Digital Commons Network^™

Cross-Cultural Study Of The Predictors Of Learning In Children Ages 11-15 Years Old, Nadina Melina Williams

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Academic achievement is deemed a significant indicator for a successful future. Cognitive ability, home environment, and metacognition are among the many factors research has posited to contribute to academic achievement and later success (Alloway & Alloway, 2010; Bradley & Caldwell, 1984, Veenman, Wilhelm, & Beishuizen, 2004). The present study examines the relation between cognitive ability (working memory (WM) and nonverbal ability), metacognitive awareness, implicit theories of IQ, home environment (socioeconomic status (SES), home life, and parental involvement in homework), and learning outcomes (grades) in two distinct sample populations. The study used a sample of 11-15-year-olds and their parents from two …

Priorities For School Safety: The Alignment Between Federal And State School Safety Legislation And Safety Needs As Perceived By Education Stakeholders In Florida Private Schools For Exceptional Students, Anthony D. Mortimer

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the apparent threat assessment priorities of potential risks to safety in the school environment in the United States and whether stakeholders in Florida private schools that serve exceptional students agree with the priority given to specific identified potential threats. Faculty and staff, high school students, and the students’ parents and guardians at four Florida private schools for exceptional students rated their perceptions of the severity and likelihood of occurrence of nine potential threats identified in a review of federal and Florida state school safety laws and national and state government surveys of incident occurrences. Results showed that …

Assessing Ratio-Based Fatigue Indexes Using A Single Channel Eeg, Lucas B. Coffey

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Driver fatigue is a state of reduced mental alertness which impairs the performance of a range of cognitive and psychomotor tasks, including driving. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, driver fatigue was responsible for 72,000 accidents that lead to more than 800 deaths in 2015. A reliable method of driver fatigue detection is needed to prevent such accidents. There has been a great deal of research into studying driver fatigue via electroencephalography (EEG) to analyze brain wave data. These research works have produced three competing EEG data-based ratios that have the potential to detect driver fatigue.

Research has …

Associations Between Parenting, Neurobiological Variables, And Adolescent And Young Adult Risk-Taking, Sarah Meghan Mcclanahan

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Evidence suggests that adolescence and young adulthood is a transitional stage whereby unique contextual factors may increase the likelihood for certain individuals to engage in risk-taking compared to their peers. In addition to influential environmental aspects (i.e. parenting, societal affiliations, peer influence) an adolescent’s and young adult’s underdeveloped cognitive control system is unable to successfully inhibit early maturing tendencies such as sensation seeking and reward sensitivity. However, previous research indicates that certain parental mechanisms may serve as protective/promotive agents for stabilizing this neurobiological imbalance. Therefore, the focus of the current research was to examine how parenting behaviors and styles moderate …

Impressions Of A Female Political Candidate Based On Political Party Affiliation, Candice J. Veilleux

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a gender gap in United States politics; men are over represented, and prioritize issues/policies differently compared with women. Stereotypes may be associated depending on group memberships. Stereotypes of men (competent) are consistent and stereotypes of women (warm) are inconsistent with politicians (competent). I examined stereotypes of major/non-major political parties, and how party affiliation affects whether stereotypes about men/male politicians/women/female politicians predict female politicians’ traits. Stereotype valence ascribed to political parties is important because people vote for a positively viewed party/representative. I assessed the strength and valence of stereotypes associated with political parties, and found major parties were viewed …

Opioid Use Disorder: The Ugly Return And Treatment Effectiveness Of Heroin Use, Antwana L. Drayton

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Relationships among demographic, socioeconomic and person factors and Opioid Use Disorder diagnosis, treatment, and recidivism were explored. Data from a sample of 4,860 adults with substance use difficulties were analyzed. A program evaluation was conducted on Gateway Community Services to explore the use of Medication Assisted Treatments (MATs) and Psychosocial (PS) treatments to address Opioid Use Disorder. Using archival data, a chi-square analysis and independent sample t-test was performed. The results expressed that a relationship among race, type of substance use diagnosis, and treatment type and recidivism rate was found. While White/Non-Hispanics adults were more likely to use heroin than …

Individual And Organizational Culture Predictors Of Participation In Training And Development Activities Among Student Affairs Professionals, Andrea Adams-Manning

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Organizational culture substantially impacts employee motivation, employee behavior, and employee participation in professional development activities. In the field of Student Affairs, it is critical for employees to regularly participate in professional development activities to stay up-to-date with understanding today’s students’ needs and meeting federal and state demands. This study examined what individual and organizational culture factors predict participation in professional development activities among student affairs professionals at higher education institutions. For this study, 354 participants from various public and private institutions were emailed an anonymous web-based survey. Field theory served as the theoretical foundation giving perspective as to how external …

The Truth Is Out There: The Use Of Conspiracy Theories By Radical Violent Extremist Organizations, Gregory Rousis

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper sought to examine conspiracy theory (CT) use across three types of groups: radical violent extremists (RVE), non-violent extremists, and moderates. Using the theory of significance quest, or the desire for one’s life to have meaning (Kruglanski, Chen, Dechesne, Fishman, & Orehek, 2009), I sought to determine whether RVE groups were more likely to use CTs, invoke need for cognitive closure (NFCC) via the use of time pressure, elicit anomie, and promote significance quest through violence than the other groups. Using text analysis software, I pulled passages from six groups – two from each level of extremism - that …

The Perceived Emotional Intelligence Of Elementary Principals And Teachers' Job Satisfaction: Do They Relate?, Charis Lee Swift

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between teacher’s perceptions of their principal’s level of emotional intelligence and teachers’ job satisfaction level. Nine elementary schools within a small rural school district in a southern state were the selected cite for the research. Thirty-nine teachers completed two on-line surveys. One survey was intended to report their perceptions of their principal’s level of emotional intelligence and the second survey was intended to report their level of job satisfaction.

The primary research question was: What is the relation between elementary teachers’ perceptions of their principal’s emotional intelligence and the teachers’ …

The Effects Of Tact-To-Mand Transfer Procedures And Prompting Procedures For Increasing Independent Mands In A Child With Autism, Melissa C. Perdomo

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined tact-to-mand transfer procedures and prompting procedures on a child diagnosed with autism. There was one participant, a 3-year-old Hispanic male, with a limited manding repertoire whom also possessed knowledge of tacting items. A multiple baseline design across settings was implemented in order to increase the number of mands emitted by the participant. Data were collected using paper and pen recording by the researcher and another observer to provide interobserver agreement. Mastery probes were collected at one week, two weeks, and four weeks. Results indicated that transfer procedures may be helpful in generalizing manding for a child …

Conscious Conclusions: The Effect Of Positive-Attitude Cues On Teacher Candidate Dispositions About Mathematics, Shelletta Baker

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to use elements for developing teacher identity, personal philosophy, beliefs about teaching and learning, and reflection to frame an examination of the effect of Positive-Attitude Cues (PACs) on teacher candidates’(n = 135) mathematics anxiety and expressive writing. Participants were randomly assigned to a treatment (PACs) or control group (No-PAC) and their dispositions about mathematics were examined using the Revised Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS-R); which had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.96 and an expressive writing task before and after the intervention. A significant main effect of test time showed that participants …

The Influence Of Emotional Woundedness On Clergy Leaders In The Christian And Missionary Alliance A Q Methodology Study, Brian M. Shore

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This Q research designed study sought the answer to the research question, “What are the range of collectively help perceptions of leaders in the Christian and Missionary Alliance toward the impact that emotional woundedness has had on their leadership?” In doing so a conceptual framework was constructed from three psychological theories. These theories were Need Reduction Theory (Hull, 1973), Goal Theory (Adler, 1927) and finally a Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, 1957). The 39 participants of this study were clergy leaders of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The participants perspectives were compared and grouped, and three factors were revealed, along …

Virtual Reality Exceptionalism, Gilad Yadin

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Virtual reality is here. In just a few years, the technology moved from science fiction to the Internet, from specialized research facilities to living rooms. These new virtual reality environments are connected, collaborative, and social-built to deliver a subjective psychological effect that believably simulates spatial physical reality. Cognitive research shows that this effect is powerful enough that virtual reality users act and interact in ways that mirror real-world social and moral norms and behavior.

Contemporary cyberlaw theory is largely based on the notion that cyberspace is exceptional enough to warrant its own specific rules. This premise, a descendant of early …

"I Call Alexa To The Stand": The Privacy Implications Of Anthropomorphizing Virtual Assistants Accompanying Smart-Home Technology, Christopher B. Burkett

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Note offers a solution to the unique privacy issues posed by the increasingly humanlike interactions users have with virtual assistants, such as Amazon's Alexa, which accompany smart-home technology. These interactions almost certainly result in the users engaging in the cognitive phenomenon of anthropomorphism--more specifically, an assignment of agency. This is a phenomenon that has heretofore been ignored in the legal context, but both the rapidity of technological advancement and inadequacy of current applicable legal doctrine necessitate its consideration now. Since users view these anthropomorphized virtual assistants as persons rather than machines, the law should treat them as such. To …

Evil Nudges, Michal Lavi

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The seminal book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein demonstrates that policy makers can prod behavioral changes. A nudge is "any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people's behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives." This type of strategy, and the notion of libertarian paternalism at its base, prompted discussions and objections. Academic literature tends to focus on the positive potential of nudges and neglects to address libertarian paternalism that does not promote the welfare of individuals and third parties, but rather infringes on it-a concept this Article refers to …

Constructing Two Phonological Systems: A Phonetic Analysis Of /P/, /T/, /K/ Among Early Spanish–English Bilingual Speakers, Earl K. Brown, Mary T. Copple

Faculty Publications

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Many early Spanish-English bilingual speakers in the USA learn Spanish as their first language at home and English in school. This paper seeks to elucidate whether these speakers develop a separate phonological system for English and, if so, the role of primary and secondary cues in the development of the second language (L2) system.

Design/methodology/approach: The phonetic realization of the voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/ is analyzed among three groups: early Spanish-English bilinguals; L1 English speakers who are late learners of Spanish; and L1 Spanish speakers who are late learners of English. The participants (N = …

Investment Behavior Analysis Based On Tail Risk Management, Yu Sun

Statistics

As behavioral finance is becoming more prevalent in academic area, a study is worth conducting to pinpoint investors’ preference through managing tail risk of asset portfolios. This study investigates investors’ investment behaviors by modeling their investment personalities based on tail risk management. We incorporate CVaR approach to model traditional and non-traditional investment behaviors by reshaping the tails of portfolio return. To be specific, we build model to maximize left-tail CVaR, minimize right-tail CVaR, minimize left-tail CVaR models, and a mixed model that maximize left-tail CVaR and minimize righttail CVaR simultaneously based on various group of rational and irrational investors. Our …

Jealousy In Dogs? Evidence From Brain Imaging, Peter Cook, Ashley Prichard, Mark Spivak, Gregory S. Berns

Animal Sentience

Domestic dogs are highly social and have been shown to be sensitive not only to the actions of humans and other dogs but to the interactions between them. We used the C-BARQ scale to estimate dogs’ aggressiveness, and we used noninvasive brain imaging (fMRI) to measure activity in their amygdala (an area involved in aggression). More aggressive dogs had more amygdala activation data while watching their caregiver give food to a realistic fake dog than when they put the food in a bucket. This may have some similarity to human jealousy, adding to a growing body of evidence that differences …

Researchers, Not Dogs, Lack Control In An Experiment On Jealousy, Jennifer Vonk

Animal Sentience

Cook and colleagues (2018) have developed a clever method to measure fMRI in awake dogs in response to a number of interesting stimuli. As a result, they are able to determine neural correlates of observable behavior. They report that dogs may experience something akin to jealousy because they show greater amygdala activation in response to food being given to a fake dog versus food being placed in a bucket. However, several critical controls are missing which prevent the authors from being able to speak of jealousy.

Finding The Green-Eyed Monster In The Brain Of A Dog, Peter Singer

Animal Sentience

That dogs show behavior suggestive of jealousy has long been known and has been demonstrated under controlled conditions. Cook et al. have now shown arousal in the amygdala when dogs see a caregiver feeding another dog. This finding has ethical significance in two respects. First, the consideration shown by the investigators for the welfare of their experimental subjects sets an example for other researchers using animals. Second, the greater understanding of the emotional lives of animals should lead to more concern for their needs.

Jealousy, Competition, Or A Contextual Cue For Reward?, Thomas R. Zentall

Animal Sentience

Emotions are difficult to assess, even in humans. The attribution of jealousy in an animal like a dog is especially difficult because performance of a particular behavior in the context of another animal receiving a reward may not be easily distinguishable from intra-species competition or simply a response to a contextual cue for the availability of reward. The authors provide distinguishing evidence in the form of fMRI data to show that in the presence of a “fake” dog being fed, there is bilateral activation in the amygdala, an area associated with anxiety, anger, fear, and even jealousy in humans.

What Can The Social Emotions Of Dogs Teach Us About Human Emotions?, Dean Mobbs

Animal Sentience

It has long been believed that social emotions such as guilt and jealousy are only expressed in humans. In the case of jealousy, its adaptive value has been linked to the prevention of sexual infidelity or fairness. So why would dogs feel jealousy? I suggest that understanding how social emotions have been bred into dogs can help us understand our own emotions, including their functionality — and potentially their mechanisms.

Can Neuroimaging In Dogs Have Practical Implications?, Tiffani J. Howell

Animal Sentience

Jealousy, or at least aggression, can be observed in dogs using neuroimaging techniques, but this response attenuates quickly following repeated exposure to the aggression-inducing stimulus. This may have a practical application. Early socialisation as a puppy, and habituation as an adult dog, could help prevent undesirable behaviours such as predatory behaviour. It is unclear whether these processes are the same, and affected only by the dog’s age. Neuroimaging could help us understand whether the same neurological processes underlie socialisation and habituation, and whether self-rewarding behaviours such as predatory behaviour could be stopped using socialisation/habituation techniques.

Lessons From Behaviour For Brain Imaging, Carolyn J. Walsh

Animal Sentience

Integrating physiological and behavioural arousal with social context is fundamental to understanding affect in dogs. Cook et al. (2018) have made a worthy start towards illuminating the neural basis of dog affect underlying resource loss. However, their study depends on retrospective behaviour reports versus direct testing, and an interpretation of differential neural activation that is based on too few dogs. Research groups conducting canine brain-imaging work might: (1) consider collaborative approaches to augment sample sizes and replicability, and (2) take a recent lesson from dog behavioural research regarding a more cautious approach to applying functional labels to physiological and/or behavioural …

On Jealousy, Envy, Sex Differences And Temperament In Humans And Dogs, Eddie Harmon-Jones, Sylvia K. Harmon-Jones

Animal Sentience

Cook, Prichard, Spivak, and Berns (2018) find that dogs’ levels of trait aggression are positively correlated with their amygdala activation when observing their caregivers giving a food to a fake dog. The authors conclude that this may provide neural evidence in dogs for the experience of jealousy, an emotion that some psychologists consider to be unique to humans. Here we explain the difference between the emotions of jealousy and envy, suggesting some ideas for future experiments that may help disentangle the experience of jealousy from that of envy in dogs. We also propose ideas for future research that may yield …

Inferring Emotion From Amygdala Activation Alone Is Problematic, Thomas F. Denson

Animal Sentience

Cook et al. investigated neural responses in domestic dogs in an experiment designed to elicit jealousy. Relative to a control condition, watching the dogs’ caregivers feed a fake dog activated the amygdala bilaterally. Dogs rated higher in dog-directed aggressiveness showed larger initial amygdala activation. Amygdala activity in this context is insufficient evidence to infer that the dogs experienced jealousy or even negative affect. The experimental design does not provide an adequate level of control to infer the presence of jealousy.

Limits Of Neuroscience, Paul Morris

Animal Sentience

Examining the relationship between jealous behaviour and the amygdala may be quite informative about the function of the amygdala, but the amygdala may be less helpful in informing us about jealous behaviour. Claims about the potential practical relevance of the results also require that the magnitude of the effects inform the relevant discussion. The dogs used in the study probably share some very important personality characteristics; this too limits the practical implications of Cook et al.’s findings for dogs in general. It is nevertheless a testament to the skill of the experimenters, and the amazing bond between dogs and humans, …

Emotional Reactions In Non-Human Animals And Social-Functional Theories Of Emotion, Gerben A. Van Kleef

Animal Sentience

The debate about animal emotions relies heavily on empirical evidence, which is often open to multiple interpretations. This ambiguity allows researchers at either end of the spectrum to perceive support for their positions in study results. Thus, evidence reported by Cook and colleagues (2018) – that dogs’ trait aggression is associated with their amygdala activation when watching their caregivers feed a fake dog – may be interpreted by some as neural evidence for jealousy in dogs and by others as an artefact of the study design. I argue that the discussion should be complemented with a greater consideration of theoretical …

Can A Dog Be Jealous?, Yaoguang Jiang, Annamarie W. Huttunen, Michael L. Platt

Animal Sentience

Whether humans alone experience complex emotions like jealousy or envy remains hotly debated, partly because of the difficulty of measuring them without a verbal report. Cook, Berns and colleagues use functional brain imaging to identify in dogs neural responses very similar to those evoked by jealousy in humans. When dogs see their caregiver reward a facsimile dog, their amygdala is activated and the strength of this response predicts aggressive behavior — just as jealousy leads to aggression in humans. The authors conclude that dogs feel something very similar to human jealousy. This novel and creative study tackles one of the …

Jealousy? Or Just Hostility Toward Other Dogs? The Risks Of Jumping To Conclusions, James A. Serpell

Animal Sentience

Cook et al. (2018) provide a fascinating demonstration of amygdala activation in dogs when they witnessed their owners giving food to another (fake) dog, but not when they placed food in a bucket. Dogs’ neurological responses were positively correlated with their reported levels of ‘dog-directed aggression’ as measured by the C-BARQ, and dogs with initially strong amygdala responses habituated on subsequent trials. The authors interpret their findings as possible evidence for an emotion akin to jealousy in dogs. However, alternate interpretations involving either dog aggression/fear or emotional responses to food seem more plausible and avoid the welfare risks associated with …