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The Cowboy Way: A Study Of Leadership As Portrayed In Western Film, Ralph L. Turner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study sought to examine leadership through the medium of film, specifically the genre of the western. The western is iconographic; representative of the American ethos, the western embodied the "frontier myth." The purposes of this study were to examine how leadership was portrayed in a selected sample of western films dating from 1945 to 1995, and to categorize and characterize the leadership methods exhibited in each film. Qualitative in design, the study was concerned with broad description and discovery. Using observation as the data collection technique and content analysis as the research method, the study examined a sample of …

The Effects Of Publicly Displayed Individual Feedback On Social Loafing, Nelson R. Eikenhout

Masters Theses

The decrease in individual performance output that occurs when individuals perform a task in groups in which the output is pooled has been labelled social loafing. The purpose of this study was to determine what would happen to the quantity and quality of individual performance in groups when public, individual feedback was present and absent.

An ABCBC experimental design was used. Four subjects worked individually, together in a group without feedback, and in the group in the presence of feedback making widgets out of plastic pop beads. The number of widgets made and the number of widgets made correctly were …

Differences In Retention Rates Between Cocaine And Alcohol Dependent Individuals In A Drug-Free Setting, Barbara A. Johnston

Masters Theses

Substance abuse treatment outcome is an important area for clinical research. Furthermore, it is important to identify sub-populations which may require additional treatment services in order to improve outcome. Cocaine dependent individuals have been identified as a group that provides many challenges to clinicians and researchers due to the high incidence of relapse. The current study explored the differences in treatment retention between persons diagnosed with either cocaine or alcohol dependence. There was a significant difference between the length of stay for the two groups (p=.003). However, there was not a significant difference in type of discharge between the two …

Relationship Between Life Change Events And Communication Apprehension, Elaine Bylund

Student Work

This research investigates relationships between communication apprehension (CA) and life change events, using college students at a Midwestern university. Instruments used were the Personal Report o f Communication Apprehension-24 (PRCA- 24) which measured CA, both overall and in four subareas, and a modified version of the Adolescent Life Change Event Questionnaire (ALCEQ), which records life change events during formative years and past year before being questioned.

No significant relationships were found between the overall scores of the two instruments in this study, although demographic information showed that the younger college students reported more public speaking apprehension than the older groups. …

The Perceived Aids Preventative Utility Of Knowing One's Partner Well, Jeffrey D. Fisher, Stephen J. Misovich, William A. Fisher

CHIP Documents

The public health advice to "either know your partner well, or use condoms" may have led to higher levels of risky sexual behaviour between well-acquainted individuals whose HIV status is unknown. This study assessed the extent to which college students believe that knowing their partner well eliminates the need to practice safer sex, and measured the relationship between such beliefs and the performance of necessary safer sexual practices, such as using condoms during sexual intercourse. Endorsement of beliefs that partner knowledge made safer sex unnecessary was common, and agreement with these beliefs correlated significantly and negatively with levels of AIDS …

The Effect Of Child Gender On Parent Ratings Of Temperament And Behavior, Brent Beck

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Parent ratings of their children play a significant role in the assessment process. However, past research on rating scales has focused largely on teacher ratings. Less frequent studies on parent rating scales have predominant!}' used mothers' ratings and omitted fathers' ratings. In addition, research comparing parent ratings have produced inconsistent results when describing effects of gender of the child and rater. In this study, parents of 35 three to five-year-old preschoolers rated their child on the Temperament Assessment Battery for Children: Parent Form (T AB-R) and the Conners Parent Rating Scales-48 (CPRS-48). Adequate reliability for mothers and father ratings were …

The Use Of Prior Knowledge In Learning From Examples, Stephen B. Blessing '89

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the way people acquire procedures from examples, and provides a computational model of the results. In four experiments, people learned an analog of algebra. For each experiment, the initial know ledge that people had of the task was varied. In two experiments (Experiments 1 and 3), the syntactic know ledge that people had concerning the task w as manipulated. The knowledge of syntax that participants had, particularly the ability to correctly parse the character string, was found to be a major determiner in the way participants acquired the rules. Experiment 2 explicitly manipulated participant's awareness as to …

Orthographically Mediated Inhibition Effects: Evidence Of Activational Feedback During Visual Word Recognition, Jason F. Reimer

Student Work

According to the multistage activation model of visual word recognition (Besner & Smith, 1992a, 1992b; Borowsky & Besner, 1993), during visual word recognition, activation can spread from semantic to orthographic representations via a feedback mechanism. Two experiments were conducted in order to test directly whether or not such feedback occurs, and if so, under what conditions. In order to directly measure feedback, a mediated priming paradigm was utilized. In this paradigm, participants named aloud targets that were preceded either by a semantically related prime (e.g., dog - cat! or by a prime that is related to the target via a …

Affect During Conflicts Between Adolescents And Their Best Friends, Other Friends And Acquaintances, Mary J. Spenceri

Student Work

While conflict, in general, has received much attention in the literature, "affect felt" during conflicts and its influence has not been a major concern to researchers. Only a few investigations of "affect intensity" associated with conflict have been conducted. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of affect intensity, an individual differences factor, in the affect experienced in conflict situations with friends and acquaintances by different age groups, and the resolution strategies that are used. Students from grades 5, 8, and 11 and first and second year college students completed the Affect Intensity Measure, a conflict questionnaire, …

A Comparison Of The Political Personalities Of 1996 U.S. Presidential Candidates Bill Clinton And Bob Dole, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper employs the conceptual framework of Theodore Millon to examine and compare the political personalities of President Bill Clinton and Senator Bob Dole. Information pertaining to President Clinton and Senator Dole was gathered from published material and employed to generate a personality profile using the Millon-Type Political Personality Checklist (MPPC).

The assessment revealed that President Clinton’s primarily personality patterns were Asserting/self-promoting and Outgoing/gregarious, with secondary features of the Complaining/discontented, Controlling/forceful, and Agreeing/cooperative patterns. Senator Dole’s primarily personality patterns were Controlling/aggressive and Conforming/regimented, with secondary features of the Asserting/self-promoting and Complaining/negativistic patterns.

The personality profiles yielded by the MPPC are …

Wisc-Iii Profile Patterns Of Learning Disabled Children, Russell Goetting

Student Work

The present study examined the performance of a heterogeneous population of learning disabled children (N=171) and children with learning disabilities in reading (LD-R), math (LD-M), and reading and math (LD-R+M) on the WISC-III ACID and SCAD subtests (Arithmetic, Coding, Information, Digit Span, and Symbol Search). Archival WISC-III scores of children that have been verified as having a learning disability in fourteen Midwestern school systems were used to answer the research questions in this study. Two different methods of examining performance on the ACID and SCAD subtests were used in this study, the index score method and the profile method. The …

Effects Of Goal Reward And Feedback Frequency On Motivation: A Control Theory Perspective, Jonathan Michael Balcerek

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The current study investigated the effects of feedback frequency and goal reward on subject motivation. Klein's (1989) control theory model of work motivation was used to conceptualize the method and hypothesis. Subjects performed a simple computer addition task. When we examined subjects who displayed medium to high mathematical ability, significant effects were discovered. Higher goal reward led to higher motivation. In addition, subjects with a low goal reward and high amounts of feedback displayed lower motivation than subjects with a high goal reward and high amounts of feedback and subjects with a high goal reward and low amounts of feedback. …

The Relationship Of Autonomy Sociotropy And Depression To The Recall Of Autobiographical Memories, Jennifer Sue Cheavens

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Past research in the area of dysphoria and depression has examined two personality constructs known as autonomy and sociotropy. These personality constructs have been studied as predispositions to dysphoria and depression. The current study focused on the ability of Autonomy and Sociotropy, measured by the Personal Style Inventory (PSI), to predict both participants' and raters' autonomous and sociotropic ratings of autobiographical life events. The study also examined the differences in classifications of events as either sociotropic or autonomous when the classifications were made by both participants and objective raters. Participants were 72 female and 43 male undergraduate students enrolled in …

The Effects Of Feedback Seeking Performance And Tenure On Perceived Organizational Commitment Self-Promotion Attributions And Allocation Of Organizational Rewards, Bryan C. Hayes

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Few studies have addressed the performance feedback seeking process from the perspective of the source of the feedback. Investigators generally focus on the behavior of the feedback seeker, either ignoring or only speculating about reactions by the target of the feedback request. The objective of this study was to empirically investigate the target's reaction to requests for performance feedback. Extensive efforts have been made to demonstrate that people often constrain their feedback seeking behavior because of perceived risks, however, research has not examined to what extent the perceived costs are real. A hypothetical scenario was used to elicit reactions to …

Work Interference With Family (W→F) And Family Interference With Work (F→W): Antecedents And Mediators, Karyn Hofler

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The present study was designed to assess the antecedents of two forms of work-family conflict (WFC). The separation of two types of WFC is represented by work interference with family (W→F) and family interference with work (F→W). Several variables were hypothesized to be directly and indirectly related to the two forms of work-family conflict. Because of the individualistic nature of WFC. the participants for the present study were all female. LISREL VIII was used to test the proposed model and to develop an alternative model. Job stress was found to be directly and indirectly related to W→F. Family stress was …

Task Interdependence And Teamwork Processes, Kristin Krahl

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

In today's continually expanding and global marketplace, organizations are increasingly relying on teams. The tasks that are performed by these teams are requiring greater interdependency among members as technology becomes more complex. Therefore, there is a need for a valid measure to study the task interdependence among team members. This study developed a measure of task interdependence and provided evidence for the construct validity of the measure using LISREL (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993). In particular, the task interdependence measure was shown to be distinct from teamwork measures developed in previous research (Rosenstein, 1994). A structural model of relationships among teamwork …

The Role Of Event Asynchrony And Attentional Deficits On Task-Unrelated Thoughts In Vigilance: Implications For Workload And Boredom Proneness, Steven Michael Springer

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The present study examined the impact of event asynchrony, task-unrelated thoughts, attentional deficits, and boredom proneness on vigilance performance. Each subject participated in two sessions, one with asynchronous background events and one with temporally regular background events. Subjects were assigned to three groups: (a) those diagnosed as possessing attention deficit disorder (ADD) during childhood, (b) those with a high potential of having attention deficit disorder during childhood, and (c) those with a low potential of possessing attention deficit disorder during childhood. Subjects were required to indicate their spontaneous and deliberate task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) during each vigilance session. Boredom proneness was …

Psychological Outcomes Of Religiosity In The Elderly, Deanna R. Hogge

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Three components of religiosity- organizational religious involvement, nonorganizational religious involvement, and subjective religiosity- were examined for effects on wellbeing, depression, and coping in an elderly sample. A multiple regression analysis, in which demographic variables were controlled for, did not result in any significant findings. The lack of statistically significant findings conflict with a large body of research on religion and psychosocial and health outcomes. The current findings suggest that while traditional religious involvement may be beneficial to those who participate, this involvement does not account for significantly increased well-being, better coping, and less depression for the individuals of this elderly …

The Influence Of Time Pressure And Information Load On Rule-Based Decision-Making Performance, Brooke Browne Schaab

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Performance was evaluated under varying levels of time pressure and information load to determine their influence on simple rule-based decision-making. Consistent errors, biases, and heuristics found in human decision-making have been attributed to attempts to reduce attentional demands and to the limitations of working memory. Do these same mistakes occur when little or no demand is placed on working memory and the decision is made by following a set of simple rules? Using a simulation of a radar operator's task, 96 participants monitored a display for 24 min. Time pressure was manipulated by increasing or decreasing the number of aircraft …

Neuropsychological Assessment Of Battered Women, Mona Matheney Tiernan

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study examined the effect of physical battering on the neuropsychological functioning of women. Twenty-five battered women and twenty-five non-battered women were administered a neuropsychological screening battery (11 separate tests, yielding 16 variables) to assess for possible deficits in the areas of attention/concentration, memory, visual-perceptual skills, sensory-motor skills, novel problem solving, and verbal fluency. All participants completed a demographic questionnaire, a post-concussive syndrome checklist, and a questionnaire evaluating for the presence of depressed mood and possible effects of depression. Potential participants with a history of previous head injury (occurring from a source other than battering) or other neurological disorders were …

Cross-Cultural Differences And Intercultural Cooperation In The Context Of Change And Uncertainty: Americans And Finns In The Workplace, Maija Llisa Herweg

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

American and Finnish workers in financial institutions in the United States and in Finland were interviewed in their respective languages to explore cross-cultural differences in response to change and uncertainty in the work place. Changes were explored in the domains of organizational, process, procedure and work content, and technological changes in the work place. As a point of departure for this study, Hofstede's IBM study, as it pertains to Uncertainty Avoidance--a measure he used to evaluate culture-based resistance to change--was used for this study.

Differences in the kinds of change considered difficult to adjust to were found in the cross-cultural …

An Artificial Life Model Of Engineering Attrition Contemplation: Why Do Federally Employed Civilian Engineers Think Of Quitting?, John William Herweg

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The research objective is, using engineer turnover, to develop an Artificial Life (A-Life) model and simulation methodology useful for studying behavioral variables of individuals in an organization.

One consequence of work stress is burnout, and its extreme expression is quitting or turnover. Various models have been used to explain and predict this behavior. Behavior models are useful tools to explore the ability of organizational policies to reduce stress levels and turnover. Advancing the usefulness of models is a goal which assists all research on human behavior. A-Life offers a new and different methodology for this purpose. It provides an ability …

Development Of The Inventory Of Life Span Events, Julie A. Dickison

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The possible relationship between stressful life events and subsequent illness has been studied in the past few decades, resulting in several widely-used questionnaires. However, these measures tend to focus on recent events and attempt to remove subjective rating of a stressful event by the respondent. These two factors may limit these scales clinical utility. An alternative measure, the Inventory of Life Span Events (ILSE) is proposed, to quantify the life-stress burden for childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and across the entire life span. ILSE was compared to other leading measures for life events, hassles and perceived stress, and was more closely related …

Applying Informal Cooperative Learning Groups Techniques In The Classroom, Susan L. Murray

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The application of informal cooperative learning (CL) groups techniques in the courses including operation research, and computer simulation, is discussed. The informal CL activities can be accomplished in small groups consisting of two or three students. It increases student participation and revitalizing passive lecturers. Students work example problems or homework problems in groups.

A Spanish Translation Of The Spiritual Well-Being Scale: Preliminary Validation, Kay Colleen Bruce

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Recent attention has focused on the need for effective mental health services to minority populations in the United States. The Hispanic community is the second largest minority in the U.S. and continues to grow rapidly. Mental health services may be facilitated by translation and validation of assessment instruments which are psychometrically sound and easy to administer.

Measures of subjective well-being were developed in the United States in the 1970s. An interest in spiritual well-being, as related to one's general sense of health and well-being, led to development of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) by Paloutzian & Ellison (1982). Since that …

The Encoding Of Frequency Information As An Automatic Process: A Quantitative Review, Kellie Goedart

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

People use information on how often events occur as the basis for many decisions they must make. For example, it has been shown that people will credit a statement as being more true the more frequently they have heard it. Additionally, probability information derived from observations of the frequency of occurrence of events has been shown to play a role in concept formation. One of the primary controversies in the study of how individuals process frequency information revolves around the contention that the encoding of frequency information is an automatic process (one that requires little or no attentional capacity and …

Living In Two Worlds: Asian-American Women And Emotion, Kimberly S. Gangwish

Student Work

Asian-American women have faced certain difficulties in growing up due to the distinct differences in Asian and American cultures. The two cultures have philosophical differences as well as differences in acceptable manners of behaving and communicating. The expression of emotion is one of these areas. This research study looks at the differences in the two cultures concerning the expression of emotions and how this affects the women who are trying to live within both worlds. Ten first-generation Asian-American women were interviewed, using an oral history method, concerning three different situations. One situation involving just their parents, another involving their friends, …

How To Make Better Decisions, H V Ravinder

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.

Differential Outcomes In A Cocaine Versus Saline Discrimination, Thomas B. Morgan

Masters Theses

The effects of differential outcomes on the speed of acquisition of a cocaine vs. saline discrimination were examined. Two groups of male Sprague-Dawley rats were trained to discriminate 8.0 mg/kg cocaine from saline. The experimental group was exposed to differential outcomes, where correct responses following the different injections (discriminative stimuli) were correlated with a particular outcome (either sweetened condensed milk or tap water). The control group received either sweetened condensed milk or tap water at random following cocaine and saline injections. Acquisition of schedule control and three progressively difficult testing criteria were examined. The differential outcomes group came under schedule …

A Spanish Translation Of The Spiritual Well-Being Scale: Preliminary Validation, Kay Colleen Bruce

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Recent attention has focused on the need for effective mental health services to minority populations in the United States. The Hispanic community is the second largest minority in the U.S. and continues to grow rapidly. Mental health services may be facilitated by translation and validation of assessment instruments which are psychometrically sound and easy to administer. Measures of subjective well-being were developed in the United States in the 1970s. An interest in spiritual well-being, as related to one's general sense of health and well-being, led to development of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) by Paloutzian & Ellison (1982). Since that …