Psychology Commons^™

The Usa Patriot Act: Civil Liberties, The Media, And Public Opinion, Lisa Finnegan Abdolian, Harold Takooshian

Psychology Faculty Publications

The new millennium was not yet one year old when it was rocked by the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. How does the public regard the continued protection of individual rights, after this greatest terrorist attack in U.S. history? This has naturally been a topic of intense and thorough media reporting in the United States, and worldwide. In the uneasy months following the WTC attack, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Fordham University designed and conducted a survey of public opinions on terrorism, with several distinct objectives: 1) to question a representative sample of adults in Greater New York, …

Dispositional Hardiness And Women’S Well-Being Relating To Gender Discrimination: The Role Of Minimization, Mindi D. Foster, Kenneth L. Dion

Psychology Faculty Publications

Three studies examined whether personality-based hardiness would be associated with mental health benefits in contexts of gender discrimination. Hardy women encountering both a laboratory simulation and a hypothetical scenario of discrimination showed greater self-esteem and less negative affect than low hardy women. However, these benefits were mediated by the use of specific attributions, suggesting that the well-being in hardy women may have been achieved through minimizing the pervasiveness of discrimination. Study three showed this mediation pattern occurred only for participants exposed to higher threat scenarios versus lower threat scenarios of discrimination. Thus, minimizing the pervasiveness of discrimination may have been …

Self-Efficacy, Jennifer T. Gosselin, James E. Maddux

Psychology Faculty Publications

The study of self-efficacy is concerned with understanding this important aspect of self and identity—people's beliefs about their personal capabilities and how these beliefs influence what they try to accomplish, how they try to accomplish it, and how they react to successes and setbacks along the way.

Sex, Beauty, And The Relative Luminance Of Facial Features, Richard Russell

Psychology Faculty Publications

It has been suggested that the consistent luminance difference between the darker regions of the eyes and mouth and the lighter regions that surround them forms a pattern unique to faces. One of the more consistent uses of cosmetics to make the female face more attractive is to darken the eyes and mouth relative to the surrounding skin. The hypothesis that the size of the luminance difference between the eyes and mouth and the rest of the face affects the attractiveness of male and female faces differently was tested in four experiments in which attractiveness ratings were obtained for images …

Effects Of Solution Elicitation Aids And Need For Cognition On The Generation Of Solutions To Ill-Structured Problems, Adam B. Butler, Lisa L. Scherer, Roni Reiter-Palmon

Psychology Faculty Publications

Numerous techniques have been proposed to assist problem solvers in the solution generation process. We empirically examined the effectiveness of a solution elicitation technique based on the presentation of problem objectives and also examined whether the technique was effective across individual differences in need for cognition (NC). We found that when two conflicting objectives were presented successively, more solutions, more categories of solutions, and more effective solutions were generated than when the same two objectives were presented simultaneously or not at all. However, the results indicated that effective solutions may be more efficiently generated by considering objectives simultaneously. Need for …

Personality In Political Psychology, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This chapter outlines the history of personality inquiry in political psychology, examines the current state of personality assessment in politics, and charts a course for the study of personality in politics in the post-cognitive revolution era, informed by contextually adjacent scientific fields such as behavioral neuroscience and evolutionary ecology.

The chapter offers a comprehensive, generative, theoretically coherent framework for studying personality in politics, consonant with established principles in the adjacent sciences and integrative with respect to accommodating a diversity of politically relevant personal characteristics. The proposed framework attempts to bridge conceptual and methodological gaps between current formulations in the source …

Work And Family Variables As Related To Paternal Engagement, Responsibility, And Accessibility In Dual-Earner Couples With Young Children, Suzanne M. Nangle, Michelle L. Kelley, William Fals-Stewart, Ronald F. Levant

Psychology Faculty Publications

Fathers and mothers (N = 75 dual-earner couples) of preschool-aged children completed questionnaires that examined work and family variables as related to paternal involvement in three areas: engagement (i.e., directly interacting with the child), responsibility (i.e., scheduling activities and being accountable for the child's well-being), and accessibility (i.e., being available to the child but not in direct interaction). Fathers' reports of responsibility and accessibility were significantly predicted by structural variables and beliefs; however, fathers' reports of engagement were not predicted by work and family variables. Mothers' reports of work and family variables did not predict their reports of father involvement. …

Attachment Styles, View Of Self And Negative Affect, Amy Van Buren, Eileen L. Cooley

Psychology Faculty Publications

We investigated the relationship between attachment styles and negative affect using Bartholomew and Horowitz’s (1991) model of attachment. Attachment styles with a negative self view (i.e., preoccupied and fearful) were expected to be associated with more distress, especially the fearful style which involves negative views of both self and others. Measures of attachment, depression, depression proneness, and social anxiety were administered to 293 undergraduates. As predicted, participants with “negative self” attachment styles reported more symptoms of depression, proneness to depression, and social anxiety, but, contrary to prediction, those with a fearful style did not report more symptoms of depression and …

Injury-Induced Functional Plasticity In The Peripheral Gustatory System, Susan J. Hendricks, Suzanne I. Sollars, David L. Hill

Psychology Faculty Publications

Combining unilateral denervation of anterior tongue taste buds with a low-sodium diet in rats results in a rapid, dramatic, and selective attenuation of neurophysiological sodium taste responses from the intact side of the tongue. The transduction pathway responsible for the attenuated response is through the epithelial sodium channel (Hill and Phillips, 1994). Current experiments extend these findings by detailing the effects of experimentally induced injury on taste responses from anterior tongue taste receptors in sodium-restricted rats. Experiments focused on functional salt taste responses from the intact chorda tympani nerve in sodium-restricted rats in which a gustatory nerve was sectioned that …

The Personality Profile Of September 11 Hijack Ringleader Mohamed Atta, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of a posthumous, indirect assessment of the personality of Mohamed Atta, apparent ringleader in the September 11, 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, from the conceptual perspective of Theodore Millon.

Information concerning Mohamed Atta was collected from media reports in the one-month period following the attack and synthesized into a personality profile using the second edition of the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM-IV.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the …

The Personality Profile Of Al-Qaida Leader Osama Bin Laden, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of Osama bin Laden, founder and leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States.

Bin Laden’s primary personality patterns were found to be Ambitious/exploitative and Dauntless/dissenting, with a secondary Distrusting/suspicious orientation, and subsidiary Dominant/controlling and Conscientious/dutiful features.

Ambitious individuals are bold, competitive, and self-assured; they easily assume leadership roles, expect others to recognize their special qualities, and often act as though entitled. Dauntless individuals are bold, courageous, and tough; minimally constrained by the norms of society; routinely engage …

Anxiolytic Effect Of Melatonin In Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, Jonathan Bruce Santo, S. Lo, P. L'Esperance, D. B. Boivin

Psychology Faculty Publications

Increases in anxiety levels during the late-luteal phase of the menstrual cycle form important diagnostic criteria of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) (1). Evidence exists to support the hypothesis that tolerance to endogenous levels of melatonin might occur during the luteal phase in PMDD (2, 3). It was hypothesized that slow release (SR) melatonin administration during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle of participants with PMDD could significantly lower anxiety levels measured by self-report.

Toward A More Comprehensive Understanding Of Peer Maltreatment: Studies Of Relational Victimization, Nikki R. Crick, Juan F. Casas, David A. Nelson

Psychology Faculty Publications

Although many past studies of peer maltreatment have focused on physical victimization, the importance of an empirical focus on relational victimization has only recently been recognized. In relational victimization, the perpetrator attempts to harm the target through the manipulation of relationships, threat of damage to them, or both. We review what is currently known about relational victimization with three issues in mind: (a) developmental changes in the manifestation of relational victimization, (b) gender differences in the likelihood of being victimized, and (c) evidence that relational victimization is harmful.

The Use Of Play Assessment To Evaluate The Cognitive Skills Of Two-And Three-Year-Old Children, Lisa Kelly-Vance, Bridget O. Ryalls, Katrina Gill Glover

Psychology Faculty Publications

Play assessment is increasing in popularity despite the lack of empirical support. The purpose of this study was to explore the use of play assessment with young children and determine its efficacy in determining cognitive levels of development. Eight 2-year-olds and eight 3 1/2-year-olds were observed playing in an unstructured format. Results indicated that Exploratory Play becomes more complex with age and is displayed more than Pretend Play in an unstructured play session. Children's play primarily consisted of Exploratory Play, Pretend Play and Problem Solving and Planning Skills. Several of the Supple mental Subdomains measured by play assessment were not …

Time Course Of Morphological Alterations Of Fungiform Papillae And Taste Buds Following Chorda Tympani Transection In Neonatal Rats, Suzanne I. Sollars, Peter C. Smith, David L. Hill

Psychology Faculty Publications

The time course of structural changes in fungiform papillae was analyzed in rats that received unilateral chorda tympani nerve transection at 10 days of age. Morphological differences between intact and denervated sides of the tongue were first observed at 8 days postsection, with an increase in the number of fungiform papillae that did not have a pore. In addition, the first papilla with a filiform‐like appearance was noted on the denervated side at 8 days postsectioning. By 11 days after surgery, the total number of papillae and the number of papillae with a pore were significantly lower on the transected …

The Relationship Of Verbal-Nonverbal Incongruence To Communication Mismatches In Married Couples, Amy Van Buren

Psychology Faculty Publications

Communication accuracy refers to whether a message sent by a sender is perceived by the receiver to have the same emotional meaning intended by the sender. Previous research using marital dyads suggests that receivers sometimes receive the emotional meaning in senders’ statements differently than senders intend. The present study was conducted to test the possibility that one reason such misunderstandings occur is that senders may convey emotional messages differently than they intend. Twenty-four married couples carried on a ten-minute videotaped free interaction during which they rated the emotional meaning in each others’ statements. Results indicated that senders conveyed messages that …

Prejudice, Terrorism, And Behavior Therapy, S. C. Hayes, R. Niccolls, Akihiko Masuda, A. Rye

Psychology Faculty Publications

Behavior therapy is relevant not just to the needs of victims of terrorism, but also to the understanding and modification of psychological processes that lead to the perpetration of terrorist acts. A key process of this kind is prejudice. In this paper, human prejudice is defined as the objectification and dehumanization of people as a result of their participation in evaluative verbal categories. Prejudice is difficult to deal with because: 1) The same verbal processes that give rise to prejudice are massively reinforced in dealing with the external environment; 2) Virtually all cultures openly amplify this process with stigmatized groups; …

Measuring Socioeconomic Status: Reliability And Preliminary Validity Of Different Approaches, Paul Cirino, Rose Sevcik, Maryanne Wolf, Maureen Lovett, Robin Morris, Christopher E. Chin

Psychology Faculty Publications

This study investigated issues related to commonly used socioeconomic status (SES) measures in 140 participants from three cities (Atlanta, Boston, and Toronto) in two countries (United States and Canada). Measures of SES were two from the United States (four-factor Hollingshead scale, Nakao and Treas scale) and one from Canada (Blishen, Carroll, and Moore scale). Reliability was examined both within (interrater agreement) and across (intermeasure agreement) measures. Interrater reliability and classification agreement was high for the total sample (range r = .86 to .91), as were intermeasure correlations and classification agreement (range r = .81 to .88). The weakest agreement across …

Psychometric Stability Of Nationally Normed And Experimental Decoding And Related Measures In Children With Reading Disability, Paul Cirino, Fontina Rashid, Rose Sevcik, Maureen Lovett, Jan Frijters, Maryanne Wolf, Robin D. Morris

Psychology Faculty Publications

Achievement and cognitive tests are used extensively in the diagnosis and educational placement of children with reading disabilities (RD). Moreover, research on scholastic interventions often requires repeat testing and information on practice effects. Little is known, however, about the test–retest and other psychometric properties of many commonly used measures within the beginning reader population, nor are these nationally normed or experimental measures comparatively evaluated. This study examined the test–retest reliability, practice effects, and relations among a number of nationally normed measures of word identification and spelling and experimental measures of achievement and reading-related cognitive processing tests in young children with …

Positive And Negative Symptoms Of Schizotypy And The Five-Factor Model: A Domain And Facet Level Analysis, Scott R. Ross, Catherine J. Lutz, Steven E. Bailley

Psychology Faculty Publications

In this study, we investigated the Five-factor model in the concurrent prediction of positive symptomschizotypy as measured by the Magical Ideation (Eckblad & Chapman, 1983) and Perceptual Aberration (Chapman, Chapman, & Raulin, 1978) scales and negative symptom schizotypy as measured by the Physical Anhedonia (Chapman, Chapman, & Raulin, 1976) and Revised Social Anhedonia (Eckblad, Chapman, Chapman, & Mishlove, 1982; Mishlove & Chapman, 1985) scales. Previous studies suggest that these measures reflect the core symptoms found in schizotypal and schizoid personality disorder (Bailey, West, Widiger, & Freiman, 1993). Negative symptoms were significantly predicted by Neuroticism (+), Extraversion (-), Openness (-), and …

Subjective Assessment Of Sleep Quality Across The Menstrual Cycle In Women With Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, Jonathan Bruce Santo, E. Chevrier, P. L'Esperance, D. B. Boivin

Psychology Faculty Publications

Existing evidence demonstrates that sleep structure varies across the menstrual cycle in healthy women (1). These variations could be more severe in women suffering from premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) (2). In a previous study of healthy women, subjective sleep quality was shown to be constant across both phases of the menstrual cycle (3). The current study aims to test whether there exists a variation in subjective sleep quality of PMDD sufferers across the follicular and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle.

The Political Personality Of U.S. President George W. Bush, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of U.S. president George W. Bush, conducted 1998–2000 from the conceptual perspective of personologist Theodore Millon.

Psychodiagnostically relevant data regarding Bush was extracted from biographical sources and media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM–IV.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed in accordance with interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Bush was found to be …

Using Latent Semantic Analysis To Assess Reader Strategies, Joseph P. Magliano, Katja Wiemer-Hastings, Keith K. Millis, Brenton D.. Muñoz, Danielle Ncnamara

Psychology Faculty Publications

We tested a computer-based procedure for assessing reader strategies that was based on verbal protocols that utilized latent semantic analysis (LSA). Students were given self-explanation-reading training (SERT), which teaches strategies that facilitate self-explanation during reading, such as elaboration based on world knowledge and bridging between text sentences. During a computerized version of SERT practice, students read texts and typed self-explanations into a computer after each sentence. The use of SERT strategies during this practice was assessed by determining the extent to which students used the information in the current sentence versus the prior text or world knowledge in their self-explanations. …

Factors That Predict Academic Reputation Don't Always Predict Desire To Attend, Michael J. Conard, Maureen A. Conard

Psychology Faculty Publications

The study assessed indicators of educational quality and selectivity as predictors of Academic Reputation (AR) and desire to attend a college. Surveys were mailed to 1,004 high school seniors randomly selected from a large database, yielding 198 respondents. Educational quality indicators were regressed on AR. Curriculum rigor and social/cultural activities were significantly predictive of AR. Class size and individualized attention from faculty were not. Curriculum rigor and individualized faculty attention were predictive of desire to attend. Class size and social/cultural activities were not. Selectivity variables (min. high school GPA, class rank, SAT scores) were regressed on AR and all were …

(Review) World History For Behavior Analysts: Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, And Steel, Stuart Vyse

Psychology Faculty Publications

The article examines two important messages for behavior analysts contained in the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies," by Jared Diamond. It provides an environmentalist explanation of the different fates of the world's cultures that are compatible with the views of many behavior analysts. It details ways for behavior analysts to investigate the neglected forms of individual behavior.

A Social-Cognitive Information-Processing Model For School-Based Aggression Reduction And Prevention Programs: Issues For Research And Practice, Eric F. Dubow, Paul Boxer

Psychology Faculty Publications

Student aggression in schools continues to be a problem. School-based programs are a critical part of the solution. In this article we review research on the development of aggressive behavior within a social-cognitive information-processing (SCIP) framework. Huesmann (1998) presented a "unified" SCIP model in an attempt to integrate extant models. This model focuses on individuals' (a) attention to and interpretation of situational cues; (b) search for and retrieval of scripts for behavior; (c) script evaluation based on beliefs about aggression, outcome expectancies, and self-efficacy for aggressing or inhibiting aggression; and (d) interpretation of environmental responses to their behavior. We highlight …

Self-Reported Leadership Experiences In Relation To Inventoried Social And Emotional Intelligence, Lisa M. Kobe, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Jon D. Rickers

Psychology Faculty Publications

Leadership has both social and emotional components. Social intelligence appears to tap the social component found in leadership. Recently, emotional intelligence has surfaced as a stable individual difference variable and appears to tap the emotional component of leadership. Mayer and Salovey (1993) suggested that the emotional intelligence and social intelligence constructs overlap. This study examined the power of both emotional and social intelligence to account for variance in self-reported leadership experiences. One hundred ninety-two university students completed measures of social and emotional intelligence and a measure of leadership experiences. Regression analyses showed that both social intelligence and emotional intelligence accounted …

Chronic Restraint Stress Enhances Radial Arm Maze Performance In Female Rats, Rachel E. Bowman, Mark C. Zrull, Victoria N. Luine

Psychology Faculty Publications

Effects of chronic restraint stress (21 and 28 days) on physiological and behavioral parameters in female rats were examined. Total (bound and free) and free corticosterone (CORT) levels were measured at different time points during the stress period. Higher total CORT levels were observed in stressed rats during the stress period but returned to baseline at 15 days poststress. Additionally, free CORT levels decreased across the stress period. Estrous cyclicity was monitored daily in all animals. Stress had no apparent effects on estrous cyclicity, in rats with either normal length or elongated estrous cycles, but stressed females gained less weight …

Adolescent And Young Adult Substance Use: Association With Sensation Seeking, Self Esteem And Retrospective Report Of Early Pubertal Onset. A Preliminary Examination, Catherine A. Martin, T. K. Logan, Carl Leukefeld, Rich Milich, Hatim Omar, Richard Clayton

Psychology Faculty Publications

Structured questionnaires were administered to investigate the relationship between early pubertal onset, substance abuse, sensation seeking, and self-esteem. The current study presents data from 1,002 subjects, who were followed from the 6th to the 10th grades and again at the age of 20. In females, early pubertal onset was associated with greater cigarette use and lower self-esteem. Further the interaction of early pubertal onset and low self-esteem was predictive for cigarette use in females, as was early pubertal onset and high sensation seeking. Late pubertal onset was associated with decreased alcohol use and lower sensation seeking in males, with the …

Pediatric Impedance Cardiography: Temporal Stability And Intertask Consistency, William H. O'Brien, Jennifer J. Mcgrath

Psychology Faculty Publications

The pathogenic processes responsible for cardiovascular disease have their origins in childhood. Although children's measures of heart rate and blood pressure have been found to be reliable, the reliability of impedance cardiography derived measures have not been evaluated. Thirty-three children, ages 8-11 participated in two sessions. Stressors included serial subtraction, isometric handgrip, and mirror-image tracing. Results indicated the impedance measures showed moderately high temporal stability (average scores r(avg) = 74; difference scores r(avg) = .53) and intertask consistency (average scores r(avg) = .78; difference scores r(avg) = .53). Blood pressure demonstrated the lowest reliability; Heather index, preejection period, and stroke …