Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Trial Spacing And The Conditioned Motivational Effects Of A Food-Predictive Cue, Gabrielle M. Sutton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Stimuli in the environment can come to influence motivation and behavior through a process known as Pavlovian conditioning. During Pavlovian conditioning, stimuli in the environment come to predict the availability of a reward. Two different procedures are used to investigate how stimuli can modify ongoing behavior and reward consumption, known as Pavlovian-instrumental transfer and potentiated feeding, respectively. In other procedures that investigate how stimuli modify behavior, certain time intervals during Pavlovian training can influence how much a stimulus can modify behavior. One of those intervals is the time between the presentation of a stimulus and the associated reward. This interval …

Measuring Changes In Motivation In Response To An Online Repeated Reading Intervention With Self-Monitoring, David N. Longhurst

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Reading is a complex cognitive process that is integral to learning, achievement, and future life outcomes. Students with reading disabilities struggle to obtain information and develop specific interests. Unfortunately, many students in the United States do not meet expected reading benchmarks. Also due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, has presented multiple challenges for student academic reading growth. Motivation beliefs, such as self-efficacy, interest, and goal-directed behavior, play an important role in students’ education and development. This study examined whether motivational constructs change throughout the course of an online repeated reading intervention with self-monitoring. Five elementary students were selected …

“What Makes ‘Em Tick?” The Impact Of Parenting Style And Parent-Initiated Motivational Climate On Student Athletes’ Motivation Orientation In The Context Of Intercollegiate Athletics, Logan Kateryna Lyons

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Motivation has become a widely studied construct in intercollegiate athletics, as coaches and administrators have sought to maximize the socioemotional and performance aspects of athletic competition. While researchers acknowledge parents as having an important role in the socialization of motivation, research in this area has largely focused on sport-specific parenting practices, failing to account for the broader components of global parenting style that may influence parent-initiated motivational climates, and subsequently the motivational profiles exhibited by developing student athletes. The present study was designed to investigate the relationship among global parenting style, parent-created motivational climate, and student-athlete motivation within the context …

Anorexia Nervosa And Bulimia Nervosa: The Patients' Perspective, Benita J. Quakenbush

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Eating-disorder clients show low motivation, poor follow-through, and inordinate premature dropout rates in treatment. To date, little research has been conducted that might provide clinicians with an understanding of the critical factors that may aid clients' recovery. Such factors may be used by clinicians to better motivate clients to collaborate in treatment. The purpose of this study was to identify some of the critical factors that women with eating disorders believed were crucial in prompting or facilitating their recovery. Identification of these factors was accomplished through a systematic content analysis of semistructured interviews with recovered or recovering bulimics and anorexics. …

Cognitive Style As A Mediator Of Premarital Sexual Attitudes, Motivations, And Behavior, Susan Campbell Bowman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between adolescent premarital sexual attitudes, motivations, behavior, and cognitive style (style of decision-making process). A review of the literature indicated that deviant behaviors among youth are related to one another and that they are also related to ego identity and cognitive style. No previous study had specifically examined sexual behavior, attitudes, and motivations in relation to cognitive style.

A self-report questionnaire was employed to gather information about cognitive style and sexual behaviors, attitudes, and motivations. The sample was comprised of 579 university students ages 17 to 25 …

The Role Of Verbal Incentives And Researcher Attitude In The Motivation Of Preschool Children From Different Socioeconomic Levels, Carol Hunter Byrnes

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The motivating effects of positive and negative verbal reinforcement and researcher attitude on the performance of preschool children were studied in relation to socioeconomic level. Forty children from the Utah State University Child Development Laboratory and forty from Head Start classrooms in northern Utah served as subjects. Each child performed the simple task of placing pegs in a pegboard during a 60- second time interval; once under conditions of positive verbal reinforcement and positive attitude, and again, under one of four experimental conditions: control; positive reinforcement/positive attitude; negative reinforcement/positive attitude; or negative reinforcement/ negative attitude.

The findings seemed to indicate …

The Relationship Of Delinquent Types In An Industrial School Setting To Personality-Motivation Profiles, Lester A. Carlson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The author serves as Director of Education of the Utah State Industrial School, a school charged with the responsibility for the custody and treatment of delinquents committed to its care from the juvenile courts of the state. For many years he has been concerned about the personality structure of the children committed to the care of the Industrial School. He became particularly interested in the possibility that there is a definable relationship between types of delinquent acts and personality-motivation profiles. Further motivation was given to this interest when he received an answer to some correspondence from a colleague of Dr. …