Psychology Commons^™

Individual Differences In The Discrimination Of Novel Speech Sounds: Effects Of Sex, Temporal Processing, Musical And Cognitive Abilities, Vera Kempe, John C. Thoresen, Neil W. Kirk, Felix Schaeffler, Patricia J. Brooks

Publications and Research

This study examined whether rapid temporal auditory processing, verbal working memory capacity, non-verbal intelligence, executive functioning, musical ability and prior foreign language experience predicted how well native English speakers (N = 120) discriminated Norwegian tonal and vowel contrasts as well as a non-speech analogue of the tonal contrast and a native vowel contrast presented over noise. Results confirmed a male advantage for temporal and tonal processing, and also revealed that temporal processing was associated with both non-verbal intelligence and speech processing. In contrast, effects of musical ability on non-native speech-sound processing and of inhibitory control on vowel discrimination were not …

Congruence Within The Parent-Teacher Relationship: Associations With Children’S Functioning, Elizabeth Moorman Kim, Kathleen M. Minke, Susan M. Sheridan, Natalie A. Koziol, Ji Hoon Ryoo, Kristin M. Rispoli

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Meaningful interactions between families and schools benefit multiple facets of children’s functioning including their academic, social, and behavioral adjustment (Christenson & Sheridan, 2001).

Positive relationships between parents and teachers predict children’s enhanced social-emotional functioning and academic adjustment across time (Izzo, Weissberg, Kasprow, & Fendrich, 1999).

Studies of parent-teacher relationships often focus on the association of child outcomes with separate parent or teacher reports of their relationship quality. Little attention has focused on the congruence of perceptions within parent-teacher dyads.

It may be the case that when parents and teachers view their relationship in a similar positive light, better connections or …

Grey Parrot Number Acquisition: The Inference Of Cardinal Value From Ordinal Position On The Numeral List, Irene M. Pepperberg, Susan Carey

Sentience Collection

No abstract provided.

How To Be Cool In School? A Dating Expert Offers Smu Students A Five-Step Approach, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

In a just world, we would expect qualities like diligence, persistence and persuasiveness to pay off, but things are a lot more complicated when it comes to attraction. Dating expert David Tian, addresses SMU students on how people ought to better their odds at love and romance.

Do Sensory Ad Appeals Influence Brand Attitude?, Sung-Joon Yoon, Ji Eun Park

Business Faculty Publications

This article presents two studies that investigate whether or not sensory appeal preferences in advertisements affect brand attitude. Study 1 seeks to discover empirically whether self-referencing and positive affect mediate sensory appeals to influence consumers' attitudes toward a brand, and whether such mediation effects differ across various ad formats. Study 2, a case approach, attempts to derive core sensory concepts through qualitative techniques as applied to an established specialty coffee brand. The results indicate that self-referencing and positive affect both have significant mediating effects between sensory appeal preferences and attitudes toward a coffee brand. Moreover, the finding that sensory preferences …

Cyberbullying Among 11,700 Elementary School Students, 2010-2012, Elizabeth Englander

MARC Research Reports

Study: 11,700+ Third-, Fourth- and Fifth-Graders, sampled in New England from a variety of schools (representing a variety of socioeconomic classes), between January 2010 and September, 2012. Study presented on November 6, 2012 at the International Bullying Prevention Association Annual Conference, Kansas City, MO.

Have Sexual Abuse And Physicalabuse Declined Since The 1990s?, David Finkelhor, Lisa M. Jones

Crimes Against Children Research Center

This bulletin summarizes statistics on trends for sexual and physical abuse. A decline in sexual abuse since the early 1990s is a conclusion supported by 3 independent sources of agency data and 4 separate large victim surveys. The trend for physical abuse is less clear, since several of the data sources show conflicting patterns.

Neural Underpinnings Of Prosody In Autism, Inge-Marie Eigsti, Jillian Schuh, Einar Mencl, Robert T. Schultz, Rhea Paul

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

This study examines the processing of prosodic cues to linguistic structure and to affect, drawing on fMRI and behavioral data from 16 high-functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and 11 typically developing controls. Stimuli were carefully matched on pitch, intensity, and duration, while varying systematically in conditions of affective prosody (angry versus neutral speech) and grammatical prosody (questions versus statement). To avoid conscious attention to prosody, which normalizes responses in young people with ASD, the implicit comprehension task directed attention to semantic aspects of the stimuli. Results showed that when perceiving prosodic cues, both affective and grammatical, activation of …

Acute Stress Influences Neural Circuits Of Reward Processing, Anthony J. Porcelli, Andrea H. Lewis, Mauricio R. Delgado

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

People often make decisions under aversive conditions such as acute stress. Yet, less is known about the process in which acute stress can influence decision-making. A growing body of research has established that reward-related information associated with the outcomes of decisions exerts a powerful influence over the choices people make and that an extensive network of brain regions, prominently featuring the striatum, is involved in the processing of this reward-related information. Thus, an important step in research on the nature of acute stress’ influence over decision-making is to examine how it may modulate responses to rewards and punishments within reward …

The Role Of Emotional Reactivity, Self-Regulation, And Puberty In Adolescents' Prosocial Behaviors, Gustavo Carlo, Lisa J. Crockett, Jennifer M. Wolff, Sarah J. Beal

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

This study was designed to examine the roles of emotional reactivity, self-regulation, and pubertal timing in prosocial behaviors during adolescence. Participants were 850 sixth graders (50% female, Mean age = 11.03, SD = .17) who were followed up at age 15. In hierarchical regression models, measures of emotional reactivity, self-regulation, pubertal timing and their interactions were used to predict (concurrently and over time) adolescents’ prosocial behaviors in the home and with peers. Overall, the findings provide evidence for pubertal and temperament based predictors of prosocial behaviors expressed in different contexts. Self-regulation was positively related to both forms of prosocial behavior, …

The Tyranny Of Choice: A Cross-Cultural Investigation Of Maximizing-Satisficing Effects On Well-Being, A. Roets, Barry Schwartz, Y. Guan

Psychology Faculty Works

The present research investigated the relationship between individual differences in maximizing versus satisficing (i.e., seeking to make the single best choice, rather than a choice that is merely good enough) and well-being, in interaction with the society in which an individual lives. Data from three distinct cultural groups (adults), drawn respectively from the U.S. (N=307), Western Europe (N=263), and China (N=218), were analyzed. The results showed that, in societies where choice is abundant (i.e., U.S. and Western Europe), maximizers reported less well-being than satisficers, and this difference was mediated by experienced regret. However, in the non-western society (China), maximizing was …

From Reflecting To Making: Psychology In A World Of Change, Kenneth J. Gergen

Psychology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Identifying And Learning From Exemplary Volunteer Resource Managers: A Look At Best Practices In Managing Volunteer Resources, Amanda M. Backer, Joseph A. Allen, Daniel L. Bonilla

Psychology Faculty Publications

Nonprofit organizations thrive to the extent that their volunteer resource manager follows best practices for hiring, training, and managing volunteers. In an effort to identify some of the best practices in volunteer management, exemplary volunteer resources managers were identified from a consulting outreach program. These managers were then interviewed and the results from these interviews are presented here. Volunteer resource managers shared their best practices for improving volunteer organizational commitment, organizational recognition of volunteers, volunteer satisfaction with communication, volunteer perception of voice, volunteer competence & volunteer contribution, and volunteer burnouts & intentions to quit. In addition to presenting these practices, …

Promoting Early Skin-To-Skin Contact And Its Effect On Breastfeeding, Jamie Atkins, Grace Frederick, Ellen Lintemuth

Pharmacy and Nursing Student Research and Evidence-Based Medicine Poster Session

This study explores the implementation of skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby immediately following birth and its effects on: successful breastfeeding initiation, duration of breastfeeding, and breastfeeding exclusivity.

Teleological Reasoning In Adults: Believing In The Purpose Of Events, Carrie Jeanette Guggenmos

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Teleological reasoning reflects the general tendency to view objects, behaviors and events in terms of their “purpose.” Although healthy educated adults tend to refrain from committing errors in teleological reasoning about objects, our knowledge regarding how adults reason about events is limited. It has been suggested that teleological reasoning biases our interpretations of emotionally significant and unexpected life events of which a physical or social cause is absent or unsatisfactory. The current investigation seeks to better understand the types of events that evoke a teleological perspective and the conditions and individual difference factors that facilitate it. The results revealed that …

Antenatal Physical Activity Counseling Among Healthcare Providers, Jenn Leiferman, Margaret Gutilla, James Paulson, Jim Pivarnik

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objective: Pregnant women often report a lack of knowledge concerning the safety of exercising during pregnancy. Healthcare providers play an integral role in providing pregnant women with the necessary knowledge to promote antenatal physical activity. Thus, the objective of this study was to assess healthcare providers’ beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and practices related to antenatal physical activity counseling.

Study Design: 188 Providers (i.e. obstetricians, midwives, and family medicine physicians) completed a 39 closed-item survey. Characteristics among healthcare providers’ physical activity counseling practices as well as belief, attitudes and knowledge were explored.

Results: The majority of all providers agreed that physical activity …

Singaporeans' Well-Being: It's Not Just About Emotions, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Racism And Illicit Drug Use Among African American Women: The Protective Effects Of Ethnic Identity, Affirmation, And Behavior, Danelle Stevens-Watkins, Brea Perry, Kathi L. Harp, Carrie B. Oser

Sociology Faculty Publications

Though recent evidence indicates that rates of illicit drug use among African American women are now higher than the national average, little is known about the etiology of substance use in this population. In addition, the effects of racism and other cultural factors are understudied and may be unique amongst African American women. This cross-sectional study explores risk and protective factors for drug use among 204 African American women. More specifically, associations between racism experiences and drug use are investigated in the context of potential moderating influences (i.e., psychosocial resources, social safety net variables, and cultural identity and practices). Findings …

The Effects Of The Family On Student Achievement: A Comparative Study Of Traditional Nontraditional Families, Melinda Fonteboa

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative, causal-comparative study was to test the interactive framework of social cognitive theory, attachment theory, and the theory of moral absolutism by comparing the academic achievement of over 200 high school seniors (as measured by the Georgia High School Graduation Test; GHSGT) based on the structures of their families. The independent variable of family structure was initially classified as either nontraditional or traditional. A nontraditional family was defined, for the purposes of this study, as any family that is not comprised in its entirety by two biological parents (or adoptive parents from birth), one male and …

Cocaine-Induced Reinstatement Of A Conditioned Place Preference In Developing Rats: Involvement Of The D2 Receptor, Kimberly A. Badanich, Cheryl L. Kirstein

Psychology Faculty Publications

Reinstatement of conditioned place preferences have been used to investigate physiological mechanisms mediating drug-seeking behavior in adolescent and adult rodents; however, it is still unclear how psychostimulant exposure during adolescence affects neuron communication and whether these changes would elicit enhanced drug-seeking behavior later in adulthood. The present study determined whether the effects of intra-ventral tegmental area (VTA) or intra-nucleus accumbens septi (NAcc) dopamine (DA) D2 receptor antagonist infusions would block (or potentiate) cocaine-induced reinstatement of conditioned place preferences. Adolescent rats (postnatal day (PND 28–39)) were trained to express a cocaine place preference. The involvement of D2 receptors on cocaine-induced reinstatement …

Eating Behaviors Of Older Adults Participating In Government-Sponsored Programs With Different Demographic Backgrounds, Yeon Bai, Shahla M. Wunderlich, Joseph Brusca, Johnson-Austin Marti, Michelle O'Malley

Department of Nutrition and Food Studies Scholarship and Creative Works

The purpose of this study was to determine the food behaviors of nutritionally high-risk seniors as a function of their racial background, gender, marital status, and education level. A total of 69 seniors were identified to be at high nutritional risk using the Nutrition Screening Initiative (NSI) checklist. A supplemental questionnaire (SQ) was created to examine the risk factors in relation to the participant’s demographic background. Key results indicated that Asians practiced healthy food behaviors and women were more likely to eat alone (p≤0.05). Married participants (90.9%) were most likely to consume 2 meals or more each day. College educated …

Gender, Masculinity, Femininity And Help Seeking In College, Heath Marrs, Ellen A. Sigler, Robyn D. Brammer

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

The current academic performance struggles of college men is gaining increasing research attention (Sax, 2008a, 2008b), but few studies have explored the possible impact of gender-related attributes such as masculinity and femininity on academic help-seeking behaviors and academic performance. In this study of 567 college undergraduates, students who classified themselves as androgynous on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory were more likely to engage in academic help-seeking behaviors than those classified as male sex-typed, female sex-typed, and undifferentiated. No significant differences were found for academic performance. These results highlight the importance of exploring the potential influence of gender-related constructs on academic behavior …

Maternal Guilt And Shame: The Role Of Self-Discrepancy And Fear Of Negative Evaluation, Miriam Liss, Holly H. Schiffrin, Kathryn Rizzo

Psychological Science

Guilt and shame are emotions commonly associated with motherhood. Self-discrepancy theory proposes that guilt and shame result from perceived discrepancies between one’s actual and ideal selves. Fear of negative evaluation by others may enhance the effects of self-discrepancy especially for shame, which involves fear of others’ reproach. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between self discrepancy, guilt, shame, and fear of negative evaluation in a cross-sectional, self report study of mothers. Mothers of children five and under (N = 181) completed an on-line survey measuring guilt, shame, fear of negative evaluation, and maternal self-discrepancies. Guilt …

Algorithmic Decomposition Of Shuffle On Words, Franziska Biegler, Mark Daley, Ian Mcquillan

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

We investigate shuffle-decomposability into two words. We give an algorithm which takes as input a DFA M (under certain conditions) and determines the unique candidate decomposition into words u and v such that L(M) = u v ifM is shuffle decomposable, in time O(|u| + |v|). Even though this algorithm does not determine whether or not the DFA is shuffle decomposable, the sublinear time complexity of only determining the two words under the assumption of decomposability is surprising given the complexity of shuffle, and demonstrates an interesting property of the operation. We also show that for given words u and …

Research Brief: "Impact Of The Seeking Safety Program On Clinical Outcomes Among Homeless Female Veterans With Psychiatric Disorders", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about the effect of the Seeking Safety program's services on improvement in PTSD, psychiatric symptoms, and social support among homeless female veterans. In policy and practice, clinicians should be trained on how to use the program to better serve homeless female veterans, and policymakers should push for clinician training for those who work with homeless veterans. Suggestions for future research include applying this study and the Seeking Safety program to non-VA healthcare systems, assessing substance use within the program, and assessing the long-term effects of the Seeking Safety program.

When Less Is More: Evolutionary Origins Of The Affect Heuristic, Jerald D. Kralik, Eric R. Xu, Emily J. Knight, Sara A. Khan, William J. Levine

Dartmouth Scholarship

The human mind is built for approximations. When considering the value of a large aggregate of different items, for example, we typically do not summate the many individual values. Instead, we appear to form an immediate impression of the likeability of the option based on the average quality of the full collection, which is easier to evaluate and remember. While useful in many situations, this affect heuristic can lead to apparently irrational decision-making. For example, studies have shown that people are willing to pay more for a small set of high-quality goods than for the same set of high-quality goods …

I Can Play All Night: Examining The Relationship Between Perceived Tolerance And Drinking Game Alcohol Consumption, Phillip J. Ehret, Joseph W. Labrie, Justin F. Hummer

Heads Up!

The present study examined the impact of perceived tolerance to alcohol on maximum alcohol consumption while playing drinking games. Participants were student drinkers (N=3,546) from two west coast universities. Among these students, 69.2% (n=2,290) reported playing a drinking game in the past month. Analyses demonstrated game players had higher perceived tolerances, and consumed more alcohol than non-game players. A regression model revealed that higher levels of perceived tolerance were related to increased maximal alcohol consumption while playing drinking games. Study limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

Asymmetry In Resting Alpha Activity: Effects Of Handedness, Ruth E. Propper, Jenna Pierce, Mark W. Geisler, Stephen D. Christman, Nathan Bellorado

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha band power during rest shows increased right, and/or decreased left, hemisphere activity under conditions of state or trait withdrawal-associated effect. Non-right-handers (NRH) are more likely to have mental illnesses and dispositions that involve such withdrawal-related effect. The aim of the study was to examine whether NRH might be characterized by increased right, relative to left, hemisphere activity during rest. Methods: The present research investigated that hypothesis by examining resting EEG alpha power in consistently-right-handed (CRH) and NRH individuals. Results: In support of the hypothesis, NRH demonstrated decreased right hemisphere alpha power, and therefore increased right hemisphere …

Size And Shape Information Serve As Labels In The Alarm Calls Of Gunnison’S Prairie Dogs Cynomys Gunnisoni, C. N. Slobodchikoff, William R. Briggs, Patricia A. Dennis, Anne-Marie C. Hodge

Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection

Some animals have the capacity to produce different alarm calls for terrestrial and aerial predators. However, it is not clear what cognitive processes are involved in generating these calls. One possibility is the position of the predator: Anything on the ground receives a terrestrial predator call, and anything in the air receives an aerial predator call. Another possibility is that animals are able to recognize the physical features of predators and incorporate those into their calls. As a way of elucidating which of these mechanisms plays a primary role in generating the structure of different calls, we performed two field …

A Theoretical Framework For Serious Game Design: Exploring Pedagogy, Play And Fidelity And Their Implications For The Design Process, Pauline Rooney

Articles

It is widely acknowledged that digital games can provide an engaging, motivating and “fun” experience for students. However an entertaining game does not necessarily constitute a meaningful, valuable learning experience. For this reason, experts espouse the importance of underpinning serious games with a sound theoretical framework which integrates and balances theories from two fields of practice: pedagogy and game design (Kiili, 2005; Seeney & Routledge, 2009). Additionally, with the advent of sophisticated, immersive technologies, and increasing interest in the opportunities for constructivist learning offered by these technologies, concepts of fidelity and its impact on student learning and engagement, have emerged …