Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Influence Of Victim And Perpetrator Intoxication On Juror Perceptions Of Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment, Jewel Mack

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Once unnoticed and unreported, sexual harassment claims have risen within the last two decades. Although guidelines published by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission provide a definition of sexual harassment, researchers continue to examine variables affecting individual perceptions of sexual harassment. In addition to gender differences in perception, the present researcher examined the impact of perpetrator and victim intoxication on perceptions of sexual harassment. Results indicated that female participants were no more likely than male participants to label behaviors as sexual harassment when provided information on intoxication. However, when no information regarding the intoxication status of the perpetrator or victim was …

Test-Relief Reliability Of The Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test With Children Diagnosed With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Julia Pendley

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (Bracken & McCallum, 1998 [UNIT]) is a relatively new intelligence test that is administered in an entirely nonverbal way. Research supports the use of this test with special populations such as those with learning disabilities, those who are intellectually gifted, as well as with those who have speech/language impairments (Bracken & McCallum, 1998). One population not accounted for in the test's standardization sample are children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This study investigates the test-retest reliability of the UNIT with children diagnosed with ADHD. Another main focus of this study involves determining the …

The Incorporation Of Emergent Literacy Into Head Start Classrooms, Emily Seeger

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Emergent literacy may be described as the process of learning about the environment that leads to the development of meaning and concepts, including concepts about the functions of reading and writing. Research supports certain practices that promote emergent literacy in young children, and federal legislation outlines requirements for Head Start programs with regard to specific activities that should be promoted to enhance children's emergent literacy skills. This study asked teachers from 318 Head Start programs in the Southeast United States to complete a survey that asked specific questions targeting the emergent literacy practices used in classrooms, as well as familiarity …

Faking Integrity Tests: More Than A Mindset?, Christopher Corthern

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Personnel selection procedures often include integrity tests to aid in the attempt to hire the best possible candidates for a given job. Meta-analyses of integrity test validity coefficients have found evidence of incremental validity in the prediction of many performance criteria, but questions remain regarding the nature of the construct they actually measure. The classical interpretation of higher integrity scores being linked with higher job performance is that honest people are more productive. This study surveys another possibility: those that score highly on these measures may possess higher degrees of a problem solving ability related to intelligence that allows them …

Depression And Anxiety In Roman Catholic Secular Clergy, Sarah Knox, Stephen G. Virginia, John P. Lombardo

College of Education Faculty Research and Publications

A nationally selected random sample of Roman Catholic secular priests was investigated using the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Form Y. Additionally, a Self-Report Inventory requested information regarding participants' demographics as well as four categories of predictor variables (i.e., Vocational Satisfaction, Social Support, Spiritual Activities, Physical Environment) potentially associated with depression and anxiety. The study yielded a return rate of 64%. Secular clergy reported significantly greater depression and anxiety (both state and trait) than are reported in the general population. Low Vocational Satisfaction was found to be predictive of depression as well as both state …

Lucky Pennies And Four Leaf Clovers: Young Children's Understanding Of Superstitions, Christy Bryce

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The development of organized, explanatory systems of knowledge is an integral part of human nature; it allows us to categorize objects and events and to make predictions based on our experiences. In our society, the quest for answers to the questions "How?" and "Why?" begins early in life. By the preschool years, children are actively seeking and providing explanations for an abundance of physical and social events, and they are developing knowledge of causal forces at work in the environment (Bullock, Gelman, & Baillargeon, 1982; Rosengren & Hickling, 1999). Paradoxically, at about the same age at which children demonstrate they …

Distributive Justice And Punishment In Team Sports, David Bucur

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Distributive justice outcomes of punishment in an intercollegiate team sport setting were investigated. Male intercollegiate athletes (#=148) participating in the NAIA National Soccer Championship Tournament responded to one of eight scenarios and reported perceived fairness to player, fairness to teammates, deterrence to future player misconduct, and deterrence to future teammate misconduct. The results indicated that athletes perceive consistent distribution of punishment as more fair than conditional distribution of punishment; consistently distributed punishment is perceived to be more likely to deter future misconduct than conditional punishment; punishment, in general, is perceived as more fair when the violation committed is severe as …

Training Practices In School Consultation: Twenty Years Later, Terri Owens

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Consultation has long been noted in the literature as a preferred role of school psychologists (Curtis & Zins, 1980; Gutkin & Curtis, 1982). Yet, few studies have examined University training practices in the area of consultation. This study, in part, replicated a study conducted by Meyers, Wurtz, and Flanagan (1981) that examined training practices 20 years ago. Currently, Program Directors from school psychology training programs in the United States were asked to describe how their training program addressed consultation. The number of courses offered in consultation, the methods used to teach consultation, and the models of consultation taught to school …

The Effect Of Cognitive Load On Illusory Correlation, Jason Simpson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study investigated two theories of illusory correlation in social judgment by examining how varying the level of cognitive load during encoding of social stimuli affected the amount of illusory correlation. If the level of illusory correlation increases in a monotonic relationship with increasing cognitive load, then this type of increase would provide evidence for the distinctiveness-based view of illusory correlation (Hamilton & GifFord, 1976); however, if levels of illusory correlation show a curvilinear relationship, this relationship would provide support for the differentiated meaning view (Haslam, McGarty, & Brown, 1996). Cognitive load was manipulated by having participants perform an auditory …

Client Perspectives Of Multicultural Counselling Competence: A Qualitative Examination, Donald B. Pope-Davis, Rebecca L. Toporek, Lideth Ortega-Villalobos, Daniela P. Ligiero, Christopher S. Brittan-Powell, William Liu, Michael R. Bashshur, Jamila N. Codrington, Christopher T. H. Liang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Multicultural competence is a burgeoning area of research in counseling psychology. However, there has been little focus on understanding multicultural competence from the perspective of clients. This study used qualitative interviews and grounded theory to develop a model of clients’ perspectives of multicultural counseling. The resulting model suggested that clients’ experiences of multicultural counseling were contingent on their self-identified needs and on how well they felt the counselor met these needs. Moreover, clients appeared to actively manage and moderate the extent to which culture was broached in counseling based on a host of conditions including counseling relationship, salience of identity, …

A Study Of The Relationships Among Secondary Traumatic Stress, Coping, And Years Of Service In Firefighter/Emergency Medical Service Personnel, Lynne S. Sanders

Faculty Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine relationships among stress, coping, and years of service in rescue personnel. One hundred sixteen voluntary subjects employed in Fire/EMS service in a small southern city participated in the study. Subjects completed a demographic questionnaire, The Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS), and The Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS).

The incidence of symptomatic stress for the sample was 19.8 percent, higher than the general population but comparable to rates found in other studies of rescue workers. Calls involving children were rated as most disturbing by the subjects. There was no relationship found between years …

Social Support, Risk, And Adjustment Of Immigrant Preadolescents, Gastón Luis Bustos

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study was designed to explore the salience of social support, immigrant status, and risk in middle childhood and early adolescence across two time periods as indicated by measures of school adjustment and well-being. Participants included 691 children of public elementary schools in grades 4 and 6 who were interviewed in 1997 (Time 1) and reinterviewed two years later (Time 2); 539 were U.S.-born, and 152 were foreign-born.

Repeated measures multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA's) were conducted to assess the effects of immigrant status and risk on total support, well-being, and school adjustment from Time 1 to Time 2. …

Time Course Of Morphological Alterations Of Fungiform Papillae And Taste Buds Following Chorda Tympani Transection In Neonatal Rats, Suzanne I. Sollars, Peter C. Smith, David L. Hill

Psychology Faculty Publications

The time course of structural changes in fungiform papillae was analyzed in rats that received unilateral chorda tympani nerve transection at 10 days of age. Morphological differences between intact and denervated sides of the tongue were first observed at 8 days postsection, with an increase in the number of fungiform papillae that did not have a pore. In addition, the first papilla with a filiform‐like appearance was noted on the denervated side at 8 days postsectioning. By 11 days after surgery, the total number of papillae and the number of papillae with a pore were significantly lower on the transected …

Context Effects In Visual Length Perception: Role Of Ocular, Retinal, And Spatial Location, Yoav Arieh, Lawrence E. Marks

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In three experiments, we examined the transfer of orientation-contingent context effects between the eyes and across portions of the retina with or without variation in external spatial location. Previous research had shown that vertical lines are judged long, relative to horizontal lines, when the stimulus set comprises relatively long horizontals and short verticals (Contextual Condition B), as compared with the reverse when the stimulus set comprises relatively short horizontals and long verticals (Contextual Condition A). Consequently, the contextual set of stimuli influences the magnitude of the horizontal-vertical illusion (HVI), decreasing its size under Contextual Condition A and increasing its size …

Correction For Unreliability Of Multifactor Measures: Comparison Of Alpha And Parallel Forms Approaches, William M. Rogers, Neal Schmitt, Morell E. Mullins

Peer Reviewed Articles

Coefficient alpha is a widely used and useful index of reliability, but it provides an inappropriate estimate of reliability when used with multidimensional composites. The problematic nature of this inappropriate usage varies primarily as a function of the prominence of distinct factors in a composite and to a lesser extent as a function of the length of the measure. Implications for use of coefficient alpha estimates of reliability as the basis for correcting observed correlations for unreliability are described for a variety of levels of multidimensionality and measure length. Researchers should correct for unreliability to estimate construct interrelationships but must …

Review Of "Women's Untold Lives: Breaking Silence, Talking Back, Voicing Complexity" Edited By M. Romero And A. J. Stewart And "Telling Women's Lives: Subject/Narrator/Reader/Text" By J. Long, Jeanne Marecek

Psychology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Alcohol Expectancies And Drinking Behavior In Adults With Social Anxiety Disorder And Dysthymia, Lindsay S. Ham, Debra A. Hope, Cameron S. White, P. Clayton Rivers

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Previous research has found a positive relationship between social anxiety disorder and alcoholism, and that certain alcohol outcome expectancies are related to drinking behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among drinking behaviors and alcohol expectancies in treatment-seeking individuals diagnosed with social anxiety disorder or dysthymia, as well as normal controls. No significant differences were found across the 3 groups in alcohol consumption. As expected, socially anxious participants had higher social assertiveness expectancies than both participants with dysthymia and normal controls. Participants with social anxiety disorder had greater tension reduction and global positive change expectancies than …

Human Factors Survey Of Aviation Maintenance Technical Manuals, Alex Chaparro, Loren S. Groff

Publications

The reported work is part of a 3 phased effort to identify human factors issues in the development of aviation technical manuals, and make recommendations for the improvement of those documents. Phase 1 of this research effort surveyed the procedures used by five manufacturers to develop maintenance documentation. Several human factors issues were identified in the development process employed by these manufacturers. They included the reactive rather than proactive use of user evaluations, the limited use of user input and procedure validation, no systematic attempts to track error, and the lack of standards for measuring document quality. Given the issues …

Modeling Organizational Culture In A Financial Institution, Lauren Rogers

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Ideal versus current organizational culture perceptions, differences in perceptions of culture between hierarchal levels and departments, and the strength of organizational culture were investigated in the current study. Organizational culture was measured by Cooke and Lafferty's (1987) Organizational Culture Inventory. There were differences in culture perceptions between ideal versus the current culture, hierarchal levels, and departments. The organizational culture was perceived to be weak in comparison to the four desirable styles indicated by the OCI profile.

Compensatory Effects Of Parent And Peer Support On Well-Being And Achievement During Pre-And Early Adolescence, Noel Alexander Crooks

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study was designed to explore the salience of parent and peer support in middle childhood and early adolescence across two time periods as indicated by measures of achievement (grade point average (GPA), Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) scores and teacher rated school adaptation) and well-being (loneliness, depression, self-concept and teacher-rated internalizing behaviors).

Participants were part of an initial study on social network relations and school adaptation in middle childhood and early adolescence. Participants at Time I (in the spring of 1997) included 782 children in grades 4 and 6 of eight lower and middle-income public elementary schools. Participants (N= …

The Construct Of Work Commitment: Testing An Integrative Framework, Amy Rachelle Cooper

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation meta-analytically examined the expansive material associated with work commitment. Work commitment, a multidimensional construct, encompasses the level of involvement an employee has with his or her work, organization, job, career, and union (Morrow & Goetz, 1998). Each of the dimensions of work commitment has been further divided into a number of subdimensions. The primary purpose of this study was to (1) cumulate the correlations found among each of the dimensions of work commitment to see which, if any, were intercorrelated, and to (2) determine the impact of work commitment dimensions and subdimensions on specific outcome variables (job satisfaction, …

Hurricane Preparedness: Improving Television Hurricane Watch And Warning Graphics, David N. Sattler, Amanda L. Marshall

Psychology Faculty and Staff Publications

This paper examines the effectiveness of hurricane watch and warning graphics currently used by television stations during a hurricane threat and new, enhanced graphics developed by the first author. The participants were 378 persons (91men, 287 women) in Charleston, South Carolina - an area that has had recent and repeated experience with hurricane threats. The hypothesis that participants viewing the enhanced graphics would have a better understanding of the time-frame associated with hurricane watch and warning advisories and of the actions to take, and would perceive the situation more seriously compared to those viewing the currently used graphics was supported. …

Night Moves: A Qualitative Investigation Of Street-Level Sex Work, Rochelle L. Dalla

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

The subculture of street-level sex work including the social environment, drug use and abuse, and violence was examined. Personal interviews were conducted with 43 women involved in streetwalking prostitution. Data were analyzed using Phenomenological Descriptive Analysis (Colaizzi, 1978). Several participants reported developing emotional relationships and having children with clients, former clients, or pimps; some participants were married to men who pimped them. Supportive relationships with other streetwalkers were largely nonexistent; streetwalking constitutes a solitary business for most. The majority reported drug addiction, although less than half entered prostitution to support an already established drug habit. Financial need propelled many into …

Differences In The Functional Neuroanatomy Of Inhibitory Control Across The Adult Life Span, Kristy A. Nielson, Scott Aaron Langenecker, Hugh Garavan

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Inhibitory control, the ability to suppress irrelevant stimuli, is a fundamental cognitive function that deteriorates during aging, but little is understood about the bases of decline. Thus, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study inhibitory control in healthy adults aged 18 to 78. Activation during "successful inhibition" occurred predominantly in right prefrontal and parietal regions and was more extensive, bilaterally, and prefrontally, in the older groups. Presupplementary motor area was also more active in poorer inhibitory performers. Therefore, older adults activate areas that are comparable to those activated by young adults during inhibition, as well as additional …

Oral Narrative Skills Of Late Talkers At Ages 8 And 9, Joan Manhardt, Leslie Rescorla

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

This study compared the oral narrative skills of 31 school-aged children diagnosed at 24 to 31 months with expressive language delay (late talkers) with those of 23 typically developing peers. Based upon an extensively studied picture-book task, Frog, Where are You?, narratives were elicited from all participants both at age 8 and age 9. At age 9, children were asked to tell the story again and to increase their references to evaluative information (characters' emotions, character speech, and causal explanations of events "supported" telling condition). Groups were compared on Syntax, Story Grammar, Cohesion, and Evaluative Information factor scores derived from …

The Relationship Of Verbal-Nonverbal Incongruence To Communication Mismatches In Married Couples, Amy Van Buren

Psychology Faculty Publications

Communication accuracy refers to whether a message sent by a sender is perceived by the receiver to have the same emotional meaning intended by the sender. Previous research using marital dyads suggests that receivers sometimes receive the emotional meaning in senders’ statements differently than senders intend. The present study was conducted to test the possibility that one reason such misunderstandings occur is that senders may convey emotional messages differently than they intend. Twenty-four married couples carried on a ten-minute videotaped free interaction during which they rated the emotional meaning in each others’ statements. Results indicated that senders conveyed messages that …

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Motivation, Test Preparation And Test Performance, Cassidy Walton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The relationship between motivation, test preparation, and test performance was investigated using two samples, lire fighter applicants and college students. Motivation and test preparation were measured by Arvey and Stickland's (1991) Test Attitude Survey; test performance consisted of selection test scores or class examinations. The results indicated that the relationship between motivation, test preparation, and test performance varied depending on the sample (i.e., fire fighter applicants or college students) and the context (i.e., written or Physical Ability Test, class exam, or final examination). The results for fire fighters indicated that motivation was related to written test performance but not to …

Psychosocial Correlates Of Physical Activity And Sedentary Leisure Habits In Young Adolescents: The Teens Eating For Energy And Nutrition At School Study, Amanda Birnbaum, Kathryn H. Schmitz, Leslie Lytle, Glenn A. Phillips, David M. Murray, Martha Y. Kubik

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

BACKGROUND: Low levels of physical activity (PA) and highly sedentary leisure habits (SLH) in youth may establish behavioral patterns that will predispose youth to increased chronic disease risk in adulthood. The purpose of this paper was to examine associations of demographic and psychosocial factors with self-reported PA and SLH in young adolescents. METHODS: A general linear mixed model predicted self-reported PA and SLH in the spring from demographic and psychosocial variables measured the previous fall in 3798 seventh grade students. RESULTS: PA and SLH differed by race, with Caucasian students reporting among the highest PA and lowest SLH. Perceptions of …

Processing Picture–Word Stimuli: The Contingent Nature Of Picture And Of Word Superiority, Yoav Arieh, Daniel Algom

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

P participants named (Experiments 1–2) or categorized (Experiments 3–4) the picture or the word of the picture–word compounds that varied in the relative saliency of the 2 components and in the correlation between them over the experimental trials. Picture-word interference (PWI) was gauged through Stroop and Garner effects. PWI was found to be malleable; its magnitude and very presence depending lawfully on the contextual variations introduced. The contingent nature of PWI is a fact to be reckoned with by theorists of the picture–word processing.

Cognitive Ethology And The Cost Of Anthropomorphiphobia, Robert H.I. Dale

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Book review for the following titles:

Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness. By Donald R. Griffin, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, 376 pages. $27.50 softcover

The Smile of a Dolphin: Remarkable Accounts of Animal Emotions. Edited by Marc Bekoff, New York: Discovery Books, 2000, 240 pages. $35.00 hardcover

Minds of Their Own: Thinking and Awareness in Animals. By Lesley J. Rogers, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998, 224 pages. $19.00 softcover