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Full-Text Articles in Psychiatry and Psychology

Queen Bees: An Examination Of The Mean Girl Phenomenon, Danielle Ayers Jun 2012

Queen Bees: An Examination Of The Mean Girl Phenomenon, Danielle Ayers

Honors Theses

As highlighted in the media, it is clear that the mean girl phenomenon is becoming a dangerous and growing trend in schools around the country. While girls are less likely than boys to engage in physical fights, they fight within friendship networks to damage relationships and reputations. Within these friendships, the “queen bee” is the girl holding supreme power and influence over the rest, using a combination of charisma and manipulation to keep absolute control. This study examined who these queen bees are and why they negatively dominate schools by asking females in grades six through college senior to discuss …


He Shoots He Scores: The Effect Of Mortality Salience On Risky Decisions In A Basketball Task As A Function Of Competition And Self-Esteem, Alexandra M. Aldeborgh Jun 2012

He Shoots He Scores: The Effect Of Mortality Salience On Risky Decisions In A Basketball Task As A Function Of Competition And Self-Esteem, Alexandra M. Aldeborgh

Honors Theses

The current study was designed to examine the effects of mortality salience (MS) and competition on risk-taking behavior in a sports-related setting as moderated by self-esteem. A basketball task was used to simulate sports risk, in which participants had the option of shooting from three lines: worth one point (least risky option), three points, and five points (riskiest option). Participants were either under the impression that they were competing with another participant or not. It was hypothesized that high self-esteem individuals, when primed with death thoughts and under the illusion of competition, would be most likely to shoot from the …


Cybercycling For Cognitive Health: Comparing Physical Mental And Combined Exercise, Anna Scribner Jun 2012

Cybercycling For Cognitive Health: Comparing Physical Mental And Combined Exercise, Anna Scribner

Honors Theses

Several meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCT) have shown exercise to improve cognitive function in normal aging, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia (Colcombe & Kramer, 2003, O’ Leary et al., 2011). Cognitive benefit from mental exercise alone is less definitive. A recent RCT (Anderson-Hanley et al., 2012) found greater benefit from three months of virtual-reality enhanced exercise than physical exercise alone among 79 independent living older adults. The current study aimed to replicate this work. In this study, six seniors that either lived or worked at Schaffer Heights were enrolled in the study. Participants were randomized into one of …