Psychology Commons^™

The Effects Of Maternal Support And Non-Support On The Family Concepts Of Sexually Abused Girls, Sharon R. Hitchens

Dissertations and Theses

Incest, and the problems arising from it, have increasingly come under the scrutiny of therapists and researchers. All family members are affected by incest and all have been studied. Victims are particularly devastated by sexual abuse by a family member but it is a commonly held belief that having a supportive mother can mitigate the trauma a victim experiences. In this study, girls between the ages of ten and eighteen who were the victims of sexual abuse by a father-figure were compared to a group of girls not thought to be incest victims. The incest victims were divided into two …

Cultural Characteristics Of Learning And Perceptual Skills Of Southeast Alaskan Native 5-Year-Olds, Thomas J. Turkon

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the use of cognitive skills by 5-year-old Alaskan Native children on a standardized testing instrument. The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scales of Intelligence (WPPSI) were administered to 23 boys and 17 girls of predominantly Tlingit, Tsimshean, and Haida ancestry. A standardized parent interview was used to collect bio-demographic data. Mean scores for the sample displayed significant differences between the Performance and Verbal scales, with the strongest performance in the Spatial subtests, and lowest in the Sequential subtests. Scores were significantly associated with variables representing culture-specific self identity and behavior, but were most strongly associated with family size. …

A Comparison Of The Effects Of Emg Biofeedback And Relaxation Training On Chronic Back Pain Patients, Pam W. Vredevelt

Dissertations and Theses

This experiment examined the effects of EMG biofeedback and relaxation training as compared with biofeedback alone. The following dependent variables were examined: manifest anxiety, perceived pain, perceived relaxation, EMG activity, and locus of control. Back pain patients were assigned to one of two treatment groups. Group 1 was treated with both EMG biofeedback and relaxation training. Group 2 was treated with biofeedback alone. It appears that both biofeedback combined with progressive relaxation and biofeedback training alone are effective in lowering muscle activity and perceived pain, and in increasing perceived relaxation. However, from the results of this study, it is impossible …

The Effect Of Subject Expectations Of "Hypnosis" Upon The Vividness Of Visual Imagery, Kayla Mae Nilsson

Dissertations and Theses

There is no consensus of how hypnosis works. The two major theorists in hypnosis research, the Phenomenologists and the Behaviorists, disagree on this issue. The Phenomenologists consider individual talent and change of the state of consciousness the key to how hypnosis works. The Behaviorists consider the social situation and the roles taken by the experimenter and subject, especially the subject's expectations of hypnosis, the mainspring of the hypnotic process. Subject expectations of hypnosis have been found to affect the final results of hypnosis experiments. An experiment was conducted to gain further insight into subject expectations of hypnosis, and how these …

Eye Contact Perception At Distances Up To Six Meters, Daniel L. Scarl

Dissertations and Theses

Common experience suggests that most people can tell whether they are being looked at by another person who is about 8 m away. However, the results of past experiments, which used distances of no more than about 3 m, have implied that this cannot be done if the person looked at (Receiver) judges only by the iris-sclera configuration of the person looking (Sender). This is true even if eye contact is defined simply as identifying on-face gazes (FGs). It has been suggested that in everyday experience eye contact is accompanied by cues other than iris position, and that these non-iris-position …

A Comparative Study Of The Developmental Sentence Scoring Normative Data Obtained In Canby, Oregon, And The Midwest, For Children Between The Ages Of 6.0 And 6.11 Years, Stacy Ann Tilden-Browning

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of geographical differences on the Developmental Sentence Scoring normative data for children ages 6.0 to 6.11, by comparing the original DSS normative data with that obtained in Canby, Oregon. A collateral purpose was to develop norms for the geographical area of Canby, Oregon, using the DSS procedure. Forty children, ten within each of the four, three-month age subgroups between 6.0 and 6.11, were chosen. All of the children came from monolingual, middle-class families and had normal hearing, normal receptive vocabulary skills, and no known unusual social, developmental, or behavioral …

A Comparison Of Pedophiles And Incest Offenders On Mmpi Scales And Demographic Data, Linda Darmer Ladd

Dissertations and Theses

This study compared one group of pedophiles, two groups of incestuous fathers, and two groups of incestuous stepfathers on their individual MMPI scale scores and self-reported demographic data. Past research on sex offenders has shown that patterns of variables are better indicators of offender typology than single variables. A nonrandom sample of male abusers (N=177) was drawn from two separate sources, a clinic that screens offenders for treatment disposition and an unrelated outpatient treatment clinic in the Portland, Oregon area. Scores from the 13 MMPI scales as well as data from 17 demographic variables were drawn from clinic …

A Social-Psychological Case History : The Manson Incident, Judith Elaine Bullis

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the social-psychological impact of of the Manson incident; which begins with the Tate-Labianca murders, continues with the arrest of Charles Manson and some of his followers, continues with the trial of Charles Manson and the co-defendants, and results in a popular image.

Negative Behavior Exhibited By Preschool Children In Same-Age Versus Mixed-Age Groups, Laura Janine Sheppard

Dissertations and Theses

Perhaps due to the increase in the workforce of mothers with young children, much attention has been directed in the past decade towards the subject of out-of-home child care.

In order to gain further understanding of the socialization of preschool children, an observational study was carried out which was designed to measure the amount of negative behavior expressed by children participating in mixed-age versus same-age preschool groups.

Scotopic And Photopic Thresholds : A Dependent Variable For The Mccollough Effect, Marilyn Murphy

Dissertations and Theses

Previous attempts to adequately evaluate orientation-specific colored aftereffects (Mccollough Effects) have thus far been unsuccessful in yielding quantitative measures of relative strengths of the effects. Similarly, little success has been shown in previous attempts to establish what level of illumination is necessary in order to evoke the aftereffects. The present study sought to determine (a) whether threshold measurements could serve as adequate, quantitative dependent variables of the Mccollough Effects, (b) whether photopic illumination was necessary in order to evoke the aftereffect. It was predicted that the greater the number of inspection trials, the dimmer the illumination level could be in …

Sharing As A Function Of The Number Of Play Materials, Nancy Carol Milstead

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined whether the number of available play materials (toys) affected the occurrence of sharing behavior in preschool children. Eighteen four- and five-year-old children were assigned by age and gender to six same-sexed groups of three children each and were observed during three, 10-minute observation sessions. All groups were observed playing with one toy, two toys, and three toys. The children's play activities with the toy(s) were videotaped, and a behavioral coding system was developed to record those behaviors. The effect of toy condition on the sharing categories of Asked-for-Share, Partial Share, Overall Share (a category combining the highly …

The Mmpi : A Subscale (Ic) For The Identification Of Male Incest Offenders, Mary S. Dolan

Dissertations and Theses

The MMPI has been used extensively for the clinical assessment of deviancy among sexual offenders. In order to derive a diagnostic scale for the specific identification of male incest offenders, an item analysis, using MMPI data from offenders, compared MMPI data from a nonoffending control sample. The item analysis results were cross validated with MMPI data from a separate sample of incest offenders. Eleven MMPI items were found to be critical in discriminating male incest offenders from nonoffenders, and these items comprise the Ic experimental scale. On the basis of the Ic scale, male incest offenders evidence characterological disturbances in …