Virginia Thomas
Biographic Data
| ID | 3742141 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Virginia Thomas |
| GIVEN NAMES | Virginia |
| FAMILY NAME | Thomas |
| SIGNATURE | THOMAS V |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Exeter |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8751-8213 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Five critical questions we should ask of rewilding projects—And that social science can help us answer
Engaging conservation decision‐making with critical aspects of social science can enhance the equitability of conservation practice by recentring issues of social and environmental justice. Using rewilding as a conservation case in point, we identify five foundational questions to ask of rewilding projects to help align rewilding decision‐making with justice principles. We unpack these questions through five rewilding case studies: Yellowstone Na…
Embracing solitude: Examining the efficacy of a solitude skills intervention for well-being
The Effects of Multifaceted Introversion and Sensory Processing Sensitivity on Solitude‐Seeking Behavior
INTRODUCTION: The state of solitude may be desirable and beneficial particularly for individuals who are highly sensitive and introverted. METHODS: To test these predictions, we surveyed a nationally representative US sample of 301 adults and a sample of 99 undergraduates on their levels of sensory processing sensitivity and assessed introversion with the Big Five Inventory and the multifaceted STAR Introversion Scale. Participants then reported …
Black Feminist Aesthetics of Injection: Reframing Transition in Clarissa Sligh's Wrongly Bodied
This article names a Black feminist aesthetics of injection that Clarissa Sligh, an often-overlooked Black queer artist elder, uses in manuscript drafts of an artist book, Wrongly Bodied, as a strategy to intervene in mainstream discourses about transmasculine and butch lesbian “border wars” and center the politics of property in that cultural debate. In the early 1990s, Sligh was working on photographs of female masculinity and accepted the invi…
I Felt Like I Was Getting to Be My Own Person: Exploring the Impact of Cultural Master Narratives on Identity Development During Student Exchange
International mobility experiences such as student exchange can promote identity development and cultural awareness. However, little research has assessed such processes using a master narrative framework. This study explored undergraduate student perspectives on how changing cultural contexts and the associated cultural master narratives influence identity development during university exchange experiences. Twenty interviews were conducted with …
The Light Outside Property
This is an introduction to selections from Laila Annmarie Stevens's photographic series "A House Is Not a Home." The introduction discusses the impetus behind Stevens's photographs, the role of natural light in Stevens's work, and the ways in which the series challenges the concept of "home" as being bound up in private property
Happy Alone? Motivational Profiles of Solitude and Well-Being Among Senior Living Residents
Research on solitude in older adulthood is scarce, and findings are mixed on whether time alone at this age is risky or beneficial. A mixed-method study was conducted to examine patterns of motivations for solitude among senior living residents ( N = 397, Mage = 83) and associations with well-being. Cluster analyses identified four motivational profiles: Low, Positive, Negative, and Dual. Overall, those with Low and Positive motivations for solit…
Cat egorisation of cats: Managing boundary felids in Aotearoa New Zealand and Britain
Management of domestic and wild animals is an integral part of conservation and is often based on how an animal is categorised. For example, feral cats are often killed, while valued companion cats and native wildcats are protected. Drawing on qualitative research and using the concept of boundary‐work, this paper examines the complex categorisation and management of cats within conservation in Britain and Aotearoa, New Zealand (NZ). We examine h…
Solitude skills and the private self
The Psychological Affordances of Solitude in Emerging Adulthood
The slim but growing literature on solitude relies heavily on survey and experimental designs but lacks a substantive understanding of the lived experiences of time spent alone, and by extension, what those experiences might reveal about the psychological functions of time in solitude. Following Gibson’s theory of affordances, solitude was viewed as an environment that offers various meaningful possibilities for action. Semi-structured interviews…
Full or Empty: Examining Perceptions and Implications of Solitude as a Psychological Space
To clarify whether, and for whom, solitude is beneficial, this mixed-methods study examined how emerging adults perceive the space of solitude, and whether such perceptions influence utilization of solitude and correspond with psychosocial outcomes. College students ( n = 43), balanced in gender and ethnically diverse, completed an online survey followed by a semi-structured interview that explored their attitudes about being alone. Qualitative a…
Domesticating Rewilding: Interpreting Rewilding in England's Green and Pleasant Land
There are many different forms and interpretations of rewilding: the concept and its practice vary from country to country, with distinct interpretations according to its geographical location. Despite the term rewilding having been present in the lexicon for three decades, the concept of rewilding in England has experienced a prolonged developmental stage. This paper argues that a unique form of English rewilding is now emerging, which is distin…
The Biopolitics of (English) Rewilding
Even 'hands off' approaches to conservation such as rewilding are intimately, sometimes violently, involved in the lives and deaths of the other-than-human species they seek to protect. Foucauldian biopolitics, with its exploration of the regulation of life and death, is increasingly being used to examine the control of other-than-human species. This article extends the work of other scholars by applying the concept of biopolitics to rewilding in…
Actors and actions in the discourse, policy and practice of English rewilding
This paper introduces four key groups of actors (armchair rewilders, pioneer farmers, policy entrepreneurs and guerrilla rewilders) whose actions are driving rewilding discourse, practice and policy in England. These groups were identified during a comparative case study of two English rewilding sites (the Avalon Marshes in Somerset and Wild Ennerdale in Cumbria). Research involved 49 interviews: twelve expert interviews, followed by stakeholder …
For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Uncounted Extinctions and the (Missed?) Opportunities to Prevent Them
No description available
Alone and online: Understanding the relationships between social media, solitude, and psychological adjustment
A Multi-Sectoral Approach Improves Early Child Development in a Disadvantaged Community in Peru: Role of Community Gardens, Nutrition Workshops and Enhanced Caregiver-Child Interaction: Project “Wawa …
Background: Multi-dimensional monitoring evaluation and learning strategies are needed to address the complex set of factors that affect early child development in marginalized populations, but few studies have explored their effectiveness. Objective: To compare improvement of health and development of children 0-3 years between intervention communities (IC) and control communities (CC) from peripheral settlements of Lima. Sequential intervention…
Black Tree Play: Learning From Anti-Lynching Ecologies in The 'Life and Times' of an American Called Pauli Murray
This article reads the photo album, The 'Life and Times' of an American Called Pauli Murray as an archive of anti-lynching pasts and futures. While scholarly discourses have leveraged Murray's archive for evidence of her 'true' gender and sexual orientation, this article uses the reading practice of 'accompaniment' to reframe investigations of Murray's identity into thinking with and learning from the strategies she archived in the album for livi…
Motivation matters: Development and validation of the Motivation for Solitude Scale – Short Form (MSS‐SF)
INTRODUCTION: Motivation is an overlooked but crucial factor in determining whether solitude is psychologically beneficial or risky. This paper describes the development and validation of the Motivation for Solitude Scale - Short-Form (MSS-SF), a measure grounded in Self-Determination Theory that differentiates between intrinsic versus extrinsic motivations for solitude. METHODS: Emerging adult (N = 803) and adolescent (N = 176) participants were…
Intersectionality and the Development of Self and Identity
Intersectionality is a key theoretical, empirical, and applied construct in the social sciences and the humanities. In this essay, we review the origins of the construct and the foundational theory and research that served to cement its importance in these fields. We then present a brief overview of how intersectionality guides current theory, research, and social policy in education, feminist studies, politics, psychology, and sociology, conclud…
Tapping Into the App: Updating the Experience Sampling Method for the 21st Century
Our understanding of emerging adults is largely based on retrospective self-reports that can be limited by poor recall, current mood, and social desirability. To address these shortcomings, Larson and Csikszentmihalyi pioneered the experience sampling method (ESM) with electronic pagers and paper–pencil surveys. The increasing ubiquity of smartphone ownership allows researchers to take ESM to the next level: developing smartphone applications pro…
Does Class Matter? The Centrality and Meaning of Social Class Identity in Emerging Adulthood
Social class identity development remains poorly understood, especially given beliefs in meritocracy and the American Dream. The relative fluidity and invisibility of class make it a slippery problem for social identity theory (Tajfel, Citation1981), which assumes stable category membership. This mixed methods study explored the importance and meanings of social class in 104 college-going emerging adults. As predicted, awareness of social class o…
Raising an earlier generation of Christian Leaders in the New Testament Church of God in the UK: A research report
The paper presents the results of an investigation into the way the New Testament Church of God (NTCG) began to establish itself in the United Kingdom
From Radicalism to Mainstream Evangelicalism: Exploring the Effects of Doctrinal Upheaval on Second-Generation Members in the Worldwide Church of God
Expanding the Chronic Care Framework to Improve Diabetes Management: The Reach Case Study
The resulting CCCM integrates expanded conceptual frameworks, evidence-based practice, community-based evidence and participatory actions, and highlights the possibilities and challenges for improving chronic disease outcomes and reducing disparities via community programs that foster individual, systems, community, and policy change
Actors and actions in the discourse, policy and practice of English rewilding
This paper introduces four key groups of actors (armchair rewilders, pioneer farmers, policy entrepreneurs and guerrilla rewilders) whose actions are driving rewilding discourse, practice and policy in England. These groups were identified during a comparative case study of two English rewilding sites (the Avalon Marshes in Somerset and Wild Ennerdale in Cumbria). Research involved 49 interviews: twelve expert interviews, followed by stakeholder …
The Effects of Multifaceted Introversion and Sensory Processing Sensitivity on Solitude‐Seeking Behavior
INTRODUCTION: The state of solitude may be desirable and beneficial particularly for individuals who are highly sensitive and introverted. METHODS: To test these predictions, we surveyed a nationally representative US sample of 301 adults and a sample of 99 undergraduates on their levels of sensory processing sensitivity and assessed introversion with the Big Five Inventory and the multifaceted STAR Introversion Scale. Participants then reported …
Full or Empty: Examining Perceptions and Implications of Solitude as a Psychological Space
To clarify whether, and for whom, solitude is beneficial, this mixed-methods study examined how emerging adults perceive the space of solitude, and whether such perceptions influence utilization of solitude and correspond with psychosocial outcomes. College students ( n = 43), balanced in gender and ethnically diverse, completed an online survey followed by a semi-structured interview that explored their attitudes about being alone. Qualitative a…
Black Tree Play: Learning From Anti-Lynching Ecologies in The 'Life and Times' of an American Called Pauli Murray
This article reads the photo album, The 'Life and Times' of an American Called Pauli Murray as an archive of anti-lynching pasts and futures. While scholarly discourses have leveraged Murray's archive for evidence of her 'true' gender and sexual orientation, this article uses the reading practice of 'accompaniment' to reframe investigations of Murray's identity into thinking with and learning from the strategies she archived in the album for livi…
Expanding the Chronic Care Framework to Improve Diabetes Management: The Reach Case Study
The resulting CCCM integrates expanded conceptual frameworks, evidence-based practice, community-based evidence and participatory actions, and highlights the possibilities and challenges for improving chronic disease outcomes and reducing disparities via community programs that foster individual, systems, community, and policy change
From Radicalism to Mainstream Evangelicalism: Exploring the Effects of Doctrinal Upheaval on Second-Generation Members in the Worldwide Church of God
Expanding the Chronic Care Framework to Improve Diabetes Management: The Reach Case Study
The resulting CCCM integrates expanded conceptual frameworks, evidence-based practice, community-based evidence and participatory actions, and highlights the possibilities and challenges for improving chronic disease outcomes and reducing disparities via community programs that foster individual, systems, community, and policy change
Raising an earlier generation of Christian Leaders in the New Testament Church of God in the UK: A research report
The paper presents the results of an investigation into the way the New Testament Church of God (NTCG) began to establish itself in the United Kingdom
Does Class Matter? The Centrality and Meaning of Social Class Identity in Emerging Adulthood
Social class identity development remains poorly understood, especially given beliefs in meritocracy and the American Dream. The relative fluidity and invisibility of class make it a slippery problem for social identity theory (Tajfel, Citation1981), which assumes stable category membership. This mixed methods study explored the importance and meanings of social class in 104 college-going emerging adults. As predicted, awareness of social class o…
Intersectionality and the Development of Self and Identity
Intersectionality is a key theoretical, empirical, and applied construct in the social sciences and the humanities. In this essay, we review the origins of the construct and the foundational theory and research that served to cement its importance in these fields. We then present a brief overview of how intersectionality guides current theory, research, and social policy in education, feminist studies, politics, psychology, and sociology, conclud…
Tapping Into the App: Updating the Experience Sampling Method for the 21st Century
Our understanding of emerging adults is largely based on retrospective self-reports that can be limited by poor recall, current mood, and social desirability. To address these shortcomings, Larson and Csikszentmihalyi pioneered the experience sampling method (ESM) with electronic pagers and paper–pencil surveys. The increasing ubiquity of smartphone ownership allows researchers to take ESM to the next level: developing smartphone applications pro…
Motivation matters: Development and validation of the Motivation for Solitude Scale – Short Form (MSS‐SF)
INTRODUCTION: Motivation is an overlooked but crucial factor in determining whether solitude is psychologically beneficial or risky. This paper describes the development and validation of the Motivation for Solitude Scale - Short-Form (MSS-SF), a measure grounded in Self-Determination Theory that differentiates between intrinsic versus extrinsic motivations for solitude. METHODS: Emerging adult (N = 803) and adolescent (N = 176) participants were…
A Multi-Sectoral Approach Improves Early Child Development in a Disadvantaged Community in Peru: Role of Community Gardens, Nutrition Workshops and Enhanced Caregiver-Child Interaction: Project “Wawa …
Background: Multi-dimensional monitoring evaluation and learning strategies are needed to address the complex set of factors that affect early child development in marginalized populations, but few studies have explored their effectiveness. Objective: To compare improvement of health and development of children 0-3 years between intervention communities (IC) and control communities (CC) from peripheral settlements of Lima. Sequential intervention…
Black Tree Play: Learning From Anti-Lynching Ecologies in The 'Life and Times' of an American Called Pauli Murray
This article reads the photo album, The 'Life and Times' of an American Called Pauli Murray as an archive of anti-lynching pasts and futures. While scholarly discourses have leveraged Murray's archive for evidence of her 'true' gender and sexual orientation, this article uses the reading practice of 'accompaniment' to reframe investigations of Murray's identity into thinking with and learning from the strategies she archived in the album for livi…
Alone and online: Understanding the relationships between social media, solitude, and psychological adjustment
Domesticating Rewilding: Interpreting Rewilding in England's Green and Pleasant Land
There are many different forms and interpretations of rewilding: the concept and its practice vary from country to country, with distinct interpretations according to its geographical location. Despite the term rewilding having been present in the lexicon for three decades, the concept of rewilding in England has experienced a prolonged developmental stage. This paper argues that a unique form of English rewilding is now emerging, which is distin…
The Biopolitics of (English) Rewilding
Even 'hands off' approaches to conservation such as rewilding are intimately, sometimes violently, involved in the lives and deaths of the other-than-human species they seek to protect. Foucauldian biopolitics, with its exploration of the regulation of life and death, is increasingly being used to examine the control of other-than-human species. This article extends the work of other scholars by applying the concept of biopolitics to rewilding in…
Actors and actions in the discourse, policy and practice of English rewilding
This paper introduces four key groups of actors (armchair rewilders, pioneer farmers, policy entrepreneurs and guerrilla rewilders) whose actions are driving rewilding discourse, practice and policy in England. These groups were identified during a comparative case study of two English rewilding sites (the Avalon Marshes in Somerset and Wild Ennerdale in Cumbria). Research involved 49 interviews: twelve expert interviews, followed by stakeholder …
For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Uncounted Extinctions and the (Missed?) Opportunities to Prevent Them
No description available
Happy Alone? Motivational Profiles of Solitude and Well-Being Among Senior Living Residents
Research on solitude in older adulthood is scarce, and findings are mixed on whether time alone at this age is risky or beneficial. A mixed-method study was conducted to examine patterns of motivations for solitude among senior living residents ( N = 397, Mage = 83) and associations with well-being. Cluster analyses identified four motivational profiles: Low, Positive, Negative, and Dual. Overall, those with Low and Positive motivations for solit…
Cat egorisation of cats: Managing boundary felids in Aotearoa New Zealand and Britain
Management of domestic and wild animals is an integral part of conservation and is often based on how an animal is categorised. For example, feral cats are often killed, while valued companion cats and native wildcats are protected. Drawing on qualitative research and using the concept of boundary‐work, this paper examines the complex categorisation and management of cats within conservation in Britain and Aotearoa, New Zealand (NZ). We examine h…
Solitude skills and the private self
The Psychological Affordances of Solitude in Emerging Adulthood
The slim but growing literature on solitude relies heavily on survey and experimental designs but lacks a substantive understanding of the lived experiences of time spent alone, and by extension, what those experiences might reveal about the psychological functions of time in solitude. Following Gibson’s theory of affordances, solitude was viewed as an environment that offers various meaningful possibilities for action. Semi-structured interviews…
Full or Empty: Examining Perceptions and Implications of Solitude as a Psychological Space
To clarify whether, and for whom, solitude is beneficial, this mixed-methods study examined how emerging adults perceive the space of solitude, and whether such perceptions influence utilization of solitude and correspond with psychosocial outcomes. College students ( n = 43), balanced in gender and ethnically diverse, completed an online survey followed by a semi-structured interview that explored their attitudes about being alone. Qualitative a…
I Felt Like I Was Getting to Be My Own Person: Exploring the Impact of Cultural Master Narratives on Identity Development During Student Exchange
International mobility experiences such as student exchange can promote identity development and cultural awareness. However, little research has assessed such processes using a master narrative framework. This study explored undergraduate student perspectives on how changing cultural contexts and the associated cultural master narratives influence identity development during university exchange experiences. Twenty interviews were conducted with …
The Light Outside Property
This is an introduction to selections from Laila Annmarie Stevens's photographic series "A House Is Not a Home." The introduction discusses the impetus behind Stevens's photographs, the role of natural light in Stevens's work, and the ways in which the series challenges the concept of "home" as being bound up in private property
Five critical questions we should ask of rewilding projects—And that social science can help us answer
Engaging conservation decision‐making with critical aspects of social science can enhance the equitability of conservation practice by recentring issues of social and environmental justice. Using rewilding as a conservation case in point, we identify five foundational questions to ask of rewilding projects to help align rewilding decision‐making with justice principles. We unpack these questions through five rewilding case studies: Yellowstone Na…
Embracing solitude: Examining the efficacy of a solitude skills intervention for well-being
The Effects of Multifaceted Introversion and Sensory Processing Sensitivity on Solitude‐Seeking Behavior
INTRODUCTION: The state of solitude may be desirable and beneficial particularly for individuals who are highly sensitive and introverted. METHODS: To test these predictions, we surveyed a nationally representative US sample of 301 adults and a sample of 99 undergraduates on their levels of sensory processing sensitivity and assessed introversion with the Big Five Inventory and the multifaceted STAR Introversion Scale. Participants then reported …
Black Feminist Aesthetics of Injection: Reframing Transition in Clarissa Sligh's Wrongly Bodied
This article names a Black feminist aesthetics of injection that Clarissa Sligh, an often-overlooked Black queer artist elder, uses in manuscript drafts of an artist book, Wrongly Bodied, as a strategy to intervene in mainstream discourses about transmasculine and butch lesbian “border wars” and center the politics of property in that cultural debate. In the early 1990s, Sligh was working on photographs of female masculinity and accepted the invi…
Sociology (13 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Solitude (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Psychotherapist (7 works) · Developmental psychology (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction (5 works)