Digital Commons Network^™

Psychological Reactions To Covid-19: Survey Data Assessing Perceived Susceptibility, Distress, Mindfulness, And Preventive Health Behaviors, William H. O'Brien, Shan Wang, Huanzhen Xu, Shiwei Wang, Zaiying Yang, Joy Ting Yang, Qinwanxian Liu, Xin Zhang, Lingli Tang, Aniko V. Varga, Tracy Sims, Chung Xiann Lim, Somboon Jarukasemthawee, Kullaya Pisitsungkagarn

Psychology Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic created a complex psychological environment for persons in America. A total of 450 USA MTurk workers completed measures of: (a) basic demographic characteristics; (b) health risk factors for COVID-19; (c) perceived susceptibility variables related to COVID-19; (d) COVID-19 preventive health behaviors; and (e) distress, physical symptoms, and quality of life measures. The surveys were completed between April 9, 2020 and April 18, 2020. This recruitment period corresponded to the first 2-3 weeks of lockdown in most of the USA. Follow-up surveys were completed by 151 of the USA participants between June 19, 2020 and July 11, 2020 …

I Already Belong: Immigrant-Origin College Students’ Persistence, Kerrie Devries, Wayne Harrison, Jonathan Santo

Psychology Faculty Publications

Children of immigrant and refugee populations are increasing in the U.S. but are underrepresented at U.S. universities. Collectivistic, immigrant-origin students may be less responsive to current best practice integration approaches, which focus on institutional Academic and Social Integration as necessary for college persistence. Homoginizing U.S.-origin and immigrant-origin students in persistence strategies, particularly institutional Social Integration, may not take into consideration culture-of-origin differences, such as the degree of ongoing family connectedness, that motivate students toward college persistence. Antecedents of college intentions to persist were compared for immigrant-origin students (N=87) and U.S.- origin students (N=122) at a midwestern university. Model comparisons revealed …

Reference Checks, Tara Myers, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What are reference checks? Reference checks are hiring tools, typically used as one of the last steps in the hiring process. “A reference check generally involves contacting applicants’ former employers, supervisors, coworkers, and educators to verify previous employment and to obtain information about the individual’s knowledge, skills, abilities and character” (Society for Human Resource Management, 2020, p. 1). For example, potential employers use this as an opportunity to get additional information about applicants’ job performance, communication, time management, teamwork, professionalism; honesty; and attention to detail (Hendricks, Rupayana, Puchalski, & Robie, 2018). The questions used on reference checks depend on the …

Evaluating Instructional Designs With Mental Workload Assessments In University Classrooms, Luca Longo, Giuliano Orru'

Articles

Cognitive cognitive load theory (CLT) has been conceived for improving instructional design practices. Although researched for many years, one open problem is a clear definition of its cognitive load types and their aggregation towards an index of overall cognitive load. In Ergonomics, the situation is different with plenty of research devoted to the development of robust constructs of mental workload (MWL). By drawing a parallel between CLT and MWL, as well as by integrating relevant theories and measurement techniques from these two fields, this paper is aimed at investigating the reliability, validity and sensitivity of three existing self-reporting mental workload …

Family Functioning Guidelines For The Care Of People With Spina Bifida, Tessa K. Kritikos, Grayson Holmbeck

Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Research supports a resilience-disruption model of family functioning in families with a child with spina bifida. Guidelines are warranted to both minimize disruption to the family system and maximize family resilience and adaptation to multiple spina bifida-related and normative stressors. This article discusses the spina bifida family functioning guidelines from the 2018 Spina Bifida Association’s Fourth Edition of the Guidelines for the Care of People with Spina Bifida, and reviews evidence-based directions with the intention of helping individuals with spina bifida achieve optimal mental health throughout their lifespan. Guidelines address clinical questions pertaining to the impact of having a child …

The Profession's Role In Helping Psychologists Balance Society's Interests With Their Clients' Interests, Alfred Allan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Objective:

Psychologists find it difficult to balance their clients' and society's interests when these interests differ from each other, such as when their clients pose a risk of harm to others. Society's increasing preoccupation with harm makes their task even more difficult. The first aim with this article is to determine the reactions of those who make, enforce, and use law to address society's concerns and how they impact on psychologists. The second aim is to propose how the profession can assist psychologists deal with the competing demands prompted by these reactions.

Method:

A legal-ethical analysis was used to identify …

Experimental Manipulations To Test Theory-Driven Mechanisms Of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Matthew W. Southward, Shannon Sauer-Zavala

Psychology Faculty Publications

Despite decades of randomized-controlled trials demonstrating the efficacy of cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT), the mechanisms by which CBT achieves its effects remain unclear. Here, we describe how one adaptive intervention, the sequential multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART), can be used to randomize patients at multiple decision points in treatment to draw stronger causal claims about mechanisms unfolding in the course of CBT. We illustrate this design using preliminary data and case examples from an ongoing SMART in which we are testing the role of aversive reactions to negative emotions as a hypothesized mechanism of change in the Unified Protocol. Finally, we …

The Role Of Haptic Expectations In Reaching To Grasp: From Pantomime To Natural Grasps And Back Again, Robert L. Whitwell, Nathan J. Katz, Melvyn A. Goodale, James T. Enns

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© Copyright © 2020 Whitwell, Katz, Goodale and Enns. When we reach to pick up an object, our actions are effortlessly informed by the object’s spatial information, the position of our limbs, stored knowledge of the object’s material properties, and what we want to do with the object. A substantial body of evidence suggests that grasps are under the control of “automatic, unconscious” sensorimotor modules housed in the “dorsal stream” of the posterior parietal cortex. Visual online feedback has a strong effect on the hand’s in-flight grasp aperture. Previous work of ours exploited this effect to show that grasps are …

Cultural Identity Formation: A Personal Narrative, Jose Carbajal

Faculty Publications

This paper provides an autoethnography of personal experiences and perceptions of being a minoritized individual. This is the story of a professional social worker learning to adapt to social norms and expectations of self. I discuss the struggles I experienced as an adolescent and as a young adult attending college. This narrative highlights the intersection of faith and social work at moments in my professional development. It is at this intersection that this social worker learns to live a holistic life without feeling discriminated against or ashamed of his identity. I begin to actualize a reality with imperfect beings who …

Factors Impacting Students’ Perceptions Of Mathematics, Amber Souza

Honors Program Theses and Projects

I want to be able to present math in a positive light to all of my future students, regardless of race, gender, and math background. However, for teachers as a whole to be able to take this important step, they must first develop a deeper understanding of why math is a sore spot for many students.

Communicable Diseases As Occupational Hazards For Agricultural Workers: Using Experience Sampling Methods For Promoting Public Health, Mahima Saxena, Margaret M. Burke

Psychology Faculty Publications

Vector-borne communicable diseases cause more than 700,000 deaths annually (World Health Organization, 2019). Despite various efforts, there has been no change in mortality rates due to communicable diseases worldwide (World Health Organization, 2019). Most communicable diseases have no cure and can attain epidemic status quickly. Therefore, prevention is critical in reducing disease transmission. Communicable disease transmission as an occupational health hazard is often ignored in work psychology research and public health policy. Using experience sampling methods, Saxena (2015) found that work and nonwork behaviors associated with rice farming in South Asia increase exposure to Japanese encephalitis. …

Language Abilities As A Function Of Lateralization Of Language-Specific Brain Networks, Jacey Anderson

Honors Scholar Theses

The strength of hemispheric lateralization appears to be a good predictor of language abilities in children with developmental language impairments. Studies of healthy adults, in contrast, have generally failed to identify any association between degree of lateralization and language abilities, perhaps due to limited sensitivity to individual differences in standardized language assessments. This study used fMRI to measure the lateralization of functional task-engaged language networks in 25 healthy right-handed adults. Linear regressions examined lateralization indices (LI) of language activation in inferior temporal, superior temporal, and frontal brain networks, as a function of syntactic complexity (via story retelling), a grammaticality judgment …

Are You A Late Lateef? Beating The Habit Of Just Trying To Meet The Drop-Dead Deadline!, V. Krishna Kumar

Psychology Faculty Publications

A Review of Sapadin, L (2020). Overcoming your procrastination. Advice for 6 personality styles! Psych Wisdom Publishing. WWW.PsychWisdom.Com, 2020, $9.99 (Paperback); $3.99 Kindle Edition, free on Kindle Unlimited, 150 pages. College Student Edition!

Building Capacity To Effectively Share And Use Data, Robert Blagg

Other QIC-WD Products

In child welfare, the need to utilize meaningful data to ensure that the services provided are effective in supporting children and families represents a continuing challenge. There is a large volume of data from sources that are internal and external to child welfare agencies; and it increases almost exponentially on a regular basis. It is difficult for leaders and practitioners to quickly and meaningfully synthesize, make use of, and share new information with colleagues who need it to make sound decisions. Even when data is transformed into knowledge, challenges remain around the preferred method of ensuring information reaches the individuals …

Outdoor Air Pollution Exposure And Inter-Relation Of Global Cognitive Performance And Emotional Distress In Older Women, Andrew J. Petkus, Xinhui Wang, Daniel P. Beavers, Helena C. Chui, Mark A. Espeland, Margaret Gatz, Tara Gruenewald, Joel D. Kaufman, Joann E. Manson, Susan M. Resnick, James D. Stewart, Gregory A. Wellenius, Eric A. Whitsel, Keith Widaman, Diana Younan, Jiu-Chiuan Chen

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

The interrelationships among long-term ambient air pollution exposure, emotional distress and cognitive decline in older adulthood remain unclear. Long-term exposure may impact cognitive performance and subsequently impact emotional health. Conversely, exposure may initially be associated with emotional distress followed by declines in cognitive performance. Here we tested the inter-relationship between global cognitive ability, emotional distress, and exposure to PM2.5 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter 2 (nitrogen dioxide) in 6118 older women (aged 70.6 ± 3.8 years) from the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study. Annual exposure to PM_2.5 (interquartile range [IQR] = 3.37 μg/m³) and NO₂ (IQR …

How Poor Mother-Daughter Relationships Can Lead To Depression In Female Adolescents, Joseph Bradley

Student Works

This literature review made connections to depression in adolescent girls based on poor relationships with their mothers. Findings are based on recent scientific peer-reviewed publications. No new studies were conducted for this paper. Aggression, negativity, and lack of involvement from mothers are seen to impact daughters' brain development and function such that depression is more likely to occur in the daughter.

Difficult Turned Easy: Suggestion Renders A Challenging Visual Task Simple, Mathieu Landry, Jason Da Silva Castanheira, Jérôme Sackur, Amir Raz

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Suggestions can cause some individuals to miss or disregard existing visual stimuli, but can they infuse sensory input with nonexistent information? Although several prominent theories of hypnotic suggestion propose that mental imagery can change our perceptual experience, data to support this stance remain sparse. The present study addressed this lacuna, showing how suggesting the presence of physically absent, yet critical, visual information transforms an otherwise difficult task into an easy one. Here, we show how adult participants who are highly susceptible to hypnotic suggestion successfully hallucinated visual occluders on top of moving objects. Our findings support the idea that, at …

Occupational Commitment, Megan Paul, Anita Barbee

Umbrella Summaries

What is occupational commitment? Occupational commitment refers to the extent to which employees are committed to their line of work (Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993). Over the past 40 years, various researchers also labeled the construct as career commitment or as professional commitment, but the term occupation is intended to convey that the concept (a) does not apply to a more general concept of a career, which may involve different occupations over time and (b) applies to both professional and non-professional occupations (Meyer et al., 1993). Occupational commitment is one of many forms of work-related commitment. Some of the other, …

Personality, Online Learning, And Covid-19, Dareen Christabel, Hannah Fields, Sarah M. Krysl, Mariah Rodriguez

Student Work

While characteristics of in-person learning versus online learning and the impact of personality on academic success have been studied, the nature of these variables in the context of a stressful event like the COVID-19 pandemic remains undetermined. This quantitative correlational survey analysis investigated 133 participants’ prior online learning experience and neuroticism levels, via the Big Five personality test, to examine relationships between those two variables and the variables of perceived learning, change in GPA, and perceived lost learning during COVID-19. Researchers found no significant correlations or effects between any of these variables. Researchers concluded that while the variables in question …

Keep Calm Or Get Excited? Examining The Effects Of Different Types Of Positive Affect On Responses To Acute Pain, Amanda M. Acevedo, Kate A. Leger, Brooke N. Jenkins, Sarah D. Pressman

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Researchers typically assume that all forms of positive affect (PA) are equally beneficial for attenuating the physiological stress response. We tested whether this association is more nuanced by examining the role of arousal level of PA on physiological responses to acute pain. Participants (N = 283, 75.6% female, M_age = 20.6) were randomized to a low, mid, or high arousal (calm, happy, and excited, respectively) induction condition or to a neutral control and then completed an acute pain-inducing cold pressor task. Sympathetic and parasympathetic responses along with self-reported pain and distress were assessed. Results indicated that the calm condition …

Does Inhibitory Control Training Reduce Weight And Caloric Intake In Adults With Overweight And Obesity? A Pre-Registered, Randomized Controlled Event-Related Potential (Erp) Study, Kaylie A. Carbine, Alexandra M. Muir, Whitney D. Allen, James D. Lecheminant, Scott A. Baldwin, Chad D. Jensen, C. Brock Kirwan, Michael Larson

Faculty Publications

A cognitive intervention that may reduce weight and caloric intake is inhibitory control training (ICT; having individuals repeatedly withhold dominant responses to unhealthy food images). We conducted a randomized controlled trial where 100 individuals with overweight or obesity were assigned to complete a generic (n = 48) or food-specific ICT (n = 52) training four times per week for four weeks. Weight and caloric intake were ob- tained at baseline, four-weeks, and 12-weeks. Participants also completed high-calorie and neutral go/no-go tasks while N2 event-related potential (ERP) data, a neural indicator of inhibitory control, was measured at all visits. Results from …

Impact Of The Covid-19 On Religious Practices Of Muslim Students In Higher Education, Amir Duric

Muslim Student Life

Implications of religious practices in Islam go far beyond religiosity, and this paper analyzed the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and religious practices of Muslim students in higher education. The analyzed data is from the survey of the Muslim Student Life at Syracuse University and the Center for Islam in Contemporary World at Shenandoah University. The survey was conducted through a non-random convenience sampling from March 30th through April 10th of 2020 and had 498 responders. For this study, I analyzed 272 who provided their demographic information. The paper hypothesized and confirmed an overall increase in the engagement with the …

"Moral Of The Story": How Children’S Books Regulated Race Relations Starting Before The Civil War To Today, Faleya Scales

History: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

The relationship between the racial content displayed in children's books and the development of relationships between blacks and whites has consistently been one that has been overlooked. The purpose of this article is to address the correlation between the two topics while also explaining how racial propaganda in children's books has affected the psychology of those in the relationship. Children's books are key components of everyone's childhood and understanding how they have impacted how we think and behave in relationships with the other race is the key topic highlighted in this article. Not only do you get a perspective into …

More Research Is Needed On The Impact Of Workplace Violence, Bullying And Sexual Harassment In Child Welfare, Anita Barbee

Other QIC-WD Products

Many employees working in social services are exposed to workplace violence (described in Andersen, et al., 2018) and bullying (discussed in Whitaker, 2012). The workplace violence paper showed not only that up to three-fourths of social workers are exposed to violence at work, but that organizational structures and dynamics set the stage for violence to occur. Settings where staff lacked role clarity and predictability, and where emotional demands, role conflict, and work family conflict were high, also were associated with more threats and violence among employees and by clients. These findings, in addition to studies on bullying, seem to point …

Repetition Of Computer Security Warnings Results In Differential Repetition Suppression Effects As Revealed With Functional Mri, C. Brock Kirwan, Daniel K. Bjornn, Bonnie Brinton Anderson, Anthony Vance, David Eargle, Jeffrey L. Jenkins

Faculty Publications

Computer users are often the last line of defense in computer security. However, with repeated exposures to system messages and computer security warnings, neural and behavioral responses show evidence of habituation. Habituation has been demonstrated at a neural level as repetition suppression where responses are attenuated with subsequent repetitions. In the brain, repetition suppression to visual stimuli has been demonstrated in multiple cortical areas, including the occipital lobe and medial temporal lobe. Prior research into the repetition suppression effect has generally focused on a single repetition and has not examined the pattern of signal suppression with repeated exposures. We used …

Reaction Formation Evaluated Through Psychoanalytic And Sociocultural Lens, Russell Cook

CCRE Publications

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Citizen Science In Science Perception, Meaning, And Environmental Values: An Evaluation Of The Living Snow Project, Rachel L. Severson, Phoebe S. Bean, Cali Caughie, Robin Kodner

Psychology Faculty Publications

Citizen science programs provide a means for outdoor enthusiasts to combine their recreational pursuits with engagement in science. This research evaluated the role of citizen science in peoples’ perceptions of science, meaningfulness of their outdoor experiences, and environmental attitudes, identity, and connection. The Living Snow Project (LSP), a community-enabled (citizen science) program, engages the outdoor recreation community in research characterizing alpine snow microbiomes through volunteer sample collections in alpine environments. Citizen scientists (N=41) volunteering with LSP participated in this study at two time points before and after the 2019 snow sampling season. At both time points, participants completed five well-established …

Exploring Optimism And Purpose In Life As Mediators Of The Association Between Childhood Socioeconomic Status And Common Cold Susceptibility, Stephanie Munduruca, Vivian Luong, Brooke N. Jenkins

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, Americans suffer from 1 billion colds a year. Correspondingly, previous research has shown that lower socioeconomic status (SES) during childhood is associated with lower adult health, including decreased resistance to the common cold. This correlation between childhood SES and common cold susceptibility may be mediated by an individual's optimism and purpose in life. Of interest, several studies have found evidence that higher childhood SES is associated with a higher purpose of life and higher optimism. Furthermore, previous evidence has confirmed that higher optimism and higher purpose of life are linked to better …

Pediatric Asthma And Psychological Resilience: Examining Whether Family Functioning And Social Support Relate To Asthma Symptoms And Lung Function, Dalia Jaafar, Natasha H. Hikita, Pornchai Tirakitsoontorn, Azucena Talamantes, Anchalee Yuengsrigul, Eric Sternlicht, Brooke N. Jenkins

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Upwards of 6 million children in the United States are afflicted with pediatric asthma. While previous research has linked asthma to multiple contributing biological and environmental factors, recent research suggests that psychological and social factors may have an impact on physiological outcomes of asthma like lung function and lung inflammation. Therefore, we suggest the need to study the impact of positive psychological factors such as a well-functioning family environment and beneficial social support on symptoms and lung function of children diagnosed with asthma. In the present pilot study, we recruited a total of 15 children with a confirmed asthma diagnosis …

Pupillometric Investigation Of Spontaneous Action And Intention Awareness, Kate M. Harder, Ruby Moss, Jake Gavenas

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The neuroscience of volition, to a large extent, investigates the neural precursors of conscious decision-making and action. Pupillometry is a powerful tool for investigating conscious and attentional processing, partly because of its connection to the locus coeruleus (Josh et al., 2016). For instance, in an attentional blink paradigm, differences in pupil dilations were associated with conscious versus nonconscious stimuli (Wierda et al., 2012). Nevertheless, this technique received little attention in the study of volition.

We collected pupil data during a spontaneous action paradigm, where subjects freely pressed a button at a time of their choosing, sometimes reporting their onset of …