Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Exposure To Prenatal Maternal Distress And Infant White Matter Neurodevelopment, Catherine H. Demers, Maria M. Bagonis, Khalid Al-Ali, Sarah E. Garcia, Martin A. Styner, John H. Gilmore, M. Camille Hoffman, Benjamin L. Hankin, Elysia Poggi Davis

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

The prenatal period represents a critical time for brain growth and development. These rapid neurological advances render the fetus susceptible to various influences with life-long implications for mental health. Maternal distress signals are a dominant early life influence, contributing to birth outcomes and risk for offspring psychopathology. This prospective longitudinal study evaluated the association between prenatal maternal distress and infant white matter microstructure. Participants included a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of 85 mother–infant dyads. Prenatal distress was assessed at 17 and 29 weeks’ gestational age (GA). Infant structural data were collected via diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) at 42–45 weeks’ …

Do Loneliness And Social Isolation Predict Mortality Because Of Hazardous Drinking?, Jussi Tanskanen, Sarah N. Arpin, Cynthia D. Mohr

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction: Subjective feelings of loneliness and objective social isolation have been consistently connected with ill-health and mortality, though little work has empirically examined the mechanisms explaining the adverse effects. This study examines whether alcohol consumption explains the connection of loneliness and social isolation on mortality in different age and gender groups.

Methods: The sample comprised a representative 1994 Finnish sample (n = 8,650) matched with 22-year follow-up mortality data. A multigroup path analysis with discrete survival time analyses was conducted.

Results: There were unique differences in the associations between loneliness, social isolation, alcohol consumption, and mortality based on age and …

Would You Trust A Woman? The Impact Of Gender On Organizational Trust In Student Leadership At Universities, Abigail Heller, Delaney Snead

Fall Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

We performed an extension study on a previous research article My Fair Lady? Inferring Organizational Trust from the Mere Presence of Women in Leadership Roles and applied it to college students at Longwood University. The research question being examined was whether or not female student leaders are perceived to show more organizational trust than male student leaders. We hypothesized that female student leaders would be more trusted than male student leaders within the organizations of the Student Government Association (SGA) and Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL).

The Impact Of Compliments, Olivia Bazzell, Kellie Brown, Jonas Kalchner

Fall Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

This study explored the positive impacts of two different types of compliments, compliments on personality and compliments on physical characteristics. This study was an extension of another study that focused on how people underestimate the positive impact of their compliments. We predicted that personality-based compliments would have a higher positive impact that compliments based on physical characteristics.

A Comparison Of Emotional Regulation Strategies, Andrew Brittingham, Samantha Morris

Fall Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

The goal of this study is to examine varying emotional regulation strategies and their efficacy of alleviating psychological distress. Distress is a subjective experience each individual is exposed to on a daily basis and identifying and understanding strategies to alleviate distress is not only valuable in psychological research but can translate to cultivating wellbeing in everyday life.

Clothing And Compliments, Eva Copenhaver, Alexander Elliot, Jacob Gagat

Fall Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

We seek to see if the clothing a compliment receiver wears will affect how people perceive the importance of their compliments. If a participant compliments a confederate wearing informal clothing, they will then perceive their compliments as being less valuable than if they were to compliment a confederate with formal clothing. We did this by having individuals fill out a survey that evaluates how they believe their compliment will make someone feel. Then they went out and complimented a confederate. And finally, they took one more survey that evaluated how they believe their compliment made the individual feel.

The Effect Of The Compliment Type On The Estimated Value Of The Compliment, Jacob Shope, Audrey Lemons, Payton Davenport

Fall Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

The aim of this research study was to explore factors related to stranger interaction and compliment type. Specifically, does the complimenting type, attire, or physical appearance, affect the estimation of the compliment's value on the receiver. Our prediction was that participants would underestimate their compliment's value on the receiver, if they gave an attire compliment, as compared to giving a physical appearance compliment.

Investigating Smartphone Presence On Social Enjoyment During Various Conversations, Jamiah Sutton, Cicely Dunaway

Fall Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

The goal of this study was to explore how the presence of cell phones interferes with individuals' enjoyment levels after having social interactions. We predict that during casual conversations social interaction enjoyment levels will not be affected whether there is a smartphone or not compared to in meaningful conversations enjoyment levels would be higher without the presence of a smartphone versus no smartphone. To test this prediction we had participants engage in discussion about topics that were deemed casual or meaningful while either having their phone on the table or put away. Social enjoyment levels were assessed through a questionnaire …

Loosening The Definition Of Culture: An Investigation Of Gender And Cultural Tightness, Alexandra S. Wormley, Matthew Scott, Kevin Grimm, Norman P. Li, Bryan K. C. Choy, Adam B. Cohen

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

To date, the study of cultural tightness has been largely limited to exploring the strictness of social norms and the severity of punishments at the level of nations or regions. However, cultural psychologists concur that humans gather cultural information from more than just their nationality. Gender is a cultural identity that confers its own social norms. Across three studies using multi-method designs, we find that American women feel the culture surrounding their gender is “tighter” than that for men, and that this relationship is mediated by perceived gender-related threats to the self. However, in a follow-up study in Singapore, we …

Reinforcer Preferences Of Liberty University Professors, Sarah Stoker

Senior Honors Theses

Prior research in Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) has found positive reinforcement effective for increasing work performance when rewards are reinforcing to the individual. Research also supports the efficacy of stimulus preference assessments (SPAs) in identifying reinforcers. The purpose of this study was to identify reinforcers for faculty at Liberty University. The hypotheses were, in a sample of faculty in Liberty University’s School of Behavioral Sciences (1) potential reinforcers other than monetary reinforcers will be identified as high-preference items and (2) tangible items will be identified as low-preference items. Hypotheses were tested using an online survey with Likert scales and written …

Psy 101: Introductory Psychology Oer Curation, Chealsye Bowley

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of potential OER for the high-enrollment introductory psychology course at GVSU, and is based on a sample of syllabi rather than for a specific instructor.

New Research Suggests Cat And Dog ‘Moms’ And ‘Dads’ Really Are Parenting Their Pets: Here’S The Evolutionary Explanation Why, Shelly Volsche

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Have you noticed more cats riding in strollers lately? Or bumper stickers that read, “I love my granddogs”? You’re not imagining it. More people are investing serious time, money and attention in their pets.

It looks an awful lot like parenting, but of pets, not people.

Can this kind of caregiving toward animals really be considered parenting? Or is something else going on here?

Ouachita Appoints Dr. Julyse Migan-Gandonou Horr As Director Of Applied Behavior Analysis Program, Kiki Schleiff Cherry, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

Dr. Julyse Migan-Gandonou Horr has been named director of the master’s degree program in applied behavior analysis (ABA) at Ouachita Baptist University, effective January 2022.

Horr (pronounced HAW) is a doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) as well as a Licensed Behavior Analyst (LBA). She has worked in the field for more than 10 years as a clinician, educator and researcher and is the owner and founder of ABA Clinical & Training Solutions consulting agency. Horr has published three research studies and has presented her work at national and international conferences. She has also developed and implemented training curricula for …

Childhood Adversity And Resilience (Psyc 315) Syllabus, Raquel Lopez

Open Access Academic Service Learning Syllabi

This course is designed to give students a multilevel perspective on the social, biological, and neurological consequences of childhood adversity, such as poverty, maltreatment, and institutionalization. Students will learn about the importance of timing and duration of adversity as well as type of adversity. Childhood adversity and its influence on the child’s social attachments, biological health, and mental well-being will also be examined. Emphasis will be placed on understanding how the biological realities of early adversity contribute to various emotional and behavioral problems later in life. Students will also consider how some children appear resilient in the face of these …

Exposure To Covid-19 Is Associated With Increased Altruism, Particularly At The Local Level, Gianluca Grimalda, Nancy R. Buchan, Orgul D. Ozturk, Adriana C. Pinate, Giulia Urso, Marilynn B. Brewer

Faculty Publications

Theory posits that situations of existential threat will enhance prosociality in general and particularly toward others perceived as belonging to the same group as the individual (parochial altruism). Yet, the global character of the COVID-19 pandemic may blur boundaries between ingroups and outgroups and engage altruism at a broader level. In an online experiment, participants from the U.S. and Italy chose whether to allocate a monetary bonus to a charity active in COVID-19 relief efforts at the local, national, or international level. The purpose was to address two important questions about charitable giving in this context: first, what influences the …

Trigger Warnings In Psychology Classrooms?: Comparing Sexes From A Diverse Religious Institution, Jasmine Collard, Herbert W. Helm Jr

Faculty Publications

Sensitive, oftentimes unsettling topics are inherent, especially in psychology education (Boysen et al., 2018). Prior notification - also known as trigger warnings - to help students prepare for, or avoid, possibly disturbing, upcoming education topics (Boysen, 2017, p. 164) are being pushed for by college students on potentially disturbing content. We previously replication Guy A. Boysen’s “Trigger Warnings in psychology Classes: What Do Students Think?” and found that students from a diverse, religious institution had few significant differences, but, in general, the results from the two data sets were quite similar (Kim et al, 2020). To expand on this knowledge, …

Understanding Inclusion And Diversity, Julia Lovett, Julia A. Lovett

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

An "I" For An "I": A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Instigated And Reciprocal Incivility, Lauren S. Park, Larry R. Martinez

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Incivility and its negative impacts on individuals, teams, and organizations have been widely studied in workplace contexts, but the literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of incivility from the instigator's perspective. This meta-analysis of instigated incivility included 35,344 workers from 76 independent samples. Results showed that instigated incivility was related to several correlates including psychological ill-being, ρ = .36, and well-being, ρ = -.17; physical well-being, ρ = -.25; personal dispositions that are risk factors, ρ = .47, and preventative factors, ρ = -.34; negative, ρ = .28, and positive, ρ = -.33, job attitudes; positive team characteristics, ρ = -.28; …

Timing Of Childhood Adversities And Self-Injurious Thoughts And Behaviors In Adolescence, Samantha J. North, Kathryn R. Fox, Jenalee R. Doom

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Greater childhood adversity predicts a higher likelihood of later self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITB). There is little research focused on whether the timing of childhood adversity predicts SITB. The current research examined whether the timing of childhood adversity predicted parent- and youth-reported SITB at age 12 and 16 years in the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN) cohort (n = 970). We found that greater adversity at age 11–12 years consistently predicted SITB at age 12 years, while greater adversity at age 13–14 years consistently predicted SITB at age 16 years. These findings suggest there may be sensitive …

Research On Psychology In India And South Africa A Comparative Scientometric Study, Praveen Bhoopal Hulloli

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Psychology is one of the field in which constant research is going on, the main objective of this paper is to compare the quality of research output of the two countries like India and South Africa in the field of psychology. The study is conducted by taking citations from WOS database. In this paper the analysis of 14,30,700 global research publications out of which, India contributed 12,543 (0.88%), 96,871 citations with 107 h-index and South Africa 9,938 (0.69%) papers, 1,21,385 citations with 126 h-index received is considered. Study during the years from 2001to 2020 has been compared in the form …

Stigma And Juror Bias Toward Mentally Ill Defendants, Sydney Garrison

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study examined the influence of mental illness on mock juror decisions in a criminal case. With the knowledge that mental illness continues to be highly stigmatized, I hypothesized that the presence of a mental illness in a defendant of a violent crime would have significant effects on participants’ case decisions and their perception of the defendant’s guilt. Participants in the study read a fictional vignette describing a homicide and a defendant in which the defendant’s mental illness diagnosis was varied (major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, no mental illness). Participants were then required to answer 6 questions regarding …

Reducing Prejudice Through Law: Evidence From Experimental Psychology, Roseanna Sommers, Sara Burke

Law & Economics Working Papers

Can antidiscrimination law effect changes in public attitudes toward minority groups? Could learning, for instance, that employment discrimination against people with clinical depression is illegal cause members of the public to be more accepting toward people with mental health conditions? In this Article, we report the results of a series of experiments that test the effect of inducing the belief that discrimination against a given group is legal (vs. illegal) on interpersonal attitudes toward members of that group. We find that learning that discrimination is unlawful does not simply lead people to believe that an employer is more likely to …

Social Media, Stress And Sleep Deprivation: A Triple “S” Among Adolescents, Micajah Daniels, Manoj Sharma, Kavita Batra

Environmental & Occupational Health Faculty Publications

This commentary is aimed to discuss the impact of social media or the internet and engagement on youth development and comprehend these complex interrelationships. The discussion will serve as an important basis for designing targeted interventions to promote the judicious use of social media and meaningful engagement among youth. Problematic social media use (SMU) among adolescents may be associated with sleep deprivation, emotional distress, and adoption of maladaptive behaviors. Depression and stress are most notably connected to online harassment from SMU or cyberbullying. Degradation, threats, fake profiles, cyberstalking and unwanted comments are some examples of cyberbullying. Given the critical developmental …

The Future Of Forensic Psychology, William J. Lasala

Undergraduate Research

Throughout my years at La Salle University as a dual Psychology and Criminal Justice major, I have had the opportunity to study and learn about a variety of different topics regarding these two fields. The specific field that I was drawn towards the most was the field of forensic psychology, which is why it is the topic of my research project. My project’s main goal is to ensure that forensic psychology, with some new improvements, continue to be a leading force in both the field of criminal justice and psychology. Specifically, my project focuses on the future of forensic psychology …

The Psychology Of Sustainability: Understanding And Encouraging A Sustainable Lifestyle, Bryana Leverentz

Antonian Scholars Honors Program

As we enter a world filled with more and more natural disasters and catastrophes that threaten our very existence as well as the existence of so many species around us, we have to ask ourselves, why are we not acting to save the planet including the community of life that lives on it? The psychology of sustainability explores what motivates individuals to take sustainable action in their daily lives, as well as how this action influences their wellbeing and connection with their environment. The psychology of sustainability holds the key leading to more sustainable development at a local, national, and …

The Future Of Women In Psychological Science, June Gruber, Jane Mendle, Kristen A. Lindquist, Toni Schmader, Lee Anna Clark, Eliza Bliss-Moreau, Modupe Akinola, Lauren Atlas, Deanna M. Barch, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Jessica L. Borelli, Tiffany N. Brannon, Silvia A. Bunge, Belinda Campos, Jessica Cantlon, Rona Carter, Adrienne R. Carter-Sowell, Serena Chen, Michelle G. Craske, Amy J. C. Cuddy, Alia Crum, Lila Davachi, Angela L. Duckworth, Sunny J. Dutra, Naomi I. Eisenberger, Melissa Ferguson, Brett Q. Ford, Barbara L. Fredrickson, Sherryl H. Goodman, Alison Gopnik, Valerie Purdie Greenaway, Kate L. Harkness, Mikki Hebl, Wendy Heller, Jill Hooley, Lily Jampol, Sheri L. Johnson, Jutta Joormann, Katherine D. Kinzler, Hedy Kober, Ann M. Kring, Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Tania Lombrozo, Stella F. Lourenco, Kateri Mcrae, Joan K. Monin, Judith T. Moskowitz, Misaki N. Natsuaki, Gabriele Oettingen, Jennifer H. Pfeifer, Nicole Prause, Darby Saxbe, Pamela K. Smith, Barbara A. Spellman, Virginia Sturm, Bethany A. Teachman, Renee J. Thompson, Lauren M. Weinstock, Lisa A. Williams

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

There has been extensive discussion about gender gaps in representation and career advancement in the sciences. However, psychological science itself has yet to be the focus of discussion or systematic review, despite our field’s investment in questions of equity, status, well-being, gender bias, and gender disparities. In the present article, we consider 10 topics relevant for women’s career advancement in psychological science. We focus on issues that have been the subject of empirical study, discuss relevant evidence within and outside of psychological science, and draw on established psychological theory and social-science research to begin to chart a path forward. We …

The Relationship Between Perceived Neighborhood Disorder And Type 2 Diabetes Risk Across Different Racial/Ethnic Groups, Min Yu, Jennifer N. Robinette

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Approximately 32 million Americans have Type 2 Diabetes and that number is growing rapidly. Type 2 Diabetes is sensitive to environmental factors, and higher prevalence rates are often observed in disordered neighborhoods (i.e., those with more trash and vandalism). Through discriminatory practices such as redlining, racially restrictive covenants, urban renewal, and gentrification, marginalized racial/ethnic groups are more likely to live in disordered neighborhoods compared to non-Hispanic Whites. These disparities may also contribute to similar disparities in Type 2 Diabetes rates. Yet, research indicates that there may be racial/ethnic differences in the interpretation of neighborhood disorder as a threat to health …

The Impact Of Anxiety On Romantic Relationship Satisfaction, Mykala Green

Psychology Student Scholarship

Major: Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Joanna Morris

Effects Of 3,4-Methamphetamine On Cognitive Empathy In Participants With Antisocial Personality Disorder, Emily P. Bosiacki

Psychology Student Scholarship

Emily Bosiacki ’21
Majors: Biology and Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Victoria Templer, Psychology

3,4-Methamphetamine (METH) has not been studied as a treatment method for people who have Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD). ASPD is mainly characterized by a lack of cognitive and emotional empathy. Previous research expresses that emotional empathy is achievable through drug treatment with empathogens such as ecstacy and psilocybin, but there has been no successful treatment to improve cognitive empathy. METH has not been used in previous research due it being very addictive and detrimental to cognitive function if taken at high levels over an extended period of …

Does Methamphetamine (Ma) Cause Cognitive And Neurological Deficits? An Ecologically Valid Approach, Claire Stover

Psychology Student Scholarship

Major: Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Victoria Templer, Psychology

Methamphetamine Use Disorder (MUD), which is believed to cause cognitive and neurological deficits, is a growing public health concern in the United States. However, current animal constructs of MUD do not model human use patterns. MA users ramp up to a dosage of ~0.75 mg/kg, but current animal models utilize dosages of 3-15 mg/kg. Observed cognitive and neurological deficits may be caused by neurotoxic dosages of MA, not MA use itself. To test this hypothesis, mice were injected with MA twice/day, five days/week, for six months. Dosage increased over the first month …