Psychology Commons^™

Creating Opportunities For Father Involvement, Glen F. Palm

Child and Family Studies Faculty Publications

The increase of men's involvement in their children's lives is a common theme in the popular media. As a parent educator and a teacher of early childhood educators, I was interested in how successful early childhood programs for young disabled children have been at involving fathers. I was curious about the kinds of opportunities that are available to fathers and how many fathers are taking advantage of these opportunities.

The Effects Of Frequency & Source Of Feedback On Performance Under Goal-Setting Conditions, David Campshure

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Feedback and goal setting are both necessary for either to have an effect on performance (Erez, 1977). In the present study two attributes of feedback, frequency and source, were manipulated under goal-setting conditions to examine their effects on performance. It is generally assumed that performance can be enhanced by providing individuals with frequent feedback and by providing them with feedback that originates from a source close to themselves--that is, feedback from the task itself or self-administered feedback. A third variable of interest, subjects' perceived control over the task, was assessed via questionnaires.

Subjects worked on a problem-solving task. Each subject …

A Study Of The Interrater Agreement Of Therapists Using The Basic I.D. Profile As An Assessment Tool, Jimmy Mann

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In using the BASIC I.D. profile as an assessment tool, seven modalities of the client are assessed: Behaviors, Affect, Sensations, Imagery, Cognitions, Interpersonal relationships, and Drugs (physiological condition). The purpose of this s•udy was to assess the interrater agreement of the BASIC I.D. profile when used as an assessment approach in psychotherapy. The raters were 15 graduate students in clinical and school psychology at Western Kentucky University. Six actors served as subjects who simulated clients coming to a psychotherapist for his/her initial interview. Two experienced interviewers portrayed therapists conducting the initial interview with the subject. The interviews were videotaped and, …

School Of Psychology Fall Schedule 1985, Nova University

CPS Postgraduate Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Internal Consistency On The Cpi Social Dominance Scale On The Predictability Of Dominance Behaviors, Jerry Guttman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to show that the degree of consistency that people demonstrate on personality measures is positively related to the degree to which behaviors representing the personality domains can be predicted. Thirty five female consistent personality scale respondents and Thirty eight female inconsistent scale respondents participated in small group discussions. The results showed that for all females, scale scores on the California Psychological Inventory subscaJe of dominance were predictive of three measures of dominance behaviors in the discussion group. Consistent personality scale respondents had no measures that were significantly correlated with the dominance scale score, whereas …

Weighted Application Blanks: An Empirical Approach For The Selection Of Delivery Personnel Psychology, Barton Lee Dahmer

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a biographically weighted application blank for use in selecting delivery personnel. The England (1971) procedure for weighting biographical information was utilized. The criterion was a ratio of planned work time to actual work time. It was hypothesized that (a) significant derivation and cross-validities would be obtained, and (b) significant practical benefits in terms of correct placement of workers in the high and low criterion groups would result. The first hypothesis was partially supported in that a significant derivation validity was obtained (r = -.56, P < .05). However, the cross-validity (r = -.12) was not significant. Thus, the second hypothesis was not supported. A discussion of the results and recommendations for the implementation of the weighted application blank are provided.

Assessing Critical Thinking Processes In The Gifted: Predicting Gre Analytical Performance From Watson-Glaser Results, Susie Garrott

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the constructs measured by the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and the Graduate Record Examination Analytical Scale in "gifted" adolescents 15 to 17 years of age. There were three hypotheses addressed in this study: 1) "gifted" adolescents would be able to think critically as measured by college level norms when measured by the Watson-Glaser and the GRE-Analytical; 2) significant differences would exist between different levels of gifted populations; and 3) a factor or group of factors of the Watson-Glaser subscales would significantly predict performance on the GRE-Analytical Scale.

The Watson-Glaser …

Children's Anxiety Management Program (C.A.M.P.): A Year Long Study Of A Preventive Stress & Anxiety Program For Children, Karen Witty

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Children's Anxiety Management Program (C.A.M.P.) was designed as a preventive program to be carried out over an academic year with fifth and sixth grade children. The program was designed to help teach the children different methods of coping with stress and anxiety. It was written in a curriculum format allowing for integration into a daily classroom routine. Eighty-seven children were pretested and posttested with the Children's School Questionnaire (CSQ) which measured these factors: School Anxiety, Defensiveness, and Self-Disparagement. The CSQ along with student and teacher kept logbooks aided in the final evaluation of C.A.M.P.. The statistical evaluation of the …

Reinforcement-Based Response Elimination: The Effects Of Response-Reinforcement Interval And Response Specificity, Stuart Vyse, Thomas S. Rieg, Nelson F. Smith

Psychology Faculty Publications

Compared extinction and 4 reinforcement-based procedures for eliminating a response in 5 groups of 10 male Sprague-Dawley rats. Two procedures provided for reinforcement of a specific alternative behavior (ALT-R), while 2 others were differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) contingencies. The effect of 10-sec and 1-sec response-reinforcment intervals was examined with each of the ALT-R and DRO groups in (a) a training phase, in which an original response was established; (b) a response elimination phase; (c) an extinction phase; and (d) a reacquisition phase. The fastest response elimination occurred in the ALT-R group, and the slowest occurred in the DRO …

School Psychologists' Reports: Special Educators' Preferences, Claudia Downey

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Special educators were surveyed in order to determine which of two distinct styles of school psychologists' reports, (psychological vs. psychoeducational) was perceived to be most useful. The sample population consisted of 39 special educators employed by the Bowling Green (Ky.) Independent School District and the Warren County (Ky.) Board of Education. Teachers' rankings of the ten report sections (five per style of report) were compared by an analysis of variance. Results of the 2 (report style: psychological vs. psychoeducational) by 5 (report sections: referral vs. background and observations vs. tests/procedures vs. diagnosis or conclusions vs. recommendations) ANOVA revealed no significant …

Anisms Underlying Improvement Of Peripheral Visual Processing In Older Adults, David Ball

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The aim of this project was to examine the effects of perceptual learning, or practice, on the vision of older adults. Previous findings had indicated that older adults have restricted functional visual fields, but that practice in detecting peripheral targets can substantially improve their performance. Two possible explanations for poorer performance in the older age groups were examined: 1) slowed speed of central perceptual processing and 2) attentional deficit problems. Six observers in each of three age groups were tested and trained in performing a peripheral localization task while performing a concurrent central task. A progressive loss in the functional …

An Observational Analysis Of The Interactions Between Institutionalized Mentally Retarded Clients & Direct Care Staff, Lisa Ellis-Lake

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interactions between direct care staff and the mentally retarded (MR) clients that they served in an institutional setting. It was hypothesized that (a) most of the staff-client interactions, regardless of quality (i.e., positive or negative) and/or level of intellectual functioning, would be instructional rather than conversational or no response interactions; (b) there would be an insufficient amount (i.e., duration and frequency) of conversational interaction, regardless of quality, across intellectual functioning levels; and (c) there would be a greater number of negative no response interactions (i.e., ignoring an appropriate client verbalization) than …

School Of Psychology Master's Course Schedule Summer [And] Fall Session 1985, Nova University

CPS Postgraduate Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Private Self-Consciousness And Perspective Taking On Satisfaction In Close Relationships., Stephen L. Franzoi, Mark H. Davis, Richard D. Young

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

131 heterosexual student couples, aged 17–32 yrs, 30 of whom were married or engaged answered questions concerning themselves and their relationships. It was predicted that individual differences in private self-consciousness would be positively related to relationship satisfaction because of the greater self-disclosure resulting from that heightened self-attention. It was further predicted that individual differences in perspective taking would foster relationship satisfaction, independent of any influence of self-disclosure. Both expectations were confirmed. Scores on the private self-consciousness scale were predictive of reported self-disclosure, and self-disclosure was predictive of satisfaction in the relationship. Once the influence of self-disclosure was removed, no effect …

Sign-Tracking With An Interfood Clock, William L. Palya

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Food was presented to pigeons, irrespective of their behavior. The fixed 60-s interfood interval was segmented into ten 6-s periods, each signaled by a distinctive stimulus color, ordered by wavelength. This "interfood clock" reliably generated and maintained successively higher rates of key pecking at stimuli successively closer to food. Under extinction, key pecking ceased. When the standard stimulus sequence was changed to a different sequence for each bird, accelerated responding again emerged and was sustained under each of the new color sequences. However, responding was neither maintained nor acquired when each successive interfood interval provided a different random sequence of …

Self-Presentational Determinants Of Sex Differences In Leadership Behavior, Donelson R. Forsyth, Barry R. Schlenker, Mark R. Leary, Nancy E. Mccown

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Men and women placed in leadership positions communicated information about their skills and abilities to their subordinates. Although leaders’ perceptions of their abilities, group members’ knowledge of their leader’s abilities, and the specific skills needed by the leader were all manipulated in the experimental setting, self-presentations of ability were primarily determined by sex role stereotypes rather than by situational factors. Results indicated that (1) male leaders emphasized their social influence and task abilities; (2) female leaders emphasized their interpersonal, socioemotional abilities; and (3) group members felt task ability, as compared to interpersonal ability, was a far more important skill for …

Using A Weighted Application To Predict Success Of Big Brother/Big Sister Volunteers, Douglas Kuhn

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to explore the predictive potential of the information gathered on the Big Brother/Big Sister volunteer application blank for the prediction of successful (matched 12 or more months) and unsuccessful (matched six months or less) volunteers. Two alternate application blank weighting procedures (England's 1971 weighting scheme and multiple regression analysis) were used and the results of these procedures were compared. It was hypothesized that both procedures would correlate significantly with a tenure criterion. This hypothesis was supported, although the England (1971) procedure failed to cross-validate. Additionally, it was hypothesized that the multiple regression procedure would …

A Comparison Of Illusory Halo Levels Between Conventionally-Developed And Factor Analytically-Developed Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales, Robert Baker

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to compare halo levels between a set of behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) developed by conventional methodology with a set of BARS developed by factor analytic means. The conventionally-developed BARS were developed at the University of California-Berkeley by Department of Psychology faculty members in conjunction with undergraduate psychology students. The factor analytically-derived BARS were developed during the course of the research reported here. In Phase 1 of the present study, undergraduate psychology students rated their instructors on a 1-7 Likert scale using the individual anchors which comprised the conventional BARS. A factor analysis of …

Adolescent Self-Disclosure And Loneliness: Private Self-Consciousness And Parental Influences, Stephen L. Franzoi, Mark H. Davis

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Using structural equation techniques, we tested a theoretical model designed to describe the causal relations existing among loneliness, self-disclosure to peers and parents, and specific antecedent variables. Participants were 350 high-school students who answered questions concerning themselves and their interpersonal relationships. Results generally indicated a good fit between the theoretical model and the observed relations. In addition to replicating the findings of previous studies concerning the relation between self-disclosure and loneliness, results also indicated an indirect relation between private self-consciousness and loneliness via peer self-disclosure; that is, high private self-conscious adolescents' greater willingness to self-disclose to peers resulted in their …

Computer Aids That Writers Need, Ronald Thomas Kellogg

Psychological Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

What problems are faced by office workers when they write documents? Are computer aids for writing available to meet their needs? These questions are answered here by: (1) describing recent research on writing processes, (2) listing various types of computer aids that either are currently marketed or are under investigation, and (3) reviewing studies that speak to the effectiveness of these aids. Numerous aids are available for problems that arise in planning, translating, and reviewing text. However, the few reported evaluation studies do not indicate that computer aids improve either the quality or the efficiency of writing. © 1985 Psychonomic …

In Search Of An Operational Definition Of Social Creativity, Constance J. O'Brien

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Having argued for the existence of social creativity as observed in daily life, I will proceed in chapters two through four with a selective review of the psychological literature on social cognition, empathy, and social intelligence to determine whether any of these concepts can adequately account for the behavior cited. I will proceed to identify the connections between these concepts and creativity. Examining the concepts, their relationships to each other, and the degree to which any of these concepts alone can account for imaginative social problem solving will demonstrate the need for a new [...]

Behavior Of Retarded Clients As A Function Of Access To Leisure Activities Oriented Toward Task Completion, David R. Keltner

Home Economics and Family Living Theses

This thesis represents an investigation of the effects of increased access to task completion activities on the behavior of institutionalized retarded clients. The hypothesis was that increased access to task completion leisure activities (non-competitive free time activities requiring the subject to attend to a constructive task during at least five free time periods over the course of the study) would result in reduced frequency of unacceptable social behaviors in a group of institutionalized retarded clients. A hobby kit designed according to the experimental definition of leisure activity was made available to each subject in the experimental group. Target behaviors (social …

A Comparison Between Children's Anxiety Management Program & Developing Understanding Of Self & Others: Effects On Children's School Anxiety, Self-Disparagement & Defensiveness, Bengt Ronnerman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Children experience unavoidable stress and anxiety. Excessive stress, or distress, and anxiety may negatively effect children's emotional, mental, and physical functioning. Examples of distress reactions in children include fears, aggression, frustration, low self-esteem, apathy, low academic achievement, poor peer relationships, fatigue, and developmental delays. Prolonged reactions to distress in children could cause severe emotional, mental, and physical problems when children reach adulthood. It is important that children learn effective strategies to cope with distress and anxiety. There is a dearth of research data regarding children and coping skills training for dealing with stress and anxiety. Therefore, the Children's Anxiety Management …

Sticking To Syntax: The Reflection Of Story Grammar In Children's And Adult's Recall Of Radio And Television Shows, Donald S. Hayes, Suzanne B. Kelly

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Two studies were conducted to determine how well story grammar predicted recall of televised stories. In Experiment 1, preschoolers viewed a non-narrated televised story from "Sesame Street." In Experiment 2, preschoolers and adults were administered a narrative via television or radio. In both studies, subjects' retention reflected recall of nodal information, regardless of medium of input.

Assertiveness Training And Exposure In Vivo For Agoraphobics, Geoffrey L. Thorpe, Eric G. Freedman, Joel D. Lazar

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

The effectiveness of brief treatment via assertiveness training and exposure in vivo was evaluated in a crossover study of eight agoraphobics. Treatment brought short-term benefit as assessed by phobia questionnaires and a depression inventory, but assertiveness training did not. Conversely, assertiveness training produced short-term improvements as measured by an assertiveness inventory, while exposure treatment did not. Both treatments were relevant to the problems of our client sample, but they had specific effects on measures closely related to each treatment's target, consistent with the results of a similar recent study by Emmelkamp et al. (1983). At six-month follow-up assessment, phobia questionnaire …

Sex Differences In The Recognition Of Infant Facial Expressions Of Emotion: The Primary Caretaker Hypothesis, Raymond B. Hames, Wayne A. Babchuk

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Although much research has been devoted to studying sex differences In functioning (e.g., Maccoby and Jacklin 1974), most efforts have been directed toward documenting or elucidating the proximate causes of sex differences. Few attempts have been made, however, to explain the ultimate causes of these differences or the selective pressures that have led to the development or psychological differences between males and females [for exception see Symons (1979) and Daly and Wilson (1983)]. Toward this end of blending psychology with evolutionary theory we develop what we call the " primary caretaker hypothesis," which predicts that the sex that through evolutionary …

Animal Pain, Bernard E. Rollin

Experimentation Collection

Some time ago, I received a telephone call from an eminent primatologist asking me to give the keynote address at a scientific seminar on animal pain. My first response was to express surprise that they were inviting a philosopher. His reply was remarkable, if only for its rarity among scientists: "The truly interesting and important issues concerning pain in animals are not scientific ones," he said. "They are moral, philosophical, and conceptual ones. And the total failure of science to engage or even acknowledge these issues discredits biomedical science and weakens its conceptual base." I hope to show you that …

Recognition And Alleviation Of Pain In Animals, P. A. Flecknell

Animal Welfare Collection

The pain and distress which animals experience as a consequence of their use by man figures prominently in discussions of animal welfare. Some improvements have been made in animal housing and husbandry practices and it is likely that further progress will be made in this field. In comparison, relatively little attention has been given to the problem of minimizing the pain and distress caused to animals by the various procedures to which they are subjected. The most publicized of these are the wide range of experimental techniques which are undertaken using laboratory animals, but also includes procedures such as castration …

School Of Psychology, Nova University

CPS Postgraduate Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Substance Abuse Studies Certificate Program, Nova University

CPS Postgraduate Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.