Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Hurting Leaders: The Lived Experiences Of African-American Clergy And Their Views, Attitudes, And Barriers To Help-Seeking, Bernice Suzette Patterson

Dissertations

The help-seeking tendencies of African-Americans, as a whole, have long been a source of confusion to the field of counseling. Moreover, in the available literature on help-seeking, in the African-American community there is an apparent deficit of information on the help-seeking habits of its clergy members. Current literature focuses primarily on African-American clergy and their roles in facilitating the development of professional counseling relationships for their parishioners rather than on their ability to seek out professional counseling relationships for themselves.

The focus of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of African-American clergy related to …

Differences In Attitudes Towards People With Disabilities: Examining The Effects Of The Presence Of An Assistance Dog, Jennifer A. Coleman

Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with disabilities face various types of social stigma. Research suggests that the presence of an assistance dog leads to an increase in social interactions. The purpose of this study was to determine whether people’s attitudes toward individuals with disabilities differ when pairing that person with an assistance dog. Undergraduate students (N= 244) were randomly assigned to view an individual with a disability either alone or with an assistance dog. Participants rated their attitudes toward the individual, completed a newly developed Implicit Association Test, and answered behavioral intention questions. Results of a hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that individuals with …

A Cross-Cultural Comparison Of American And Chinese College Students' Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help And Expectations About Counseling And Counselors, Xiaowei Qiao

Master's Theses

The number of international students in the U.S. has increased steadily since the early 1990s. Based on this trend, the current study compared American and Chinese college students� attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help and expectations about counseling and counselors. In addition, it compared the stress levels of these two groups and examined Chinese international students� specific stressors. A total of 100 American and 71 Chinese students from a small Midwestern university participated in this study. ATSPPH-SF (Attitudes toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help � Short Form), EAC-BF (Expectations about Counseling � Brief Form), PSS (Perceived Stress Survey), and QSSCSCIS (Questionnaire …

Thinking Outside The Box Turtle: Public Perceptions Of An Imperiled Species, Colleen M. Hartel, Stuart Carlton, Linda S. Prokopy

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina) experience negative impacts from human activities. Collection for the pet trade or mortalities caused by lawn mowers and vehicles are detrimental to populations, which have experienced rapid decline in Indiana. Understanding perceptions and attitudes held about species can help outreach. This study aims to observe how perceptions and fear response differ between a) genders, b) contact with box turtles, and c) conservation group membership. Mail surveys were administered to 1,378 residents of the Blue River Watershed in Southern Indiana. Respondents rated box turtles on 11 semantic differential pairs and reported their agreement …

An Analysis Of Safety Culture & Safety Training: Comparing The Impact Of Union, Non-Union, And Right To Work Construction Venues, Harry Miller Csp, Tara Hill, Kris Mason, John S. Gaal Edd

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

The construction industry is one of the most dangerous sectors of the US economy. As such, the safety attitudes and climate within small (residential) contracting firms may play a role in providing a safe culture and working environment. The intent of this practitioner-based research study is to compare and determine if there is a difference in safety practices—based on documented field inspections and their related original number of violations observed by OSHA—between union residential carpentry contractors in the St. Louis area and:

1) non-union residential carpentry contractors in the St. Louis area;

2) non-union residential carpentry contractors across Missouri; and …

Clinicians' Attitudes Towards Borderline Personality Disorder And Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder : Implications Of Gender And A Diagnostic Label, Marja A. Walthall

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

The purpose of the current study was to investigate mental health clinicians' diagnostic assessments of individuals who have features associated with both Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the effect of gender on their assessments, and associated attitudes. Recruitment resulted in a participant sample of 38 mental health clinicians who completed the survey in its entirety. Most of the participants identified as white (71.2%), were female (61.5%), worked in a community mental health center setting (76.9%) and had their LCSW (25%) or MA/MS in counseling (28.8%). Three surveys were evenly distributed between potential participants and each included …

Local Attitudes Towards Bear Management After Illegal Feeding And Problem Bear Activity, Sara Dubois, David Fraser

Wildlife Population Management Collection

The “pot bears” received international media attention in 2010 after police discovered the intentional feeding of over 20 black bears during the investigation of an alleged marijuana-growing operation in Christina Lake, British Columbia, Canada. A two-phase random digit dialing survey of the community was conducted in 2011 to understand local perspectives on bear policy and management, before and after a summer of problem bear activity and government interventions. Of the 159 households surveyed in February 2011, most had neutral or positive attitudes towards bears in general, and supported the initial decision to feed the food-conditioned bears until the autumn hibernation. …

Clinicians' Perceptions Of The Mental Health Of Gay Clients And The Effects Of Diversity Competency And Modern Homophobia, Joseph M. Longo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Attitudes within the psychological community regarding sexual minorities have evolved over time with a significant history of assigning pathology to lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) clients. Though attitudes have shifted, prejudice has not disappeared. Modern forms of homophobia are less overt and subtler expressions of contempt, disapproval, or discrimination and are rooted in internal conflict. In mental health training programs, LGB clients have historically received little attention, failing to prepare professionals to competently work with this population; encouragingly, this trend is changing. The present study investigated how mental health clinicians assess the level of mental health of gay male clients …

Does Training On Inhibitory Tasks Influence Alcohol Consumption And Attitudes?, Bronwyn Hegarty, Jacqueline A. Rushby, Stuart J. Johnstone, Peter Kelly, Janette Smith

Peter Kelly

Response inhibition - the suppression of a prepotent or ongoing action - is an executive function central to the regulation of behaviour. Response inhibition can be assessed in the laboratory using the Go/No-go or Stop-Signal tasks which both assess the capacity to withhold an inappropriate response. In the Go/No-go task, participants are required to respond rapidly to Go stimuli but to withhold that response upon No-go stimuli. In the Stop-Signal task, participants are required to respond to Go stimuli but to withhold the response when an auditory stop signal occurs subsequent to the Go stimulus.

The Older Patient, The Doctor And The Trainee: Patients' Attitudes And Implications For Models Of Care, Andrew Bonney, Sandra Jones, Donald Iverson

Sandra Jones

Aims & rationale/Objectives Population ageing poses major challenges for health systems. Additionally, training future general practitioners in the management of older and chronically ill patients is potentially hampered by the reluctance of these patients to consult trainees for chronic care. This paper reports a cross-sectional study investigating the attitudes of older patients to trainees, to inform strategies to improve older patient-trainee interaction. Methods The survey instrument was distributed to 1900 patients aged 60 and over from 38 training practices from five Australian states using a stratified, randomised cluster sampling process. Generalised estimating equation models were used for analysis. Principal findings …

Whose Standards? An Examination Of Community Attitudes Towards Australian Advertising, Sandra C. Jones, Katherine Eagleton

Sandra Jones

There is considerable ongoing debate in Australia, as in other countries, about the ethicality of current advertising practices. In recent years there has been an increase in the public focus on offensive or unacceptable advertising – such as overt sex appeals, racial vilification, and promotion of unsafe use of consumer products – arguing that many of these advertisements (ads) are contrary to community standards. The industry, on the other hand, argues that it produces ads that are designed to meet and appeal to community standards. There is no comprehensive data on the nature of community standards in relation to advertising, …

Too Many Immigrants?: Examining Alternative Forms Of Immigrant Population Innumeracy, Daniel Herda

Sociology Faculty Publications

The tendency to overestimate immigrant population sizes has garnered considerable scholarly attention for its potential link to anti-immigrant policy support. However, this existing innumeracy research has neglected other forms of ignorance, namely underestimation and nonresponse. Using the 2002 European Social Survey, the current study examines the full scope of innumeracy for the first time. Results indicate that underestimation and nonresponse occur commonly across twenty-one countries and that overestimation is far from ubiquitous. Nonresponders in particular are found to represent a distinct innumeracy form associated with low cognitive availability and high negative affect. Multilevel models indicate that underestimation associates with greater …

Exceptionalist-In-Chief: Presidents, American Exceptionalism, And U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1897, John A. Dearborn

Honors Scholar Theses

“American exceptionalism” has been an important part of presidential foreign policy, especially since the end of the nineteenth century when the United States emerged as a global power. I argue that presidents’ beliefs, rhetoric, and actions during their administrations reveal their attitudes toward exceptionalism. In this work, I propose four types of Presidential American Exceptionalism that presidents’ foreign policies since 1897 can be categorized into: messianic Americanism, messianic internationalism, realist exemplarism, and pragmatic moralism. I define these categories and explain them using case studies of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, and …

Attitude Accessiblity As A Determinant Of Object Construal And Evaluation, Alison I. Young, Russell H. Fazio

Faculty Scholarship – Psychology

Attitude accessibility, the ease with which a given attitude comes to mind, has been demonstrated to affect attention. The current experiments focus on the construal of multiply-categorizable objects. They seek to provide evidence that (a) construals toward which individuals have more accessible attitudes, i.e., those that are more attitude-evoking, are more likely to influence the evaluation of related objects and that (b) this effect of attitude accessibility on construal processes can be extended to a whole series of objects which vary along multiple dimensions. Experiment 1 provides evidence that construals whose related attitudes were made more accessible via attitude rehearsal …

Understanding The Public's Attitudes Toward Tissue Donation: A Multi-Method Approach, Lindsey Kurland

Theses and Dissertations

The impact of deceased tissue donation and transplantation is far-reaching; however, little is known about the public’s attitudes towards tissue donation. Siminoff, Traino, and Gordon (2010) found that families’ attitudes towards tissue donation were a significant predictor of consent; specifically, families that were initially favorable towards tissue donation were more likely to donate their loved ones tissues than families that were initially unfavorable towards tissue donation. Using a qualitative coding approach and the Tripartite Model of Attitude Structure (affective, behavioral, and cognitive attitude components) as a conceptual framework, families’ expressed attitudes toward tissue donation were extracted from N=240 audiorecordings of …

Civil War Attitudes As Seen In Children’S Media And Toys, Andrea De Melo

Journal of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research

In an age when children were urged to be “seen and not heard,” some of the faint voices of children during the Civil War survived to give a picture of their lives. Children played many roles in the Civil War; some children became Civil War soldiers, while other children stayed home but never escaped the image of the brave examples of drummer boys embodied in countless poems, literature, and pictures. The children were part of a culture that devoured even the youngest citizens of the war-torn nation during the Civil War. Today through their writings and other primary documents, we …

Effects Of Disclosing Autism On Coworker Attitudes, Jordan G. Stewart

Honors Projects

Individuals with autism tend to have difficulty with social relationships in the workplace, which makes it hard to obtain and maintain employment. In order to help individuals with autism navigate the workplace, it is important to examine possible stigma management strategies. Using principles from the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) theory, I investigated the effects of disclosing autism on coworker attitudes by having participants view and react to a video of an individual with autism. I also investigated the effects of displayed interpersonal warmth (e.g., greeting others) on potential coworker attitudes. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions formed …

Counselor Educator Knowledge, Experience, Attitudes And Beliefs Toward Complementary And Alternative Medicine, Jennifer Mills Langeland

Dissertations

Following growing public interest and widespread use, many health professions have begun to explore the attitudes toward, knowledge of and experience with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) of the various stakeholders within their professions. This foundational information has enabled disciplines such as medicine, nursing, psychology, and marriage and family therapy to take a closer look at how students, patients, clients, and faculty think about and utilize CAM and its relevance to their professions. Surveying the practices and attitudes of stakeholders has been an important starting point for professions undertaking the task of integrating these practices into training programs.

This study …

Children, Spouses, And Attitudes: Impact On Women's Work Status, Mengxi Li Seeley, James B. Mcdonald

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

Women face unique challenges in their balancing of career and family. Some questions women consider include children and childcare, spouses' earning potential and relationship stability, and their own attitudes on family relationships and gender roles. This study uses probit and probit with instrumental variables to examine the effects of these considerations on women's fulltime work status, the dependent variable. Under the assumption of traditional social views regarding men as breadwinners and women as nurturers, increased childcare pressures and spousal potential to provide are expected to decrease the incentive for women to work fulltime. The results of this study are mostly …

Contact, Identity, And Prejudice: Comparing Attitudes Toward Arab Americans Pre-And Post-9/11-2001, Meghan Kimberly Wight

Theses and Dissertations

Using social contact and social identity theories, I seek to show how attitudes of mainstream American society toward individuals of Middle-Eastern descent (Arabs) have changed eight years after September 11, 2001 when compared to similar data from shortly after the terrorist attacks. I use data gathered from nationally representative opinion polls and the theoretical constructs of social contact theory and social identity theory to understand how attitudes have changed in the eight-year period. I first provide a firm grounding in the social contact and social identity literature, analyze the race/attitudinal data, and finally show how both social identity and social …

Awareness And Beliefs Regarding Intimate Partner Violence Among First-Year Dental Students, Rhonda J. Everett, Karl Kingsley, Christina A. Demopoulos, Edward E. Herschaft, Christine Lamun, Sheniz Moonie, Timothy J. Bungum, Michelle Chino

Environmental & Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Intimate partner violence (IPV) may affect one to four million individuals per year in the United States, with women accounting for the majority of both reported and unreported cases. Dental professionals are in a unique position to identify many types of IPV because injuries to the head and neck may be indicators or predictors of IPV abuse. Fewer than half of dental programs surveyed have reported having IPV-specific curricula, and most dental students surveyed have reported having little experience or training to recognize IPV. Based on this information, this pilot study sought to assess the awareness and beliefs regarding IPV …

Investigations Of Attitudes Towards Offshore Wind Farm Development In Ireland: Their Implication Towards Future Development Of The Industry., Aidan Melia

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

This current research investigates what the attitudes of Irish people are towards the development of offshore wind farms in Ireland. Using a qualitative approach, a questionnaire is carefully designed and distributed among a sample population from three coastal communities. One is located on the west coast and two on the east coast. The two locations on the east coast have an involvement in offshore wind farms. One of the locations plays host to Ireland’s only offshore wind farm, while there are plans in place for an offshore wind farm at the other location. The results from the questionnaires are analyzed …

Political Attitudes Bias The Mental Representation Of A Presidential Candidate's Face, Alison I. Young, Kyle G. Ratner, Russell H. Fazio

Faculty Scholarship – Psychology

Using a technique known as reverse correlation image classification, we demonstrate that the physical face of Mitt Romney represented in people’s minds varies as a function of their attitudes toward Mitt Romney. This provides evidence that attitudes bias how we see something as concrete and well-learned as the face of a political candidate during an election. Practically, this implies that citizens may not merely interpret political information about a candidate to fit their opinion, but that they may construct a political world where they literally see candidates differently.

A Juvenile Perspective: What Affects Attitudes Of African American, Hispanic, And White Youth Toward The Police., Rodney Lamon Lake

Wayne State University Dissertations

Race is one of the most powerful variables explaining the public's attitudes toward the police. The majority of studies on race and attitudes toward the police have explored differences between African Americans and Whites. The emphasis of previous research on Black-White comparisons has left unanswered many questions about minority group differences in attitudes toward the police, especially differences between Latinos and African Americans. With the usage of secondary data ("Outcome Evaluation of the Teens, Crime, and the Community/Community Works (TCC/CW) Training Program in Nine Cities across Four States, 2004-2005), this study determined which independent variables (race, age, gender, class, self …

Perceptions Of Mental Illness And Mental Health Policy, Kristen Mcaleenan

Psychology Honors Papers

The present study examined people’s implicit and explicit perceptions of mental illness and compared those attitudes to ratings of fairness for psychiatric hospital policies. The sample consisted of 88 participants, from both Connecticut College and Amazon Mechanical Turk. Data were derived from a Hospital Policy Questionnaire created by the researcher, the Perceptions of Dangerousness of Mental Patients (PDMP) scale, as well as 2 Implicit Association Tests assessing General Attitudes and perceptions of Dangerousness. Results showed no significant association between implicit attitudes and judgments of hospital policies, nor between implicit perceptions of dangerousness and judgments of hospital policies. However, explicit perceptions …

Equine Welfare As A Mainstream Phenomenon, Bernard E. Rollin

Equine Husbandry and Welfare Collection

The 20th century has witnessed a bewildering array of ethical revolutions, from civil rights to environmentalism to feminism. Often ignored is the rise of massive societal concern across the world regarding animal treatment. Regulation of animal research exists in virtually all Western countries, and reform of “factory farming” is regnant in Europe and rapidly emerging in the United States. In 2012, a series of articles in The New York Times focused welfare attention squarely on the horse industry. Opponents of concern for animals often dismiss the phenomenon as rooted in emotion and extremist lack of appreciation of how unrestricted animal …

Inspiring Results: Designing Innovative Instruction Using Faculty Feedback On Technology Use And Attitudes Toward Library Research Instruction, Maria A. Perez-Stable, Dianna E. Sachs, Patricia F. Vander Meer

University Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

The importance of information literacy (IL) at the college level is well documented. Like many other institutions, Western Michigan University (WMU) has come to recognize the value of IL, after years of deliberate and steady promotion of its benefits to the WMU community by the University Libraries. A crucial question that has emerged as part of the Libraries’ strategic plan to meet the University’s IL needs is this: What are the best ways to deliver library instruction to address the needs of today’s students and faculty, keeping in mind emerging and changing technologies to which faculty and students relate?

In …

Community Knowledge, Behaviours And Attitudes About The 2009 H1n1 Influenza Pandemic: A Systematic Review, Rebecca Tooher, Joanne Collins, Jackie M. Street, Annette J. Braunack-Mayer, Helen S. Marshall

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background

Effectiveness of pandemic plans and community compliance was extensively researched following the H1N1 pandemic. This systematic review examined community response studies to determine whether behavioural responses to the pandemic were related to level of knowledge about the pandemic, perceived severity of the pandemic and level of concern about the pandemic.

Methods

Literature databases were searched from March 2009 to August 2011 and included cross‐sectional or repeated population surveys undertaken during or following the H1N1 pandemic which reported on community response to the pandemic. Studies using population subgroups and other respiratory diseases were excluded, as were mathematical modelling and qualitative …

Individual And Contextual Factors Shaping Teachers' Attitudes And Responses To Bullying Among Young Children: Is Education Important?, Philippa Small, Cathrine Marguerite Neilsen-Hewett, Naomi Sweller

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This study examined how pre- and post-service early childhood teachers' beliefs and responses to bullying among young children differ by level of qualification, type of bullying and whether or not it was witnessed. Results showed 1st and 4th-year student- and diploma-qualified teachers perceived acts of physical bullying to be more serious than verbal or relational bullying to a greater extent than did degree-qualified teachers. Degree-qualified teachers were less susceptible to bullying type and indicated they would be more likely to intervene than the other three groups. Results are discussed in relation to their implication for teaching practice and the content …

Trainee Teachers' Attitudes Towards Students With Specific Learning Disabilities, Stuart Woodcock

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Policies on the inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms have focused attention on how general education teachers perceive these students. Furthermore with specific learning disabilities forming a large group of diverse students, and teachers' attitudes often not changing over the career span, preparing teachers for inclusive education is vitally important. This study aimed to identify the attitudes of trainee1 teachers towards students with specific learning disabilities and differentiation of the curriculum. Significant differences were found between the attitudes of primary and secondary school trainee teachers, and the influence of training. There were no differences in attitudes …