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Job Characteristics And The Psychological Well-Being Of Older Workers, Anne M. Shattuck

Master's Theses and Capstones

Changes in public and private pensions as well as demographic and economic changes will likely lead to higher labor force participation rates for older adults in the future. Little research has examined the impact of work on the well-being of older adults beyond simply comparing those who work with those who do not. Using data from the 2002 and 2004 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, this thesis examined whether specific job characteristics---namely job flexibility, job stress, and the workplace climate's friendliness to older workers---were associated with depressive symptoms among a group of workers aged 62 to 73. Cross-sectional …

Parental Emotion Coaching: How Does It Relate To Attachment, Anger, Assertiveness, And Conflict Management?, Ines S. Cofrin

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated the relationship between participants' retrospective reports of parental emotion coaching (EC) and emotion dismissing (ED) and participants' anger, romantic attachment, assertiveness, and conflict management. EC and ED were assessed by a retrospective self-report developed by the author (RECS; Kroll, 2002), based on Gottman's theory (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996). Results suggested that for most analyses, EC and ED correlated significantly with all outcome variables, even after controlling for attachment and caregiver emotional stability. Retrospective EC and ED were also assessed directly from primary caregivers through a mailed survey, and correlated with participants' reports of EC and ED. …

Encoding And Decoding Mutual Grooming: Communication With A Specialized Form Of Touch, Holly Nelson

Doctoral Dissertations

Although primatology research indicates that social grooming has broad social significance for primates, it has not been previously considered as a nonverbal communication channel among humans. Therefore, this research aimed to provide information about its social significance among humans in two ways. Participants completed a questionnaire in which they indicated the incidence of grooming others in several relationship contexts. Second, a different sample participated in an experiment in which they read one of several vignettes and gave their impressions. Impressions were targeted to presumed communicative functions of grooming: courtship/flirtation and attachment/pairbonding. Two variables were manipulated: type of action performed (grooming, …

"Coming Out" Stories Of Gay And Lesbian Young Adults: Relation Between Memory Characteristics And Psychological Well-Being, Nicole E. Rossi

Doctoral Dissertations

Gay and lesbian young adults (N = 53) were interviewed in detail about coming out for the first time to each of their parents. Participants also completed an extensive battery of psychological measures, including event centrality related to disclosure to their mother and father, parental attachment, attitudes toward homosexuality, relationship satisfaction, anxiety, and depression. Analyses of memory content and structure (complexity, coherence, descriptiveness) were conducted, and the relation between memory qualities and well-being were analyzed. Hypotheses related to disclosure to parents and peers were largely supported. The majority of participants first disclosed their sexual orientation to a friend. More participants …

Underlying Processes Of Antisocial Decisions: Adolescents Versus Adults, Kathryn L. Modecki

Doctoral Dissertations

The question of adolescent decision maturity holds significant ramifications for today's youth. When adolescents are viewed as competent, rational decision makers, they may be considered mature enough to make decisions in their best interest in criminal court (Grisso, 1997) and are held fully culpable for their crimes. In contrast, when adolescents are viewed as immature decision makers, they may be considered less competent to make criminal decisions, and thus may not be considered fully culpable for their crimes (Woolard, Reppucci, & Redding, 1996). The present study is based on responses to hypothetical vignettes and measures maturity of judgment (Scott, Reppucci, …

Searching Under Stress: Anxiety And Selective Information Exposure, Melissa K. Surawski

Doctoral Dissertations

For centuries, political philosophers have argued that emotion clouds rational judgment and should be avoided at all costs. In light of advances made in the fields of social cognition, political science, and social psychology, however, the question of how affective states work in conjunction with cognitive processes has been approached anew, and interesting patterns have emerged in the data. They theory of affective intelligence (Marcus, Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000) posits that emotional arousal, particularly anxiety, alerts organisms to gather and evaluate information from the environment that can be useful for self-protection. On the other hand, terror management theory (Solomon, Greenberg, …

The Male Perspective: The Psychological Experience Of A Male Whose Wife Is Diagnosed With Breast Cancer, Heather Roy

Master's Theses and Capstones

Breast cancer is the leading cancer among women in the United States. Breast cancer does not only affect the individual diagnosed, but also her family. Research has shown that spouses are the most commonly reported support people for married women with the diagnosis. The impact of the diagnosis of breast cancer and treatment for women is well studied and documented, but the psychological effects on spouses have received less attention. This phenomenological study was designed to enhance understanding of the psychological experiences of a male whose wife is diagnosed with breast cancer Participants in this study were six Caucasian males …

A Psychoeducational Group Designed For The Social Supporters Of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Parents, Tara Jordan

Master's Theses and Capstones

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) claims 5,000 to 7,000 infant lives each year. The deaths undoubtedly cause a sense of guilt, depression and hopelessness among survivors; specifically the parents. Many people supporting SIDS parents tend to feel uncomfortable around them and thus avoid the grieving family altogether. Many SIDS parents state that while their friends and family are trying to be helpful and supportive, many of their attempts actually are hurtful. A psychoeducational group was developed for the social supporters of SIDS parents, allowing its members to become better equipped to help support the grieving parents and to give them …

Is Romanian Mothers' Employment Status During A Child's First Year Of Life Correlated With School-Age Children's Behavior Problems?, Codruta A. Ruset

Master's Theses and Capstones

Although research studies are more likely now than in the past to include children and families of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds, no attempts have been made to examine the relationship between early maternal employment among Romanian mothers and their children's behavioral problems. Therefore, based on a sample drawn from a Romanian population, this thesis investigates whether maternal employment during the first year of the child's life is related to Romanian school-age children's behavioral problems, considering control variables like period of maternal employment, employment type, child care type, family income; child's age, maternal educational level, and family type. Findings illustrate …

Attachment Bond, Parental Death, And Parental Divorce As Predictive Variables Of Depression, Jason R. Baker

Master's Theses and Capstones

Discussions regarding the topics of attachment and loss are ubiquitous and cannot be avoided. Losing a loved one---especially a parent---to death or divorce is difficult at any age, perhaps most difficult during the age of adolescence. Depression is a common product of such loss. A study was conducted that attempted to look at the quality of attachment between the child and primary caregiver, along with the any possible parent loss, and their implications for the prevalence of depression. Data on 170 students at a major university in the Northeast was collected. A moderately strong negative correlation existed between attachment and …

Race Salience In Defense Attorney Opening And Closing Statements: The Effects Of Ambiguity And Juror Attitudes, Donald Bucolo

Master's Theses and Capstones

Two studies were conducted to evaluate if making a defendant's race salient in defense attorneys' opening and closing statements would reduce White juror racial bias towards a Black defendant when evidence against the defendant was strong (Study 1) or weak (Study 2). In Study 1, making race salient did reduce guilty verdicts against the Black defendant. In addition, more racist jurors were more likely to find the Black defendant guilty only when race was not made salient. In Study 2, making a defendant's race salient did not affect White jurors verdicts. Further, in Study 2 participants with more positive views …

Gender Socialization: Implications For Gender Differences In Self-Concept Among Adolescents, Erin D. Libby

Master's Theses and Capstones

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the relationship between traditional gender socialization and self-concept during adolescence, in the domains of athletic competence, physical appearance, social competence, and close friendship.

The sample used in the study consisted of 33 eighth graders, of which 19 were female and 14 were male. Participants completed an instrument developed by the researcher to measure level of gender socialization, along with Harter's (1988) Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (SPPA) to measure self-concept in the above-referenced domains.

The Mann-Whitney U-Test was used to test distributions of means. Results were not statistically significant and therefore failed …

The Accessibility Of Spatial Information: Two Competing Views, Jennifer J. Stiegler

Master's Theses and Capstones

The experiments reported in this thesis were designed to investigate factors involved in the reactivation of spatial information. Participants read passages that described a protagonist and a target object in a spatial location. In Experiment 1, naming times demonstrated that the target object was active immediately after reading the introduction whereas the target object was no longer active in memory after reading filler information that did not remention the target object. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to read a cuing sentence immediately following the filler information. The results showed that this cue served to reactivate the target object. In …

Knowledge And Perceptions Of "Cyberterrorism", Andrew J. Van Hoogenstyn

Master's Theses and Capstones

While the threat of terrorists utilizing the Internet to execute a cyberterrorist attack is of prominent concern there exist great misconceptions and factual errors in the media as to the nature of this threat (Conway, 2002; Embar-Seddon, 2002; Weimann, 2005). This thesis examined media exposure, knowledge of cyberterrorism, fear of terrorism and perceived seriousness of cyberterrorist events in a sample of college students. Generally, participants had little knowledge of cyberterrorism. Women were found to be more fearful of terrorism and cyberterrorism than men. A positive relation was found between media consumption and fear of terrorism among women. Finally, fear of …