Psychology Commons^™

Managing A Large Scale Project: Using Strengthsfinder In The Website Redesign, Laura Edwards, Cristina Tofan

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

After doing a library-wide StrengthsFinder assessment that highlighted the strengths of its individuals, EKU Libraries decided to put this strategy into practice by applying it to one of the most complex projects in the life of an academic library: the website redesign. This decentralized approach allowed project managers to align strengths-based teams with phases of the redesign that would most benefit from that team’s unique strengths.

Contextual Diversity And Microaggressions In The Lives Of Transracially-Adopted Children From China, Emily Zhang, Xian Zhang, Ellen E. Pinderhughes

Rudd Adoption Research Program Annual Conferences

A large proportion of transracially-adopted (TRA) children experience challenges related to their ethnic and racial identity alongside their adoptive status (Baden, 2015). TRA adoptees grow up in a different country and family from their culture of origin, which may be a barrier to opportunities to learn about their race. Therefore, it is critical to study factors that may contribute to a TRA child’s understanding of race and adoption. Microaggressions are particularly concerning in young children because these subtle messages may influence a child’s understanding of their race at an age when they are unable to fully understand social categorization and …

Relationships Between Social Media Exposure & Levels Of Body Dissatisfaction, Helen Nguyen, Andrea L. Paiva

Senior Honors Projects

The digital age has resulted in major technological inventions leading to great advances; however there are also clear costs. Television allows identical picture images to be broadcasted into millions of homes, the internet is a gateway to seemingly limitless information, and the cell phone is the ultimate connection device. Each of these communication modalities have spread the thinness ideal that is prevalent in Western societies, with the Internet being ridden with pro-eating disorder websites, cell phones providing handheld excess to peer- comparison, and all mediums presenting images of the thin body as ideal. The prevalence of eating disorders is still …

The Motivational Effects Of Goal Orientation, Self-Efficacy, And Perceived Choice, Charles N. Elliott

Symposium of Student Scholars

The present research explores relationships between intrinsic motivation, choice, autonomy, and self-efficacy. Intrinsically motivated individuals have increases in perceived choice, as well as self-efficacy while completing tasks autonomously. New research suggests the type of goal an individual sets effects their motivation for completing a task and their self-efficacious behavior while performing it. The present research manipulates goal orientation with either an approach-mastery goal or with an approach-performance goal manipulation. We predicted that mastery goals would lead to increases in achievement motivation and perceived choice, because of self-efficacy. Feedback was manipulated using informative slightly positive versus very positive conditions (Ryan, 1982). …

Quick And Satisfied? The Effects Of Positive Feedback On Task Completion, Rain M. Carroll

Scholars Week

Previous researchers have focused on the availability and quality of feedback as a mediating factor for work performance (Kluger & DiNisi, 1996). Quality feedback is that which is consistent and provides direction towards specific goals and is a major directive factor of work performance (London, 1995). As individuals that receive quality feedback during the work process tend of show better work performance, the question remains regarding regular tasks and non-work related performance. It was hypothesized that participants that receive positive feedback will complete a personally irrelevant task (i.e., a Sudoku puzzle) more efficiently than those that do not receive feedback. …

Influence Of Authority On Attitude Change Due To Vicarious Dissonance, Kendrick Settler Jr.

Scholars Week

Recent research has suggested that watching others behave in an inconsistent or inappropriate manner can cause dissonance, particularly when one identified with the person behaving inappropriately (Norton, Cooper, Monin, & Hogg, 2003). To examine the differences is vicarious dissonance on attitude change, undergraduate students (N = 123) participated in an experiment, which consisted of a pre and post 24-item dissonance-relevant test (Elliot & Devine, 1988), to measure affect change, the participate was asked to write about either a friend or teacher they respected most, a pre and post Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992) …

"Women On Women Aggression" Predictors Of A Belief In Double Standards, April D. Crabtree

Scholars Week

"Woman on Woman Aggression": Predictors of Beliefs in Double Sex Standards

The presence of double standards is a topic that has been widely researched for the past several decades. Sexual double standards are based on the belief that sexual behaviors by women are viewed differently than when similar behaviors are exhibited by men. Early research stated that double standards were no longer much of an issue as seen in archival research by Crawford and Popp (2003). As they pulled research from previous decades, they concluded that double standards were not much of an issue in the 1970’s but resurfaced a …

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Militaristic Video Games On Nationalistic Attitudes And Violence, David I. Crittendon

Scholars Week

From arcade rooms to individual gaming consoles, video gaming has gained in popularity over the past decade. As graphics have improved, the games have taken on life like characteristics, and have exposed the new age gamer into a world of virtual reality. Multiple studies have shown that priming (the exposure to a stimulus to activate attitudes/behaviors) using the media has been shown to increase feelings of National Identity, and priming in video games has been shown to increase violence in the individual. In addition to these priming studies, immersion into an avatar viewpoint tends to desensitizes individuals to real-life experiences …

Bilingual Language Distance Predicts Dementia Rating, Morgan Owens

Scholars Week

This study explored the differences in the languages spoken by bilingual people may lead to differences in cognitive reserve and the progression of AD. Individuals who speak distant languages (e.g., a Romance and a Germanic language) will have a different linguistic experience than individuals who speak two near languages (e.g., two Romance languages). Knowledge of distant languages may provide speakers with a large set of cognitive tools (e.g., linguistic constructs, concepts, schemas) that could increase cognitive reserve. We hypothesized that greater language distance would predict lower dementia scores in a clinical AD population.A subset of the data from the National …

Dressed To Impress (Or Is She?): Judgments Of Attraction Based On Attire, Emily C. Rohrer

Scholars Week

This study examined first impressions, perceptions, and social attributions individuals make based on another’s attire. The difference in viewers’ perceptions in regard to two photos of women (i.e., one that was casually dressed or one that was dressed scantily) was measured. The study examined the differences in judgments of the woman’s personality, and included assessments of six different traits: interpersonal skills, intellect, physical attractiveness, social status, interpersonal power, and family orientation. Results indicated that individuals perceive the casually dressed female to have better interpersonal skills as well as higher intelligence and better social status than the provocatively dressed female. Moreover, …

Put Your Shirt On: An Examination Of Provocative Versus Casual Clothing On First Impressions, Katelyn Geilear

Scholars Week

It is astounding how much information someone can gather about a person from a quick glance. We form first impressions of others based on a number of things, such as their appearance, demeanor, and other characteristics we can gather from a glance or two, and form impressions of a person’s personality, character, intentions, and motivations based on these factors. This can happen in mere tenths of a second. My research looked at how people form first impressions based on a person’s attire and gender.

A Mturk Facial Inference Study, Janine Swiney, Anthony Stahelski, Mary Radeke

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

This survey is one in a series of studies utilizing Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to investigate the facial inference process. Participants in this study were asked to infer the emotions and personality traits shown in three facial expressions (angry, sad, happy) of young white females and males in six photographs. Each picture was presented for 10 seconds followed by four questions about the individual in the picture. The first question asked participants to identify the emotion shown, from a list of six emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise). The next three questions consist of condensed sets of the Big …

A Mturk Facial Inference Study, Janine Swiney, Anthony Stahelski, Mary Radeke

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

This survey is one in a series of studies utilizing Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to investigate the facial inference process. Participants in this study were asked to infer the emotions and personality traits shown in three facial expressions (angry, sad, happy) of young white females and males in six photographs. Each picture was presented for 10 seconds followed by four questions about the individual in the picture. The first question asked participants to identify the emotion shown, from a list of six emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise). The next three questions consist of condensed sets of the Big …

The Effects Of Chronic Partial Sleep Deprivation On Alcohol Consumption And Delta Fos B Accumulation, Kristian Ponder

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

The present study explores the relation between sleep restriction and alcohol use and the neural substrates that result from chronic behaviors, such as transcription factors. Transcription factor activity is suggested as a possible outcome of chronic behaviors, such as addiction. Sleep is discussed as possible mediating factor in the relationship between specific transcription factors and alcohol. Analysis will focus on brain areas related to both sleep and reward.

A Comparison Of Restorable And Unrestorable Defendants, Kristen T. Campbell

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

The current study examined differences in demographic, criminal, neuropsychological, and psychiatric variables between defendants restorable and unrestorable to competency. Defendants found to be unrestorable were more likely to have a misdemeanor charge, a cognitive disorder, a longer duration of illness, a lower IQ score, and a lower Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) score. Defendants found to be restorable tended to have a diagnosis of a mood disorder. With an improved understanding of characteristics associated with unrestorability, clinicians can make more accurate predictions about the probability of a defendant being restored to competency.

Nature Connection: Theory, Evidence And Practice, Matt V. Bukowski

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

This presentation explores scholarly work at the intersection of mental health and the natural world in a variety of disciplines. My intent is to provide an overview of theoretical perspectives, research-based evidence, and clinical practices that support the idea that experiencing the natural world can improve human mental health outcomes.

The Reliability Of Crowdsourcing: Latent Trait Modeling With Mechanical Turk, Matt Baucum, Steven Rouse Dr., Cindy Miller-Perrin, Elizabeth Mancuso Dr.

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Mechanical Turk, an online crowdsourcing platform, has recently received increased attention in the social sciences as studies continue to suggest its viability as a source for reliable experimental data. Given the ease with which large samples can be quickly and inexpensively gathered, it is worth examining whether Mechanical Turk can provide accurate experimental data for methodologies requiring such large samples. One such methodology is Item Response Theory, a psychometric paradigm that defines test items by a mathematical relationship between a respondent’s ability and the probability of item endorsement. To test whether Mechanical Turk can serve as a reliable source of …

The Effect Of Mobile Health Applications On Health Behaviors: A Pilot Study, Danielle M. Shilling, Cindy Miller-Perrin, Elizabeth Krumrei Mancuso

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

The present research examined the effectiveness of mobile Health (mHealth) fitness and nutrition applications where effectiveness was defined as eliciting behavior changes towards national guidelines for minutes of weekly exercise and daily water consumption. In this study, it was hypothesized that an mHealth Application condition using the MyFitnessPal application would be more effective at altering water consumption and exercise behaviors when compared to a Daily Monitoring condition and a Paper Dairy condition. All 92 participants of this randomized trial participated in a one-week baseline collection and three weeks of intervention for a total of four weeks of participation. Results indicated …

The Reciprocal Relations Between Self-Compassion And Romantic Relationship Variables, Sarah S. Zhang, Khanh Bui Dr., Cindy Miller-Perrin Dr., Elizabeth Mancuso Dr.

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

This study examined the reciprocal relations between self-compassion and romantic relationship variables longitudinally. Participants included a community sample of 107 U.S. adults (46% female, 54% male, M_age = 34.53 years) who were in the same relationship at both data-collection points. The cross-sectional correlational analyses demonstrated that at both time-points, self-compassion was positively associated with both relationship quality and satisfaction. Structural equation modeling was used to test a longitudinal mediation model, which represented a good fit to the data (χ² = 28.49, df = 13, χ²/df = 2.19, p = .008; GFI = .95; CFI = …

The Relationship Between Nature Relatedness, Trait Emotional Intelligence And Well-Being, Priscilla R. Gerofsky

Undergraduate Honors Posters

Prior research has shown that nature relatedness (NR) and trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) are both associated with various well-being measures (Bhullar, Schutte, & Malouff, 2013; Furnham & Petrides, 2003; Nisbet, Zelenski, & Murphy, 2011; Zelenski & Nisbet, 2014); however, no prior research has examined the relationship between NR and trait EI. The current study was undertaken to determine which well-being measures are associated with NR and trait EI, and to determine if there is any association between NR and trait EI. Participants were 315 adults from 54 countries, who completed online questionnaires. Questionnaires included the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire …

Presentation At The American Psychology-Law Society (March 2016)

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The Dark Triad Beyond The Spi: Providing Incremental Validity In Predicting Prosocial And Risky Behaviours, Rui Sun, Don H. Saklofske Ph.D.

Undergraduate Honors Posters

Personality measures have been criticized for their lack of coverage of some traits. As a result, researchers have examined and combined measures to better understand and predict target behaviours. The Supernumerary Personality Inventory (SPI; Paunonen, 2002) was designed to measure a wide range of personality traits, including antisocial tendencies. The Dark Triad (Paulhus & Williams, 2002) was developed specifically to measure the socially malevolent traits of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. Previous studies revealed significant correlations between the SPI traits and the Dark Triad traits, which suggest that the two measures may share some of the same theoretical underpinnings. The present …