment. A key prediction of dynamic social impact theory is that such phenomena as clustering and polarization of attitudes will emerge from social interactions among spatially distributed people. Study One, using a group of 24 people corresponding with their neighbors about an attitudinal topic, found both substantial polarization and a suggestive tendency toward clustering. Studies Two and Three, using 192 people organized into 48 24-person groups, provide strong empirical support for the emergence of clustering and incomplete polarization, and extend the findings to two alternative spatial structures. As predicted, a control geometry, involving random connections without any spatial organization, failed to produce clustering. Directions for future research are discussed.

This thesis was prepared as a descriptive study of a series of
meetings of a selected professional association to determine the
potential utility and transferability of sociometric diagnostic
techniques to voluntary organizations. Methods employed in investigating
this concept and its corollaries include: use of a
modified Bales interaction Analysis Process chart and diagnostic
review of full sound recordings of proceedings. The principle
subject investigated was the phenomenon of decision reversal in the
board of trustees. An analysis of the results of this investigation
indicates that further study of the problem could yield a diagnostic
tool of broad potential for use in the small decision making group.