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An Explorative Study Of Parents' Ability To Predict Representative Feelings Of Their Children, Kathleen Marie Koudele

Dissertations and Theses

This is a study of thirty fifth-grade children and their parents to examine how accurately parents can predict the feeling reactions of their children in various situations. This focus on parent-child interactions regarding feelings has several implications for the field of Social Work.

A Survey Of Reading-Readiness Skills And Their Application To The Late Reader, Gail E. Robbins

Dissertations and Theses

Reading readiness is a subject that concerns reading teachers and educators. Inadequate readiness training may cause some students to become late readers, who can be identified as students who score below their age and grade level on a standardized reading test. It is important to define reading readiness and examine the component skills and factors in order to help late readers. This examination was conducted by a study of reading-readiness literature. The reading-readiness skills include auditory discrimination, visual and visual-motor discrimination, development of language, concept formation, and reasoning skills. Readiness factors include fixed factors, social, and emotional factors. Fixed factors …

Modes Of Representation, The Epistemic Subject And Developmental Word Association Phenomena, Ellen M. Gerschitz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study was devised to investigate the developmental syntagmaticparadigmatic word association shift. In syntagmatic associations the stimulus and associative response are of different grammatical form classes and appear to be grammatically continuous, as response may follow stimulus in an utterance (e.g. cat-meows). These are the predominant responses of children before the ages of six to eight. Older children and adults shift to making paradigmatic associations in which stimulus and response are from the same form class and may be substituted for one another in an utterance (e.g. cat-dog). This shift was explained in terms of underlying symbolic mediational processes and …

Early Social Isolation And Subsequent Self-Punitive Behavior, Timothy Scott Strongin

Psychology ETDs

Sixty-six albino rats obtained from Simonson Laboratories were weaned at 21 days and randomly assigned, using a split litter technique, to groups of 1 (isolation) or 5 (control) where they were housed for 62 days. At the end of the rearing period, subjects were individually housed and given one five-minute habituation trial daily, for 6 days, to a standard plexiglass alleyway. On the seventh day, a standard, one-way instrumental avoidance paradigm using .6 ma shock was instituted. After achieving an acquisition criterion of 8/10 successive, successful shock avoidances, subjects were exposed to Brown's vicious circle paradigm using 0, .4, .6, …

Alcohol Consumption As A Function Of Applied Labels And Conception Of Alcoholism, Thomas Mitchell Boyd

Psychology ETDs

Much speculation but little experimental research has been directed toward the influence of the label "alcoholic" on drinking patterns. If, as has been theorized, attribution of behavior to a stable as opposed to an unstable determinant leads to maintenance of that behavior, then labeling drinking behavior as alcoholic, particularly among persons conceiving of alcoholism as a disease, may have a stabilizing influence on drinking behavior. Thirty-one subjects were first divided according to whether they regarded alcoholism as a "disease" or as a "bad habit." They were then randomly labeled as either "alcoholic or pre-alcoholic" or "social drinker," purportedly on the …

Emotion And Cognitive Perceptions In Response To Cinematographic And Non-Cinematographic Media, Stefani Nervig

Psychology ETDs

While the controversy continues over the extent to which responsibility for increases in social violence and aggression can be attributed to television and motion pictures, the accumulated evidence leaves little doubt that these media have come to have a tremendous influence on individual and social behavior. Both survey and experimental evidence have shown the film media to be capable of changing attitudes and values and of stimulating imitation and the observational learning of social behavior (Liebert, 1972; Robinson, 1972). These effects are most prominent, it would appear, in children and adolescents, but they are found also in older age groups.

The Cardiovascular Effects Of Human Contact With Coronary Artery Disease Patients In The Coronary Care Unit, Margaret A. Palmour

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Ten coronary artery disease patients were selected using purposive method of sampling and observed for six hours. It was postulated that 1) Human contact with coronary artery disease patients in the coronary intensive care unit would be associated with significant (p = 0.05) changes in the electrocardiogram such as: (a) increased heart rate more than 10 per cent, (b) changed atrio-ventricular conduction more than 10 per cent, (c) changed ST segment one millimeter or more and (d) increased frequency of ectopic beats more than 10 per cent. 2) The degree of stress and cardiac response was related to a number …

Involuntarily And Voluntarily Committed Persons Compared Using Factor And Discriminant Function Analysis, Cheryl Marie Marrow

Dissertations and Theses

A comparison of the voluntary and involuntary patients at Dammasch State Hospital, Wilsonville, Oregon. A representative sample of cases over time, were chosen for the year 1976, 72 voluntary and 72 involuntary patients. One-hundred and twelve variables were coded onto sheets for each patient. The variables concerned marital status, job history, history of violent acts, present living situations and relationships, as well as drug history and diagnosis and treatment in the hospital. The data were coded onto cards and a computer analysis was done using Factor and Discriminant Function Analysis. It was hypothesized the populations of persons voluntarily admitted and …

Measurement Of Ambiguity Tolerance (Mat-50): Further Construct Validation, Burl Mostul

Dissertations and Theses

An historical introduction is made tying authoritarianism with ambiguity tolerance. Ambiguity tolerance is a personality variable in its own right, often associated with authoritarianism yet remaining separate from it.

Ambiguity intolerance is defined as the tendency to perceive and interpret information that is marked by vague, fragmented, incomplete, inconsistent, contradictory, or unclear meaning as actual or potential sources of psychological threat. Ambiguity tolerance is defined as the tendency to perceive ambiguous situations as challenging and desirable.

Efforts to measure ambiguity tolerance have met with varied success, however, it was not until Norton (197S) developed the Measurement of Ambiguity Tolerance (MAT-50) …

Effects Of Individual Differences In Cognitive Flexibility And Motor Variability On Learning Processes, Merith Anne Cosden

Psychology ETDs

No abstract provided.

Deviations From Matching As A Measure Of Preference For Alternatives In Pigeons, Sam M. Leigland

Psychology ETDs

A growing body of literature indicates that animals and children tend to prefer situations which provide for a greater number of choice alternatives. In the present work, the problem was approached through the investigation of preference for larger or smaller response classes in a free-operant choice procedure. The method of assessing preference in the choice situation was afforded through the well-documented matching law of concurrent reinforcement schedules, which generally states that the ratio of responses or time allocated to each of two independent and concurrently-available schedules will equal the ratio of the reinforcements obtained on those schedules. A systematic and …

Storage And Retrieval Processes In Retention, Charles R. Grah

Psychology ETDs

Two experiments investigated the contributions of storage and retrieval to the retention of a categorized word list by varying the number of successive study or test trials. The logic behind this approach was based on the assumption that storage and retrieval are tied to study and test trials respectively. Therefore, the results of the study trial manipulation could be used to make inferences about the contributions of storage, while the results of the test trial manipulation could be used to make inferences about the contributions of retrieval. Retention of both categories and words within a category was assessed in a …

Effect Of Interpolated Stimulus Training On Generalization To A Reinstated Stimulus: Reciprocal Generalization, Ward Arthur Rodriguez

Psychology ETDs

Reciprocal and higher order reciprocal transfer or generalization effects are said to occur when performance in the presence of an interpolated stimulus influences performance to the reinstated original stimulus conditions. The present studies examined reciprocal and higher order reciprocal effects in the CER, free operant, and instrumental runway situations. In addition, first order reciprocal effects were examined when interpolated training was correlated with a less potent reinforcer.

Results showed that in the CER paradigm, first order reciprocal effects enhanced the disruption of the appetitive baseline behavior. In contrast, there were no first order reciprocal effects in either the operant or …

Coding Processes In Bilingual Word Recognition, Susan E. Gonzales

Psychology ETDs

Spanish-English bilingual subjects performed in a memory search task which required them to determine whether test words were members or nonmembers of previously learned memory sets. For some trials, memory set and test words were from the same language, but for other trials, they were from opposite languages. Test items were blocked into either pure or mixed sequences. Pure blocks contained test items from a single language only, while mixed blocks contained either 2, 4, or 6 words which were nouns from a single semantic class. Some negative stimuli were semantically related to memory set words, while others were unrelated. …

The Relationship Of Verbal Abilities To Cognitive Complexity, Margaret R. Mullins

Student Work

A view of the person as an individual striving to anticipate, understand, and control his environment was put forth by Kelly (1955) in his Psychology of Personal Constructs, Kelly states that the person looks at the world through "patterns or templates which he creates and then attempts to fit over the realities of which the world is composed" (p. 9). These templates or patterns are termed constructs, and result from the person’s ability to distinguish differences and similarities in the world about him and generalize them to other instances. Constructs are used to predict events and to assess the validity …

The Effect Of Task Demands On Dual-Coding Of Pictorial Stimuli, Brian Charles Babbitt

Psychology ETDs

Recent memory investigations have questioned Paivio's dual-coding hypothesis. These studies led to the conclusion that verbal labelling of pictorial stimuli did not occur automatically, as was suggested by Paivio. However, these conclusions were based on tasks which were sensitive only to which codes were actually used, not which codes were established. The present experiments used a color-naming interference task in order to assess, with a more sensitive measure, the amount of verbal coding occurring in response to pictorial input. Subjects named the color of ink in which words were printed following either word or picture input. If verbal labelling of …

The Mentally Retarded's Right To Meaningful Treatment: A Review Of Legal And Psychological Literature, Susan Katherine Peters

Dissertations and Theses

A review of legal provisions and practices and current psychological theory and research concerning the mentally retarded indicated inconsistencies between the law and current theory, Laws have been based on archaic models which fail to consider the heterogeneity of those classified as retarded and their potential for development and training. Retardation professionals have agreed that normalization of institutionalized mentally retarded and mainstreaming in education are preferable principles. Research comparing the effects of community living and institutionalization and effects of special and integrated classes was sparse and inconclusive; the major thrust of research has been on the 4% of all mentally …

The Effect Of Two Levels Of Δ9 Thc On State-Dependent Learning In Rats, Roy Katzen

Dissertations and Theses

This experiment was performed to determine whether a state-dependent learning effect is produced when rats are under the influence of Δ⁹ THC. A latent learning procedure utilizing a Lashley III maze was used. Latent learning paradigms offer one a variety of measures not available when using an operant procedure.

Forty-five female rats were run; five in each of nine conditions. Each set of nine rats was run as follows:

Days 1-5. Each rat received an injection of 0.0 mg/kg, 0.4 mg/kg, or 1.0 mg/kg of Δ⁹ THC. One-half hour later the rat received one-half hour of exposure in …

Assessment Of Long Term Deficits Produced By Early Total Social Isolation, Robert George Frank

Psychology ETDs

The long term effects of early total social isolation in rhesus monkeys have been assumed to be static. This assumption, that young isolates' behavior does not differ from older, fully mature isolates' behavior, may not be valid in view of behavioral changes which have been shown to occur as monkeys age. The present research examined the effects of early, total social isolation in fully mature monkeys.

Two groups were formed and allowed to live together for 14 weeks in an indoor-outdoor facility. The first group was composed of 7 controls reared for the first 9 months of life with peer …

Constructive Memory For Bizarre Verbal Material, Paula Trotter Hertel

Psychology ETDs

Sensible, interrelated sentences were presented with or without bizarre sentences which could be transformed to fit the context of the sensible sentences. Two experiments examined subjects' ability to recognize or recall both types of sentences, either immediately or after two weeks. For most subjects, representations of the bizarre were available at immediate testing only. In addition, results indicate that transformations of bizarre sentences were stored in memory but were not well incorporated within the structure for the sensible material. Finally, the results from both experiments suggest that processing bizarre information can lead to more accurate memory for the sensible context.

Repetition And Cued Forgetting: Implications For Theories Of The Lag Effect, Sherman W. Tyler

Psychology ETDs

A number of theories have been advanced to explain the lag effect, i.e., the finding that, when an item is repeated in a list being studied for a later memory test, the greater the distance between those repetitions, the greater the subsequent test performance relative to that item. The theories proposed to account for this phenomenon all attribute it to differences in the operation of a single factor at short and long lags. This factor has been considered to be one of the following: total amount of rehearsal time; cumulative consolidation from a short-term reverberatory to a long-term structural stage; …

Attitudes Of Psychiatric Nurses And Aides At An Oregon State Hospital Toward Homosexuality, Don Andersen

Dissertations and Theses

Homosexuality is something which has been a part of almost every society throughout history. In western society this has been a subject of secrecy and taboo. Throughout our history homosexuals have been persecuted and forced to hide their sexual identity. The effects of this on an individual should be something of concern to professionals in the mental health field.

While in the past there has been little knowledge of homosexuality, and no self-expression on the part of homosexuals, there has, in recent years, been growing information and expression. The effect of this change on mental health workers is what this …

Depression And Non-Responsive Behavior Displayed By Low Socio-Economic Latino Mothers In An Urban Child And Youth Clinic, Raquél María Aguayo

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

During the researcher's experience as a public health nurse, she became aware of two types of depressed women. The first type is the withdrawn, weeping, self-isolating woman while the second type cited numerous physical complaints which prevented her from caring for her home and children. Both exhibited non-responsive behavior to her children's needs.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not low socio-economic latino mothers displaying non-responsive behavior had levels of depression different than low socio-economic latino mothers displaying responsive behavior.

Non-responsive behavior Is defined as an inability to utilize clinic services appropriately for health by exhibiting …

The Effects Of Systematic Relaxation On The Number Of Times Pain Medication Was Administered To Immobilized Traction Patients, Brenda Carol Armstrong

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

[Abstract Not Included]

Mastectomies And Their Effect On Sexual Behavior, Irene Marian Ellicott

Dissertations and Theses

Sixteen women who had had hysterectomies and eighteen women who had had mastectomies were mailed the Oregon Sex Inventory to see if any significant differences in sexual behavior occurred before or after surgery.

The mastectomy group showed a greater degree of change in their sexual behavior than the hysterectomy group. The mastectomy group reported a decrease in the importance of the breast during the sexual act after surgery and a decrease in their desire for intercourse after surgery. The hysterectomy group reported lowered sexual satisfaction after surgery.

The changes reported in this study although relatively small are statistically significant. The …

Intermodal Transfer Of Training In The Rat, Stephen V. Hayward

Psychology ETDs

Attempts to demonstrate the intermodal transfer of information in non-human organisms have been largely inconclusive, possibly due to the relatively complex nature of the tasks involved. At the same time, successful performance of intermodal transfer tasks by humans has not enabled clear-cut conclusions to be drawn regarding the nature of the mechanism employed. Although two hypotheses, the mediational and the invariant features, have been proposed in attempts to account for this ability, it has been virtually impossible to rule out mediational processes based on language in interpreting the results. This study employed rats in a simple transfer-of-training task so as …

Social Class And Ethnicity Effects Upon Cinical Judgments, Ricardo Martinez

Psychology ETDs

It has long been recognized that social factors influence clinical judgment, Szasz (1961) found the phenomenon so prevalent that he even proposed that mental "illness" is a myth, Tracing historical antecedents, he attributed the medical interpretation of abnormal behavior to the action of Charcot in the 19th century whose efforts contributed greatly to the legitimization of hysteria as a sickness in the medical sense. As an alternative, Szasz proposed that clinical judgments are products of social, historical and ethical factors affecting the motivation of clinicians, as opposed to their commonly claimed scientifically acquired standards applied to observed behavior.

Three Ordered Sets Of Factors And Their Relationship To Act Scores, Thomas J. Russo

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

There has been in recent years a marked decline in college entrance examination test scores. Declines have been documented both on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Testing Program (ACT). In turn there has been an increasing interest concerning the test score declines as well as possible sources of influence on test scores. These sources or factors seem to be functions of three main "contexts." These contexts are: (a) school-related factors, (b) student-related factors and (c) family-structure related factors. It was of interest to attempt to explain the relative association of each variable to composite ACT scores …

Teacher Attention As A Controlling Influence Of Student Classroom Behavior, Lagrande E. Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this thesis was to assess the influence of the teachers' classroom behavior on students' classroom behavior. Three hypotheses were made as the teacher systematically increases positive responses and decreases negative responses in the classroom, 1) the total time spent with the misbehaving student will decrease, 2) student non-attentive behavior will decrease and student attentive behavior will increase, and 3) there will be an inverse relationship between teacher negative responses and student attentive behavior.

Student subjects were selected randomly from a previously selected group of misbehaving students; teacher subjects were 12 volunteers from a Junior High School who …

State Dependent Learning Under Phenothiazines: Memory Functions Of Schizophrenics, Susan E. Cave

Psychology ETDs

State dependent learning as produced by a class of antipsychotic medication, the phenothiazines, was assessed for verbal recognition and recall memory functions in 24 schizophrenic inpatients. Subjects were initially trained on a paired-associate learning task (Phase I) and tested for stimulus recognition and response recall two weeks later (Phase II). Following double blind procedures for the administration of placebo, subjects were randomly and sequentially assigned to four drug treatment groups which specified their drug state during Phase I and II: no drug-no drug (ND-ND), drug-drug (D-D), no drug-drug (ND-D), and drug-no drug (D-ND). Subjects were also evaluated for cognitive skills …