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Full-Text Articles in Psychology

The Effect Of The Presence And Familiarity Of A Dog On People’S Performance Of A Stressful Task, Lyn Brown Apr 2017

The Effect Of The Presence And Familiarity Of A Dog On People’S Performance Of A Stressful Task, Lyn Brown

Undergraduate Honors Posters

The purpose of the current study was to test whether the familiarity of a dog affects a person’s stress and task performance on a stressful task. Pets can improve people’s health mentally, physically, and socially. Dogs can lower people’s stress. This stress-reduction effect has been explained by the stress-buffering hypothesis. Dogs’ stress reducing capabilities have been applied with dog therapy in schools, hospitals, and with the elderly. In this study, dog-owning students performed mental arithmetic as a stressful task, with or without a dog present, during which their heart rate was measured as a stress indicator. The independent variables were …


The Effects Of Musical Mood And Musical Arousal On Visual Attention, Angela B. Marti Marca, Tram Nguyen, Jessica Grahn Dr. Apr 2014

The Effects Of Musical Mood And Musical Arousal On Visual Attention, Angela B. Marti Marca, Tram Nguyen, Jessica Grahn Dr.

Undergraduate Honors Posters

The presence of music is a visceral part of the human experience and its influence on cognitive function has become a growing area of research in psychology. In particular, perceptual properties of music (mood and arousal) have been shown to significantly affect performance. There has been minimal research in the field on the interaction of these perceptual properties and their influence on attentional processes. This research study focused on the effects of musical mood and musical arousal on visual attention. Given that music is a highly subjective experience, participants were asked to rate different music clips on independent dimensions of …


Individual Differences In Ownership Reasoning: A Twin Study, Callista Forchuk Apr 2014

Individual Differences In Ownership Reasoning: A Twin Study, Callista Forchuk

Undergraduate Honors Posters

This study is the first to investigate the extent to which environmental and genetic factors contribute to aspects of ownership reasoning. 65 pairs of adult monozygotic (MZ) twins, and 16 pairs of same-sex dizygotic (DZ) twins completed a 24-item ownership questionnaire, which included items on new ownership and appropriate transfers of ownership. MZ correlations were larger than DZ correlations for both aspects of ownership reasoning, and univariate model fitting indicated that genetic and non-shared environmental factors could account for all individual variation, with shared environmental factors contributing non-significantly. Heritabilities ranged from .36-.57 over both factors. The results support the notion …


A Behavioural Genetics Analysis Of Altruism And Its Relation To The Dark Triad, Maddy Mikulis Jan 2014

A Behavioural Genetics Analysis Of Altruism And Its Relation To The Dark Triad, Maddy Mikulis

Undergraduate Honors Posters

The current study was the first to report a behavioural genetics analysis of altruism and its relationship with the dark triad traits of personality (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy). 228 adult twins completed questionnaires of the dark triad and altruism. A significant correlation between altruism and narcissism was revealed. Altruism was found to be influenced in part by genetic factors as well as non-shared environmental factors. Implications and limitations are discussed.