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Motivational And Cognitive Components Of Self-Presentation In Humor And Embarrassment: A Multi-Measure Approach, Mae Lynn Neyhart

Doctoral Dissertations

Different methodological approaches were taken to explore the role of situational variables and personality factors that measure the motivational component of self presentation on degree of subjects' reported feelings of threat and their response time to complete self-directed humorous or embarrassing situations. In Study 1 a questionnaire approach was utilized and qualitative as well as quantitative data was analyzed. Specifically, humorous and embarrassing situations that male and female subjects provided were compared. Relations were found between personality measures and reported degree of threat. Study 2 included a response time measure and number of times a subject made another person the …

The Effect Of Objective Self-Awareness On Judgments Of Noncontingent Act-Outcome Relations, Jeffrey Lynn Metzger

Doctoral Dissertations

Female college students' perceptions of control over outcomes were examined in a high outcome, noncontingent, bivariate, act-outcome task. Logit regression revealed that the odds of judging low control and the odds of judging no relation increased when subjects performed the task in the presence of self-focusing stimuli. When subjects performed the task in front of a mirror, or in the presence of a video camera or an observer, the odds of judging low control increased by a factor of 2.57, 2.74, and 2.74 respectively. Subjects in the mirror, camera, and observer conditions also judged "no relation" between actions and outcomes …

The Relation Between Mood And The Relative Accessibility Of Affectively Latent Cognitive Structures: Testing The Mood-Congruent Priming Hypothesis, Linda Jean Pertsch

Doctoral Dissertations

According to the network model of mood and memory (Bower, 1981), information that is congruent with present mood should be primed and therefore more accessible than incongruent information. The following series of studies investigated this hypothesis and addressed several secondary predictions concerning the conditions under which mood-congruent priming effects occur. Using naming time as a measure of accessibility, Study 1 tested the mood-congruent priming hypothesis by assessing the relation between natural occurring mood and relative accessibility of positive versus negative adjectives and nouns. In addition to replicating Study 1, Study 2 tested an affect-specific version of the mood-congruent priming hypothesis …

Values And Preventive Health Behavior: Assessment Using The Rokeach Value Survey, Response Time, And Certainty Ratings, Robert Wayne Blodgett

Doctoral Dissertations

The relation between the value college students place on health and their self-reported preventive health behavior was examined within the context of Rokeach's (1973) value system. Two broad categories of values having opposite relations with preventive health behavior were identified. Of particular interest was whether decision times and degrees of certainty regarding the importance of health, relative to other values, would facilitate the prediction of preventive health behavior scores. Knowledge of ordinal distance from health enhanced prediction, but only for certain values. Composite scores incorporating response times and certainty ratings with ordinal distance from health, however, did not improve predictions …

The Impact Of Systemic Family Processes And Structures On Mental Illness And Family Violence, Al A. Shigo

Doctoral Dissertations

The relationship of both family structure and process variables to both mental illness and family violence are examined in this study. A non-clinical sample of 100 university student families and a clinical sample of 100 in-patient families at a psychiatric hospital are utilized. Both non-clinical and clinical samples are utilized with subjects of similar age. Within the broader context of General Systems Theory and family systems theory in particular, the inter-systemic variable of bounding and the intra-systemic variable of linking are tested in their relationships to both mental illness and family violence. Open, random, and closed family system types are …

Persuasion Via Audiovisual Transmission: Is The Persuasiveness Of A Message Affected By Whether The Audience Believes The Message Presentation Is A Videotaped Recording Or Is An Unrehearsed Live Telecast?, Charles Laurier Dufour

Doctoral Dissertations

One hundred and fifty-nine university students participated in a study examining the effect on persuasion of believing that an audiovisual message presentation was a videotaped recording or was an unrehearsed live telecast from an adjacent room. Participants were also assigned to one of two other groups, one instructed to focus its attention on the information being presented (i.e., a centrally focused group), the other instructed to focus on the message source's physical appearance (i.e., a peripherally focused group).

A 2 (Believed Live vs. Believed Recorded) x 2 (Centrally Focused vs. Peripherally Focused) Analysis of Variance was performed on the data. …

Priming Access To Natural-Object And Trait Category Hierarchies On Pronunciation, Lexical Decision, And Category Verification Tasks, John F. Calabrese

Doctoral Dissertations

Lexical decision, pronunciation, and category verification response times (RTs) to natural object and trait hierarchies were measured. Prime and target words consisted of both superordinate and subordinate object and trait category members. Trait words were categorized as desirable and undesirable (Hampson, et al., 1986). Subjects' RTs to object and undesirable trait words displayed similar patterns. In all experiments, RTs to natural-object subordinate target words were significantly more rapid compared to superordinate words. This same pattern was also true for the undesirable traits, but reached significance in only the lexical decision task. The facilitation effect of the prime reached significance for …

Assertiveness, Family History Of Hypertension And Other Psychological And Biophysical Variables As Predictors Of Cardiovascular Reactivity To Social Stress, Kim Marie Mooney

Doctoral Dissertations

This study was conducted to assess whether certain personality characteristics and a positive family history of hypertension are associated with excessive cardiovascular reactivity. Subjects (M = 28, F = 37) engaged in a laboratory task designed to serve as a social stressor. Subjects were separated into three groups based on their self-reports of assertiveness in social situations. It was hypothesized that high and low assertiveness groups would exhibit greater heart rate and cardiovascular reactivity than subjects with average assertiveness tendencies. This relationship was not supported although significant correlations were found between low assertiveness scores and increased systolic and diastolic reactivity …

The Mediating Role Of Self-Efficacy Expectations And Self-Evaluation In The Rehabilitation Process, Daniel Wayne Malloy

Doctoral Dissertations

Bandura (1977) has argued that the consideration of cognitive mechanisms is central to the understanding of behavioral change and the maintenance of these behavioral patterns. More specifically, Bandura (1977, 1982) has proposed two cognitive mechanisms, self-efficacy and self-evaluation, that mediate the initiation of and persistence toward behavioral change. The purpose of the present study was to assess whether the medium through which feedback is presented to patients participating in rehabilitation would have an effect on their future expectations of performance for motor tasks encountered in therapy and the actual performance of strength and endurance tasks. It was hypothesized that knee …

Judging Control: When Can We Expect Expectations To Predict Judgments? (Contingency, Contrast Effects), Susan E. Newman

Doctoral Dissertations

Two experiments were conducted to test the predictive validity of a model put forth by Alloy and Tabachnik (1984) to account for judgments of contingency. The authors contend that such judgments can be accounted for by determining the interaction of information contributed by "one's expectations" and by the objective "situation." It was argued here that those two components, independently or interactively, are not always sufficient to predict judgments; the same objective data may be judged differently in different contexts and sometimes contrarily to one's expectations. That is, contrast effects may occur. This argument was supported using two different paradigms. In …

Substance Abuse And Attribution, Karen Ann Towell-Roberts

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was twofold. First, an Attribution of Responsibility for Substance Use scale (ARSU) was developed with a sample of 140 university substance users and 69 substance abusers. Second, this study determined if the actor-observer hypothesis of traditional attribution theory (Jones and Davis, 1965) held using the ARSU.

The ARSU scale contains six questions which focus on an individual's reasons and perceptions of other individuals reasons for initiating and ending substance use. Subjects were also administered the 11 item Rotter's IE scale (Valecha, 1972).

Initial assessments indicated that the ARSU scale was valid and reliable for …

Semantic Segmentation Of Print Advertisements, Clifford James Cox

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to construct a comprehensive model of advertisement perception. The model's relationship to persuasion, recall and recognition measures of advertisement effectiveness was explored. The research demonstrated that print advertisements are perceived primarily across three general semantic dimensions. These dimensions were named Evaluation, Potency and Activity. The relationship between the three dimensions and similar semantic dimensions reported in the Semantic Differential literature is discussed.

In this research, 32 liquor, jewelry and perfume advertisements were studied. The relationship between the advertisements' persuasion, recall and recognition scores, and the advertisements' Evaluation, Potency and Activity scores is assessed. The …

The Effects Of Competition And External Rewards On Intrinsic Motivation, Gary Stephen Goldstein

Doctoral Dissertations

A number of studies have demonstrated that the presence of an external reward reduces intrinsic motivation. Deci's (1975) theory of cognitive evaluation and Lepper, Greene and Nisbett's (1973) overjustification hypothesis account for these findings using attribution theory. Basically, these tw.

Reducing Disparity In Judicial Sentencing: A Social-Psychological Approach, Siegfried Ludwig Sporer

Doctoral Dissertations

Researchers from diverse disciplines--e.g. sociologists, criminologists, political scientists, legal observers, and most recently also psychologists--have studied judicial sentencing. More than half a century of research, employing multiple methodologies, strongly demonstrates that the unguided use (or abuse) of discretion has frequently led to vast disparity in judicial sentencing; i.e. large variations among sentences given for highly similar offenses and/or offenders. Among the various reform proposals reviewed, sentencing councils have been suggested as a constructive solution to reduce sentencing disparity without abandoning judicial discretion or displacing disparity to other agents in the criminal justice system.

The present research attempts to demonstrate the …

The Effect Of A Crime's Consequences On Verdict: Type Ii Errors And Information Distortion, Brian Jay Perlman

Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Sex, Status, And Solidarity: Attributions For Interpersonal Touching, Gayle Frances Scroggs

Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Multivariate Contribution To The Measurement And Construct Validity Of Generalized Social Attraction, David Mikle Leuser

Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Teacher Self-Disclosure On Student Perceptions Of The Teacher, Joyce Doris Clark

Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Investigation Of The Effects Of Helplessness Training, Number Of Helplessness Tasks And Ability On The Development Of Helplessness Behaviors, Joyce Ann Waskiewicz

Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Gains In Moral Reasoning Through Two Discussion Methods Under Teaching Assistants Varying In Socratic Skill, Leon Swartzendruber

Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Noise Level On The Ability To Notice And Interpret An Event As One In Which Help Is Needed, Janet Katz Samuels

Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Experimental Analysis Of Predecisional Information Seeking In A Socialinfluence Situation, Jeffrey L. Crawford

Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Information And Interaction In Group Risk Taking, Richard Lloyd St. Jean

Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.