For most people, sexual activity is a normal and healthy part of intimate romantic relationships. However, for some, sexual behaviors can become problematic to the extent their behaviors begin to impair or disrupt critical aspects of effective functioning. The inability to control problematic sexual behavior is among the most prominent traits for diagnosing compulsive sexual behavior or what is commonly referred to as sex addiction. Sex addicts in committed romantic relationships routinely engage in secrecy and deception as a maladaptive means to cope with the shame and guilt associated with such severe relational transgressions. Although ongoing disclosures with one’s dyadic partner regarding addiction-related struggles may be a healthy exercise in transparency and accountability, such honest disclosures risk re-injuring the transgressed partner while simultaneously upending the recovering addict’s attempt to restore face. Hence, recovering sex addicts who wish to repair their blighted dyadic relationships must carefully navigate self-disclosure and privacy implications as they attempt to restore themselves and their intimate relationships. Accordingly, this dissertation utilizes thematic analysis to explore the face and privacy implications surrounding addiction-related disclosures (ARD) in committed dyadic relationships. This qualitative study conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 recovering sex addicts attending 12-step Sex Addicts Anonymous groups. Key findings from this study suggest a relationship between recovery progress and how ARD are comprised, articulated, and interpreted by dyadic partners. Additionally, this study found that ARD, although damaging, largely did not result in relationship termination. Rather, relationships impacted by such disclosures simultaneously experienced two disparate relationship stages of bonding and stagnating. Finally, this study suggests that the reverberation of salacious ARD across the romantic dyad fundamentally upends the transgressor’s positive face. Such severe face damage was found to attenuate participants’ ability to regulate privacy boundaries with their partners.

Maintaining sexual desire as the marriage endures is a challenge, especially as it involves the interplay of seemingly opposing tensions of novelty, autonomy, and closeness. Difficulties can arise when autonomy, which requires spousal distancing, is perceived as a martial threat and therefore suppressed. This dissertation investigates whether prosocial marital distancing can nurture autonomy and promote sexual desire.

Torah-observant Jewish married couples practice family purity, a Jewish law forbidding sexual relations during menstruation and shortly thereafter. During this time couples often avoid sleeping in the same bed, physical touch, and behaviors that can instigate a sexual encounter. These distancing restrictions are lifted when the wife immerses in a ritual bath. The process repeats at the next menstruation.

This research examined the effects of family purity’s marital distancing through two studies. The first involved qualitative interviews of family purity wives (N = 10) guided by relational dialectics theory (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996). Study one findings suggest that family purity wives navigate the three tensions of integration, expression, and certainty. Study one also revealed a new tension, the dialect of restraint. The dialectic of restraint appears to enhance marital communication, heighten the appreciation for the mundane, and help sustain sexual desire.

Study two, the quantitative phase of the research, applied self-expansion theory (Aron & Aron, 1986) to investigate differences between family purity and non-family purity couples. A sample of 90 married Jewish dyads (N = 180) participated in a cross-sectional online questionnaire. Findings suggest that while non-practicing couples report greater self-expansion, family purity couples report greater sexual closeness. Family purity couples also report the same closeness and sexual closeness ideals, whereas non-practicing couples reported divergent ideals. Non-practicing family purity husbands had the greatest reported discrepancy between ideal and actual sexual closeness.

The combined findings suggest that sanctioned prosocial distancing as practiced by family purity couples enables the integration of cognitive growth and mitigates the threat of autonomy. Prosocial distancing within the family purity marriage appears to provide the wife space for autonomy that in turn provokes novelty and sexual desire. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical contributions, study limitations, and future directions.

Across the globe, schools are seen as an essential context for building socio-emotional capacities in adolescents, particularly for marginalized youth, who have been systematically and historically excluded from accessing opportunities and resources typically available to members of different social groups (Gil-Kashiwabara, Hogansen, Geenen, Powers, & Powers, 2007). However, despite this ideal, education has not yet reached its potential in promoting equal outcomes for all children andadolescents (American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Educational Disparities, 2012; Burkham & Lee, 2002; Gurria, 2016; Hampden-Thompson & Johnston, 2006). There exists a need to identify school practices that may enhance socio- emotional development and have implications for reducing disparities in academic achievement, educational attainment, and other indicators of well-being.

The aim of this dissertation, therefore, is to explore school and classroom practices that may be particularly effective in supporting the socio-emotional development of marginalized adolescents. I focus on two distinct populations: youth affected by violence in Colombia, and students of color within the United States. In Study 1, I explore whether three aspects of school climate – safety, connectedness, and services – buffer the negative implications of violence exposure for adolescent development in a Colombian sample. In Study 2, I determine how culturally responsive teaching practices in schools with high concentrations of students of color in the United States can be integrated into our current conceptualization of what constitutes high quality teaching, by examining profiles of teaching practices and associations between these profiles and teacher and classroom characteristics and student behaviors.