Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Perceptions Of Peer Sexual Behavior: Do Adolescents Believe In A Sexual Double Standard?, Michael Young, Susan Cardenas, Joseph Donnelly, Mark J. Kittleson

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

BACKGROUND

The purpose of the study was to (1) examine attitudes of adolescents toward peer models having sex or choosing abstinence, and (2) determine whether a “double standard” in perception existed concerning adolescent abstinence and sexual behavior.

METHODS

Adolescents (N = 173) completed questionnaires that included 1 of 6 randomly assigned vignettes that described male and female peer models 3 ways: (1) no information about model's sexual behavior, (2) model in love but choosing abstinence, and (3) model in love and having sex. Participants read the vignette to which they had been assigned and responded to statements about the peer …

Can School Counselors Deliver Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment For Social Anxiety Effectively? A Randomized Controlled Trial, Carrie Masia, Daniela Colognori, Chad Brice, Kathleen Herzig, Laura Mufson, Chelsea Lynch, Philip T. Reiss, Eva Petkova, Jeremy K Fox, Dominic C. Moceri, Julie Ryan, Rachel G. Klein

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Background: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) typically onsets in adolescence and is associated with multiple impairments. Despite promising clinical interventions, most socially anxious adolescents remain untreated. To address this clinical neglect, we developed a school-based, 12-week group intervention for youth with SAD, Skills for Academic and Social Success (SASS). When implemented by psychologists, SASS has been found effective. To promote dissemination and optimize treatment access, we tested whether school counselors could be effective treatment providers. Method: We randomized 138, ninth through 11th graders with SAD to one of three conditions: (a) SASS delivered by school counselors (C-SASS), (b) SASS delivered by …

Many Labs 3: Evaluating Participant Pool Quality Across The Academic Semester Via Replication, Charles R. Ebersole, Olivia E. Atherton, Aimee L. Belanger, Hayley M. Skulborstad, Jill M. Allen, Jonathan B. Banks, Erica Baranski, Michael J. Bernstein, Diane B.V. Bonfiglio, Leanne Boucher, Elizabeth R. Brown, Nancy I. Budiman, Athena H. Cairo, Colin A. Capaldi, Christopher R. Chartier, Joanne M. Chung, David C. Cicero, Jennifer A. Coleman, John G. Conway, William E. Davis, Thierry Devos, Melody M. Fletcher, Komi German, Jon E. Grahe, Anthony D. Hermann, Joshua A. Hicks, Nathan Honeycutt, Brandon Humphrey, Matthew Janus, David J. Johnson, John Paul Wilson

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The university participant pool is a key resource for behavioral research, and data quality is believed to vary over the course of the academic semester. This crowdsourced project examined time of semester variation in 10 known effects, 10 individual differences, and 3 data quality indicators over the course of the academic semester in 20 participant pools (N = 2696) and with an online sample (N = 737). Weak time of semester effects were observed on data quality indicators, participant sex, and a few individual differences—conscientiousness, mood, and stress. However, there was little evidence for time of semester qualifying experimental or …

The Contributions Of Handedness And Working Memory To Episodic Memory, Aparna Sahu, Stephen D. Christman, Ruth Propper

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Past studies have independently shown associations of working memory and degree of handedness with episodic memory retrieval. The current study takes a step ahead by examining whether handedness and working memory independently predict episodic memory. In agreement with past studies, there was an inconsistent-handed advantage for episodic memory; however, this advantage was absent for working memory tasks. Furthermore, regression analyses showed handedness, and complex working memory predicted episodic memory performance at different times. Results are discussed in light of theories of episodic memory and hemispheric interaction.

Discriminative Stimulus Properties Of 1.25 Mg/Kg Clozapine In Rats: Mediation By Serotonin 5-Ht2 And Dopamine D4 Receptors, Adam J. Prus, Laura E. Wise, Alan Pehrson, Scott D. Philibin, Benny Bang-Andersen, Jørn Arnt, Joseph H. Porter

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The atypical antipsychotic drug clozapine remains one of most effective treatments for schizophrenia, given a lack of extrapyramidal side effects, improvements in negative symptoms, cognitive impairment, and in symptoms in treatment-resistant schizophrenia. The adverse effects of clozapine, including agranulocytosis, make finding a safe clozapine-like a drug a goal for drug developers. The drug discrimination paradigm is a model of interoceptive stimulus that has been used in an effort to screen experimental drugs for clozapine-like atypical antipsychotic effects. The present study was conducted to elucidate the receptor-mediated stimulus properties that form this clozapine discriminative cue by testing selective receptor ligands in …

People Use Psychological Cues To Detect Physical Disease From Faces, Konstantin O. Tskhay, John Paul Wilson, Nicholas O. Rule

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Previous theoretical work has suggested that people can accurately perceive disease from others’ appearances and behaviors. However, much of that research has examined diseases with relatively obvious symptoms (e.g., scars, obesity, blemishes, sneezing). Here, we examined whether people similarly detect diseases that do not exhibit such visible physical cues (i.e., sexually transmitted diseases). We found that people could indeed identify individuals infected with sexually transmitted diseases significantly better than chance from photos of their faces. Perceptions of the targets’ affective expression and socioeconomic status mediated participants’ accuracy. Finally, increasing participants’ contamination fears improved their sensitivity to disease cues. These data …

Mother–Daughter Relationship Quality And Body Image In Preadolescent Girls, Jane Ellen Smith, Sarah J. Erickson, Julia L. Austin, Jaime L. Winn, Denise N. Lash, Paul Amrhein

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Research suggests that mothers may play a role in girls’ body image development. The “interactive” hypothesis specifies that qualities of the mother–daughter relationship, as opposed to maternal modeling alone, predict daughter’s body image. We sought to understand how maternal relationship quality, from the perception of both daughters and mothers, was associated with preadolescent girls’ body image. The relationship between mother–daughter relationship quality and daughters’ body image was examined in 152 girls (ages 8–12) and their mothers. Mothers and daughters primarily identified as non-Hispanic white or Hispanic. Hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that daughters’ perception of mother–daughter relationship quality was associated …

Task- And Treatment Length–Dependent Effects Of Vortioxetine On Scopolamine-Induced Cognitive Dysfunction And Hippocampal Extracellular Acetylcholine In Rats, Alan Pehrson, Todd M. Hillhouse, Nasser Haddjeri, Renaud Rovera, Joseph H. Porter, Arne Mørk, Gennady Smagin, Dekun Song, David Budac, Manuel Cajina, Connie Sanchez

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common psychiatric disorder that often features impairments in cognitive function, and these cognitive symptoms can be important determinants of functional ability. Vortioxetine is a multimodal antidepressant that may improve some aspects of cognitive function in patients with MDD, including attention, processing speed, executive function, and memory. However, the cause of these effects is unclear, and there are several competing theories on the underlying mechanism, notably including regionally-selective downstream enhancement of glutamate neurotransmission and increased acetylcholine (ACh) neurotransmission. The current work sought to evaluate the ACh hypothesis by examining vortioxetine's ability to reverse scopolamine-induced impairments …

Mapping Concentrations Of Posttraumatic Stress And Depression Trajectories Following Hurricane Ike, Oliver Gruebner, Sarah R. Lowe, Melissa Tracy, Spruha Joshi, Magdalena Cerdá, Fran H. Norris, S V. Subramanian, Sandro Galea

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We investigated geographic concentration in elevated risk for a range of postdisaster trajectories of chronic posttraumatic stress symptom (PTSS) and depression symptoms in a longitudinal study (N = 561) of a Hurricane Ike affected population in Galveston and Chambers counties, TX. Using an unadjusted spatial scan statistic, we detected clusters of elevated risk of PTSS trajectories, but not depression trajectories, on Galveston Island. We then tested for predictors of membership in each trajectory of PTSS and depression (e.g., demographic variables, trauma exposure, social support), not taking the geographic nature of the data into account. After adjusting for significant predictors in …

Children's Anxious Reactions To An Invasive Medical Procedure: The Role Of Medical And Non-Medical Fears, Jeremy K Fox, Leslie F. Halpern, Barbara C. Dangman, Karla M. Giramonti, Barry A. Kogan

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This study investigated the relationship of medical and non-medical fears to children's anxiety, pain, and distress during an invasive medical procedure, the voiding cystourethrogram. Parents of 34 children completed the Fear Survey Schedule-II prior to their child's procedure. Child distress behaviors during the procedure were audiotaped and coded using the Child-Adult Medical Procedure Interaction Scale-Revised. Ratings of child procedural anxiety and pain were obtained from children, parents, and examining technologists within minutes following the procedure. Associations were observed between medical fears, procedural anxiety (parent and staff reports), and coded distress behaviors. Findings may inform preparation efforts to reduce anxiety around …

Parents' Intentions To Allow Youth Football Participation : Perceived Concussion Risk And An Augmented Theory Of Planned Behavior, Ashley Morgan Murphy

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Youth football participation numbers have seen a decline in recent years, with many believing that the risk of head injury is to blame for the decrease. One step to reversing the decline in participation is to understand why fewer children are participating in football. Using an augmented version of the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study looked at the predictors of parents' intentions to allow their children to participate in football. It was hypothesized that in addition to attitudes, social norms, and behavioral control, perceived concussion risk would be a predictor of intention to allow football participation. An online survey …

Catching The Drift: Carol A. Fowler On Phonetic Variation And Imitation, Jennifer Pardo

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In Carol Fowler's Direct Realist account of speech perception, linguistically significant gestures of the vocal tract are a common currency for both speech perception and production. A straightforward prediction of this account is that listeners will produce what they perceive, leading to imitation or gestural drift. Many studies by Fowler and colleagues have established gestural imitation across acoustic, perceptual, and articulatory measures and provided a valuable framework for understanding phonetic form variation and imitation. As such, this framework's enduring legacy will continue to enrich an understanding of phonetic form variation in spoken communication. This article reviews Fowler's pioneering work on …

The State Of Multiculturalism And Diversity In Undergraduate Psychology Training, Milton Fuentes, Casey R. Shannon

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Over the past few decades, diversity and multiculturalism have received considerable attention in the field of psychology. While there have been notable efforts to ensure these important areas are addressed in undergraduate psychology training, little is known about this undertaking. The present study examined how diversity and multiculturalism were addressed in the course titles and course descriptions of 200 undergraduate, psychology programs across North America and their corresponding general education programs. Analyses revealed that while most undergraduate psychology programs offered diversity or multicultural courses, very few programs required these courses. Moreover, when these courses were offered, they typically examined diversity …

An Rct To Treat Learning Impairment In Traumatic Brain Injury, Nancy D. Chiaravalloti, Joshua Sandry, Nancy B. Moore, John Deluca

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Objective. To examine the efficacy of the modified Story Memory Technique (mSMT) to improve learning (ie, acquisition) and memory in participants with TBI. The mSMT is a behavioral intervention that teaches context and imagery to facilitate learning within 10 sessions over 5 weeks. Methods. A total of 69 participants with moderate-severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), 35 in the treatment group and 34 in the placebo control group, completed this double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial. A baseline neuropsychological assessment was administered, including questionnaires assessing everyday memory. Repeat assessments were conducted immediately posttreatment and 6 months following treatment. Participants in the treatment …

Technology And Opportunity: People With Serious Mental Illness And Social Connection, Lisa Townsend, Allison Zippay, Kyle Caler, Bradley Forenza

Department of Social Work and Child Advocacy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Objective: Little information exists regarding how individuals with serious mental illness use technology and whether this usage facilitates social connections. This study contributes to filling this knowledge gap by examining ways in which a sample of persons with serious mental illness use cell phones and the Internet. Methods: Interviews with 50 consumers living in supported housing were asked about their use of cell phones and computers and their perceptions of social connections. Results: Cell phones and computers allowed greater linkage with social, medical, mental health, and employment resources. Nearly all obtained phones through publicly funded programs. “Running out of minutes” …

Breastfeeding: The Illusion Of Choice, Yeon Bai, Lauren Dinour

Department of Nutrition and Food Studies Scholarship and Creative Works

Background

Breastfeeding is frequently described as a woman's decision, yet this choice is often illusionary owing to suboptimal social and structural supports. Despite the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010) that requires all qualifying employers to provide mothers “reasonable” break time and a private, non-bathroom space to express breast milk, the majority of women in the United States still do not have access to both accommodations.

The Problem

At least three issues may be influencing this suboptimal implementation at workplaces: 1) federal law does not address lactation space functionality and accessibility, 2) federal law only …

Individual Differences In Working Memory Capacity Predicts Responsiveness To Memory Rehabilitation After Traumatic Brain Injury, Joshua Sandry, Kathy S. Chiou, John Deluca, Nancy D. Chiaravalloti

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Objective To explore how individual differences affect rehabilitation outcomes by specifically investigating whether working memory capacity (WMC) can be used as a cognitive marker to identify who will and will not improve from memory rehabilitation. Design Post hoc analysis of a randomized controlled clinical trial designed to treat learning and memory impairment after traumatic brain injury (TBI): 2 × 2 between-subjects quasiexperimental design (2 [group: treatment vs control] × 2 [WMC: high vs low]). Setting Nonprofit medical rehabilitation research center. Participants Participants (N=65) with moderate to severe TBI with pre- and posttreatment data. Interventions The treatment group completed 10 cognitive …

Relationships Between Delinquency And Substance Use Among Adolescents Emancipating From Foster Care, Svetlana Shpiegel, Jamey J. Lister, Richard Isralowitz

Department of Social Work and Child Advocacy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Adolescents emancipating from foster care exhibit high rates of both delinquency and substance use, although it is less clear how these behaviors relate to one another. We aimed to examine the reciprocal relationships between these risk behaviors while accounting for relevant child welfare factors. We use data from the Multi-Site Evaluation of Foster Youth Programs to explore longitudinal associations between delinquent behaviors and substance use (tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana) among youths ages 17 and 18 (N = 429). Delinquency at age 17 was a positive predictor of substance use at age 18, after controlling for baseline use of substances. …

When Is Business Necessity A Necessity? : The Effect Of Disability, Status, And Nature Of Accommodation On Decisions To Accommodate Disabled And Pregnant Employees, Pamela Farago

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

A recent plethora of discrimination court cases regarding granting disability and pregnancy accommodations have brought to light many questions surrounding why outcome decisions have lacked uniformity. One such answer to these questions may be the central role that “business necessity” plays in whether or not a disabled or pregnant employee is granted accommodation. The current study sought to explore the potential perceptual bias in business necessity by investigating whether pregnant and disabled candidates were accommodated similarly and whether job status and the nature of the accommodation influenced decisions to accommodate. Using a group of HR professionals as our sample, the …

Infants' Categorization Of Goal Events, Danielle Spinelli

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Infants can discriminate the difference between goal (endpoint; e.g., duck walking to a tree) and source events (starting point; e.g., duck walking away from tree), and they show a preference for the goals over the source events (Lakusta et al., 2007; Lakusta & Carey, 2015). The current experiment explored to what extent 10-18 month old infants categorically represent goal spatial relations. The present experiment is an extension of Lakusta, Yuschak, & Batinjane (2014) which found that 14-month old infants show evidence for goal and, sometimes, source categorization. Because there is evidence for 14-month old categorization the current experiment tested younger …

Do Happy American And Japanese Adults Become Similar In Psychological Ttraits As They Age?, Masahiro Toyama

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

As happiness has been a popular topic, philosophers and researchers as well as lay people have continued to discuss it. The potential factors which lead to happiness may be influenced by culture and age. Referring to previous findings on distinctive characteristics between Western and Eastern cultures and age effects on psychological traits and well-being, the present study examined potential similarities and differences among age groups of American and Japanese adults with different levels of happiness. The age groups studied consisted of those aged 35-49, 50-64, and 65-79. It was hypothesized that psychological traits including independence, interdependence, extraversión, and neuroticism become …

The Effect Of Charisma, Voice Pitch, And Information Richness On Leadership Perception And Follower Performance, Hillman Wirawan

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This study aimed to investigate the effect of charisma, voice pitch, and information richness on followers’ perceptions of leadership and task performance. A number of previous studies consistently found significant effects of charisma on performance. Similarly, some studies found the effect of lower voice pitch on leadership perception and effectiveness. In addition, the growth of information technology has changed the way leaders influence followers, making this variable an interesting one to examine. This study employed 2 (charisma vs. non-charisma) x 2 (low vs. high voice pitch) x 2 (strong vs. weak information delivery) experimental design. The participants were undergrad students …

Measures Of Handedness, Kyle Michael Dodd

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Previous handedness research focused on comparing left-handers (LH) and right-handers (RH). Recently, researchers have compared consistent-handed and inconsistent-handed people, as defined by the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI). Consistent-handers (CH) typically use their dominant hand for nearly all manual activities whereas inconsistent-handers (IH) do not necessarily have a dominant hand or have no preference in hand use across several daily, manual activities. Degree of handedness is consistently found as the more robust variable in handedness research. Additionally, relying solely on self-reports to identify and categorize handedness instead of longer assessments of handedness, may not able a researcher to capture the subtle …

A Dyadic Perspective On Speech Accommodation And Social Connection: Both Partners' Rejection Sensitivity Matters, Lauren Aguilar, Geraldine Downey, Robert Krauss, Jennifer Pardo, Sean Lane, Niall Bolger

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Findings from confederate paradigms predict that mimicry is an adaptive route to social connection for rejection-sensitive individuals (Lakin, Chartrand, & Arkin, 2008). However, dyadic perspectives predict that whether mimicry leads to perceived connection depends on the rejection sensitivity (RS) of both partners in an interaction. We investigated these predictions in 50 college women who completed a dyadic cooperative task in which members were matched or mismatched in being dispositionally high or low in RS. We used a psycholinguistics paradigm to assess, through independent listeners' judgments (N=162), how much interacting individuals accommodate phonetic aspects of their speech toward each other. Results …

Derived Relations Moderate The Association Between Changes In The Strength Of Commitment Language And Cocaine Treatment Response, Kenneth M. Carpenter, Paul Amrhein, Krysten W. Bold, Kaitlyn Mishlen, Frances R. Levin, Wilfrid N. Raby, Suzette M. Evans, Richard W. Foltin, Edward V. Nunes

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The psycholinguistic analysis of client-counselor interactions indicates that how individuals talk about their substance use is associated with treatment outcome. However, the processes by which client speech influences out-of-session behaviors have not been clearly delineated. This study investigated the relationships between deriving relations-a key behavioral process by which language and cognition may come to influence behavior, shifts in the strength of client talk in favor of change, and treatment outcome among 75 cocaine-dependent participants (23% Female). Participants were trained to relate cocaine words, nonsense syllables, and negative-consequence words and were then assessed for a derived relation of equivalence before starting …

Effects Of Serotonin In The Hippocampus: How Ssris And Multimodal Antidepressants Might Regulate Pyramidal Cell Function, Elena Dale, Alan Pehrson, Theepica Jeyarajah, Yan Li, Steven C. Leiser, Gennady Smagin, Christina K. Olsen, Connie Sanchez

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The hippocampus plays an important role in emotional and cognitive processing, and both of these domains are affected in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Extensive preclinical research and the notion that modulation of serotonin (5-HT) neurotransmission plays a key role in the therapeutic efficacy of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) support the view that 5-HT is important for hippocampal function in normal and disease-like conditions. The hippocampus is densely innervated by serotonergic fibers, and the majority of 5-HT receptor subtypes are expressed there. Furthermore, hippocampal cells often co-express multiple 5-HT receptor subtypes that can have either complementary or opposing …

Community Versus Clinical Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention In Young-Adult Spanish Population With Generalized Social Phobia, Pablo J. Olivares-Olivares, José Olivares, Diego Macià Anton, Araceli Macià, Luis Montesinos

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The study investigates how to improve the results reported by the reviews on the effects of clinical inter- ventions in adults with Generalized Social Phobia. The sample was composed of 91 participants (median age = 19.90 years, SD = 1.05) randomly assigned to three experimental conditions. The evaluations were conducted before and after treatment in all three groups and at 6-, 12-, and 24-month follow-up for the treatment groups. The results show (a) the effectiveness of the cognitive-behavioral strategy of detection and intervention, in a community context, versus clinical intervention both for the short and medium term; and (b) a …

Regional Distribution Of Serotonergic Receptors: A Systems Neuroscience Perspective On The Downstream Effects Of The Multimodal-Acting Antidepressant Vortioxetine On Excitatory And Inhibitory Neurotransmission, Alan Pehrson, Theepica Jeyarajah, Connie Sanchez

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Previous work from this laboratory hypothesized that the multimodal antidepressant vortioxetine enhances cognitive function through a complex mechanism, using serotonergic (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) receptor actions to modulate gamma-butyric acid (GABA) and glutamate neurotransmission in key brain regions like the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus. However, serotonergic receptors have circumscribed expression patterns, and therefore vortioxetine's effects on GABA and glutamate neurotransmission will probably be regionally selective. In this article, we attempt to develop a conceptual framework in which the effects of 5-HT, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and vortioxetine on GABA and glutamate neurotransmission can be understood in the PFC and striatum …

Just Dessert: Serving Fruit As A Separate "Dessert" Course Increases Vegetable Consumption In A School Lunch, Debra Zellner, Jennifer L. Cobuzzi

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Consumption of vegetables is related to overall health. American children, particularly low income students who qualify for free school meals, consume a majority of their calories at school. The United States Federal Government sets regulations for those school meals to promote healthy eating, encouraging the consumption of well-liked fruits and less-liked vegetables. Given that hedonic contrast can affect liking for foods served simultaneously, this study investigated whether a well-liked fruit served at the same time as a less-liked vegetable in a school lunch would reduce consumption and liking for that vegetable compared to when the fruit was served subsequent to …

The Face Of Humanity: Configural Face Processing Influences Ascriptions Of Humanness, Kurt Hugenberg, Steven Young, Robert J. Rydell, Steven Almaraz, Kathleen A. Stanko, Pirita E. See, John Paul Wilson

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Across three studies, we test the hypothesis that the perceived “humanness” of a human face can have its roots, in part, in low-level, feature-integration processes typical of normal face perception—configural face processing. We provide novel evidence that perceptions of humanness/dehumanization can have perceptual roots. Relying on the well-established face inversion paradigm, we demonstrate that disruptions of configural face processing also disrupt the ability of human faces to activate concepts related to humanness (Experiment 1), disrupt categorization of human faces as human (but not animal faces as animals; Experiment 2), and reduce the levels of humanlike traits and characteristics ascribed to …