Digital Commons Network^™

An Analysis Of The Generalization Of Multiple-Word Response Forms Across Stimulus Conditions, James E. Nofziger

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Conditioned Reinforcement: An Attempt To Replicate The Thomas Procedure With Children, Michael B. Oberlin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of Total Communication And Traditional Speech Training Methods With Hearing Noncommunicating, Severely Mentally Retarded Individuals, Michael E. Wells

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Negative Behavioral Contrast As A Function Of Response Effort, Nile Elliott Warner

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Attribution Of Responsibility For An Accident As A Function Of Outcome Severity, Deservability, And Locus Of Control, William H. Adams

Student Work

One hundred male and female undergraduate students served as mock jurors. Subjects read four automobile accident summaries. For each case, subjects judged the defendant's responsibility, the plaintiff 's responsebility, and evaluated the severity of consequences. In each case, the deservingness of the victim to suffer, and the severity of the accidental consequences were varied. In addition, a median split was done on subjects' locus of control scores to define a third treatment variable. Therefore, the study was a 2 (Internal vs. External) x 2 (High Severity vs. Low Severity) x 2 (High Deservingness vs. Low Deservingness) mixed factorial design. Results …

How We Judge Others: The Attribution Of Responsibility, Brad B. Richardson

Student Work

Attribution theory is concerned with the process by which people infer causation from "parts of the relatively stable environment" (Heider, 1958:297). This process is a function of the need to. control the environment through explanation and prediction similar to the way scientists attempt descriptions that render predictions. This analogy has also been drawn by Kelley (1967), who has concluded that the way in which causal attributions are made is similar to the way data is analysed by means of the analysis of variance procedure. Another example of the parallel between the scientific method and attribution processes has been made by …

Effectiveness Of Professionals Vs. Paraprofessionals In The Group Management Of Test Anxiety, Matthew P. Bars

Theses and Dissertations

This research was concerned with the relative effectiveness of professional and paraprofessional therapists in group management of college students exhibiting test anxiety. It was predicted that both the professional and paraprofessional therapists' groups would exhibit significant pre-post decreases in debilitating test anxiety. It was also predicted that there would be no significant pre-post differences between the professional and paraprofessional therapists' groups. Subjects were 26 participants in five Illinois State University Student Counseling Center Test Anxiety Workshops. Subjects completed a modified State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and Achievement Anxiety Test at the beginning and end of the test anxiety workshops.

The hypothesis that …

A Comparison Of Choice Procedures: Positive Reinforcement, Michael Joseph Boivin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Color Preference As A Function Of Personality, Robert J. Russell

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Locus Of Control & Victim Responsibility Upon Helping Behavior, Jerri Fritzo

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Previous research has suggested that external locus of control and victim responsibility influence individuals' helping behavior (Lerner & Reavy, 1975; Phares & Lamiell, 1975; Phares & Wilson, 1972). The present study investigated the relationships between locus of control and helping behavior in a situation where the victim was or was not responsible for her predicament. A locus of control scale was administered to 67 male and 93 female undergraduates at Western Kentucky University. Subjects were assigned to one of the responsibility situations in which they could volunteer to help a graduate student with either none, one, two, three, or four …

Validity Of Bender Gestalt Test Emotional Indicators For Functional Fifth-Grade Children, Donald Britt

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Both the Bender Gestalt Test and the Children's Personality Questionnaire were administered to 75 fifth grade students. Analyses were made to determine the possible relationships between the Koppitz Emotional Indicators on the Bender Gestalt Test and the various personality factors assessed by the Children's Personality Questionnaire. The results of these analyses found few significant relationships. Those that were significant were frequently conflicting and the opposite of the results which would have been predicted by Koppitz. These results provide a basis for questioning the validity of the Koppitz Emotional Indicators and their adequacy for use as a technique for personality assessment …

The Relationship Of Emotio-Sexual Orientation In Females To Androgyny & Social Self-Esteem, Joyce Gayles

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The research on sex-role development, psychological androgyny, and personality variables in lesbian women was reviewed. Since previous research suggested that lesbian women tend to have characteristics which might be labelled androgynous, a study was undertaken to assess the presence of androgyny among lesbian and heterosexual women and to cross-validate the findings on the relationship between androgyny and self-esteem. In order to assess sex-role classification, the PRF-Andro Scale was administered to 30 lesbian and 30 heterosexual women. The Texas Social Behavior Inventory was used to measure self-esteem. Results showed that a significantly greater proportion of the lesbians were androgynous, and a …

The Effect Of Prenatal Administration Of Amphetamine Upon The Cognitive-Intellectual Functioning Of The Offspring At Adulthood, Theodore Cole

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The effect of prenatal administration of amphetamine upon the offspring’s cognitive-intellectual functioning at adult levels was investigated. Three groups of Max hooded rats were used, each composed of seven females and twelve males. One group was subjected to prenatal injections of amphetamine, one group received injections of saline, and the final group received no treatment. After the subjects reached adulthood they were presented with a series of complex mazes, and the dependent variable was the number of errors committed during the series. The data were analyzed by an analysis of variance of a 3 x 2 factorial design. The results …

The Effects Of Progressive Relaxation Training And Biofeedback-Assisted Relaxation Training On Control Of Stress Arousal, Barbara S. Lindley

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Self Report And Behavioral Differences Between High And Low Frequency Daters, Scott Daner

Master's Theses

Minimal dating, identified as a significant and relevant target problem, generally has been thought to result from either conditioned anxiety, negative self-evaluations, or social skills deficits. One hundred and thirty-eight subjects were screened and selected on the basis of high and low dating frequency and satisfaction with dating. Twenty-seven males and twenty-seven females who met the criteria participated in a "natural" social interaction. Subjects were paired in three groups: 11 high dating males and 16 high dating females, ten low dating males and ten low dating females, and 5 low dating men and 5 high dating women. Before and after …

Self-Esteem And Adolescence, William A. Robertson

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Cerebral Lateralization And Cognitive Function, C. Mark Borgstrom

Student Work

Eighty-seven undergraduate students were given the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, two dichotic listening tasks, and a paired-associate task to assess the relationship between visuo-spatial/verbal abilities and cerebral lateralization. It was hypothesized that well lateralized subjects, as measured by the handedness inventory and dichotic listening tasks, would score higher in the visual imagery condition of the pairedassociate task than less well lateralized subjects * and would score about the same as the less well lateralized subjects on the verbal mediation condition. According to the Levy-Sperry hypothesis the less well lateralized subjects should have experienced difficulty using visual imagery mneumonics on the paired-associate …

The Relationship Of Prior Ability And Family Characteristics To School Attendance And School Achievement In Rural Guatemala, Marc Irwin, Patrice L. Engle, Charles Yarbrough, Robert E. Klein, John Townsend

Psychology and Child Development

Data from a longitudinal study in progress were used to investigate the relationships between intellectual ability prior to schooling opportunities and characteristics of family and home environment, and elementary school attendance and performance in 3 rural Guatemalan communities. Pre-school- ing mental test performances, family SES level, and indices of parental values concerning education were all associated with attending or not attending school. Length of school attendance was predicted by pre-schooling mental test scores for girls and by family SES level and parental values for boys. Age at first enrollment was predicted by both pre-schooling mental test scores and family SES …

The Recall Of Strens, Traumas & T-S Experiences By Adults, Phyllis Hatfield

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

There is a developing trend in psychology to study the healthy personality. Investigations have been conducted which attempt to identify and study meaningful experiences as they occur in a person's life. These studies have focused on both the negative and positive experiences and the consequences of these experiences in the life and personality of persons. One of the researchers in this area, Norman Finkel (1974; 1975), investigated the incidence and pattern of three types of experiences in the lives of college students. The three types of experiences which he investigated were traumas (T), strengthening experiences (S), and traumas that were …

The Emotional Responses Of Psychopaths And Non-Psychopaths To Contradictory Communications, William Eugene Foote

Psychology ETDs

Psychopaths have frequently been characterized as having little concern for the feelings and welfare of others. This characteristic has often served as a diagnostic criterion for the group and consequently has received little direct experimental study on its own right. The purpose of this study was to examine affective arousal related to social stimuli in a group of 20 psychopaths and 20 non-psychopaths selected from the patient population of a large west-coast maximum security hospital. The social stimuli were 10 tape-recorded "letters" which the patients were told to imagine were from a "girl friend." These tapes contained contradictory messages similar …

Effects Of Constant And Varied Input Orders On Transfer Of Recall And Output Consistency, Gerald A. Clausen

Psychology ETDs

A transfer design was utilized to test differential predictions, derived from a one-process contiguity model and a two-process organizational model, concerning what is learned in the free recall situation under conditions of constant input order, in which the serial order of the list items remains the same for each presentation, and varied input order, in which the order is rescrambled for each presentation. Half of the subjects received constant input during training and half varied. In the test phase, half of the subjects in each of these two groups continued under the same condition received during training, while the other …

Material-Specific Processes In Tactile Short-Term Memory, Christina Anne Meyers

Dissertations and Theses

Studies concerning tactile short-term memory (short-term memory or the sense of touch) have often been contradictory. Some of these studies support the existence of modality-specific tactile memory, a separate, independent storage system for tactile information. Other studies do not support such a system. Further, confusion has arisen regarding the tactile test materials, since many of them use common shapes which are easily labeled verbally. It is hypothesized that information which can be labeled is stored in material-specific verbal memory in the left hemisphere, while patterned or spatial information is stored in material-specific nonverbal memory in the right hemisphere.

This paper …

A Descriptive Study Of The Relationship Between Age And Problems Expressed By Women Seeking Out-Patient Mental Health Services, Linda M. Rodgers, Joyce Carey

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study is to provide a descriptive analysis of the problems presented by a specific group of women seeking out-patient mental health treatment and to relate these problems to the ontogenetic (age-related) developmental issues presented in a study of the literature. The researcher's involvement in this area developed from interest in current literature on adult development, and a personal commitment to life-long growth and acceptance of the inherent changes. In order to investigate whether developmental issues exist for this group of women, and if so to describe them, two distinct age groups--the decades of the 20's and …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Personality Characteristics Of Social Work Students And Choice Of Social Work Practice Area, Linda A. Yegge, Francie E. Buktenica

Dissertations and Theses

Due to curiosity about the "individual" vs. "social" intervention argument in the profession of social work, the authors of this study attempted to answer the question, “Do personality characteristics of Social Work Graduate Students influence their choice of social work practice?" Our hypothesis was that Introverts would be more inclined to focus on the individual in social work practice as opposed to Extraverts who would see societal change as a more pressing practice issue. Although our study identified no correlation between Introversion and Extraversion and social work practice orientation, there were some suggestions for further study. There appeared to be …

Electron Drift Velocities In Helium-Fluorine Gas Mixtures, Kaare J. Nygaard, John L. Fletcher, Scott R. Hunter, Stephen R. Foltyn

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Using a simple time-of-flight technique, we have measured the electron drift velocity in helium with 0.1-1% fluorine additive. Our results in a 0.1% mixture are in close agreement with data in pure helium. The measured drift velocity increases with increasing fluorine concentration. © 1978, American Institute of Physics. All rights reserved.

The Effect Of Background Noise On Children's Selective Listening Behavior, Cathryn A. Chartier

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated the effect of distracting linguistic background noise on children's ability to perform three-part commands. A total of twelve first grade subjects, six "normal" and six reading delayed, were individually administered a series of twenty, three-part commands. Each child performed once in quiet and once in a noise environment, and the performances in those two conditions were compared.

Effects Of Cognitive Complexity, Stress, And Cognitive Style On Pauses In Spontaneous Speech, Daniel B. Matthews

Psychology ETDs

Changes in the location, duration, and frequency of pauses in spontaneous speech were studied as a function of two levels of cognitive complexity, two of situational stress, and three levels of a dimension of the subjects' cognitive style (scanning). Since pauses reflect the location in a sentence where cognitive activity takes place, their variation in numbers and length allow inferences about underlying speech production processes. Subjects were classified into three groups based on the extensiveness of perceptual scanning, a personality characteristic hypothesized to be related to speech production processes. Scanning style was evaluated by means of factor scores derived from …

Locus Of Control, Knowledge Of Ethics, And Perceived Ethicality As Influenced By An Authority Figure, F. Matthew Mihelic, William G. Connolly

Faculty Publications

The present study investigated the relationship between a subject's locus of control, knowledge of psychological ethical research principles, and perceived ethicality of a psychological research proposal as influenced by an authority figure. Subjects were asked to judge the ethicality of a research proposal, which half were led to believe had been previously deemed unethical by an authority figure. No mention was made of the authority figure's viewpoint to the other subjects. The major finding was that the variability in ratings in ethicality of the research proposal tended to diminished from the no mention to the rejection manipulation in those of …

Patient-Technique Orientation, Personality Factors, And Training Effects In Nursing Students, Gerald Case

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to determine if nursing students could be differentiated along a patient-technique nursing orientation continuum, and whether there would be a shift in the orientation of student nurses subsequent to participating in a training program for nurses. This study attempted to determine if personality traits could be used as predictors of the patient-technique orientation of the student nurses and if the personality of the student nurses remained stable over one year. Thirty-four student nurses in the two-year associate degree nursing program in a southern regional university were administered the nursing Pictures Interest Test (NPIT), the …

Wisc-R Short Forms For Identification Of Intellectually Sub-Normal Children, John Ward

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to develop short forms of the WISC-R for use in identifying children as intellectually average or below average. The national WISC-R standardization sample and a local WISC-R generalization sample were used. Both samples were restricted to those subjects with Full Scale IQ scores less than or equal to 100. Five different development procedures were used. Three procedures used stepwise multiple regression and two procedures used multiple discriminant analysis. The short forms developed by the multiple discriminant analysis were the most accurate. The administration time per subject was reduced but scoring complexity was increased. Usable, …