Digital Commons Network^™

The Relationship Between Parental Influence And Christian Spiritual Practices Among Adventist Youth In Puerto Rico, Obed Jiménez

Dissertations

Problem. Typically, parents do not realize how influential they are in fostering spiritual growth in their children and are not aware of key influential factors that can motivate their children in practicing spiritual disciplines such as prayer, Bible reading, meditation, and church attendance.

Method. This study used data from the Avance PR study conducted during the months of March and October 1995. The population for this study was high-school students enrolled in Seventh-day Adventist academies and youth who attended Seventh-day Adventist churches in Puerto Rico. The youth sample (ages 13-25) consisted of 1,377 single, never-married subjects: 586 males and 775 …

Agreement Answer Scale Design For Multilingual Surveys: Effects Of Translation-Related Changes In Verbal Labels On Response Styles And Response Distributions, Ana Villar

Survey Research and Methodology Program: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Answer scales in survey instruments are widely used, but little is known about how to choose verbal descriptors as labels. In multilingual research, this matter is further complicated because answer scales must be appropriate for all languages and function comparatively. Comparing source questionnaires to translations of multinational projects (e.g., the World Values Survey, the European Social Survey), it was observed that certain verbal features differed across languages, countries, and modules. This dissertation empirically investigates the effect of such changes on response distributions. The verbal feature examined is the presence or absence of an intensity modifier in the second and fourth …

Relational Being: Beyond Self And Community, Kenneth J. Gergen

Psychology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Bounded Rationality In The Emergency Department, Markus Alexander Feufel

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This research aimed at understanding bounded rationality - that is, how simple heuristics result in satisfactory outcomes - in a naturalistic setting where agents have to meet environmental demands with limited resources. To do so, two methodological approaches were taken, an observational and an experimental study of U.S. emergency physicians who have to provide a satisfactory level of care while simultaneously coping with uncertainty, time and resources constraints. There are three major findings. First, based on observations of 12 resident and 6 attending physicians at two Midwestern emergency departments (ED), ED physicians use at least two general heuristics. One heuristic …

Powerful And Powerless Speech Styles In Employment Mock Interviews, Amanda M. Wilson

Honors Program Theses

This thesis examines powerful and powerless speech styles in employment mock interviews. A powerless speech style is defined as the use of linguistic features that have negative effects on how the speaker is perceived. Features analyzed in this study include intensifiers, hedges, and hesitations. A powerful speech style is defined as the absence of powerless linguistic features within speech. Twenty-eight examples of employment mock interviews conducted in the office of Career Services at the University of Northern Iowa were recorded for analysis in this thesis. Four common questions within the interviews were selected and the responses were transcribed and analyzed, …

Evidence For Menstrual Cycle Shifts In Women’S Preferences For Masculinity: A Response To Harris (In Press) “Menstrual Cycle And Facial Preferences Reconsidered", Lisa Debruine, Benedict C. Jones, David Frederick, Martie Haselton, Ian S. Penton-Voak, David I. Perrett

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Over the last decade, a growing literature has shown that women in the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle demonstrate stronger preferences for men with masculine traits than they do when in the non-fertile phases of the cycle (see Gangestad and Thornhill, 2008 and Jones et al., 2008 for recent reviews). In a recent article, Harris (in press; Sex Roles) failed to replicate this increase in women's preferences for masculine faces when women are near ovulation. Harris represented her study as one of only three studies on the topic, and as the largest of the existing studies. There are, however, …

Palpable Pedagogy: Expressive Arts, Leadership, And Change In Social Justice Teacher Education (An Ethnographic/Auto-Ethnographic Study Of The Classroom Culture Of An Arts-Based Teacher Education Course), Lucy Elizabeth Barbera

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Palpable Pedagogy: Expressive Arts, Leadership, and Change in Social Justice TeacherEducation is an arts-informed ethnographic study of the pedagogy and culture engendered when the expressive arts are employed in social justice teacher education. Palpable Pedagogy is a qualitative study that examines the power of the expressive arts to identify, explore, and address issues of inequity in the context of a social justice teacher education course that I taught over three consecutive years. The literature in the field outlines the essential components for effective social justice teacher education (identity, reflection, and dialogue) and neatly explores them. However, with the exception of …

Core Conditions In Student-Centered Learning, Margaret Ann Hartford

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study explored core conditions in student centered educational settings by utilizing an ethnomethodological design to examine the experiences of self-selected educators throughout the United States. Through surveys and follow up interviews, educators reported their professional experiences regarding the core conditions in student centered learning as outlined by Carl Rogers and the impact these conditions played in the quality of educational experiences for the educators and their students in diverse settings. This study was also concerned with educators' self reports regarding their training and education regarding core conditions in student centered learning environments. This paper shares with readers a literary …

A Search For Meaning: The Family’S Response To Serious Mental Illness, Katherine Marie Burrelsman

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

It is a commonly held belief that it is inherent in human nature to strive for coherence and meaning in the midst of adversity. Whether this is short or long term, for immediate or prolonged functioning, we all strive to put experiences within events into a framework that enables us to develop a sense of order leading to acceptance and resolution. Therefore, each individual within a family system may develop a hypothesis in order to make a modicum of sense of what can appear to be an impossible situation. The participants involved in this study were individuals with relatives suffering …

Reasons For Migration And Cultural Distance In South African Women's Migratory Adjustment Experiences: A Phenomenological Account, Ida Steyn

Theses : Honours

Researchers have identified migration to a new country as a stressful life event that is associated with loss of family, friends and community, and adjustment difficulties in the new country (Markovizky & Samid, 2008). In addition, involuntary migration and adaption to a new cultural environment is known to be a factor of psychological distress. Much is unknown about the adjustment of involuntary migrants during the critical period of reestablishment in the new environment. Moreover, less is known about transition processes between similar cultural contexts. It might be that transition is not as well supported when there is cultural similarity between …

Individuals And Populations: How Biology's Theory And Data Have Interfered With The Integration Of Development And Evolution, David S. Moore

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Research programs in quantitative behavior genetics and evolutionary psychology have contributed to the widespread belief that some psychological characteristics can be “inherited” via genetic mechanisms. In fact, molecular and developmental biologists have concluded that while genetic factors contribute to the development of all of our traits, non-genetic factors always do too, and in ways that make them no less important than genetic factors. This insight demands a reworking of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, a theory that defined evolution as a process involving changes in the frequencies of genes in populations, and that envisioned no role for experiential factors now known …

Cortisol Response Of Non-Suicidal Self-Injurers Versus Non-Self-Injurers Exposed To A Social Rejection Laboratory Stressor, Patrick L. Kerr

Theses and Dissertations

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSI) represents a growing area of concern in a variety of clinical settings, yet remains a poorly understood phenomenon. An influx of research on the functions of NSI over the past decade has suggested a biopsychosocial emotional regulation model of this behavior. This model proposes that self-injurers engage in NSI to reduce negative emotions, and presupposes that self-injurers are characterized by emotional dysregulation. The present study evaluated the biological component of this model by assessing hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis (HPAA) functioning in a group of self-injurers(n=26) and non-injuring healthy controls (n=28). HPAA functioning was assessed via measuring salivary cortisol levels …

The Professional Development Of Teachers For International Contexts: A Case Study Of Concordia Language Villages' Study Abroad Programs, Michelle L. Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

In the face of globalization, educational institutions the world over have developed institutional learning outcomes that seek to graduate students who are culturally competent. To accomplish this goal, colleges and schools must have a faculty who is prepared to facilitate student growth in this regard or provide the faculty with professional development opportunities to achieve that end.

Concordia Language Villages, an intensive language and culture education program sponsored by Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, is intentional in its mission to prepare young people for responsible citizenship and has professional development opportunities available to personnel in their programs and educators; however, …

The Researcher As A Consumer Of Scientific Publication: How Do Name-Ordering Conventions Affect Inferences About Contribution Credits?, Boris Maciejovsky, David V. Budescu, Dan Ariely

Psychology Faculty Publications

When researchers from different fields with different norms collaborate, the question arises of how name-ordering conventions are chosen and how they affect contribution credits. In this paper, we answer these questions by studying two disciplines that exemplify the two cornerstones of name-ordering conventions: lexicographical ordering (i.e., alphabetical ordering, endorsed in economics) and nonlexicographical ordering (i.e., ordering according to individual contributions, endorsed in psychology). Inferences about credits are unambiguous in the latter arrangement but imperfect in the former, because alphabetical listing can reflect ordering according to individual contributions by chance. We contrast the fields of economics and psychology with marketing, a …

Can Normal Habits Affect Gpa?, Jessica Hildebrand, Regina Thurman

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

We wanted to see if there was a correlation between sleep and/or caffeine and students’ grade point average (GPA). To do this we surveyed 101 Lindenwood undergraduate students. We asked them how much caffeine they consumed in a day, how much sleep they get within a seven day period, and their GPA, as well as basic demographic questions. Our study found that there was a weak negative relationship between sleep and GPA whereas no relationship between caffeine consumption and GPA. We conclude that since no relationship has been found, we have made suggestions on how to investigate further given some …

Overattribution Effect, Sally Eimer

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

The purpose of this study was to investigate the types of judgments undergraduate students made regarding a child’s behavior they observed in a brief video clip. Their attributions were expected to be affected by a key situational factor that only some were informed of. The researcher hypothesized that participants informed that the child, in the clip, was recently diagnosed with leukemia would attribute the child’s behavior to situational factors, whereas participants not given any information about the child in the clip, would attribute the child’s behavior to things intrinsic of the child.

Is Bigger Better Or Is Less More? : American Compared To Non-American Consumption Habits, Amanda Bratcher, Sofia Aneas, Jesus Lopez

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

The purpose of this experiment was to determine if American participants compared to non-Americans participants would choose a bigger consumable item regardless of its cost when asked to choose between a smaller and larger item. Participants were shown a series of items that consisted of five pairings of two different-sized consumable items and asked to state their preference after each set of items was presented. This process was administered one time with pricing information of the items made known to the participants and one time without pricing information, counterbalancing of pricing information was utilized. The results concluded that price did …

Red Bull Marketing Techniques, Jennifer Hogenmiller, Kailey Steuber

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

The differences in marketing techniques using the product Red Bull Energy Drink was investigated in this research project. Three techniques were used: the participant was read aloud information, the participant read information from a pamphlet, and the participant was shown a power point presentation. These techniques were tested to discover whether the marketing technique influenced the consumer purchase of the product. 64 participants were tested, but only 31 participants’ data was used. Many participants’ data had to be excluded due to factors of affiliation and missing data. After conducting a one-way ANOVA, we did find statistical significance between the presentation …

Gender Strength Implications And Its Effects On Task Performance, Chelsea Schumacher

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

Throughout the history of research, there has been an immense interest regarding gender differences. Not only have variations in gender been observed through various social and physiological factors, but through cognitive factors as well. When reviewing previous research studies, it is evident that gender variations exist even when performing simple memory tasks. In the present study, the experimenter investigated whether implying opposing gender strength would have an effect on recall test performance. It was hypothesized that an individual would be motivated to perform more accurately on a recall test when opposing gender strength implications were introduced. When analyzing the results …

Can’T Test This: Test Performance And Anxiety, Brian Judd, Danielle Merli, Jamie Zagar

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

We analyzed test anxiety with performance on a standardized test. We had four groups of participants. We looked at two variables: time warning and presence of a confederate. We hypothesized that the performance of participants in a more natural test environment (testing in the presence of another test taker, i.e., the confederate) would perform worse than those who were tested by themselves, and that those who received a time warning would perform worse than those who did not receive a time warning. Those with a higher GPA would have performed better overall on the test. There was not a significant …

How Lindenwood Students Get To Class: A Study Of Driving Versus Walking, Sara Ohlms

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a lack of parking at Lindenwood University (LU), and if that problem could be solved if more students who currently drive to class would walk instead. Research shows that college students in America are not getting enough exercise, and that walking has many health benefits. Data were collected using a survey with 40 LU students. Data were also collected through observations of the parking lots on campus. The results show that there are always empty parking spots on campus, 67.5% of participants believe that there is not enough parking …

Changes In Women's Choice Of Dress Across The Ovulatory Cycle: Naturalistic And Laboratory Task-Based Evidence, Kristina M. Durante, Norman P. Li, Martie G. Haselton

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The authors tested the prediction that women prefer clothing that is more revealing and sexy when fertility is highest within the ovulatory cycle. Eighty-eight women reported to the lab twice: once on a low-fertility day of the cycle and once on a high-fertility day (confirmed using hormone tests). In each session, participants posed for full-body photographs in the clothing they wore to the lab, and they drew illustrations to indicate an outfit they would wear to a social event that evening. Although each data source supported the prediction, the authors found the most dramatic changes in clothing choice in the …

Ciis Today, Fall 2008 Issue, Ciis

CIIS Today

This volume is the Fall 2008 issue of CIIS Today, the Magazine of the California Institute of Integral Studies.

High Rates Of Unprotected Sex Occurring Among Hiv-Positive Individuals In A Daily Diary Study In South Africa: The Role Of Alcohol Use, Susan M. Kiene, Leickness C. Simbayi, Amber Abrams, Allanise Cloete, Howard Tennen, Jeffrey D. Fisher

CHIP Documents

Objective: To assess the prevalence of unprotected sex and examine the association between alcohol consumption before sex and unprotected sex among HIV+ individuals in Cape Town, South Africa.

Methods: For 42-days daily phone interviews assessed daily sexual behaviour and alcohol consumption. Logistic and Poisson GEE models were used to examine associations between alcohol consumption before sex and subsequent unprotected sex.

Results: During the study which yielded 3,035 data points, the 58 HIV+ women and 24 HIV+ men drank an average of 6.13 drinks when they drank, and reported 4,927 sex events, of which 80.17% were unprotected. Over half (58%) of …

A Theory Of Positive Mental Health, Jason D. Rowden

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

For many decades psychological research has erred on the side of looking toward pathology and has neglected to define what positive mental health functioning is on an individual level (Dahlsgaard, Peterson, & Seligman, 2005, p. 203). Without a sound theory of positive mental health, the field of psychology is left guessing as to its meaning. The importance of having a clear definition of mental health cannot be underscored enough. Without a clear understanding of mental health, the field of psychology is forced to function with varying opinions, defined by each clinician. The goal of the current thesis is to contribute …

Shadows On The Cave Wall: The Cognitive Accuracy Of Social Network Perception, David M. Ouellette

Theses and Dissertations

How accurately people perceive interpersonal relationships, both among others and with themselves, forms the basis of social inferences about the structure of the social environment and one's place in it. Six hypotheses were tested using the cognitive social structures method from social network analysis with five independent but similar student networks from two universities. Results from all networks were meta-analyzed. Participants gave both their self-reported friendship ratings for every alter in their group and also gave their perceptions of the ratings the other member would give. Perception ratings were correlated to self-report ratings for each participant as a measure of …

A Qualitative Study Of Buddhist Informed Psychotherapists, Michael Sean Harris

Dissertations

The field of psychology has a history of distancing itself, if not outright dismissing, both religion and spirituality. In recent years, however, psychology has come to move more toward an embrace of religious and spiritual experience. Buddhism, often expressed as a philosophical system without regard to theistic or nontheistic underpinnings, has been integrated with psychological theory in recent scholarly literature. This dissertation is an exploratory study regarding howBuddhist psychological perspectives are applied in actual psychotherapeutic practice. A participant pool of ten psychotherapists who self-identified as utilizing Buddhism in their work was studied along a variety of dimensions. Demographic questionnaires, audiotaped …

Emotional Speech Corpus Construction, Annotation And Distribution, Brian Vaughan, Charlie Cullen, Spyros Kousidis, John Mcauley

Conference papers

This paper details a process of creating an emotional speech corpus by collecting natural emotional speech assets, analysisng and tagging them (for certain acoustic and linguistic features) and annotating them within an on-line database. The definition of specific metadata for use with an emotional speech corpus is crucial, in that poorly (or inaccurately) annotated assets are of little use in analysis. This problem is compounded by the lack of standardisation for speech corpora, particularly in relation to emotion content. The ISLE Metadata Initiative (IMDI) is the only cohesive attempt at corpus metadata standardisation performed thus far. Although not a comprehensive …

Prologue, Michiko Nohara-Leclair

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Of Work And Grades Among Undergraduate Students, Stefanie Thomas, Sarah Scaturro

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

Full-time undergraduate students take a minimum of 12 credit hours per week and several of them also work part-time jobs outside of school. If an inverse relationship exists between grades and work, it could potentially affect students’ choices. In the present study, 84 participants filled out a survey with questions pertaining to the subject of grades and work, in addition to other variables like sex and grade status. We found a fairly strong inverse relationship existed between a student’s G.P.A. and the number of hours a student worked outside of school. We found a strong relationship exists between the total …