Psychology Commons^™

No Evidence That Reasoned Analysis Impairs The Accuracy Of (Or Confidence In) Sports Forecasts, Andrew Langbehn

Masters Theses

When making decisions, people can either rely on a gut feeling or engage in reasoned analysis to make a choice. Past research has made competing claims on whether relying on gut feelings or reasoned analysis leads to better decisions. However, these competing claims may be due to the types of decisions being made. Relying on gut feelings has been demonstrated to be superior in judgments about attitudes and leads to greater post-decision satisfaction. However, prior research demonstrating the benefits of gut feelings has used subjective and mostly unverifiable criteria for which to judge the quality of a decision. On the …

Indoctrination Into Hate: The Development Of Racial Neuroses Resulting From Racist Socialization Under White Supremacy, Aliya Kathryn Benabderrazak

Haslam Scholars Projects

Racial-ethnic socialization is critical to our unique and individual conceptualization of reality. This socialization occurs explicitly and implicitly across the lifespan and has significant implications for one’s behavior, social relationships, and ideological beliefs. Two of the most notable and impactful spheres in which racial-ethnic socialization occurs are within the family unit and schooling contexts. The treatment and teachings within these two spaces shape our social and psychological development. The first part of my project considers the neurosis of Whiteness as a psychological consequence of racist socialization within school settings and primarily White communities—as a macro example of the family unit—to …

Reducing Homonegative Prejudice Towards Gay And Bisexual Men By Targeting Diverse Sexual Orientation Beliefs: A Replication And Extension Study, Kevin Matthew Fry

Doctoral Dissertations

This study aimed to replicate and extend the first true experiment to investigate the impact of diverse sexual orientation (SO) beliefs on homonegativity (Fry et al., 2020). We performed an experiment to determine if targeting multiple types of SO beliefs could be more effective in reducing homonegative prejudice towards gay men, binegativity towards bisexual men, and infrahumanization towards gay and bisexual men than just focusing on beliefs about biogenetic determinants of SO. We randomly assigned 200 participants (57% men, 78% white) to a treatment or control condition. Participants in a treatment condition read an essay that summarized: (1) research implying …

Effects Of Expressive Writing On Reducing Anxiety About Attending Intergroup Dialogue On Race And Racism, Cemal Arda Aksoy

Masters Theses

This experimental study examined the effects of expressive writing (EW) on the level of anxiety that White college students experience for their anticipated participation in a dialogue about race and racism with a racially diverse group of people. Ninety-one undergraduate college students, aged 18 to 25 years, living in the United States and identifying their race as White/European American were randomly assigned to an experimental or control condition for this online study. In both conditions, participants were informed that they would be participating in an online dialogue about race and racism with a racially diverse group of people after they …

Sexual Harassment As A Narrative Contest, Christine Vossler

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how stories shape both the perpetration of sexual harassment and the experiences of victims during and after sexual harassment. During and after the experience of sexual harassment, a narrative contest transpires between the harasser, victim, and others who contribute to the contest by engaging in the formal and informal conversations that follow known experiences of harassment in the workplace. I analyze 22 public statements, interviews, and investigative reports, including statements from men accused of sexual harassment, women who were sexually harassed, and bystanders. A narrative framework, including concepts of narrative believability and story credibility, is used to …

Depression, Anxiety, And Stress Severity Impact Social Media Use And Tiktok Addiction, Skylar L. Maguire, Hollie Pellosmaa

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Adverse Childhood Experiences And Attachment Styles On Digital Sexual Coercion In College-Aged Adults, Laura Elizabeth Stanley

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Trauma Of Premature Exposure To Violence: The Destruction Of Innocence In The Hunger Games, Riley Woody

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Soul-Training: The Why, What, And How Of Spiritual Formation In Sports, Elizabeth Bounds

Movement and Being: The Journal of the Christian Society for Kinesiology, Leisure and Sports Studies

Sportspeople know how to train and prepare their bodies for competition. The question this article seeks to explore is how sportspeople should approach training and preparing their souls. The Willardian corpus provides sportspeople a framework for understanding spiritual formation. This article examines the “why,” “what,” and “how” of soul-training, how Christians in sports can engage in spiritual formation. Sportspeople train their souls to experience God’s presence and worship him on and off the competition stage (why). In order to do so, they train their souls by following Christ as his apprentices, leading to transformation into his likeness (what) by cooperating …

Am I Stigmatized? An Experimental Examination Of High-Status Experiences Of Stigma., Christopher F. Silver

Doctoral Dissertations

Stigma is a highly researched aspect of social psychology primarily focusing on outgroup perceptions of stigma or the behaviors associated with high-status individuals toward low-status individuals. Two studies sought to explore high-status perceptions of perceived stigma, focusing on the common variables associated with stigma within low-status groups. This was to address a growing perception among high-status individuals that they experience stigma given their identity. As a focus, this study sampled White Males (Study One) and Christians (Study Two) from the United States. As part of experimental manipulation, we presented participants with three potential conditions. Condition one where participants read an …

Toward A Voice-Centered Relational Anti-Racist Listening Praxis In Counselor Education, Michelle R. Bertrand

Teaching and Supervision in Counseling

Abstract This article outlines key elements of an anti-racist listening praxis in counselor education. It demonstrates how racism in relationships of teaching and learning impacts racialized subjectivities, and the personal, cultural and ancestral worlds these subjectivities articulate, in a way that limits the capacity of racialized practitioners to be relational subjects and uses them instead to reinforce White/Western normativity. It describes a way of both listening to and challenging these impacts by re-centering the “I” of racialized speakers and the personal, cultural and traditional knowledges, identities and preferred ways of being to which they refer in their stories. Examples of …

Origins And Perpetuation Of Stigma Against Mental Illness, Audrey K. Barkeloo-Carter, Kirsten A. Gonzalez Ph.D.

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Asch And Ai: Conformity To Non-Human Intelligence, Andrew Stephen Heim

Masters Theses

Conformity is the process that occurs when we submit to group pressures. These pressures can come from normative social influence, a desire to be liked, and informational social influence, the belief that the group has information that we do not. In the current study, the classic Asch line judgment paradigm is combined with virtual reality technology to study social influence in groups of both humans and artificial intelligences. Additionally, the line judgment task is varied as either unambiguous or ambiguous. The results indicated that participants were more likely to not conform to unambiguous stimuli and artificial intelligence confederates. Response times …

Strengthening Implicitly-Formed Attitudes: The Use Of Evaluative Conditioning And Selective Exposure, Claudia Q. Luu

Select or Award-Winning Individual Scholarship

Implicit attitudes are defined as unconsciously-formed evaluations towards an object or the self. Although the very nature of unconsciously formed attitudes may appear to be too weak to be significant to modern theories of attitudes, we challenge that these minute unconscious attitudes can inadvertently affect cognitive information processing which ultimately manifests into stronger attitudes. Here we demonstrate that implicitly formed attitudes can eventually lead to biased behaviors that can positively reinforce themselves which is consistent with the effects of strong attitudes suggested by contemporary research on attitudes. In order to mimic the formation of implicit attitudes, we developed an evaluative …

Recategorization Threat, Fear Of Fat, And Antifat Prejudice, Katherine Fritzlen

Doctoral Dissertations

Learning one is similar to a stigmatized group can threaten one’s identity and cause disassociation from that group. However, how would learning of an immutable similarity with a stigmatized outgroup, implying possible recategorization into that group, affect prejudice towards that group? In the current investigation, we explored how receiving feedback that one has a high genetic predisposition to become obese in the future affected implicitly- and explicitly-assessed antifat attitudes. Participants (N = 216) were provided feedback indicating they either did or did not have a high genetic predisposition for obesity, or given no feedback (control condition). We found for …

Acronym Usage In Groups: The Relationship Of Socialization And Identification, Dara K. Carney-Nedelman

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

This study analyzed the relationship between knowledge of acronym meaning and group member’s socialization and identification. It examined the understudied relationship between knowledge of acronym meaning for group members and their socialization and identification in the group. Research has concluded that when assimilated into a group the group members contribute more, and overall have greater satisfaction (Riddle, Anderson, & Martin, 2000). This assimilation can be separated into two variables, socialization and identification of group members. Research on the relationship for knowledge of acronym meaning and assimilation has been understudied; therefore, this project explored how the terms we use in groups …

The Effect Of Demand Characteristics On The Facial Feedback Effect, Nicholas A. Coles, Brooke Frohlich, Jeff T. Larsen, Lowell Gaertner

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Self Study: Does Religiosity Moderate The Motivational Primacy Of The Individual Self?, Victoria Anita Voorhees

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

When Social Media Takes Your Money: In-App Shopping And Buyer’S Remorse Study, Catie Jaffe

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Topic Valence On Interracial Interaction Outcomes: An Honors Thesis In Psychology, Victoria Gilooly

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

You Win Some, You Lose Some: Regulatory Focus Theory And Facial Expressions Of Emotion To Series Of Unfortunate Events, Taylor B. Duncan

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Promotion Focus, Prevention Focus, And The Expression Of Positive Emotions When Things Turn Out Well, Kamilya Aidarovna Gosmanova

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Peer Attention Modeling With Head Pose Trajectory Tracking Using Temporal Thermal Maps, Corey Michael Johnson

Masters Theses

Human head pose trajectories can represent a wealth of implicit information such as areas of attention, body language, potential future actions, and more. This signal is of high value for use in Human-Robot teams due to the implicit information encoded within it. Although team-based tasks require both explicit and implicit communication among peers, large team sizes, noisy environments, distance, and mission urgency can inhibit the frequency and quality of explicit communication. The goal for this thesis is to improve the capabilities of Human-Robot teams by making use of implicit communication. In support of this goal, the following hypotheses are investigated: …

Exploring The Role Of Spirituality And Spiritual Beliefs In The Pursuit Of Excellence And Attainment Of Peak Performance In Professional Athletes, Ashley Ballard, Charles H. Wilson Jr.

Movement and Being: The Journal of the Christian Society for Kinesiology, Leisure and Sports Studies

Little research has been found which examines the assessment of spirituality in sport performers and its possible role in performance enhancement. The goal of the current study was to understand if and how spirituality impacts athleticism. The subjective experiences of Christian spirituality in an American World Sprinter (male), a British Olympic Sprint Canoe Racer (female), and a retired American Minor League Baseball player (male) were analyzed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith & Osborn, 2003). Semi-structured interviews were used to gather data leading to three major themes: “The Belief and Confidence in God”, “Individual and Communal Prayer”, and “The Influential …

Developing A Platform For Integrating Disability Issues Into City Municipality Decisions; Case Study: City Of Knoxville, Sravanthi Pamu

Masters Theses

The People with Disabilities (PWD) & Senior Citizen (SC) are isolated from the mainstream society, and they face several barriers in everyday life. There is no communication platform for them to express their concerns, in turn, participate in the city municipality policy decisions related to PWD- & SC-friendly city development. The purpose of this research is to integrate disability and senior citizen issues in the city of Knoxville to the city council decisions. The comprehensive literature search is done to identify the frequently mentioned disability and age-friendly city factors. An effective survey was designed to identify the issues in collaboration …

Evaluation Of Increased Targeted Enforcement And Community-Based Outreach And Education Programs To Increase Nighttime Seatbelt Use In East Tennessee, Kwaku Frimpong Boakye

Doctoral Dissertations

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among people aged 1-54 in the United Sates. In 2015, the number of motor-vehicle deaths on U.S. roadways totaled 35,092, a 7% increase from 2014 (32,744). Though lower gas prices and increased vehicle mileage combined with risky driving behaviors (e.g. speeding, driving while texting) account for the increased fatality rate, seatbelt non-use has been a significant contributory factor. It is estimated that nearly half (48%) of passenger vehicle occupants involved in fatal crashes each year are unrestrained.

In a recent 2014 report …

Modeling The Consumer Acceptance Of Retail Service Robots, So Young Song

Doctoral Dissertations

This study uses the Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) and domestication theories as the underlying framework of an acceptance model of retail service robots (RSRs). The model illustrates the relationships among facilitators, attitudes toward Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), anxiety toward robots, anticipated service quality, and the acceptance of RSRs. Specifically, the researcher investigates the extent to which the facilitators of usefulness, social capability, the appearance of RSRs, and the attitudes toward HRI affect acceptance and increase the anticipation of service quality. The researcher also tests the inhibiting role of pre-existing anxiety toward robots on the relationship between these facilitators and attitudes …

The Roles Of Attention, Awareness, And Memory In Evaluative Conditioning, Katherine Anne Fritzlen

Masters Theses

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is learning that occurs when a neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) is repeatedly paired with a valenced unconditioned stimulus (US) such that the CS takes on the valence of the US. In the current investigation we were interested in investigating the combined and individual effects of attentional resources and contingency awareness on implicit and explicit EC using a disguised conditioning paradigm. We orthogonally manipulate participants’ awareness of the contingencies and attentional resources in an EC paradigm. We found mixed evidence for the necessity of higher order resources for EC. Neither orthogonally manipulated awareness nor attention had an effect …

The Value Of An Object's Social Connection, Seong-Jae Yoo

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Excessive Acquisition: What Is It? What Makes It Happen?, Melanie Doss

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study draws on the philosophical concept of hermeneutics and theories of the self and self-regulation to investigate the underlying meanings expressed and experienced by the self and the other in the behavior of excessive acquisition. In accordance with the methods outlined by the phenomenological and grounded theory traditions, data were collected from 15 persons afflicted with excessive acquisition, defined as the self and 12 persons afflicted by excessive acquisition, defined as the other. The data content collected from in-depth interviews, field notes, observations, and electronic messages formulated the emergent Parent Themes of Emotion, Space, Economics, and Time. …