Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Motivation And The 40-Hour Community Involvement Program: Their Relationship To Identity Status In First Year University Students, Michael A. Mcdonald

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Purpose: The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the relationship between motivation and identity status in first year university students through examining their participation in the Ontario secondary school community involvement program. This document consists of three separate, but related studies: a scoping review, a mixed-methods research study, and a document review.

Methods: The scoping review was completed using the methodology outlined by Arskey and O’Malley (2005). The Mixed-methods research was conducted using an embedded mixed methods approach. The quantitative aspect was approached from a cross-sectional, descriptive design, with the qualitative component being addressed from a phenomenological perspective. The …

Interesting Shapes Of Vegetables: Is It A Strategy To Promote Consumption Among Preschool Children?, Salma H. Alhabshi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study highlighted the low intake of vegetables by preschool children and determined whether changing the shape of vegetables increased their level of consumption. A new strategy of repeated exposure to interesting-shaped vegetables was a step aimed at increasing vegetable consumption by increasing the fun element in having vegetables as snacks. Vegetables are the less desirable food in comparison to more attractive unhealthy choices available to children, and discovering a strategy to promote vegetables is considered an important step in nutrition. The primary aim was to explore the effect of repeated exposure (eight times) of shaped vegetables on consumption by …

The Effects Of Musical Mood And Musical Arousal On Visual Attention, Angela B. Marti Marca, Tram Nguyen, Jessica Grahn

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The presence of music is a visceral part of the human experience and its influence on cognitive function is a growing area of research in psychology. In particular, perceptual properties of music (mood and arousal) have been shown to significantly affect performance. There has been minimal research in the field on the interaction of mood and arousal and their influence on attention, thus the purpose of this study. Fifty undergraduate students currently enrolled at the University of Western Ontario were recruited for this study. Given that music is a highly subjective experience, participants rated an assortment of music clips on …

Labelling & Intervening In Parental Alienation Cases: A Review Of Canadian Court Decisions 2010-2012, Karendeep Aujla

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Parental alienation was examined using 101 retrospective high-conflict Canadian custody court cases between 2010 and 2012. Previous literature in the debate about whether this phenomenon should be considered a formal diagnosis or syndrome, defining behaviours of parental alienation, the impact on children, the relationship between domestic violence and alienation and use of therapeutic interventions were the major research questions. Findings demonstrate only 2% of judges used the term “Parental Alienation Syndrome.” Parents were likely to make a negative comment about the alienated parent in 90% of cases, while a child was likely to speak negatively of the alienated parent in …

The Effects Of Musical Mood And Musical Arousal On Visual Attention, Angela B. Marti Marca, Tram Nguyen, Jessica Grahn Dr.

Undergraduate Honors Posters

The presence of music is a visceral part of the human experience and its influence on cognitive function has become a growing area of research in psychology. In particular, perceptual properties of music (mood and arousal) have been shown to significantly affect performance. There has been minimal research in the field on the interaction of these perceptual properties and their influence on attentional processes. This research study focused on the effects of musical mood and musical arousal on visual attention. Given that music is a highly subjective experience, participants were asked to rate different music clips on independent dimensions of …

The Interaction Between Spatial Working And Reference Memory In Rats On A Radial Maze, Nicole Ann Guitar

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The present study investigated the interaction between working and reference spatial memory in an effort to develop an animal model of this interaction. Twelve male Long-Evans rats were tested on an eight-arm radial maze in a two-phase procedure. In the study phase, a rat was allowed to enter four randomly selected arms for a food reward placed at the end of each arm. The test phase allowed the rat access to all eight arms, but only the previously unentered arms contained food. Two of the correct test arms were defined as reference memory arms because they were always correct. The …

Individual Differences In Ownership Reasoning: A Twin Study, Callista Forchuk

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Vast similarities in ownership behaviour across species and age ranges have been used to support the notion of an innate basis for ownership reasoning. Using a twin study paradigm, this is the first study to investigate the extent to which genetic and environmental factors contribute to individual differences in ownership reasoning. 65 pairs of adult monozygotic (MZ) twins, and 16 pairs of same-sex dizygotic (DZ) twins completed a 24-item ownership questionnaire, which included items on (1) new ownership and (2) appropriate transfers of ownership. For both of these factors, it was found that MZ correlations were larger than DZ correlations. …

Individual Differences In Ownership Reasoning: A Twin Study, Callista Forchuk

Undergraduate Honors Posters

This study is the first to investigate the extent to which environmental and genetic factors contribute to aspects of ownership reasoning. 65 pairs of adult monozygotic (MZ) twins, and 16 pairs of same-sex dizygotic (DZ) twins completed a 24-item ownership questionnaire, which included items on new ownership and appropriate transfers of ownership. MZ correlations were larger than DZ correlations for both aspects of ownership reasoning, and univariate model fitting indicated that genetic and non-shared environmental factors could account for all individual variation, with shared environmental factors contributing non-significantly. Heritabilities ranged from .36-.57 over both factors. The results support the notion …

A Behavioural Genetics Analysis Of Altruism And Its Relation To The Dark Triad, Maddy Mikulis

Undergraduate Honors Posters

The current study was the first to report a behavioural genetics analysis of altruism and its relationship with the dark triad traits of personality (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy). 228 adult twins completed questionnaires of the dark triad and altruism. A significant correlation between altruism and narcissism was revealed. Altruism was found to be influenced in part by genetic factors as well as non-shared environmental factors. Implications and limitations are discussed.