Psychology Commons^™

Aerobic Exercise With Superimposed Virtual Reality Improves Cognitive Flexibility And Selective Attention In Young Males, Borja Sañudo, Ellie Abdo, Mario Bernardo-Filho, Redha Taiar

Publications

The literature to date is limited regarding the implantation of VR in healthy young individuals with a focus on cognitive function. Thirty healthy males aged between 22.8 and 24.3 years volunteered to participate in the study randomly and were assigned to one of two groups with alike exercises: an experimental group (GE, n = 15) that performed an exercise protocol with a VR game and a controlled group that performed the exercise protocol without the VR (CON, n = 15). A 128-card computerized version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) and the Stroop test were completed before and after …

Three Decades Of Research: The Case For Comprehensive Sex Education, Eva Goldfarb, Lisa D. Lieberman

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose

School-based sex education plays a vital role in the sexual health and well-being of young people. Little is known, however, about the effectiveness of efforts beyond pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease prevention. The authors conducted a systematic literature review of three decades of research on school-based programs to find evidence for the effectiveness of comprehensive sex education.

Methods

Researchers searched the ERIC, PsycINFO, and MEDLINE. The research team identified papers meeting the systematic literature review criteria. Of 8,058 relevant articles, 218 met specific review criteria. More than 80% focused solely on pregnancy and disease prevention and were excluded, leaving …

A Retrospective Analysis Of Sex Education Messages Received By Lgb Youth, Jacqueline Bible, Alejandra Kaplan, Lisa D. Lieberman, Eva Goldfarb

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Using focus groups, this qualitative study asked thirty-five gay, lesbian, and bisexual (LGB) young adults to reflect on messages they received about sex and sexuality around the time they first had sex. Focus groups were conducted, recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Through thematic analysis, the authors identified two messaging sources identified by participants: (1) formal education sources (i.e., school and parents), and (2) informal education sources (e.g., internet, peers). Formal sources often included messages perpetuating heteronormative assumptions, emphasizing abstinence, pregnancy and HIV/STI prevention, or silence as a form of messaging. Informal sources consisted of LGB-specific information. These findings suggest informal sources …

Factors Associated With Binge Drinking During The Transition Into Adulthood: Exploring Associations Within Two Distinct Young Adult Age Ranges, Tamara Leech, Sarah Jacobs, Denis Watson

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Background:

Binge drinking among young adults aged 18-21 years has declined over the past decade, but binge drinking rates among people 22-25 years old have remained largely the same. This steady trend in later years represents a departure from the traditional course of maturing out of risky alcohol use, perhaps because young adults are delaying the transition into adulthood.

Aims:

This paper explores the relationship between binge drinking and aspects of the transition into adulthood that could inform interventions targeting these two distinct groups of young adults.

Methods:

We use survey data on 1,081 young adults aged 18-25 living in …

Preliminary Evidence Of The Role Of Medial Prefrontal Cortex In Self-Enhancement: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study, Birgitta Taylor-Lillquist, Vivek Kanpa, Maya Crawford, Mehdi El Filali, Julia Oakes, Alex Jonasz, Amanda Disney, Julian Keenan

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Humans employ a number of strategies to improve their position in their given social hierarchy. Overclaiming involves presenting oneself as having more knowledge than one actually possesses, and it is typically invoked to increase one’s social standing. If increased expectations to possess knowledge is a perceived social pressure, such expectations should increase bouts of overclaiming. As the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is sensitive to social pressure and disruption of the MPFC leads to decreases in overclaiming, we predicted that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) applied to the MPFC would reduce overclaiming and the effects would be enhanced in the presence of …

The Role Of Presentation Type And Spatial Perspective On Wayfinding, Sejeong Park

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Wayfinding refers to the process people use to find where to go and how to get there. For that, they need information on the presence and location of landmarks in their environment to be able to navigate through their surroundings. Furthermore, spatial awareness is also crucial in the process. The present study aimed to study how modality, spatial perspective, and language influence (a) wayfinding accuracy, (b) cardinal term, (c) relative term, and (d) landmark usage in directions. The map and text were presented to native and non-native English speakers. They provided directions under route and survey perspective. The results indicated …

Children’S Perceptions Of Ambiguous Interracial Interactions : Behavior And Size Judgments, Julia Wefferling

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Classic work in social psychology found that children’s perceptions of ambiguously aggressive events are biased by race (Sagar and Schofield, 1980). The present research is an attempt to extend upon that work by including an examination of perceptions of the physical size of vignette actors, based on more recent work by Wilson et al. (2017). In this study, 41 children aged 9-13 were recruited to watch cartoon clips of vignettes of Black and White characters in ambiguously aggressive interactions. Participant watched one clip of each target-actor race combination and rated many characteristics (e.g. mean, friendly) of the targets and actors. …

Costing Of Actions To Safeguard Vulnerable Mexican Households With Young Children From The Consequences Of Covid-19 Social Distancing Measures, Mireya Vilar-Compte, Víctor Pérez, Graciela Teruel, Aranzazu Alonso, Rafael Pérez-Escamilla

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

COVID-19 has imposed unprecedented challenges to society. As the pandemic evolves, the social distancing measures that have been globally enforced, while essential, are having undesirable socioeconomic side effects particularly among vulnerable populations. In Mexico, families who depend upon informal employment face increased threats to their wellbeing, and households who in addition have young children may face long-term consequences. The Mexican government has not yet taken actions, but a coalition of non-governmental organizations is advocating in partnership with academic institutions for social protection actions such as a cash transfer and basic services subsidies for families with young children, subsisting from the …

Shared Leadership Approaches In Teams : How Understanding Leadership Impacts The Perceived Presence Of Shared Leadership, Dana Noelle Sobel

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The conceptualization of shared leadership is still in its early stages, and the research on the measurement of shared leadership differs greatly. This study aims to identify how a sample of college students from a public university understand the structure and process of outcomes based on relevant research regarding leadership identity development theories. Based on this understanding, this paper also examines how understanding leadership potentially impacts the amount of shared leadership a student reports within their team, taking into consideration the two primary approaches of shared leadership. Finally, the study investigates how reported shared leadership impacts team effectiveness, reported by …

Question-Asking In Conversational Tasks : A Gender Comparison, Courtney Bell

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This corpus analysis used unexplored gender disparities in a previously collected speech corpus, the Montclair Map Task Corpus (MMTC) to examine stylistic patterns in utterance goals and question-asking. The MMTC utilized a collaborative map task to explore effective communication, gender differences in communication, and patterns in conversational style. The current study built upon those goals by engaging in a more in-depth analysis of the MMTC conversations. To accomplish this, the previously transcribed conversations were coded to determine turn goals. Turns that were observed as questions were further coded to determine question objectives. Based on prior research on affiliative and assertive …

Servant Leaders As Facilitators Of Couple’S Meaningfulness At Work And Home, Kristine Milorava

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of having a servant leader (SL) at work on individuals’ and their partners’ work and family meaningfulness (WM) and to explore whether work meaningfulness mediates the relationship between SL and family meaningfulness (FM). SL theory accentuates how leaders simultaneously improve work and family lives by focusing on their employees’ development and this research provided further evidence of this notion. Data were collected from 155 dual-earning couples (310 respondents) and the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) was applied to analyze the effects of SL on the work meaningfulness of the employees and …

The Effects Of Group Ii Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Antagonism On Delayed Non-Match To Odor Performance In Male Long-Evans Rats, Andrew Wolfarth

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the role of glutamate, the brain’s major excitatory neurotransmitter, in MDD. There is ample evidence that glutamate dysfunction is present in patients with varying degrees of depression. With this mechanistic shift behind MDD has come a better understanding of the importance of cognitive dysfunction in depressed patients. The general view of MDD was that it was a mood disorder, however recent evidence suggests that cognitive functioning is also critical to relief of depressive symptomology. Attempts have been made to modulate excitatory neural networks using a class of glutamate receptors known …

The Effect Of (2r,6r)-Hydroxynorketamine (Hnk) On 𝛼-Amino-3-Hydroxy-5-Methyl-4-Isoxazolepropionic Acid (Ampa) Expression And Novel Object Placement Performance In Long Evans Rats, Anosha Khawaja

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by emotional distress and cognitive dysfunction that lasts for at least two weeks and significantly impairs one’s ability to function at home and at work. Cognitive deficits in domains such as processing speed, memory retention, and executive function can persist beyond the remission of emotional symptoms, which is why it is imperative to develop antidepressants that address cognitive dysfunction. Healthy cognitive function relies on synaptic plasticity, which strengthens communication between cells and is measured in terms of long-term potentiation (LTP). LTP is triggered when activation of AMPA and NMDA receptors leads to an influx …

The Effect Of Metabotropic Glutamate 5 Receptors Stimulation On Delayed Non-Match To Odor Performance In Long-Evans Male Rats, Stacy Jesus Duarte

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Patients suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) have cognitive impairments that modern antidepressants are unable to treat. There is a large body of research linking glutamate receptors to both cognitive functions and MDD. The present study looks at one type of glutamate receptors, the metabotropic glutamate 5 (mGlu 5) receptor, and the effects of its stimulation on a cognitive task on male Long-Evans rats. The following two hypotheses were used: 1) Memory performance in the delayed non-match to odor task will be progressively impaired as the time between the information and retention trial increases, and 2) administering a mGlu5 positive …

Parenting Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder : Child Symptom Behaviors, Stigma, And Parental Stress Among Minorities And Non-Minorities, Kayla Renee Breeden

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The current study examines how children with Autism Spectrum Disorder’s symptom behaviors, enacted stigma, and race influences their parents’ experiences with stress. 50 parents and guardians of children with ASD completed an online survey with 93-items composed of four sections: (1) demographic data, (2) symptom behaviors experienced by their child, (3) enacted stigma, and (4) parental stress. The purpose of the current study was to (a) evaluate the differences of ASD symptom behaviors, enacted stigma, and parental stress between minority and non-minority racial groups, and (b) examine whether the symptom behaviors and enacted stigma of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder …

Lateralization Of Pitch Processing, Daniel Rynerson

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In the perception of language, studies have shown that the right ear and left hemisphere (RELH) pair processes linguistic syllables more readily than the left ear right hemisphere (LERH) during simultaneous presentation. This phenomenon is known as the Right Ear Advantage (REA). This is believed to occur due to the proximity of language processing areas in the left hemisphere to the left hemisphere reception of cortical auditory signals predominantly from the right ear. An analogous Left Ear Advantage (LEA) has also been reported for pitch processing, presumably with its center of processing in the right hemisphere. The current study replicates …

Analytic Hierarchy Process: An Innovative Technique For Culturally Tailoring Evidence-Based Interventions To Reduce Health Disparities, Jaime A. Corvin, Isabella Chan, Claudia X. Aguado, Ian Dollman, Junius Gonzales

Publications from Provost Junius J. Gonzales

Latinos in the United States represent a disproportionate burden of illness and disease and face barriers to accessing health care and related resources. Culturally tailored, evidence-based interventions hold promise in addressing many of these challenges. Yet, ensuring patient voice is vital in the successful development and implementation of such interventions. Thus, this paper examines the application of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to inform the augmentation and implementation of an evidence-based chronic disease self-management programme for underserved Latinos living with both minor depression and chronic illness. The process of AHP allows for direct input from the individuals that would utilize such …

Are All Perspective Taking Tasks Created Equal? The Relationship Between Performance On Perspective Taking Tasks In Children, Pearl Christine Mcgee, Melissa Anne Czarnogursky, Yingying Jennifer Yang

Student Research Symposium

Spatial abilities assist in manipulating, constructing, and navigating the physical world (Newcombe & Shipley, 1992; Montello, 2001). In this study, a variety of tasks were utilized to measure various constructs of spatial abilities. One of the constructs measured was perspective taking which consists of the ability to understand and recognize situations at different points of view. This allows individuals to relate to others, understand spatial relations, and view objects in different spaces (Newcombe & Huttenlocker, 1992). Two tasks were employed to measure perspective taking: Piaget’s Three Mountains task and a task modeled after a study by Newcombe and Huttenlocher (1992). …

Spatial Perspective Taking, Princess Lane, Anna Cavallo, Arrion Wilson

Student Research Symposium

Perspective taking is broadly described as having the ability to gain an understanding of a different individual’s point of view. Previous studies have shown that perspective taking can be improved by the presentation of human-like characters relative to inanimate objects (Clements-Stephens, Vasiljevic, Murray, & Shelton, 2013). Additionally, there is an increase in spontaneous perspective taking for participants, when the actor’s action (i.e., reaching) does not match his/her gaze (Furlanetto et al., 2013). The current study explores how the agent’s gaze and action impact perspective taking. Different from previous studies, we included two types of action: grasping and reaching. Seventy college …

Understanding Factors Related To Bystander Intervention In Bullying, Astrid Hernandez, Gaby Davila, Mariam Hanna

Student Research Symposium

Bullying is a complex situation that involves not only those who bully others and those are victimized, but also bystanders. In fact, research suggests that more than 70% of youth report that they have witnessed bullying behaviors in their schools (Bradshaw, Sawyer, & O’Brennan, 2007). Because so many youth report that they see bullying occur, it is important to understand factors that may make some youth more likely to intervene or defend their peers over others. The bystander intervention model of bullying is used to understand the steps that are needed in order to engage in defending behavior and is …

Everyday Spatial Behaviors: A Comparison Between Individuals With Down Syndrome And Typically Developing Children, Dai'jah Diggs, Lauren Grove, Yingying Jennifer Yang

Student Research Symposium

Spatial abilities assist in manipulating, constructing, and navigating the physical world and are employed in a number of everyday activities (Newcombe & Shipley, 2014; Montello, 2001). Research suggests that individuals with Down syndrome (DS) perform either at or below the level of their mental-age matched typically developing (TD) controls on visio-spatial tasks, suggesting that this is an area of weakness in individuals with DS (Yang, Conners, & Merrill, 2014). Much of the research examining spatial abilities in people with DS has focused on their performance on laboratory measures of spatial abilities. Yet spatial abilities measured in a laboratory setting are …

The Effects Of Handedness On Personal Preferences, Ryan Mcallen

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Lateralization of cerebral function divides the cognitions of the brain between two hemispheres, resulting in differences in thought processing between people based potentially on lateralization. Recent research suggests that these differences in lateralization may render some people more likely to hold certain preferences, attitudes, and beliefs about the world. Individual differences in lateralization can be evaluated with simple inventories measuring handedness. With this in mind, the following study attempted to determine if differences in handedness could be associated with differences in personal preferences, particularly in regards to types of food and forms of entertainment. It evaluated participants by using the …

Bullying, Resilience, And Victimization : An Investigation Among Special Needs High School Students, Sandy Dawoud

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

While there is extensive research done on high school bullying, there is very little research on bullying in special needs high school students. Resilience levels may have an impact on prevalence of bullying behavior. In this study, high school special needs students were surveyed the Illinois Bully Scale and a shortened Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale to learn about their bullying behavior and resilience levels. The questionnaire measured four different subscales: bullying, fighting, victimization, and resilience. It was hypothesized that resilience levels will have an effect on bullying behavior measured by the Illinois Bully Scale.