Psychology Commons^™

Social Support And New Communication Technologies During A Life Stressor, Heather Attig

Faculty Scholarship – Communication

Social support, whether emotional, informational, or tangible, is an innate need and is important to our well-being and our personal relationships. While face-to-face communication has been considered the “gold standard” to relational maintenance, we are also using communication technology to maintain our personal relationships and mobilize our social support networks. Technological advances in communication channels have provided new avenues to social interaction and social support.

The purpose of this study was to explore the social support process across new communication technologies. Specifically, I examined how multiple modes of communication (including face-to-face) were used to seek and receive social support to/from …

Attitude Accessiblity As A Determinant Of Object Construal And Evaluation, Alison I. Young, Russell H. Fazio

Faculty Scholarship – Psychology

Attitude accessibility, the ease with which a given attitude comes to mind, has been demonstrated to affect attention. The current experiments focus on the construal of multiply-categorizable objects. They seek to provide evidence that (a) construals toward which individuals have more accessible attitudes, i.e., those that are more attitude-evoking, are more likely to influence the evaluation of related objects and that (b) this effect of attitude accessibility on construal processes can be extended to a whole series of objects which vary along multiple dimensions. Experiment 1 provides evidence that construals whose related attitudes were made more accessible via attitude rehearsal …

Marriage And Religion: The Effect Of Religious Study Materials On Marital Happiness, Rose E M Zell

Honors Program Projects

The purpose of this research was to assess the impact of marital enrichment materials on marital happiness. In addition, the study attempted to determine if gender or number of years married made a difference in regard to the impact on marital happiness. The participants consisted of 56 New Life Christian Church members (28 male and 28 female) who comprised 28 married couples. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control or the experimental group. Every participant took a pre-test survey designed to assess marital happiness across ten different variables. Then the experimental group completed the Love Talk study by Les …

Familia E Inmigración: Discovering Biblican Immigration Narratives That Speak To Today's Latin American Immigrant Families In Chicago, Mckenzie Fritch

Honors Program Projects

This qualitative study sought to gain insight into the motivations, challenges, and behavior patterns of Latin American immigrant families in the Chicago, Illinois area, and can be divided into two parts: research and application. Research was collected by conducting focus group interviews with immigrant parents and children at three Nazarene Hispanic churches in and around Chicago. Questions were asked about the families’ reasons for immigrating and their stories of entry and arrival, but the interviews maintained a particular focus on the changes each family experienced while living in the United States. This study was especially interested to learn about communication …

Meeting The Predeparture And Reentry Needs Of Onu Spanish Study Abroad Students, Rachel M. Groters

Honors Program Projects

The purpose of the Predeparture and Reentry Needs project was to examine the reentry adjustment of Olivet Nazarene University (ONU) Spanish students who had already returned home from required study abroad experiences in order to craft predeparture and reentry programs based on findings. In Phase 1, the researcher recorded qualitative interviews in March and April of 2012 with 22 ONU undergraduate students who studied abroad in Spanish-speaking countries before the spring 2012 semester. Then the researcher listened to each interview again, taking notes on each and transcribing quotes. The researcher found that all students experienced some level and kind of …

The Eden Project: A City Wide Youth Conference And Fashion Show To Increase Body Image And Self-Esteem In Adolescent Girls, Nicole R. Parsons

Honors Program Projects

This paper focuses on the development of body image and self-esteem in adolescent girls and discusses the impact both positive and negative factors can have during this developmental stage of life. It argues the idea that a girl’s positive feelings regarding her external appearance can drastically influence her self-esteem, which in turn affects how she treats herself, as well how she allows others to treat her. This paper also follows the history of fashion shows, discussing their influence in media outlets that adolescent girls often turn to when searching for an identity in this culture. Pulling from a Christian perspective, …

Political Attitudes Bias The Mental Representation Of A Presidential Candidate's Face, Alison I. Young, Kyle G. Ratner, Russell H. Fazio

Faculty Scholarship – Psychology

Using a technique known as reverse correlation image classification, we demonstrate that the physical face of Mitt Romney represented in people’s minds varies as a function of their attitudes toward Mitt Romney. This provides evidence that attitudes bias how we see something as concrete and well-learned as the face of a political candidate during an election. Practically, this implies that citizens may not merely interpret political information about a candidate to fit their opinion, but that they may construct a political world where they literally see candidates differently.