Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Rfp Program Perseveres: Continuing Efforts For Resilient Families & Communities Despite The Covid-19 Pandemic, Cadence Gazo, Heba Aljumaily, Lora Haynes

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Since 2011, UofL’s Resilient Families Project (RFP) has offered programs at Wayside Christian Mission’s Hotel Louisville to promote evidence-based habits of resilience, mindfulness and happiness in families experiencing homelessness and women in drug and alcohol recovery. RFP’s mission involves growing healthy attachment relations across the lifespan and a sense of community/belonging and purpose. Family/interactive reading and carefully chosen children’s storybooks are the platform for programs that take place Thursdays nearly year-round and typically serve approximately 100 community members. Despite RFP programs having been put on hold through the COVID-19 pandemic, as RFP interns we worked to assess/evaluate programs and develop/refine …

"Life Isn't Fair": Children Know What's Fair, But Expect Groups To Behave Unfairly, Savannah M Quach, Kriss-Ann Gayle, Megan Norris, Nicholaus Noles

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Social mobility is partially based on access to economic and non-economic opportunities. Individuals from disadvantaged or minority groups often have difficulties with social mobility because they do not have equal access to opportunities. Early on, children develop the ability to form personal judgments about social groups and understand their own memberships within them (Patterson et al., 2016). Although children expect people to privilege their own group, they also value fairness (DeJesus, Rhodes, & Kinzler, 2013). Previous studies have focused on children’s understanding of resource distribution. In contrast, the current study examined what children think about opportunity distribution between majority and …

Child And Parent Psychopathology Predict Covid-19 Impact, Nada Kaissieh, Sara Bufferd Ph.D

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Children appear to be a psychologically vulnerable population in global health crises; however, little is known about the role of pre-existing child and parental psychopathology in predicting impact on children and families during global stressors such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health difficulties may worsen the impact of various stressors presented by a pandemic. In the present study, we hypothesized that greater parent-reported children’s internalizing behaviors during preschool age will predict worse impact during the COVID-19 pandemic during early school age, and that parental psychopathology will influence this association. Participants included 151 parents who completed assessments during Time 1 (when …

The Role Of Perfectionism In The Relationship Between Thin-Ideal Internalization And Body Dissatisfaction, Tanner L Wright, Mackenzie Brown B.A., Cheri Levinson Ph.D.

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Research has shown a significant relationship between thin-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction. In addition, research suggests perfectionism is an antecedent to thin-ideal internalization (Boone, 2011). When examining subtypes of perfectionism, Maladaptive Evaluative Concerns (MEC) has been shown to be related to eating disorder (ED) symptoms (Rivière, 2017) both directly and indirectly while the relationship between Personal Standards (PS) and ED symptoms is unknown, though some research suggests it may be adaptive (Bardone-Cone, 2007). Both types of perfectionism have been correlated with thin-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction (Boone, 2010). The purpose of the present project is to examine two subtypes of …

The Role Of Talker In Adjusting For Different Speaking Rates In Speech Perception, Chloe M Sharpe, Christian Stilp

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Speech perception is heavily influenced by acoustic context effects, where perception of a sound is influenced by acoustic properties of surrounding sounds. Talker variability, or the acoustic variability among different talkers, can disrupt these context effects. Studies have shown that talker variability does impact Spectral Contrast Effects (SCEs; an acoustic context effect induced by variations in frequency), but it is unknown if Temporal Contrast Effects (TCEs; an acoustic context effect induced by speech rate) are similarly affected. To test this, on each trial, listeners heard a context sentence (spoken at a fast or slow rate) followed by the target word …

Use Of Spelling Rules In School-Aged Children With Williams Syndrome, Ashley F Williamson, Carolyn B. Mervis, Vitor Neves Guimarães, Caroline Greiner De Magalhães

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Purpose: Researchers evaluating children’s spelling abilities usually score their spellings dichotomously - as correct or incorrect. This type of scoring is not as informative as procedures that take into consideration the plausibility of children’s spellings (Treiman et al., 2016). We examined the spelling abilities of children and adolescents with Williams syndrome (WS), a genetic disorder associated with intellectual disability, to determine if their spellings were based on English orthographic rules. Method: Sixty-six 9–17-year-olds with WS (M=13.50 years, SD=3.14) completed the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-III (Wechsler, 2009) Spelling subtest. Items 6 to 16 were scored using the Ponto software (Kessler, 2017) …

Social Appearance Anxiety Is Strongly Related To Eating Disorder Symptoms Regardless Of Age In Both Clinical Eating Disorder And Nonclinical Cases, Jordan E. Drake, Caroline Christian, Cheri Levinson

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Eating disorders (EDs) are serious mental illnesses that often develop in adolescence and persist in adulthood. Social appearance anxiety (SAA; fear of appearance-based judgment) is a risk factor for EDs and related to ED symptoms. SAA is more prevalent in non-clinical adolescents than non-clinical adults, yet no research has investigated the relationship between SAA and ED symptoms across age. The present study tested if age moderated the relationship between SAA and drive for thinness (DT), bulimic symptoms, and body dissatisfaction in a clinical ED sample (N=952, 28.5%), a nonclinical sample (N=1,693; 51.7%), and the full sample …

Can Exploratory Learning Help To Close The Minority Achievement Gap?, Shannon Nicole Derkson, Marci S. Decaro

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Underrepresented minority (URM) students are disproportionately retained and underperform in STEM disciplines compared to non-URM students, yet are needed in the STEM workforce. Possible causes of this minority achievement gap are social isolation, “chilly” classrooms, low confidence, and stereotype threat (Ballen et al., 2017). Inclusive instruction, which includes active learning, may help to reduce this gap (Saunders & Kardia, 1997). Active learning engages students in learning through activities and/or discussion in class as opposed to passively listening to lectures (Brame, 2016; Freeman et al., 2014). But, not all active learning strategies promote inclusive learning environments. We examined whether a type …

Phone A Friend Or Ask Alexa? Children’S Trust In Voice-Activated Devices, Hailey M Streble, Laura K. Gregg, Evonie L. Daugherty, Lauren N. Girouard, Judith H. Danovitch

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Voice-activated devices such as Google Home, Siri, and Alexa are in many homes and children are interacting with these devices. It is unclear if they treat these devices the way they treat human informants. Children prefer human informants that are reliable and familiar. This study examined whether children believe voice-activated devices provide accurate information. Participants included 40 4- and 5-year-olds and 40 7- and 8-year-olds. Children were introduced to two informants: the experimenter’s good friend and the experimenter’s new device. Children heard questions about personal information (e.g., the experimenter’s favorite color), facts that do not change (e.g., the color of …

Exploratory Learning Using Consistency Problems: Activity Type Matters, Madison E Clark, Campbell Rightmyer Bego, Derek K. Mcclelland, Marci S. Decaro

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Studies have shown that exploration before instruction can improve learning. Students (N= 197) from the psychology participant pool were taught the concept and procedure of standard deviation in one of four conditions. Students were given both direct instruction and a problem to solve in one of two orders: instruction-first, or exploration-first. During the problem-solving activity, students were asked to determine the consistency of a set of numbers. This dataset was set up as a rich dataset, or to highlight contrasting cases. Students then completed a posttest. We compared mean posttest scores to find that exploration before instruction led …

How News Media Coverage Of Crises Promotes Conspiracy Beliefs, Richard L Kornrumpf

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

While scholars of conspiracy theories have recently made great strides in understanding the basic nature and correlates of conspiratorial thinking, we still know little about how conspiracy beliefs are disseminated and communicated, especially when it comes to traditional media. Here we use a unique experiment to investigate whether media coverage of mass shootings – complete with the uncertainty, conflicting reports, and dubious official narratives that characterize such coverage – provides the raw material for conspiracy theories and promotes conspiracy beliefs among viewers. We find that implicit conspiratorial information – that which causes confusion and foments uncertainty – does not enflame …

Stay And Play With Mickey Mouse: Familiar Characters Increase Children’S Exploratory Play, Haley A. Waite, Megan N. Norris, Allison J. Williams, Judith H. Danovitch Ph.D

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

When children are introduced to a novel toy, they explore to discover how the toy works, but do not always discover all of the functions (Bonawitz et al., 2011). Research has shown that children prefer objects with a familiar character on them (Danovitch & Mills, 2014). This study investigates whether the presence of a familiar character’s image on a novel toy encourages exploratory play. Four- and 5-year-olds (n = 40) were presented with a novel toy, containing 5 different functions, that either displayed an image of their favorite familiar character or an image of that character’s color scheme. Children were …

That's Irrelephant: Children's Judgments Of Relevant And Irrelevant Animal Observations, Rebekah C Cook, Alexandra Ducloux, Allison Williams, Judith Danovitch

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Abstract:

The ability to make judgments about different kinds of evidence is an important skill for learning about science. This study investigated if children recognize how helpful relevant and irrelevant information is for evaluating biological explanations, and whether their judgments change with age. Participants were 24 7- and 8-year-olds and 26 9- and 10-year-olds. Children heard a statement about an animal's behavior. Then children heard an explanation for that behavior followed by 2 different observations. One observation was about the same animal but was irrelevant to the explanation. The other observation was about a different animal, but was relevant to …

Project Mk Ultra: A Site Of Forgotten Calamity, Jacoby D Banet

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Project MK Ultra refers to a set of top-secret CIA experiments that took place from 1953 to 1973 and involved unwitting subjects being administered drugs and hypnosis. As there is little information currently existent digitally relating to the project, an archive was established through this essay which relates information regarding the truth of what happened during the experiments without conspiracy theories as are often found in relation to this project. After having done research on the project as a whole and subsequently finding fifteen artifacts that communicate important truths about the project, it can be concluded that the CIA, in …

Eating Expectancies Moderate The Relationship Between Negative Affect And Repetitive Negative Thought In Adolescents And Emerging Adulthood In Relation To Binge Eating Symptoms, Dylan M. Hurst, Leigh C. Brosof M.S., Cheri A. Levinson Ph.D

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Objective: Adolescence and young adulthood are critical time periods for the development of an eating disorder (Dakanalis et al., 2017). Eating expectancies that eating helps manage negative affect (EE; learned associations that eating manages negative emotions), negative affect (NA; negative emotions, such as sadness, guilt, and fear), and repetitive negative thinking (RNT; recurrent intrusive negative thoughts about past or future events) are all predictive of eating disorder behaviors, such as binge eating (Bruce et al., 2009, Berg et al., 2017, McEvoy et al., 2019). However, it is less clear how these risk factors may impact one another to influence the …

Attention In Children With Hearing Loss During Telepractice And In-Person Speech Language Therapy, Rahaf Alrefai, Kaelin Kinney, Maria Kondaurova, Cara Cashon

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

How does the use of telepractice during speech-language therapy affect the attention of children with hearing loss who received cochlear implants (CI) in comparison to in-person intervention? The study examined the production and comprehension of clinician’s speech in children with CIs (n = 5, mean age = 61.6 months, range = 34 months) during one 30 minute in-person session and one sequential tele-session, order counterbalanced. Child verbal, tactile, and visual actions were coded as correct, incorrect, off-task, and silence responses to the clinician’s and maternal speech. In production, correct responses were defined as the correct reproduction of the clinician’s/maternal target …

Communicative Function And Diversity In Provider, Deaf And Hard-Of-Hearing Child, And Caregiver Speech During Telepractice, Rebekah G. O'Bryan, Jessica M. Julian, Maria V. Kondaurova

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

How does the use of telepractice during speech language therapy affect the communicative function and communicative diversity of provider, deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) pediatric patient, and caregiver speech? This study examined communicative functions and diversity in the provider, DHH children with cochlear implants (n = 7, mean age = 4.9 years, range = 3.5-6.75 years), and caregiver utterances during one 30-minute in-person and one sequential tele session, order counterbalanced. To measure communicative function, each utterance was classified into 16 mutually exclusive categories for the child and into 15 categories for the adults. Communicative diversity was calculated as the number of …