Psychology Commons^™

The Effect Of Weight Loss On Changes In Health-Related Quality Of Life Among Overweight And Obese Women With Urinary Incontinence, Angela Marinilli Pinto, Leslee L. Subak, Sanae Nakagawa, Eric Vittinghoff, Rena R. Wing, John W. Kusek, William H. Herman, Delia Smith West, Miriam Kuppermann

Publications and Research

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the effect of change in weight and change in urinary incontinence (UI) frequency on changes in preference-based measures of health-related quality of life (HRQL) among overweight and obese women with UI participating in a weight loss trial.

METHODS: We conducted a longitudinal cohort analysis of 338 overweight and obese women with UI enrolled in a randomized clinical trial comparing a behavioral weight loss intervention to an educational control condition. At baseline, 6, and 18 months, health utilities were estimated using the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI3), a transformation of the SF-36 to the preference-based SF-6D, and …

Individual Differences In The Discrimination Of Novel Speech Sounds: Effects Of Sex, Temporal Processing, Musical And Cognitive Abilities, Vera Kempe, John C. Thoresen, Neil W. Kirk, Felix Schaeffler, Patricia J. Brooks

Publications and Research

This study examined whether rapid temporal auditory processing, verbal working memory capacity, non-verbal intelligence, executive functioning, musical ability and prior foreign language experience predicted how well native English speakers (N = 120) discriminated Norwegian tonal and vowel contrasts as well as a non-speech analogue of the tonal contrast and a native vowel contrast presented over noise. Results confirmed a male advantage for temporal and tonal processing, and also revealed that temporal processing was associated with both non-verbal intelligence and speech processing. In contrast, effects of musical ability on non-native speech-sound processing and of inhibitory control on vowel discrimination were not …

Children’S Eyewitness Identification As Implicit Moral Decision-Making, Toni Spring, Herbert D. Saltzstein, Roger Peach

Publications and Research

Why are young children particularly prone to make false positive errors or false alarms when identifying a wrongdoer? In three studies the problem was approached using a signal detection analysis, focusing on the moral costs of false alarms, as understood at different points in development. The findings are: (1) decisional criteria became more conservative, indicating fewer false alarms, with age in three studies, (2) children’s beliefs about the seriousness of false alarms and misses changed from (a) a non-moral concern to (b) a moral concern for false negatives or misses to (c) a moral concern for false alarms. (3) These …

The Bitter Truth About Morality: Virtue, Not Vice, Makes A Bland Beverage Taste Nice, Kendall J. Eskine, Natalie A. Kacinik, Gregory D. Webster

Publications and Research

To demonstrate that sensory and emotional states play an important role in moral processing, previous research has induced physical disgust in various sensory modalities (visual, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory modalities, among others) and measured its effects on moral judgment. To further assess the strength of the connection between embodied states and morality, we investigated whether the directionality of the effect could be reversed by exposing participants to different types of moral events prior to rating the same neutral tasting beverage. As expected, reading about moral transgressions, moral virtues, or control events resulted in inducing gustatory disgust, delight, or neutral taste …

Racial Microaggressions And The Filipino American Experience: Recommendations For Counseling And Development, Kevin L. Nadal, Kara M. Vigilia Escobar, Gail T. Prado, Ejr David, Kristal Haynes

Publications and Research

Racial microaggressions are subtle forms of verbal and behavioral discrimination toward people of color. The current qualitative study explores the experiences of Filipino American participants (N = 12), who described 13 categories of microaggressions, including being treated as an alien in one’s own land or as a 2nd-class citizen, being presumed to have inferior status or intellect, being assumed to uphold Filipino stereotypes, or being mistaken for another identity. Recommendations for counseling and development are discussed.

"This Is Exactly What This Study Is All About And It Is Happening Right In Front Of Me!" Using Participatory Action Research To Awaken A Sense Of Injustice Within A Privileged Institution, Brett G. Stoudt

Publications and Research

Rockport is an elite, all boys, day school in the northeast United States. It educates mostly white, wealthy, young men. Student researchers, faculty researchers and I collaborated to study bullying at Rockport using an approach to research known as participatory action research (PAR). In the process we also gained a better understanding of how privilege, especially gendered privilege, was socialized and (re)produced. The participatory research spaces that emerged in our project - grounded in the experiences of students, teachers, and administrators - facilitated critical awareness of self and context that Deutsch (2006) referred to as "awaking the sense of injustice." …

Posttraumatic Stress And Myocardial Infarction Risk Perceptions In Hospitalized Acute Coronary Syndrome Patients, Donald Edmondson, Jonathan A. Shaffer, Ellen-Ge Denton, Daichi Shimbo, Lynn Clemow

Publications and Research

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is related to acute coronary syndrome (ACS; i.e., myocardial infarction or unstable angina) recurrence and poor post-ACS adherence to medical advice. Since risk perceptions are a primary motivator of adherence behaviors, we assessed the relationship of probable PTSD to ACS risk perceptions in hospitalized ACS patients (n = 420). Participants completed a brief PTSD screen 3-7 days post-ACS, and rated their 1-year ACS recurrence risk relative to other men or women their age. Most participants exhibited optimistic bias (mean recurrence risk estimate between "average" and "below average"). Further, participants who screened positive for current PTSD (n …

Iconic Memory Requires Attention, Marjan Persuh, Boris Genzer, Robert D. Melara

Publications and Research

Two experiments investigated whether attention plays a role in iconic memory, employing either a change detection paradigm (Experiment 1) or a partial-report paradigm (Experiment 2). In each experiment, attention was taxed during initial display presentation, focusing the manipulation on consolidation of information into iconic memory, prior to transfer into working memory. Observers were able to maintain high levels of performance (accuracy of change detection or categorization) even when concurrently performing an easy visual search task (low load). However, when the concurrent search was made difficult (high load), observers' performance dropped to almost chance levels, while search accuracy held at single-task …

Responding To Secondary Traumatic Stress: A Pilot Study Of Torture Treatment Programs In The United States, Adeyinka M. Akinsulure-Smith, Eva Keatley, Andrew Rasmussen

Publications and Research

Providers who care for torture survivors may be at risk for secondary traumatic stress, yet there has been little documentation of the effects of repeated exposure to traumatic issues on their emotional health or exploration of the support systems and resources available to address their emotional needs. This study assessed the secondary stress experiences of service providers (N = 43) within the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs in the United States and examined the supports offered by their organizations. The study found a significant correlation between rates of anxiety and depression among providers, r(34) = .49, p = .003. …

Epidemiology And Management Of Depression Following Coronary Heart Disease Diagnosis In Women, Siqin Ye, Ellen-Ge Denton, Lauren T. Wasson, Karina W. Davidson

Publications and Research

Coronary heart disease (CHD) and depression are both highly prevalent in women. Importantly, depression is associated with significantly elevated morbidity and mortality in women with CHD. There are intriguing speculations about biological mechanisms underlying this association, such as endothelial dysfunction, subclinical atherosclerosis, inflammation, and autonomic dysregulation. Social and behavioral mechanisms, such as lack of social support and physical inactivity, have also been shown to play important roles. Unfortunately, many randomized clinical trials of counseling and pharmacologic interventions for depression in patients with CHD have failed to improve cardiovascular outcomes, and in fact have raised the possibility that interventions might be …

A Few Thoughts On Evidence In Social Work, Gary Holden, Ellen Tuchman, Kathleen Barker, Gary Rosenberg, May, Sofie Kuppens, Katie Watson

Publications and Research

Social work practitioners must act every working day in the face of uncertainty. This uncertainty arises in part because knowledge is often difficult to locate or sometimes lacking regarding: the systems context the population being served; the particular client system; the set of problems the client system is experiencing; as well as the various interventions that could be selected. It seems reasonable to explore ways to reduce the experience of uncertainty, and narrow, if not eliminate, the knowledge gaps that arise in such situations. The generic idea of evidence based practice has been advanced for some time as an approach …

Phenomenological Theories Of Crime, Peter K. Manning, Michael W. Raphael

Graduate Student Publications and Research

The distinctive aspect of phenomenological theories of crime is that they are based upon a stated epistemology: how things are known and a specific ontology—the nature of social reality. This specificity aligns itself with neo-Kantian concern with forms of knowing, interpretation, and meaning, as well as with 20th-century concern with perception, cognition, and the framing of events. While there are influences of phenomenological thinking on varieties of theorizing, such as symbolic interactionism, critical theory, queer theory, and gender-based theories of crime, these ideas are refractions and are inconsistent in their reference to and understanding of the foundational phenomenological works. A …

Difficulties Of Alternatively Certified Teachers, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Samantha J. Feinman

Publications and Research

This daily diary study followed, over a 2-week period, 252 beginning New York City public school teachers. Seventy percent were alternatively certified (New York City Teaching Fellows) and the rest, traditionally certified teachers. Alternatively certified teachers were more likely to experience stressors such as violent incidents and classroom management problems. No differences were found in exposure to stressors/difficulties such as problematic adults, student learning problems, and students experiencing emotional upset. Although differences in the rates of exposure to violent stressors could be explained by other factors (e.g., working in a low-performing school and years of experience), differences …

Culture Ontogeny: Lifespan Development Of Religion And The Ethics Of Spiritual Counselling, Glen Milstein, Amy Manierre

Publications and Research

The counsellor has an ethical obligation to treat the whole person. Humans are cultural beings and the foundation of most cultures is religion. Religion and culture are received from our early relation~ ships and modified through later relationships across the lifespan. The paper introduces the term "culture ontogeny" to emphasize that this is a biological process wherein abstract ideas of culture and religion become material in the developing neurophysiology of each brain. A framework and methods are offered to examine the changing roles of religion in clients' emotional self~ structure, inclusive of those who describe themselves as spiritual, not religious. …

Digital Video: Engaging Students In Critical Media Literacy And Community Activism, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

This article presents a strategy for teaching health communication that fosters critical media literacy through the strategic combination of digital video, documentary film, video worksheets, and peer-reviewed journal articles. Given the media-saturated environment in which notions of health are shaped, critical media literacy skills are crucial to students in health-related fields. Cases of key concepts illustrated through documentary films and the peer-reviewed literature are presented. The article then explores how one class took the lead in designing a community event that critically engaged both a YouTube video and a documentary film about police brutality as a public health issue.

Critical Bifocality And Circuits Of Privilege: Expanding Critical Ethnographic Theory And Design, Lois Weis, Michelle Fine

Publications and Research

Almost 10 years ago, in Working Method (2004), we argued for a critical theory of method for educational studies, which would analyze lives in the context of history, structure, and institutions, across the power lines of privilege and marginalization.

Facebook: Shifting Privacy, Identity, And Power Online, Rachel Verni

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Due to staggering technological shifts in recent decades, the Internet has become a routine fixture in everyday life. The popularity of social networking sites, in particular, raises myriad questions regarding identity construction and social interaction. It is also unclear how these practices are related to perceptions of privacy. This dissertation examines how traditional notions of privacy compare, and apply, to privacy on the Internet and considers how issues of power are (re)created in online spaces. By focusing on identity enactment strategies and social connectivity practices, this work sheds light on the ways in which individuals define privacy and choose to …

Social Aspects Of Developing And Sustaining Voluntarily Reduced Consumption Activity In New York City, Kirsten B. Firminger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the social aspects of voluntarily reduced consumption activity using the principles of cultural historical activity theory. Voluntarily buying less is viewed as ongoing interactive social process that is initiated and sustained as individuals engage with their surroundings. Data was collected from 320 online survey respondents living in the New York City Metro area, followed by a purposeful sampling of 24 participants for in-person, follow up interviews. Interviews revealed the social contextual influences on initiating voluntarily reduced consumption activity. For example, family experiences, personal life changes, and historical events played a role in individuals' choice to voluntarily buy …

Criminal, Antisocial, And Temporal Patterns In The Histories Of Serial And Non-Serial Sexual Murderers, Victoria Blair Mesa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Despite its having been the subject of clinical and scholarly inquiry for more than two centuries, empirical research regarding the phenomenon of sexually-motivated homicide remains limited. In particular, relatively few prior studies have focused on perpetrators' criminal and antisocial backgrounds, and these often examine only the data found in official arrest and conviction records, which frequently provide incomplete accounts of offenders' histories. Even fewer researchers have investigated whether temporal patterns exist in the offense histories of sexual murderers. The current study included data on 46 serial and 93 non-serial perpetrators of sexually-motivated homicide, obtained from a large archive. Data collection …