Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Analysis Of Loneliness And Contributing Factors Among College Students, Jessica Eason, Abigail Taber, Rachel Goodall, Blake Fraser, Elizabeth Moffitt, Hayden Goff, Brian Kelley

Liberty University Research Week

Graduate

Applied

Conflict Strategies, Spiritual Meaning, And Spiritual Disclosure Across Various Relationships, Elissa O'Dell

Celebration of Research

This study examined conflict resolution styles across marriages, dating and engaged relationships, and friendships, with the expectation that people in each type of relationship will utilize different conflict strategies. It also explored the relationships among spiritual disclosure, conflict strategies, and spiritual meaning. Sixty-seven college students were recruited as couples, including 29 men and 38 women, each in either a marriage, dating/engaged relationship, or friendship, with a mean age of 20.94. Each participant was asked to complete a Spiritual Meaning Scale (Mascaro et al., 2004), a Spiritual Intimacy Scale (Mahoney et al., 2020), and the conflict frequency and conflict strategies subsections …

Effective Methods Of Alphabet Instruction For Preschool, Kelsey Throne

Celebration of Research

When children complete preschool with strong alphabet knowledge, there is a higher likelihood that they will read at a level of proficiency or above by third grade. Third-grade reading proficiency is highly predictive of school success factors, including continued reading fluency and high school graduation rates. This research compares two different teaching strategies to determine the most effective way to teach the alphabet to preschool students. When considering the pace in which the alphabet is taught, some classrooms teach a letter a week whereas other classrooms teach one letter a day. Multiple studies were analyzed to determine the best approach …

Rooted In Hesed Boutique, Mia Hoogeveen, Makenzie Fink

Celebration of Research

Rooted in Hesed is a Christian women’s clothing boutique and coffee shop. When customers walk in and see the different types of clothing we offer and the smell of fresh coffee, they know they are going to have a good experience. It is our goal that everyone who enters our store feel welcomed, appreciated, and loved. We ensure that our employees will help our customers find outfits that fit their body type and make them look amazing, all while sipping on some tasty coffee. Our coffee section of the store will be small as we will offer the basics like …

The Impact Of Distance From Home On Student-Athlete’S Gpa At Northwestern College, Misael Bruzzone, Hailey Louw

Celebration of Research

In this paper we study the impact of distance from home on GPA amongst Northwestern College students and focus on the student-athlete demographic. Using data from 2013 - 2016 freshman admissions, we show that distance is the largest deterrent to freshman GPA amongst student athletes even when compared to financial need and gender. We show that athletic participation alone is not a significant determinant of freshman GPA when previous academic performance and financial need are taken into consideration and held constant. In addition to this, we also show that distance alone is not a major deterrent to GPA, however, amongst …

Avoiding The Advantageous: Identifying Mental Health Treatment Barriers In High-Risk Professions, Hannah Paauw

Celebration of Research

There is a large mental health treatment gap around the world that impacts the mental, physical, and economic well-being of all. A major reason for the treatment gap is the stigma that surrounds mental illness. Often this stigma is manifested in explicit and implicit bias. This study examined different barriers to mental health treatment for those in law enforcement and health care. Potential barriers to seeking psychological help include implicit and explicit bias, lack of knowledge about mental illness, personal and professional exposure to mental illness, and a lack of mental health training. The results of this study show that …

Father, Son, And Holy Spirit: Children's Understanding Of God In Three Persons, Darrin Vanmeter, Elissa O'Dell, Mia Hoogeveen, Anneka Sterk, Caitlin Hornback, Ainsley Billings, Jennifer S. Feenstra Ph.D., Melanie Nyhof Ph.D.

Celebration of Research

What do kids know about God, in particular God in the three parts of the trinity? In this ongoing research we are interviewing children to investigate their understanding of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We are recruiting local children, between the ages of 3 and 12 years old to interview over Zoom. Once interviews are complete we will explore common themes and understandings of God and how these might change over time.

No Response? Simulating Fear Of Missing Out Experiences To Investigate Relationships With Emotion Regulation, Negative Affect, And Counterfactual-Seeking Through Social Media, Jordanna A. Kruse, Laird R. O. Edman, Jennifer S. Feenstra

Celebration of Research

Fear of missing out (FoMO) is a common experience among young adults characterized by the apprehension that others are having rewarding experiences from which one is absent. The present study investigates the construct of FoMO through simulated experiences in order to clarify the context in which FoMO occurs and to examine its relationship with emotion regulation, counterfactual-seeking, and negative affect. The vignette had a significant effect of increasing feelings of FoMO which was positively associated with difficulties in emotion regulation, counterfactual-seeking, and both regret and disappointment. Feelings of FoMO were significantly greater in the enjoyable task in comparison to the …

Desirable Difficulties: Study Strategies And Academic Performance, Chika Nwaelugo, Jessica Nibbelink, Andrew De Noble

Celebration of Research

Using effective study strategies is important, but some of the most effective strategies are more difficult to implement. In the present study, we investigated knowledge and use of spaced studying and self-testing by college students and factors associated with greater use of these strategies. Replicating a previous study on spacing, the study expanded to also assess student knowledge and use of self-testing.

Coping During The Time Of Covid: Mental Health And Changes In Religious Practices, Laird Edman, Hannah Paauw, Taelor Lamansky, Nolan Behr, Noah Hop, Jessica Rogers, Allison Haverdink, Alison Schutt

Celebration of Research

While rituals, particularly religious rituals, have long been the focus of anthropological research, they have only recently become a focus of psychological research. Ritual is defined as 1) predefined sequences of behavior characterized by rigidity, formality, and repetition that are 2) causally opaque, and 3) embedded in a larger system of symbolism and meaning (Hobson et al., 2017; Lawson & McCauley, 1990; Wen et al., 2020). Religious rituals appear to provide three primary regulatory functions for individuals: regulation of emotions, of the performance of goal states, and of social connections (Hobson, et al., 2017). Because of the importance of ritual …

Taking Care Of Busyness: The Effects Of A Busy Lifestyle On Optimism Across The Adult Lifespan, Noah Hop, Laird Edman

Celebration of Research

Greater busyness in older adults has been associated with better cognition. Varying levels of busyness may play a role in self-reported optimism at different point throughout adulthood. The amount of control one feels over their life may help to explain this relationship. This study tests the relationship of busyness and optimism in adults aged 19-66, while suggesting locus of control as a possible mediating factor. Participants (N = 127) recruited through Amazon’s MTurk program completed the busyness subscale of the Martin and Park Environmental Demands Questionnaire (MPED), the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R), and a bi-dimensional measure of locus of control. …

Religious Coping Styles And Depression, Well-Being, Life Satisfaction, And Post-Traumatic Growth For Cancer Patients, Mia Hoogeveen

Celebration of Research

The current study aimed to identify the relationship between cancer patients’ religious coping style and posttraumatic growth, depression, well-being, and life satisfaction. Participants were 29 cancer patients from a large regional medical center (females = 18, males = 11). It was predicted that positive religious coping would be a significant predictor for posttraumatic growth, as positive religious coping will lead to higher levels of growth. It was also predicted that positive religious coping methods will lead to a greater physical and mental well-being, reduced levels of depression, and a higher life satisfaction while negative religious coping will lead to worse …

Determinants Of Well-Being: Impacts Of Adversity And Resilience Across The Lifespan, Taelor Lamansky, Laird Edman, Jennifer Schon

Celebration of Research

Adversity and resilience have both been consistently shown to impart holistic, cumulative, and life-long effects on well-being. However, the relationship between experiencing adversity and developing resilience has shown to be complex and interactive. While the independent effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), adversity in adulthood, and protective factors in both childhood and adulthood have been previously studied and consistently supported, there has not been adequate research looking into the complex relationships between these variables as they relate to determining overall well-being. The current study attempts to parse out the relative predictive power of these four factors in determining overall well-being …

Human-Machine Communication: Complete Volume. Volume 2

Human-Machine Communication

This is the complete volume of HMC Volume 2.

Out With The Humans, In With The Machines?: Investigating The Behavioral And Psychological Effects Of Replacing Human Advisors With A Machine, Andrew Prahl, Lyn Van Swol

Human-Machine Communication

This study investigates the effects of task demonstrability and replacing a human advisor with a machine advisor. Outcome measures include advice-utilization (trust), the perception of advisors, and decision-maker emotions. Participants were randomly assigned to make a series of forecasts dealing with either humanitarian planning (low demonstrability) or management (high demonstrability). Participants received advice from either a machine advisor only, a human advisor only, or their advisor was replaced with the other type of advisor (human/machine) midway through the experiment. Decision-makers rated human advisors as more expert, more useful, and more similar. Perception effects were strongest when a human advisor was …

Automation Anxieties: Perceptions About Technological Automation And The Future Of Pharmacy Work, Cameron W. Piercy, Angela N. Gist-Mackey

Human-Machine Communication

This study uses a sample of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians (N = 240) who differ in skill, education, and income to replicate and extend past findings about socioeconomic disparities in the perceptions of automation. Specifically, this study applies the skills-biased technical change hypothesis, an economic theory that low-skill jobs are the most likely to be affected by increased automation (Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2019), to the mental models of pharmacy workers. We formalize the hypothesis that anxiety about automation leads to perceptions that jobs will change in the future and automation will increase. We also posit anxiety about overpayment related to …

Artificial Intuition In Tech Journalism On Ai: Imagining The Human Subject, Jacob Johanssen, Xin Wang

Human-Machine Communication

Artificial intuition (AI acting intuitively) is one trend in artificial intelligence. This article analyzes how it is discussed by technology journalism on the internet. The journalistic narratives that were analyzed claim that intuition can make AI more efficient, autonomous, and human. Some commentators also write that intuitive AI could execute tasks better than humans themselves ever could (e.g., in digital games); therefore, it could ultimately surpass human intuition. Such views do not pay enough attention to biases as well as transparency and explainability of AI. We contrast the journalistic narratives with philosophical understandings of intuition and a psychoanalytic view of …

Negotiating Agency And Control: Theorizing Human-Machine Communication From A Structurational Perspective, Jennifer L. Gibbs, Gavin L. Kirkwood, Chengyu Fang, J. Nan Wilkenfeld

Human-Machine Communication

Intelligent technologies have the potential to transform organizations and organizing processes. In particular, they are unique from prior organizational technologies in that they reposition technology as agent rather than a tool or object of use. Scholars studying human-machine communication (HMC) have begun to theorize the dual role played by human and machine agency, but they have focused primarily on the individual level. Drawing on Structuration Theory (Giddens, 1984), we propose a theoretical framework to explain agency in HMC as a process involving the negotiation of control between human and machine agents. This article contributes to HMC scholarship by offering a …

Becoming Human? Ableism And Control In Detroit: Become Human And The Implications For Human-Machine Communication, Marco Dehnert, Rebecca B. Leach

Human-Machine Communication

In human-machine communication (HMC), machines are communicative subjects in the creation of meaning. The Computers are Social Actors and constructivist approaches to HMC postulate that humans communicate with machines as if they were people. From this perspective, communication is understood as heavily scripted where humans mindlessly apply human-to-human scripts in HMC. We argue that a critical approach to communication scripts reveals how humans may rely on ableism as a means of sense-making in their relationships with machines. Using the choose-your-own-adventure game Detroit: Become Human as a case study, we demonstrate (a) how ableist communication scripts render machines as both less-than-human …

The Machine As An Extension Of The Body: When Identity, Immersion And Interactive Design Serve As Both Resource And Limitation For The Disabled, Donna Z. Davis, Shelby Stanovsek

Human-Machine Communication

This research explores how the technological affordances of emerging social virtual environments and VR platforms where individuals from an online disability community are represented in avatar form, correspond to these users’ development of embodied identity, ability, and access to work and social communities. The visual attributes of these avatars, which can realistically reflect the user’s physical self or divert from human form entirely, raise interesting questions regarding the role identity plays in the workplace, be it gender, race, age, weight, or visible disability. Additionally, the technology itself becomes fundamental to identity as the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI), motion …

Social Robots As The Bride? Understanding The Construction Of Gender In A Japanese Social Robot Product, Jindong Liu

Human-Machine Communication

This study critically investigates the construction of gender on a Japanese hologram animestyle social robot Azuma Hikari. By applying a mixed method merging the visual semiotic method and heterogeneous engineering approach in software studies, the signs in Azuma Hikari’s anthropomorphized image and the interactivity enabled by the multimedia interface have been analyzed and discussed. The analysis revealed a stereotyped representation of a Japanese “ideal bride” who should be cute, sexy, comforting, good at housework, and subordinated to “Master”-like husband. Moreover, the device interface disciplines users to play the role of “wage earner” in the simulated marriage and reconstructs the gender …

Forms And Frames: Mind, Morality, And Trust In Robots Across Prototypical Interactions, Jaime Banks, Kevin Koban, Philippe De V. Chauveau

Human-Machine Communication

People often engage human-interaction schemas in human-robot interactions, so notions of prototypicality are useful in examining how interactions’ formal features shape perceptions of social robots. We argue for a typology of three higher-order interaction forms (social, task, play) comprising identifiable-but-variable patterns in agents, content, structures, outcomes, context, norms. From that ground, we examined whether participants’ judgments about a social robot (mind, morality, and trust perceptions) differed across prototypical interactions. Findings indicate interaction forms somewhat influence trust but not mind or morality evaluations. However, how participants perceived interactions (independent of form) were more impactful. In particular, perceived task interactions fostered functional …

Voice-Based Agents As Personified Things: Assimilation And Accommodation As Equilibration Of Doubt, Katrin Etzrodt, Sven Engesser

Human-Machine Communication

We aim to investigate the nature of doubt regarding voice-based agents by referring to Piaget’s ontological object–subject classification “thing” and “person,” its associated equilibration processes, and influential factors of the situation, the user, and the agent. In two online surveys, we asked 853 and 435 participants, ranging from 17 to 65 years of age, to assess Alexa and the Google Assistant. We discovered that only some people viewed voice-based agents as mere things, whereas the majority classified them into personified things. However, their classification is fragile and depends basically on the imputation of subject-like attributes of agency and mind to …

Social Responses To Media Technologies In The 21st Century: The Media Are Social Actors Paradigm, Matthew Lombard, Kun Xu

Human-Machine Communication

Clifford Nass and his colleagues proposed the Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm in the 1990s and demonstrated that we treat computers in some of the ways we treat humans. To account for technological advances and to refine explanations for CASA results, this paper proposes the Media Are Social Actors (MASA) paradigm. We begin by distinguishing the roles of primary and secondary cues in evoking medium-as-social-actor presence and social responses. We then discuss the roles of individual differences and contextual factors in these responses and identify mindless and mindful anthropomorphism as two major complementary mechanisms for understanding MASA phenomena. Based …

Moving Ahead With Human-Machine Communication, Leopoldina Fortunati, Autumn P. Edwards

Human-Machine Communication

In this essay, we introduce the 10 articles comprising Volume 2 (2021) of Human-Machine Communication, each of which is innovative and offers a substantial contribution to the field of human-machine communication (HMC). As a collection, these articles move forward the HMC project by touching on four layers of important discourse: (1) updates to theoretical frameworks and paradigms, including Computers as Social Actors (CASA), (2) examination of ontology and prototyping processes, (3) critical analysis of gender and ability/disability relations, and (4) extension of HMC scholarship into organizational contexts. Building upon the insights offered by the contributing authors and incorporating perspectives …

“What’S Your College?” How A University’S Name Impacts Students’ Communication, Christina Coston

Campus Research Month

Despite Generation Z accounting for most college students today, there is a lack of information about Generation Zs and their college experience. This study aims to determine how a college’s name impacts college attending Generation Zs. Specifically, it investigates the impact of the inclusion of a religious denomination in the name of the college. To answer the research questions presented in this study, focus groups and surveys will be conducted. The presentation will focus on the results of the research which is currently being conducted.

The Relationship Among Social Support, Stress, And Inflammatory Markers Among College Students: A Correlational Study, Bailey Bryant

Campus Research Month

The relationship between psychological factors and the immune system is a relatively new area of study. Nevertheless, it has been found that significant relationships do exist among these variables; prolonged exposure to maladaptive forms of these variables may lead to the development or expression of inflammation. There is, however, a lack of studies that look at more than one variable in relationship to inflammation at a time. Thus, this study analyzes the correlation among social support, stress, and inflammatory markers among college students.

Keywords: mood, stress, inflammation, inflammatory markers, IL-6, social support, susceptibility

College Students' Anxiety Levels And Perceived Experience Of The Spotlight Effect, Bianca Gomez

Campus Research Month

This presentation will go over recent research that was performed on Southern Adventist University’s campus. In this presentation, we will discuss how the spotlight effect can make a negative impact on college students, such as increased anxiety levels. The spotlight effect is best defined as a belief when one overestimates the amount of attention she or he is receiving from peers. When one believes to be viewed in a negative way, it can ultimately make a negative impact on mental health. The purpose of this study is to provide an opportunity to become more educated on social psychology, and overall …

Staff Use Of Institutional Repositories For Academic Purposes In Nigerian University Libraries: The Librarians’ Perspective., Chiegonu Nwachi, Nkechi Idoko Dr

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This empirical work studied the use of institutional repositories in Nigerian university libraries. Three specific objectives and research questions were formulated to guide the study which was the extent of use of institutional repositories by staff in the two university libraries; the problems affecting the use of institutional repositories in the university libraries; and the strategies for improving on the challenges of using institutional repositories in the two Nigerian university libraries. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. Out of 5000 thousand population of the study, 300 staff was selected using stratified and multi-stage sampling techniques. A …

Implementation Of Rda In Cataloguing And Classification In 21st Century: Issues Challenges And Prospects, Chiegonu Bridget Nwachi, Emmanuel Ihekwuaba Dr, Michael C. Nwafor (Corresponding Author)

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

Purpose: The primary goal of each librarian and cataloger is to organize library services to satisfy the users' information-seeking needs, such as searching, locating, selecting, and obtaining the necessary information resources from the users within a limited period of time. With the implementation of the Resource Description and Access (RDA) on 4 April, 2013 in the United States and other nations, catalogers and qualified librarians face difficulties in gaining access to the training and preparation needed. Against this context, the study examined an overview of the implementation of RDA in cataloging and classification in the 21st century: concerns and …