Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Collective memory theory argues that memory is not a static individual idea, but a dynamic and ever-changing, social process. While often ascribed to institutions, collective memory can be found in smaller foci such as individual families. This paper seeks to explore collective memory by focusing on courtship stories within the family. Stories of how couples met and began their relationships become a means through which to examine the role of memory in courtship and familial norms. This paper argues that stories of courtships function as a form of collective memory which can reify familial bonds. Drawing on oral histories which were conducted with multigenerational families, this paper explores the ways in which courtship stories are actively and collectively produced and re-produced within the family setting. The thematic motifs of courtship stories are also identified and discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This research draws on the experiences of twelve women who have been stalked by an ex-intimate partner. While celebrity stalking has attracted considerable attention in the media, little attention and research has been given to the crime of intimate partner stalking. Moreover, there is even less known about the experiences of women who have sought help, namely from the criminal justice system and social service agencies. This research examines the experiences of women involved in intimate partner stalking and how they managed their victimization while simultaneously attempting to seek effective help. Findings from the study reveal that women encountered great difficulty. They typically attempted to manage their situations on their own but soon realized that their stalker was not going to relent. As the stalking progressed, the women became more fearful and began to see themselves as victims. This research looks at how these women made sense of their experiences and how their road to stalking cessation was laden with frustration, fear, and failure to receive effective outside help. This research not only renders women’s experiences and difficulties as significant, but it also allows society to understand how to better meet the needs of many women who are involved in intimate stalking in today’s society.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this research, we develop a signaling framework to examine the deployment of adolescent “courtship rituals,” which include social practices like going out in a group and meeting the parents, dyadic practices like exchanging gifts and saying “I love you,” and, lastly, sexual activities like petting and engaging in sexual intercourse. We argue that patterns in the use of courtship rituals distinguish between “nominal” and “lavish” signaling strategies. These decisions, in turn, are affected by two tradeoffs: (1) a present-future tradeoff and (2) a compliance-breach tradeoff. Furthermore, we argue that adolescents’ perceptions of these tradeoffs are influenced by personal characteristics, sexual and relationship experiences, and social contexts. We apply this framework to data drawn National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (1994-1996) and employ latent class models to identify latent courtship forms. We then examine determinants of these forms. Overall, the results are consistent with the predictions, but only a few covariates, the sexual and relationship experiences, are powerful. The strength of these findings leads us to conclude that signaling theory can render new insights about signaling as a social phenomenon, in dating and everyday life.

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Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study explores the role of geographic distance in dating partners’ talk during courtship. Results indicate partners in long-distance dating relationships (LDDRs), relative to those in geographically-close dating relationships (GCDRs), engage in more intimacy-focused everyday speech events. Intimacy-focused interaction also comprises a larger proportion of LDDR partners’ everyday talk. LDDR partners, moreover, were found to dissipate taboo topic and conflict avoidance, as well as positive selective self-presentation, at slower rates throughout courtship. Similarly, LDDR partners appear less likely than GCDR partners to discuss (over time) what relational scholars identify as critical relational issues (e.g., views on marriage, family, and career) for informed relational escalation. We propose many LDDRs persist in a state of suspended partner knowledge acquisition, a kind of “uninformed interdependence”, whereby “knowledge-enhancing talk” occurs less frequently, and unfolds less readily over time.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: By the time Darwin published The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), the debate over his theory of evolution by natural selection, as advanced in The Origin of the Species (1859), was still raging, but a significant number of Americans had accepted the major tenets of evolution and were not troubled by the religious implications of what Darwin wrote about the origins of human life in Descent. What did shock people, however, was the tremendous amount of agency Darwin attributed to sexual selection – his theory that certain individuals possess characteristics that are not necessary for survival but make them more attractive to the opposite sex and, thus, more likely to reproduce. In Descent, Darwin also contended that sexual selection was responsible for the development of secondary sex characteristics and, as such, was the driving force in biological gender difference. According to Darwin, reproduction is the most important human activity, yet he explained intercourse as just one type of reproduction found in the animal and plant kingdoms. In a Darwinian world, sex is natural and works according to scientific principles; it is not spiritual or ordained by God. In this world, males compete with each other for access to females, females are “coy” and drawn to the most ornamented males, and males select the most beautiful and fertile females. Here, human reproduction is no longer a personal matter -- it is communal and public because it concerns the future of the species.
This paper tracks the outburst of scientific studies of sex that followed The Descent of Man as scientists set out to decode the details of sexual selection, human attraction, and heredity; it reveals the vehement response that Darwin’s value-laden description of “biological” gender difference evoked in the women’s rights community; and it analyzes the corresponding changes in gendered behavior and courtship advocated in scientific literature, mainstream magazines, and advice books. Prescriptive literature, for example, used evolutionary principles to suggest that physical characteristics and fertility were of paramount importance in a potential partner and that women should play a more active role in the selection process. I argue that Darwinian theory, especially sexual selection, changed courtship standards and practices, inspired feminists to heighten their calls for female control of reproduction, and helped make sex a popular topic of scientific inquiry, thereby elevating the importance of human sexuality and making it subject to human control.