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Teoria De La Mente Y Sociedad En La Narrativa Policiaca De Lorenzo Silva Y Francisco Garcia Pavon: Estereotipos, Roles De Genero Y Minorias, Jesus Castro Gorfti

Open Access Dissertations

Spanish:

The purpose of this study is to utilize certain aspects of cognitive psychology as a framework to analyze the police procedural novels of two Spanish authors: Francisco García Pavón and Lorenzo Silva. Specifically, we will focus on two main aspects of the mind studied by the cognitive sciences: Theory of Mind and metarepresentations. Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the capacity that human beings have to attribute mental states to other humans, as well as oneself, based on their bodily and facial gestures. The concept of metarepresentation refers to the ability of humans to keep track of who said …

How Training Set And Prior Knowledge Affect Preschoolers' Perception Of Quantity And Early Number Learning, Arum Han

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation examines how training on the iPad can improve children’s quantity recognition, and whether different types of training might be warranted for children with different levels of experience. Study 1 tested the effects of multiple exemplar training (3 cars / 3 apples / 3 ducks, etc.) versus single exemplar training (3 cars / 3 cars / 3 cars, etc.) in recognizing quantities. For children just learning to recognize quantities (0-2 knowers), training with multiple exemplars was most effective for quantities three and four. For 3-6 knower children, single exemplar training was most effective for learning quantities five and six. …

Finding The Ghost With The Machine: Breaking Through The Assessment Center Validity Ceiling By Exploring Decisional Processes Using New Sources Of Behavioral Data Within Virtual Assessments, Brett W. Guidry

Open Access Dissertations

Decades of assessment center (AC) research has resulted in an inevitable “validity ceiling” whereby increasing the validity of the AC method is becoming increasingly difficult. To overcome this challenge, new avenues for collecting and evaluating AC participant behaviors must be explored, with a particular focus on overcoming the inherent limitations of human observation—a hallmark of the AC method. This study examines detailed logs of AC participant behaviors captured automatically and unobtrusively during a computer-based simulation assessment. Using a decision making framework, basic characteristics of the new behavioral data are tested against existing theories of decisional efficacy. The construct-related validity of …

Seeking Interdependence: Commitment Desirability And The Initiation And Maintenance Of Close Relationships, Yu-Yang Kenneth Tan

Open Access Dissertations

People vary in the extent to which they believe that a committed relationship is desirable for them. The current research offers and examines the concept of commitment desirability, defined as the subjective desire to be involved in a committed romantic relationship. In six studies, the present research developed and tested a measure of commitment desirability and explored how it influences relationship initiation among those not currently involved in a relationship, and maintenance and dissolution decisions among those who are involved in a relationship. Study 1 and 2a developed and validated a reliable measure of commitment desirability. Study 2b examined the …

College Students' Suicidal Ideation: Testing The Predictions Of The Existential - Constructivist Theory Of Suicide, Jennifer Danielle Lockman

Open Access Dissertations

Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the college student population (Schwartz, 2006), and empirically supported theories for understanding suicide among college students are lacking (Lester, 1989; Prinstein, 2008; Rogers & Benson, 2013). Although not yet examined empirically, Rogers (2001) proposed an Existential - Constructivist Theory of Suicide (ECTS), in which existential distress and the inability to reconstruct meaning from adverse life events contribute to suicidal ideation. ECTS includes both interpersonal and intrapersonal drivers of suicidal ideation, and for this reason, may better explain suicidal ideation in college students than existing theoretical models. Existing research focuses on Joiner’s …

The Effects Of Including Almonds In An Energy-Restricted Diet On Weight, Body Composition, Visceral Adipose Tissue, Blood Pressure And Cognitive Function, Jaapna Dhillon

Open Access Dissertations

Inclusion of almonds in an energy restricted diet has been reported to enhance or have no effect on weight loss. Their effects specifically on visceral fat stores during energy restriction have not been widely examined. Additionally, almond consumption has been associated with reduced blood pressure, but whether this is linked to or is independent of changes of body composition has not been examined. Moreover, almond consumption during energy restriction may be an effective strategy for reversing the negative effects of dieting on cognitive performance. The unique nutrient profile of almonds also has the potential to influence cognitive function post-prandially. The …

L2 Effect On Bilingual Spanish/English Encoding Of Motion Events: Does Manner Salience Transfer?, Heidi E. Parker

Open Access Dissertations

This study explores the potential effect of a second language (L2) on first language (L1) encoding of motion events. The domain of interest is MANNER and the goal is to investigate if the degree of manner salience can be restructured under the effect of a L2. Slobin (2004, 2006) proposes an expansion of Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) binary typology and observes that the degree of manner saliencevaries cross-linguistically. The two languages investigated in this study, Spanish and English, are at divergent points along the cline of manner salience. In addition, Slobin (1996b) suggests dividing MANNER into tier one (T1) …

Psychosocial Factors And Mental Health Of Muslims Living In The United States, Lamise N. Shawahin

Open Access Dissertations

Muslim Americans are at risk for experiencing systematic and interpersonal acts of discrimination (Rippy & Newman, 2006). Such experiences of discrimination can lead to the development of depressive symptoms. Thus, it is critical to understand factors that may influence the relationship between experiencing discrimination and developing depressive symptoms. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between psychosocial adversities (i.e., perceived discrimination), psychosocial resources (i.e., coping strategies, religious community support) and depressive symptoms. Hypotheses regarding both the relationships among the variables, as well as the mediating role psychosocial resources play in the relationship between perceived discrimination and …

Exploring Animacy As A Mnemonic Dimension, Joshua Edward Vanarsdall

Open Access Dissertations

There is a great deal of evidence across cognitive science that animacy, or more generally, the features that make up what it means to be a living thing, is a foundational dimension of human cognition. In perception, animates both capture attention (Pratt, Radulescu, Guo, & Abrams, 2010) and are relatively immune to change blindness (New, Cosmides, & Tooby, 2007). Developmental work places the animate-inanimate distinction as one of the first categories children learn (Opfer & Gelman, 2011). Work in neuroscience points toward a fundamental role for animacy in semantic memory (Caramazza & Mahon, 2003), and linguists have identified animacy as …

Exploring Problematic Online Gaming: A Qualitative Approach, Joseph M. Waters

Open Access Dissertations

Online gaming, specifically Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), has become a very popular pastime and often is the subject of scrutiny in the literature regarding problematic play. This study aimed to develop a better understanding of problematic online gaming by recruiting and interviewing MMORPG players who potentially played at problematic levels. Ten participants (9 males, 1 female) from a Mid-Western university were screened and interviewed regarding their online gaming experiences. Consensual qualitative research was used to analyze the data. Eleven domains emerged from the data analysis: (a) antecedents to involvement in online gaming, (b) gaming activity, (c) character creation, …

Facebook Engagement On College Students' Interpersonal And Intrapersonal Functioning, Scott S. Deatherage

Open Access Dissertations

In recent years college students have incorporated social-networking sites, and more specifically Facebook, into their daily lives. Facebook has received empirical attention; attention focused on what students are doing on Facebook, who its users are, and, more recently, why students access Facebook. However, researchers who have assessed motivations for accessing Facebook have emphasized how motivations are associated with certain activities, and have not simultaneously and directly examined how activities and motivations are associated with both maladaptive and adaptive factors of students’ interpersonal and intrapersonal functioning. The purpose of the present study was to examine how Facebook engagement is associated with …

Help-Seeking Intention Among College Students: Cross-Cultural Study Between East Asian International Students And Domestic Students In The Unites States, Ji Yun Kang

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to understand East Asian international student’s underutilization of counseling services (versus U.S. domestic students) by applying Theory of Reasoned Action/Planned Behavior (TRA/PB) and Ludwikowski, Vogel, and Armstrong (2009)’s stigma model to help-seeking. Participants were 146 East Asian international students and 210 domestic college students at Purdue University. AMOS 23.0 for Structural Equation Modeling was used to conduct a Latent Mean Analysis (LMA) and a multigroup analysis. The multigroup analysis results found that help-seeking intention was explained by the same hypothesized model in both groups, which was based on the TRA/PB (Ajzen, 2012) and the …

Disentangling Universal And Cultural-Specific Risks To Mental Health Among Asian Americans: A Multi-Site Longitudinal Investigation, Pan Priscilla Lui

Open Access Dissertations

Objective: Development-based intergenerational conflict related to separation-individuation is normative and similar across ethnocultural groups. Intergenerational cultural conflict related to acculturation mismatch—where intercultural contact leads parents and offspring to diverge in heritage and mainstream American values and behaviors—is specific to immigrant families. Although development-based conflict does not result in serious psychological distress or behavioral problems among healthy adolescents and emerging adults, acculturation-based conflict has been linked to maladjustment among offspring with immigrant parents in cross-sectional studies. The distinct and potentially mutually influential contributions of these types of conflict have not been evaluated as simultaneous processes unfolding during the developmentally significant transition …

Improving Online Food Safety Communication: The Role Of Media, Jing Ma

Open Access Dissertations

Food safety is important as foodborne illness outbreaks cause great economic and societal losses. Efforts to protect public health and reduce foodborne illness outbreaks will not be fully effective unless the resulting information is communicated to consumers.

However, food safety communications have not been particularly satisfactory (Worsfold, 2006). If food safety information were more accessible, consumers would be more likely to use it (Worsfold, 2006). In this regard, the Internet presents great possibilities for communicating food safety information to the public. But media’s role has been largely overlooked in existing literature. When the lack of research is combined with consumers’ …

Understanding The Mechanism For Response Selection In Compatibility Tasks: Referential Coding Contrasted With Biological Properties Of The Hands, Nicole M. Murchison

Open Access Dissertations

Several researchers have hypothesized that the hands have unique effects on visual attentional resources and performance in response-selection tasks. This hand-specific processing hypothesis – that biological properties of the hands/palms uniquely affect visual attention and response selection – can be compared to a referential object coding hypothesis – that objects are coded in relation to other salient objects – favored in explanations of many compatibility effects. To test implications of these accounts, and specific effects that the hands (or general referential objects) have on attentional prioritization, I had participants perform three compatibility tasks using the hands or wooden blocks as …

South Asian Women's Sexual Relationship Power: Examining The Role Of Sexism, Cultural Values Conflict, Discrimination, And Social Support, Chandni D. Shah

Open Access Dissertations

The lack of literature examining sexual experiences of South Asian women in dating relationships has important implications for the healthy development of long lasting romantic relationships. It is important to understand South Asian women’s relationship experiences in the context of power and sexism (interpersonal power framework; Pulerwitz, Gortmaker, & DeJong, 2000) and the role of specific sociopolitical factors (e.g., discrimination). Understanding South Asian women’s experiences of power in a sociopolitical context will help professionals when working with them to develop healthier sexual relationships through therapy outreach, and community programming. I used a correlational, quantitative study to examine the associations between …

Facial Processing And Social Motivation In Psychopathy: An Event-Related Potential Study, Emily Dubose Sherman

Open Access Dissertations

Recent work has urged a shift in the perspective of psychopathy to focus on the interpersonal aspects of the disorder that are often overlooked in the broader literature. Conceptual and empirical overlap with an exemplar interpersonal disorder- autism spectrum disorder- lends support to viewing psychopathy as an interpersonal disorder; however, there are interpersonal dysfunctions associated with psychopathy that cannot be attributed wholly to overlap with autistic traits. The current study examined self-report measures, a lab task, and event-related potentials (ERPs) that are related to social, interpersonal functioning and motivation to help elucidate what aspects of psychopathy and ASD are overlapping …

Reflexivity: A First Demonstration, Melissa Jane Swisher

Open Access Dissertations

Currently, the emergent relation of reflexivity after training a set of baseline relations has not been demonstrated with any animal—human or nonhuman. True reflexivity can only be demonstrated if no identity (i.e., physically matching stimulus) relations are trained. In six experiments, the emergence of reflexivity and its opposite, anti-reflexivity, were explored. Pigeons received concurrent successive matching training on two or three arbitrary tasks: AB hue-form and BC form-hue (and AC hue-hue) matching. Once they had acquired these tasks, they were tested for BB (form-form) reflexivity or BB’ (form-form) anti-reflexivity matching. Most (10 of 13) pigeons that received three arbitrary tasks …

Selective Influences, Mental Architectures, And Contextuality, Ru Zhang

Open Access Dissertations

Given a system with say two external factors α and β and two random outputs A and B in response to the external factors. α forms the context of A and β forms the context of B. When the marginal distribution of A is not affected by the change of β and the marginal distribution of B is not affected by the change of α, we say marginal selectivity present in the system. Can we say there is no context effect then? Our answer is “not yet for interdependent A and B”. If in addition, one can find a …

Creativity In Organizations: Antecedents And Outcomes Of Individual Creativity, Goran Calic

Open Access Dissertations

In this dissertation I set out to expand our collective understanding of creativity in organizations. I accomplish this through three related studies, each organized into independent chapters of this dissertation.

The first study explores how demands of organizations, particularly strategic contradictions faced by decision makers, affect creative processes and products. In this chapter I develop the theory of paradoxical creativity, which posits that creative discovery is a function of how strategic contradictions are perceived by decision-makers. The key insight of the theory of paradoxical creativity is that strategic contradictions have independent effects on the two stages of creative discovery (generation …

Feelings Of Doing Good For Myself Or Others: Discussing Effects Of Self-Conscious Emotions On Sustainable Consumption, Chi-Cheng Luan

Open Access Dissertations

Consumers have increasing interests in sustainable products, but the actual purchase rate is relatively low. To find the reasons of this gap, previous studies focus primarily on cognitive factors of behavioral change based on the theory of planned behavior. Little research, however, discusses such a sustainable consumption issue from emotional aspects. Thus, this research proposed that self-conscious emotions play an essential role of sustainable consumption behavior, and such emotions are driven from private and public self-consciousness. Study 1 examined participants’ general evaluations toward two emotions and sustainable consumption behaviors. The results showed that empathic concern had a significantly positive effect …

The Role Of Workplace Supervisor Support In Cargivers' Marital Relationships, Kenona H. Southwell

Open Access Dissertations

Family caregivers make important contributions to care recipients and the economy. However, providing care for ill or disabled family members can be challenging, particularly when the role of caregiver is accompanied by additional roles such as employee, spouse, and parent ( Hammer & Neal, 2008). There is some evidence that the demands of caregiving may negatively influence the quality of caregivers’ marriages (Bookwala, 2009). Much of caregiving research, however, is focused on the influence of caregiving and multiple caregiving roles on caregivers’ health (see Pinquart & Sörensen, 2011), but less attention has been paid to other aspects of caregivers’ lives …

Self-Regulation To Practice: Incorporating The Strategy To An Early Childhood Special Education Setting, Kathryn L. Szwed

Open Access Dissertations

Preschool students who display social emotional deficits pose challenging issues for families, caregivers and teachers who educate them. In this study, the effectiveness of an assistive technology based treatment package consisting of video self-modeling and behavior management software was investigated to determine if its combined use would result in increased student self-regulation skills. Using a multiple baseline design, three students used the treatment package to increase self-regulation skills. During the investigation, the accuracy to self-identify behaviors, the documentation of desired and undesired behaviors and the overall impact of the treatment package was studied. Interobserver agreement (IOA) was used to determine …

Learning The Language Of Academic Engineering: Sociocognitive Writing In Graduate Students, Catherine G. P. Berdanier

Open Access Dissertations

Although engineering graduate programs rarely require academic writing courses, the indicators of merit in academic engineering, such as journal publications, successful grants, and doctoral milestones (e.g. theses, dissertations) are based in effective written argumentation and disciplinary discourse. Further, graduate student attrition averages 57% across all disciplines, with some studies classifying up to 50% of these students as “ABD” (All But Dissertation.) In engineering disciplines specifically, graduate attrition rates across the U.S. average 36% (both Master’s and PhD students), according to the Council of Graduate Schools. The lack of socialization is generally noted as a main reason for graduate attrition, one …

An Eriksonian Approach To Consumer Identity, Sandra Rathod

Open Access Dissertations

Rathod, Sandra R. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2013. An Eriksonian Approach to Consumer Identity. Major Professor: Richard A. Feinberg.

Ego development is the fifth stage in Erikson's Lifecycle Development theory (1959) and is a major psychosocial stage beginning in adolescence and lasting into emerging adulthood. Past research based upon Marcia's Ego Identity Status Paradigm (1996) has investigated a number of ideological and interpersonal domains relevant to one's ego identity, however in today's consumer societies, where what you have is at least as important is who you are or what you do, an Eriksonian approach to consumer ego identity (CEI) has …

Design, Development, And Testing Of A Conformal Power Control Interface For Thrust Vectoring Aircraft, David Rozovski

Open Access Dissertations

Over the last five years, a new power control inceptor for tiltrotor aircraft, known as the Rotational Throttle Interface (RTI) was designed and built. Prior to the RTI, no tiltrotor inceptor had been able to simultaneously indicate both the direction and magnitude of thrust conformally. The purpose of the RTI is to provide an interface that maps to the intended vehicle response throughout ALL ranges of operation. Doing so is expected to reduce confusion that may have contributed to several tiltrotor accidents

Two tests were conducted with the RTI, one at the NASA Vertical Motion Simulator, and one at Canada's …

Maternal Sensitivity, Maternal Mind-Mindedness, And Infant Socioemotional Functioning: An Examination Of Concurrent Associations, Nancy Ignacia Longoria

Open Access Dissertations

Associations between maternal sensitivity, maternal mind-mindedness, and infant socioemotional (SE) functioning were examined in a sample of 40 mother-infant dyads. Semi-structured home observations were conducted to assess maternal sensitivity and collect maternal ratings of maternal depression and infant SE functioning. Mind-mindedness was assessed during free play and teaching interactions during the home visit. Sensitivity at home was positively associated with mind-mindedness during a free play interaction, but not during a teaching interaction. Neither sensitivity nor mind-mindedness was significantly associated with total infant SE scores, or scores on 3 SE subscales (adaptive functioning, self-regulation, and interaction with people). A trend between …