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The Role Of Mate Seeking Motives, Status Acquisition Motives, And Dark Personality In Predicting Responses To An Aggression-Provoking Situation, Savannah Merold

Dissertations

Aggressive behavior is associated with many adverse consequences, prompting extensive research on the potential adaptive functions of aggression. For example, there is evidence that aggression may be beneficial for attaining status and attracting a potential mate (e.g., Buss & Dedden, 1990; Daly & Wilson, 1988; Griskevicius et al., 2009). Additionally, several personality traits have been identified as robust predictors of aggressive behavior (e.g., psychopathic, Machiavellian, narcissistic, and sadistic traits; Chester et al., 2019; Neumann & Hare, 2008; Paulhus & Jones, 2017; Twenge & Campbell, 2003). These two research traditions (i.e., evolutionary and personality) have remained separate, with few studies combining …

Reducing Anxiety Symptoms In African Americans Using Informal Mental Health Coping Strategies, Maleitha Nard, Kourtnei Jones-Dumas

Doctoral Projects

Research shows that the adult Black community is 20% more likely to experience serious mental health problems such as anxiety disorder (Anxiety and Depression Association of America [AADA], 2018). While this sobering statistic suggests the need for mental health resources in the African American community, findings indicate significant factors that depict how individuals view the mental health medical system, its health disparities, and noted inequities. Past experiences with trust and discrimination, minimal accessibility to adequate insurance, and lack of culturally aware mental health providers have all been supportive reasons for the African American community to turn to other coping mechanisms …

Seeing Children’S Futures Through Rose Colored Glasses: Does Optimism Bias Toward Reproduction Discourage Anti-Natalism?, Faith L. Brown

Dissertations

In order to examine the possibility that individuals continue having children and holding positive views toward reproduction regardless of how much their future children might suffer because of an optimism bias, I conducted two experimental studies examining the effect of optimism manipulation on people’s opinions of anti-natalism, the position that it is morally wrong for individuals to reproduce. In Study 1, participants received an optimism (v. pessimism or control) manipulation about either themselves or a future child before being asked to read an essay about anti-natalism and a control essay having to do with parents being involved in school …

Drinking Motives As Mediators For The Relationships Between Overparenting And Alcohol Outcomes, Tatum Freeman

Master's Theses

The present study investigated the mediating role of drinking motives in the relationship between overparenting and alcohol outcomes using a sample of 207 traditional age college students (i.e., 18-25 years old; M = 19.8, SD = 1.64). Data on participant demographics, drinking motives, the practices of participants’ primary caregiver, typical weekly drinking, hazardous drinking, and alcohol consequences were collected via SONA (an online participant management software that allows researchers to collect data from a university psychology subject pool). Participants were 89.4% female and 54.1% White. Coping and conformity drinking motives partially mediated the relationships between overparenting, alcohol consequences, and hazardous …

Stability Of Universal Screening Over Time: An Examination Of The Student Risk Screening Scale, Rebecca Wagner Lovelace

Master's Theses

Universal screening is a proactive method to identify students that are at risk for social-emotional and behavior (SEB) problems and provide information to schools to support early intervention for at risk children. Current recommendations for practice indicate screening should be conducted at three time points during the school year. Previous studies suggest that this recommendation is not empirically based and fewer screenings per year may be sufficient for identifying students at risk. The current study seeks to extend the literature regarding the stability and consistency of screening scores over time by analyzing ratings from the Student Risk Screening Scale (SRSS) …

The Effects Of Segmenting Worksheets And Behavior Specific Praise On Independent Seatwork With Elementary Students, Lauren Peak

Dissertations

While the education system has seen many changes over the years due to COVID-19, one constant is that students must complete independent seatwork at certain times throughout the day. As teachers accommodate the many students in their classroom, an intervention that could increase students’ amount of academic production when doing independent seatwork would be mutually beneficial. For students, the increased contact with learning opportunities would provide the students means to increase fluency for that skill. Examining the effects of segmented and whole worksheets on production would, therefore, create additional learning opportunities.

This study sought to assess the effectiveness of the …

Examining The Moderating Effects Of Adult Social Support On The Relationship Between Adverse Experiences And Psychosocial Adjustment, Zachary Wilde

Master's Theses

Exposure to adverse experiences during childhood place adolescents at a disproportionately high risk of developing physical and mental health problems later in life (Anthony et al., 2019; Basto-Pereira et al., 2016; Brown & Shillington, 2016; Felitti et al., 1998). Further, at-risk adolescents, conceptualized as children and adolescents who lack resources for upward mobility, are more likely to be exposed to adverse experiences and thus are at greater risk for these negative outcomes when compared to adolescents who are not considered at-risk (Fernandes-Alcantara, 2018). To obtain better specificity of what outcomes adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) predict in a sample of vulnerable …

The Protective Benefits Of Sexual Surrogacy In Dissatisfying Romantic Relationships, Ryan Liu-Pham

Dissertations

The study tested whether the negative effects of dissatisfaction in romantic relationships can be mitigated by sexual surrogacy, an imagined sexual relationship with a celebrity or other socially distant target. I conducted a cross-sectional experimental study to examine my question. Participants were first randomly assigned to a relationship threat task asking them to reflect on insecurities in their romantic relationship or a friendship (control). Then were randomly assigned to reflect on either a celebrity crush or their desire to travel (control). Afterward participants were asked to complete measures of relationship satisfaction and well-being (happiness, loneliness, and affect). I predicted that …

Evaluating The Stigma Toward Counseling In The African American Community, Jamaica Chapman

Doctoral Projects

Self-stigma is an important factor that hinders help seeking through the use of mental health services. “Self-stigma is the reduction of an individual’s self-esteem or self-worth caused by the individual self-labeling herself or himself as someone who is socially unacceptable” (Vogel et al., 2006, p. 325). Attitudes have suggested both men and women struggle with depression in this population, and that they are reluctant to addressing psychological problems. Most are overly concerned about the stigma associated with mental illness. Though some are open to seeking treatment through mental health services, religious coping in this community is the most preferred method …

Family Rejection Predicting Suicidal Thoughts And Behaviors Among Sexual Minority Males: Indirect Effects Through Internalized Homophobia And The Interpersonal Theory Of Suicide Constructs, Brian Bulla

Dissertations

Past research has identified sexual minority males as presenting with more suicidal thoughts and behaviors in comparison to the general population, possibly due to additional stressors (e.g., family rejection, internalized homophobia) encountered throughout their lives that are specific to minority identities (Meyer, 2003). Extant literature has also examined constructs from the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (ITS; Joiner, 2005; Van Orden et al., 2008) with mixed support for each (e.g., perceived burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness, capability) predicting suicidal thoughts and behaviors among sexual minority males. The current study, therefore, sought to further existing literature by examining indirect effects of family rejection on …

Ncaa Di Assistant Coaches' Understanding Of Mental Performance And Mental Health Services, Heather Hill

Master's Theses

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has acknowledged the importance of providing student-athletes with psychological services throughout their athletic careers (NCAA, n.d.). Two vital services for student-athletes are mental performance services that are focused on sport-related issues and mental health services that are centered around personal issues (Sudano & Miles, 2017). Previous literature around mental performance and mental health services has not distinguished between them, making it difficult to understand key stakeholders’ perceptions and knowledge of both mental performance and mental health services. Assistant coaches play an important role in NCAA athletic departments and spend substantial amounts of time connecting …

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 …

Masculinity Ideology As A Moderator On The Effects Of Lethal Means Counseling And Distribution Of Cable Locks On Firearm Storage Practices Among National Guard Personnel, Samantha E. Daruwala

Dissertations

Safer firearm storage practices, which may reduce suicide risk, can be promoted by lethal means counseling (LMC). A recent trial found that providing a single LMC session or distributing cable locks can lead to sustained changes in firearm storage practices within a sample of firearm-owning National Guard personnel (Anestis et al., 2021). An important next step is to consider if the intervention effects may differ based on participant characteristics. One particularly relevant sociodemographic characteristic to consider is traditional masculine norms, which are evident in the military and firearm cultures and associated with several negative outcomes. The current study evaluated if …

Implementation Planning To Increase Treatment Integrity For Check-In/Check-Out With An Electronic Dbrc, Caitlyn Weaver

Dissertations

The present investigation assessed the effectiveness of Implementation Planning (IP) as a strategy for improving the treatment integrity of a commonly implemented behavioral intervention, Check-In/Check-Out (CICO). An electronic daily behavior report card (E-DBRC) was used to monitor intervention effectiveness for three students across a non-concurrent multiple-baseline design. IP was not associated with consistent improvements in treatment integrity for teachers who served as mentors within the CICO intervention. Teacher treatment integrity improved for one student’s teacher but had no sustained functional relation for the other two teachers. Student behavioral data were collected to determine if the implementation of CICO was associated …

Using Nudges To Increase Engagement With Suicide Prevention Resources In An Online Sample Of United State Military Veterans, Brian W. Bauer

Dissertations

Suicide rates have continually increased from 1999 to 2019 in the United States, with populations such as military Veterans showing substantially higher suicide death and attempt rates than civilians. Behavioral economics researchers have demonstrated that people regularly make decisions that are not aligned with their own self-interests (i.e., irrational decisions). These irrational decisions often stem from humans having bounded rationality (i.e., limited computational power), which produce reliable cognitive biases that occur outside of people’s awareness and influence the decisions they make. There are many important decisions leading up to a suicide attempt (e.g., whether to engage with suicide prevention resources), …

The Role Of Traumatic Experiences In Developing Nocturnal Panic Attacks, Nicole S. Smith

Dissertations

Nocturnal panic attacks refer to panic attacks that occur out of a sleeping state with no obvious cause, resulting in awakening at the peak of a panic attack. Nocturnal panic affects roughly half of patients with panic disorder as well as individuals with other psychological disorders such as PTSD. Prior research has suggested that experiencing a traumatic event may lead to the development of nocturnal panic attacks. The current study sought to expand upon the extant literature related to the role of trauma in nocturnal panic by collecting a comprehensive trauma and panic history in order to establish a timeline …

The Impact Of Environmental Variability On Perceptions Of Parental Ability From Bodily Cues, Kaitlyn Boykin

Master's Theses

This study aimed to extend work considering how bodily cues appear diagnostic of parental ability. I examined body adiposity and sexually dimorphic features for women (i.e., breast size) and men (i.e., muscularity). I further considered how salience of resource scarcity might heighten perceptions of a potential mate as an effective parent when possessing features that connote underlying resource availability (e.g., body fat). Participants were primed with resource scarcity or a control condition before assessing parental affordances of female and male targets. Targets were orthogonally manipulated to possess high and low levels of adiposity. Female targets were manipulated for breast size …

Using Contingent Praise To Increase Visual Engagement In An Asynchronous Online Learning Environment: An Eye Tracking Study, Andrew Rozsa

Dissertations

As more students move to online learning, this results in not only new barriers but new opportunities in academia. The purpose of this study was to examine how behavior-contingent praise affects visual engagement with an online video lecture when using WebGazer, a publicly available eye tracking software, with a user’s integrated webcam. A second aim of this study was to examine if using WebGazer with an integrated webcam was a valid alternative to hand scoring when collecting visual engagement data. Results of WebGazer measurement indicated a moderate effect size for three participants in the presence of contingent praise, and …

Programming Maintenance For The Mystery Student Intervention, Sarah Litten

Dissertations

The current study evaluated the effects of the Mystery Student Intervention (MSI) in university and community-based preschool settings on the appropriate and disruptive behaviors in the classroom utilizing a randomized independent group contingency. This study extended the literature base of the MSI, which was previously conducted in Head Start classrooms by Pasqua (2019), and Pasqua and colleagues (2021) which determined the MSI to be effective at reducing disruptive behaviors in the classroom setting. A nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across three classrooms was used. This study also sought to further extend the literature by evaluating programmed maintenance using a partial sequential …

Interview-Informed Synthesized Contingency Analyses On Challenging Problem Behavior: A Single-Case Meta-Analysis, Lauren Layman

Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to conduct a thorough review of the literature on the Interview Informed Synthesized Contingency Analysis (IISCA) developed by Hanley et al. (2014) and its subsequent treatments. A total of 39 articles were identified as including an IISCA to assess the function of participants’ destructive problem behavior. Twenty-nine articles also conducted function-based interventions designed from the results of the IISCAs. Within those 39 studies, 235 participants participated in 293 synthesized contingency analyses (SCA) and 111 treatment evaluations. Results indicated that 95.56% of SCAs in the included studies were reported to be differentiated. Likewise, Tau-U …

Evaluating The Effects Of Mindfulness Practice On Attentional Control And Episodic Memory, Jacob M. M. Namias

Master's Theses

Mindfulness refers to a mental state of being that involves nonjudgmental acceptance of current cognitions and emotions with awareness of the present moment. Researchers and clinicians have shown the efficacy of mindfulness as a treatment for psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression and have found reductions in reported stress. Building on clinical benefits, mindfulness practice may also facilitate attentional processes as practitioners are required to inhibit distracting thoughts and re-direct their focus to the present moment. My thesis examined the relationship between mindfulness practice and attentional control and potential spillovers to episodic memory. Experiment 1 gauged the relationship between …

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. …

Examining And Exploring Social Constructs, Conflict Management Style, And Workplace Conflict Among Workers In The United States, Keith Boyd

Dissertations

This mixed-methods study explored social constructs, conflict management style (CMS), and workplace conflict among workers in the United States. Workers do not understand the connections between social constructs, CMS, and workplace conflict. A lack of information on workers' experiences and representation in conflict literature supports the gap in understanding (Aquino, 2000; Bourdieu, 1986; Hayes, 2008; Herr & Anderson, 2005; Lin, 2001; Long, 2007; Meng et al., 2019; Mertens, 2003, 2009, 2018; Sosa, 2019). The study used a transformative-emancipatory explanatory sequential design focused on workers. There were 82 convenience sample participant surveys and 12 purposive sample low-level cooperativeness CMS participant interviews …

Predictors Of Intensive Supervision Placement Among Committed Youths Within A Maximum-Security Residential Facility, Tiffany Harris

Master's Theses

Some youths committed to juvenile justice residential facilities struggle to adjust and may exhibit institutional rule violations that necessitate an intensive supervision placement (ISP). ISPs require substantial institutional resources and may result in additional negative outcomes for these committed youths (e.g., additional charges, longer commitment). To date, only two studies have examined factors that place committed youths at greater risk of ISPs, and it was found that commitment length, number of arrests, age at admission, impulsive/reactive and psychopathic traits, and anger-irritability were predictive of ISPs (Taylor et al., 2007; Butler et al., 2007). The present study considered additional predictors that …

The Influence Of Word Pair Associative Direction On Judgment Of Learning Reactivity, Nicholas Maxwell

Dissertations

Judgments of learning (JOLs) are commonly used by researchers to assess whether individuals can accurately predict later memory performance. While the JOL literature has generally operated under the assumption that providing judgments at study does not affect the learning process, recent studies have shown a reactivity effect in which memory differs between participants who do and do not make JOLs at study. The effects of providing JOLs on memory have been mixed: Some studies report memory improvements (i.e., positive reactivity), while others report memory costs (i.e., negative reactivity). Additionally, little work has evaluated the effects of associative direction (i.e., credit-card …

Does Optic Flow Provide Information About Actions?, Hannah Masoner

Dissertations

Optic flow, the pattern of light generated in the visual field by motion of objects and the observer’s body, serves as information that underwrites perception of events, actions and affordances. This visual pattern informs the observer about their own actions in relation to their surroundings, as well as those of others. This study explored the limits of action detection for others as well as the role of optic flow. First-person videos were created using camera recordings of the actor’s perspective as they performed various movements (jumping jacks, jumping, squatting, sitting, etc.). In three experiments participants attempted to detect the action …

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. …

Examining The Association Between Fictive Kin Care, Parental Attachment And Emotional Distress In College Students, Roxanne Watts

Master's Theses

Having a supportive and secure relationship with parents can predict less emotional distress in college students. In addition to parental support, many families leverage fictive kin caregivers to provide support. This is especially true in communities of racial and ethnic minorities. The present study investigated the association between fictive kin care, parental relationships, and emotional distress in college students. One hundred fourteen (N = 114) college students completed measures that assessed parental and fictive-kin relationships, social support, and emotional distress. A COVID-19 pandemic-related distress measure was also administered. Three hypotheses were tested. First, it was hypothesized that fictive kin …