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Neural Correlates Of Decision Making Related To Information Security: Self-Control And Moral Potency, Robert West, Emily Budde, Qing Hu

Psychology and Neuroscience Faculty Publications

Security breaches of digital information represent a significant threat to the wellbeing of individuals, corporations, and governments in the digital era. Roughly 50% of breaches of information security result from the actions of individuals inside organizations (i.e., insider threat), and some evidence indicates that common deterrence programs may not lessen the insiders’ intention to violate information security. This had led researchers to investigate contextual and individual difference variables that influence the intention to violate information security policies. The current research builds upon previous studies and explores the relationship between individual differences in self-control and moral potency and the neural correlates …

Conditions For Maximizing Expected Value In Repeated Choices From Experience, Andrea Y. Ranieri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is largely expected that people can learn from past experiences and use this knowledge to make better decisions in the future. However, there are aspects inherent in experiential learning which may affect the extent to which people can extract and use information from experiential feedback to make advantageous decisions. Three aspects inherent in experiential learning were identified: (1) it is reliant on memory, (2) information is gathered exclusively through outcome feedback, and (3) outcome feedback is inherently dynamic. The current investigation explored how each of these aspects may help shape experiential decision making, and examined how the presence of …

Guilty Pleas Of Youths And Adults: Differences In Legal Knowledge And Decision Making, Tina Zottoli, Tarika Daftary Kapur

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Few studies have examined differences in the guilty plea decisions of youth and adults. In interviews with 64 youth (X = 15.9, SD = 1.2) and 56 adults (X = 38.5, SD = 11.5) who pleaded guilty to felonies in New York City, we found important differences between the youths and adults in their understanding of the plea process, the factors they considered when making decisions, and their rationales for their decisions. Youth were less likely to recognize that a guilty plea resulted in a criminal record and to understand the trial process, and they reported having considered fewer potential …

Medical Decision Making Among Individuals With A Variant Of Uncertain Significance In A Hereditary Cancer Gene And Those With A Chek2 Pathogenic Variant, Deanna J. Almanza

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite national guidelines, women with a BRCA VUS or CHEK2 pathogenic variant are choosing to have risk-reducing surgeries such as bilateral mastectomies which are not aligned with their level of cancer risk based on genetic test results alone. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 6 women with a BRCA VUS and 12 with a CHEK2 pathogenic variant exploring the factors influencing their decision-making process when considering medical management options. Patients from a cancer registry agreed to a recorded telephone interview. Coding was performed using the main constructs from the Ottawa Patient Decision Guide including: knowledge, uncertainty, values, and support. Iterative …

Dorsal Striatum Does Not Mediate Feedback-Based, Stimulus-Response Learning: An Event-Related Fmri Study In Patients With Parkinson's Disease Tested On And Off Dopaminergic Therapy, Nole M. Hiebert, Adrian M. Owen, Hooman Ganjavi, Daniel Mendonça, Mary E. Jenkins, Ken N. Seergobin, Penny A. Macdonald

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2018 Learning associations between stimuli and responses is essential to everyday life. Dorsal striatum (DS) has long been implicated in stimulus-response learning, though recent results challenge this contention. We have proposed that discrepant findings arise because stimulus-response learning methodology generally confounds learning and response selection processes. In 19 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 18 age-matched controls, we found that dopaminergic therapy decreased the efficiency of stimulus-response learning, with corresponding attenuation of ventral striatum (VS) activation. In contrast, exogenous dopamine improved response selection accuracy related to enhanced DS BOLD signal. Contrasts between PD patients and controls fully support these …

Decision Making, Julia Nolte, David M. N. Garavito, Valerie F. Reyna

Chapters in Books

Choice is ubiquitous, from small decisions such as whether to bring an umbrella to life-changing choices such as whether to get married. Making good decisions is a lifelong challenge. Psychologists have long been fascinated by the mechanisms that underlie human decision making. Why do different people make different decisions when offered the same choices? What are common decision making errors? Which choice option is the “best” and why? These questions are addressed in this chapter.

We first outline models and theories of decision making, defining key concepts and terms. We then describe the psychological processes of decision makers and how …

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? Cognitive Flexibility Influences Career Decision Making And Related Anxiety, Emily Flandermeyer

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Career indecision is a stage most individuals pass through during their lifetime, but it is often accompanied by anxiety. While anxiety can have a positive influence on decision making by focusing attention and cognitive resources, excess anxiety can disrupt the career decision-making process. Existing literature links anxiety to cognitive flexibility, an individual’s ability to efficiently switch between thoughts and ideas and adapt to evolving situations, with young adults higher in cognitive flexibility typically experiencing less anxiety than their less flexible peers. However, no studies to date have examined cognitive flexibility as it relates to career indecision or career-indecision-related anxiety. This …

Measurement Invariance Of Maximizing Tendency Scales, Paige M. Foss

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The present research investigated the measurement invariance of two maximizing tendency scales; the Maximizing Scale (MS) and the Maximizing Tendency Scale (MTS), across three cultural and language multigroup comparisons. Archival data from 13 studies were analyzed (N = 6013) using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and an item response theory (IRT) technique. CFA results indicate that both measures are noninvariant at the metric level. IRT results indicated that the MTS had six items that exhibited differential item functioning, but at the test level, expected score differences are small, so researchers may be able to safely use the MTS at the …