Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Nature's Bounty: Free Therapy, Jasmin Tahmaseb-Mcconatha

Psychology Faculty Publications

The Healing Power of Time Spent in Nature

Nature provides us with free therapy. Thirty minutes a day sitting in the park, walking in the woods, contemplating the waves on the beach promotes well being and increases happiness.

Video Game Addiction And College Performance Among Males: Results Of A One Year Longitudinal Study, Michael Livingston, Zachary L. Schmitt

Psychology Faculty Publications

Video games are played by the vast majority of Americans between the ages of 2 and 17, with males showing higher usage rates (Lenhart et. al., 2008). Furthermore, recent research has demonstrated that 9% of male gamers ages 8 to 18 are addicted to playing video games. Those addicted were significantly more likely to have a lower GPA, have greater difficulty paying attention in class, and were more likely to have been involved in a physical fight over the past year compared to non-addicted gamers (Gentile, 2009).

The majority of video game addiction research has focused on adolescent gamers. The …

Statistical Algorithms For Ontology-Based Annotation Of Scientific Literature, Chayan Chakrabarti, Thomas B. Jones, George F. Luger, Jiawei F. Xu, Matthew Turner, Angela R. Liard, Jessica Turner

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Ontologies encode relationships within a domain in robust data structures that can be used to annotate data objects, including scientific papers, in ways that ease tasks such as search and meta-analysis. However, the annotation process requires significant time and effort when performed by humans. Text mining algorithms can facilitate this process, but they render an analysis mainly based upon keyword, synonym and semantic matching. They do not leverage information embedded in an ontology’s structure.
Methods: We present a probabilistic framework that facilitates the automatic annotation of literature by indirectly modeling the restrictions among the different classes in the ontology. …

Statistical Algorithms For Ontology-Based Annotation Of Scientific Literature, Chayan Chakrabarti, Thomas B. Jones, George F. Luger, Jiawei F. Xu, Matthew Turner, Angela R. Laird, Jessica A. Turner

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Ontologies encode relationships within a domain in robust data structures that can be used to annotate data objects, including scientific papers, in ways that ease tasks such as search and meta-analysis. However, the annotation process requires significant time and effort when performed by humans. Text mining algorithms can facilitate this process, but they render an analysis mainly based upon keyword, synonym and semantic matching. They do not leverage information embedded in an ontology’s structure. Methods: We present a probabilistic framework that facilitates the automatic annotation of literature by indirectly modeling the restrictions among the different classes in the ontology. …

Creativity: A Perspective From Sufism: Love, Faith, And Experience As Paths To True Knowledge., V. Krishna Kumar

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Social Problem Solving Skills In The Relationship Between Traumatic Stress And Moral Disengagement Among Inner-City African American High School Students, Kendell L. Coker, Uduakobong N. Ikpe, Jeannie S. Brooks, Brian Page, Mark B. Sobell

Psychology Faculty Publications

This study examined the relationship between traumatic stress, social problem solving, and moral disengagement among African American inner-city high school students. Participants consisted of 45 (25 males and 20 females) African American students enrolled in grades 10 through 12. Mediation was assessed by testing for the indirect effect using the confidence interval derived from 10,000 bootstrapped resamples. The results revealed that social problem-solving skills have an indirect effect on the relationship between traumatic stress and moral disengagement. The findings suggest that African American youth that are negatively impacted by trauma evidence deficits in their social problem solving skills and are …

Everything Is Permitted? People Intuitively Judge Immorality As Representative Of Atheists, Will M. Gervais

Psychology Faculty Publications

Scientific research yields inconsistent and contradictory evidence relating religion to moral judgments and outcomes, yet most people on earth nonetheless view belief in God (or gods) as central to morality, and many view atheists with suspicion and scorn. To evaluate intuitions regarding a causal link between religion and morality, this paper tested intuitive moral judgments of atheists and other groups. Across five experiments (N = 1,152), American participants intuitively judged a wide variety of immoral acts (e.g., serial murder, consensual incest, necrobestiality, cannibalism) as representative of atheists, but not of eleven other religious, ethnic, and cultural groups. Even atheist …

A Robust Classifier To Distinguish Noise From Fmri Independent Components, Vanessa Sochat, Kaustubh Supekar, Juan Bustillo, Vince D. Calhoun, Jessica Turner, Daniel L. Rubin

Psychology Faculty Publications

Analyzing Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of resting brains to determine the spatial location and activity of intrinsic brain networks–a novel and burgeoning research field–is limited by the lack of ground truth and the tendency of analyses to overfit the data. Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is commonly used to separate the data into signal and Gaussian noise components, and then map these components on to spatial networks. Identifying noise from this data, however, is a tedious process that has proven hard to automate, particularly when data from different institutions, subjects, and scanners is used. Here we present an automated method …

Personality In Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes): Exploring The Hierarchical Structure And Associations With The Vasopressin V1a Receptor Gene, Dr. Robert D. Latzman, William D. Hopkins, Alaine C. Keebaugh, Larry J. Young

Psychology Faculty Publications

One of the major contributions of recent personality psychology is the finding that traits are related to each other in an organized hierarchy. To date, however, researchers have yet to investigate this hierarchy in nonhuman primates. Such investigations are critical in confirming the cross-species nature of trait personality helping to illuminate personality as neurobiologically-based and evolutionarily-derived dimensions of primate disposition. Investigations of potential genetic polymorphisms associated with hierarchical models of personality among nonhuman primates represent a critical first step. The current study examined the hierarchical structure of chimpanzee personality as well as sex-specific associations with a polymorphism in the promoter …

Facial Width-To-Height Ratio Relates To Alpha Status And Assertive Personality In Capuchin Monkeys, Carmen Emilia Lefevre, Vanessa A. D. Wilson, F. Blake Morton, Sarah F. Brosnan, Annika Paukner, Timothy C. Bates

Psychology Faculty Publications

Social dominance hierarchies play a pivotal role in shaping the behaviour of many species, and sex differences within these hierarchies often exist. To date, however, few physical markers of dominance have been identified. Such markers would be valuable in terms of understanding the etiology of dominant behaviour and changes in social hierarchies over time. Animals may also use such traits to evaluate the potential dominance of others relative to themselves (i.e. a physical ‘‘cue’’). Facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR), for example, has been suggested as a cue to dominance in humans, with links to both dominant behaviour and the perception of …

Accelerated Resolution Therapy For Treatment Of Pain Secondary To Symptoms Of Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Kevin E. Kip, Laney Rosenzweig, Diego F. Hernandez, Amy Shuman, David M. Diamond, Sue Ann Girling, Kelly L Sullivan, Trudy Wittenberg, Ann M. Witt, Cecile A. Lengacher, Brian Anderson, Susan C. Mcmillan

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: As many as 70% of veterans with chronic pain treated within the US Veterans Administration (VA) system may have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and conversely, up to 80% of those with PTSD may have pain. We describe pain experienced by US service members and veterans with symptoms of PTSD, and report on the effect of Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), a new, brief exposure-based therapy, on acute pain reduction secondary to treatment of symptoms of PTSD.

Methods: A randomized controlled trial of ART versus an attention control (AC) regimen was conducted among 45 US service members/veterans with symptoms of combat-related …

Mental Health Service Providers: College Student Perceptions Of Helper Effectiveness, Ashley M. Ackerman, Richard A. Wantz, Michael W. Firmin, Dawn C. Poindexter, Amita L. Pujara

Psychology Faculty Publications

Undergraduate perceptions of the overall effectiveness of six types of mental health service providers (MHSPs) were obtained with a survey. Although many mental health services are available to consumers in the United States, research has indicated that these services are underutilized. Perceptions have been linked to therapeutic outcomes and may potentially serve as barriers to treatment. The results of the present study illustrate a range of perceptions and highlight the value of educating future consumers and practitioners about the roles of various MHSPs in providing mental health services. Future research is proposed.

Rites Of Spring: Reflecting On Another Noroos, Jasmin Tahmaseb-Mcconatha

Psychology Faculty Publications

Spring rites are celebrated and acknowledged around the world. In Iran, the first day of Spring is also the first day of the New Year, or Noroos. Noroos is an ancient Zoroastrian holiday that Persians have celebrated with rituals that focus on the beginning and end of life, on rebirth, and on good and evil in the world. It is a time of reflection and renewal.

Who Is Most Vulnerable To Social Rejection? The Toxic Combination Of Low Self-Esteem And Lack Of Negative Emotion Differentiation On Neural Responses To Rejection, Todd B. Kashdan, C. Nathan Dewall, Carrie L. Masten, Richard S. Pond Jr., Caitlin Powell, David Combs, David R. Schurtz, Antonina S. Farmer

Psychology Faculty Publications

People have a fundamental need to belong that, when satisfied, is associated with mental and physical well-being. The current investigation examined what happens when the need to belong is thwarted—and how individual differences in self-esteem and emotion differentiation modulate neural responses to social rejection. We hypothesized that low self-esteem would predict heightened activation in distress-related neural responses during a social rejection manipulation, but that this relationship would be moderated by negative emotion differentiation—defined as adeptness at using discrete negative emotion categories to capture one's felt experience. Combining daily diary and neuroimaging methodologies, the current study showed that low self-esteem and …

Suggested Practices For Making I-O Connections: Let’S Build Bridges And Grow I-O!, Joseph A. Allen, Tara S. Behrend, Suzanne T. Bell, Victoria J. Smoak

Psychology Faculty Publications

It may come as no surprise, but there are an awful lot of people who have no idea what I-O pychology is or what I-O psychologists do. Common reactions from new acquaintances include, “Ooo, I could really use some help organizing my home and be a more industrious person” or “Wow, that’s a mouthful” or “No really, what do you do for a living?” Perhaps even more alarming is the number of students across universities who aren’t introduced to I-O—even if they are psychology majors! We are struck by the number of prospective graduate students who tell us that they …

Differences In Emotional Labor Across Cultures: A Comparison Of Chinese And U.S. Service Workers, Joseph A. Allen, James M. Diefendorff, Yufeng Ma

Psychology Faculty Publications

Purpose In the global economy, the need for understanding cross-cultural differences and the customer service-related processes involved in emotional labor is evident. The current study attempts to examine this issue by developing and testing hypotheses pertaining to cross-cultural differences between U.S. and Chinese service workers on the levels of display rule perceptions, emotion regulation, and burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization) as well as the relationships among these variables.

Design/Methodology/Approach Data was collected from service workers in the U.S. (n=280) and China (n=231). We tested for measurement differences, mean differences, and differences in the relationships among emotional labor …

The Creative Life Of A Genius: Nobel Laureate P. A. M. Dirac: A Monosyllabic Creative Genius, V. Krishna Kumar

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Travelling Companions: The Healing Power Of Books, Jasmin Tahmaseb-Mcconatha

Psychology Faculty Publications

Reading is tantamount to taking a mental holiday. On cold winter days books can take us away on adventures, to warm beaches, to a better understanding of ourselves and our lives. They can link us to memories of the past and lead us to new beginnings. Reading is a great stress reducer, unfortunately 23% of Americans did not read a single book in 2013. Researchers have found that reading can be a wonderful source of stress release.

Child-­‐Directed Action Promotes 2-­‐Year-­‐Olds’ Imitation, Rebecca Williamson, Rebecca J. Brand

Psychology Faculty Publications

Children are voracious learners and adults are ubiquitous teachers. This project investigates whether the special infant-­‐ directed action modifications parents use when teaching their children (called “motionese”; Brand, Baldwin, & Ashburn, 2002) improves two-­‐year-­‐olds’ imitation. Children saw an adult perform a series of acts on four novel objects, using either an infant-­‐directed style (including larger range of motion and enhanced boundary marking) or an adult-­‐directed style. Children’s imitation of the acts was higher in the infant-­‐ directed relative to the adult-­‐directed condition, and both types of demonstration increased imitation relative to baseline (no demonstration). We propose that motionese may also …

Interest Level Improves Learning But Does Not Moderate The Effects Of Interruptions: An Experiment Using Simultaneous Multitasking, Maureen A. Conard, Robert F. Marsh

Psychology Faculty Publications

It has become common practice for people to multitask with electronic devices in everyday situations. We examined the effects of interrupting participants with instant messages while they watched a video presentation in a situation that resembled commonplace events such as a business meeting, a training presentation, or a classroom lecture. We compared them to participants who were not interrupted. We also investigated how interest in the topics presented affected learning. Results showed that interruptions reduced learning, by a small but statistically significant margin, which is consistent with the findings of similar studies. Importantly, interest level was as strong a predictor …

Pipeline Revision: A Call To Change, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Pablo P. L. Tinio

Psychology Faculty Publications

Comments on the original article by Matthew Makel (see record 2014-06823-002) which raises an important concern regarding selfcorrection in science. While the notion that science should be self-correcting, and is failing, is not new, recent events in both social and biological sciences have led to a renewed call to develop approaches that would allow for self-correction ( Economist, 2013). Makel addresses a number of issues that hinder self-correction through replications and suggests a number of solutions. In this commentary, we as the editors of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (PACA), would like to offer our perspective. …

Reading Skill In Adult Survivors Of Childhood Brain Tumor: A Theory-Based Neurocognitive Model, Kristen M. Smith, Tricia Z. King, Reema Jayakar, Robin Morris

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objective: This study investigated the relationship between word reading and white matter (WM) integrity within a neuroanatomical-based reading system comparing adult survivors of childhood brain tumors and controls. It was predicted that the association between WM integrity and word reading would be mediated by processing speed, and this indirect effect would be moderated by group.

Method: Thirty-seven adult survivors of childhood brain tumor and typically developing adults participated (age M=24.19±4.51 years, 62% female). DTI Tractography identified the WM tract for three of the reading system connections: inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), arcuate fasciculus (AF), and parietotemporal-occipitotemporal connection (PT-OT).

Results:Fractional anisotropy …

Acceptance And Commitment Therapy For Women Diagnosed With Binge Eating Disorder: A Case-Series Study., Akihiko Masuda, M. L. Hill, H. Melcher, Jessica Morgan, M. P. Twohig

Psychology Faculty Publications

Binge eating disorder (BED) is an eating disorder marked by a recurrence of eating unusually large amounts of food in one sitting along with feeling a loss of control over eating and experiencing marked distress. Outcomes from two adult women with BED who voluntarily participated in 10 weekly sessions of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy are presented. Binge eating was self-monitored daily prior to and throughout treatment. The average frequency of weekly binge eating across both participants at pre-treatment was 5.7 times, which decreased to 2.5 per week at post-treatment, and 1.0 per week at follow-up. The improvements were particularly significant …

Student Engagement In After-School Programs, Academic Skills, And Social Competence Among Elementary School Students, Kathryn E. Grogan, Christopher Henrich, Mariya V. Malikina

Psychology Faculty Publications

Research on the relationship between after-school program participation and student outcomes has been mixed, and beneficial effects have been small. Most recent studies suggest that participation is best characterized as a multidimensional concept that includes enrollment, attendance, and engagement, which help explain differences in student outcomes. The present study uses data from a longitudinal study of after-school programs in elementary schools to examine staff ratings of student engagement and school outcomes. The factor structure of the staff-rated measure of student engagement was examined by exploratory factor analysis. Multiple regression analyses found that student engagement in academic, youth development, and arts …

Genetic And Environmental Influences On Affiliation With Deviant Peers During Adolescence And Early Adulthood, Nicholas Tarantino, Erin Tully, Sarah E. Garcia, Susan South, William G. Iacono, Matt Mcgue

Psychology Faculty Publications

Adolescence and early adulthood is a time when peer groups become increasingly influential in the lives of young people. Youth exposed to deviant peers risk susceptibility to externalizing behaviors and related psychopathology. In addition to environmental correlates of deviant peer affiliation, a growing body of evidence suggests that affiliation with deviant peers is heritable. This study examined the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on affiliation with deviant peers, changes in the relative importance of these factors, and which of these factors contribute to the stability of affiliation across this critical developmental period using a longitudinal twin study design that …

An Integrative Common Liabilities Model For The Comorbidity Of Substance Use Disorders With Externalizing And Internalizing Disorders, Erin Tully, William G. Iacono

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents an integrative research-derived model to explain comorbidity among SUDs, externalizing disorders, and internalizing disorders. This hierarchical model is based on phenotypic covariance among the disorders and latent common genetic liability. At the highest level of the hierarchy, general genetically-influenced biological dispositions to negative emotionality and behavioral disinhibition each give rise to spectra of related personality traits, cognitive processes, behavioral tendencies, and psychopathology that account for the pattern of co-occurrence among mental disorders. At the lowest level of the hierarchy, disorder-specific genetic and environmental effects explain the presence of some and not other disorders associated with a given …

Neurocognitive Mechanisms Of Statistical-Sequential Learning: What Do Event-Related Potentials Tell Us?, Jerome Daltrozzo, Christopher M. Conway

Psychology Faculty Publications

Statistical-sequential learning (SL) is the ability to process patterns of environmental stimuli, such as spoken language, music, or one’s motor actions, that unfold in time. The underlying neurocognitive mechanisms of SL and the associated cognitive representations are still not well understood as reflected by the heterogeneity of the reviewed cognitive models. The purpose of this review is: (1) to provide a general overview of the primary models and theories of SL, (2) to describe the empirical research – with a focus on the event- related potential (ERP) literature – in support of these models while also highlighting the current limitations …

Correlates Of Psychopathic Personality Traits In Everyday Life: Results From A Large Community Survey, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Robert D. Latzman, Ashley L. Watts, Sarah F. Smith, Kevin Dutton

Psychology Faculty Publications

Although the traits of psychopathic personality (psychopathy) have received extensive attention from researchers in forensic psychology, psychopathology, and personality psychology, the relations of these traits to aspects of everyday functioning are poorly understood. Using a large internet survey of members of the general population (N = 3388), we examined the association between psychopathic traits, as measured by a brief but well-validated self-report measure, and occupational choice, political orientation, religious affiliation, and geographical residence. Psychopathic traits, especially those linked to fearless dominance, were positively and moderately associated with holding leadership and management positions, as well as high-risk occupations. In addition, psychopathic …

Harnessing Modern Web Application Technology To Create Intuitive And Efficient Data Visualization And Sharing Tools, Dylan Wood, Margaret D. King, Drew Landis, William Courtney, Runtang Wang, Ross Kelly, Jessica Turner, Vince D. Calhoun

Psychology Faculty Publications

Neuroscientists increasingly need to work with big data in order to derive meaningful results in their field. Collecting, organizing and analyzing this data can be a major hurdle on the road to scientific discovery. This hurdle can be lowered using the same technologies that are currently revolutionizing the way that cultural and social media sites represent and share information with their users. Web application technologies and standards such as RESTful webservices, HTML5 and high-performance in-browser JavaScript engines are being utilized to vastly improve the way that the world accesses and shares information. The neuroscience community can also benefit tremendously from …

Automated Collection Of Imaging And Phenotypic Data To Centralized And Distributed Data Repositories, Margaret D. King, Dylan Wood, Brittny Miller, Ross Kelly, Drew Landis, William Courtney, Runtang Wang, Jessica A. Turner, Vince D. Calhoun

Psychology Faculty Publications

Accurate data collection at the ground level is vital to the integrity of neuroimaging research. Similarly important is the ability to connect and curate data in order to make it meaningful and sharable with other investigators. Collecting data, especially with several different modalities, can be time consuming and expensive. These issues have driven the development of automated collection of neuroimaging and clinical assessment data within COINS (Collaborative Informatics and Neuroimaging Suite). COINS is an end-to-end data management system. It provides a comprehensive platform for data collection, management, secure storage, and flexible data retrieval (Bockholt et al., 2010; Scott et al., …