Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Stigma As A Predictor Af Parental Willingness To Seek Mental Health Services For Their Children In Rural America, Reed M. Smith

ELAIA

Stigma exists in some capacity towards mental illness. This stigma is a barrier to mental health services for some people. Rural populations are known to have more stigma than their urban counterparts. This is on top of already lacking access to mental health services. This especially affects children. Polaha and Williams (2015) found stigma to be negatively correlated with willingness to seek help in rural parents. This study sought to explore this relationship in a more generalized sample. I posted a survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk that screened for rural parents of children under the age of eighteen. It included …

Emotional Intelligence: The Effect On Social Media Use, Interpersonal Violence, And Gender, Gail Grabczynski

Scholar Week 2016 - present

This study investigated the relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EI), social media use, interpersonal violence and gender. EI is a relatively new topic of research that has been of interest to many organizations due to the proposition that EI assists in the development of individuals. With the proliferation of social media, interpersonal violence and women in the workforce, a determination of a relationship between EI and those variables was warranted. The study was conducted at a small private Christian university. An online survey was administered to 123 sophomores. This study was a cross-sectional quantitative design, that utilized three established instruments to …

The Hot-Cold Empathy Gap And Persuasion: Does Fatigue Boost Or Reduce The Argument Quality Effect?, Alison I. Young

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Research on the hot-cold empathy gap (Nordgren et al., 2007) suggests that participants currently experiencing some visceral state (e.g., fatigue) empathize more with others in that same state and evaluate them more positively when their behavior is impacted by it (e.g., a tired mother yelling at a cashier). Research on persuasion suggests that the quality of a persuasive message (strong vs. weak) has more of an impact among people for whom that message is more relevant (Ajzen, Brown & Rosenthal, 1996), but less of an impact among those who are distracted (Petty, Wells & Brock, 1976). In this study, I …

Stigma As A Predictor Of Parental Willingness To Seek Mental Health Services For Their Children In Rural America, Reed M. Smith

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Background

Stigma exists in some capacity towards mental illness. This stigma is a barrier to mental health services for some people. Rural populations are known to have more stigma than their urban counterparts. This can be partly attributed to the rural value system and the lack anonymity in the tight-knit communities. This is on top of already lacking access to mental health services. This especially affects children. A 2015 study on low-income, urban, African-Americans found self-stigma as a predictor of help seeking. The first study focusing on parental stigma of seeking mental health services for their children in rural America …

What's More Important: Design Or Content? An Analysis Of The Impact Of Website Design, Argument Quality, And Need For Cognition On Information Assessment, Luke David Salomone

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Author Abstract:

When evaluating information online or offline, two important aspects are considered by readers: the credibility of the source and the quality of the argument. It is well known that strong arguments are more persuasive than weak arguments of the same length (Petty and Cacioppo, 1984), and recent research has shown that in an online environment source credibility is determined by the reader in part by the design aspects of website (Lowry et al., 2013). Using a 2 (website quality: good vs bad) x 2 (argument quality: strong vs weak) ANCOVA with need for cognition (NFC) and disposition to …

A Practical Approach To Address Pornography Viewing At Olivet Nazarene University, Jacob Ruetz

Honors Program Projects

The pornography industry gains new ground and pushes new limits every day in an effort to raise revenues and demand. When pornography is evaluated as an efficient business, the potential for dehumanization, physical and emotional degradation, and the deterioration of a person’s spiritual and relational health become possible. On a small, Christian campus like Olivet Nazarene University (ONU), discussing topics as harmful and popular as pornography should be simple. However, the mindset of fear and silence when admitting weakness as a Christian can deter progress. Through a voluntary survey distributed to current undergraduate students, an overview of the student knowledge, …

Direct Human Service Experience And Its Effect On Volunteers' Self-Perceived Generosity And Meeting Volunteer Expectations, Emily M. Borger

Honors Program Projects

A study using participants (n=61) from a small liberal arts college was conducted to analyze the effect of direct human service on volunteers’ self‐perceived generosity, expected versus actual appreciation, expected versus actual satisfaction in work, and expected versus actual value of work. An experimental group (n=31) was given pre‐ and post‐surveys evaluating these dependent variables using a Likert scale. Between the surveys the experimental group received treatment of direct human service at a free community lunch program. The control group (n=30) was given the same pre‐ and postsurveys without treatment.

It was hypothesized that …

Social Support And New Communication Technologies During A Life Stressor, Heather Attig

Faculty Scholarship – Communication

Social support, whether emotional, informational, or tangible, is an innate need and is important to our well-being and our personal relationships. While face-to-face communication has been considered the “gold standard” to relational maintenance, we are also using communication technology to maintain our personal relationships and mobilize our social support networks. Technological advances in communication channels have provided new avenues to social interaction and social support.

The purpose of this study was to explore the social support process across new communication technologies. Specifically, I examined how multiple modes of communication (including face-to-face) were used to seek and receive social support to/from …

Marriage And Religion: The Effect Of Religious Study Materials On Marital Happiness, Rose E M Zell

Honors Program Projects

The purpose of this research was to assess the impact of marital enrichment materials on marital happiness. In addition, the study attempted to determine if gender or number of years married made a difference in regard to the impact on marital happiness. The participants consisted of 56 New Life Christian Church members (28 male and 28 female) who comprised 28 married couples. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control or the experimental group. Every participant took a pre-test survey designed to assess marital happiness across ten different variables. Then the experimental group completed the Love Talk study by Les …

The Eden Project: A City Wide Youth Conference And Fashion Show To Increase Body Image And Self-Esteem In Adolescent Girls, Nicole R. Parsons

Honors Program Projects

This paper focuses on the development of body image and self-esteem in adolescent girls and discusses the impact both positive and negative factors can have during this developmental stage of life. It argues the idea that a girl’s positive feelings regarding her external appearance can drastically influence her self-esteem, which in turn affects how she treats herself, as well how she allows others to treat her. This paper also follows the history of fashion shows, discussing their influence in media outlets that adolescent girls often turn to when searching for an identity in this culture. Pulling from a Christian perspective, …

Political Attitudes Bias The Mental Representation Of A Presidential Candidate's Face, Alison I. Young, Kyle G. Ratner, Russell H. Fazio

Faculty Scholarship – Psychology

Using a technique known as reverse correlation image classification, we demonstrate that the physical face of Mitt Romney represented in people’s minds varies as a function of their attitudes toward Mitt Romney. This provides evidence that attitudes bias how we see something as concrete and well-learned as the face of a political candidate during an election. Practically, this implies that citizens may not merely interpret political information about a candidate to fit their opinion, but that they may construct a political world where they literally see candidates differently.

Deviance In The Sport Of Soccer: The Relationship Between Wearing Brightly Colored Cleats And Aggression, Katherine G. Kulchar

Honors Program Projects

Two studies examined the effects of deviance in the sport of soccer, specifically how players who wear brightly colored cleats are perceived by others, whether or not they act more aggressively, and whether or not other players act more aggressively toward them. In the first study, research was conducted using collegiate soccer players recruited from the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference. The participants filled out an online survey asking a wide range of questions about aggression and sports. Analysis of the data suggests that a relationship exists between players who wear brightly colored cleats and aggression levels. Not only do a …

The Impact Of Career, Psychosocial, And Spiritual Functions Of Mentoring On Undergraduate Students, Tom Middendorf

Ed.D. Dissertations

This study investigated the perceived utilization and importance of career, psychosocial, and spiritual mentoring functions in the mentoring relationships with university personnel at select Nazarene Higher Educational Institutions (NHEI). Quantitative methodology utilizing survey research was used to collect data. A total of 366 traditional undergraduate students were surveyed from the Behavioral Sciences Division at four select NHEIs. Data analysis indicated statistically significant differences on students‟ ethnicity and the mentoring function of protection, denomination and the function of exposure and visibility, college or university and the function of spiritual accountability, major and the functions of exposure and visibility and challenging assignments, …