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Impairment Or Underestimation? Negative Illusory Bias In Depressive Symptoms And Theory Of Mind, Jaclyn Boyer

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the social-cognitive skill of attributing beliefs, feelings, and intentions to others in order to predict their future behavior. Past research on ToM and depression is quite ambiguous; some studies have found significant impairment of ToM performance in depressed individuals, while others have found that depressed individuals perform better than those without depression. The purpose of the study was to clarify this ambiguity by considering the phenomenon of negative illusory bias (NIB) as a potential mediating variable. NIB refers to the tendency of competent individuals to underestimate their abilities. Therefore, along with measures of ToM and …

Qualitative Inquiry, Jeanne Marecek, E. Magnusson

Psychology Faculty Works

Qualitative inquiry is a form of psychological research that seeks in-depth understanding of people and their social worlds. Qualitative researchers typically study the experiences of people as meaning-making agents, relying on verbal material. Qualitative inquiry has a long history in psychology, beginning in the 19th century with founders of psychology like William James and Wilhelm Wundt. However, for much of the 20th century, qualitative inquiry has occupied a marginal position in the discipline. This marginalization is best understood in relation to the discipline’s early struggle to be regarded as legitimate. Adopting the methods of the natural sciences—notably quantification and measurement—was …

The Elephant In The Room: The Often Neglected Relevance Of Speciesism In Bias Towards Ethnic Minorities And Immigrants, Melisa Choubak, Saba Safdar

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

The area of intergroup bias and, specifically attitudes towards ethnic minorities and/or immigrants, has received a great amount of investigation by (cross-cultural) psychologists, spanning many theories and perspectives (Hewstone et al., 2002). However, one perspective rarely taken in mainstream psychology is one that acknowledges the inter-linkage of bias towards ethnic minorities and/or immigrants and that towards non-human animals (NHAs), despite relatively substantial literature outside of psychology emphasizing it (Singer, 2002). In the present paper, we draw from relevant literature outside and inside of psychology that speaks to the connectivity between attitudes towards marginalized human outgroups and NHAs, focusing on the …

The Essence Of Hate And Love, Clark R. Mccauley

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

This chapter updates and extends ideas advanced by Royzman, McCauley, and Rozin in The Psychology of Hate. In particular, it builds on the work of Shand, who argued that hate and love are not themselves emotions but the occasions of experiencing many different emotions, depending on what is happening to the one hated or loved. The first section reviews four ways of getting to the meaning of hate. The second section stipulates a definition of identification and provides examples of the power of positive and negative identification in human affairs. The third section reviews ideas about what it means to …

Culturally-Relevant Factors That Influence Healthy Eating Among African American College Students, Danyel Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Obesity is a national epidemic in the US, disproportionately affecting African Americans, such that the obesity prevalence in African Americans (49.6%) surpassed the national prevalence (42.4%) in 2018. Those same disparities exist at the collegiate level, such that 27.4% of a sample of African Americans college students had obesity, surpassing the national prevalence of obesity (12.1%) in 2018. Diet, an important driver of obesity, is influenced by several psychological, social, and environmental factors. However, cultural factors influencing diet are understudied among African American college students. The overarching goal of the current study was to identify culturally-relevant factors that promote healthy …

Perceived Competence And Agreeableness Predict Positive Behaviors Toward Mexican Immigrants: Less Acculturated Hispanics Are More Welcoming Of Immigrants, Elia Hilda Bueno, Roque V. Mendez

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

The resettlement of immigrants who have fled their countries because of dire consequences at home and better opportunities elsewhere, has given rise to a range of prejudices toward them in their host countries. We examined prejudices and discrimination toward immigrants, specifically Mexican immigrants, as a function of their perceived competence and warmth within the context of the Stereotype Content Model. We also examined perceiver’s agreeableness, openness to experience, attitudes and acculturation level, and their links with prejudices toward immigrants. We found that an immigrant’s competence elicited strong and more positive feelings and responses than warmth. More competent immigrants were more …

Children’S Development And Crisis: Comparing Developmental Best Practices Against Aid Program Curricula, Martha Baker

CMC Senior Theses

Using the monitoring, evaluation and learning for adaptive management model (MEL4AM), this paper examines how international organizations translate productive criteria for early childhood development (ECD) into emergency response programming for children. Early childhood is a crucial developmental time in individual’s lives and adverse experiences undermine, among other things, language development, self-regulatory capabilities, and child-caregiver interactions. International aid organizations are operationalizing the research on ECD best practices into site-level programming. This thesis examines whether the developmental needs of these children in crisis are being met through these efforts and offers two in-depth case studies: Sesame Workshop’s intervention for Syrian refugee children …

Examining Environmental Use By Captive Lemur Catta And Varecia Rubra, Rhiannon Belcher

All Master's Theses

There are over 100 named species of lemurs, of which 94% are considered threatened with extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They live in increasingly fragmented forests. To understand how best to protect them in their natural habitats, we can observe how they manipulate the environment and how they use objects, both natural and humanmade, around them. Understanding their behavior is a critical component of conservation, and observing behavior in a captive setting allows us to study lemur-environment relationships without disrupting what little habitat is left in Madagascar. In this study I investigated whether the …

Chimpanzee Early Life Experiences And Responses To Caregiver Use Of Species-Specific Behavior, Emily Patton

All Master's Theses

More than 1,400 chimpanzees live in captivity in the US and each has complex social needs. The humans who care for captive chimpanzees occupy a place within chimpanzee social structures and their actions have consequences on chimpanzee behavior and welfare. Two studies compared chimpanzee responses between a condition in which humans used chimpanzee behaviors (CB) and another in which they use human behaviors (HB) during informal interactions. The chimpanzees showed more affiliative behavior during the CB condition in one study and strong individual variation in responses to the two conditions in both studies. Individual variation in adult primate behavior can …

Do Violent Video Games Stimulate Aggressive Tendencies?, Megan Hamilton

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

This study looked at the relationship between violent video game (VVG) play and aggressive tendencies. Participants were required to be at least 18 years of age or older and were recruited through flyers in the Library and Academic Resource Center and Young Hall on the Lindenwood University campus, as well as through the Lindenwood Participant Pool. Participants took a pretest on Qualtrics measuring aggressive tendencies and after the pretest, participants were systematically chosen to either play Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV); (Rockstar Games, 2014) or Stardew Valley (Barone & Sickhead Games, 2016). Following gameplay, participants then took a posttest on …

Appealing To Human Intuitions To Reduce Animal Abuse, Yzar S. Wehbe, Todd K. Shackelford

Animal Sentience

Social scientists may be able to find ways to positively affect people’s evolved moral compasses, thereby doing the planet and its inhabitants a great kindness. They could help to shape a constituency that is increasingly opposed to animal abuse in its largest-scale manifestations, factory farming and wet markets. This would, in turn, motivate people to elect ethical leaders who view inaction with regard to animal abuse as a serious moral and medical mistake, if only indirectly due to factory farming’s exacerbation of the threats zoonoses pose to humans.

Reviewers And Referees, Mssj Staff

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Judgements Of Attributional Responsibility, Social Dominance Orientation, And The Insanity Defense., Stephanie S. Souter

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Issues of race, law, and mental health meet at a cross-section when it comes to cases involving the not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) plea in which the defendant is a member of a marginalized group. Although the duty of a juror is to reach a fair and unbiased verdict, the reality is that there are many ways that a person’s thoughts can be biased without them being aware of this (Bargh, 2001). This mock juror experiment (the first of its kind), investigated the role that Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and attributional responsibility has in the success of NGRI …

Rocks For The Homeless: The Health Conditions Of Spokane Homeless People, Brandon T. Poepping

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Over the past four decades, the United States has seen an increase in the numbers of homeless. Upward of half a million people in the United States experience homelessness per night. This thesis discusses causes and conditions of homelessness in Spokane, Washington. Specifically, the thesis focuses on the causes of homelessness, the homeless people’s lived experiences on the street, their encounters with the medical establishments, and the public perception about them. Data was collected beginning in the summer of 2018. A total of twenty homeless individuals were interviewed. I also attended public events and forums where the issue of homelessness …

Does Context Matter? A Multilevel Analysis Of Neighborhood Disadvantage And Children's Sleep Health, Carlyn Graham, Eric N. Reither, Gabriele Ciciurkaite, Dipti Dev, Jamison Fargo

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Objectives: To determine how demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood characteristics are associated with bedtimes among US kindergarteners.

Design: Parents reported bedtimes of their children as well as personal, household, and residential characteristics via interviews in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K) Class of 1998-1999. The ECLS-K links individual households to US Census tracts.

Setting: A random selection of 1,280 schools and surrounding communities in the US.

Participants: A random selection of 16,936 kindergarteners and their parents.

Measurements: The 2 outcomes were regular and latest weekday bedtimes of kindergarteners. Through a series of nested multilevel regression models, these outcomes were regressed on …

Does Context Matter? A Multilevel Analysis Of Neighborhood Disadvantage And Children's Sleep Health, Carlyn Graham, Eric Reither, Gabriele Ciciurkaite, Dipti Dev, Jamison Fargo

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Objectives: To determine how demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood characteristics are associated with bedtimes among US kindergarteners.

Design: Parents reported bedtimes of their children as well as personal, household, and residential characteristics via interviews in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K) Class of 1998–1999. The ECLS-K links individual households to US Census tracts.

Setting: A random selection of 1,280 schools and surrounding communities in the US.

Participants: A random selection of 16,936 kindergarteners and their parents.

Measurements: The 2 outcomes were regular and latest weekday bedtimes of kindergarteners. Through a series of nested multilevel regression models, these outcomes were regressed on …

Untwining Threads: Second Wave Hmong Parents’ Conceptualizations Of Ways To Support Their Adolescent Children’S Education, Mao Sea Lee

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This research identifies the support systems for adolescents’ education within the second wave Hmong refugee family setting. The study examines the parents’ perspectives on their own support systems for their adolescents’ education. The work focuses on studying both the instrumental support and psychological care these parents provide their teenage children and interprets why these parents choose to provide these resources. Studying these parents’ ways of supporting their adolescents provided a more in-depth understanding of why these recent refugee parents choose to invest of their resources to their adolescents’ education and, subsequently, what education means to them. The research also brought …

An Examination Of Nature Relatedness, Nature Exposure, And Quality Of Work-Life Among Student Affairs Professionals, Breanne Hiivala

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This study explored the relationship with nature within the realm of career development. More specifically, it examined the relationship between nature relatedness, nature exposure, and quality of work-life among student affairs professionals. The participants identified as members of the American College and Personnel Association (n=275). A Pearson Product Moment Correlation Matrix (r) and a simple linear regression were used in this study. There were significant small correlations found between nature relatedness and quality of work-life variables such as home-work interface, job and career satisfaction, working conditions, and stress at work. Additionally, significant relationships were found between nature exposure and nature …

Ethical Issues When Working With Terminally Ill People Who Desire To Hasten The Ends Of Their Lives: A Western Perspective, Alfred Allan, Maria Allan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Terminally ill people might want to discuss the options they have of hastening their deaths with their psychologists who should therefore know the law that regulates euthanasia in the jurisdictions where they practice. The legal, and therefore ethical, situation that influences psychologists’ position and terminally ill people’s options, however, differs notably across jurisdictions. Our aim is to provide a brief moral-legal historical context that explains how the law reform processes in different jurisdictions created these different legal contexts and options that, in turn, influence psychologists’ ethical position. We conclude by considering 8 specific ethical issues at a conceptual level that …

Teachers’ Perspectives On Positive Behavior Intervention And Support In The Classroom, Corlett Pinnock

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Positive behavior intervention and support (PBIS) is a data-driven approach to promoting productive student behaviors and learning. A key facet of sustainable success when using PBIS is evaluation. More insight is needed on the perspectives that teachers have about PBIS and as well as details about whether and why it is accepted. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the perceptions of teachers at 3 high schools in Western Jamaica as it relates to a PBIS pilot program. Twenty-six teachers from 3 schools in Region 4 in Jamaica were interviewed with the aim of understanding how teachers received …

The Lived Experiences Of Online Therapists Maintaining Ethical Boundaries, Talia Singer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The provision of counselling and psychotherapy using technology, also referred to as telecounselling or e-therapy, is a burgeoning area of mental health care that has garnered much enthusiasm. Many professional health organizations have developed ethical guidelines to specifically address this unique style of treatment. Skepticism remains in the area of applying standards into practice. Ethical guidelines are meant to be broad principles that can be applied to a range of unique practice experiences. The problems is that these principles have been developed over a century of practice-based experiences and designed to address situations that the clinician faces when their client …

Masculine Ideals, Acculturation, And Attitudes Toward Seeking Psychological Help Among Mexican American Adult Males, Innocent Affam Obuah

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is a paucity of published research identifying the relationships between masculine ideals, acculturation, and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help among adult Mexican American men. The purpose of the current study was to examine how masculine ideals and acculturation can negatively affect attitude toward seeking psychological help among Mexican American adult males, a fast-growing population in the U.S. that is vulnerable to poor mental health outcomes. Among those factors reported to account for mainly negative perceptions in this population are masculine ideals, machismo, and acculturation; however, the effects of these factors on Mexican American males have not been quantitatively …

The Lived Experiences Of Caregivers Of Children With Reactive Attachment Disorder, Abby Baumgart

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Parents of children with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) encounter challenges in parenting and parent-child relationship development that are not typical to most parental situations. The purpose of the qualitative study was to explore the lived experiences of caregivers of children with RAD, to identify current met and unmet needs, to explore the experiences the caregivers of children with RAD have and the resources available to them. The study included a hermeneutic phenomenological foundation and incorporated the conceptual frameworks of family systems theory and attachment theory. A nonprobability, self-selection sampling strategy was utilized with recruitment through Facebook support groups. Methods included …

Culture And Hiv/Aids-Related Psychological Distress, Ndayiziveyi Constance Scott

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The over-representation of HIV infections among Black populations relative to the mainstream population continues to be documented in Canada. Previous research has implicated cultural factors in the transmission of HIV in addition to linking HIV/AIDS to psychological distress. Some studies established a link between awareness of increased HIV/AIDS risk and vulnerability to distress, and others indicated cultural differences in the experiences of cognitive dissonance as a function of cultural variations in beliefs and practices. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine cultural variables associated with cognitive dissonance (dependent variable) arousal as a function of cultural sexual gender-role socialization …

Life In A Harsh Environment: The Effects Of Age, Sex, Reproductive Condition, And Season On Hair Cortisol Concentration In A Wild Non-Human Primate, P. A. Garber, A. Mckenney, Evelyn Elizabeth Bartling-John, J. C. Bicca-Marques, M. F. De La Fuente, F. Abreu, N. Schiel, A. Souto, Kimberley A. Phillips

Psychology Faculty Research

Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) provides a long-term retrospective measure of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity, and is increasingly used to assess the life history, health and ecology of wild mammals. Given that sex, age, season and pregnancy influence HCC, and that it may indicate ongoing stress, we examined HCC in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) naturally inhabiting a hot and dry semi-desert like habitat, Caatinga, in northeastern Brazil. We trapped, measured, weighed, marked and collected shaved hair from the back of the neck of 61 wild marmosets during the wet and dry seasons. Using enzyme immunoassay, we found that HCC was …

A Phenomenological Inquiry Into The Client Experience Of The Psychotherapy Relationship, Mark D. Knutzen

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Meta-analyses have indicated that there are likely common factors across varied treatment modalities that account for the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Research has attempted to identify therapist and treatment relationship components that correlate with effective mental health treatment. Yet, there is a paucity of research directly addressing the qualitative experience of the relationship between psychotherapists and their clients.

Eight adult psychotherapy clients were interviewed regarding their experience of the psychotherapy relationship with their mental health therapist. The interviews were analyzed through the use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Seven themes emerged. Three themes related to the formation, and overall foundation of …

We Are All Green: Stereotypes For Female Soldiers And Veterans, Katherine French

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

As the number of females in the U.S. military continues to rise, the need for research concerning this cohort becomes increasingly important. In consideration of gender role theory, society may assume that soldiers and veterans are male, due to stereotypes. Thus, it was hypothesized that participants would be more likely to implicitly associate military (i.e. prior military or combat veteran) as male compared the neutral condition (i.e. prior Peace Corp volunteer). The current study (N = 174) used gender pronouns as implicit measures of gender assumptions. Participants were assigned to read six gender neutral scenarios; three focal scenarios (i.e. combat …

The Use Of Mobile Social Technology As Transitional Objects Impact On Personality Functioning, Peter Gleiberman

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact unlimited connectivity and unlimited access to voice, text, and video communication as well as multimedia content consumption through mobile social technology has on personality integration. The increased use of mobile social technology has changed how the user engages social relationships. Through mobile social technology, the user places importance in an inanimate object for engagement of social relationships. A reliance on the inanimate object as a social relationship is thought to compromise the ability to internalize integrated object relations and develop stable personality organization. This theoretical research uses hermeneutic analysis of …

A Drama-Based Group Intervention For Adolescents To Improve Mentalization, Michael S. Goddard

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation is an innovative intervention design to improve mentalization in preadolescents. The intervention presented is conducted in a group format and using techniques drawn from drama-based therapy. I have provided a brief literature review on mentalization, and relevant topics in group treatment and drama therapy. I have outlined key concepts from mentalization theory including: (a) the development of the self, (b) its relationship to attachment, (c) psychic equivalence and pretend mode functioning, (d) marked-affect mirroring, (e) the various facets of mentalization, and (f) mentalization treatment with children. After outlining these concepts, I discuss psychodynamic group treatment, mentalization-based group therapy, …

Emotional Response To Climate Change Learning: An Existential Inquiry, Jennifer Hutchinson

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This qualitative study aims to explore and explain the existential underpinnings of learning about climate change and potential emotional responses to climate change learning. Undergraduate students in environmental sciences and studies classes at the University of Washingrounded theory on in Seattle, WA participated in semi-structured interviews. Participants were asked about their experiences learning about climate change and how they responded emotionally to the learning. This dissertation examines the responses from those interviews and builds a theory out of the data analyzed. Constructivist Grounded theory as outlined by Kathy Charmaz (2014) was used to analyze the interviews. Codes were created and …