Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Social Comparison And Persuasion In Health Communications, Jerry Suls, Kathryn Bruchmann

Psychology

Two basic social processes, persuasion and social comparison, have figured prominently in the development and implementation of health communications since the early 1950s. This chapter reviews relevant theory and evidence from basic persuasion and comparison research to demonstrate the centrality of the self-concept for understanding changes in personal belief, opinion, self-efficacy, and behavior change. Then, selective evidence and implications from health communications research are reviewed: Interventions using self-affirmation; gain-loss framing and graphic warning labels/fear appeals from the persuasion area; and interventions using normative provision, social comparison interventions, and support groups from the comparison area. In the final section, personalized, tailored …

Antiretroviral Therapy (Art) Side Effect Impacted On Quality Of Life, And Depressive Symptomatology: A Mixed-Method Study, Wei-Ti Chen, Cheng-Shi Shiu, Joyce Yang, Jane M. Simoni, Karen Fredriksen-Goldsen, Tony Szu-Hsien Lee, Hongxin Zhao

Psychology

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is known for its side effects. In this paper, we describe ART side effects as experienced by Chinese HIV+ individuals. This study presents two stages of a research project, combining qualitative in-depth interviews (29 HIV+ participants) with quantitative statistical data analysis (N = 120). All data was collected between July 2005 to March 2008 at Beijing's Ditan Hospital. Consent was obtained from each participant for the qualitative interview and again for the quantitative survey. During in-depth interviews, Chinese HIV+ patients reported experiencing digestive discomfort, skin rashes, numbness, memory loss, nightmares, and dizziness, which not only brought them …

Test Order Effects In Simultaneous Protocols, Abdulrazaq Imam, Timothy A. Warner

Psychology

Simultaneous protocols typically yield poorer stimulus equivalence outcomes than do other protocols commonly used in equivalence research. Two independent groups of three 3-member equivalence sets of stimuli were used in conditional discrimination procedures in two conditions, one using the standard simultaneous protocol and the other using a hybrid simultaneous training and simple-to-complex testing. Participants completed the two conditions in one long session in Experiment 1, but in separate sessions in Experiment 2. The same stimulus sets used in Experiment 1 were randomized for the two conditions in Experiment 2. Overall, accuracy was better with the hybrid than with the standard …

The Negative Feelings That People Want To Avoid: Cultural Differences And Consequences For Compassion, Birgit Koopmann-Holm

Psychology

Previous research has documented cultural differences in the positive states that people desire. Less research, however, has examined whether cultural differences exist in the negative states that people want to avoid feeling ("avoided negative affect"). Using a multimethod approach, we examined cultural differences between Americans and Germans in avoided negative affect and whether they are related to different responses to suffering, or compassion. In Study 1, using survey methods, we assessed whether avoided negative affect differs from related constructs, and based on an existing literature, tested our hypothesis that Americans want to avoid negative affect more than do Germans. As …

Fatigue And Sleep Disturbance Related To Perceived Stress In Chinese Hiv-Positive Individuals: A Mixed Methods Study, Wei-Ti Chen, Cheng-Shi Shiu, Joyce Yang, Shih-Yu Lee, Tony Szu-Hsien Lee, Jane M. Simoni, Mei-Juan Bao, Hong-Zhou Lu

Psychology

Background

Few studies of HIV+ individuals in China have examined the associations between HIV-related stress with sleep disturbance and fatigue, which are common complaints among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). We carried out this study to examine the relationships among perceived stress, sleep disturbance, and fatigue in PLWHA in China.

Methods

A mixed methods study design was used during data collection in Shanghai, China, from December 2009 to March 2010. Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 19 HIV+ females. Additionally, cross-sectional audio computer-assisted self-interviews (ACASI) were conducted to collect quantitative data from a convenience sample of 107 HIV+ patients (84% …

Towards An Understanding Of The Endogenous Nature Of Group Identification In Games, John Smith, Katerina Bezrukova

Psychology

It is commonly assumed that identification with a social group is constant throughout the play of a one-shot game in the absence of feedback. We provide evidence which challenges this assumption. We direct subjects to play one of two versions of the prisoner's dilemma game. These versions are distinguished by the relative attractiveness of the uncooperative action. We refer to the version with a relatively attractive uncooperative action as the Easy Game and the other as the Difficult Game. We find that for the subjects who play the Difficult Game, their change in group identification is significantly related to their …

The Effect Of Visual Suggestion On Exercise Motivation And Outcomes, Thomas G. Plante, Ashley Morisako, Justine Folk, Elizabeth Kay, Caroline Read, Ashley Dunn, Angel Perez, Eleanor Willemsen

Psychology

Theories of suggestion and motivation were used to examine if college students exercising in an environment with low or high motivation posters would affect mood, perceived exertion, and exercise workload (i.e., RPM and speed). A total of 134 students (62 males, 72 females) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions while exercising: relaxing posters (i.e., tropical nature), motivational posters (i.e., competitive bikers), or no posters (i.e., control). Participants completed 20 minutes of exercise at their own pace. Measures of mood were taken immediately prior to and following exercise. Exercise workload was recorded throughout. Results indicate that participants in the …

Connection Between Cannabis Use And Psychosis And The Direct Vs. Indirect Form Of Inquiry To Combat Self-Report Bias, Lauren Grady

Psychology

The purpose of this paper is to investigate two problems: one clinical and one methodological. The first is whether there is a connection between drug use, and specifically cannabis use, and psychosis. Previous research on the subject has provided mixed results. Van Os et al. (2002) and Arseneault et al. (2002) both found that cannabis use predicted the onset of psychosis. Van Dam, Earleywine, & DiGiacomo (2008) found that the use of other drugs was a better predictor of psychosis than cannabis alone. The second problem involves how to maximize honesty when people answer questions regarding their own drug use. …

Social Story Intervention For Children With Autism To Decrease Challenging Behaviors During Homework, Arianna Doss

Psychology

Researchers have created interventions to improve the social behavior and communication of children with autism spectrum disorder. One such intervention is called Social Stories, which describes social situations and their corresponding appropriate behaviors in order to help children with autism better understand social cues. Although several studies indicate the usefulness of this intervention, more evidence is needed. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of social stories in decreasing challenging behaviors of first-graders with autism during homework time and to measure changes in parental stress and family quality of life. Homework time was chosen because children with autism experience homework …

The Moderating Effect Of Skin Conductance Level On The Relationship Between Family Conflict And Disordered Eating Behaviors, Laura B. Kenneally

Psychology

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating effect of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) on the relation between family conflict and disordered eating behaviors. Participants were 67 undergraduate students at the University at Albany, SUNY, ages 17 to 40. Researchers used a retrospective measure of harsh parenting and interparental aggression experienced during childhood and adolescence to determine how sympathetic activation interacts with family conflict in predicting disordered eating behaviors in a sample of university students. SNS activation was measured by baseline skin conductance level (SCL). Results indicated that SCL moderated the relationship between harsh parenting experienced during …

The Relationships Among Sharing Behaviors, Social Skills, And Problem Behaviors In Preschool Children, Taylor P. Bulman

Psychology

Over the past few decades, the field of developmental psychopathology has become increasingly interested in children’s development during preschool, a time of immense cognitive and social growth (Parker et al., 2006). Past research indicates that prosocial behaviors exhibited during childhood can predict later adaptive functioning (Gresham et al., 2010). The goal of the present study was to explore the relationships among sharing behaviors, social skills, and problem behaviors in preschool children. Predominantly lower-income preschool children (N = 57, Male = 28) were recruited for participation. Teachers of the participants completed the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS). A modified version of …

Factors Affecting The Detection Of Relationship Status Deception, Fatima Aboul-Seoud

Psychology

Evolutionary theory predicts that people should have sex-specific adaptations based on differential reproductive costs and benefits. Males have to contend with the costs of being cuckolded, while females have to contend with the costs of being abandoned. Previous research on reproductive deception has shown that males and females engage in sex-specific deception in ways that maximize fitness. This project examined the ability to discern ingenuous and disingenuous claims about romantic and sexual relationship status. Participants viewed and rated the veracity of pre-recorded claims about targets’ relationship status. Results showed that the ability to discern claim veracity was dependent upon the …

Comparing Grief As A Negative Emotion To Survival For Memory Enhancement, Sarah Pate

Psychology

The survival memory effect tested using a comparison of a survival scenario to the strong negative emotion of a grief scenario. The main hypothesis was that strong, negative emotions allow one’s self to relate to the scenario as it seems to do in the survival scenario. Strong negative emotions may outperform survival in a free recall memory task due to deeper levels of processing. Grief and survival scenarios were compared to a moving scenario that was used as a control condition. The three scenarios were each followed by a list of separate words to be rated on their relevancy to …

The Effects Of Progesterone Receptor On Development Of Serotonergic Circuits That Mediate Cognition, Heather Smith

Psychology

As the rate of premature births has been substantially increasing, progestin administration is becoming a common treatment for the prevention of preterm labor. However, not much is known regarding how these hormonal supplements may affect the development of the fetal brain. The developing brain is highly sensitive to progesterone as progesterone receptor (PR) is expressed in many regions during critical developmental periods. Steroid hormone receptors such as PR are powerful transcription factors and regulate gene expression to alter fundamental processes of neural development. During the developmental period of post-natal day one (P1) to P14 in rats, PR is transiently expressed …

Do More, Say Less: Saying "I Love You" In Chinese And American Cultures, Catherine Caldwell-Harris, Ann Kronrod, Joyce Yang

Psychology

Reticence to express emotions verbally has long been observed in Chinese culture, but quantitative comparisons with Western cultures are few. Explanations for emotional reticence have typically focused on the need in collectivist culture to promote group harmony, but this explanation is most applicable to negative emotions such as anger, not positive expressions such as Wo ai ni [I love you]. A survey on verbal usage of Wo ai ni was administered to university students in Beijing and Shanghai, and compared to uses of I love you by American students in the United States. Chinese respondents were not only overall more …

Report Of A Deaf Child With Tourette's Disorder., Cathy J Chovaz

Psychology

This is a case study of a deaf child with Tourette's Disorder (TD). Hearing parents and mental health clinicians unfamiliar with typical behaviors of deaf children may have difficulties differentiating the clinical presentation of symptoms of TD from the effects of deafness, as well as in implementing appropriate interventions. This case study reports the history, symptoms, diagnostic process, and treatment interventions. This is relevant for furthering the clinical knowledge of mental health professionals working with Deaf, deaf, and hard-of-hearing children and adolescents.

The Ontogeny Of Lexical Networks Toddlers Encode The Relationships Among Referents When Learning Novel Words, Erica H. Wojcik, Jenny R. Saffran

Psychology

Although the semantic relationships among words have long been acknowledged as a crucial component of adult lexical knowledge, the ontogeny of lexical networks remains largely unstudied. To determine whether learners encode relationships among novel words, we trained 2-year-olds on four novel words that referred to four novel objects, which were grouped into two visually similar pairs. Participants then listened to repetitions of word pairs (in the absence of visual referents) that referred to objects that were either similar or dissimilar to each other. Toddlers listened significantly longer to word pairs referring to similar objects, which suggests that their representations of …

Remembering New Words: Integrating Early Memory Development Into Word Learning, Erica H. Wojcik

Psychology

In order to successfully acquire a new word, young children must learn the correct associations between labels and their referents. For decades, word-learning researchers have explored how young children are able to form these associations. However, in addition to learning label-referent mappings, children must also remember them. Despite the importance of memory processes in forming a stable lexicon, there has been little integration of early memory research into the study of early word learning. After discussing what we know about how young children remember words over time, this paper reviews the infant memory development literature as it relates to early …

Toddlers Activate Lexical Semantic Knowledge In The Absence Of Visual Referents: Evidence From Auditory Priming, Jon A. Willits, Erica H. Wojcik, Mark S. Seidenberg, Jenny R. Saffran

Psychology

Language learners rapidly acquire extensive semantic knowledge, but the development of this knowledge is difficult to study, in part because it is difficult to assess young children's lexical semantic representations. In our studies, we solved this problem by investigating lexical semantic knowledge in 24-month-olds using the Head-turn Preference Procedure. In Experiment 1, looking times to a repeating spoken word stimulus (e.g., kitty-kitty-kitty) were shorter for trials preceded by a semantically related word (e.g., dog-dog-dog) than trials preceded by an unrelated word (e.g., juice-juice-juice). Experiment 2 yielded similar results using a method in which pairs of words were presented on the …

Is Navigation In Virtual Reality With Fmri Really Navigation?, J.S. Taube, S. Valerio, R.M. Yoder

Psychology

Identifying the neural mechanisms underlying spatial orientation and navigation has long posed a challenge for researchers. Multiple approaches incorporating a variety of techniques and animal models have been used to address this issue. More recently, virtual navigation has become a popular tool for understanding navigational processes. Although combining this technique with functional imaging can provide important information on many aspects of spatial navigation, it is important to recognize some of the limitations these techniques have for gaining a complete understanding of the neural mechanisms of navigation. Foremost among these is that, when participants perform a virtual navigation task in a …

The Impact Of Long-Term Psychotherapy For Very Young Foster Children, Rosana M. Aguilar, Kimberlin Borca, June Madsen Clausen, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

The Final Year Of Psychotherapy With Foster Youth, Kimberlin Borca, Tzipporah Dang, Corie Schwabenland, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Exploring Resiliency In Foster Youth Receiving Long-Term Psychotherapy, Kimberlin Borca, Ashley Plushnik, June Madsen Clausen, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Open Ended Psychotherapy With Adults Formerly In Foster Care, Audrey Rhodes, Breniel Q. Lemley, Rosana M. Aguilar, June Madsen Clausen, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Look Out – It’S Your Off-Peak Time Of Day! Time Of Day Matters More For Alerting Than For Orienting Or Executive Attention, Marisa Knight, M Mather

Psychology

Background—Older adults’ peak performance on memory and cognitive inhibition tasks tends to be in the morning while younger adults’ peak performance tends to be in the afternoon. Although these tasks require efficient attentional processes for optimal performance, previous research examining age differences in the effects of time of day has not measured the distinct aspects of attention quantified by the attentional network test (ANT; Fan, McCandliss, Sommer, & Posner, 2002).

Methods—We examined the relationship between time of testing and the efficiency of alerting, orienting and executive attention networks by randomly assigning younger (18–28 years; N = 27, M = 21.37 …

Medical Issues In Foster Youth Referred For Mental Health Treatment, Alfonso Molina, David Kae, Ashley Plushnik, June Madsen Clausen, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Positive Clinical Neuroscience: Explorations In Positive Neurology, N. Kapur, J. Cole, T. Manly, Indre Viskontas, A. Ninteman, L. Hasher, A. Pascual-Leone

Psychology

Disorders of the brain and its sensory organs have traditionally been associated with deficits in movement, perception, cognition, emotion, and behavior. It is increasingly evident, however, that positive phenomena may also occur in such conditions, with implications for the individual, science, medicine, and for society. This article provides a selective review of such positive phenomena – enhanced function after brain lesions, better-than-normal performance in people with sensory loss, creativity associated with neurological disease, and enhanced performance associated with aging. We propose that, akin to the well-established field of positive psychology and the emerging field of positive clinical psychology, the nascent …

Get Rich U Or Get Transformed U: Reflections On Catholic Liberal Arts Education In The 21st Century, Thomas G. Plante

Psychology

Catholic liberal arts educators can proclaim boldly that we are in the business of formation and transformation of students at multiple levels and in multiple ways. We want our students to be competent, ethical, and compassionate global citizens who are thoughtful, savvy, deep thinkers who love learning and who love helping others. Research and best practices support the claim that the virtues cultivated by the liberal arts contribute to the flourishing of individuals and society as a whole. Catholic colleges and universities have a long history of promoting the liberal arts, and data from various sources suggest that we are …

Effects Of Caro On Stimulus Equivalence: A Systematic Replication, Abdulrazaq Imam, J. V. Blanche

Psychology

n two experiments, we examined the disruptive effects of a "can't answer" response option (CARO) on equivalence formation. The first experiment was a systematic replication of Duarte, Eikeseth, Rosales- Ruiz, and Baer (1998), in which participants in a CARO group and a No- CARO group performed conditional discrimination tasks with stimuli using a paper- and- pencil format for training and testing of equivalence relations. The presence of the CARO led to the nonemergence of equivalence classes. In the second experiment, participants performed conditional discrimination tasks using standard matching- to- sample training and testing procedures on a computer with …