Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Positive Affect During Goal Adoption : Why Happiness Breeds Success, Katherine Wainwright

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Prior research has shown that positive affect helps individuals to achieve their goals. typically by energizing individuals' performance during goal pursuit. However, questions remain as to whether other mechanisms might exist by which positive affect could facilitate success. Specifically, researchers have yet to address the role that positive affect might play during the process of goal adoption. In the current study, I examined whether positive affect experienced at the time of goal adoption facilitates goal achievement. Participants were induced into either a positive or neutral affective state by watching a video clip. They were also asked to adopt the goal …

What Do You Expect? : An Investigation Of How Caffeine Expectancies Affect College Students' Cognitive Performances, Katie Alyse Berg

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Caffeine use is common, but few studies have examined how the expectancies that people hold about caffeine relate to the effects they experience after consuming it. My study examined how typical caffeine consumption and students' expectancies about how caffeine generally affects them influence their decisions about caffeine use as well as their performance on memory and attention tests. I hypothesized that expectations about how caffeine affects students would interact with their beliefs about how much caffeine they had consumed to impact performance on tests of attention and memory. Undergraduate students were divided into four groups: high consumption and high expectancy, …

Cultural Definitions Of Health Care: A Case Study Of Burmese Refugees, Marielena Rose White

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

As a result of ongoing civil war and civil unrest in the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar, every year the United States accepts increasing numbers of refugees from Burma of which there is a population of significance within the greater Indianapolis area. When considering options for health care, Burmese refugees may opt for self care as opposed to care from a health care professional as a result of clashing cultural factors or fears of the unknown.

This study aims to uncover how members of the Chin ethnic group have been challenged or confronted by the social, cultural, and political institutions …

The Effects Of A Brief Mindfulness Intervention On Impulsivity In College Students, Myles Elgin Trapp

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This study investigated the impact of a brief, introductory mindfulness intervention on attention, executive control, and impulsivity. I randomly assigned forty-seven undergraduate students to a treatment group (TG) receiving mindfulness training and a waiting list control group (WLG). Participants completed a battery of self-report questionnaires and standardized neuropsychological tests before and after the intervention. Participants high in trait mindfulness suffered less interference on a Stroop task, were less impulsive on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, but also evidenced less cognitive flexibility on a dual fluency test at baseline. The TG demonstrated greater improvement than the WLG from baseline to re-test …