Psychology Commons^™

Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Literature Review, Savannah M. Demicoli

University Honors Theses

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), previously referred to as Multiple Personalities Disorder, has been historically misrepresented in the media and excluded from professional training. This literature review describes the information presented in various research studies to illustrate what DID is, the theoretical models that have been used in application to DID, the role of childhood trauma, as well as successful treatment methods and accessibility of resources. In understanding DID, it is necessary to look at the disorder’s prevalence, background, and major symptoms of amnesia and switching between personality states. The theoretical models that will be covered include the Sociocognitive/Fantasy Model and …

The Role Of Cognitive Load And Individual Differences When Interpreting Human-Resource Data Visualizations, Zachary Hesson

University Honors Theses

Data visualizations (e.g., bar graph, dashboard) can be used as decision-support and storytelling tools that aid users’ interpretation of sometimes complex information, including within the human resource management (HRM) context. As HRM evolves towards implementing more data-informed decisions, it is important to understand how users interpret data visualizations. The aims of this thesis are to (a) identify whether cognitive load affects the amount of time users spend arriving forming and interpretation and the accuracy of their interpretations, and (b) to evaluate whether cognitive load moderates the association between individual-difference variables and interpretation time and accuracy. The individual differences that are …

The Prevalence Of Mental Health Disorders And Deficits In Individuals With And Without Siblings, Samantha Villanueva

University Honors Theses

The goal of this thesis is to understand how having siblings could affect mental well-being in individuals. Within the framework of a literature review, I examined multiple aspects of mental well-being with regard to siblings: 1) if having siblings could be a precursor for behavioral or developmental patterns in children 2) how trauma affects only children and individuals with siblings differently 3) long-term effects of sibling count once children reached adulthood 4) biases from clinical perspectives and prevention programs to combat these. Upon conclusion, only children were often noticed to struggle with mental health and certain socialization, although researchers noted …

The Dark Triad And Impulsivity: Predictors And Correlates Of Workplace Representative Task Problem Solving And Decision Making, Peter Kendall Glazer Jr.

Dissertations and Theses

This research investigated group and individual differences in decision-making and problem-solving on workplace representative tasks, and whether certain personality traits correlated with or were predictors of participant strategy. In parallel studies done online (N = 214) and in-person (N = 80) with Portland State University undergraduate School of Business students, performance was measured on two workplace representative tasks under two different difficulty conditions. The Number Place experiment resulted in two major findings: First, when given a comparatively easy task, women had more Time Remaining than men. However, this was moderated by the difficulty condition, such that men had more Time …

The Balance Of Personality, Chris Allen

PDXOpen: Open Educational Resources

This open access textbook was developed as an upper division undergraduate textbook for theories of personality. Its intended audience are students from Portland State University enrolled in Psychology 432 Personality course. The chapters are shorter than some personality textbooks and in this particular course Psy 432 the textbook is combined with other readings including scientific articles on personality. This open access textbook may be of interest to other courses interested in teaching about theory and research on personality.

Please see the Open Textbook Library for faculty Reviews of this textbook

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Interview With Karin Waller, Karin A. Waller, Patricia A. Schechter

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Karin Waller was interviewed by history professor Patricia Schechter on May 27, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in the interview are graduate students Cleophas Chambliss and Liza Schade.

In this interview, Waller describes the personal, social, and intellectual intersections that brought her to graduate study, her mentors in the graduate program, and her thesis project.

Affect Perception In Computer Mediated Communication, Rachel E. Townsend, Chris Allen

Student Research Symposium

The perception of affect influences the subjective perception of an individual’s environment (Isbell & Burns, n.d.). Accurate affect perception leads to increased resilience and positive coping mechanisms when faced with daily life stressors (Robinson, 2012). Communication technologies have revolutionized the ways in which individuals connect to one another professionally and socially (Walther, 1996). This study investigated accurate affect perception in computer mediated communication (CMC) from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Communication research posit several theories to accommodate the ways in which we communicate using CMC (J. B. Walther, 1996). Personality research has documented the correlation between the traits extraversion and neuroticism with …

The Effects Of Offender Age And Offender-Victim Relationship On Modus Operandi Strategies To Lure The Victim, Hayley Lauren Tews

Dissertations and Theses

Research on the modus operandi (“method of operation”) of child sexual abuse (CSA) offenders has been useful in informing successful prevention programs (LeClerc, 2009). However, a gap in the literature regarding the strategies offenders use to lure potential CSA victims still remains. The present study seeks to examine the effects of offender-victim relationship and offender age on the use of strategies to lure victims for the purpose of committing CSA. Data for this study is taken from a larger investigation which included 854 identified adolescent and adult CSA offenders from nine different states. A 2 X 2 MANCOVA analysis revealed …

Neuroscience Of Personality: Principles Of The Psyche As A Living System, Dario Nardi

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

The brain is a complex living system. Using colorful slides and anecdotes, Dario Nardi, PhD will overview his hands-on research of the past 5 years in his social neuroscience lab using EEG technology to better understand the neocortex. He spends 2 to 3 hours with each subject, offering a variety of tasks from solo activities like meditating, drawing, and recalling to social activities like poker and speed-dating. The results are in. The neocortex relies upon a dynamic of modules, circuits, and holistic modes to continuously coordinate with the environment in both a top-down and a bottom-up manner. Moreover, individual differences …

Social Job Characteristics And Older Workers: Effects On Job Satisfaction And Job Tension, Jennifer Rae Rineer

Dissertations and Theses

The workforce in most industrialized countries is aging and becoming more age diverse, but few studies have examined the implications of age differences in the design of jobs. This study examined the role of age as a moderator in the relationship between job characteristics and two individual outcomes, job satisfaction and job tension. Specifically, the study focused on the relationship between social characteristics of the job (given social support, [received] social support, interdependence, interaction outside the organization, and feedback from others) and job tension and job satisfaction among Portland Water Bureau employees. Based in Socioemotional Selectivity (SES) theory (Carstensen, 1991), …

Coping With Interpersonal Conflicts At Work: An Examination Of The Goodness Of Fit Hypothesis Among Nurses, Robert Randon Wright

Dissertations and Theses

Increasingly, evidence indicates that workplace interpersonal conflicts (WIC) are the most upsetting/troublesome daily work stressors (Sulsky & Smith, 2007), and within the context of nursing, WIC is a problem of high prevalence and intensity (Baltimore, 2006; Farrell, 1999). In relation to coping with stressors such as WIC, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) established the transactional model of stress and coping, where cognitive appraisals of the stressor (e.g., perceived control) are central to coping and classified all coping behaviors as either problem-focused or emotion-focused. They also proposed the "goodness of fit hypothesis", which predicts that problem-focused coping efforts used to cope with …

Workplace Cognitive Failure As A Mediator Between Work-Family Conflict And Safety Performance, Rachel Jane Daniels

Dissertations and Theses

The main goal of this thesis was to examine the effects of family-to-work conflict on safety performance. Data were collected from a sample of 134 employees, consisting primarily of construction workers. Results found that levels of conflict from the family role to the work role negatively affected participants' workplace cognitive failure, or cognitively based errors that occur during the performance of a task that the person is normally successful in executing. Workplace cognitive failure, in turn, was a significant predictor of levels ofsafety performance, both employees' compliance with safety procedures and the extent to which they participated in discretionary safety-related …

A Correlational Study Of Cognitive Style Measured By The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator And The Witkin Group Embedded Figure, Leith Wood Muessle

Dissertations and Theses

A review of the literature suggests a coincidence of personality characteristics among the cognitive styles defined by Field Dependence-Independence and the Myers-Briggs type preferences. This thesis proposed these independent measures of cognitive style tap common cognitive processes and hypothesized the Myers-Briggs dimensions of Extraversion-Introversion (EI), Sensing-Intuition (SN), and Judgement-Perception (JP) would correlate positively and Thinking-Feeling (TF) would correlate negatively with the dimension Field Dependence-Independence (FD-FI) as measured by the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT). The relationships of gender, age, and intelligence to the prediction of field-dependence-independence were also tested.

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo: Self And Close-Other Selection Of Personality Test Interpretations, Sheela Word

Dissertations and Theses

In a study investigating the ability of subjects and their close friends or relatives (close-others) to recognize subject personality test results under conditions which controlled for the Barnum effect, 64 male and female undergraduate psychology students were administered the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). Each subject later attempted to choose his or her own unidentified CPI profile from among three, and a close-other of the subject independently made the same selection. It was found that 57.81% of subjects and 45.31% of close others were able to correctly identify subject profiles; these results were significant at the .0001 and .05 levels respectively. …

Level Of Aspiration And The Type A Coronary-Prone Pattern In Children, Wendy L. Kliewer

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine aspects of assessment of the Type A behavior pattern, goal-setting behaviors displayed by Type A and B children, and parents' goal-setting behaviors toward their offspring.

Femininity And Self-Esteem In Professional Women, Shirley Ellen Harper

Dissertations and Theses

Research in sex-roles has found masculinity and androgyny to be correlated with self-esteem while femininity has a low or negative correlation with self-esteem. Much of the research in this area is based in studies of androgyny. Androgyny is the ability to respond in a feminine or masculine manner, depending on the situation rather than being limited to only feminine or masculine behavior because of sex-role stereotypes. In the research on self-esteem some studies have reported androgynous individuals measure high in self-esteem. Other studies have found that masculine characteristics contribute more to the self-esteem than androgynous characteristics. These results, taken together, …

Scl-90 Characteristics Of The Borderline Personality Disorder In A Day Treatment Setting, Jeananne Theresa Feagan

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this present study was to examine test performance of the Borderline Personality Disorder on the Symptom Checklist .(SCL-90). This investigation addressed whether the Borderline Personality Disorder has a distinctive profile on the SCL-90, and whether the profile is distinguishable in comparison with two other groups with mental disorders.

Extraversion-Introversion And Sensitivity To Nonverbal Cues, Virginia Seiser

Dissertations and Theses

Sixty-five college students completed the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (PONS) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The results did not support the hypothesis that introverts would be found to be relatively more sensitive to negative nonverbal cues than to positive cues, and that this difference would be greater for introverts than for extroverts. The outcome did not support predictions concerning the relationship between sensitivity to nonverbal communication and extroversion- introversion based on either Gray's fear-frustration hypothesis or Eysenck's general conditionability hypothesis of extroversion-introversion.

The results supported findings of earlier researchers that females are more sensitive to nonverbal cues than males, and …

On The Origins Of Negative Attitudes Towards People With Disabilities, Hanoch Livneh

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

The literature review classifies reported sources of negative attitudes toward the disabled into 13 psychodynamic and sociological categories and stresses the difficulty of quickly changing such negative attitudes.

Reliability And Validity Of A Scale To Measure Prosocial Behavior In Young Children, Susan Davis

Dissertations and Theses

The present study was designed to determine the reliability and validity of an observation code and rating scale developed by Smith (unpublished research) to measure prosocial behavior in young children.

Dance And Self Concept Change In Women, Robin Dale Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

Numerous authors in the field of dance therapy have proposed that dance movement employed as a psychotherapeutic tool yields positive gains in mental health for participants. Self concept is frequently cited as the mechanism affecting these gains. In order to explore the relationship of dance movement alone to self concept fifteen college women were tested with the Tennessee Self Concept Scale before and after participation in a course of dance with those of nineteen women enrolled in lower division psychology courses. An analysis of covariance showed no significant changes in self concept scores in either group. It was concluded that …

Closedmindedness As A Predictor Of Individual Decision-Making Behaviors, Annette I. Jolin

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine whether closemindedness is related to decision-making behaviors. The decision-making variables in this study were: Pieces of Information, Decision Change, Decision Confidence, Decision Accuracy and, post hoc, Decision Appropriateness. The measures of decision-making behaviors were obtained from four decision situations developed by the experimenter. Closemindedness was assessed using Rokeach's (1960) Dogmatism (D) scale.

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Personality Characteristics Of Social Work Students And Choice Of Social Work Practice Area, Linda A. Yegge, Francie E. Buktenica

Dissertations and Theses

Due to curiosity about the "individual" vs. "social" intervention argument in the profession of social work, the authors of this study attempted to answer the question, “Do personality characteristics of Social Work Graduate Students influence their choice of social work practice?" Our hypothesis was that Introverts would be more inclined to focus on the individual in social work practice as opposed to Extraverts who would see societal change as a more pressing practice issue. Although our study identified no correlation between Introversion and Extraversion and social work practice orientation, there were some suggestions for further study. There appeared to be …

Personality, Counseling And The Cancer Patient, Janet March, Ann Maxwell

Dissertations and Theses

The researchers in this study are concerned about what factors are involved in determining who actually does seek out adjunctive counseling for help in dealing with their diagnosis. In particular, personality factors of those who have cancer are examined. The more known about what motivates a patient to seek counseling, the easier it will be to develop rehabilitation and supportive programs to meet the needs of cancer patients. Hence, sanction for a research project such as this lies in the fact that the question of motivation regarding adjunctive counseling has not been dealt with specifically in the past.

Changes In Personality Traits And Identification In Adolescent Female State School Residents, As A Function Of Length Of Residence, Mary L. Thompson

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of a significant exposure (six months) to a State School environment on selected personality traits and identity factors of adolescent girls. A second objective was to ascertain whether greater change takes place early in the period of residency (three months) or in a later stage. A third aim was to determine whether there is a significant difference in the degree of change between girls showing fewer pathological signs and healthier identity than those who show a greater number of such signs and a stronger delinquent identification.

Anxiety Level Of Graduate Students In Social Work, Sophia Kouidou-Giles, George Albert Mckee

Dissertations and Theses

This study was designed to determine (1) the trend of anxiety level of social work students, term by term, over the academic year; (2) the cyclical trend of anxiety level of social work students within each term and (3) the effects of age and sex on level of anxiety among social work students.

Anxiety was measured with the IPAT - 8 Parallel Form Anxiety Battery. This test was administered to twenty randomly selected first year students in the School of Social Work during the 1969-1970 academic year at Portland State University. Data was collected from six test administrations which …