Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Transition From Collegiate Track & Field: An Examination Of Values And Commitment, Michael Clark

Theses and Dissertations

This study provides a glimpse into psychological factors some of the 100,000 student-athletes who leave collegiate sport each year may face and adds to current understandings of ways to best serve collegiate student-athletes prior to their departure from collegiate sport. Drawing from the theories of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and The Minnesota Theory of Work Adjustment, the study utilizes a population of former NCAA Division 1, 2, 3 and NAIA student-athletes to offer an in-depth look at the transition away from collegiate track and field. Mediation analysis was utilized to explore the interplay between commitment to values driven behavior, psychological …

Neural Correlates Underlying The Interactions Between Anxiety And Cannabis Use In Predicting Motor Response Inhibition, Richard Ward

Theses and Dissertations

The ability to effectively withhold an inappropriate response is a critical feature of cognitive control. Prior research indicates alterations in neural processes required for motor response inhibition in anxious individuals, including those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and those who engage in regular cannabis use. However, thus far most research has examined how anxiety-related symptoms and cannabis use influence response inhibition in isolation of one another. The current study examined the interactions between anxious symptomology and recent cannabis use in a sample that recently experienced a traumatic event using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the completion of a Stop-Signal …

Suicide Attempt Types In College Students, Haley Pierson

Theses and Dissertations

Although suicide is now being the second leading cause of death in college and university students, there continues to be a lack of research examining the three types of suicide attempts (i.e., aborted, interrupted, and actual). Interrupted suicide attempts have been found to be predictive of death by suicide, and aborted suicide attempts have been found to be highly associated with an actual suicide attempt (Barber, Marzuk, Leon, & Portera, 1998; Steer, Beck, Garrison, & Lester, 1988). Research continues to suggest a lifetime number of suicide attempts is regarded as one of the strongest predictors of future suicide (Suominen et …

Thinking And Talking About Kinds, Ye Ji Seoung

Theses and Dissertations

Three experiments investigated whether definite singular generics (e.g., the dog barks) require that the kind does not contain multiple subkinds. No effect of generic form was found in experiment 1 and 3. However, experiment 2 found people thought there were fewer subkinds when definite singulars referred to the kind.

Representation Of Sex-Linked Properties: Implications For Conceptual Representation And Generics, Olga A. Leus

Theses and Dissertations

Four experiments provide evidence that we represent principled connections between kinds and sex-linked properties such that one type of instance of the kind has a principled connection for the presence of the property and the other type has a principled connection for the absence of that property.

Does Subjective Time Cost Explain Cognitive Task Choices?, Raina Ashley Isaacs

Theses and Dissertations

The current literature suggests that subjective time duration could be the common currency used for task choice. However, few studies have been conducted that use non-physical tasks for their task choice options. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine if subjective time duration is the common currency for task choice regardless of task type. Participants first provided their subjective time estimates for each of the perceptual-motor and cognitive tasks that have been a priori determined to be at the medium difficulty level. Two cognitive tasks (item generation and math problem task) and one perceptual-motor task with a …

A Conceptual Replication To Investigate The Hostile Priming Effect, Charlotte Basch

Theses and Dissertations

The current study attempts a conceptual replication of Srull and Wyer’s 1979 study on hostile priming as part of a large-scale replication. The current study did not find that participants who were exposed to the hostile phrases rated the individual as more hostile as the original study did.

Decent Work As A Moderator For Survivors Of Traumatic Life Events, Matthew Carbonelli

Theses and Dissertations

The Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) is a vocational psychology theory that aims to explore the pathways and outcomes that may hinder or improve the likelihood of obtaining decent work by including contextual factors such as marginalization and economic constraints. Vocational psychology primarily focuses on individual characterological elements of obtaining work; however, limited evidence exists exploring how traumatic symptoms or exposure may affect one’s abilities to find work. This study seeks to utilize PWT to understand better how the relationship between trauma exposure and job satisfaction and personal wellbeing is moderated by decent work. Sampling consisted of 61.3% female (n …

Effect Of Task-Irrelevant Emotional Faces On Attention To A Letter Search Task At High And Low Perceptual Loads, Nina Plotnikov

Theses and Dissertations

The attentional processing of emotional faces has interested researchers over the past thirty years. However, differing methodology has led to inconsistent findings. It has been suggested that using emotional faces as task-irrelevant distractors and varying perceptual load of the primary task can create an experimental framework that will allow attentional capture by emotional face processing to be better identified and differentiated from other processes. Furthermore, the effects of time on-task on attentional processing of emotional faces are currently not well understood, in part because traditional statistical analyses, such as the ANOVA, are insufficient for finding longitudinal trends in the data. …

Third Culture Kids - Playing To Heal, Amna Sana

Theses and Dissertations

With increased globalization and a large expat population, Qatar is home to increasing numbers of Third Culture Kids (TCKs). TCKs are children who live in a country where their parents are non-native, children who grow up between cultures. Young TCKs, especially children between the ages of three and seven, do not possess the skills to adequately vocalize their feelings, but fortunately, play therapy allows them to articulate problems and feelings on their own terms. This thesis addresses the emotional hurdles facing TCKs, using concepts derived from play therapy and offering a series of interactive objects designed to reflect emotional expression …

Are Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda Melanoleuca) Averse To Inequity?, Miranda R. Trapani

Theses and Dissertations

Inequity aversion, a negative response to situations of unequal reward distribution, is a cognitive trait usually seen in social species. This capacity is thought to regulate cooperative relationships in intelligent, cognitively flexible animals. Giant pandas are a unique case in that wild populations are characterized as nonsocial, however captive populations are socially housed until sexual maturity. This allows for the study of a nonsocial species in a social context and thus the assessment of socio-cognitive flexibility across evolutionarily distant taxa. Here, we assessed whether the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) displays inequity aversion by testing ten juveniles living at …

Variation In Personality Among Semi-Wild Myanmar Timber Elephants, Sateesh Venkatesh

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines two personality traits: exploration and neophobia, which could influence human-elephant conflicts. Thirty-one semi-wild elephants were tested over two trials using a custom novel puzzle tube containing three tasks and three rewards. Our studies show that elephants do vary significantly between individuals in both exploration and neophobia.

Stradling A Cultural Doctrine: Exploring Historical Trauma On Ethnic Identity Development Among The Mestizo Peoples, Esmeralda Gill

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT STRADDLING A CULTURAL DOCTRINE: EXPLORING HISTORICAL TRAUMA ON ETHNIC IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT AMONG MESTIZO PEOPLES

by Esmeralda Gill The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2020 Under the Supervision of Professor Marty Sapp, Ed.D.

The modern descendants from the territory now known as Mexico, the Mestizo, are known to primarily be an admixture of Indigenous and European ancestry. Mestizo ethnic nomenclature acknowledges the presence of Indigenous Peoples in an individual’s ethnic background. Though the Mestizo narrative is saturated in collective mass group trauma and chronic complex forms of racism, discrimination, and systemic oppressive forces that delineate from colonialism, the Mestizo are also known …

Proactive And Reactive Cognitive Control Under Threat Of Unpredictable Shock: A Combined Eye-Tracking And Eeg Study Using Multilevel Modeling, Salahadin Lotfi

Theses and Dissertations

We are constantly bombarded by environmental distractors in daily life which interfere with internal, ongoing goals, thus cognitive control processes need to be in place to adapt to maintain these goals in light of the environmental demands. These cognitive processes (generally referred to cognitive control) are thought to be adjusted reactively or proactively to deal with distractors. There is little evidence on how state anxiety dynamically interacts with these two modes of cognitive control. Taking advantage of a multimodal methodology, through two experiments, we replicated existing findings of reactive and proactive control processes via utilizing a Flanker task in a …

Restorative Potential And Working Memory Capacity Of Exposure To Vegetation In Indoor Built Environments, Jee Heon Rhee

Theses and Dissertations

This research seeks to understand how natural elements – specifically, vegetation in the indoor environment - influence people’s ability to restore attention and working memory capacity. Previous research demonstrates the benefits of nature on human beings in various ways. For instance, numerous studies show the positive effects of nature on stress reduction (Hartig, Mang, & Evans, 1991; Ulrich et al., 1991) and attention restoration (Staats, Kieviet, & Hartig, 2003). However, most of these studies focus on the effect of nature in outdoor settings. Relatively few studies focus on the presence of natural elements indoors. This is an important gap in …

Data-Driven Approach To Dynamic Resting State Functional Connectivity In Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Carissa Weis

Theses and Dissertations

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a heterogenous psychological disorder that may result from exposure to a traumatic event. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), symptoms of PTSD have been associated with aberrations in brain networks that emerge in the absence of a given cognitive demand or task, called resting state networks. Most previous research in resting state networks and PTSD has focused on aberrations in the static functional connectivity among specific regions of interest (ROI) in the brain and within canonical networks constrained by a priori hypotheses. However, dynamic fMRI, an approach that examines changes in brain network characteristics over …

We All Feel Feelings, Ben Ohene

Theses and Dissertations

Consisting of three illustrated books, We All Feel Feelings is designed as a vehicle for the discussion of emotional and mental health with young boys. These books will help foster a mindset of openness and acceptance through different methods of displaying and understanding emotions.

The Effects Of Long-Term Memory Prioritization On Attention During Visual Search, Joshua Hoelter

Theses and Dissertations

Attention has traditionally been divided into a dichotomy, however mounting evidence suggests a third attention process is at work, one that shows attention capture because of previous experiences with a stimulus, not its physical properties. In line with this, items that have been paired with a rewarding or aversive outcome, items held in working memory, and items incidentally retrieved from long term memory have all been shown to capture attention in an obligatory fashion similar to bottom-up attentional processes. More recent work into how items in working memory capture attention, has demonstrated that items can attain a special status that …

Counseling Psychologists' Experiences Addressing Sexual Health Of Clients: A Sex-Positive Perspective, Jennifer Watjen

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the lived experiences of counseling psychologists in assisting their clients with sexual health needs. Special attention was given to their understanding and feelings of competency in using a sex-positive framework to assist clients with their sexual health. The study used a phenomenological data analysis method to qualitatively study 5 semi-structured interviews of licensed counseling psychologists. Interview questions addressed counseling psychologists’ experiences in assisting clients with their sexual health and focused on the following areas: (a) counseling psychology values, (b) professional experiences with sexual health, (c) graduate training experiences in sexual health, and (d) value influences related to …

The Impact Of Task Load On Neural Entrainment To Attended Speech: A Dual-Task Magnetoencephalography (Meg) Paradigm, Michelle Tamar Kassel

Theses and Dissertations

Speech comprehension in a noisy environment requires active cognitive control mechanisms to select the relevant speech signal while filtering out irrelevant distractions. When processing speech in a multitask scenario, neural resources underlying cognitive control are considerably burdened and interfering information becomes more difficult to ignore. The present study utilized magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate the impact of multitasking on selective attention to speech. Twenty healthy adults performed a multitask paradigm with varying levels of both competing auditory distraction and concurrent visual working memory load. While increased visual working memory load was associated with reduced selective attention to speech in both the …

The Association Of Aerobic Fitness With Resting State Functional Connectivity And Verbal Learning And Memory In Healthy Young Adults, Kyle Joseph Jennette

Theses and Dissertations

The beneficial effects of exercise and cardiopulmonary fitness on general health, quality of life, and reduction of mortality are well known in older adults. There is evidence to support the positive effects of exercise and aerobic fitness on psychiatric and neurocognitive function in children, adults, and older adults. Indeed, many studies have explored the positive effects of aerobic fitness on slowing cognitive decline associated with normal and pathological aging. However, comparatively fewer empirical studies in the literature exist to support and understand the effects of aerobic fitness on the developing brain, particularly during adolescence and young adulthood, especially as it …

Exploring The Effect Of Service Dogs On Ptsd Symptoms In Veterans, Lauren Floore-Guetschow

Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing psychiatric service dogs for PTSD is a relatively new area of research and treatment option for veterans. This qualitative research study aims to look at the effects of the use of psychiatric service dogs on veterans with PTSD for veterans who have or were previously receiving traditional mental health treatment. The researcher was looking to see: how does day-to-day life look for these veterans, have they noticed a change in PTSD symptoms, what are their views on mental health treatment, and how do they view being in public? 7 veterans, from a variety of conflicts and branches were interviewed …

Gender Role Conflict, Emotion Regulation, And Ptsd Symptom Severity In Acutely Injured Trauma Survivors, Katelyn Elaine Heyrman

Theses and Dissertations

Within the acutely injured population, men are at an increased risk for trauma exposure and hospitalization. Previous literature has suggested that emotional dysregulation and masculine gender roles are associated with psychological distress and maintenance of PTSD symptoms. Despite these findings, researchers have focused their attention on masculine gender roles within the Veteran and college populations. The current study aimed to assess the Gender Role Conflict within the acutely injured population and determine if emotion regulation strategy moderated the relationship between masculine gender roles and PTSD symptom severity. Participants consisted of 90 traumatically injured, cisgender males (Mage= 44.88 years; 60% White) …

Measuring Outcome Expectations In Academic Persistence, Michael Kozlowski

Theses and Dissertations

Academic persistence, or a student’s decision to leave an institution of higher education, has remained an inveterate puzzle to researchers, theoreticians, institutions, and counselors. Despite a large body of theoretical and empirical literature, the rate at which students leave institutions of higher education has remained stable over the past 50 years. The discipline of counseling psychology has a long tradition of investigating academic persistence from a psychological perspective. Earlier investigations in counseling psychology focused on identifying psychopathological traits, cognitive abilities, and contextual factors associated with a student’s decision to leave. These investigations were met with a sociological reaction that has …

Shaped By The Environment: The Influence Of Childhood Trauma Exposure, Individual Socioeconomic Position, And Neighborhood Disadvantage On Brain Morphology, Elisabeth Kathleen Webb

Theses and Dissertations

The relationship between an individual’s socioeconomic position (SEP) and their overall physical and mental health has been well demonstrated. Far less is known about how area-level factors, such as neighborhood disadvantage, “get under the skin”. Previous research indicates lower SEP and childhood trauma negatively effects brain structure and function. The hippocampus, amygdala, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) are particularly vulnerable to adversity. The current study investigated how individual SEP, childhood trauma, and neighborhood disadvantage impact these structures. Two-hundred and fifteen individuals were recruited from an Emergency Department in southeastern Wisconsin. Two-weeks post-traumatic injury, participants completed a structural magnetic resonance imaging …

From Playing To Directing: A Qualitative Inquiry Into The Athlete To Coach Transition, Jamie M. Zalasin

Theses and Dissertations

The following dissertation explored six (n = 6), current, professional baseball coaches' experience with transitioning from playing to coaching. Some experiences associated with athletic transitions based on the literature include missing sport or competition, body changes, social status changes, and vocational concerns (Wylleman & Reints, 2010; Park & Lavallee, 2015). Additionally, the salience of one's athletic identity can create difficulties such as identity loss, emotional distress, and grief (Lally, 2007; Fortunato & Marchant, 1998; Grove, Lavalle, & Gordon, 1997). Within vocational concerns, there can be uncertainty about the next career's link to sports. For many professional athletes, their age of …

Testing Reliability Of Biophilic Design Matrix Within Urban Residential Playrooms, Ellen Marte

Theses and Dissertations

Biophilic interior design in urban playrooms has been greatly understudied. We measured inter-rater reliability of the Biophilic Interior Design Matrix (BID-M) and matrix items by quantitatively coding images of 45 New York City residential playrooms. Findings suggest that the BID-M needs to be modified to better assess urban playrooms.

Presence And Degree Of Contrafreeloading In African Grey Parrots (Psittacus Erithacus), Gabriella E. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined contrafreeloading—choosing a physical task to access food over free food—in two Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus). Both birds contrafreeloaded for food of equal or higher value, but differed in which contrafreeloading task they preferred. Differences between the parrots are considered as individual preferences for self-reinforcing tasks.

Using Object-Choice Tasks To Investigate Sensory Perception In Sunda Pangolins (Manis Javanica), Joshua Dipaola

Theses and Dissertations

Pangolins are one of the most heavily poached, yet least understood mammals in the world. In this study, we used an object-choice task to assess the ecological relevance and use of sensory information in Sunda pangolin foraging behavior. This is the first controlled experiment on pangolin behavior to our knowledge.

Talking And Thinking About Animal And Artifact Kinds Via Different Types Of Generics, Lyan-Joy M. Lugay

Theses and Dissertations

Generic statements are expressions that talk about kinds or categories and there are several forms. Through the use of surveys, this study examined the way native English speakers talk and think about novel animal kinds and artifacts using two forms: the definite singular form and the bare plural form.