Psychology Commons^™

Young People’S Perception Of Opportunities To Participate In Democratic Governance, Jennifer Nga Yu Tang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations General Assembly, 1989) accords all young people the right to be heard and make decisions on matters affecting them. Despite the fact the United States remains the only country in the world not to have ratified this document, a number of American cities have nevertheless begun to engage young people in community decision-making (e.g., in neighborhood associations or community boards). However, as of yet there are few actual opportunities for youth to participate fully in the governance of their cities. This study examined the perspectives of young people …

The Space Love Maps: A Blackgirl Legend In Three Plots, Loren S. Cahill

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is a love story from one Blackgirl (Boylorn, 2016) from St. Louis to Blackgirls in Philadelphia. It radically traces love across plots of race, gender, time, space, and affect. This text will provide non-conventional maps for how Blackgirls, young and old, have been memory keepers, cultural workers, love pillars, freedom mappers, and actors since before the inception of American slavery (Brown, 2013; Hartman, 2019; Hooks, 1993; Nash, 2013; Walker, 2004). Specifically, it will argue that we have problematized the settler-colonial project of mapping (McKittrick, 2006) and moved away from viewing space as an entrenchment of empire. Further, we have …

Information Justice: The Histories And Futures Of Technology And Social Categories, Patrick Sweeney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation examines two controversies related to emergent uses of information from social media in psychological research and application. It focuses on controversies surrounding studies of face-based gaydar and the use of psychographic targeting by Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 US presidential election. Each controversy is analyzed in a case study that explores the issues specific to that study in relation to broader patterns across contexts to identify emergent trends in the use of information from social media in psychological research. Qualitative Content Analysis is used to analyze extant texts relevant to each case. In each study, findings related to …

Migration And Work: A Cross-National Comparative Analysis Of Migrant Groups And Their Labor Experiences, Post Migration, Jill Douek

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although there is a large body of literature about migration and employment post migration, much of it is limited to study designs restricting either migrant groups or countries. In other words, current research is limited to focusing either a) only on one migrant group (usually expatriates), thereby failing to compare it to other migrant groups within the same country or cross-nationally or b) on multiple migrant groups in one country, thereby making it difficult to draw comparisons cross-nationally across those migrant groups. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to 1) examine the career-related outcomes, post migration, of three …

The Role Of Perceived Warmth And Competence In Civil Trials With Corporate Litigants, Alexander C. Jay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Corporations are involved in approximately 40% of all civil litigation (Langton & Cohen, 2008), yet there is much to be learned concerning how jurors make decisions in trials involving corporate litigants. Mock juror research suggests that for-profit corporations are treated more harshly than other defendants, such as non-profit corporations and individuals (e.g., Hans, 1998). This discrepant treatment of for-profit corporate defendants might be linked to unmitigated stereotypical perceptions of them being low in warmth (i.e., likely to have immoral intentions) but high in competence (i.e., likely to be capable of acting on those intentions; Aaker et al., 2010). Research shows …

Developmental Predictors Of Adolescent Mental Health Stigma And A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial Of "Ending The Silence" In New York City, Joseph S. Deluca

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explored predictors of mental health stigma among adolescents and the effectiveness of a school-based mental health stigma reduction and health promotion program, “Ending the Silence” (ETS), developed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Youth mental health service use is impacted by many factors, but concern about stigma and low mental health knowledge have been consistently identified as leading barriers to help-seeking. Beyond education and contact program components, existing research on how to design a successful adolescent stigma reduction intervention has been inconclusive. A diverse sample of 206 high school students in New York City participated in the …

The Racial Position Model As A Framework To Understand Friendship Formation Between Latinx Americans And Other Racial Minorities, Darren Agboh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Three experiments utilized the Racial Position Model (RPM, Zou & Cheryan, 2017) in intraminority relations context to examine how Latinx Americans form friendships with a Black or Asian American interaction partner based on their shared or separate axes of subordination on the RPM. Latinx Americans may have contrasting interaction expectations with Black Americans and Asian Americans, as they share inferiority with Black Americans and foreignness with Asian Americans but are inferior compared to Asian Americans and foreign compared to Black Americans (Zou & Cheryan, 2017). Results showed that Latinx Americans feel more similar in terms of inferiority to Black Americans …

False Cures Of U.S. Nationalism: The Border Wall – A Raucous Call From The Silent Center, Tatiana N. Browne-Kai

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In trying to grasp the authoritarian surge in the U.S. since 2016, political theorists have increasingly turned their focus back to the Studies of the Authoritarian Personality. In response to the risk of these contemporary studies’ use of psychoanalysis in a de-historicized and individualized way, this paper opts for a double historicization of modern mass-formations. In analyzing the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, the Minuteman Border Fence and We Build the Wall, civil initiatives that aim at fortifying the U.S.-Mexican border wall (D. Trumps central campaign theme), the current surge to the right is shown to be based on and made …

Spheres Of Identity: Theorizing Social Categorization And The Legitimacy Of Criminal Justice Officials, Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Identity is of central importance in the subjective experience of justice and assessments of legitimacy. In this study, the researcher explores whether perceptions of legitimacy are constructed differently across social group identity, particularly where social groups differ in relation to government (e.g., outgroup or ingroup). The analyses are conducted using data from a procedural justice study conducted in two U. S. cities. The findings suggest evidence of a generally similar construction of legitimacy though with important dissimilarities based on social group. Additionally, certain respondents’ narratives follow common narrative scripts in describing interactions with police, suggestive of a shared master narrative …

The Dynamic Linkages Between Structural Interdependencies, Computer-Mediated Communication, And Emergence In Newly Formed Virtual Groups, Erik Pesner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Virtual groups and teams are increasingly common in today’s organizations, particularly since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis. However, little is known about how specific design features predict communicative team processes and emergent phenomena in the days immediately following virtual team formation. This dissertation examined the effects of task interdependence (i.e., shared resources) and outcome interdependence (i.e., shared goals and feedback) on task-oriented and relationship-oriented electronic communication between group members and emergent group perceptions over a 5-day experimental simulation. Results showed that while the majority of hypotheses were not supported, three key findings were culled from the analysis. First, virtual …

Grassroots Tales: Journeys Of Inward Healing And Outward Movement Building – “A Story Of Youth Development And Healing”, Andrew Cory Greene

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Rooted in Liberation Psychology epistemology, this dissertation was engaged to liberate myself as well as psychology. Positing Healing Justice and Sociopolitical Development as theoretical guides, this dissertation explored a community specific approach of radical healing to develop urban youth’s abilities to sustain (build) spirit and collective hope for grassroot movement building. This dissertation asks, what are the possibilities of bringing urban youth (n=9) together who shared similar realities, dared to dream together (i.e., think tank), and turn those dreams into a Grassroot Movement Building?

The methodological praxis of this dissertation project was politically and theoretically situated to study learnings at …

Pre-Report Review Of Body-Worn Camera Footage: An Examination Of Stakeholder Beliefs, Laypeople’S Judgments Of Officer Credibility, And The Consequences For Memory, Kristyn A. Jones

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Aim: This dissertation examines people’s beliefs about police officer access to body-worn camera footage, people’s judgments of officer credibility as it relates to video footage, and the consequences that review of footage has on reporting accuracy.

Rationale: With escalating police-civilian tensions in 2014, American police departments adopted body-worn camera programs. A majority of departments have policies allowing officers unrestricted access to camera footage. Because officers fear that inconsistencies between reports and videos could result in suspicion of officer deceit, they argue that officers should have access to footage before writing their reports to ensure reports match the footage. Yet, because …

Extra-Legal Information Transfer During Eyewitness Identification, Andrew J. Evelo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Researchers recommend that eyewitness lineups be conducted by administrators who do not know which lineup member is the suspect (i.e., that lineups be administered in a double-blind manner). Research on the effects of administrator knowledge generally support the idea that single-blind lineups damage the integrity of the lineup procedure and can lead to increases in the false identification of innocent suspects (Kovera & Evelo, 2017). This body of research has either explicitly stated or implicitly assumed that these negative effects are the result of leakage—that is, administrators are conveying information to witnesses about which lineup member to pick. Borrowing from …

Emotion Processing Deficits In Psychopathy: Does Cueing To Relevant Facial Features Increase Cognitive And Emotional Empathy?, Shawn E. Fagan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychopathy is a multifaceted disorder characterized by a lack of cognitive and emotional empathy. The traditional model of psychopathy divides the disorder into two factors: Factor 1 consists of the interpersonal and affective traits of psychopathy while Factor 2 measures antisocial behaviors and lifestyle choices. The attention-to-the-eyes hypothesis argues that psychopathic individuals have impaired emotion recognition (specifically for fear) due to deficits in orienting attention to salient facial features like the eyes. Psychopathic individuals also display blunted autonomic responding to emotional stimuli, though whether this is due to attention-orienting deficits remains to be clarified. The present project investigated whether empathy-related …

Does Ethnic Identity, In-Group Preference, And Acculturation Protect Latinas With A History Of Interpersonal Trauma From Developing Symptoms Of Ptsd?, Evelyn M. Ramirez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous research suggests ethnic identity, a sense of belonging to a particular cultural group, may be protective against symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the role of ethnic identity, in-group preference (i.e., an individual’s preference for interactions with members of their own ethnic group) and acculturation (i.e., the level of comfort with the mainstream culture) have not been investigated as protective factors for Latinas with a history of interpersonal and sexual trauma. In this study, ethnic identity, in-group preference and acculturation were assessed via self-report on the Scale of Ethnic Experience in two samples of undergraduate Latina and non-Latina …

Impact Of Religiosity And Level Of Acculturation On Cultural Alignment: An Exploration Of Terror Management Mechanisms Among Muslim American Women, Farah T. Goheer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

ABSTRACT

Impact of Religiosity and Level of Acculturation on Cultural Alignment: An Exploration of Terror Management Mechanisms among Muslim American Women

by

Farah Taha Goheer, M.A.

Advisor: Joel Sneed, Ph.D.

Background: Terror management theory (TMT) is based upon the notion that human beings require ongoing psychological protection from the unyielding, existential threat of death. A large body of evidence has shown that human beings manage death-related terror by aligning with and endorsing the dominant views of their cultural worldviews. Notably, as immigrants experience a new culture, worldviews become rearticulated to incorporate elements of host and heritage cultures. However, it is …

Racial Becoming: How Agentic (Self-Initiated) Encounter Events Inform Racial Identity Refinement, Devin A. Heyward

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Racial identity literature has typically focused on identity formation through a series of stages. It also has centered how the experience of negative encounter events informs racial identity formation. With the advent of new genealogical and genomic technology, it is imperative to expand the focus of identity literatures to include encounter events, which participants elect to experience (i.e. self-initiated or agentic encounter events). By using this frame, identity processes become fluid and informed by individual life experiences. In the context of this study, direct to consumer genetic ancestry tests (DTC-GAT) are operationalized as a self-initiated encounter event. Participants were …

Inheritances Of Injustice/Transference Of Freedom: An Intimate Project On Black Women's Intergenerational Relationships And The Consequences Of The Punishment System, Whitney Richards-Calathes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project centers the multi-generational familial relationships between system-impacted Black women, mapping and uncovering the ways in which incarceration and practices of punishment impact, shape, hurt, and displace Black femme lineages. Through a qualitative lens and a specific focus on the current social and political landscape of Los Angeles, this dissertation examines the ways Black women are impacted by carceral ideology; from punitive definitions of Black womanhood, to the surveillance on Black femme familial intimacy and the rupture of Black women’s sense of home and place. Understandings of mass incarceration are frequently male-centered and most analyses of Black women’s system …

The Measure Of A Man: A Critical Methodology For Investigating Essentialist Beliefs About Sexual Orientation Categories In Japan And The United States, Brian R. Davis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Methods for studying laypeople’s beliefs about sexual orientation categories have evolved in step with larger theoretical and epistemological shifts in the interdisciplinary study of sexuality. The dominant approach to measuring laypeople’s sexual orientation beliefs over the past decade was made possible through an epistemological shift from a nature vs. nurture paradigm to a social constructionist theoretical model of psychological essentialism (Medin, 1989; Medin & Ortony, 1989; Rothbart & Taylor, 1992). Despite this shift, I argue that the forced-response scale-based survey methodologies typically used to operationally define essentialist beliefs about sexual orientation at best only partially realize the social constructionist potential …

Who Needs Blame?: Answerability Without Expressed Blame, Sarah Gokhale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues that we can hold other agents morally responsible without expressing blame and, more strongly, that doing so is preferable. I first argue that blame is fundamentally retributive, and that blame’s retributive foundation is incipiently present even in civilized guises. As such, even though some forms of expressed blame are quite civilized, expressed blame always involves a risk of emotional damage, entrenchment, and escalation. To make things worse, I argue that anger is an exacerbating feature of blame’s retributive foundation. I then argue that, generally speaking, cases of public blame involve higher stakes than cases of private judgments …

Mathematics Attitudes And Mathematics Performance: Novel Approaches Towards Noncognitive Educational Measurement, Applications To Large-Scale Assessment Data, And Examinations Of Multigroup Invariance, Kalina Gjicali

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Academic performance is predicted by a multitude of demographic, contextual, cognitive, and noncognitive constructs. The noncognitive factors of achievement in mathematics that have previously been explored in depth are study skills, collaborative problem-solving, confidence, self-efficacy, and personality traits (Kyllonen, 2012). Limited applied research has explored the predictive value of noncognitive factors such as attitudes and beliefs in mathematics achievement – even though attitudes towards mathematics are a promising avenue for understanding the variability in mathematics achievement. The current research uses the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explain high school students’ performance in mathematics in a series of three studies. …

Rural Adolescent Education Reframed: Can Social Justice, Lewin’S Topology, And Aesthetics Aid Reform Efforts?, Judith F. Upjohn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyze how changes in classroom-level conditions can help underperforming students thrive despite established school structures that discriminate against and exclude those students from learning opportunities.

Every year, millions of US public school students fail to graduate high school (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2018), despite numerous ongoing education reform efforts (Berkshire & Schneider, n.d.; Strauss, 2017). A large percentage of these students attend rural schools (Arnold, Newman, Gaddy, & Dean, 2005; Status of Rural Education, 2018). The rural conditions of adolescent students adversely affect their educational performance and achievement (Howley …

Identity Shifts Among Cis- And Trans- Females Who Sell Sex On The Streets Of New York City, Amalia S. Paladino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Deviant Identity Shift (DIS) Model that is introduced in this dissertation provides a framework for making sense of how sex workers come to understand their own place in the world, including the experiences of violence that often accompany their lives, and it shifts our attention away from static models that focus on unidimensional or even multidimensional factors that impact the lives of sex workers, to a far more dynamic view of the evolution of their distinctive forms of cultural identity. A series of themes emerge from the life histories of 18 cis- and 15- trans women between the ages …

The Role Of Self-Disclosure In Improving Workplace Cross-Race Mentoring Outcomes, Christine R. Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While the racial diversity of the workforce is increasing, minority employees still do not appear to be advancing professionally at the same rates as White employees. There are many explanations for why minority employees do not experience the same rates of advancement as White employees. One key developmental relationship that can aid in increasing the opportunities for minority employees to advance and grow in an organization is the mentoring relationship. However, given the lack of diversity in the upper levels of organizational hierarchies, minorities are more likely to have a White mentor than they are to have a minority mentor. …

Adults’ Perceptions Of Children With Mental Illness Labels Who Tell Truths And Lies, Jessica Lynn Mccurdy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined whether children’s truth- and lie-telling is perceived differently by adults when the children have mental illness labels (MIL). Participants (N= 432) read a vignette and watched a video from each of four veracity/motivation (i.e., prosocial truth, antisocial truth, prosocial lie, antisocial lie) and child label (i.e., control, ADHD, depression, asthma) conditions. After each video/vignette combination, participants rated their impressions of and responses towards the child. Participants also completed measures of their implicit and explicit attitudes towards mental illness. The results indicated participants had more negative perceptions of children they rated higher on dangerousness and lower …

Stereotype Threat And Racial Disparities At The Front End Of The Criminal Justice System, Megan J. O'Toole

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

To avoid initial contact with a racially disparate criminal justice system, Black men in the US must be hyperaware of how others perceive them in public. These efforts may be futile, though, as decades of stereotype threat research suggests that the targets of well-known stereotypes often become so overwhelmed with trying to deflect them that they underperform in relevant situations. Through a series of three online experiments, this research examines whether stereotype threat applies to Black men’s experiences at the front end of the criminal justice system. Results reveal that references to the criminal justice system lead Blacks but not …

Colorism In Assessor Ratings: Exploring The Roles Of Social Dominance Orientation, Metaphorical Associations And Skin Tone Stereotypes, Tiwi D. Marira

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent years, public awareness of colorism, or discrimination based on skin tone, has grown. A previous study (Marira & Sommer, 2014) revealed that Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) (i.e., the desire for group-based hierarchy) predicted Black participants’ discriminatory résumé ratings and hiring decisions in favor of lighter-skinned over darker-skinned, African American job applicants. This investigation focused on replicating and extending these findings by utilizing a more racially inclusive sample of Black and White adults and by examining more realistic candidate evaluation and hiring assessments. These simulated workplace assessments were embedded in an online business simulation requiring participants to make …

Beyond The Binary: Gender Identity And Mental Health Among Transgender And Gender Non-Conforming Adults, Chassitty N. Fiani

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Despite increasing endorsement of non-binary gender identities among TGNC (transgender or gender non-conforming) populations, research regarding TGNC experiences often over-emphasizes pathology relative to positive psychology and reinforces binary conceptualizations of gender (exclusively male/female). TGNC individuals face increased rates of depression, suicide risk, anxiety, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, homelessness, victimization, and negative police interactions. These disparities are exacerbated by discrimination, lack of culturally competent resources, and internalized stigma. Despite these negative experiences and increased risks, TGNC individuals hesitate to seek treatment and/or police assistance due to fears of discrimination, cultural incompetence, and/or re-victimization. To address these gaps, the present investigation utilized a …

Bias-Motivated Homicides: Toward A New Typology, Lindsey Sank Davis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Despite significant progress towards equal protection under the law for women, LGBT individuals, and people of color in the United States, hate crime remains a pervasive problem, and rates appear to have increased in recent years. Bias-motivated homicide – arguably the most serious form of hate crime – is statistically rare but may have far-reaching consequences for marginalized communities. Data from the Uniform Crime Reports and the National Crime Victimization Survey have suggested that, on average, fewer than 10 bias-motivated homicides occur in the United States per year; however, data from open sources indicate that the rate of bias-motivated homicide …

Stereotype Threat As An Explanation For Sexual Risk Taking Behavior In Gay Men: A Multi-Study Exploration Of Mechanisms, Inna Saboshchuk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Stereotype threat is a hindrance in performance that occurs when an individual’s awareness of negative stereotypes associated with his/her group results in inadvertent conforming to that stereotype. Stereotype threat research has been conducted on myriad group and domain identifications but gay men are strikingly absent from the stereotype threat literature. One of the most prevalent stereotypes about gay men indicates they are sexually promiscuous and that this promiscuity is linked to HIV infection. In a series of three research projects, a theoretical model proposing stereotype threat as a mechanism for sexual risk taking behavior in gay men is tested. In …