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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Why Some Take Pleasure In Other People’S Pain: The Role Of Attachment, Competition, And Cooperation On Schadenfreude, Alison Baren Jun 2017

Why Some Take Pleasure In Other People’S Pain: The Role Of Attachment, Competition, And Cooperation On Schadenfreude, Alison Baren

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When witnessing someone’s misfortune, some people may feel empathy and offer to help while others may feel schadenfreude (i.e., joy at other’s misfortunes) and not help. This research examined why people react to others with compassion while others respond more callously. I investigated how individual differences in attachment, empathy, personal distress, and schadenfreude, and the effects of competition versus cooperation, impacted prosocial behavior. As a novel contribution, I looked at attachment’s association with not only state schadenfreude but also trait schadenfreude. After developing a measure of trait schadenfreude (Study 1), I determined if attachment related to schadenfreude (Study 2) and …


Pride And Prejudice: The Effects Of The Proud To Be Public Service Announcement On Attitudes Toward The Redskins Logo, Nina Danielle Acosta Jun 2017

Pride And Prejudice: The Effects Of The Proud To Be Public Service Announcement On Attitudes Toward The Redskins Logo, Nina Danielle Acosta

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The United States has a long-standing history of appropriating Indigenous representations for the use of mascots in athletics. Despite protest by Indigenous groups against this practice, professional athletics teams continue to appropriate Indigenous representations as mascots. The National Congress of American Indians produced a public service announcement (PSA), Proud to Be (PTB), to elicit support from the general public for changing the name/mascot Redskins. The purpose of the proposed research is to experimentally examine the effects that PTB has on support among Non-Indigenous participants, as function of political alignment. We considered two competing outcomes: The Counterproductive Hypothesis predicts …


The Roles Of Race And Empathy On Contagious Yawning, Daroon M. Jalil May 2017

The Roles Of Race And Empathy On Contagious Yawning, Daroon M. Jalil

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Social Psychologists often consider race to be a marker of in-group or out-group status. When looking at race, implicit bias can take forms that are more subtle than outwards racism. Two research questions were asked in this study to better understand the psychology behind racial issues. The first question was if the number of contagious yawns (CY) a person experiences depends on the race of the stimuli being viewed. Contagiously yawning more to in-group members is a phenomena seen in chimpanzees, but has not been studied in humans in a racial context. Black and white males and females were recruited …


“The Golden Rule”: A Portable Escape Room Designed To Promote Empathy And Playfulness In Challenging Social Contexts, Isabella Gomati May 2017

“The Golden Rule”: A Portable Escape Room Designed To Promote Empathy And Playfulness In Challenging Social Contexts, Isabella Gomati

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The development of a Portable Escape Room (PER) board game aims to promote empathy as one of the key skills that, for a society in constant change, is necessary to face and solve complex social challenges. The development of a PER is a way of addressing the need for both innovative and accessible tools that can be used in different sectors of the economy. The PER not only encourages creative collaboration, but it also introduces the possibility of playfulness as a bridge for learning and problem-solving in a variety of scenarios. The product itself encompasses an excellent example of a …


Extraversion, Empathy, And Humor Style: An Investigation Of The Introverted Sense Of Humor, Phillip Jauregui Jan 2017

Extraversion, Empathy, And Humor Style: An Investigation Of The Introverted Sense Of Humor, Phillip Jauregui

CMC Senior Theses

The present study assesses the effects of extraversion, empathy, and humor style on humor score, while specifically focusing on the introverted sense of humor. 129 participants recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk took a survey consisting of the extraversion subscale of the Ten Item Short Version of the Big Five Inventory, the Humor Styles Questionnaire, and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The study supported previous findings in which extraversion positively relates to humor such that extraverts reported a greater usage of humor than did introverts. More specifically, both extraverts and introverts use adaptive humor styles (i.e. affiliative and self-enhancing humor) more than …


I Love Your Face: Attraction And Facial Expressions Of Emotion, Kendall Swinney Jan 2017

I Love Your Face: Attraction And Facial Expressions Of Emotion, Kendall Swinney

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of two individual differences on ratings of attraction toward male facial expressions of emotion. Specifically, the influence of participants’ empathy and romantic attachment style on their attraction ratings of a target that displayed one of four emotions (i.e., sad, angry, happy, or neutral expression) was analyzed. This study found no relationship between empathy and participants’ attraction ratings; however, participant romantic attachment style did predict her attraction toward male emotional expressions. Specifically, individuals categorized as having an avoidant attachment style were less attracted to the happy expression than were those categorized …


The Experience Of Forgiveness In Adults With Different Sacred Belief Systems, Christy Jo Heacock Jan 2017

The Experience Of Forgiveness In Adults With Different Sacred Belief Systems, Christy Jo Heacock

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Forgiveness is the act of moving beyond shame, guilt, anger, or blame, and it has been linked to psychological well-being, prosocial behavior, and religion/spirituality (R/S). However, the research on why and how people forgive is inconsistent, as the concepts involved are complex and difficult to define and operationalize. The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was to provide a better understanding of why and how people are cognitively and emotionally able to forgive and the role of R/S in that process. Goal orientation and cognitive restructuring theories were used as frameworks for understanding the forgiveness experience. First-person, semistructured interviews …


Redefining Murder : A Qualitative Exploration Of Emotion And Identity Following Loss Of A Loved One To Homicide, Kristen Lee Hourigan Jan 2017

Redefining Murder : A Qualitative Exploration Of Emotion And Identity Following Loss Of A Loved One To Homicide, Kristen Lee Hourigan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation research project is a qualitative exploration of emotion and identity following loss of a loved one to homicide. It answers the questions, “How do individuals who have lost loved ones to homicide understand and experience forgiveness, and how does this vary by social distance from the offender and social position (race, gender, social class, age, religion, and education)?” and “How do forgiveness processes relate to identity?” It uses a symbolic interactionist framework and draws upon several diverse literatures including identity theory and affect control theory in sociology, research on forgiveness and empathy in psychology, and concepts from restorative …


Are You Feeling Me?: The Role Of Attention In Physiological Empathetic Responses, Gabriela Paganini Jan 2017

Are You Feeling Me?: The Role Of Attention In Physiological Empathetic Responses, Gabriela Paganini

Scripps Senior Theses

This study examined the role of attention and trait empathy within the production of neural facial mimicry responses that have been previously found to be associated with the experience of empathy. More specifically, do people who have high trait empathy levels require less attention to emotional information in order to still exhibit these physiological responses than people who have lower trait empathy levels? It has previously been demonstrated that responses in the zygomaticus and corrugator muscles have been associated with the experience of empathy. College aged participants were shown series of happy, angry, and neutral faces with the amount of …


Bridging The Empathy Gap: Effects Of Brief Mindfulness Training On Helping Outgroup Members In Need, Daniel R. Berry Jan 2017

Bridging The Empathy Gap: Effects Of Brief Mindfulness Training On Helping Outgroup Members In Need, Daniel R. Berry

Theses and Dissertations

Witnessing others in need can be felt similarly to experiencing it oneself (empathy) and motivates assistance of those in need (prosocial action). It is well-documented that empathy can occur automatically, but when those in need are not members of a social ingroup, empathy and prosocial action are undermined. One major ingroup—outgroup division in American and in other countries is based on race. Although most condemn racial discrimination, empathy and prosocial action are often lower, however unintentionally, in interracial contexts. In light of this empathy gap, it is important to identify psychological factors that could bolster empathy and prosocial action toward …


Psychopathy And The Effect Of Imitation On Empathetic Pain, Emily N. Lasko Jan 2017

Psychopathy And The Effect Of Imitation On Empathetic Pain, Emily N. Lasko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Psychopathy is a disorder largely characterized by a marked deficit in empathy, however, the specificity and extent of the deficit is currently unclear. While it has been well-established in the literature that individuals higher in psychopathy tend to have intact Theory of Mind abilities and exhibit a deficient ability for affective empathy (Blair, 2005), the contribution of motor empathy to these abilities, particularly in regard to empathy for pain, has yet to be experimentally examined. Additionally, the possibility of imitation increasing motor empathic abilities has not been tested in this capacity. The goal of the current study was to further …