Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Alcohol Priming And Attribution Of Blame In An Acquaintance Rape Vignette, Elena V. Stepanova, Amy L. Brown

Faculty Publications

Research on nonpharmacological effects of alcohol shows that exposure to alcohol-related cues (i.e., alcohol priming) can increase behaviors associated with actual alcohol consumption. Attributions of responsibility to female victims in sexual assault scenarios are affected by whether or not alcohol was consumed by a victim and/or perpetrator. Victims often receive higher levels of blame if they consume alcohol prior to the assault. This work extends the research on nonpharmacological effects of alcohol into a novel domain of blame attribution toward rape victims. In two studies, participants in lab settings (Study 1; N = 184) and online (Study 2; N = …

Quantity And Quality Limit Detritivore Growth: Mechanisms Revealed By Ecological Stoichiometry And Co-Limitation Theory, Halvor M. Halvorson, Erik Sperfeld, Michelle A. Evans-White

Faculty Publications

Resource quantity and quality are fundamental bottom-up constraints on consumers. Best understood in autotroph-based systems, co-occurrence of these constraints may be common but remains poorly studied in detrital-based systems. Here, we used a laboratory growth experiment to test limitation of the detritivorous caddisfly larvae Pycnopsyche lepida across a concurrent gradient of oak litter quantity (food supply) and quality (phosphorus : carbon [P:C ratios]). Growth increased simultaneously with quantity and quality, indicating co-limitation across the resource gradients. We merged approaches of ecological stoichiometry and co-limitation theory, showing how co-limitation reflected shifts in C and P acquisition throughout homeostatic regulation. Increased growth …

Attractiveness As A Function Of Skin Tone And Facial Features: Evidence From Categorization Studies, Elena V. Stepanova, Michael J. Strube

Faculty Publications

Participants rated the attractiveness and racial typicality of male faces varying in their facial features from Afrocentric to Eurocentric and in skin tone from dark to light in two experiments. Experiment 1 provided evidence that facial features and skin tone have an interactive effect on perceptions of attractiveness and mixed-race faces are perceived as more attractive than single-race faces. Experiment 2 further confirmed that faces with medium levels of skin tone and facial features are perceived as more attractive than faces with extreme levels of these factors. Black phenotypes (combinations of dark skin tone and Afrocentric facial features) were rated …

What's It To Me? Self-Interest And Evaluations Of Financial Conflicts Of Interest, Samuel Bruton, Donald Sacco

Faculty Publications

Disclosure has become the preferred way of addressing the threat to researcher objectivity arising from financial conflicts of interest (FCOIs). This article argues that the effectiveness of disclosure at protecting science from the corrupting effects of FCOIs—particularly the kind of disclosure mandated by US federal granting agencies—is more limited than is generally acknowledged. Current NIH and NSF regulations require disclosed FCOIs to be reviewed, evaluated, and managed by officials at researchers’ home institutions. However, these reviewers are likely to have institutional and personal interests of their own that may undermine the integrity of their evaluations. This paper presents experimental findings …

The Role Of Feature-Based Discrimination In Driving Health Disparities Among Black Americans, Randl B. Dent, Nao Hagiwara, Elena V. Stepanova, Tiffany L. Green

Faculty Publications

Objective: A growing body of research finds that darker skin tone is often associated with poorer physical and mental health in Blacks. However, the psychosocial mechanisms underlying the skin tone-health link remain elusive. The present study seeks to address this knowledge gap by investigating the direct and indirect (through perceived discrimination, socioeconomic status, and self-esteem) effects of skin tone on self-reported physical and mental health.

Design: An urban sample of 130 Blacks aged 35 and above completed a self-administered computerized survey as a part of larger cross-sectional study.

Results: Self-esteem played a particularly important role in mediating the associations between …

Weak Evidence For Increased Motivated Forgetting Of Trauma-Related Words In Dissociated Or Traumatised Individuals In A Directed Forgetting Experiment, Lawrence Patihis, Patricia J. Place

Faculty Publications

Motivated forgetting is the idea that people can block out, or forget, upsetting or traumatic memories, because there is a motivation to do so. Some researchers have cited directed forgetting studies using trauma-related words as evidence for the theory of motivated forgetting of trauma. In the current article subjects used the list method directed forgetting paradigm with both trauma-related words and positive words. After one list of words was presented subjects were directed to forget the words previously learned, and they then received another list of words. Each list was a mix of positive and trauma-related words, and the lists …

A Social Network Study To Improve Collaborative Partnerships Among The Southeastern Health Equity Council (Shec), Candace Forbes Bright, Hannah Scott, Braden Bagley, Jonathan Dennis

Faculty Publications

This report presents research conducted on the relationships among and attributes of members of the Southeastern Health Equity Council (SHEC, herein Council) to provide recommendations for partnerships, collaboration, and the recruitment of new members. The background, methods, results, and recommendations are outlined in detail throughout this report. Social networks are measured and defined as connections among people, organization, and/or other units. SNA is a valuable and innovative tool for recognizing strengths and weaknesses in collaborative partnerships. The evaluative study presented herein can be replicated in other councils within the Regional Health Equity Councils to improve collaborations not only among SHEC …

Dangerous Crossings: Voices From The African Migration To Italy/Europe, Robert M. Press

Faculty Publications

Africans continue to migrate across the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea, where tens of thousands have drowned. In Libya, many suffer enslavement and other harsh treatment as they flee persecution or poverty, or both. Yet there have been few studies of their journey. This study, based primarily on some sixty interviews by the author in 2014–2016 with African migrants in Italy and France, provides a portrait of resilience, courage, and strategic decisions that differs sharply from media images of helplessness. It suggests reconsidering migrant networks and typologies in view of the breakdown and attempted repair of networks on these journeys, …

Psychometric Comparison Of Dissociative Experiences Scales Ii And C: A Weak Trauma-Dissociation Link, Lawrence Patihis, Steven Jay Lynn

Faculty Publications

The debate regarding the relationship between dissociation and trauma has raised questions regarding the validity of measures of dissociation. Dalenberg et al.'s (2012) meta-analysis included studies using the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES II), but excluded the DES-Comparison (DES-C) scale, claiming that it lacked validity as a measure of dissociation. Lynn et al. (2014) contended that omitting those studies might have skewed the results. In the current study, we compared the psychometric properties of both measures in two nonclinical US adult (student, general population) samples to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validity of the scales. We found support for the DES-II …

Studying Guilt Perception In Millennials: Unexpected Effects Of Suspects' Race And Attractiveness, D. Lisa Cothran, Elena V. Stepanova, K. Raquel Barlow

Faculty Publications

The present study explored mock jurors’ guilt judgments with a 2 (Jurors’ Race: Black vs. White) × 2 (Suspects’ Race: Black vs. White) × 2 (Suspects’ Attractiveness: High vs. Low) design in a group of Millennials (N = 331). Black jurors were more lenient; all jurors were more lenient toward Black suspects; and White jurors were less lenient toward Black unattractive suspects. The current study contributes the following novel findings to the literature: documentation of a possible Black experimenter effect in mock jurors; an interaction among suspects’ race, suspects’ attractiveness, and jurors’ race, suggesting that racial bias exhibited by …

Preadolescent Sensation Seeking And Early Adolescent Stress Relate To At-Risk Adolescents' Substance Use By Age 15, Nora E. Charles, Charles W. Mathias, Ashley Acheson, Donald M. Dougherty

Faculty Publications

Background and aims

Substance use during adolescence can lead to the development of substance use disorders and other psychosocial problems. These negative outcomes are especially likely for individuals who use substances at earlier ages and those who engage in heavier use during adolescence, behaviors which are both more common among youth at higher risk for developing a substance use disorder, such as those with a family history of substance use disorders (FH +). Factors such as increased sensation seeking and greater exposure to stressors among FH + youth may influence these associations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to …

Group Identity As A Source Of Threat And Means Of Compensation: Establishing Personal Control Through Group Identification And Ideology, Chris Goode, Lucas A. Keefer, Nyla R. Branscombe, Ludwin E. Molina

Faculty Publications

Compensatory control theory proposes that individuals can assuage threatened personal control by endorsing external systems or agents that provide a sense that the world is meaningfully ordered. Recent research drawing on this perspective finds that one means by which individuals can compensate for a loss of control is adherence to ideological beliefs about the social world. This prior work, however, has largely neglected the role of social groups in defining either the nature of control threat or the means by which individuals compensate for these threats. In four experiments (N = 466), we test the possibility that group-based threats to …

Spring Temperature Variability Over Turkey Since 1800 Ce Reconstructed From A Broad Network Of Tree-Ring Data, Nesibe Köse, H. Tuncay Güner, Grant L. Harley, Joel Guiot

Faculty Publications

The meteorological observational period in Turkey, which starts ca. 1930 CE, is too short for understanding long-term climatic variability. Tree rings have been used intensively as proxy records to understand summer precipitation history of the region, primarily because they have a dominant precipitation signal. Yet, the historical context of temperature variability is unclear. Here, we used higher-order principle components of a network of 23 tree-ring chronologies to provide a high-resolution spring (March–April) temperature reconstruction over Turkey during the period 1800– 2002. The reconstruction model accounted for 67 % (Adj. R 2 = 0.64, p < 0.0001) of the instrumental temperature variance over the full calibration period (1930–2002). The reconstruction is punctuated by a temperature increase during the 20th century; yet extreme cold and warm events during the 19th century seem to eclipse conditions during the 20th century. We found significant correlations between our March–April spring temperature reconstruction and existing gridded spring temperature reconstructions for Europe over Turkey and southeastern Europe. Moreover, the precipitation signal obtained from the tree-ring network (first principle component) showed highly significant correlations with gridded summer drought index reconstruction over Turkey and Mediterranean countries. Our results showed that, beside the dominant precipitation signal, a temperature signal can be extracted from tree-ring series and they can be useful proxies in reconstructing past temperature variability.

Everyone's Invited: A Website Usability Study Involving Multiple Library Stakeholders, Elena S. Azadbakht, John Blair, Lisa Jones

Faculty Publications

This article describes a usability study of the University of Southern Mississippi Libraries website conducted in early 2016. The study involved six participants from each of four key user groups— undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and library employees—and consisted of six typical library search tasks, such as finding a book and an article on a topic, locating a journal by title, and looking up hours of operation. Library employees and graduate students completed the study’s tasks most successfully, whereas undergraduate students performed relatively simple searches and relied on the Libraries’ discovery tool, Primo. The study’s results displayed several problematic features …

Conformity Motives For Alcohol Use Are Associated With Risky Sexual Behavior Among Alcohol-Dependent Patients In Residential Substance Abuse Treatment, Sarah J. Bujarksi, Daniel W. Capron, Kim L. Gratz, Matthew T. Tull

Faculty Publications

Alcohol misuse is associated with a variety of negative outcomes, including risky sexual behavior (RSB). In an attempt to better identify the subset of individuals at greatest risk for these negative outcomes, a growing body of research has begun to examine the role of alcohol use motives in risk for alcohol use-related negative outcomes. Although the majority of research in this area has focused on coping motives, conformity motives may be particularly relevant to outcomes such as RSB. Specifically, conformity motives may operate as a proxy risk factor for RSB, reflecting the tendency to engage in interpersonally-oriented risk behaviors in …

Election, News Cycles, And Attention To Disasters, Candace Forbes Bright, Braden Bagley

Faculty Publications

Objective: The purpose of this pilot study was to determine whether 60 mins of intermittent pneumatic compression therapy (IPC) could acutely increase leg blood flow-induced shear stress and enhance vascular endothelial function in persons with spinal cord injury (SCI).

Design: Pretest with multiple posttests, within subject randomized control design.

Setting: University of Southern Mississippi, Spinal Cord Injury Research Program within the School of Kinesiology, recruiting from the local community in Hattiesburg, Jackson, and Gulfport, MS.

Participants: Eight adults with SCa

Purpose: Political elections, especially presidential elections, have a tendency to overshadow other events, including disasters. …

Does Personality Similarity In Bottlenose Dolphin Pairs Influence Dyadic Bond Characteristics?, Kelsey R. Moreno, Lauren Highfill, Stan A. Kuczaj

Faculty Publications

Social structures are critical to the success of many species and have repercussions on health, well-being, and adaptation, yet little is known about the factors which shape these structures aside from ecology and life history strategies. Dyadic bonds are the basis of all social structures; however, mechanisms for formations of specific bonds or patterns in which individuals form which types of bonds have yet to be demonstrated. There is a variety of evidence indicating personality may be a factor in shaping bonds, but this relationship has not been explored with respect to bond components and is yet to be demonstrated …

Rest In The Zebrafish, David J. Echevarria, Kanza M. Khan

Faculty Publications

The purpose and function of sleep has been the topic of discussion for several centuries. Though our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the propagation and maintenance of rest states has undergone significant improvement, much remains to be learned with regards to the effects of disrupted sleep on diseased states. A deeper understanding of the neural circuitry and associated phenotypes would allow for the identification of sleep-related pathologies as well as the development of therapies for individuals with sleep disorders. To this end, the zebrafish (Danio rerio) pose a great advantage. Zebrafish are a diurnal animal, and the sleep rhythms of …

Exploring Perspectives Of Students Studying Communication Toward Media Access And Use: A Q Methodological Study, Angel Riggs, Diane Montgomery, Cindy Blackwell

Faculty Publications

This study sought to help communication educators better understand young news consumers who have grown up among a plethora of media options. To better reach and educate today’s up-and-coming media professionals, those in the industry need a better understanding of modern media students’ perspectives of news. This study used Q methodology and relies on Stephenson’s Play and Dutta-Bergman’s Media Complementarity theories. Students on a large, comprehensive university campus pursuing undergraduate studies via a communications-related major were asked to complete a Q sort and demographic instrument. Thirty-four participants resulted in 33 usable sorts. The following labels were applied to the three …