Digital Commons Network^™

Developing A Connection To Nature: The Role Of Pet Ownership In Childhood, Alexia Barrable, Samantha Friedman

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

Connection to nature is associated with a range of benefits to well-being in both childhood and adulthood. Childhood experiences seem to play a big role in how adult nature connection develops. Among the many predictors of higher connection to nature, relationships with animals, including pets, likely play an important role in facilitating feelings of closeness with nature. In this paper we present two survey studies, one of children (n = 64, age = 6–16 years) and one of adults (n = 356, age = 18–80 years). Our aim was to find out if children who own pets have …

Understanding Hope From Indian Young Adults’ Perspective, Mimansa Khanduri, Ketoki Mazumdar

The Qualitative Report

Despite the long-understood importance of Hope in the lives of individuals, few studies have investigated how Hope is understood from an Indian perspective. Furthermore, the focus on understanding the interpretations and experiences of Hope in the young adult population has been low. The current paper explores the phenomenon of Hope from Indian young adults’ perspective. The sample consisted of 10 participants, who were in the age range of 21 to 22 years and were pursuing their undergraduate or postgraduate studies. The study utilized in-depth interviews to understand the experiences and perspectives of Hope in the participants. Data were analyzed through …

An Investigation Into Loneliness And Solitary Drinking In A University Sample, Daniel C. Faraci

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol consumption tends to occur in social contexts and has been shown to increase prosocial behaviors and facilitate social connection. Simultaneously, socially excluded drinkers tend to increase or continue problematic levels of alcohol consumption when alone, possibly consuming alcohol as a replacement for desired but unavailable social connection. This investigation attempted to examine the relationship between loneliness (i.e., lack of perceived social connection) and subsequent alcohol consumption in solitary versus social contexts using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) techniques. University students recruited through a research subject pool who drank at least once per week were asked to respond to 28 short …

Optimizing Associative Memory In Autistic And Non-Autistic Adults: Retrieval Practice, Post-Retrieval Feedback, And Gesture, Brianna E. Cairney

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Associative memory—or the ability to form a memory representation linking two previously unrelated concepts—is a critical aspect of learning. This work provides insight into strategies that can be used to support associative memory, their underlying mechanisms, and their effectiveness in autistic and non-autistic learners. Chapter 1 demonstrates that iconic gestures can be used as a tool to enhance associative memory by increasing word concreteness and imageability. This effect was eliminated when the iconic gestures were interspersed with ambiguous nonsense gestures, suggesting a boundary on these benefits that depends on listener expectations regarding gesture clarity. However, it remains unknown whether gestures …

Preliminary Efficacy Of A Digital Intervention For Adolescent Depression: Randomized Controlled Trial, Emily Peake, Ian Miller, Jessica Flannery, Lang Chen, Jessica Lake, Aarthi Padmanabhan

Psychology

Background:
Adolescent depression is a significant public health concern; however, access to effective mental health care is limited. Digital therapeutics (DTx) can improve access to evidence-based interventions; however, their efficacy in adolescents is sparsely documented.

Objective:
This study aims to examine the efficacy of a mobile app DTx versus an active control as an adjunct treatment for adolescent depression symptoms.

Methods:
An internet-based open-label randomized control trial was conducted nationwide with a partial crossover design, and 168 adolescents aged 13 to 21 years with symptoms of depression were recruited between November 2020 and September 2021. Participants were randomized (1:1) to …

Therapeutic Potentials Of The Gut-Brain-Microbiota Axis For Prevention And Treatment Of Motivational Deficits In Ecohiv Infected Rats, Mason T. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

People living with HIV begin to experience gastrointestinal disturbances as early as 6 months after initial infection. Regardless of adherence to combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), the gut microbiome of people living with HIV maintains a state of dysbiosis throughout the rest of their lives, providing potential for a novel target for improving the lives of those living with HIV. The present study investigated the impact EcoHIV and cocaine have on the gut microbiome of F344/N rats. Fecal samples were collected from 20 female and 20 male animals at baseline, following self-administration of cocaine, and following inoculation with EcoHIV or Saline. …

Neurocognitive Processes As Longitudinal Predictors Of Reading Fluency, Jody Samuels

Theses and Dissertations

Reading fluency involves a complex interaction of different cognitive skills and abilities that develop with instruction and practice and relies on the automaticity of many distinct reading skills (e.g., pacing, word recognition, expression, phonological awareness). Fluent reading frees cognitive resources, such as working memory, for more advanced components of reading including comprehension and synthesis (Kim & Wagner, 2015; Samuels, 2006). Though early identification of students with fluency challenges is critical for providing evidence-based intervention, most screeners assess skills that are dependent upon instruction (e.g., letter identification, sound-symbol correspondence), delaying opportunities for identification. The current study examines the utility for including …

Effects Of Diazepam, D-Amphetamine, And Morphine On Rats’ Choices Between Food Alone And Food With Delayed Shock, Mackenzie Baranski

All NMU Master's Theses

Repeated choices that result in immediate reinforcing consequences followed by delayed aversive consequences are commonly associated with failures in “self-control”. The present study evaluated acute effects of diazepam, d-amphetamine, and morphine on rats’ choices using a variable-delay procedure that arranged choices involving conflicting-valence consequences. Rats pressed response levers to choose between a single-valence consequence (1 food pellet) and a conflicting-valence consequence (3 food pellets followed by a delayed shock). In each condition, the delay to shock varied systematically in a fixed sequence across blocks of trials of a session. After choice was stable, rats were exposed to acute administration …

The Impact Of Peer Observational Learning On Honesty Following A Transgression, Hannah M. Sliman

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Parents and teachers concerns about the development and socialization of lying aligns with research suggesting that persistent lying is related with delinquency, aggression, and conduct problems. We were interested in examining the difference between two groups: Honest and Praise (HP), and Control Group (CG) for the extent to which exposure to the experimental condition influenced a child’s decision to be honest and confess after a transgression. The study was designed to examine the extent to which observing peers of similar age receiving praise for being honest can promote honesty amongst children. Further, the study determined if gender influences honest reporting. …

Young Driver Training And Socioeconomic Status: A Human-In-The-Loop Driving Simulator Evaluation, Jeffrey Edward Glassman

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Previous research consistently shows that young drivers are poor at anticipating latent hazards on the roadway compared to more experienced drivers. The Road Awareness and Perception Training (RAPT) program is a driver training program that aims to accelerate young drivers’ learning of hazard anticipation (HA) skills. More recent research has started showing evidence that RAPT may be even more effective at reducing accidents for young drivers with a lower socioeconomic status (SES), though the direct impact of RAPT on HA skills in the driver population is yet unclear. The current experiment thus directly evaluated the effectiveness of RAPT on the …

Executive Function And Feedback In Regulatory Monitoring: Towards An Understanding Of Flexible And Adaptive Emotion Regulation, Gilaine Rui Ng

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Monitoring is a process which involves attending to feedback regarding the efficacy of ongoing regulatory strategies and determining whether to switch or maintain strategies (i.e., strategy switching or maintenance) in order to maximize adaptive outcomes. While conceptual accounts underscore the critical role of monitoring in flexible and adaptive emotion regulation, empirical research remains scarce, and the cognitive factors which subserve the monitoring process remain unclear and poorly understood. To bridge this gap, we investigate how components of executive function (EF)—a set of cognitive control processes necessary for flexible, goal-directed behavior—would differentially support the monitoring process. Additionally, we examine the extent …

Cultural Tightness-Looseness And Optimal Distinctiveness: Examining The Influence Of Culture On The Need To Belong And The Need To Be Different, Hairong Jiang

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the influence of cultural tightness-looseness on optimal distinctiveness motives and group identification, examining the moderating roles of self-construal, global orientation, and tightness/looseness match. Participants (N=465) from the United States and China were randomly assigned to tight or loose conditions and numerically majority or minority group conditions. Experimental manipulation of tightness-looseness did not significantly affect optimal distinctiveness needs. Cultural match, operationalized as alignment of tightness/looseness between participants' own culture and experimental condition, significantly moderated the relationship between culture conditions and need to belong. Individuals with high cultural match showed higher need to belong in tight conditions, while those …

Bracketed Assessments In Behavioral Gerontology: Evaluating Preference With Present And Absent Stimuli, Flavia Eduarda Del Castillo Troche

Theses and Dissertations

The present study evaluated the use of bracketed assessments to assess the activity preference of three individuals with dementia. The study proposed an alternative method to traditional stimulus preference assessments, to bridge the gap in behavior analytical literature within behavioral gerontology. Thus, bracketed assessments were conducted using two presentation methods, verbal plus visual presentation and verbal-only presentation. Results suggested that while participants showed consistency within low preferred activity selection in the bracketed assessment, variability was observed among participants’ preferences for high and moderate preferred activities. Both presentation methods yield similar selection results for one participant, however, the other two participants …

Cultural Selection Of Ethical Self-Control Toward Sustainability, Michael Jonathan Passage

Theses and Dissertations

This study consisted of three experiments to improve our understanding of the conditions that foster cooperation related to sustainability. In Experiment 1, participants completed a demographic questionnaire and an environmental and social discounting task. Results (a) support the utility of the environmental discounting task; (b) suggest responding to the discounting task is dissimilar; and (c) show that responding to hypothetical consequences on the social discounting task correlates to actual responding. Experiment 2 evaluated whether interlocking behavioral contingencies (by microculture members) associated with sustainable and non-sustainable aggregate products (Condition A & B) could be selected by cultural consequences (i.e., 20¢ toward …

Cash, Crowds, And Cooperation: The Effects Of Population Density And Resource Scarcity On Cooperation In The Dictator Game, Tan Kai Lin, Lynn, Norman P. Li, Kenneth Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The adaptive benefits of cooperation among humans have been widely studied. However, is being cooperative always adaptive across various combinations of ecological conditions? Existing work has focused on cultural, inter-, and intra-individual predictors of cooperation yet there is a lack of research on how an individual's ecology may come into play. In this work, we focus on the interaction of two ecological factors—population density and resource scarcity—on cooperation. Population density is often accompanied by social competition for limited resources. We hypothesise that in response to cues of high (versus low) population density, people facing resource-scarcity would adaptively lower their cooperativeness, …

The Never Ending Pursuit Of Satisfaction: How The Brain Modulates Pleasure Seeking Behavior, Amelia Williams

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Humans are addicted to pursuing pleasure but are still unsatisfied. Dopamine modulates this activity. Mindfulness can help us do better as a society.

Predictive Processing And Chronic Pain, Lydia Hurst

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Chronic pain is a common condition in which sufferers experience pain for over 3 months. The causes of chronic pain are often difficult to discern, as many cases are not associated with physical damage. A predictive processing (PP) perspective proposes that chronic pain results from the brain’s erroneous predictions derived from strong emotional and/or fearful reactions to pain. Individuals with anxiety disorders are more likely to react with fear to general stimuli, and therefore may be more likely to develop chronic pain under this model. The current healthcare model for this condition, which focuses on treating symptoms with pain-killers, displays …

Integrity, Flexibility, And Balance: How Change Works In Psychotherapy, David Pincus

Psychology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Psychotherapy may be the most tested form of health intervention and also one of the most mysterious. Clinical trials, and meta-analyses of these trials, have repeatedly demonstrated the effectiveness of psychotherapy, while also failing to uncover any clear-cut and consistent understanding of how psychotherapy works. This lack of understanding has driven the field to develop 500 supposedly distinct, yet equivalently effective “theories.” The field suffers from barriers to scientific discovery, barriers to therapist training, and barriers to people seeking help for their psychosocial problems. This chapter tackles the mystery of how therapy works by examining the shortcomings of modern medical …

Nonlinear Biopsychosocial Resilience: Self-Organization As The Basis For A Common Framework, Adam W. Kiefer, David Pincus

Psychology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Recently, calls have been made for a common framework to understand human resilience through the lens of dynamical systems theory. This chapter provides a comprehensive introduction to the concepts and tools necessary for such an approach. It builds on an existing theoretical framework of biopsychosocial resilience grounded in self-organization theory. This theoretical framework is applied to the formalization of four types of resilience – robustness, resilience, antifragility and grit. Next, important features of stability, structural integrity, and flexibility are discussed as empirically measurable characteristics of a systems-based approach to resilience, which provide a foundation for further applications, including metastability and, …

Factors Associated With Functioning In Older Black Adults, Katrail D. Davis

LSU Master's Theses

Activities of daily living can be simple tasks such as bathing, showering, toileting or as complex as managing finances, driving, and preparing meals. Independence in everyday functioning has been associated with successful aging and declines in functioning may be indicative of pathological cognitive decline. Social determinants of health, like economic status and access to health care, also play a role in everyday functioning. Understanding these factors are of particular importance for older Black adults who have had long-standing disparate access to care, education, and treatments. The current study aimed to evaluate social determinants of health, more specifically social engagement, as …

What’S In A Name And/Or A Frame? Ontological Framing And Naming Of Social Actors And Social Responses, David Westerman, Michael Vosburg, Xinyue Liu, Patric R. Spence

Human-Machine Communication

Artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally a communication field. Thus, the study of how AI interacts with us is likely to be heavily driven by communication. The current study examined two things that may impact people’s perceptions of socialness of a social actor: one nonverbal (ontological frame) and one verbal (providing a name) with a 2 (human vs. robot) x 2 (named or not) experiment. Participants saw one of four videos of a study “host” crossing these conditions and responded to various perceptual measures about the socialness and task ability of that host. Overall, data were consistent with hypotheses that whether …

The Use Of Proactive Progressive Muscle Relaxation To Increase Academic Engagement For Elementary School Students, Lillian G. Mccook

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) has been shown to produce desired outcomes by decreasing disruptive behavior in the classroom and increasing academic engagement. The integration of technology into the educational setting alleviates some of the burden on educators and enhances the learning experience for students. This study evaluated the effectiveness of brief video-based PMR to increase academic engagement in the classroom with three elementary school students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Additionally, this study assessed the feasibility and acceptability of video based PMR within a classroom setting. Results from this study show that PMR was a feasible, acceptable and effective …

Using Functional Communication Training For Students With Disabilities, Carey J. Walls Iv

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When implementing functional communication training (FCT), a gradual reduction in the frequency of reinforcement becomes necessary to minimize the resurgence of problem behavior and systematically fade out the FCT intervention. This study evaluated the implementation of FCT combined with a delay-to-reinforcement procedure for children with disabilities who engage in problem behavior due to limited communication skills. The study participants were three elementary school students, ages 9 or 10 years old and their respective paraprofessionals and classroom teachers in two self-contained classrooms at two public schools. The intervention outcomes for functional communication response (FCR) and problem behavior were evaluated using a …

The Power Of Class Consciousness: An Investigation Of Permeability Beliefs, Dehumanization, And Evaluations Of The Poor, Kirsten J. Lee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Class consciousness, a theoretical construct from the Marxist tradition, promotes an understanding of class dynamics as a structural phenomenon. I hypothesized that class consciousness would moderate animalistic dehumanization of the poor. A total of 435 participants took an online survey containing self-report questionnaires. While a priori hypotheses related to animalistic dehumanization were not supported, exploratory analyses revealed that permeability beliefs—the degree to which an individual sees class boundaries as impermeable—moderate emotional tone when discussing the rich and the poor. Mirroring Marx’s theorizing, those with class consciousness spoke more positively of the poor and less favorably of the rich than their …

A Cocktail Nanovaccine Targeting Key Entry Glycoproteins Elicits High Neutralizing Antibody Levels Against Ebv Infection, Ling Zhong, Wanlin Zhang, Hong Liu, Xinyu Zhang, Zeyu Yang, Zhenfu Wen, Ling Chen, Haolin Chen, Yanran Luo, Yanhong Chen, Qisheng Feng, Mu-Sheng Zeng, Qinjian Zhao, Lixin Liu, Claude Krummenacher, Yi-Xin Zeng, Yongming Chen, Miao Xu, Xiao Zhang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infects more than 95% of adults worldwide and is closely associated with various malignancies. Considering the complex life cycle of EBV, developing vaccines targeting key entry glycoproteins to elicit robust and durable adaptive immune responses may provide better protection. EBV gHgL-, gB- and gp42-specific antibodies in healthy EBV carriers contributed to sera neutralizing abilities in vitro, indicating that they are potential antigen candidates. To enhance the immunogenicity of these antigens, we formulate three nanovaccines by co-delivering molecular adjuvants (CpG and MPLA) and antigens (gHgL, gB or gp42). These nanovaccines induce robust humoral and cellular responses through efficient …

Differences In Art And Music High School Students’ Sat Test Scores From 2006 To 2015, Margaret Ellen Beyer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Academia and education advocates have reported a concern about the elimination of art and music education classes from high school curriculums in the United States. Studies using mean SAT test scores from 1984 and 1994 versions of the SAT test indicated participants who had art and music education classes had higher verbal and mathematical SAT test scores compared to those who did not. However, since revision of the SAT test in 2005, whether students had significantly increased mean SAT test scores with each added year of art and music education participation, and whether students who participated in art and music …

Differences In Art And Music High School Students’ Sat Test Scores From 2006 To 2015, Margaret Ellen Beyer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Academia and education advocates have reported a concern about the elimination of art and music education classes from high school curriculums in the United States. Studies using mean SAT test scores from 1984 and 1994 versions of the SAT test indicated participants who had art and music education classes had higher verbal and mathematical SAT test scores compared to those who did not. However, since revision of the SAT test in 2005, whether students had significantly increased mean SAT test scores with each added year of art and music education participation, and whether students who participated in art and music …

From Guns To Intimate Partner Violence: The Impact Of Power And Control, Meaghan E. Brown

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gun violence and intimate partner violence are pervasive public health concerns across the globe. Notably, previous literature has shown a positive relationship between gun ownership and intimate partner violence (IPV), even when a gun is not used during acts of IPV. Despite this established link, few studies to date have explored psychological mechanisms, especially feelings of and desire for power, that could explain this relationship among young men. Given that college students remain one of the most at-risk groups for both victimization and perpetration of IPV, examining the relationship between actual or intended gun ownership and IPV could close vital …

Understanding Political Rigidity: Exploring The Epistemic Underpinnings Of Political Ideology, Chad Mitchel Osteen

Dissertations

The ideology as motivated social cognition model conceptualizes conservatism in terms of two unique constructs: political conservatism and psychological conservatism. The former pertains to a predisposition to specific ideological beliefs (e.g., resistance to change), while the latter pertains to the psychological traits that are associated with particular ideologies (e.g., negativity bias). Experimental research demonstrates the mechanistic relationship of epistemic motivations and emergent political behavior. Much of the evidence lies in explicitly ideological outcomes. The current proposal seeks to test the fundamental assumption in this body of work. This is the assumption that increased epistemic motivation should lead to a preference …

Improving Academic Engagement And Task Completion Using Antecedent Physical Exercise In An Elementary School Classroom, Grace N. Maxwell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the effectiveness of antecedent physical activity interventions in enhancing academic engagement and task completion among first-grade students displaying off-task behaviors. The research involved three student participants from a first grade general education classroom. An ABAB reversal design was used to assess the impact of the intervention. The intervention, implemented by the classroom teacher, consisted of short, structured physical activities conducted before targeted academic periods. Results revealed significant improvements in both academic engagement and task completion following the implementation of the physical activity interventions. The findings suggest that incorporating brief physical activities into daily classroom routines can lead …