Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Change Of Perception And Positive Attitudes Toward Therapy: A Comparative Analysis Conducted On Veterans Of The United States Of America, Hailey Buitrago, Desiree Crevecoeur-Macphail

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Active duty military members can be subjected to significant amounts of stress, trauma, and physical and mental exhaustion during their service periods. It is vital to recognize the extent of these mental health disorders because they affect 27% of veterans, and when not adequately treated, they can lead to increased functional disability, even more so than physical illnesses (Philips, 2016; Wells et al., 1989). This study aims to examine how different types of information influence the perceptions of therapy for veterans. Veterans of all branches of the United States military between the ages of 18 and 100 were asked to …

Myths And Fables Of Electroconvulsive Therapy: Knowledge, Attitudes, And Stigmas Of Ect In College Students, Madison Anne Brown

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This study builds upon extensive research on Electroconvulsive Therapy’s (ECT) effectiveness and advancements over time while providing insight into its continuous stigmatization as a psychotherapeutic treatment. The literature provided in this paper explores ECT’s historical background and its misrepresentations in society commonly perpetuated in the media. To further examine present day perceptions of ECT, this study evaluated Bard College undergraduate students’ (n = 24) knowledge, attitudes, and stigmas towards ECT. The data was collected using a five part questionnaire concerning the socio-demographic of participants (part 1), stigmas about ECT (part 2), knowledge about ECT (part 3), sources of knowledge of …

Development Of A New Measure Of Political Ideology, Vanessa M. Sinclair

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Ideology is central to political psychology, but despite recent renewed interest in studying political ideology, its measurement is inconsistent. Ideology scales are numerous and heterogeneous in content. Further, there is disagreement on whether ideology is unidimensional multi-dimensional, and what the nature of these dimensions are. These inconsistencies limit the generalizability of conclusions made about ideology as it relates to political views and behaviour. There is a clear need for a conceptual model that is grounded in theory, and for a well-validated scale that organizes and quantifies ideology. Chapter 1 reviews the state of ideology measurement and identifies plausible dimensions supported …

Tugging At Their Heartstrings: Partner’S Knowledge Of Affective Meta-Bases Predicts Use Of Emotional Advocacies In Close Relationships, Kenneth Tan, Ya Hui Michelle See

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Traditional studies of attitude change have focused on attempts between strangers, but what about in close relationships? The present article examines whether accuracy regarding a partner's meta-attitudinal bases can influence persuasion attempts. Because meta-bases reflect informationprocessing goals, we hypothesized that given partners with more affective meta-bases, greater accuracy regarding partners' meta-bases would predict use of emotional advocacies and their perceived persuasiveness. Self and partner ratings of meta-bases were assessed, and emotional advocacies as well as cognitive ones were provided to participants to present to their partners. Results revealed that the correspondence between perceptions of partner's affective meta-bases and use of …

Optimism And Risk Of Incident Hypertension: A Target For Primordial Prevention, Laura D. Kubzansky, Julia K. Boehm, Andrew R. Allen, Loryana L. Vie, Tiffany E. Ho, Claudia Trudel-Fitzgerald, Hayami K. Koga, Lawrence M. Scheier, Martin E. P. Seligman

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Aims

Optimism is associated with reduced cardiovascular disease risk; however, few prospective studies have considered optimism in relation to hypertension risk specifically. We investigated whether optimism was associated with a lower risk of developing hypertension in U.S. service members, who are more likely to develop high blood pressure early in life. We also evaluated race/ethnicity, sex and age as potential effect modifiers of these associations.

Methods

Participants were 103 486 hypertension-free U.S. Army active-duty soldiers (mean age 28.96 years, 61.76% White, 20.04% Black, 11.01% Hispanic, 4.09% Asian, and 3.10% others). We assessed optimism, sociodemographic characteristics, health conditions, health behaviours and …

Keep The Faith Not The Guilt: Demonization Of Sex Workers, Jessica Hodges

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

Previous research shows that religiosity and attitudes about sexual topics are strongly correlated and typically negative. That is, as religiosity increases, views toward sexual topics tend to become more conservative or generally more negative in valence. However, current research also suggests that one’s sexual guilt may be the mediating influence in the relationship between religiosity and negative sexual attitudes. The present study seeks to replicate and extend research that examined the extent to which an individual's religiosity and sexual guilt influence their perspective of pornography and sex workers (Study 1). To replicate this (Study 2), a survey containing relevant measures …

Mathematics Attitudes And Mathematics Performance: Novel Approaches Towards Noncognitive Educational Measurement, Applications To Large-Scale Assessment Data, And Examinations Of Multigroup Invariance, Kalina Gjicali

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Academic performance is predicted by a multitude of demographic, contextual, cognitive, and noncognitive constructs. The noncognitive factors of achievement in mathematics that have previously been explored in depth are study skills, collaborative problem-solving, confidence, self-efficacy, and personality traits (Kyllonen, 2012). Limited applied research has explored the predictive value of noncognitive factors such as attitudes and beliefs in mathematics achievement – even though attitudes towards mathematics are a promising avenue for understanding the variability in mathematics achievement. The current research uses the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explain high school students’ performance in mathematics in a series of three studies. …

A Weight–Related Growth Mindset Increases Negative Attitudes Towards Obese People, Nic Hooper, Alison Crumpton, Michael D. Robinson, Brian P. Meier

Psychology Faculty Publications

In implicit personality theory, people with entity views or a fixed mindset perceive characteristics (e.g., intelligence) as uncontrollable, whereas people with incremental views or a growth mindset perceive characteristics as controllable. In addition to other benefits, the literature sometimes suggests that having a growth mindset will protect against prejudice, which the current two studies examine in terms of negative attitudes towards obese people. Participants (total N = 501) were randomly assigned to complete a questionnaire assessing attitudes towards an obese or non-obese person and a self-theory questionnaire also assessed ideas about body weight. People with a growth mindset, and not …

Effects Of Self-Affirmation On Anti-Terror Related Worldview Defense Following Mortality Salience, Haley Jewel Ramsey

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Previous research has demonstrated that self-affirmation via values affirmations seem to buffer the self against perceived threats (Steele, 1988). An example of such a threat is opposing worldviews regarding civil liberties in counterterrorism policies. The present study uses the threat of worldview opposition in regards to counterterrorism policies in conjunction with an experimental induction of mortality salience to explore whether self-affirmation can attenuate increases in worldview defense following mortality salience. It was hypothesized that mortality salience would increase worldview defense, but that self-affirmation would decrease worldview defense following exposure to a worldview threat. When extremity of attitudes toward civil liberties …

Revealed Traits: A Novel Method For Estimating Cross-Cultural Similarities And Differences In Personality, Cory Costello, Dustin Wood, William Tov

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Cross-cultural research on personality has often led to surprising and countertheoretical findings, which have led to concerns over the validity of country-level estimates of personality (e.g., Heine, Buchtel, & Norenzayan, 2008). The present study explores how cross-cultural differences can be indexed via revealed trait estimates, which index the personality traits of individuals or groups indirectly through their likelihood of responding in particular ways to particular situations. In two studies, we measure self-reports of personality, revealed traits, and revealed preferences for different expected effects (e.g., experiencing excitement) of two cultural groups (U.S. and Singaporean participants). We found typical East–West differences in …

The Heart Of Ideology: Bringing Compassion Into The Political Sphere, Vanessa M. Sinclair

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Individual differences are pivotal in predicting sociopolitical views, which in turn guide behaviours like voting decisions, career choices, or engagement in activism. Compassion, a trait related to empathy and prosocial behaviour, has shown promise in predicting reduced hostile, anti-egalitarian attitudes. Certain kinds of political beliefs can be termed hierarchy-legitimizing in that they perpetuate or enhance existing societal hierarchies, such as economic inequality or racial discrimination. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between compassion for others and hierarchy-legitimizing viewpoints, as mediated by the characteristic of Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). A sample of 590 undergraduate students completed measures …

College Students’ Attitudes Towards Adults With Developmental Disabilities: Does Direct Contact Make A Difference?, Caroline E. Greene

Honors College Theses

Data were collected from thirty college students who participated in an alternative break trip and approximately seventy college students who did not attend the trip. Study subjects served as counselors at a camp for adults with developmental disabilities. Data were collected using five measures: a) before the week started, students filled out a survey which questioned their comfort level and attitude when interacting with this population; b) this same survey was administered to a random sample of college students who did not attend the break trip c) at camp, students kept a journal throughout the week documenting their experiences; d) …

Does Anyone Really Like Horror Movies? Personality And Automatic Affective Reactions To Frightening Films, Michael E. Battista

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

I sought to explain why many people willingly expose themselves to apparently unpleasant media, such as horror movies. Participants (N = 133) completed a modified version of the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP; Payne et al., 2005), which assessed initial affective reactions to screenshots from movies that were either frightening or neutral. The time between exposure to the screenshots and assessment of affect was either short (100 ms) or long (1000 ms). Explicit attitudes about the movies and about the horror genre were also assessed, in addition to the following personality variables: The Big Five, Machiavellianism (from the Supernumerary Personality …

Attitudes, William A. Cunningham, Ingrid J. Haas, Andrew Jahn

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

This chapter reviews social neuroscience research that links social psychological attitudes and evaluative processes to their presumed neural bases. The chapter is organized into four parts. The first section discusses how attitude representations are transformed into evaluative states that can be used to guide thought and action. The next two sections address the related processes of attitude learning and change. The final section discusses applications of these concepts for the study of prejudice and political behavior.

Socio-Political Influences On Efl Motivation And Attitudes: Comparative Surveys Of Korean High School Students, Tae-Young Kim Dr.

Dr. Tae-Young Kim (김태영, 金兌英)

No abstract provided.

Motivation And Attitudes Toward Foreign Language Learning As Socio-Politically Mediated Constructs: The Case Of Korean High School Students, Tae-Young Kim Dr.

Dr. Tae-Young Kim (김태영, 金兌英)

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Transportation Mode Choice And Well-Being: An Ecological Perspective, Carolyn King

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The present study is based on an ecological analysis of transport and wellbeing as devised by Stokols and Novaco (1981). This study seeks to examine the link between transport mode and well-being. One hundred and eight Participants (N= 1 08) filled out a questionnaire that contained the psychological well-being scales of self-efficacy, general health and perceived stress; and the organizational scales of job satisfaction and absenteeism. The participants were divided into groups of 18 according to which transport mode they used. The transport mode groups were drive alone, train, bus, car pool, walk or cycle. It was hypothesized that there …