Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

How Social Media Influencer Collaborations Are Percieved By Consumers, Veronica L. Thomas, Kendra Fowler, Faegheh Teheran

Marketing Faculty Publications

Within the social media community, influencers engage in a variety of collaborative practices such as tagging, reposting content from, or forming partnerships with other influencers and brands. While such collaborative efforts are a known practice, less is understood about how influencer collaborations affect consumers' perceptions of the partnering influencers, specifically when a status differential exists within the collaboration. We suggest that such collaborative practices, specifically those where the focal influencer has a higher status than the collaborating partner, may help to weaken consumers' perceptions that the influencer's actions are purely self‐focused. A pilot study, analyzing both influencer–influencer collaborations and influencer–brand …

The Application Of Interpersonal Concepts To Reframe Instructor Misbehaviors, Jonathan A. Mendoza

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The research literature surrounding instructor misbehaviors has been largely influenced by two typologies of misbehaviors. Kearney et al. (1991) introduced the first typology of instructor misbehaviors, which included incompetence, offensiveness, and indolence. Goodboy and Myers (2015) later revisited this initial typology, finding additional misbehaviors that reflected changes in the classroom climate, including antagonism and misbehaviors enacted during lectures. Much of the research on instructor misbehaviors utilizes these typologies, using a framework of interpersonal theories as a means of understanding instructor misbehaviors. In my review of the literature, common theories applied included expectancy violations theory, communication privacy management theory, and attribution …

Toward Extended Situational Crisis Communication Theory: Include Visuals, Prior Performance, And Framing Devices, Mohammad Ali

Dissertations - ALL

Human brains are inherently capable of receiving and processing visual messages faster than written text messages. The recent proliferation of internet use, social media platforms, smartphones, and online news media sites facilitated the spread of visual content (e.g., pictures, videos, and data visualizations) online much higher than before. However, visual contents have been largely ignored in crisis communication research, leaving the crisis managers to devise strategic crisis responses and deal with a crisis without sufficient research evidence. Responding to a recent research call to fill the gap, this dissertation conducts a 2 (picture: action vs. damage) × 3 (distinctiveness: high …

“All Skinfolk Ain’T Kinfolk”: Attributions Of Race-Based Discrimination When An Ingroup Member Is The Perpetrator, Christin Alexandra Mujica

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Most research addressing racial/ethnic discrimination is focused on instances perpetrated by White people or someone not of the same race or ethnic background as the target (i.e., outgroup discrimination). However, based on theories of ethnic identity development and internalized racism, it is possible for people of color to discriminate against people in their own racial or ethnic group. The current study used a qualitative approach to 1) understand what people of color believe about racism and discrimination broadly and based on the race of the perpetrator, 2) describe under what situations (e.g., race of perpetrator or overtness/subtlety of the act) …

The Interplay Between Personal Responsibility And Social Determinants Of Health On Attributions Related To Covid-19 Infections, Emma Cox

Honors Theses

While health campaigns often convey that health-related behaviors are the primary causes of preventable illnesses, they ignore the strong relationship between social determinants of health (SDH) and health outcomes (Braveman & Gottlieb, 2014). Ignoring non-behavioral factors in health communication poses both practical and ethical concerns for people with negative health outcomes, as health is linked to many “uncontrollable” factors, including income, education, and employment (Guttman & Ressler, 2001). Several social and environmental factors are linked to covid-19 exposure risk, including neighborhood environment, housing conditions, and occupation (CDC, 2022). Given the associations between causal beliefs about health and policy support, experts …

The Influence Of Dsm-5 Mental Disorders And Type Of Offense On Perceived Guilt Of Offenders, Sydney N. Stone

MSU Graduate Theses

This study addresses the influence of mental disorder in the perceptions of guilt in offenses by offenders with DSM-V mental disorders. An attitudes survey and vignettes describing combinations of DSM-V disorders and offenses were distributed to 42 participants at Missouri State University, who were then asked to make guilt judgements and rate the magnitude of guilt of the vignette characters. An ANOVA test revealed no significant difference between conditions with mental disorders versus conditions without mental disorders. A regression analysis found significant relationships between guilt ratings and specific mental disorder conditions. Type of mental disorder was concluded to influence the …

Constructing The Heroic Whistleblower: A Social Scientific Approach, Brian K. Richardson, Joseph Mcglynn

Heroism Science

Many whistleblowers perform heroic acts, but not all whistleblowers are heroes. Motivation, method, and risk vary across whistleblower contexts. Although many whistleblowers portray aspects of archetypal heroism, research is needed to specify the qualities of heroic whistleblowers from non-heroic whistleblowers. The present study aims to develop an archetype of heroic whistleblowers. We identify five dimensions of whistleblowing heroism and then draw upon data from interviews that we conducted with 32 actual whistleblowers to provide examples of each element. We argue there are five dimensions of the whistleblowing process that distinguish heroic whistleblowers. The five dimensions include 1) motivation for blowing …

Police Perceptions Of Overdose Outreach Program Effectiveness, Laurie T. Becker

Justice Studies Theses

As the number of fatal opioid overdoses rose exponentially, police departments began to realize that traditional, crime control, methods were not working to decrease overdoses. In response, many departments shifted toward a service-centered model of policing, involving overdose outreach visits to encourage treatment to individuals either at-risk of overdosing or having recently experienced a non-fatal overdose. While these programs are increasing, there is little research regarding how police perceive the effectiveness of these programs. Through a survey of officers from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, this study examines the attitudes police officers hold toward the effectiveness of overdose outreach programs …

Judgements Of Attributional Responsibility, Social Dominance Orientation, And The Insanity Defense., Stephanie S. Souter

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Issues of race, law, and mental health meet at a cross-section when it comes to cases involving the not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) plea in which the defendant is a member of a marginalized group. Although the duty of a juror is to reach a fair and unbiased verdict, the reality is that there are many ways that a person’s thoughts can be biased without them being aware of this (Bargh, 2001). This mock juror experiment (the first of its kind), investigated the role that Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and attributional responsibility has in the success of NGRI …

"I Should Have Known". The Perceptual Barriers Faced By Mental Health Practitioners In Recognizing And Responding To Their Own Burnout Symptoms, Marieke Ledingham, P Standen, Chris Skinner, Robbie Busch

Sciences Papers and Journal Articles

Studies have shown burnout to be a significant problem in the mental health field, causing workers serious health problems and reducing quality of care provided to clients. Yet despite mental health practitioners’ training in supporting others’ emotional health, they may be reluctant to seek help for burnout symptoms. This paper addresses this paradox by showing how human cognitive processes could act as powerful blocks to the recognition of and response to burnout. Fifty-five mental health practitioners’ beliefs and perceptions about burnout were examined using qualitative interview and survey data interpreted through a phenomenological perspective on attribution theory. The study identified …

Understanding Of Self-Confidence In High School Students, George Ballane

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Students at a private high school in New Jersey exhibited low academic self-confidence as compared to other indicators on the ACT Engage exam. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to gain an understanding of academic self-confidence, academic performance, and learning within a sample of students. This research explored students' and teachers' perceptions of self-confidence and their impact on academic performance. The research was guided by Weiner's attribution and Bandura's self-efficacy theories. The research questions focused on 3 areas: students' and teachers' perceptions of academic self-confidence as factors impacting students' academic performance; and the perceived relationship between academic self-confidence, …

“I Didn’T Even Think Of This”: Examining The Influence Of Student Disability Accommodation Training On Basic Course Instructors’ Attitudes And Self-Efficacy, Jillian A. Joyce

Basic Communication Course Annual

Despite the growing number of students with disabilities in the university setting, few resources are offered to teach instructors about specific disabilities or provide direction for how to accommodate these students. This study used quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the influence of accommodation training on basic communication course graduate teaching assistants’ attitudes and self-efficacy regarding students with disabilities. The training used attribution theory as a lens to examine stuttering, a stigmatized disability that can uniquely affect the basic course classroom, and explore the logistical requirements for accommodating students in postsecondary education. This study used pretest and posttest data from …

The Stigmatization Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder As Influenced By Gender, Evelina Alex

Senior Independent Study Theses

Children who are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder are inherently more vulnerable to stigma in ways that children without this diagnosis are. The current study was an experimental study in which attitudes towards children with and without Autism were measured through a vignette along with an attribution questionnaire. The purpose of the questionnaire, modified from Ling, Mak, & Cheng (2010) was to analyze peoples’ perceptions about the actions of children with and without Autism. The questionnaire examined sympathy, helping behavioral intention, punitive behavioral intention, perceived controllability, and anger. Disability status was defined as the first independent variable, with gender being …

The Role Of Bipolar Disorder, Stigma, And Hurtful Messages In Romantic Relationships, Callie Parrish

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study explores hurtful messages received by individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder I/II from their romantic partners. Close romantic relationships present opportunities for the utterance of hurtful messages, and the stigmatization that accompanies a mental health diagnosis could affect the attributions made surrounding hurtful messages. By applying attribution theory, the current study increases understanding of how individuals with bipolar disorder experience and attribute hurtful messages. Participants (N = 99) were adults diagnosed with bipolar disorder who had received a hurtful message from their romantic partner. Data was collected via online surveys comprised of Likert scales and short answer questions. …

Second-Language Acquisition And Motivation: A Literature Review, Pat Goodridge

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

This literature review traces the development of motivation in second-language acquisition, a field that has evolved from basic associations between affective factors and second-language performance to nuanced approaches of how motivation is shaped by a learner’s subjective cognition. With this review, we see that motivation’s role has always been central to language learning, and the development of our understanding of this role has mirrored the development of our understanding of second-language acquisition’s psychological and cognitive aspects. Such understanding contributes to many areas of second-language pedagogy, developmental psychology, and applied linguistics, all of which are relevant to our practical research goals …

The Association Between Locus Of Control And Marital Satisfaction Throughout Adulthood, Matthew Elias Kahler

Theses and Dissertations

The correlation between locus of control and marital satisfaction is examined as part of a longitudinal study spanning 44 years and 3 time points. It is predicted that as locus of control has more of an external orientation marital satisfaction will be lower. Participants include high school juniors and seniors in the state of Washington from 1966 with follow-up surveys in 1980 and 2010. Using ordinary least squares regressions, marital satisfaction scores in 1980 or 2010 are predicted by locus of control scores from either 1966 or 1980 with control variables that include gender, income, educational attainment, occupational prestige, and …

Threat Of Technological Unemployment: Are Hiring Managers Discounted For Using Standardized Employee Selection Practices?, Kevin P. Nolan, Nathan T. Carter, Dev K. Dalal

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

Two studies were conducted to examine the tenability of Meehl’s (1986) “threat of technological unemployment” explanation for why practitioners of employee selection resist using standardized decision-making practices. The results of Study 1 support the existence of this threat by demonstrating that practitioners received less credit for the outcomes of employment decisions when structured rather than unstructured interviews were used to evaluate candidates and analytical rather than holistic data combination was used to determine candidates’ overall evaluations. The results of Study 2 support the influence of this threat on employee selection by demonstrating that practitioners recognized the effects using the standardized …

An Investigation Of The Role Of Corporate Social Responsibility Features In Attracting And Retaining Employees, Nicholas L. Bremner

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown in parallel to organizations’ adoption of the triple bottom line (economic, environmental, social) approach to performance, and stakeholders’ expectations for organizations to contribute to a greater social good (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012). As a burgeoning area of research, the CSR literature has mostly been conducted from a macro-level (organization-level) perspective aiming to answer questions about the implications of CSR for organizations and society. Micro-level (individual-level) research is comparatively less common, but is beginning to grow as well (Rupp & Mallory, 2015).

While micro-level research has made significant progress toward answering …

Who’S To Blame? Blame Attributions And Obesity-Related Law And Policy, Lindsey E. Wylie

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Obesity is a foremost public health concern that has received considerable attention. Because of this so-named “epidemic,” law-makers are challenged with implementing effective policies that the public supports. Little is known, however, about the antecedents and consequences of these policies—especially attributions of blameworthiness. Study 1 developed the Obesity Blame Attribution Scale (OBAS). Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that controllability, responsibility and dispositional blame were separate constructs and were part of a higher-order dispositional blame factor. Situational blame was a separate higher-order factor, not correlated with dispositional blame, consisting of blame toward the food industry and towards government policy. Using the OBAS, …

Politics Or Metaphysics? On Attributing Psychological Properties To Animals, Kristin Andrews

Kristin Andrews, PhD

Following recent arguments that there is no logical problem with attributing mental or agential states to animals, I address the epistemological problem of how to go about making accurate attributions. I suggest that there is a two-part general method for determining whether a psychological property can be accurately attributed to a member of another species: folk expert opinion and functionality. This method is based on well-known assessments used to attribute mental states to humans who are unable to self-ascribe due to an early stage of development or impairment, and can be used to describe social and emotional development as well …

After The Flood: Anger, Attribution, And The Seeking Of Information, Robert Griffin, Zheng Yang, Ellen Ter Huurne, Francesca Boerner, Sherry Ortiz, Sharon Dunwoody

Robert Griffin

In an effort to understand what motivates people to attend to information about flood risks, this study applies the Risk Information Seeking and Processing model to explore how local residents responded to damaging river flooding in the Milwaukee area. The results indicate that anger at managing agencies was associated with the desire for information and active information seeking and processing, as well as with greater risk judgment of harm from future flooding, greater sense of personal efficacy, lower institutional trust, and causal attributions for flood losses as being due to poor government management.

College Students’ Perceptions Of Individuals With Anorexia Nervosa: Irritation And Admiration, Danielle M. Geerling, Stephen M. Saunders

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background: Stigmatizing attitudes against anorexia nervosa (AN) may act as barriers to treatment.

Aims: Evaluated college students’ perceptions of AN as compared to major depressive disorder (MDD).

Method: One-hundred two female undergraduates read vignettes describing targets with mild or severe MDD or AN, then rated biological, vanity, and self-responsibility attributions; feelings of admiration, sympathy, and anger; and behavioral dispositions toward coercion into treatment, imitation, and social distance.

Results: AN was perceived more negatively than MDD in terms of vanity attributions, self-responsibility attributions, and feelings of anger, but more positively in terms of admiration and imitation.

Conclusions …

"If You Talk To God, You Are Praying; If God Talks To You, You Have Schizophrenia" : Distinctions Between Psychosis And Spiritual Experience Among Christians, Jennifer Callaghan

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Many clients within the current system who are diagnosed with psychotic spectrum disorders, such as schizophrenia, present with what mental health professionals often consider to be hallucinations and delusions with religious or spiritual content. However, these presentations often have striking similarities to spiritual experiences, in which an individual may report having a prophetic-type experience or some type of otherworldly communication that is embedded within their value and belief-system. The present study seeks to explore how these attributions are made and which contextual factors are associated with individuals' interpretations of these ambiguous presentations. A sample of 177 Christian adults living in …

Youth Incarceration : Restorative Justice And Social Work Practice, Elissa N. Berlinger

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This project examined the problem of juvenile crime and incarceration. I explored how two Criminal Justice theories—Attribution theory and Deterrence theory—support and explain the problem, and how two Social Work theories—Social Justice theory and Responsive Regulation theory—offer an alternative view and solution to the problem. I explained the principles and program models of Restorative Justice and strived to understand why there are so few Social Workers involved in Restorative Justice programs. Through this work, I addressed the following questions: with Restorative Justice carrying similar values as the Social Work profession, why are Social Workers not involved in Restorative Justice programs? …

Perceptions Of Domestic Violence: Leaving Vs. Staying In Abusive Relationships, Katherine M. Arenella

Scripps Senior Theses

This study examined whether participants’ attributions of blame and responsibility toward a victim of domestic violence were influenced by whether or not the victim left her abuser. It also looked at whether or not educational information regarding the difficulties of leaving a violent partner would affect these attributions. Participants, all adults from the United States, either read a vignette in which a woman victim of domestic violence stayed with her abusive husband, or left him. Prior to reading the vignette, some participants were given information about the problems associated with leaving a violent partner, and some were not. All participants …

Theoretical Underpinnings Of Jury Decision Making In Excuse Defense Cases, Christopher Sean Peters

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the typical criminal trial, a defendant is trying to prove he/she is not guilty because they were not the individual that committed the crime. However, another type of defense exists in which the defendant admits they were the culprit, but provides an excuse in an attempt to avoid criminal punishment. These so called "excuse defenses" include insanity, involuntary intoxication, age, and entrapment. In all cases, juries are required to determine whether the defendant had sufficient mental capacity to form the intent to commit the crime. Although jury decision making is a popular research area in psychology, relatively little has …

The Effect Of Gender And Implicit Theories Of Math Ability On Math Interest And Achievement, Jillian Hendricks

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The current study examined whether males and females differed in math achievement and held different beliefs regarding the malleability of math ability at the elementary level. The study also explored the relationships between students’ implicit theories of math ability, math interest, and math achievement. Potential grade level differences in math trait beliefs were also investigated. Study participants consisted of a total of 1802 students from six elementary schools that participate in the Gifted Education in Math and Science (GEMS) Project. Project GEMS is a federal grant project seeking to encourage science and math interest and achievement in children from lowincome …

A Model, Leah K. Hamilton

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

to be released at conclusion of embargo.

Politics Or Metaphysics? On Attributing Psychological Properties To Animals, Kristin Andrews

Sentience Collection

Following recent arguments that there is no logical problem with attributing mental or agential states to animals, I address the epistemological problem of how to go about making accurate attributions. I suggest that there is a two-part general method for determining whether a psychological property can be accurately attributed to a member of another species: folk expert opinion and functionality. This method is based on well-known assessments used to attribute mental states to humans who are unable to self-ascribe due to an early stage of development or impairment, and can be used to describe social and emotional development as well …

Work-Family Conflict And Performance Evaluations: Who Gets A Break?, Kara Hickson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Forty percent of employed parents report that they experience work-family conflict (Galinsky, Bond, & Friedman, 1993). Work-family conflict (WFC) exists when role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible. WFC is associated with decreases in family, job, and life satisfaction and physical health; intention to quit one's job; and increases in workplace absenteeism. Women may be more impacted by WFC than men, as women report completing 65-80% of the child care (Sayer, 2001) and spend 80 hours per week fulfilling work and home responsibilities (Cowan, 1983). Research suggests that WFC can be reduced with social support, such …