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Does Type Of Stimulus Influence Task-Irrelevant Evaluative Categorization Processes?, Guadalupe Corral

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The effect of stimulus type on task-irrelevant evaluative categorization was examined in two separate studies by using the P3 component from event-related brain potentials. The first study presented idiosyncratic stimuli consisting of individuals that were rated by participants as either positive or negative within sequences of pictorial and verbal stimuli. The second study presented sequences of novel and familiar stimuli consisting of previously normed unattractive and neutral individuals. It was hypothesized that pictures would elicit task-irrelevant evaluative categorization processes and so would novel stimuli (relative to words and familiar stimuli, respectively). Task-irrelevance was examined by assessing P3 peak amplitude to …

The Effects Of Psychopathy And Machiavellianism On Cognitive Dissonance, Ashley Anne Murray

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Psychopathic traits include a lack of guilt, a lack of remorse, callousness and antisocial behaviors such as impulsivity and aggression. The current study examined the effects of psychopathic traits as measured by the Psychopathic Personality Inventory - Revised: Short Form (PPI-R: SF; Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005) and the Levenson Primary and Secondary Psychopathy Scales (LPSP; Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995), and of Machiavellianism (MACH), as measured by the MACH-IV (Christie & Geis, 1970), on cognitive dissonance in a sample of 164 participants. The induced compliance paradigm of cognitive dissonance was implemented by instructing each participant to complete a boring task …

Characterization Of The Behavioral And Neurochemical Effects Of Nicotine Withdrawal In Adolescent And Adult Rats., Luis Alberto Natividad

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Previous studies have demonstrated that the behavioral effects of nicotine withdrawal are lower in adolescent versus adult rats. However, the neurochemical mechanisms that mediate these developmental differences are presently unclear. Much work has shown that nicotine reward is mediated via enhanced dopamine neurotransmission in the mesolimbic pathway which originates in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and terminates in several forebrain structures including the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). More recently, studies have shown that nicotine withdrawal produces a decrease in NAcc dopamine transmission, an effect that is believed to serve as a neurochemical marker of withdrawal in adult rodents. The goal of …

Intrapersonal Consequences Of (Un)Forgiving: How Forgiveness Affects The Victim, Edward Eli Kass

Organization, Leadership, and Communication

No abstract provided.

Development Of The Video Suggestibility Scale For Children: Spanish-Language Version, Claudia Ornelas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study examined the psychometric properties of a Spanish version of the Video Suggestibility Scale (VSSC). A cross-cultural validation with a sample of 3-5 year old Spanish speaking children was performed to evaluate its psychometric properties (N = 79). The development of the VSSC Spanish language version (VSSC-S) is described. The new version was created using the translation-back-translation process to increase the instrument‟s equivalence. Internal consistencies were satisfactory. Construct validity was assessed by using factor analysis and the Varimax procedure. As expected, the VSSC-S items loaded on two separate factors. Overall, results suggest that the VSSC-S taps into similar constructs …

Duty To Warn And Protect, George T. Williams, Lori L. Ellison

Counseling Faculty Research

Professional counselors, spurred by the courts, have a dual ethical and legal responsibility to protect others from potentially dangerous clients, to protect clients from being harmed by others, and to protect clients from themselves. The delicate balance between confidentiality and the duty to warn and protect others must be handled on a case-by-case basis. The majority of individual state laws require counselors to breach confidentiality in order to warn and protect someone who is in danger. All states and U.S. jurisdictions now have mandatory reporting statutes for suspected physical, sexual, or emotional child abuse or neglect. There are also several …

The Effects Of Increasing The Risk Perception Of High-Risk Behaviors On Decision Making Among College Daily Smokers And Never-Smokers, Scott Patterson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Participation in high-risk behaviors, such as substance use or dangerous driving practices, is widely reported by young adults and college students. Psychosocial theories explain participation in high-risk behaviors by the effects of risk perception on the outcome of behavior. Physiological researchers assert that biological factors (such as the role of the prefrontal cortex) better account for participation in high-risk behaviors based on impulsive decision-making patterns in substance users. The current study explored the relationship between impulsive decision-making and risk perception by assessing the impact of changes in high-risk perceptions on a measure of impulsive decision-making (delay discounting task). A sample …

The Influence Of Alcohol Advertising On Associative Memory And Consideration Sets, James Charles Smith

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Survey studies suggest that alcohol advertising influences attitudes and beliefs that promote alcohol use. Strategies from memory research and marketing were used to test the influence of beer advertising found in popular magazines. Effects on preference for alcohol and memory associations between alcohol and the positive outcomes of drinking were measured. One hundred eighty undergraduate women and men viewed 5 ads. A 2 x 2 + 1 (control group) factorial design simultaneously varied ad type (arousing or sedating messages) with processing type (selective attention or elaborative processing). Preferences for alcohol and memory associations did not differ between the control group …

The Assessment Of And Differences Among Intellectually Disabled Adults With Comorbid Autism Spectrum Disorders And Epilepsy, Kimberly Robin Michelle Smith

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this study was to systematically examine group differences among those with intellectual disabilities (ID) and comorbid Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and epilepsy in an adult population through a detailed exploration of the characteristics that these disorders present in the areas of psychopathology, behavior problems, and impaired social behavior. Previous studies indicating that individuals with ID have comorbid ASD and neurological conditions tend to stop short of addressing these disorders’ impact on the full range of psychosocial issues, particularly in adult samples. Assessments of psychopathology, behavior problems, and impaired social behavior were made with the ASD-Comorbidity-Adult Version and …

Detecting Coached Underreporting On The Mmpi-2 And Mmpi-2-Rf, Elizabeth M. Bolinger

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Early analyses performed by the authors of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) and others (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008; Sellbom & Bagby, 2008) have shown promise in detecting faking good profiles. Two validity scales designed to detect underreporting and defensiveness on the MMPI-2-RF are the L-r (a measure of underreporting by claiming unlikely moral virtues) and the K-r (a measure of underreporting by claiming good psychological adjustment) scales (Wygant, Ben-Porath, & Tellegen, 2007). These early studies have found very similar results and patterns as observed in studies of underreporting with the MMPI-2. This study attempts to add to …

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder In Women After Hurricane Katrina: Predictors And Symptom Endorsement, Julia E. Thompson

LSU Master's Theses

Hurricane Katrina devastated areas of New Orleans and caused the evacuation of most of the city’s residents. Many people were exposed to dangerous storms and flooding and lost many of their possessions. One of the most common psychological disorders following a disaster is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. This study describes the PTSD symptom endorsement of a sample of women who experienced Hurricane Katrina. In addition, many of these women had previous trauma histories which are also described. Participants included 287 women from New Orleans, Jefferson and East Baton Rouge Parish recruited for a larger study on mother’s and children’s psychological functioning …

Comorbid Psychopathology In Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorders And Intellectual Disabilities, Santino Vincent Lovullo

LSU Master's Theses

While there has been an abundance of research investigating Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in children, very little emphasis has been placed on ASD in adults, especially in regards to comorbid psychopathology. This is of great concern considering that ASD often co-occurs with intellectual disability (ID), and that both may serve as risk factors for additional psychopathology. While instruments exist that measure comorbid psychopathology in adults with ID, these scales are not targeted to the unique expression of comorbidity in adults with ID and ASD. The Autism Spectrum Disorders-Comorbidity for Adults (ASD-CA) was devised for this reason. This paper begins with …

Supporting Decision Making In A Complex World, Jonathan Tall

LSU Master's Theses

Recent research has questioned whether explicit thinking is necessary or even useful for complex decision making (Gladwell, 2005; Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006; Newell, Wong, Cheung, & Rakow, in press). The present research approaches this issue by examining how different types of decision support facilitate/hinder performance in a diagnostic medical task. The results from 3 experiments indicate that providing an external memory aid improves performance in complex tasks. Additional support in the form of a coding procedure improved awareness of the magnitude of drug effects, but did not improve detection of negative side effects. The results suggest that while performance is …

Teaching Level-1 Braille Reading Skills Within A Stimulus Equivalence Paradigm To Children With Progressive Visual Impairments, Karen Ann Toussaint

LSU Master's Theses

Degenerative visual impairments refer to conditions that result in the progressive loss of vision; several of these conditions have their onset during childhood. Nearly 3% of the school-aged population will experience vision loss that will require specialized support, yet there has been little attempt to systematically evaluate braille-instruction programs. The current study evaluated an instructive procedure for teaching early braille-reading skills with four school-aged children with degenerative visual impairments. Following a series of pretests, braille instruction involved providing a sample braille letter and teaching the selection of the corresponding printed text letter from a comparison array. Concomitant with increases in …

Autonomic Response And Behavioral Performance Of Avid Video Game Players On A Decision-Making Task, Patrick Clinton Lingenfelter

LSU Master's Theses

Avid video gaming is proposed as a term for individuals that play video games for prolonged periods of time. These individuals were predicted to show similar performance on a MineHunter, an analogue to the Iowa Gambling Task, comparable to the performance of pathological gamblers reported in the literature. Comparisons have been made between gamblers and video gamers based on similarities in the interaction level of the activity, as well as similarities in demographics and reported detriments in social and employment areas. The results of the study do not support a comparison. Avid gaming may be a hobby rather than a …

Apolipoprotein Status And Cognitive Functioning In Adulthood: Role Of Physical Health And Social Network Characteristics, Jennifer Lee Silva

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined the relationships among cognitive function, physical health, social network characteristics, and apolipoprotein (APOE) genotype in participants from the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study. Prior literature has shown that the ε4 allele of APOE is associated with cognitive deficits (Wisdom, Callahan, & Hawkins, 2009). This study failed to find any relation between APOE genotype (ε4 carrier vs. non-carrier) and cognitive ability after controlling for age and education level. Tests for physical health mediation and social network moderation did not alter the ε4/cognition null results. This finding conflicts with prior research suggesting that physical activity and health modify the association …

The Well-Being And Identities Of 14- To 26-Year-Old Intercountry Adoptees And Their Non-Adopted Migrant Peers In Western Australia, Geertruda Rosenwald

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Intercountry adoption is a globally politicised institution that triggers strong discourses about whether transplantation to a markedly different country and culture, often into families with racially different parents, negatively affects the children ' s well-being and identity. Although empirical intercountry adoption research has increased elsewhere, Australian-based research has lagged behind. This thesis presents a body of evidence about the well-being and identity of over half the population of 14- to 26-year-old intercountry adoptees in Western Australia, how their well-being changed from 1994 to 2004, how they compare with non-adopted migrant peers and the influence of risk and threat factors. In …

Molluscan Memory Of Injury: Evolutionary Insights Into Chronic Pain And Neurological Disorders

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Molluscan preparations have yielded seminal discoveries in neuroscience, but the experimental advantages of this group have not, until now, been complemented by adequate molecular or genomic information for comparisons to genetically defined model organisms in other phyla. The recent sequencing of the transcriptome and genome of Aplysia californica, however, will enable extensive comparative studies at the molecular level. Among other benefits, this will bring the power of individually identifiable and manipulable neurons to bear upon questions of cellular function for evolutionarily conserved genes associated with clinically important neural dysfunction. Because of the slower rate of gene evolution in this molluscan …

Signal Detection With Criterion Noise: Applications To Recognition Memory, Aaron S. Benjamin, Michael Diaz, Wee, Serena

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A tacit but fundamental assumption of the theory of signal detection is that criterion placement is a noise-free process. This article challenges that assumption on theoretical and empirical grounds and presents the noisy decision theory of signal detection (ND-TSD). Generalized equations for the isosensitivity function and for measures of discrimination incorporating criterion variability are derived, and the model's relationship with extant models of decision making in discrimination tasks is examined, An experiment evaluating recognition memory for ensembles of word stimuli revealed that criterion noise is not trivial in magnitude and contributes substantially to variance in the slope of the isosensitivity …

Predicting Adolescent Intentions To Use Sun Protection: Extending The Theory Of Planned Behaviour, Geoffrey Stephen Caratathis

Theses : Honours

There has been much psychological research conducted on the motivations to engage in suntanning and to a lesser extent, sun protective behaviours. The research has shown that compared to all other age groups, adolescents have the greatest desire to obtain a suntan, expose themselves to the sun the most and typically do not engage in sun protective behaviours. The theory of planned behaviour has been used a number of times to predict the intentions and the behaviours of deliberate sun exposure and to a lesser extent, sun protection. However, the theory of planned behaviour has often been unsuccessful in accounting …

The Role Of Resilience In Second Year University Students, Sarah M. Barbas

Theses : Honours

Around one third of all first year University students will not continue their studies in second year. Students who incur difficulties transitioning from one context to another have been found to withdraw due to an inability to cope with the challenges and adversity in their new environment. On the other hand, many students are able to effectively overcome significant difficulties they are faced with during the transition to or through university. This concept may be referred to as resilience. Few studies have investigated the role of resilience in the success of university students with no research currently focusing on second …

Exploring The Practice Of Members Of The College Of Forensic Psychologists: A Step Towards Conceptualising Forensic Psychology In Australia, Brooke Harvey

Theses : Honours

Australia is moving towards the proposed National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for Health Professionals, which would entail a unified national registration system for various health professions including psychology. Under this scheme, the Council of Australian Governments has indicated that specialist title in psychology may exist at a national level for the first time. As specialist areas are likely to align with the Australian Psychological Society's (APS) Colleges, forensic psychology is likely to be recognised as a specialty. This raises the question of what model of forensic psychology will be adopted at a national level. Currently the model of forensic psychology …

The Relationship Between Working Memory Capacity And Movement Memory Of Dancers, Katrina Louise Muller-Townsend

Theses : Honours

Working memory capacity span tasks are suggested to predict complex cognitive behaviour across varied domains (Conway et al., 2005). However, it has been criticised that expert skills are highly situational and domain specific (Marteniuk, 1974). The current research aimed to investigate whether general memory span was related to movement span, and furthermore, whether this can predict dance learning. It was expected that memory for movement would be positively correlated with measures of working memory, due to the specific components of working memory, such as the capacity of the phonological loop. Furthermore, it was expected on the basis of previous research …

Anglo-Australians' Attitudes Towards Asylum Seekers And Egalitarianism, Antonietta Matrone Faulkner

Theses : Honours

Research has found that generally Australians hold negative attitudes towards asylum seekers. These negative attitudes appear to be influenced by perceptions of threat and false beliefs. The current study explored the attitudes of Anglo-Australians towards asylum seekers and how attitudes are related to the concept of Australian egalitarianism and fair go. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted for this study. Three main themes were identified through thematic content analysis: characterising asylum seekers, responses to asylum seekers in Australia, and constructing fairness.' Characterising asylum seekers represented the informants' constructs of asylum seekers as being genuine asylum seekers, or boat people …

A Qualitative Exploration Of Women Firefighters' Experience In The Western Australian Volunteer Bushfire Service, Cindy Branch-Smith

Theses : Honours

Recent events have shown how invaluable Australia's volunteer firefighters are to communities, for example, Black Saturday. Volunteer numbers appear to be declining nation-wide and a majority of volunteer fire services report under-representation of women in operational roles. To ascertain an understanding of experiences and issues faced by women in volunteer fire services, the aim of the current study was to explore female volunteer firefighters' experience, and how their experiences impact on their perceptions of themselves as firefighters. A qualitative research methodology was employed, which enabled investigation of issues and challenges related to the firefighting experience. A total of 12 women …

Memory For Music And The Implications Of Expertise For Music Recall: A Review ; Memory For The Recall Of Popular Songs: A Comparative Study Of Musicians And Nonmusicians, Simon Maclachlan

Theses : Honours

How people remember music is not only a practical concern for musicians, it also poses an interesting challenge for psychological theory (Wallace, 1994). One question that has often been overlooked is what occurs during the time that elapses between the stimulus onset (hearing music) and the generation of a response (an indication that the song has been remembered). While there is evidence to show that memory for song may be biased in a forward direction (Sibma, 2003), the role of expertise on memory for song may provide a deeper understanding of the nature of our memory for music. This review …

An Exploration Of The Experiences Leading To Volunteer Facilitation Of Postnatal Depression Peer Support Groups, Tracey Parker

Theses : Honours

In recent years literature regarding peer support recovery services has been more prominent. However, little attention has been paid to how these services are used to treat postnatal depression and questions regarding what informs a consumer's decision to become a support person to others remain. The aim of this study was to explore women's postnatal depression and how their experience and recovery informed a decision to become a peer support group facilitator. Participants were eight women who were past or current facilitators with the Post Natal Depression Support Association Inc. (PNDSA). In-depth conversational style interviews were conducted with participants and …

Assessment Centres: A Tale About Dimensions, Exercises, And Dancing Bears, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study reviews prior construct-related validity research in assessment centres. Special focus is placed on disentangling possible explanations for the construct-related validity findings. The conclusion is that we now have a much better picture of the reasons behind the construct-related validity findings. Careful assessment centre design and high interrater reliability among assessors seem necessary albeit insufficient conditions to establish assessment centre construct-related validity. The nature of candidate performances is another key factor. This study next discusses how these empirical findings have changed how assessment centres are conceptualized (theoretical advancements framed in the application of trait activation theory), analysed (methodological advancements), …

Small Individual Loans And Mental Health: A Randomized Controlled Trial Among South African Adults, Lia C. H. Fernald, Rita Hamad, Dean Karlan, Emily J. Ozer, Jonathan Zinman

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: In the developing world, access to small, individual loans has been variously hailed as a poverty-alleviation tool – in the context of "microcredit" – but has also been criticized as "usury" and harmful to vulnerable borrowers. Prior studies have assessed effects of access to credit on traditional economic outcomes for poor borrowers, but effects on mental health have been largely ignored.

Methods: Applicants who had previously been rejected (n = 257) for a loan (200% annual percentage rate – APR) from a lender in South Africa were randomly assigned to a "second-look" that encouraged loan officers to approve their …

Client Change In Multi-Model Treatment: A Comparison Of Change Trajectories In Group, Individual, And Conjoint Formats In A Counseling Center, Bryan K. Mickelson

Theses and Dissertations

Providing clinicians with a clearer understanding of how clients' recover over the entire course of therapy has important implications for referral and treatment strategies. The present study compares rates of change in 160 clients in group therapy with 6632 clients in individual therapy and 864 clients receiving both individual therapy and group therapy. Therapeutic outcomes were measured using the Outcome Questionnaire-45. Data was analyzed using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM), also called Multi-Level Modeling (MLM), to produce recovery curves for clients in each group. Recovery curves showed that most change occurred in the early part of group therapy and slowed near …