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An Examination And Investigation Of Selection Criteria For Counseling Trainees, Carol L. Frost

Student Work

This study investigated the extent to which various academic measures (MAT/GRE-v, undergraduate GPA, and ethnicity) and non-academic measures (MMPI-2 T scores, references, interview, and work experience) predict interpersonal characteristics and skills and intrapersonal functioning (counseling potential) in a graduate counseling program. Admission screening scores for 146 enrolled students were used to predict counseling potential measured by a thirteen item unifactor criterion developed from interviews with eleven expert faculty members. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that the best predictors were ethnicity, MMPI-2 paranoia scale, references, and interview. Discriminant analyses failed to identify "problem students". The discussion focuses on the need for non-academic …

Behavioral Effects Of Irreversible Dopamine Receptor Inactivation In The Preweanling Rat: Assessment Of The Receptor Reserve Hypothesis, Suzanne L. Reid, Sanders A. Macdougall

Modern Psychological Studies

EEDQ is an irreversible receptor antagonist that eliminates the dopamine (DA) mediated behaviors of adults rats. In contrast, EEDQ does not seem to affect the DA mediated behaviors of preweanling rat pups. One explanation for this age dependent difference is that rat pups may have a DA receptor reserve, not available to adults, which is sufficient to mediate behavior. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to determine whether a Di and D2 receptor reserve exists in preweanling rats. A total of 96, 17-dayold rat pups were injected with EEDQ (7.5 mg/kg) or its vehicle immediately after being trained …

Female Managers: Their Struggle At Work And In The Home, Beth A. Mull

Modern Psychological Studies

The struggles that female managers face at work and in the home are reviewed. Research suggests that sex role stereotypes, discrimination, lack of mentors, and tokenism contribute to the "glass ceiling effect." Studies on the struggle in the home focus on female managers' role conflict and role overload as they juggle home and employment responsibilities. Spousal influences are also noted in their amount of contribution to child and household duties, their attitudes of career precedence, and their earning power as compared to their wives. Consequences of the female manager's struggle are noted, including lower pay, lack of upward influence, "fear …

Peers + Performance Pressure = Math Anxiety?, Dawn M. Boyung, R. Reed Hardy

Modern Psychological Studies

Math anxiety interferes with many students' ability to learn math (Richardson & Suinn, 1972). Our research indicates that students' peak math anxiety years are those immediately following puberty. Research by Costanzo and Shaw (1966) suggests that children are most powerfully influenced by their peers during the months immediately following pubescence. In this light, we theorized that the amount of time students spend working math problems in front of peers (exposure to peer performance pressure) during the months proximal to puberty will be positively correlated with measures of math anxiety. Fourth through eighth grade public and private school students completed measures …

Advertising Preferences When Presented With Various Ad Stimuli: The Impact Of Stereotypical Versus Non-Stereotypical Advertising, Jodi L. Bremer

Modern Psychological Studies

Past research has shown that the preferences for different types of advertising shift as social attitudes change. Whereas in the past people preferred advertising portraying men and women in gender-stereotypical roles, today's more liberal social attitudes seem to reflect a trend for people to prefer ads depicting those men and women in non-stereotypical gender roles. In the current study, 30 university students were tested for their preferences among stereotypical, nonstereotypical and neutral ads. Stimuli were 30 magazine advertisements, 10 each of the three types of ads, rated on a five point like-dislike scale, with higher scores reflecting greater ad appeal. …

Recognition Of Facial Expressions By Socially And Emotionally Disturbed Children, Janice E. Bollman

Modern Psychological Studies

Twenty-two children, 18 boys and 4 girls, classified as socially and emotionally disturbed (SED) were compared with 19 children, 6 boys and 13 girls, without social and emotional disturbances on their ability to match pictures depicting six basic emotions (as identified by Ekman and Friesen, 1975) which were accompanied by a story about that emotion. The children were matched by chronological age ranging from 8.1 to 12.4 years of age. A difference between the two groups was noted and was significant at the .04 level for a one-tailed test. A Tukey test of pairwise comparisons was also performed and a …

Mother-Daughter Olfaction Identification, Linda N. Johnson

Modern Psychological Studies

Research was undertaken to see if it is possible for females to identify their mother or daughter by olfactory cues alone. Twenty-two females, 11 daughters and 11 mothers, participated in the experiment. Mothers ranged in age from 37 to 46 and daughters ranged in age from 11 to 21. Each subject was blindfolded and asked to smell (hairline level) the necks of two different individuals. The individuals consisted of one relative (a mother or a daughter) and one control subject. Each subject, of course, was asked to identify her relative. Seventeen of the 22 subjects correctly identified her relative (p < .01, 2-tailed binomial test). A second experiment was administered to determine if subjects could correctly distinguish between cotton pads that had been placed, for the duration of experiment one, under the arm of another subject and under that of a relative. Fifteen of the 22 subjects correctly identified the cotton pad of their relative, (p <.05, 2-tailed binomial test). The null hypothesis that there would not be a statistically significant difference in the number of females able to recognize their mother or daughter and those who could not was rejected.

Persuasive Impact Of One-Sided Videos On Reasoning About Abortion, Suzanne M. Dodd, Andrea Bailey Sims, Stephen E. Buggie

Modern Psychological Studies

A study was conducted to assess the volatility of college students' reasoning about abortion. It is widely believed that individuals' views on this controversial issue have crystallized and are resistant to persuasion. The study investigated the persuasive impact of an opposing argument on subjects' current beliefs on the abortion issue. Thirty-three unpaid students of either gender at a private liberal arts college were shown a one-sided video on abortion presenting either the pro-life argument or the pro-choice argument. Subjects were Christians of various denominations. Abortion attitude was measured before and after the video using the Reasoning About Abortion Questionnaire (Parson, …

Interactions Of Depressed Mothers And Their Infants: A Review Of The Literature, Anita Kochanoff

Modern Psychological Studies

This paper reviews various research conducted to understand the effect of maternal depression on mother-infant interactions. It begins by reviewing theories on infant behavior that focuses on self-regulation and theories on mothers' behavior, including the causes of depression following the birth of a child (i.e. postpartum depression). A review of published empirical results of mother/infant interactions are presented along with descriptions of the coding systems used in these studies. Evidence suggests that infant behavior and emotion is significantly affected by the emotional state of the mother.

Eyewitness Credibility As A Function Of Grammatical Usage And Presentation Medium, Gregory P. Shelley

Modern Psychological Studies

The present study investigated the perceived credibility of an eyewitness as a function of the grammar he uses on the stand, as well as the way in which his testimony is presented (written or videotaped format) to mock jurors. Fifty students, 19 males and 31 females, from Kutztown University participated in the study. Ages of the subjects ranged from 18 to 42 with a mean age of 21.94. Subjects were asked to read an exchange of dialogue between two lawyers, a defendant, and a plaintiff. Dialogue was taken, in part, from Levy (1950). Subjects either read or watched a videotape …

The Relationship Of Low Self-Esteem And Somatic Complaint In Children, Jan Frazier

Modern Psychological Studies

This research attempts to determine the relationship of low self-esteem and somatic complaint in children. It is hypothesized that subjects reporting low self-esteem will also report frequent psychosomatic symptoms. Replication of Rosenberg' s (1965) study of adolescents was attempted using 69 children, ranging in age from 8 to 12 years, M = 9.6. Thirty-three females and 36 males completed Guttman' s tenitem self-esteem scale and an eight-item, self-report somatic complaint inventory (Rosenberg, 1965). Fisher's exact probability test indicated a significant relationship between low self-esteem and frequency of somatic complaint, p<.001. This association has been found in earlier studies; however, the present research focused on this relationship in children at an earlier age than previously examined.

Personality Factors Associated With Negative Affect: Application Of The "Big Five" Taxonomy To Depression And Anxiety, Kent W. Anderson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to examine the patterns and discriminant utility of the five-factor model of personality ("Big Five," consisting of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness factors) with depressed and anxious outpatients.

One hundred two outpatients seeking services at a community mental health center in a small western community participated in the study. Subjects were 41 clients with a depressive disorder, 31 with an anxiety disorder, and 30 in a mixed clinical control group. Subjects completed the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness to Experience Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI).

Results indicate that both depressed and anxious clients score in the "very …

Inhibition And Sentence Processing In Children With Learning Disabilities, Sherry Wilson

Student Work

In recent years, theorists have noted that developmental and individual differences may exist in the ability to suppress information that is irrelevant to a given task (e.g.,, Bjorklund & Harnishfeger, 1990; Dempster, 1992; Gernsbacher, 1988; Hasher & Zacks, 1988). The present study examined whether language/learning disabled (L/LD) children have greater difficulty than nondisabled (NLD) children suppressing irrelevant information during a sentence memory task.

Perceived Fairness Of Organizational Drug Testing Policies: An Examination Of Voice And Consistency, Cheryl L. Hendrickson

Student Work

Increasingly, organizations are implementing drug testing programs as a means of reducing the high costs of drug use. Although employees' attitudes towards various policies have been examined, two issues have not been addressed. First, justice research indicates that individuals react favorably to procedures that allow them an opportunity to express their views and arguments (i.e., voice). However, this policy has not been examined within the drug testing context. Additionally, research has not examined reactions to policies that allow managers discretion in applying procedures in order to take extenuating circumstances into account. Reactions to these drug testing policies were assessed using …

The Relationship Between Alcohol Consumption & Academic Performance Among Full-Time Students In Residence At Midland Lutheran College, Bradford F. Lynch

Student Work

At the end of the 1992 spring semester, the full-time students residing on-campus at Midland Lutheran College in Fremont, Nebraska were asked to participate in a drug and alcohol survey to determine whether or not there was a relationship between alcohol consumption and academic performance.

A Correlational Study Of Hardiness, Health, And Burnout Among Teachers In The Sullivan County School System, Deborah F. Morelock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among hardiness, health and burnout and to investigate the relationships of the subscales of hardiness to health and to the subscales of burnout among teachers in the Sullivan County School System. The Hardiness Test was used to measure hardiness and the Maslach Burnout Inventory Form Ed to measure burnout. Results of the Health Evaluation and Risk Test was reported on the Educators Demographic Data Survey. The study sample consisted of 501 teachers. A statistically significant relationship was revealed between hardiness and health; among the hardiness subscales, commitment accounted for the …

Intermittent Consequences And Problem Solving: The Experimental Control Of “Superstitious” Beliefs, Ruth A. Heltzer, Stuart Vyse

Psychology Faculty Publications

Three groups of college students were asked to determine how points were earned in a task that allowed the assessment of response variability. All students received points for sequences of eight presses distributed across two keys (four presses on each key). One group received a point for each correct sequence, one group received points on a fixed-ratio 2 schedule, and one group received points on a random-ratio 2 schedule. There were no significant differences in nonverbal response variability across the three groups, and the fixed-ratio 2 and random-ratio 2 groups obtained equivalent point totals. However, participants in the random-ratio group …

Extrapolating Human Probability Judgment, Daniel N. Osherson, Edward E. Smith, Tracy S. Myers, Eldar Shafir, Michael Stob

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

We advance a model of human probability judgment and apply it to the design of an extrapolation algorithm. Such an algorithm examines a person's judgment about the likelihood of various statements and is then able to predict the same person's judgments about new statements. The algorithm is tested against judgments produced by thirty undergraduates asked to assign probabilities to statements about mammals.

Using Subgoals As A Mechanism For Altering Perceptions Of Situational Control, Mastery, And Task-Related Stress, James E. Kieffer

Student Work

The empirical literature suggests that subgoals may have an effect upon feelings of task-related stress which is more intense than the effect of distal goals on this variable. First, subgoals my alter an individual's perception of the task in such a way that the task related goal is not seen as being so overwhelming. Second, there is an increased feedback mechanism associated with subgoals that may alter perceptions of situational mastery and control and in turn perceptions of situational stress. The effect of receiving more frequent feedback is dependent upon the valence of the feedback. Specifically, positive feedback leads to …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of The Nova Training Model, Melody Moore-Richardson

Student Work

In this study the effectiveness of the Nova training model for training foster parents was examined. A pre-test and post-test was designed to assess change in attitudes and knowledge of parenting skills over a six session training program. Thirty foster parents were given a pre-test before training and a post-test upon completion of training. The data analysis showed that training increased significantly the knowledge of the trainees about foster parenting, but attitudes about foster parenting did not change significantly. The finding that training increased foster parenting knowledge needs to be viewed with some caution because other factors, which were not …

The Need For Conflict Resolution Training For Public School Administrators As Perceived By Indiana Public School Superintendents And High School Principals, Jeffrey Howard Abbott

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the value and need of training in conflict management and conflict resolution as perceived by public school superintendents and public high school principals as to: (1) the kind and amount of training, (2) whether training is a desirable and beneficial activity, and (3) whether training should become a licensure requirement, (4) what delivery systems should be used to conduct the training program, and (5) what concepts and skills should be included in the training program. The population of this study comprised 301 public school corporations in the State of Indiana. Public school …

The Impact Of Value Priorities And Organizational Commitment On Likely Responses To Work-Related Ethical Problems, Jonathon David Kovacheff

Digitized Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to conduct preliminary research concerning how a manager might resolve a work-related ethical problem. In a series of three experiments, subjects were asked to determine how a manager might respond to a superior's request to dump chemical wastes. Based on the work of Tetlock (1986), Seligman & Katz (1988), and Randall (1987), it was proposed that information regarding the manager's value priorities and organizational commitment might help determine the manager's likely responses to this request. In Study 1, subjects were told that a manager was either a value monist (i.e., he valued either an …

The Influence Of Intervening Activities And Testing Conditions On The Accuracy And Confidence Of Source Memory, Joanne Louise Harbluk

Digitized Theses

The research in this thesis investigated factors that influence a particular type of source memory decision, the discrimination between memories that originate with others and memories that originate with ourselves. In their reality monitoring model, Johnson & Raye (1981) characterize the source decision process as an attribution based on an examination of memory rather than the retrieval of a label or tag that specifies a memory's source. Their research demonstrated that subjects rely on information from initial encoding to guide their decisions about the origins of their memories. The present research examined the influence of events occurring after encoding on …

Intellectual Ability, Reaction Time And Working Memory In Young Children, Linda Theresia Miller

Digitized Theses

Intelligence has been shown to correlate with reaction time and memory capacity in adults. Research with adults has demonstrated that individuals who score higher on psychometric measures of intelligence also tend to have faster, less variable reaction times and longer short-term, or working, memory spans. Research with youths suggests that similar relationships may also be present in children; however, research to date has not studied these relationships in young children. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the results previously found in adults, demonstrating a relationship between intellectual ability, speed of information processing and memory capacity, could also …

Cognitive/Decisional Predictors Of Coping Propensity And Stress Arousal: Validation Of A Choice/Control Schema, Mary C. Lees

Digitized Theses

Although stress investigators have intimated that decisional processes comprise important precursors to coping activity, there have been few attempts, within the stress domain, to conceptualize coping behaviour in the context of stress-relevant decisional models. In the present dissertation, an attempt was made to evaluate Neufeld's (1982) choice/control model. This model, which was derived from subjective expected utility theory, makes three interrelated hypotheses regarding the determinants of coping propensity and anticipatory stress arousal. Hypothesis One states that the propensity to engage in counterstress activity will be an inverse function of the ratio of the expected value of stress, given counterstress activity, …

Studies Of The Visual Detection Of Bilateral Symmetry, Andrew Mark Herbert

Digitized Theses

Ernst Mach (1897) first observed that bilateral symmetry was most easily observed when the axis of symmetry was vertical, and proposed this occurred because of symmetric connections across the vertical midline of the visual system. This neuroanatomical account has been reasserted by Julesz (1971) and Braitenberg (1984, 1990). Braitenberg suggested that the corpus callosum could serve as a conduit for connections between cells representing symmetric areas in space around the vertical midline. If vertical symmetry in the visual system mediates the vertical advantage there are a number of predictions that follow. One would expect that the tuning of symmetry detection …

Information Processing In Chronic Pain: The Role Of Depression, Michael Douglas Boissevain

Digitized Theses

Over the last three decades, chronic pain has become conceptualized as a multidimensional phenomenon, in that cognitive and emotional factors have become acknowledged as important contributors to the experience and expression of chronic pain. Although this general theoretical understanding of chronic pain has become widely accepted, there has been relatively little research to date which attempts to delineate the specific ways in which cognitive operations may be influenced by various dimensions of chronic pain. The present dissertation represents an attempt to expand upon the empirical knowledge regarding cognitive processing in chronic pain. Specifically, the present project has been designed to …

Hand And Hemispace Differences In The Visual Control Of Aiming Movements, David Peter Carey

Digitized Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to examine left and right hand performance in three aiming movement experiments, designed to identify differences in movement kinematics when task demands were varied along dimensions thought to differ between the hemispheres. In Experiment 1, fourteen subjects were required to make aiming movements with the index finger to single light emitting diodes (LEDs) or to the midpoints of two simultaneously illuminated LEDs. Movements were recorded using a WATSMART system (Northern Digital, Inc.). Contrary to previous claims, no evidence was found for left hand advantages in accuracy in hand-invisible conditions. The large advantage in accuracy …

The Construction Of Target Similarity In Social Identification, Vuk Vuksanovic

Digitized Theses

Two investigations were carried out to examine self-perceptions and the role of motivation in individual-based social identification. It was hypothesized that states of threatened self-esteem would lead individuals to self-ascribe traits belonging to a valued social target. In experiment 1, subjects performed a task, following which they received one of two performance feedback treatments (success; failure). They were then assigned a famous historical figure, Napoleon Bonaparte, and half were led to believe that they shared his day of birth. Ratings made of both the target and the self revealed that conditions of failure feedback (regardless of the birthday manipulation) led …

Stochastic Models Of Encoding-Latency Means And Variances In Paranoid Schizophrenia, David Nelson Vollick

Digitized Theses

In the present dissertation, a review of the research literature examining (a) schizophrenic cognitive impairments, (b) neurological correlates to these impairments, and (c) the reasons for the recent developments in stochastic modeling and the theories behind them was undertaken. Data from previous research, plus data collected for the current work, were then analyzed employing stochastic models.;With respect to the first topic, research into these impairments has fostered a myriad of hypotheses as to their genesis. At one time or another, every step in the chain of information processing had been proposed to be involved in this impairment. More recently, a …