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Full-Text Articles in Social Psychology

Establishing A Health-Based Social Hierarchy, Akila Salaam Raoul Jan 2023

Establishing A Health-Based Social Hierarchy, Akila Salaam Raoul

Dissertations

Social dominance theory (SDT) proposes a basic human nature to form social hierarchies based on social group membership with dominant and subordinate social groups. These social hierarchies are maintained through legitimizing myths, or beliefs that work to frame the existing social system as fair by suggesting that individuals receive the social status they deserve based on their actions and contributions to society as opposed to their group membership. The level at which an individual wants to maintain social hierarchies is indicated by their Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). SDT has been extensively studied in the context of race, gender, and age …


Changing Vaccine Hesitant Attitudes Of Parents Using Moral Persuasion, Max Vitro Jan 2023

Changing Vaccine Hesitant Attitudes Of Parents Using Moral Persuasion, Max Vitro

Master's Theses

In the fight against Covid-19, overt, science-based messaging is not enough to persuade everyone to get vaccinated no matter how encouraging the data. Recent studies on attitudes toward vaccines and other health-promoting measures have provided clues as to why so many are still opposed, suggesting many who were resistant had reasons that were rooted along moral grounds. This process of moralization occurs when a belief becomes a moral matter of ‘right and wrong’ rather than a means to an end. Because moral beliefs are more entrenched, they’ve proven much more difficult to change. There is one approach that could increase …


A Study In The Effectivenss Of Factual Versus Emotional Interventions In Reducing Ambivalent Sexism In Hiring Decisions, Molly Jane Driscoll Jan 2022

A Study In The Effectivenss Of Factual Versus Emotional Interventions In Reducing Ambivalent Sexism In Hiring Decisions, Molly Jane Driscoll

Master's Theses

Ambivalent sexism – divided into the categories of benevolent sexism (BS) and hostile sexism (HS) – is imbedded in many parts of the workplace. This study aims to explore if ambivalent sexism influences hiring decisions and, if so, what can be done about it. After completing a series of surveys, participants were asked to read about an agentic female candidate who applied for a male-dominated position. Afterwards, participants went through either a factual or emotional intervention before reevaluating their decision. Major results showed that only the emotional intervention increased the likelihood of the candidate being hired but it is not …


How Self Relevance And Disclaimers Against Blame Affect Victim Blaming Of Sexual Assault Survivors, Lina Maria Flores Wolf Jan 2022

How Self Relevance And Disclaimers Against Blame Affect Victim Blaming Of Sexual Assault Survivors, Lina Maria Flores Wolf

Master's Theses

Victim blame can have negative impacts on survivors of sexual assault, leading to increased rates of neurological disorders, like PTSD, depression, and anxiety (Orchowski et al., 2013). As such, it is important that psychologists focus on implementing and understanding the effects of interventions that seek to decrease victim blame. This study seeks to explore the effects of a potential intervention aimed at decreasing victim blame by introducing, together with information about an assault, an explicit disclaimer stating that victims are not to blame. I explore the relationship between self-relevance and blame, as well as whether an explicit disclaimer against victim …


Leveraging Moral Foundations To Increase Covid-19 Vaccination, Cara Elizabeth Ray Jan 2022

Leveraging Moral Foundations To Increase Covid-19 Vaccination, Cara Elizabeth Ray

Dissertations

Despite the vast majority of the eligible U.S. adult population being vaccinated against COVID-19, geographical clusters of unvaccinated individuals pose a substantial risk of outbreak. It is important to encourage as many individuals as possible to vaccinate against COVID-19 to reduce its spread and severity. Past research has identified endorsement of the purity and liberty moral foundations – intuitive domains of moral concern – as predictors of vaccine hesitancy and political conservatism, while conservatism is itself associated with vaccine hesitancy. Across two online surveys, I examined the effects of a message invoking the purity and liberty foundations as well as …


Defending Gender: Transprejudice As Gender System Maintenance, Linas Mitchell Jan 2022

Defending Gender: Transprejudice As Gender System Maintenance, Linas Mitchell

Dissertations

The high levels of interpersonal and policy-based discrimination that transgender people face can be understood as a way of responding to transgender threats to gender systems. By understanding gender as a system of meaning and power, I apply System Justification Theory to interpret transprejudice as a form of gender system maintenance that may be influenced by one’s position in the gender system (gender) and general support for the status quo (conservatism). The present studies test whether transprejudice functions as a form of system affirmation/threat rejection. I found that exposure to system threat did not lead to greater transprejudice than a …


How Black Are You?: The Influence Of Racial Centrality On Stereotype Threat In The Courtroom, Kendall Cathleen Redwood Jan 2022

How Black Are You?: The Influence Of Racial Centrality On Stereotype Threat In The Courtroom, Kendall Cathleen Redwood

Master's Theses

The current study explores whether stereotype threat, or fear of confirming negativestereotypes about one’s in-group, might manifest in the criminal justice system. This study specifically asks whether the threat of confirming stereotypes connecting race and crime manifest, among Black defendants, in nonverbal behaviors that might be perceived by observers as guilt. This research further explores whether racial centrality, the degree to which one identifies with one’s race, moderates effects of stereotype threat. Black female-identifying college students, who rated their degree of racial centrality, were randomly assigned to experience the activation of the race-crime stereotype or to a control condition. They …


The Effect Of Group Identification And Emotion On Participation In Collective Action, Iryna Chaban Jan 2022

The Effect Of Group Identification And Emotion On Participation In Collective Action, Iryna Chaban

Master's Theses

In the last few years, the number of collective actions in the United States started to increase. These events have been ranging from peaceful to violent. The present research aims to understand what is causing groups to participate in collective action and become aggressive. It will expand understanding of group identification, emotion, and participation in collective action. The researcher hypothesizes that individuals who hold higher identification with a group are more likely to experience anger and participate in a protest. Data collection involved an online survey. Introductory psychology students read a passage describing a protest and respond to several short …


Assessing The Discriminant Validity Between Integrative Complexity And Open-Minded Cognition, Madeleine Louise Kindler Jan 2022

Assessing The Discriminant Validity Between Integrative Complexity And Open-Minded Cognition, Madeleine Louise Kindler

Master's Theses

The objective of this study was to evaluate the discriminant validity between integrative complexity and open-minded cognition (OMC). That is, the aim of this study was to show that integrative complexity and OMC are conceptually distinct constructs. This online study randomly assigned 198 Loyola University Chicago undergraduate psychology students to read either six tenable, homogeneous written communication remarks or six untenable, heterogeneous written communication remarks, made during a hypothetical conversation about the inclusion of prayer/moments of silence in high school curriculums. Participants then listed their cognitive thoughts and responses to the communication in a free response format (integrative complexity measure) …


Current Progress And Future Directions For Theory And Research On Savoring, Fred Bryant Dec 2021

Current Progress And Future Directions For Theory And Research On Savoring, Fred Bryant

Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

As research on savoring has increased dramatically since publication of the book Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience (Bryant and Veroff, 2007), savoring has gradually become a core concept in positive psychology. I begin by reviewing the evolution of this concept, the development of instruments for assessing savoring ability and savoring strategies, and the wide range of applications of savoring in the psychosocial and health sciences. I then consider important directions for future theory and research. To advance our understanding of how naturalistic savoring unfolds over time, future work should integrate the perceptual judgments involved in not only the …


Does Manipulating Source Gender Predict A Person's Open-Mindedness As A Function Of Sexism?, Tanyelle Annette Galman Jan 2021

Does Manipulating Source Gender Predict A Person's Open-Mindedness As A Function Of Sexism?, Tanyelle Annette Galman

Master's Theses

The present research examines whether Communication Source Gender influences a message recipients' level of Open-Minded Cognition, and whether Ambivalent Sexism moderates this effect. Participants were asked to think of themselves as part of a military panel which considers proposals to military spending. Then after reading a proposal from either Cassandra Smith or David Smith, participants were asked to indicate whether they would be open to hearing more from the author. Participants were then instructed to complete the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996). In total there were 395 participants in this study. Results show that there was no main …


A Fair Share: How Awareness Of Inequality, Allocation Method, And System Justification Affect Perceptions Of Distributive Fairness, David Thomas Igliozzi Jan 2021

A Fair Share: How Awareness Of Inequality, Allocation Method, And System Justification Affect Perceptions Of Distributive Fairness, David Thomas Igliozzi

Master's Theses

In considering the different ways people view inequality and various proposed solutions,this study draws on classic psychological theories of distributive justice which outline three modes of allocation strategies: equality, equity, and need. While Deustch’s (1975) work on these three allocation alternatives laid the groundwork for years of distributive justice research that would follow, little empirical work has actually experimentally evaluated the conditions under which people might be more or less willing to support equity, equality, or need-based strategies. There is evidence that certain individual difference measures can predict support for redistribution. That is—those who rate highly on system justification, political …


The Impact Of Affiliative Motivation And Trust On Confrontations Of Racism, Jamie Patrianakos Jan 2021

The Impact Of Affiliative Motivation And Trust On Confrontations Of Racism, Jamie Patrianakos

Dissertations

Anti-Black racism persists in the United States with harmful consequences for Black people. White people are able to disrupt the racial status quo and propel the conversation about racial justice forward by confronting racism. Confronting perpetrators of racism can reduce prejudice, yet people hesitate to confront because they fear social backlash, even from those with whom they share a social bond. Two online studies asked participants to complete a task eliciting stereotypical responding while being observed by a supposed interaction partner with whom they shared either a high or low desire to get along. Participants were confronted by their interaction …


Promoting Information Exchange: Open-Minded Group Cognition And A Function Of Motivation And Task Type, Jeremy Ryan Winget Jan 2021

Promoting Information Exchange: Open-Minded Group Cognition And A Function Of Motivation And Task Type, Jeremy Ryan Winget

Dissertations

Open-minded cognition is a cognitive processing style that influences the manner inwhich individuals select and process information. An open-minded cognitive style is marked by a willingness to consider a variety of intellectual perspectives, values, attitudes, opinions, or beliefs, even those that contradict the individual’s prior opinion. However, people also process information and make decisions within groups, and their individual cognitive styles can influence how the overall group processes and shares information. Therefore, the present paper integrates the open-minded cognition and group decision making literatures, proposes and agent- based model of open-minded group cognition, and empirically tests the antecedents and consequences …


Ecology And Open-Minded Cognition: Does Exposure To Pathogens Influence Open-Minded Cognition?, Gabriel Escudero Jan 2021

Ecology And Open-Minded Cognition: Does Exposure To Pathogens Influence Open-Minded Cognition?, Gabriel Escudero

Master's Theses

This study aimed to examine if a perceived pathogen contamination threat would influence participants level of open-minded cognition. This study obtained an online sample of 300 adults (i.e., 18-years or older) U.S. Amazon Mechanical Turk workers to participate in an online study. This study used a quantitative experimental design to examine if a manipulation of perceived pathogen contamination threat would influence participants level of situation-specific open-minded cognition (SSOMC). Participants were randomly assigned to either a perceived pathogen contamination condition in which they watched a short informative video on pathogens or a control condition in which participants watched a short innoxious …


Layperson's Norms Surrounding Politician Sexual Misconduct And Sexual Harassment, Yelyzaveta Distefano Jan 2020

Layperson's Norms Surrounding Politician Sexual Misconduct And Sexual Harassment, Yelyzaveta Distefano

Master's Theses

While there are legal definitions of what actions and circumstances constitute gender based prejudiced, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape, less is known about lay people's norms and perceptions of what behaviors and situations qualify as each of these categories, especially involving the role of context in which ambiguous social-sexual behaviors occur. Additionally, sexual harassment paradigms have not explored the unique power relationships of politicians and those working under them in political office, an especially topical locale of workplace SH in a post #MeToo America. 277 participants completed a survey with a 2 (setting: workplace, office party at the bar) …


Decreasing Women's Endorsement Of Benevolent Sexism, Kelsey Berryman Jan 2020

Decreasing Women's Endorsement Of Benevolent Sexism, Kelsey Berryman

Master's Theses

The aim of the current study was to reduce women's endorsement for benevolent sexist beliefs. the intervention aimed to educate women about the prevalence and seriousness of benevolent sexism. as this is a subtle and deceptively positive type of sexism, women are particularly susceptible in endorsing it (Glick & Fiske, 2001). in order to increase awareness for benevolent sexism in their everyday lives, some participants read an informational text about the pervasiveness and harmfulness of benevolent sexism in the U.S. This text was read after participants had already written about a time they engaged in benevolent sexism to elicit negative …


Using Moral Foundations Framing To Influence Partisan Attitudes Toward Latino Immigrants, Salma Moaz Jan 2020

Using Moral Foundations Framing To Influence Partisan Attitudes Toward Latino Immigrants, Salma Moaz

Master's Theses

This study aims to use Moral Foundations Theory to reduce prejudiced attitudes towards Latino immigrants. Research has shown that liberals and conservatives tend to differ in their support of moral foundations. Liberals are more likely to endorse individualizing moral foundations (fairness and caring for others) while conservatives are more likely to endorse binding moral foundations (sanctity, loyalty, and authority). Participants read one of two brief messages in support of Latino immigrants framed in either the binding or individualizing morals. the hypothesis was that conservatives who read the binding message will have more pro-immigrant attitudes, be more supportive of pro-immigrant policies, …


The Effect Of Imagined Intergroup Contact On Heterosexism, Laurel Mertz Jan 2020

The Effect Of Imagined Intergroup Contact On Heterosexism, Laurel Mertz

Master's Theses

Heterosexism and other forms of prejudice against the LGBTQ community remain prevalent across the world. Thus, the study of how to reduce heterosexism has become a much more common and necessary domain of research in recent years. Previous research has demonstrated mixed results of the effect of imagined intergroup contact on heterosexism. the current study sought to evaluate various contexts in which imagined intergroup contact would decrease or increase levels of both implicit and explicit heterosexist attitudes. I predicted that individuals who imagined winning a basketball game with a gay teammate would display more positive attitudes toward gay men whereas …


An Experimental Test Of Fiedler's Contingency Model Of Leadership Effectiveness: The Effect Of Gender, Samantha De Souza Jan 2020

An Experimental Test Of Fiedler's Contingency Model Of Leadership Effectiveness: The Effect Of Gender, Samantha De Souza

Master's Theses

The present study is an experimental test of Fiedler's (1967) Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness across genders, as Fiedler's Contingency Model has been tested largely with male participants. The model predicts group performance based on four key variables: leadership style, as indexed by the Least-Preferred Coworker (LPC) Scale, and three situational variables, leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. In situations characterized by high leader-member relations, and low position power, Fiedler predicts a negative correlation between the leader's LPC score and group performance when groups perform a structured task (Octant II), and a positive correlation when groups perform an unstructured …


The Influence Of Dialecticism On Savoring Across Cultures, Soyeon Kim Jan 2020

The Influence Of Dialecticism On Savoring Across Cultures, Soyeon Kim

Dissertations

The present study investigated the influence of dialectical thinking on the ways in which people savor positive experiences across culture. Although both the concept of savoring (i.e., the capacity to attend to, appreciate, and regulate positive experience) and the concept of dialecticism (i.e., a prevalent Eastern philosophy that values the interconnectedness of all things, constant changes in life, and coexistence of contradictory phenomena) are essential topics in contemporary psychology, there is a lack of theory and research that links together these two concepts within a cross-cultural framework. Literature has shown that emotion is a product of culture and norms; East …


Mortality Salience, Group Membership, & Reciprocity, Fatima A. Martin Jan 2020

Mortality Salience, Group Membership, & Reciprocity, Fatima A. Martin

Dissertations

This study investigated the effects of mortality salience, group membership, partner's behavior, and adherence to the norms of positive and negative reciprocity. Three-hundredeighty- four participants completed the either a mortality salience or control (where mortality was not salient) induction, a group membership induction, a personal norms of reciprocity scale, one round of a single-shot trust game (a measure of positive reciprocity), and one round of a singleshot ultimatum game (a measure of negative reciprocity). During the trust game, an ostensible interaction partner received a small monetary endowment, and contributed either that entire endowment or less than half of it (keeping …


The Flexible Impact Of Affective States On Group Decision-Making And Ideational Creativity, Young-Jae Yoon Jan 2020

The Flexible Impact Of Affective States On Group Decision-Making And Ideational Creativity, Young-Jae Yoon

Dissertations

Positive and negative affect are often thought to influence the cognitive performance of individuals and groups via their effects on two different dimensions of cognitive processing style: heuristic vs. systematic processing, and global vs. local attentional focus. Recently, research has suggested that the effects of affective states on the analytic and creative performance of individuals depend on the relative dominance of heuristic vs. systematic processing (for analytic performance) and of a global vs. local attentional focus (for creative performance) just prior to the affect's arousal (Huntsinger, Isbell, & Clore, 2014; Huntsinger & Ray, 2016). Extending this individual-level evidence to small …


The Dogmatism Of Dissent: How Open-Minded Cognition Influences Protest Attitudes, Chad Osteen Jan 2019

The Dogmatism Of Dissent: How Open-Minded Cognition Influences Protest Attitudes, Chad Osteen

Master's Theses

While protestors are often thought of and portrayed as dogmatic actors on the political stage, research has yet to empirically investigate the cognitive processes of protestors. While previous research has investigated how open-minded cognition relates to political party and ideology, its relationship to political activism has remained under studied. This study used a between subject's design to determine how priming system rejection may affect open-minded cognition and protest attitudes. The sample of 450 participants recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk is based off a power analysis with small to medium effect sizes (r2=0.25) and a power of .95. Using SurveyGizmo software, …


Perceived Appropriateness Of Sexual Misconduct In Hookup Culture: Roles Of Power And Motives, Milan Alexandra Tvardek Jan 2019

Perceived Appropriateness Of Sexual Misconduct In Hookup Culture: Roles Of Power And Motives, Milan Alexandra Tvardek

Master's Theses

This study used hypothetical depictions of hookup scenarios to assess the perceptions of 388 participants for whether specific interactions between third-party characters involved sexual misconduct and the perceived appropriateness and wrongfulness of those behaviors. The current research examined the role of three independent between-subject variables in perceptions of sexual misconduct perpetration: a) Sex Motive (Low, High); b) Chronic Power (Low, High); and c) Acute Power (Low, High, Control). Results showed that individuals high in sex driven motivation, compared to those who less often hookup for sex driven reasons, perceived some perpetrators to be more wrongful but also expected these perpetrators …


The Impact Of Regulatory Fit On Confrontations Of Bias, Rayne Bozeman Jan 2018

The Impact Of Regulatory Fit On Confrontations Of Bias, Rayne Bozeman

Dissertations

Anti-Black racism remains a major problem in contemporary American life, with deleterious consequences for Blacks. White allies possess social power to change the status quo by confronting racism. Although confrontation reduces biased behavior and prejudiced attitudes, many people refrain from spontaneously confronting. Persuasive appeals may encourage ally confronting. When these appeals are strategically framed in a manner that matches people’s regulatory orientation, they are expected to experience a sense of fit, which makes them feel better about the tasks they are engaged in. Two studies tested whether experiencing regulatory fit would enhance the persuasiveness of a pro-confrontation message. Participants were …


The Loyola Experience: Increasing Belonging And Retention Among Underrepresented Students, Michelle Seli Aku Adzido Jan 2018

The Loyola Experience: Increasing Belonging And Retention Among Underrepresented Students, Michelle Seli Aku Adzido

Master's Theses

Retaining underrepresented (e.g. first-generation and ethnic minority) students remains a challenge within higher education. Fostering a sense of belonging on campus is key to successfully retaining and increasing academic performance among underrepresented students. Peer-to-peer and faculty mentoring provides opportunities to form social bonds and potentially increase belonging. Mentoring may also connect students from underrepresented backgrounds with campus resources, thus contributing to their knowledge and utilization of campus resources, or self-advocacy. I recruited 95 racial minority and first-generation participants. They reported self-advocacy, belonging, grade point average (GPA), and retention intentions. I test whether participation in a mentoring program (versus control) operated …


What's Wrong With Being Single: Lowered Relational Value Bias Toward Single People, Darian Farrell Jan 2018

What's Wrong With Being Single: Lowered Relational Value Bias Toward Single People, Darian Farrell

Master's Theses

This study examined the perceived relational value of single individuals (compared to that of coupled individuals). I hypothesized that, participants would be more likely to make the conjunction fallacy in the single condition vs. the coupled condition, when asked whether or not it was more likely that the target person from the condition was a single teacher vs. teacher. The data supported my hypothesis: participants in the single condition were significantly more likely to make the conjunction fallacy than participants in the coupled condition. My study also tested whether or not the need to belong acted as a moderator for …


Political Essentialism And Affective Polarization, Chase Wilson Jan 2018

Political Essentialism And Affective Polarization, Chase Wilson

Dissertations

Affective polarization, the phenomenon of liberals and conservatives treating each other as disliked outgroups, is increasingly intense (Iyengar & Westwood, 2015; Pew, 2016). In the present research, I used the construct of psychological essentialism (Medin & Ortony, 1989) to help understand this intergroup phenomenon. Specifically, I measured political essentialism, or the belief that political ideologies are strongly determined, informative, discrete and/or immutable, and tested the relationship between these beliefs and affective polarization. I approached this question with both correlational and experimental methods. In a correlational study, political essentialism overall is found to covary positively with affective polarization and social avoidance …


Effects Of Affiliative Motivation And Confrontation Style On Anti-Black Attitudes And Social Consequences, Jamie Patrianakos Jan 2018

Effects Of Affiliative Motivation And Confrontation Style On Anti-Black Attitudes And Social Consequences, Jamie Patrianakos

Master's Theses

Anti-Black racism occurs on a daily basis and comes with both physical and psychological costs to its targets. One effective way to reduce discrimination is through confrontation, which could come in the form of a hostile accusation of racism (hot confrontation) or a polite emphasis on egalitarian values (cold confrontation). However, confronting often has social costs that may include damaging the relationship between the confronter and the perpetrator. This research determined whether social relationships can reduce anti-Black bias while also serving as a buffer against the social consequences of confronting. Participants (n = 168) were randomly assigned to a 2(affiliative …