Psychology Commons^™

The Effects Of Participation In A Development Group Upon The Psychological Adjustment Of Pregnant Adolescents And Adolescent Mothers, Bernard E. Wazlavek

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Pregnant adolescents and adolescent mothers are a population at risk to a variety of negative social, economic, and psychological consequences. Numerous group interventions have been designed to improve the psychological adjustment of pregnant adolescents and adolescent mothers. However, there has been a paucity of research evaluating the efficacy of these interventions. This research was designed to evaluate the efficacy of the development group intervention. The primary objective of this research was to evaluate the effects of this intervention upon the psychological adjustment of the participants.

Thirty-two subjects (16 experimental and 16 comparison) enrolled in two alternative public high schools in …

The Relationship Between Congruence Among Communication Channels And Degree Of Mental Health, Karen R. Seibel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Writers from a number of theoretical backgrounds have asserted that agreement in the emotional messages conveyed by various verbal and nonverbal communication channels is related to the communicator's psychological health. If this conjecture is accurate, then congruence among communication channels could be used as a behaviorally based assessment tool. However, empirical research to test this theoretical and clinical assumption is relatively lacking. The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that individuals who display congruence (agreement) between verbal (language), verbal/vocal (language plus paralinguistic cues, or speech) and nonverbal (facial) channels of communication will show a greater degree of mental …

The Effect Of Elaboration On Memory: Self-Generated Elaboration Vs Experimenter-Provided Elaboration, Sung-Il Kim

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of elaborations on memory. Two types of elaborations (self-generated elaboration and experimenter-provided elaboration) were examined. The experiment consisted of three phases (incidental learning phase, immediate test phase, and delayed test phase). In the incidental learning phase, subjects were asked to make plausibility judgments about 28 fictitious episodes. Half of these were about well-known individuals and the other half were about unknown individuals. Each name (either well-known or unknown) was presented with either two supportive facts or without the supportive facts. During the immediate test phase, subjects were given unexpected memory …

The Effects Of Teacher Training Vs. Teacher And Parent Training On The Aggressive Behavior Of Preschoolers, John J. Shamaly Jr.

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The present study was conducted over a two-month period and used a three-group post-treatment quasi-experimental design to compare the relative effectiveness of teacher training only, to teacher training plus parent training, upon the aggressive and social competency behaviors of teacher-identified aggressive preschoolers. In addition to a non-intervention control group of teacher-identified aggressive preschoolers, children who teachers identified as being non-aggressive were also observed for comparison purposes. The training that both parents and teachers received was general and focused on providing an understanding of the techniques of social learning theory and child behavior management. Parents also implemented behavior programs to increase …

The Effects Of Social Perspective-Taking Training And Ideological Perspective-Taking Training On Ego-Identity Formation In Late Adolescence, Carol Markstrom Adams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of two forms of perspective-taking training on interpersonal and ideological identities of 18- to 21-year-old college students. The primary predictions of the study were that social perspective-taking training would have its greater effect on interpersonal identity and that ideological perspective-taking training would have its greater effect on ideological identity. Ninety-six subjects were pretested for the study. Subject loss occurred due to attrition and the elimination of subjects who scored above set criterion for inclusion in the study. A total of 50 participants who were assigned to one of two treatment …

Classical Conditioning And Immune Reactivity In Rats, Laura Anne Czajkowski

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Psychoneuroimmunology is an interdisciplinary area that examines the interaction between behavior, the central nervous system, and the immune system. Many investigations have utilized a taste aversion paradigm to examine the effects of classical conditioning on an immune response. The procedure generally consists of an animal ingesting a novel flavor, and then being made ill and immunosuppressed by injection of a pharmacological agent. The animal is provided access to that flavor at a later time. The rejection of the novel flavor on the test day is called taste aversion and the depressed antibody titer has been labeled conditioned immunosuppression.

The present …

The Effects Of Reinforcement Magnitude And Temporal Contingencies On Pre-Ratio Pause Duration, Marilyn K. Bonem

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The present study was conducted to determine whether conjugate magnitude and temporal contingencies were effective in increasing the pre-ratio pause (PRP) duration and to determine the controlling variables that govern such contingencies. It has been reported in the literature that magnitude of reinforcement, if presented contingently, is effective in controlling performance and that inserting intervals of blackout (BO), during which responding does not lead to reinforcement, virtually always leads to control of responding, even though it has not been presented contingently. The conjugate schedules experimentally arranged reinforcement such that the longer the PRP, the longer was the duration of access …

The Highest Local Density Of Reinforcement Controls Overall Post-Reinforcement Pause Duration On Ratio Schedules, Elliott J. Bonem

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A series of experiments were conducted with pigeons to investigate the variables responsible for differential postreinforcement pause (PRP) durations found on ratio schedules. In Experiment I, behavior on fixed-ratio (FR) and variable-ratio (VR) schedules were compared to behavior evoked by two interpolated schedules. The addition of a single FR 1 component to the FR 50 baseline schedule reduced the overall PRP to a duration comparable to that found on the VR 50 schedule. The addition of both an FR 1 and an FR 215 component to an FR 50 baseline reduced PRP and IRT durations below those on a VR …

The Emotional Effects Of Injury On Female Collegiate Gymnasts, Nancy J. Albert

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to examine affective changes which result from injury in female collegiate gymnasts, using the Profile of Mood States (POMS) instrument (McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1971 ).

Twelve female gymnasts, comprising the Utah State University gymnastics team, completed the POMS twice per month for four months during their 1986-87 competitive season . A comparison group of 12 non-athlete female college students, matched with the gymnasts by age, year in school, and major, completed the POMS on the same schedule as the gymnasts. Injury was defined as orthopedic damage to the gymnast's body as a result …

Maternal, Obstetric, And Neonatal Correlates Of Short-Term Neurodevelopmental Outcome In Newborn Infants With Intraventricular Hemorrhage, Richard Elghammer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The attempt to identify risk factors or correlates of intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) has been constrained by conflicting research findings, changing hypotheses about the etiology of IVH, and by the exceedingly complex nature of this neurological disorder. In addition, few studies have investigated the possibility that antenatal factors might predispose the infant to IVH. Thus, research aimed at identifying IVH correlates from all time periods in which stress could occur to the neonate needs to be undertaken. This study was conducted for the purpose of identifying and quantifying correlates of IVH by constructing an interactive statistical model to predict the occurrence, …

Durational Control Of Defensive Burying In Rats: An Investigation Of A Species-Specific Defense Reaction, Stephen Gregory Goldberg

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Six experiments were run to determine whether the duration of conditioned defensive burying (COB) in rats is a function of its consequences.

Four experiments developed the methodology. Experiment 1 replicated the standard one-trial experiment, where rats are shocked once by a prod. All three rats exhibited CDB. Experiment 2 used a lever-press-for-water contingency to force recontact with the lever, following shock deliveries in Sessions 6 and 14. All three rats buried the lever in both sessions. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2, employing albino and hooded rats. All six buried the lever. The albinos exhibited longer burying durations. Experiment 4 used …

The Effects Of Prey Vulnerability, Density, And Patch Replenishment In An Operant Analogue Of Foraging, Michael James Dewulf

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Foraging behavior has recently become a popular area of research with which ethologists, behavioral ecologists, and experimental psychologists converge their traditionally separate disciplines into a more multidisciplinary framework. Ethologists and behavioral ecologists usually study foraging as it occurs in the natural environment or the "field," while experimental psychologists contrive laboratory simulations of foraging and make the assumption, sometimes incorrectly, that generalization occurs across settings, situations, and species. Scientific advances are now beginning to occur in the ability of laboratory researchers to better simulate foraging as it occurs in the field. Field researchers are also becoming more willing to accept these …