Digital Commons Network^™

Cuteness As A Prime To Enhance Emotional Recognition, Andrew Diaz

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The ability to recognize emotional expressions has important implications for survival and cooperation. Failing to recognize emotions indicative of some form of threat (anger, fear, disgust) may be particularly costly given these emotional expressions communicate a potential source of danger in the environment. Previous studies have shown that people tend to recognize threatening emotions faster and more accurately than non-threatening emotions. Infantile characteristics (kindchenschema) readily capture the attention of adults and have been shown to influence a variety of behaviors associated with caretaking; viewing cute stimuli increases behavioral carefulness on various visual and motor tasks. The current study …

Does Pregnancy Enhance Sensitivity To Emotional Displays Of Threat?, Lauren E. Larsen

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The human face provides us with an abundant amount of social and biological information. It is important for us to be able to recognize emotions quickly and accurately, some emotions may be more important and therefore draw more of our attention than others, specifically “threat-relevant” emotions (fear, disgust, anger). To date few studies have investigated how pregnancy impacts emotion recognition abilities. These studies have shown that women have higher accuracy in encoding emotional expressions signaling threat or harm. To determine if pregnancy increases attentional bias to threat, 43 pregnant women and 45 non-pregnant women (controls) performed an emotion recognition task. …

Interview With Karin Waller, Karin A. Waller, Patricia A. Schechter

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Karin Waller was interviewed by history professor Patricia Schechter on May 27, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in the interview are graduate students Cleophas Chambliss and Liza Schade.

In this interview, Waller describes the personal, social, and intellectual intersections that brought her to graduate study, her mentors in the graduate program, and her thesis project.

Interview With Barbara Tint, Barbara Tint, Patricia A. Schechter

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Barbara Tint was interviewed by Patricia Schechter on May 29, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in the interview are Alex Berg, Cleophas Chambliss, Oona Fisher Campbell, Jake Hutchins, Alex Ibarra, Lady J, Liza Schade, and Stephanie Vallance.

In this interview, Tint describes her path to academia through working as a counselor and with conflict resolution in a number of international settings. The discussion takes a theoretical turn when students inquired about the philosophical underpinnings of Tint's work.

Interview With Marvin Kaiser, Marvin Kaiser, Oona Fisher Campbell

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Marvin Kaiser was interviewed by Oona Fisher Campbell on May 15, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in the interview are Patricia Schechter and Cleophas Chambliss.

In this interview, Kaiser, who has a background in social work, discusses the structural obstacles in our society that create conflict and emphasizes the role that the university and higher education in general can play as a community public service.

Ethnodance And Identity: Black Students Representing Science Identities In The Making, Mindy J. Chappell, Maria Varelas

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

We explored how arts-based practices, specifically what we define as ethnodance informs the study of science identity. We present a theoretical argument supported by an empirical illustration of how ethnodance offers Black youth with dance identities a medium to narrate evolving science identities, communicating meanings, interactions, and emotions, and to construct identities further as reified artifacts of participating in science classroom communities. The theoretical argument frames dance as an embodied narrative, identity construction as an ongoing process with interactional and affective commitments, and Black Dances as venues of Black bodies’ expressivity of the brilliance, competence, and creativity of Black people. …

Full Issue: Volume 14, Number 1, Fall 2020

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Complete .pdf file of Volume 14, number 1 of The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences. Published Fall 2020.

Teaching With Feminist Judgments: A Global Conversation, Bridget J. Crawford, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

This conversational-style essay is an exchange among fourteen professors-representing thirteen universities across five countries-with experience teaching with feminist judgments.

Feminist judgments are 'shadow' court decisions rewritten from a feminist perspective, using only the precedent in effect and the facts known at the time of the original decision. Scholars in Canada, England, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, India, and Mexico have published (or are currently producing) written collections of feminist judgments that demonstrate how feminist perspectives could have changed the legal reasoning or outcome (or both) in important legal cases.

This essay begins to explore the vast pedagogical potential …

Productive Mindset Interventions Mitigate Psychological Friction And Improve Well-Being For Bar Exam Takers, Victor D. Quintanilla, Sam Erman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

By participating in a brief productive mindset intervention, prospective lawyers improved their wellbeing and performance on the California Bar Exam. Those are the initial results of the research conducted by our interdisciplinary, multi-institutional research team with support from AccessLex Institute and in partnership with the State Bar of California. It did so by mitigating psychological friction and helping test takers reframe stressful experiences. This column discusses our findings and the implications for efforts to make evidence-based gains in bar exam performance, wellbeing, and attorney licensure systems.

Mindsets In Legal Education, Victor D. Quintanilla, Sam Erman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

If you teach 1Ls, you may share the following concern. At the start of each year, we meet enthusiastic and successful students who are passionate about law. They arrive on campus invested in learning, ready to work hard, and eager to participate in class. But trouble brews soon thereafter. Students worry whether they have what it takes to do well, whether they will fit in, and whether they belong in law school. Answering questions in class, many sense (rightly or wrongly) that their professors and peers think that they aren’t smart and that they will not do well. When they …

How To Make A Dead Armadillo: Consumer Contracts And The Perils Of Compromise, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

The ALI's proposed Restatement of the Law, Consumer Contracts ("RLCC") has managed to alarm both corporate America and consumer advocates, including half the nation's attorneys general. To some extent, the RLCC is yet another victim of the nation's increasing polarization and the rise of partisanship within the legal profession. But the RLCC suffers from self-inflicted wounds through questionable endorsement of problematic case law on contract formation as well as its goal of a well-intentioned but flawed "Grand Bargain" that arguably seized a middle ground disliked, for different reasons, by both consumer and business advocates. The RL CC stepped into this …

Fuzzy Cognitive Maps-Based Switched-Mode Power Supply Design Assistant System, Yi Kuang, Zhiyong Johnny Zhang, Bin Duan, Pei Zhang

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Traditional engineering design approaches primarily solve technical problems and often ignore the importance of human factors. To reduce human errors and workload in power electronics, this paper proposes a switched-mode power supply design (SMPS) assistant system based on Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs). This system incorporates both technical requirements and human factors that involve designers' knowledge and skills in the SMPS design domain. First, we identify the critical concepts from power management lab kits and power electronics books, and extract latent sub-skills of SMPS design using exploratory factor analysis to build the starting concept list of FCM. Second, we use factor …

Identifying Gaps In Transitional Care For Adolescent Parents And Their Infants Leaving The Nicu: A Needs Assessment, Stevie Griglak

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Parents of infants admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) are more likely to experience posttraumatic stress, anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, difficulties caring for or bonding with their infants, and financial concerns than parents who deliver full-term, healthy newborns (Ionio et al., 2016). Some NICU admissions may last several months before the premature and/or critically ill infant is stable enough for discharge, and other times the likelihood of discharge is uncertain. Arguably, teen parents with NICU infants are confronted with even more stressors throughout their newborn's hospitalization and post-discharge when they settle into their role as a new parent. …

Economic Analysis Of Green Marketing: The Correlation Between Consumers And Firms Through Environmental Incentives, Naomi Joyce

University Honors Theses

This thesis will seek to explore and analyze incentives in the market with relation to consumers and firms interacting in the current economic and environmental situation of the United States. These incentives are crucial to understanding the relationship between green consumerism and firm positions in the market. By analyzing the characteristics of green consumers and their reactions of firms, a better understanding of the economic relationship of firms and consumers for the future will become more apparent. The green consumer exhibits personal patterns in their purchasing habits which firms can utilize to attract the green consumer while increasing profits. When …

A Five-Sample Confirmatory Factor Analytic Study Of Burnout-Depression Overlap, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Jay Verkuilen

Publications and Research

Objective: It has been asserted that burnout—a condition ascribed to unresolvable job stress—should not be mistaken for a depressive syndrome. In this confirmatory factor analytic study, the validity of this assertion was examined.

Methods: Five samples of employed individuals, recruited in Switzerland and France, were mobilized for this study (N = 3,113). Burnout symptoms were assessed with the Shirom–Melamed Burnout Measure, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)—General Survey, and the MBI for Educators. Depressive symptoms were measured with the PHQ‐9.

Results: In all five samples, the latent factors pertaining to burnout’s components correlated on average more highly with the latent Depression …

Educating And Training The Next Generations Of Security Staff In Suicide Risk Assessment In Correctional Settings: Development Of Cultural Competencies, Ashley Christianson

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Cultural competence in suicide risk assessment has become a necessity given the demographic diversity in the U.S. corrections population and the increasing rate of suicidal behavior in jails and prisons. With few exceptions, little attention has been paid to the cultural training of both clinicians and security staff, and the development of cultural competencies in this field. This paper will focus exclusively on examining the case for cultural competence when conducting a suicide risk assessment in a correctional setting. The author reviews factors that are key in the education and training of culturally informed jail-based therapists and corrections officers, including …

Leveraging Technology To Blend Large-Scale Epidemiologic Surveillance With Social And Behavioral Science Methods: Successes, Challenges, And Lessons Learned Implementing The Unite Longitudinal Cohort Study Of Hiv Risk Factors Among Sexual Minority Men In The United States, H. Jonathon Rendina, Ali J. Talan, Nicola F. Tavella, Jonathan Lopez Matos, Ruben H. Jimenez, S. Scott Jones, Brian Salfas, Drew Westmoreland

Publications and Research

The use of digital technologies to conduct large-scale research with limited interaction (i.e., no in-person contact) and objective endpoints (i.e., biological testing) has significant potential for the field of epidemiology, but limited research to date has been published on the successes and challenges of such approaches. We analyzed data from a cohort study of sexual minority men across the United States, collected using digital strategies during a 10-month period from 2017 to 2018. Overall, 113,874 individuals were screened, of whom 26,000 were invited to the study, 10,691 joined the study, and 7,957 completed all enrollment steps, including return of a …

And Still They Rise: Lessons From Students In New York City's Alternative Transfer High Schools, Mica Baum-Tuccillo, Varnica Arora, Alison Holstein, Michelle Fine

Publications and Research

And Still They Rise is the first systematic analysis of alternative transfer schools in New York City – alternative educational spaces that keep their doors open to a range of students who seek an education despite past academic struggles. The report blends a qualitative and quantitative review of 842 students’ responses to a participatory survey that asked about goals, desires, obstacles, and what they found at transfer schools. In this report we present the stories and the statistics across schools, elevating silenced stories that lay behind the misnomer “at risk." We review data that shows how deeply students appreciate their …

Treating Substance Use Disorders Through An Attachment Lens: A Case Example, Kathleen Locker

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Substance use treatment addresses addiction behaviors, increasing coping skills, and sobriety but current modalities do not address the insecure attachment styles that may contribute to substance use for many individuals. Insecure attachment styles seemingly have a bidirectional relationship with substance use and are therefore are likely an important aspect of treatment. This case example focuses on an attachment therapist’s work with a young man with a substance use disorder and attachment insecurity. Attachment theory interventions are proposed to address potential contributors of continued substance use. This paper proposes that using attachment theory in combination with existing treatment modalities for substance …

The Role Of Warm, Dry Summers And Variation In Snowpack On Phytoplankton Dynamics In Mountain Lakes, Isabella A. Olesky, Whitney S. Beck, Roderick W. Lammers, Cara E. Steger, Codie Wilson, Kyle R. Christianson, Kim Vincent, Gunnar Forrest Johnson, Pieter T.J. Johnson, Jill S. Baron

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Climate change is altering biogeochemical, metabolic, and ecological functions in lakes across the globe. Historically, mountain lakes in temperate regions have been unproductive because of brief ice-free seasons, a snowmelt-driven hydrograph, cold temperatures, and steep topography with low vegetation and soil cover. We tested the relative importance of winter and summer weather, watershed characteristics, and water chemistry as drivers of phytoplankton dynamics. Using boosted regression tree models for 28 mountain lakes in Colorado, we examined regional, intraseasonal, and interannual drivers of variability in chlorophyll a as a proxy for lake phytoplankton. Phytoplankton biomass was inversely related to the maximum snow …

The Many-Minded Man: The Odyssey, Psychology, And The Therapy Of Epic, Joel Christensen

Publications and Research

In The Many-Minded Man, Joel Christensen explores the content, character, and structure of the Homeric Odyssey through a modern psychological lens, focusing on how the epic both represents the workings of the human mind and provides for its audiences—both ancient and modern—a therapeutic model for coping with the exigencies of chance and fate. By reading the Odyssey as an exploration of the constitutive elements of human identity, the function of narrative in defining the self, and the interaction between the individual and their social context, The Many-Minded Man addresses enduring questions about the poem, such as the importance of …

Towards An Ecocentric Movement?, David Johns

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

An ecocentric movement is one which mobilizes and organizes people to transform, or abolish and replace, existing anthropocentric societies, which seek to dominate the other-than-human world. The instrumentalities of anthropocentric domination will not simply wither away. They must be forcefully dismantled. That dismantling will be neither quick nor easy, and will be met with enormous resistance from those that benefit from domination, and from those that fear change. Only by keeping one’s eyes on the prize – the recovery of biodiversity and the Earth – and not being diverted by other goals, can the prize be attained.

Family Features Of Social Withdrawal Syndrome (Hikikomori), Malagón-Amor, Luis Miguel Martín-López, David Corcoles, Anna González, Magda Bellsolà, Alan R. Teo, Antoni Bulbena, Victor Pérez, Daniel Bergé

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Family may play an important role in the origin, maintenance, and treatment of people with social withdrawal. The aim of this study is to analyze family factors related to social withdrawal syndrome.

Methods: Socio-demographic, clinical, and family data, including family psychiatric history, dysfunctional family dynamics, and history of family abuse were analyzed in 190 cases of social withdrawal with a minimum duration of 6 months that started an at-home treatment program. Data were analyzed at baseline and at 12 months.

Results: In 36 cases (18%) neither the patient nor the family allowed at home evaluation and treatment by the …

“I Get Knocked Down But I Get Up Again”: Integrative Frameworks For Studying The Development Of Motivational Resilience In School, Ellen Skinner, Jennifer Pitzer Graham, Heather Anne Brule, Nicolette P. Rickert, Thomas Kindermann

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many subareas share a common interest in students’ motivational resilience, defined broadly as patterns of action that allow students to constructively deal with, overcome, recover, and learn from encounters with academic obstacles and failures. However, research in each of these areas often progresses in relative isolation, and studies rarely utilize developmental or social-contextual approaches. As a result, we do not yet have a clear understanding of how to help children and adolescents develop a rich and flexible repertoire of tools to deal productively with everyday academic challenges and difficulties. In this article, we knit together these disparate areas of …

Impacts Of Banamine Injection On Pain Responses Of Either Rubber Ring Castrated And Tail Docked Or Surgically Castrated And Docked Lambs, Paige Porter Anderson

Animal Sciences

Our hypothesis was that administering Flunixin Meglumine (FM) to lambs that were both rubber ring castrated and docked or surgically castrated and emasculator docked would decrease behavioral stress, serum cortisol, haptoglobin concentration, and wound and swelling score, but increase average daily gain. Rambouillet ram lambs (n = 181) were allocated with a completely randomized design in a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement of treatments. Treatment combinations included rubber ring castration and docking (on ram lambs with administration of saline or FM) or surgical castration and emasculator docking (on ram lambs with administration of saline or FM). Ram lambs were castrated …

Iterative Thematic Inquiry: A New Method For Analyzing Qualitative Data, David L. Morgan, Andreea Alexandra Nica

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Because themes play such a central role in the presentation of qualitative research results, we propose a new method, Iterative Thematic Inquiry (ITI), that is guided by the development of themes. We begin by describing how ITI uses pragmatism as a theoretical basis for linking beliefs, in the form of preconceptions, to actions, in the form of data collection and analysis. Next, we present the four basic phases that ITI relies on: assessing beliefs; building new beliefs through encounters with data; listing tentative themes; and, evaluating themes through coding. We also review several notable differences between ITI and existing methods …

Creating Accessible Survey Instruments For Use With Autistic Adults And People With Intellectual Disability: Lessons Learned And Recommendations, Christina Nicolaidis, Dora Raymaker, Katherine E. Mcdonald, Emily M. Lund, Sandra Marie Leotti, Steven K. Kapp, Marsha Katz, Leanne Beers, Clarissa Kripke, Joelle Maslak, Multiple Additional Authors

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite growing appreciation of the need for research on autism in adulthood, few survey instruments have been validated for use with autistic adults. We conducted an institutional ethnography of two related partnerships that used participatory approaches to conduct research in collaboration with autistic people and people with intellectual disability. In this article, we focus on lessons learned from adapting survey instruments for use in six separate studies. Community partners identified several common problems that made original instruments inaccessible. Examples included: (1) the use of difficult vocabulary, confusing terms, or figures of speech; (2) complex sentence structure, confusing grammar, or incomplete …

The Importance Of “Being There”: A Qualitative Study Of What Veterans With Depression Want In Social Support, Alan R. Teo, Heather E. Marsh, S. Ono, Christina Nicolaidis, Somnath Saha, Steven K. Dobscha

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Social connectedness exerts strong influences on health, including major depression and suicide. A major component of social connectedness is having individual relationships with close supports, romantic partners and other trusted members of one’s social network. Objective: The objective of this study was to understand how individuals’ relationships with close supports might be leveraged to improve outcomes for primary care patients with depression and at risk for suicide. Design: In this qualitative study, a semi-structured interview guide was used to probe patient experiences, views, and preferences related to social support. Participants: We conducted interviews with 30 primary care patients at …

Parent Health Beliefs, Social Determinants Of Health, And Child Health Services Utilization Among Us School-Age Children With Autism, Katharine Zuckerman, Olivia J. Lindly, Brianna Sinche, Christina Nicolaidis

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective—Substantial variation exists in ASD care by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status; however, the role of parent health beliefs in this variation is poorly understood. Study goals were to (1) examine variation in parent beliefs about ASD prognosis and treatment according to social determinants of health (SDH) and (2) assess whether this variation was associated with variable health services utilization, among 1420 children with special health care needs (CSHCN) having autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods—We used linked data from the 2011 Survey of Pathways to Diagnosis and Treatment and the 2009/10 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs. …

Childhood Abuse And Early Menarche Among Peruvian Women, Yasmin V. Barrios, Sixto E. Sanchez, Christina Nicolaidis, Pedro Garcia, Bizu Gelaye, Qiuyue Zhong, Michelle A. Williams

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose

Childhood abuse has been associated with age of menarche in some studies, but not all, and few have assessed the independent associations of sexual and physical abuse with early menarche. We examined the association between childhood abuse and early menarche among pregnant women in Lima, Peru.

Methods

Multinomial logistic regression procedures were used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for early menarche (≤11 years) in relation to any physical or sexual childhood abuse, physical abuse only, sexual abuse only, and both physical and sexual abuse in a cohort of 1,499 pregnant (first trimester) women.

Results …