Psychology Commons^™

Profiling Cybercriminals: Behavioral Analysis And Motivations Behind Cybercrime Activities, A'Shya Latrice Reynolds

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

The study of cybercriminal behavior and motivations is crucial for understanding and combating the evolving landscape of digital crime. This paper delves into the intricate realm of cybercrime profiling, employing a multidisciplinary approach to dissect the behavioral patterns and underlying motivations of cybercriminals. Drawing from psychology, sociology, and criminology, the research examines the intricate interplay of individual traits, social dynamics, and technological factors that shape cybercriminal activities.

Through analysis of case studies and research, this paper uncovers the diverse range of motivations driving individuals towards engaging in cybercrime. From financial gain and ideological extremism to thrill-seeking and revenge, cybercriminals exhibit …

Attention And Task Engagement During Automated Driving, James Richard Unverricht

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Many young drivers suffer fatal crashes each year in the United States at a rate approximately three times greater than more experienced drivers. Automated driving systems may serve to mitigate young drivers high crash rates but remain underexplored in research. This dissertation project examined the effects of levels of automation and interestingness of auditory clips on latent hazard anticipation in young drivers during simulated driving. Participants drove a vehicle at varying levels of vehicle automation (SAE Level 0, 2, or 3) in simulated scenarios, each containing a latent hazard event during which a boring, neutral, or interesting auditory clip was …

Comparison Between The Effects Of Acute Physical And Psychosocial Stress On Feedback-Based Learning, Xiao Yang, Brittany Nackley, Bruce H. Friedman

Psychology Faculty Publications

Stress modulates feedback-based learning, a process that has been implicated in declining mental function in aging and mental disorders. While acute physical and psychosocial stressors have been used interchangeably in studies on feedback-based learning, the two types of stressors involve distinct physiological and psychological processes. Whether the two types of stressors differentially influence feedback processing remains unclear. The present study compared the effects of physical and psychosocial stressors on feedback-based learning. Ninety-six subjects (Mage = 19.11 years; 50 female) completed either a cold pressor task (CPT) or mental arithmetic task (MAT), as the physical or psychosocial stressor, while electrocardiography and …

The Association Between Vigorous Physical Activity And Alcohol Use, Christina James, Emily Junkin, Cathy Lau-Barraco

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Evidence supports a positive association between excessive exercise and alcohol use among young adults. Past research has looked at the effects of medium-intensity physical activity regarding alcohol use prevention among college students, suggesting a positive linear association between these two variables. However, prior research has primarily focused on men. Thus, questions regarding health-compromising behaviors, such as excessive drinking and exercise among women, remain to be investigated. Further, questions have been raised concerning the pattern of association between vigorous physical activity and alcohol use among men versus women. The present study aims to replicate prior research by evaluating (1) the association …

Boring But Demanding: Using Secondary Tasks To Counter The Driver Vigilance Decrement For Partially Automated Driving, Scott Mishler, Jing Chen

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objective

We investigated secondary–task–based countermeasures to the vigilance decrement during a simulated partially automated driving (PAD) task, with the goal of understanding the underlying mechanism of the vigilance decrement and maintaining driver vigilance in PAD.

Background

Partial driving automation requires a human driver to monitor the roadway, but humans are notoriously bad at monitoring tasks over long periods of time, demonstrating the vigilance decrement in such tasks. The overload explanations of the vigilance decrement predict the decrement to be worse with added secondary tasks due to increased task demands and depleted attentional resources, whereas the underload explanations predict the vigilance …

Psychosocial Factors And E-Cigarette Use: An Application Of Problem Behavior Theory, Samantha A. Fitzer

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use has increased among the U.S. population in recent years with estimates showing that nearly 15% of American adults have tried an e-cigarette (Villarroel et al., 2020). Problem Behavior Theory (PBT) has successfully outlined a variety of factors that affect an individual’s engagement in an identified problem behavior. In an attempt to better understand e-cigarette use among an emerging adult population (i.e., college student population), the purpose of the current study was to explore how a large subset of PBT factors may differentiate between e-cigarette user categories (nonuser, non-daily user, daily user). A sample of 487 college …

The Effects Of Flood Warning Information On Driver Decisions In A Driving Simulator Scenario, Katherine Rose Garcia

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Flood warnings are a type of risk communication that alerts the public of potential floods. Flood warnings can be communicated through mobile devices and should convey enough information to keep the user safe during a flood situation. However, the amount of detail included in the warning, such as the depth of the flood, may vary. The purpose of this study was to: (a) extend our prior research on flood warnings by recreating the written driving scenarios into the driving simulator; (b) deepen the understanding of human decision-making in risky situations; and (c) investigate how to best inform drivers of floods …

The Impact Of First-Person Perspective Text And Images On Drivers’ Comprehension, Learning Judgments, Attitudes, And Intentions Related To Safe Road-Sharing Behaviors, Alexandra Bryson Proaps

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Drivers and cyclists lack an alignment of road sharing knowledge, attitudes, and expectations, resulting in unnecessary fatalities. Educational countermeasures need to present information that captures drivers’ interest by being personally relevant, facilitate elaboration and synthesis of new information with existing knowledge, and change attitudes, intentions, and behavior. Well-documented health-related communication methods were employed to determine their effectiveness in a transportation domain. Health countermeasure designers use first-person perspective to improve narrative instruction outcomes, based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Exploring narrative perspective-taking as a design tool requires the integration of multiple disciplines.

Our design case stems …

Data Quality And Study Compliance Among College Students Across 2 Recruitment Sources: Two Study Investigation, Abby L. Braitman, Megan Strowger, Jennifer L. Shipley, Jordan Ortman, Rachel I. Macintyre, Elizabeth A. Bauer

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Models of satisficing suggest that study participants may not fully process survey items and provide accurate responses when survey burden is higher and when participant motivation is lower. Participants who do not fully process survey instructions can reduce a study’s power and hinder generalizability. Common concerns among researchers using self-report measures are data quality and participant compliance. Similarly, attrition can hurt the power and generalizability of a study.

Objective: Given that college students comprise most samples in psychological studies, especially examinations of student issues and psychological health, it is critical to understand how college student recruitment sources impact data …

An Experimental Investigation Into The Impact Of Acute Stress On Alcohol Craving Through Implicit Coping Motives, Douglas J. Glenn

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Drinking to cope with negative emotions is associated with many negative alcohol-related outcomes such as increased alcohol use, drinking-related problems, and alcohol use disorders. An acute stressor is one example of a stimulus leading to negative emotions that an individual may wish to avoid. Research has shown that acute stress positively relates to drinking. Specifically, previous experimental studies have shown that individuals exposed to a stressor drink more alcohol and have stronger urges to drink than those not exposed to a stressor. Thus, it may be that drinking to cope explains why people experience alcohol cravings after experiencing a stressor. …

An Exploratory Study Of Older Adults’ Emotions To Social Isolation And Their Coping Activities During Covid-19 Pandemic, Letrice Samuels, Michele Kekeh, Muge Akpinar-Elci

College of Health Sciences Posters

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, older adults are advised to remain in their homes and personal spaces since they are at greater risk for COVID-19 related illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths. Health professionals and caregivers are concerned that preventative measures, especially social isolation, may have long-term psychological and age-related effects among older adults. A survey prepared by the Center for Global Health at Old Dominion University, in collaboration with Healthy Chesapeake Inc., assessed social isolation, associated emotions, and daily coping activities of older adults in Chesapeake, Virginia. The target population included senior residents of the Cambridge Square Apartments, where Healthy Chesapeake Inc. …

A Leader, A Follower, And Some Humor Walk Into A Meta-Analysis: A Review Of Positive And Negative Leader Humor, Richard Hayes

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Although leader humor is a growing research topic, there are still unaddressed issues surrounding this topic. In particular, there is disagreement surrounding the conceptualizations of positive and negative leader humor, conflicting theoretical predictions and empirical findings on the effects of leader humor, a dearth of research on the antecedents and correlates of leader humor, as well as a lack of research on the boundary conditions of these relationships. This qualitative and quantitative review of the nomological networks of positive and negative leader humor addressed these issues based on a meta-analysis of 67 empirical studies (N = 21,121). Results indicate that …

Distracted Pedestrians: Looking Left?, Emma Hood, Bryan E. Porter

Psychology: Interdisciplinary Research in Behavioral Sciences of Transportation Issues

Distracted pedestrians, those talking or texting on phones as examples, are potentially at risk when crossing urban intersections. They may lack traffic awareness of risk as distracted drivers often do. The transportation field has limited data on distracted pedestrians. This study aimed to contribute to the literature by observing pedestrian behaviors at four urban-area, downtown crosswalks over five weeks in June-July 2021. Overall, 2,055 pedestrians were observed, with 25.4% being distracted. Common distractions were texting, talking on a cell phone, and using headphones. Chi-square analyses found that while distraction did not predict looking left, one behavior that keeps them out …

Interactive Agent-Based Simulation For Experimentation: A Case Study With Cooperatve Game Theory, Andrew J. Collins, Sheida Etemadidavan

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Incorporating human behavior is a current challenge for agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS). Human behavior includes many different aspects depending on the scenario considered. The scenario context of this paper is strategic coalition formation, which is traditionally modeled using cooperative game theory, but we use ABMS instead; as such, it needs to be validated. One approach to validation is to compare the recorded behavior of humans to what was observed in our simulation. We suggest that using an interactive simulation is a good approach to collecting the necessary human behavior data because the humans would be playing in precisely the …

Coping Self-Efficacy As A Potential Moderator Of The Relationship Between Sexual Orientation And Negative Mental Health Outcomes, James M. Macchia

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Sexual minority individuals (i.e., those who identify as a sexual orientation other than heterosexual) have consistently been linked to an increased risk of negative mental health outcomes. The process of coping can impact the content and severity of said outcomes, and one’s ability to cope is often predicted by the concept known as coping self-efficacy (i.e., one’s belief in his or her ability to cope). This study aimed to assess the effects of sexual orientation, coping self-efficacy, and their interactions on mental health by looking at different aspects of coping self-efficacy as potential moderating variables. Self-perceptions of coping skills were …

The Effects Of Interruption Relevance And Complexity On Primary Task Resumption And Mental Demand, Brandon Allan Fluegel

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

In the present study, undergraduate students viewed patient charts and entered numerical values from these charts into a medical record database. They were unexpectedly interrupted by secondary tasks that differed in relevance and complexity. The secondary tasks varied by whether they facilitated or inhibited (i.e., relevant or irrelevant) rehearsal of the suspended task and whether they placed a demand on working memory (i.e., high complexity or low complexity). The primary measures of interest were the duration of time needed to resume the primary task and perceived mental demand. The Memory for Goals model (Altmann & Trafton, 2002) predicts that task …

Account Recovery Methods For Two-Factor Authentication (2fa): An Exploratory Study, Lauren Nicole Tiller

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

System administrators have started to adopt two-factor authentication (2FA) to increase user account resistance to cyber-attacks. Systems with 2FA require users to verify their identity using a password and a second-factor authentication device to gain account access. This research found that 60% of users only enroll one second-factor device to their account. If a user’s second factor becomes unavailable, systems are using different procedures to ensure its authorized owner recovers the account. Account recovery is essentially a bypass of the system’s main security protocols and needs to be handled as an alternative authentication process (Loveless, 2018). The current research aimed …

A Daily Diary Study Of Drinking And Nondrinking Days In Nonstudent Alcohol Users, Cathy Lau-Barraco, Ashley N. Linden-Carmichael

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Emerging adults with lower educational attainment are at higher long-term risk for problematic drinking and alcohol use disorders. Efforts to gain a more in-depth understanding of the drinking habits of nonstudent emerging adults are critical to reduce disparities and to shed light on targets of intervention for this vulnerable group.

Objectives: The current investigation aimed to: (1) provide a description of the daily drinking habits of nonstudent emerging adult drinkers using a 14-day diary method, and (2) examine nondrinking days by assessing their reasons for not drinking as well as strategies used to avoid drinking.

Methods: Participants were 27 …

Examining The Effect Of Interruptions At Different Breakpoints And Frequencies Within A Task, Sarah Anastazia Powers

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Research on the effects of interruptions shows that they can be either costly or beneficial depending on which aspects of an interruption are manipulated. One important aspect that contributes to these conflicting results concerns when an interruption occurs. The present study explored how event segmentation theory (EST) can be used to determine optimal moments for an interruption relying on hierarchical task analysis (HTA) to identify coarse and fine event boundaries. Utilizing a 2 X 3 mixed design, undergraduate students completed a trip planning task divided into three task trials. The within-subjects factor was interruption timing, which had three levels: none, …

The Effect Of Task Interruptions And Reliable Cues On Detection Changes Within Dynamic Scenes, Kimberly N. Perry

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Interruptions are a common problem for attention and pose a threat to visual task performance. The Memory for Goals (MFG) theory suggests that strongly and accurately encoded cues can assist the ability to resume a primary task after an interruption (Altmann & Trafton, 2002). Encoded cues can undergo an activation decay during an interruption and become forgotten. Currently, there has been limited research on how visual interruptions affect cued recall within a dynamic environment. Thus, the goal of the present study was to examine the effect of cuing and task interruptions on change detection within dynamic scenes. Undergraduate students watched …

The Effects Of Automation Transparency And Reliability On Task Shedding And Operator Trust, William Everett Lehman

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Because automation use is common in many domains, understanding how to design it to optimize human-automation system performance is vital. Well-calibrated trust ensures good performance when using imperfect automation. Two factors that may jointly affect trust calibration are automation transparency and perceived reliability. Transparency information that explains automated processes and analyses to the operator may help the operator choose appropriate times to shed task control to automation. Because operator trust is positively correlated with automation use, behaviors such as task shedding to automation can indicate the presence of trust. This study used a 2 (reliability; between) × 3 (transparency; within) …

Conceptualization Of Faculty Work Motivation: Overcoming The Impasse, Julie Nikolaeva Thompson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The work motivation literature is at an impasse. At the same time, changing economic and social conditions necessitate an ongoing transformation for how organizations motivate their workforce. Although changes in the nature of work have captured the attention of researchers, calls for more research to further develop work motivation theory have largely gone unnoticed. The scarcity of new theoretical research contributes to a lack of contextual understanding in work motivation. As such, organizational leaders continue to develop interventions based on the findings of potentially outdated work motivation theories. This may lead to diminished work motivation, productivity, and commitment, particularly for …

Comparing The Effects Of Mental Workload Between Visual And Auditory Secondary Tasks During Laparoscopy, James P. Corcoran

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to test Wickens’ Multiple Resource Theory (MRT) by comparing performance and subjective workload on a visual-spatial secondary task with an auditory-spatial analog when paired with visual-spatial laparoscopic primary tasks. Two primary tasks were performed with a laparoscopic box trainer: a high workload task that consisted of transferring rings from one peg to another and a low workload task that consisted of grasping and placing large pencil erasers in a bowl. It was predicted that the visual-spatial secondary task would be more sensitive when paired with the laparoscopic primary task than the auditory analog. Findings …

Identifying The Strengths And Weaknesses Of Over-The-Shoulder Attack Resistant Prototypical Graphical Authentication Schemes, Ashley Allison Cain

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Authentication verifies users’ identities to protect against costly attacks. Graphical authentication schemes utilize pictures as passcodes rather than strings of characters. Pictures have been found to be more memorable than the strings of characters used in alphanumeric passwords. However, graphical passcodes have been criticized for being susceptible to Over-the-Shoulder Attacks (OSA). To overcome this concern, many graphical schemes have been designed to be resistant to OSA. Security to this type of attack is accomplished by grouping targets among distractors, translating the selection of targets elsewhere, disguising targets, and using gaze-based input.

Prototypical examples of graphical schemes that use these strategies …

Affective Influences Without Approach-Avoidance Actions: On The Congruence Between Valence And Stimulus-Response Mappings, Motonori Yamaguchi, Jing Chen

Psychology Faculty Publications

The valence of stimuli can influence performance in the spatial stimulus–response compatibility task, but this observation could arise from the process of selecting responses or selecting stimulus–response mappings. The response-selection account proposes that spatial compatible and incompatible keypress responses serve as approaching and avoiding actions to a valenced target. The mapping-selection account suggests that there is congruence between stimulus valence and stimulus–response mappings; positive-compatible/negative-incompatible is more congruent than negative-compatible/positive-incompatible. Whereas affective valence was part of the target stimuli to which participants responded in previous studies, the present study isolated affective valence from the target by presenting an additional mapping cue …

Transient Signals And Inattentional Blindness In A Multi-Object Tracking Task, Dakota B. Palmer, Yusuke Yamani, Taylor L. Bobrow, Nicole D. Karpinsky, Dean J. Krusienski

Psychology Faculty Publications

Inattentional blindness is a failure to notice an unexpected event when attention is directed elsewhere. The current study examined participants' awareness of an unexpected object that maintained luminance contrast, switched the luminance once, or repetitively flashed. One hundred twenty participants performed a dynamic tracking task on a computer monitor for which they were instructed to count the number of movement deflections of an attended set of objects while ignoring other objects. On the critical trial, an unexpected cross that did not change its luminance (control condition), switched its luminance once (switch condition), or repetitively flashed (flash condition) traveled across the …

The Effects Of Automation Transparency And Ethical Outcomes On User Trust And Blame Towards Fully Autonomous Vehicles, Nathan Andrew Hatfield

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The current study examined the effect of automation transparency on user trust and blame during forced moral outcomes. Participants read through moral scenarios in which an autonomous vehicle did or did not convey information about its decision prior to making a utilitarian or non-utilitarian decision. Participants also provided moral acceptance ratings for autonomous vehicles and humans when making identical moral decisions.

It was expected that trust would be highest for utilitarian outcomes and blame would be highest for non-utilitarian outcomes. When the vehicle provided information about its decision, trust and blame were expected to increase. Results showed that moral outcome …

Adult Sexual Abuse, Disordered Eating Behaviors, And Substance Abuse: The Role Of Internalized Shame And Maladaptive Coping Strategies, Bilgé Özgé Yilmaz

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The prevalence of sexual abuse and disordered eating in young adulthood is increasing in the United States, with as many as one-quarter of women reporting unwanted sexual contact and two-thirds reporting extreme dieting. Among the numerous deleterious effects of sexual abuse are a greater risk of problematic eating, drinking and drug use among women, making this population at particular risk for co-occurrence of sexual abuse, disordered eating and substance use. Despite these statistics, the impact of adult sexual abuse (ASA) on disordered eating and substance use is largely unknown for this population. Shame and avoidance-focused coping have been identified as …

Initial Development And Validation Of The Deliberate Denial Of Disordered Eating Behaviors Scale, Lindsay Marie Howard

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

It is common for individuals who engage in disordered eating behaviors to intentionally conceal symptomatology. The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable and valid measure of deliberate denial as it relates to disordered eating behaviors in a non-clinical population. Deliberate denial of disordered eating behaviors can be defined as any conscious omission, concealment, or misrepresentation of behavior related to disordered eating. The present scale was developed within the context of two studies. Study 1 focused on item generation. Items were based on the definition of deliberate denial of disordered eating behaviors, taken from existing eating disorder assessments …

The Effect Of Interruptions During A Laparoscopy Skills Training Task, Brandon Allan Fluegel

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The goal of the present study was to examine how interruptions during a laparoscopic skills training task affected task performance. Undergraduate students completed a task that required them to pick up and transfer colored objects in a specific, predetermined sequence. The number of colored objects in the sequence was varied to produce three levels of task demand. During execution of the primary task, participants were interrupted by auditory task-irrelevant communication. The temporal length of interruptions was also manipulated to produce three levels of interruption duration. Results showed that participants made significantly more sequence errors in the high demand condition than …