Digital Commons Network^™

"I Have A God That Sits High And Looks Down Low": Police Violence, Grief, And The Black Maternal Experience, Klaria Holmes

Honors Theses

Despite the recent exposure that police violence in America has received, of the related research that has been conducted, very little of it discusses the grief experience of victims’ families. The most significant insight given to that experience lies in the interviews of those family members that typically take place shortly after the tragedy. However, once the cameras and news stations leave, these families and communities must grapple with tremendous loss, oftentimes with limited support. Given that police violence impacts Black and people of color (POC) significantly more than their White counterparts, the aim of this research was to explore …

How Do Stress, Social Support, And Mental Health Relate In The Lives Of College Students?, Angel Moore

Honors Theses

Stress experienced in college can have considerable negative consequences upon those that experience it and do not properly cope. Perceived social support has repeatedly been found to act as buffer against these negative consequences and effects (Dwyer & Cummings, 2001). The present study sought to understand specific details surrounding the stress experienced by students, their current social support, and their mental health. Nine college student participants completed an interview about recent stress and measures related to social support and symptoms of mental health problems. Correlations among these factors revealed that overall social support is negatively associated with stress and mental …

Breaking The Cycle Of Stigma: The Role Of Majority Group Stigmatization In Contributing To Internalized Stigma Among Racial Minorities, Camryn Harris

Honors Theses

This study investigates whether individuals hold more stigma against minority group members with mental health issues based on race. Individuals are more susceptible to the negligence of treatment and further assistance due to increased stigmatization associated with mental health. Internalized stigma is more prominent within marginalized communities due to various co-existing factors such as socioeconomic status, inadequate resources, aversive health experiences, and low education levels infiltrated by systemic discrimination and structural inequality. In addition, minority group members are also more at risk for mental health disorders due to these factors. Past research has shown that stigmatization against individuals with mental …

Examining Financial Knowledge Levels Of Students Of Color Versus White Students, Anecia Flewellen

Honors Theses

Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) focuses on the way that cognitive factors such as self-efficacy interact with contextual factors, like race, to predict goal setting behaviors (Lent, 2013). The SCCT framework has shown to predict academic goal setting like intention to graduate, with higher academic self-efficacy resulting in higher graduation intention (White & Parrone-McGovern, 2017; Wu, 2018). One contextual factor that has an ability to affect academic self-efficacy is financial stress, which includes student debt (White & Parrone-McGovern, 2017). Students who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) have more debt on average and a harder time paying off …

Distinctive Sans Forgetica Font Does Not Benefit Memory Accuracy In The Drm Paradigm, Anie Mitchell

Honors Theses

A common method used by memory scholars to enhance retention is to make materials more challenging to learn—a benefit termed desirable difficulties. Recently, researchers have investigated the efficacy of Sans Forgetica, a perceptually disfluent or distinctive font, which may increase the processing effort required at study and, as a result, enhance memory. We examined the effects of Sans Forgetica relative to a standard control font (Arial) on both correct memory and associative memory errors using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm. Across four experiments which included nearly 300 participants, Sans Forgetica was found to have no impact on correct or …

Evaluating The Effects Of Initial Testing On Misinformation Suggestibility For Eyewitnessed Videos, Wryleigh Shearin-Anderson

Honors Theses

Exposure to misleading details following an eyewitnessed event often leads to memory errors for these misleading details—a pattern termed the misinformation effect. A recent debate is whether completing a memory test after a witnessed event, but before exposure to misleading details, can reduce subsequent misinformation (a protective effect of testing; PET) or increase subsequent misinformation (retrieval-enhanced suggestibility; RES). We further evaluated the initial testing effects using witnessed videos (vs. static images) which often yield a RES pattern and using household scenes which often yield a PET pattern. Following study of four household videos (e.g., bathroom, bedroom, etc.) that depicted an …

Stigma And Rurality: How Community Type Influences Stigmatizing Views Toward Mental Illness, Kirsten P. Speights

Honors Theses

Public stigma, or a set of negative attitudes and beliefs that can contribute to discrimination against those with mental illnesses, negatively affects behavioral health care and may be particularly prevalent in rural communities. The goal of this study was to examine public stigma across rural, suburban, and urban communities, as well as its association with mental health symptoms. An online survey was conducted using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) service as well as the University of Southern Mississippi’s SONA platform. Demographic data, community type, and mental health symptoms were collected via self-report inventories. When looking at the combined SONA (n= 298) …

Future Parents: Associations Between Social Media Use, Parenting Styles, And Parenthood Desires, Kennedy Evins

Honors Theses

Research suggests that college students without children have opinions about parenting styles and practices, which may influence future parenting intentions and behaviors. In addition, research indicates that media exposure affects fertility desires in women. The present study explored how pre-parent college students view parenthood by examining the impact of social media use on perceptions of parenting, parenthood intentions, and anticipated parenting styles. One hundred nineteen (N = 119) college students completed measures that assessed social media use, perceptions of parenting, parenthood intentions, and anticipated parenting styles. Demographic variables such as parental status, race, age, and gender were also collected. …

Left Out And Left Behind: Exploring The Well-Being Costs Of Leftist Ideology, Liam Luckett

Honors Theses

Many studies have empirically explored the relationship between political ideology and psychological well-being. Less look at political ideologies which fall outside of the categories of liberalism and conservativism, such as the case in question for this study, leftism. In the present paper, I carry out a cross-sectional study of candidate risk factors on well-being associated with espoused leftist ideological views, including locus of control and experiences of workplace alienation. I drew from both psychological theory on political ideology and well-being and elements of Marxist theory to generate predictions and explain the interaction of variables and potential personal costs to leftism. …

The Relationship Between Status Motives And Social Activism, Olajuwon Olagbegi

Honors Theses

Numerous social and cultural events have resulted in increased interest and participation in social activism in the United States, stemming from mounting dissatisfaction with social inequality. Though explanations have previously included increased issue exposure and awareness due to the proliferation of digital media and increases in progressive ideology amongst the nation’s younger generation, the current study tests the hypothesis that social activism may in part be motivated by interest in status acquisition, given the evolutionary value of status for securing access to resources and mates. To test this hypothesis, participants were randomly assigned to a status versus control priming condition …

Item-Specific And Relational Encoding, But Not Warnings, Are Effective At Reducing The Illusion Of Competence, Emily Cates

Honors Theses

Metamemory, or the ability to understand the capacities of one’s own memory, is an important part of the learning process. One method for assessing metamemory is through the Judgment of Learning (JOL) task in which participants are asked to judge the likelihood of correctly remembering a target word in a cue-target word pair when only presented with a cue word at test. The associative direction of the cue-target pair has been shown to affect the accuracy of JOLs. Unlike forward pairs (e.g., credit-card), in which JOLs accurately predict recall, an illusion of competence has been reported for backward associates (e.g., …

An Investigation On The Relationship Between Religious Coping Styles And Death Anxiety, Hailey Bates

Honors Theses

This study evaluated the respective relationships between death anxieties and religious coping, of both the positive and negative variety. Two independent samples were collected included the Multidimensional Orientation Toward Dying and Death Inventory (MODDI-F) and the Religious Coping Scale (R-COPE). This data supported the hypothesis by confirming a positive correlation between negative religious coping and Fear of Death. In other words, more death anxious participants also reported more questioning of their faith and their relationship with God in response to stress. In contrast, positive religious coping shared no significant correlations with any death anxiety variables. Because of the clear relationship …

Effects Of Patient’S Race On Pain Perception And Treatment In Nursing Students, Christian J. Phillips

Honors Theses

This study investigates whether a patients’ race affects how nursing students evaluate the patient’s pain. Undergraduate and graduate nursing students (N = 117) recruited from the University of Southern Mississippi School of Nursing were presented with a clinical vignette detailing a 35-year-old man in the emergency department presenting with extreme left shoulder pain. They were randomly assigned to either a Black or a White patient condition. The patient’s race was revealed through an attached photograph, with each condition represented by one of eight unique photographs. Participants evaluated the patient’s current pain level and time to be triaged; the patient’s …

The Role Of Parenting Practices In Adolescent Aggression And Impulsivity, Elizabeth G. Payne

Honors Theses

Parents have an influential role in adolescent development. Previous findings have found a relationship between parenting practices and adolescent behavioral problems. The purpose of this study was to analyze different parenting practices’ influence on impulsive and aggressive behaviors in adolescents. This study uses data gathered from a unique population of at-risk adolescents from a military-style bootcamp who were asked about their parents’ behaviors and their own behaviors. Findings from this study expand upon previous research on parenting practices by analyzing a specific population of at-risk youth and looking at specific forms of impulsive and aggressive behaviors. Data was collected through …

A Systematic Review Of Factors That Impact College Student Stress, Cailyn Papp

Honors Theses

Over the past few years, the effects of college student stress have received increased attention. Even so, there is still no unified model for addressing and understanding its impact. The purpose of this study was to systematically review and analyze the literature on college student stress to discover what factors have the most impact on it. A literature search using EBSCOhost yielded 20 eligible articles to include in this research. The results of this study demonstrate a need for a more unified model of college student stress. Further, results identify the factors that significantly influence college student stress and highlight …

The Effects Of Disease Contamination On Memory For Touched Objects In Older Adults, Jessica M. Runnels

Honors Theses

Recently it has been shown that individuals have better memory for objects that have been touched by an individual with a contagious disease relative to an individual with a non-contagious disease or who is healthy (Gretz & Huff, 2019). This pattern has been suggested to occur due to the activation of the Behavioral Immune System (BIS)—an avoidance-based system designed to thwart sources of potential pathogens. The BIS has been suggested to operate through an evolutionary-based mechanism in which avoidance of pathogens increases the likelihood of survival, increasing reproductive success. Given this approach, an important question is how the activation of …

The Role Of Action In Affordance Perception Using Virtual Reality, Ashley J. Funkhouser

Honors Theses

Space perception in virtual reality (VR) is distorted. Does action in conjunction with an avatar's presence improve perception in VR? Participants judged whether a virtual ball was within reach. Condition 1 was perception-only, where the participant was not allowed to move nor could see their arms. Condition 2 was perception with nonvisible action, where the participant could move their real arm to reach but could not see an avatar representation of the arm. Condition 3 was perception with visible action, where the participant could move and see a virtual hand that corresponded to the actual arm movement. Participants overestimated their …

Ptsd Symptoms And Alcohol-Related Outcomes In College Students: The Mediating Role Of Positive And Negative Coping Styles, Tatum Freeman

Honors Theses

This study evaluated the mediating role of coping styles (problem-solving and avoidance coping) on the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and alcohol outcomes (i.e. hazardous drinking and alcohol-related negative consequences [ARNC]). A national sample of 672 traditional age (i.e. 18-25 years old; M = 22.35, SD = 1.97) college students who reported alcohol consumption in the past month were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website. Participants were 55.1% male and 60.9% White, and they completed measures of PTSD symptoms, coping styles, hazardous drinking, and ARNC. Problem-solving coping (an adaptive form of coping) mediated the positive relationship between PTSD …

Test-Driving Interventions For Teachers To Improve Treatment Integrity, Viktoria Papp

Honors Theses

Teachers often have to implement interventions in the classroom to address challenging student behaviors. Such issues are often addressed during behavioral consultation which involves working with a specialized consultant, such as a school psychologist, to determine the most robust strategy that will predictably have the greatest impact in addressing the problematic behavior. Equally important in this intervention process is the application of any intervention technique or strategy in the manner in which it has been designed and investigated to work based on supporting research.

There is an increasing need for consultants to consider utilizing strategies that promote the adherence to …

Assessing The Role Personality Plays In Puppy Raisers And Guide Dogs In Training, Cassidy D. Wood

Honors Theses

Several factors affect how guide dogs in training fare during the period before the dogs are paired with their future handler. One factor that has not been researched in the past is personality compatibility between the puppy raiser and the dog in training. For the needs of the visually impaired community to be met, guide dog schools need to efficiently train and match dogs to handlers without the dogs failing. To help reduce the number of dogs that fail guide dog training, this study suggests the assessment and comparison of personality for the dog and potential puppy raisers to better …

Anxiety Moderates The Relationship Between Peer Exclusivity And Peer Relational Aggression Among College Students, Hailee Buras

Honors Theses

Relational aggression (i.e., harming the victim’s relationships, reputation/status, or feelings of belongingness) is associated with a number of adverse correlates among college students (Dahlen, Czar, Prather, & Dyess, 2013; Ostrov & Houston, 2008). Peer exclusivity (i.e., the desire that one’s close friends do not have other close friends) has been shown to be positively related to relational aggression in peer relationships (Kawabata, Youngblood, & Hamaguchi, 2014); however, this relationship has not been widely explored. Anxiety is also relevant to relational aggression among college students (Cooley, Frazer, Fite, Brown, & DiPierro, 2016; Gros, Gros, & Simms, 2010) and may inform our …

Contagious Or Not Contagious: Is That The Question? Evaluating The Effects Of Disease Contagion On Memory For Word Lists, Laura Pazos

Honors Theses

Researchers have suggested that individuals possess a disease-avoidance system designed to detect and remember potential sources of harmful pathogens, a system termed the behavioral immune system. Recently, Fernandes, Pandeirada, Soares, and Nairne (2017) reported an increase in memory for objects associated with individuals that are contaminated with a disease. My thesis extends this finding by examining whether disease-related memory benefits are due to the mere presence of a disease or whether the disease needs to be perceived as contagious and thereby threatening to facilitate memory. Two experiments, one between- and one within-subjects, were designed to test memory performance in the …

Religious Identity Influence On Ethnic Minority Youth Risky Behavior, Laquitta Simpson

Honors Theses

Previous studies have assessed religious identity in adolescents, showing that stronger religiosity correlates with lower levels of stress, better occupational and academic performances, and overall better well–being in adolescents and young adults (Koenig et al., 2001). There is also evidence of differences across races in how religiosity influences areas of adolescent behavior. The purpose of the current study is to identify the association between the strength of religiosity in White and Black at-risk youths and their involvement in risky behaviors. Data was gathered from teens aged 16-19 who are currently enrolled in a military-style residential program (n = 80); …

Social Skills Training And Generalization Of Skills In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Brittany Wright

Honors Theses

The social deficits observed in individiuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can often be improved with social skills training. The current study evaluated the effects of the Superheroes Social Skills training program which uses animated superheroes, video modeling, and comic books to teach social skills training. Three participants with ASD were trained in Conversation, Responding to Questions, and Body Basics over ten sessions, with sessions occurring twice a week in a non-school setting at the Arc of Southeast Mississippi. A multiple baseline across skills design across participants was used to examine the effects of the intervention on skill …

Vulnerable Narcissism, Difficulties In Emotion Regulation, And Relational Aggression In College Students, Shelby E. Caffarel

Honors Theses

Relational aggression is a form of aggressive behavior involving the intentional infliction of harm to the victim’s sense of belonging, reputation, or social relationships. Although most of the research on relational aggression has focused on children and early adolescents, there is evidence that it can be a serious problem for college students as well. Several predictors of relational aggression have been identified, but the mechanisms through which many of them operate is not sufficiently clear. The present study examined the relationship of vulnerable narcissism and difficulties in emotion regulation to relational aggression in a college student sample. It was expected …

Perfectionism And Alcohol Use Outcomes In College Students: The Moderating Role Of Alcohol Protective Behavioral Strategies, Tiara Watson

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the moderating role of alcohol-protective behavioral strategy (PBS) types (stopping/limiting drinking – SLD; manner of drinking – MOD; serious harm reduction – SHR) on the relationships adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism have with alcohol misuse and alcohol-related negative consequences. Participants included 526 traditional-aged college students (M_age = 19.77, 80.7% female, 60.2% Caucasian/White non-Hispanic) who reported alcohol consumption in the past thirty days and completed measures of perfectionism, typical weekly drinking, alcohol-related negative consequences, and PBS use. PBS-SHR moderated the relationships between adaptive perfectionism and typical weekly drinking such that the negative …

The Impact Of The United States Presidential Administration On African American College Students, Latisha Swygert

Honors Theses

It has been shown that college students of color do not share the same experiences as their Caucasian counterparts, with students of color experiencing higher levels of harassment and lower levels of perceived campus safety (Rankin & Reason, 2005). The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and the subsequent Trump administration on college students of color, specifically African American college students, and the psychological distress that may have been caused by the consequences of a shift in the national political climate. Participants were college students ages 18 to 54 who completed …

Direct Behavior Observations And Teachers' Ratings Of Internalizing Problem Behaviors, Lauren R. Parker

Honors Theses

Systematic direct observation is a commonly used method in schools to compile data on students' behavior in a naturalistic setting. Internalizing problem behaviors, behaviors such as social withdrawal, somatic complaints, and anxiousness, can lead to adverse consequences and have not, to the researchers' knowledge, been systematically observed in a classroom setting. Additionally, students have never been identified for intervention through direct observation. The researchers administered the Student Internalizing Behavior Screener (SIBS), which is a 7-item, teacher-completed, Likert-type scale which measures occurrences of internalizing problem behaviors. Once scores from the SIBS were calculated, students who scored at-risk were chosen for observation …

The Influence Of Activated Short-Term Mating Goals On Men’S And Women’S Domain-Specific Mating Self-Efficacy, Nathaniel Thomas Horton

Honors Theses

Men and women are motivated to identify and procure mating opportunities that would best facilitate the survival and long-term reproductive success of their offspring. In the current study, we hypothesized that when primed with mating interest, men and women would report greater self-efficacy in behavioral domains that would be attractive to the opposite sex. Men and women were randomly assigned to a mating or control prime condition, then completed a self-efficacy scale tapping into behaviors related to physical attractiveness enhancement, dominance, and status; participants also completed a scale assessing their level of intrasexual competitiveness. It was predicted that men primed …

Racial Bias In Elementary School Children: Effects Of Skin Tone And Facial Features, Maya Alyse Rex

Honors Theses

This work examines whether explicit and implicit racial attitudes are driven primarily by skin tone, other features of facial physiognomy, or both in elementary school children (N = 108) between the ages of 5 and 12. Children evaluated faces varying in skin tone (from dark to light) and facial physiognomy (from Afrocentric to Eurocentric). In an explicit bias task, children rated how much they liked each face that appeared on the computer screen one by one. In an implicit bias task (a child-friendly version of the Affect Misattribution Procedure, Dunham & Emory, 2014), on each trial participants rated a Chinese …