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Conflict And Threat Between Pre-Existing Groups: An Application Of Identity To Bias, Persuasion And Belief Perseverance, Brian R. Laythe

Doctoral Dissertations

The current research examines the role of identity in the context of threat towards further understanding bias, persuasion, and belief perseverance in what is defined as IRT (Immediately Relevant Threat) conditions. Using pre, middle, and post measurements, four groups of differing ideological student organizations across 4 university or college campuses were presented critical messages that were varied by the source being either an in-group or out-group presenter of the message. Messages were also varied by either presenting a message that criticized the entire group or only a few of its members. With the use of hierarchical linear modeling and conventional …

Responses To Terrorism Scenarios: Event Features, Individual Characteristics, And Subjective Evaluations, Clinton Michael Jenkin

Doctoral Dissertations

The extensive research into responses to terrorism has focused on the effects of individual characteristics on reactions to past terrorism events. This literature has largely omitted two issues: the impact of terrorism event features, and reactions to possible future terrorism events. The first purpose of this dissertation was to account for the effects of event features as well as subjective evaluations on responses to terrorism events. The second purpose of this dissertation was to compare reactions to past and future terrorism scenarios.

A series of actual and hypothetical written scenarios were presented to undergraduate psychology students, and various responses measured. …

Harry Potter, Ruby Slippers And Merlin: Telling The Client's Story Using The Characters And Paradigm Of The Archetypal Hero's Journey, Ruth Anne Robbins

Seattle University Law Review

This Article focuses on the relationship of mythology and folklore heroes to everyday lawyering decisions regarding case theory when the audience is a judge or panel of judges rather than a jury. This Article adds to the discourse by beginning a conversation about what might be termed “applied legal storytelling.” The term pertains to ideas of how everyday lawyers can utilize elements of mythology as a persuasive technique in stories told directly to judges--either via bench trials or via legal writing documents such as briefs--on behalf of an individual client in everyday litigation. Parts II and III of this Article …

The Emotional Health Of Senior Pastors In The Christian And Missionary Alliance Of Canada And Its Connection To The Spiritual Health Of Their Churches , David R. Walls

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Non-Adherence: A Symptom Of The Current Health Care Model, Margaret Duggan

Honors Theses

This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the discourse surrounding patient adherence in an effort to illustrate the extent of the problem, how it is framed, and how intervention is currently approached. The paper begins with a general review of adherence, to ground the reader in the current discourse. The next section of the paper will focus specifically on adherence through the lens of HIV/AIDS. Since HIV/AIDS treatment and adherence to antiretroviral drugs is pertinent to adherence issues due to the complexity and lifelong duration of treatment. Furthermore, adherence with HIV/AIDS medications is particularly important due to the …

Normative Practices And Normative Identities: A Critical Feminist Investigation Of Pregnancy Ultrasound, Bethany Riddle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pregnancy ultrasound has gained popularity in recent decades. In the U.S. and other industrialized countries, it is an expected part of the medical monitoring that accompanies pregnancy. Most scientific, medical and popular opinions of pregnancy ultrasound consider it to be unequivocally beneficial. However, following feminist researchers who note the potential for the ultrasound to act as a form of surveillance, medicalize the body of the woman while simultaneously removing it from the picture, and sediment the reality of pregnancy, I took as my starting point the idea that it is important that we investigate technologies that are taken for granted …

Depression, Volition, And Death: The Effect Of Depressive Disorders On The Autonomous Choice To Forgo Medical Treatment, Matthew Butkus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many contemporary models of medical ethics champion patient autonomy to counterbalance historically paternalistic decision-making processes. These models tend to suggest an autonomous agent free from cognitive bias and systematic distortion (e.g., Kantian or Cartesian rational agents). Evidence is emerging from the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience that fundamentally challenge this cognitive model, demonstrating the dependence of cognition on deeper, avolitional structures (e.g., backstage cognition, cognitive heuristics and biases, automaticity, emotionally-valenced memory, etc.), and hence, shifting the cognitive model towards reductionistic and deterministic philosophies and psychologies. Medical ethics models must adapt their sense of autonomy in light of …

The Missing Person In The Conversation: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., And The Dialogical Self, David E. Leary

Psychology Faculty Publications

Wiley (2006) has argued for a relationship between pragmatism and the dialogical self, noting that both are rooted in the thought of William James and Charles S. Peirce. This commentary delves into the possible connection between James’s and Peirce’s ideas as well as the probable influence of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., on the development of dialogical conceptions of the self.

How Children's Programs At Churches Promote Resilience And How They Can Be Enhanced, Dawn Blanton

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Sunday School teachers, their students, administrators and clergy in three Protestant churches were interviewed to discover the degree to which the cognitive, emotional, and material aspects which promote resilience in youths (Laursen & Birmingham, 2003) were incorporated into their programs. The results suggested that churches do possess attributes that promote healthy cognitive and emotional development in children. In addition, every church provided for the material needs of the children in their church and community. Thus, churches are important community resources for at-risk children that can help promote resiliency. Recommendations are made for improvement of the programs. More generally, a model …

The Behavioral Correlates Of Pain Catastrophizing: Are They Strategic?, Lorraine Y. Overduin

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pain catastrophizing is one of the most robust predictors of negative pain outcomes, including a greater number of pain behaviors, more intense pain, and greater disability. Although associated with negative pain outcomes, it has recently been suggested that catastrophizing may be a coping strategy aimed at garnering social support rather than simply a maladaptive cognitive response to pain. Recent research has found that pain catastrophizers engage in more communicative types of pain behaviors than non-catastrophizers, which is consistent with catastrophizing being used as a communal coping strategy. It is not known, however, whether these communicative pain behaviors are automatic or …

Rural Low-Income Mothers' Experiences With Foster Care, Talia Jennie Glesner

Master's Theses and Capstones

This study explores the grief experiences, parental views, supports, and barriers of 22 rural low-income mothers with children in foster care. The family ecology perspective framed the research. T-tests were utilized in a quantitative analysis comparing depression and parental support and confidence between mothers with children in placement and children not in placement.

Results indicated that the differences in mean depression scores were statistically significant between the participants and the control group. Depressive symptoms were found to be much more prevalent in mothers with children in placement than mothers with children not in placement.

The differences in mean scores between …

Examining The Relationship Between Psychological Skills And Confidence In Goalkeepers, Amanda E. Laws

Master's Theses and Capstones

This study examined the relationships that exist between psychological skills and confidence. Analysis of the relationship took place with ice hockey, lacrosse and soccer goalkeepers. Participants (N = 1927) completed measures of psychological skills (ACSI-28) and confidence (CSCI) online. Participants deemed psychological skills as important, but rarely used them to enhance performance. Goalkeepers (N = 412) scored higher on both the personal coping resource score (M = 50.82, SD = 9.24) and confidence (M = 41.88, SD = 5.66) than non-goalkeepers on the personal coping resource score (M = 47.48, SD = 9.60) and confidence (M = 41.84, SD = …

Psychology, David E. Leary

Psychology Faculty Publications

Psychology, in a general sense, is age-old, extending back across all cultures to the beginnings of recorded time. The healing arts of ancient doctors and the conceptual musings of ancient sages often pointed toward factors that would be considered psychological today. Nevertheless, psychology in its specifically modern sense dates from the second half of the nineteenth century, when a self-consciously scientific, academic, professional discipline took shape in Europe and North America. This multiplex discipline grew and flourished in particular in the United States, where more than forty experimental laboratories, associated programs of research and study, and institutionalized means of communication, …

Escape To Utopia: Mental Illness, Veterans, And Gowanda State Hospital (1946-1952), Ursula Irene Anna Goldsmith

LSU Master's Theses

This study will cover the history from 1946 to 1952 of a state hospital located in Helmuth, New York, known as Gowanda State Homeopathic Hospital (GSH). It describes the community, physical campus and the surrounding area where it is located. The experience of treating military personnel suffering from combat-related mental illness during the 1940s led many psychiatrists to emphasize the social dimensions of mental disorder and to hypothesize that mentally ill civilians and veterans may best be treated outside of traditional mental institutions in their hometowns. This theory was implemented with the discovery of psychotropic drugs in the mid 1950s. …

Nookaler Ambitions: A Social-Psychological Analysis Of Persuasive Speech, Eric Gladstone

McNair Scholars Journal

This study proposes a general model of persuasion based in social-psychology and cognitive information processing theory and is composed of an ideal listener/speaker/environment interaction. Drawing upon research conducted by Lowenthal and Guterman (1950), Erich Hoffer (1952), and Prakanis and Aranson (1992), the model is oriented towards post-911 presidential communications for testing. Presidential rhetoric is organized into seventeen themes, and these themes are analyzed so as to determine what effect, if any, said persuasive trends have on the individual listener. Insight into the characteristics and effects of persuasive communiqués is essential to the development of rational, critical psyches within persuasively-dense environments.

Cross-Cultural Differences In The Perception Of Group Entitativity And Autonomy, Koichi Kurebayashi

Student Work

This research examined cross-cultural differences in group perceptions. Specifically, it examined the relative importance of the properties underlying perceived entitativity and the influence of entitativity on group autonomy beliefs among American and Japanese college students. Group properties were divided into two categories: essence properties and dynamic properties. Essence properties included similarities in group members’ physical characteristics, background, and personality traits. Dynamic properties included commonality in goals, outcomes, and cooperation among members. It was found that both American and Japanese people’s perceptions of entitativity were higher when essence and dynamic properties were high. However, essence properties were more strongly related to …

Assessing Risk For Violent Recidivism: A Comparison Of The Psychopathy Checklist—Revised And The Child And Adolescent Taxon Scale When Calculating Violence Risk Appraisal Guide Scores, Joseph Calvin Bolton Iii

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG) is the tool of choice when conducting forensic assessments of risk, and consists of 12-items correlated with violent recidivism. One of these items is level of psychopathy, which is normally assessed via the Psychopathy Checklist---Revised (PCL-R). The PCL-R is a 20-item instrument, based on an interview and a review of collateral information, which provides a score reflecting severity of psychopathy. The Child and Adolescent Taxon Scale (CATS) also provides an index of psychopathy, but is comprised of only 8-items. There is no interview associated with the CATS, and items are scored based on retrospective …

Computer -Mediated Communication In Society: A Study On Self -Disclosure, Scott C. Green

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this study, the effects of computer-mediated communication (CMC) were examined on two different measurements of self-disclosure. The hypothesis was that CMC is qualitatively different from face-to-face communication (FtF), that this difference affects self-disclosure, and that the anonymity engendered by CMC is one cause of this increase in self-disclosure. Therefore, the researcher examined how prominently anonymity factored into the difference that was observed between dyads that communicated in FtF or CMC conditions. The experiment employed a 2 X 2 factorial design by which participants engaged in a conversation using either computer conferencing technology or FtF, and in which the participant …

Family Strengths, Stress, And Well -Being Among Troubled And Well Adjusted Adolescents, Leah A. Powell

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this doctoral research was to determine whether family stress covaried with family strength. In addition, the relationship between family strengths and family stress was investigated as a function of residential group home (RGH) placement and non-residential placement. The family strengths of resources, coping, and well-being, and family stress were measured for 17 RGH parent and adolescent dyads and 22 non-RGH parent and adolescent dyads. Thirty-nine families participated. It was hypothesized that family stress decreases with increases of family strengths. In addition, it was expected that family strengths would be greater for non-RGH families and family stress would …

First Generation College Students At Four Year And Two Year Institutions Of Higher Learning, Maisha M. Smith

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A MANCOVA was used to examine the global adjustment differences in first generation college students (FGCSs) attending a four year and a two year college. Global adjustment differences were measured by adaptation to college, global well-being, and global self-esteem. Participants were from either a medium sized public four year college in the Midwest or a medium sized public two year college in the Midwest. There were no significant differences found between the two groups in regard to overall adjustment to the college environment.

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder And The Process Of Diagnostic Decision Making Between Psychologists And Psychiatrists, Katrin Woodworth Carlson

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PNMD) is included in the DSM-IV (APA, 1994) Appendix A, Criteria Son and Axes Provided for Further Study. Its symptoms overlap significantly with mood and anxiety disorders, but occur in the late luteal phase of the menstrual cycle and remit by the early follicular phase. Thus, PMDD is a challenging differential diagnosis that relies upon establishing a temporal relationship between symptoms and the menstrual cycle, and it provides an opportunity for examining gnostic decision making processes. A national sample of psychologists (n = 155) and psychiatrists (n = 139) were presented with an Internet web page with …

Psychological Well-Being And Level Of Outness In Male -To -Female Transsexuals, Jeffrey D. Strain

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the relationship between psychological well-being (i.e., depression, anxiety, self-esteem, gender role congruence) and level of outness in male-to-female (MTF) transsexuals. Hans (1998) stated that a transsexual is someone who, after experiencing intense long-term discomfort resulting from incongruence between their preferred gender and their biological sex, adapts his or her body and behavior to appropriately reflect his or her true gender identity. Participants were 105 MTF transsexual attendees at an annual transgender conference held in Atlanta, Georgia. Participants completed eight questionnaires, including: the Demographics Questionnaire, the Outness Demographics Questionnaire, the Outness Attitude Scale, the Openness Scale, the Beck …

Stressors Among First-Generation College Students: A Retrospective Inquiry, Maryann Therese Latus

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A multiple-case-study qualitative approach was used to examine the stressors among first-generation college students. The students were in their senior year at a medium-sized Midwestern public university. The researcher conducted two focus groups and a total of 10 in-depth interviews with first-generation college students. Several themes emerged from the data that was collected. The overarching themes that served as the primary framework for this study were stressors related to family, friends, and the university. One of the major themes, how the participants coped with their particular stressors, is discussed in detail. The differences that were found between this group of …

The Effects Of Existential Attribution And Religiousness/Spirituality On Well -Being In Hiv Patients, Amy N. Huggins-Rieke

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

HIV is a serious illness that has received considerable attention in research literature addressing the implications of spirituality/religiousness on coping with this illness. Past research indicates that an individual's level of guilt over having contracted HIV is associated with feelings of stigmatization and suffering, which can influence his or her wellbeing in coping with the illness. The current study seeks to investigate the relationship between feelings of responsibility for illness (attributions) and engagement with religiousness/spiritual meaning as a coping resource. It is hypothesized that the use of existential attribution will moderate the relationship between an individual's religiousness/spirituality and his or …

The Relationship Of Psychopathy And Social Interest To Prison Adjustment, Ashley Harrison Noble

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the past few decades, methods used to predict recidivism among the criminal population have improved substantially. Recent research has further identified some specific factors such as psychopathy (e.g. a lack of guilt, egocentricity, and superficial charm) and social interest (e.g. a willingness to accept the responsibility for one's actions, compassion toward others, and contributing to the common welfare) as predictors of recidivism and suggests that these constructs may be useful in predicting prison adjustment as well. The goal of this study was to assess the usefulness of specific measures of psychopathy and social interest in the prediction of prison …

Threatened Egotism, Narcissism, And Identification With Criminal Others As Predictors Of Recidivism, Jeffrey M. Morris

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent research has challenged the assertion that low self-esteem leads to violence. Narcissists, who typically have elevated self-esteem, may have strong emotional responses to ego threats resulting in increased aggression. This relationship may be important to understand in relation to criminal behavior. Recidivism rates appear to be affected by an interaction of level of self-esteem and identification with criminal others. This study will examine the relationship between self-esteem, narcissism, identification with criminal others, and recidivism. This study included 56 male offenders recruited from a parole office and assessed with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, Fleming and Courtney's 1984 Self-Rating Scale, and …

Usefulness Of Parent -Child Observation In Assessment For Attention Deficit /Hyperactivity Disorder Among Children, Jeffrey M. Huttinger

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research indicates that the most effective means to assess for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children is a multi-method, multi-rater system. Classroom observations and behavior rating scales are routinely used in the assessment for ADHD. Research has demonstrated frequent discrepancies between parent and teacher ratings of a child's behavior. It is unclear if these differences are due to rater bias and/or situational differences. School observations can be used as a source of information on child behavior in the classroom and compared to teacher ratings. However, standard ADHD assessment batteries generally do not include a second source of information to …

The Relationship Between Anxiety And Spirituality In Persons Undergoing Chemotherapy For Cancer, Cindy Tofthagen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety is a common problem for cancer patients, especially those who must receive chemotherapy. Anxiety may have a negative effect on quality of life, interrupting sleep, causing uncomfortable physical symptoms, and inhibiting sound decision-making. This study examined the relationship between spiritual well-being and anxiety in patients on chemotherapy for cancer. The convenience sample consisted of 30 patients, 15 male and 15 female, receiving chemotherapy in a two physician private medical oncology practice in Southwest Florida. Patients completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well- Being Scale.

Participants ranged in age from 31 to 88, …

The Impact Of Personality And Affect On College Students' Motives For Marijuana Use, Lindsey W. Hawkins

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has examined the relationship between motives for drinking and alcohol use. However, less research has been conducted on the relationship between motives for marijuana use and marijuana use/problems. This study attempted to examine what predictors of marijuana use and problems are mediated by motives for marijuana use. Prior research has identified several predictors of marijuana use including psychological distress, expectancies, sensation seeking, and various personality factors. In addition, previous studies have suggested that use-related problems are not merely a function of how much of a substance one consumes, but also one's motivation for using that substance. The current …

Perceptions Of Job Satisfaction Of K-8 Superintendents In (Dfg I & J) Bergen County, New Jersey Public School Districts, C. Lauren Schoen

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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