Psychology Commons^™

Neural Replay : A Possible Mechanism For Differing Rehersal Strategies Across Parity, Cassie Brooke Jones

Master's Theses

All mammalian females undergo behavioral and neurological changes during pregnancy and motherhood. Many of these changes lead to an enhanced ability to be an effective mother including: increased memory, foraging behaviors, and boldness. Here, we examined the differences in rehearsal strategies between mother and virgin rats. Stops made by rats when exploring their environment have been found to result in reverse replay activity in the hippocampus (Foster & Wilson, 2006). Reverse replay is sequential replay that occurs in the hippocampus immediately after a spatial experience; this replay/activation is in reversed order of the initial spatial episode (Foster & Wilson, 2006). …

Looking Into The Mind Of The Mother : Pup Exposure And Reactivation Of Maternal Circuits, Tricia Lauren Norkunas

Master's Theses

The female rat, among other species, undergoes a fundamental brain re-modeling as a consequence of experiencing the normal and natural events of pregnancy and offspring stimulation. Compelling data show that maternal experiences produce neurobiological modifications in the female leading to specific maternal behaviors, affective states, and the basic underlying female neurobiology necessary to raise viable offspring. This study aims to evaluate the number, quality and selective activation of neurons that develop during the maternal experience. The study showed a trend toward supporting the hypothesis that a “maternal-circuit” is formed through the proliferation of neurons during late-motherhood and lactation, and is …

Visual Discrimination Training For Rats : Developing A New Methodology To Explore Laterality Differences, Tiffany R. Brunelli

Honors Theses

The goal of this study was to examine right hemisphere specialization for faces at the neuronal level. Research has shown that facial recognition relies on the right anterior temporal lobe and involves integrating multiple features (Bukach, Gauthier, & Tarr, 2006). Evidence from rat studies confirms that the anterior temporal lobe is involved in integrating multiple object features (Eacott, Machin, & Gaffan, 2001). However, these studies did not examine differences between the brain’s right and left hemispheres. It was hypothesized that the right anterior temporal lobe is more important for feature integration. The current study aimed to develop a methodology for …

It's That Efa* Time Of Year (*Extreme Fan Addiction), Donelson R. Forsyth

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

What an odd lot our ancestors must have been to let themselves get caught up in crazes like the 10th century dancing mania in Italy, or the alarming outbreak of biting mania in 15th century Germany, Italy, and Holland. Holland's 17th century tulipmania proved only economically painful, when wealthy families spent their savings buying and hoarding tulip bulbs, and were left in financial ruin when prices plummeted.

We are not so different from those long-gone dancers, biters, and tulipophiles, because a modern mania is about to descend upon us: March Madness. Sixty-four colleges and universities send their basketball teams into …

[Introduction To] Medicating Children: Adhd And Pediatric Mental Health, Rick Mayes, Catherine Bagwell, Jennifer L. Erkulwater

Bookshelf

Why and how did ADHD become the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder among children and adolescents, as well as one of the most controversial? Stimulant medication had been used to treat excessively hyperactive children since the 1950s. And the behaviors that today might lead to an ADHD diagnosis had been observed since the early 1930s as “organic drivenness,” and then by various other names throughout the decades.

The authors argue that a unique alignment of social and economic trends and incentives converged in the early 1990s with greater scientific knowledge to make ADHD the most prevalent pediatric mental disorder. New …

Visions And Values: Ethical Reflections In A Jamesian Key, David E. Leary

Psychology Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to provide a quick survey of William James's views on the plurality of visions that humans have regarding reality, as a background for more extensive discussions of his views on the plurality of values that orient human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, as well as his views on the enactment of those values through active resistance to the ways things are and the risk-taking involved in striving to improve the human condition. Consonant with pluralism itself, I intend this discussion to open up rather than close off further considerations of James's views on ethics.

Memory Aging: Deficits, Beliefs, And Interventions, Jane M. Berry, Erin Hastings, Robin West, Courtney Lee, John C. Cavanaugh

Psychology Faculty Publications

Of all mental faculties, memory is unique. It defines who we are and places our lives on a narrative continuum from birth to death. It helps to structure our days, it guides our daily tasks and goals, and it provides pleasurable interludes as we anticipate the future and recall the past. As a core, defining feature of the self (Birren & Schroots, 2006), memory takes on heightened meaning as we age. In the face of other losses that accumulate with age, memory can serve to preserve our sense of self and place in time. In normal aging, memory loss is …

Between Pierce (1878) And James (1898): G. Stanley Hall, The Origins Of Pragmatism And The History Of Psychology, David E. Leary

Psychology Faculty Publications

This article focuses on the 20-year gap between Charles S. Peirce's classic proposal of pragmatism in 1877-1878 and William James's equally classic call for pragmatism in 1898. It fills the gap by reviewing relevant developments in the work of Peirce and James and by introducing G. Stanley Hall, for the first time, as a figure in the history of pragmatism. In treating Hall and pragmatism, the article reveals a previously unnoted relation between the early history of pragmatism and the early history of the "new psychology" that Hall helped to pioneer. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Motivation To Lead : Investigating The Power Of The Mtl Equation, Elizabeth Robinson

Honors Theses

Recent research has investigated a measurable way to determine an individual's motivation to lead in social situations by looking at specific aspects of an individual that make up his/her leadership ability and experience. The MTL (Motivation to Lead) construct is referred to as an individual differences construct that measures a person's motivation to acquire a leadership position based on specific personality traits and values (Chan & Drasgow, 2002). Chan and Drasgow's findings suggest that specific antecedents have calculable correlations to the three types of motivation to lead: Affective/Identity MTL, Non-Calculative MTL, and Social-Normative MTL. For example, Chan and Drasgow reported …

Group Dynamics, Donelson R. Forsyth

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

No abstract provided.

Socioemotional And Task Behavior, George R. Goethals

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

In problem-solving groups, individual members engage in different types of behavior, including task behavior, which focuses on the external problem to be addressed, and socioemotional behavior, which addresses the feelings that arise as a result of group interaction. This entry describes these two types of behavior and examines the leadership styles of group leaders who focus on each one.

Size Of Food Packaging And Cognitive Performance, Shannon Henry

Honors Theses

Many factors have been shown to affect individuals' cognitive performance, such as sleepiness, hunger, motivation, etc. One such factor that has recently gained much attention is self-regulation, or one's ability to control, regulate, or change his or her behaviors. In lay terms, self-regulation may be thought of more or less as self-control. Together, this researchon self-regulation suggests that it is a limited resource, which, when depleted in one area, reduces self-regulationability across other areas. Many past studies regarding self-regulation have incorporated food as a way to deplete self-regulation. In particular, the size of food packaging may be a way to …

Can She Ever Be "The Man"? : The Effect Of Gender On Implicit Perceptions Of Leadership Ability In An Applied Hiring Task, Rebecca S. Frazier

Honors Theses

Despite numerous advances in the eld of women's rights and a general decline in explicit discrimination, there still exists a dramatic lack of women in leadership positions across America. This research seeks to expand upon past studies suggesting that there is a basic cognitive incongruency between traditional male and leadership roles which leads ordinarily "unbiased" individuals to perceive women as less suited r leadership positions than men. Thus, this experiment investigates the implicit biases against women leaders by asking if the subtle addition of gender information alters individuals' initial impressions of leadership capability in an applied hiring task involving resumes, …