Psychology Commons^™

A Cross-Cultural Study Of Client's Expectations And Preferences Of Directive Vs. Nondirective Counseling Approaches, Ching-Chuen Chan

Masters Theses

Theoretical and data based research has suggested that clients' expectation of counselor and counseling approaches are important variables affecting the counseling procedures. Clients' preferences for different theoretically derived approach were also found to be important determinants of counseling outcome. However, little research has been done on the cross-cultural aspect of client's expectation and preferences regarding counseling. The present study examined and compared the differences of expectations and preferences of directive vs. nondirective approach between Chinese and American college students. It was hypothesized that the authoritarian upbringing of Chinese students would influence their preference and expectations of counseling in favor of …

Androgyny And Psychological Adjustment Of Heterosexual And Homosexual Women, Deborah R. Donison

Masters Theses

Early research on the study of lesbianism was largely psychoanalytically oriented and contended that homosexuality was a form of psychopathology. Many have found that female homosexuals have a deep sense of inferiority and suffer from neuroticism. Recent investigation however, indicates that this is not necessarily the case. It has now been found that lesbians are no more neurotic than female heterosexuals. Furthermore, several other investigators have found lesbians to be better adjusted, in some respects, than heterosexual women.

Such differences are accountable for a number of reasons including the use of nonpatient subjects, reduction in sampling errors and the use …

Personality Characteristics And Locus Of Control Of Asthmatic, Diabetic, And Chronic Renal Failure Children, Mary Margaret Dwyer

Masters Theses

Past research has demonstrated that there are personality differences between individuals suffering from chronic illnesses and those who are “healthy”. Personality correlates of chronically ill children have also been evidenced, especially regarding specific illnesses.

The present study sought to determine if children suffering from asthma, diabetes, and chronic renal failure exhibit personality characteristics unique to and/or common to these particular groups. A second objective was to determine if Asthmatic, Diabetic, and Chronic Renal Failure Children display a difference or commonality in locus of control expectancies.

Ten male and 13 female outpatients at the Pediatrics Clinic of Michael Reese Hospital and …

The Relationship Between Empathy And Socially Deviant Behaviors In Delinquent Adolescents, Terrie L. Fisk

Masters Theses

Past research has demonstrated that empathy, traditionally defined as the ability to discriminate, label and then experience the emotional response of another, acts as an inhibitor of aggressive behavior. Additional evidence has shown an increase in empathic functioning can be the result of various empathy training strategies. It has recently been hypothesized that aggressive behavior might be decreased as empathic functioning increases. The present study sought to determine if an inverse relationship existed between empathy and socially deviant behavior, which is a less extreme degree of aggression characterized by disruptiveness and attention seeking. In addition, it was hypothesized that if …

A Pilot Study Of A Sex Education Program In A Sheltered Workshop Using A Cognitive-Behavioral Model Based On Rational Emotive Therapy, Jacqueline A. Rieck, Thomas E. Frederick

Masters Theses

This pilot study was developed to teach people with mental retardation about their own sexuality, appropriate community behaviors, and to develop within them a basic sense of responsibility for their own actions. Problems in social/sexual behaviors have been consistently quoted as reasons for high recidivism rates, as well as difficulties in community living, vocational placement, and other generalized stereotypes about mental retardation. Often the public remains uninformed about, does not recognize, and/or feels that sexual rights for people with any mental differences should not exist. Additionally, when any form of sexuality was expressed by such people it resulted in shock …

An Exploratory Investigation Of The Relationship Between Personality And Intelligence With Community-Living And Institutionalized Elderly Females, Richard D. Stolp

Masters Theses

The Hand Test and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale were administered to 25 institutionalized (Mage = 80.00) and 25 community-living (Mage = 72.92) elderly females to investigate personality differences between the two groups, and to explore the relationship between personality and intelligence in regard to the aged. It was discussed that the results of the present study should be interpreted with caution, since significant age and educational differences were found between the groups that may have contributed to the results. The hypothesis concerning greater personality deterioration in institutionalized subjects than in community-living subjects was given partial support inasmuch as depletion …

A Survey Of Sex Typing On Prime Time Television, Patricia Sue Henry

Masters Theses

According to former FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson, the average child will spend nearly 25,000 hours in front of a television before he or she is eighteen years old. With this fact in mind, I wondered what America's children learn from watching prime time television regarding sex-typing, or the characteristics which are considered appropriately masculine or feminine.

A review of related literature showed that critics in the early 70s pointed out that women portrayed on television were less numerous than men, less intelligent, brave, and adventuresome. In short, women were stereotyped as supportive underlings.

To find out if women fared any …

Moral Education: An Investigation And Experiment, Ellen L. Throm

Masters Theses

One purpose of this investigation of moral education in the elementary schools, was to find information in order to evaluate the current status of moral education at this level.

Another part of the investigation was to experiment with presenting and teaching moral education principles in a fifth-grade classroom, and make a report of the results.

The thesis was written to satisfy the final requirements for a Specialist Degree in Guidance and Counseling, at Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois.

In order to conduct the investigation on moral education, several books were researched (a bibliography is included) for information.

A commercially prepared …

An Exploratory Study Of Black And White College Students On The Hand Test, Marie Clark

Masters Theses

In the past Blacks have not been used in the construction or development of norms for psychological tests, though they are routinely administered to Blacks. Several researchers have made an effort to determine whether tests which have been standardized on White subjects are applicable to Blacks (Megargee, 1966; Johnson & Sikes, 1965; Mussen, 1953). These authors found that differences in personality of Blacks and Whites on personality tests should not be used to make inferences unless the two groups are matched on a number of prominent variables.

In general, the research suggests that there are significant differences between Black and …

A Study Of The Relationship Between Locus Of Control And The Use Of "I-Statements", Patricia Taglione

Masters Theses

Gestalt therapy theory considers speech to be a reflection of one's personality, and consequently psychological adjustment or maladjustment is expected to be manifested in one's speech habits (Levitsky & Perls, 1970; Passons, 1975). The use of personal pronouns is an indicator of the psychological distance taken from one's own feelings and actions. Healthy speech, or speech that is integrated with one's feelings and actions, involves the use of the first person singular when referring to self. Working with people to change speech patterns (changing "it-statements" and "you-statements" to "I-statements") may help an individual integrate his speech with his feelings and …

Effect Of Sex, Input-Response Mode, And Mnemonics On Free Recall, John Thorne-Thomsen

Masters Theses

Thirty two males and thirty two females performed at a memorization task in which lists of words were presented either auditorially or visually. In addition to mode of presentation and sex, two other independent variables included mode of response; words being recalled by writing or orally repeating them, and mnemonic device effect; subjects being instructed to use bizarre images aide or repetition memory aide. No significant sex differences were found in this experiment. There was a significant mode of presentation effect in which subjects who heard the words recalled significantly more than subjects who saw the words. There was also …

Graduate Student Styles For Coping With Stressful Situations And Their Effect On Academic Achievement, Suzanne Ryan Lilien

Masters Theses

The study was to examine the types of stressful situations that graduate students encounter, to delineate styles for coping with these situations, and to determine if these coping styles affect academic achievement.

Three populations were used: Group I consisted of 22 graduates of the Clinical Psychology program at Eastern Illinois University (EIU), Group II consisted of 11 dropouts of the Clinical Psychology program, and Group III consisted of 23 currently-enrolled graduate students in the Psychology Department. It was anticipated that there would be a significant relationship between graduate students' coping styles and their academic achievement, and that Type I (competent) …

Irrationalism In Affective And Cognitive Personality Types, Steven F. Mcarthur

Masters Theses

Psychologists generally consider personality to be a collection of characteristics and traits. These characteristics are manifested through two domains: affect (emotion) and cognition (thinking). Evidence has shown affect and cognition to be closely related.

Psychotherapy modalities can be categorized along a continuum, from highly rational and logical (cognitive) on one end, to highly affective on the other.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between cognitively and affectively oriented persons and irrational thoughts or ideas as defined by a highly rational therapy modality (Rational-Emotive Therapy) in an effort to determine a treatment of choice for these persons. …

A Didactic Method Of Preparation For Encounter Group Participants, Lawrence H. Bergmann

Masters Theses

The utilization of group procedures has mushroomed in the past ten years. While developing in part from group psychotherapy, involvement in groups has become a movement in its own right. Encounter groups, marathons or other intensive group experiences are no longer seen as a "second-best" treatment but a useful technique to be added to the tools of the psychotherapist. However, the rapid development of these treatments have often exceeded a strong theoretical rationale and the negative consequences have become increasingly evident. Preparation for individual therapies has been shown to be one method for improving outcomes and avoiding undesirable consequences. However, …

Effects Of Distance And Sex On Verbal Productivity And Anxiety, Peter Lindsay Rogers

Masters Theses

The present study was designed to determine whether physical distance between male and female interviewees and a female interviewer affected verbal productivity and anxiety level when interviewees discussed academic, social, and personal topics. The interview was conceptualized as an information-gathering interview. Crucial variables in such interviews are client participation and information flow. Client verbal productivity appears to be directly related to these variables, and was used as one dependent variable to measure the impact of distance on interviewee verbal behavior. A self-report measure of anxiety, the Fear Thermometer was used as a second dependent variable.

The experimental distances used in …

The Development Of The Self-Death Awareness Scale, Thomas Francis Ryan Jr.

Masters Theses

The purpose of the study was the development of the Self-Death Awareness Scale (SDAS), an instrument that is intended to measure the awareness of the fact that a person is mortal and is going to eventually die. The experimental instrument was administered to 100 persons equally divided into four age groups (ages 17-83). It was hypothesized that age and the SDAS were correlated with older persons being more aware of their own mortality than younger subjects. Also investigated were the variables of sex, occupation, education, church membership, number of children, marital status, and loss of family and friends through death. …

Effects Of Behavior Rehearsal Versus Behavior Rehearsal Combined With Feedback And Instructions On Components Of Positive Assertive Behavior, Timothy Paul Follick

Masters Theses

Assertive training is a treatment technique which has been deveveloped for those individuals who are generally unable to stand up for their rights or express their feelings towards others. The truely assertive individual should be equally adept at the expression of positive feelings as negative ones.

In basic assertive training, behavior rehearsal or behavior rehearsal combined with instructions and feedback are frequently used to shape assertive responding. These two treatment components have been widely researched and judged to significantly contribute to the acquisiton of negative assertion. However, there has been little research done with respect to their effect upon positive …

Videotape Feedback And Its Effects On Two Communicational Modalities, John Joseph Benda

Masters Theses

The present study was concerned with the applicability of various videotape feedback procedures on two communication modalities. The communication modalities studied dealt with the visual and auditory orientation of 80 college students.

The vast and, for the most part, positive findings associated with videotape feedback have fascinated therapists for the last couple of years. However, for the most part, videotape feedback has been used with individuals without taking into consideration the different ways these individuals communicate and/or learn. The purpose of the present experiment was to analyze the various aspects in which individuals communicate. Once their communicational modality was established …

The Effect Of Locus Of Control Orientation On Faculty Evaluations, Kristie L. Kirby

Masters Theses

The effect of a reward or reinforcement on behavior is contingent upon whether the person perceives the reward as dependent upon his own behavior or as independent from it. This perception has been termed locus of control orientation. The present study examined the relationship between the locus of control orientation of the student and the locus of control orientation of the instructor on a faculty evaluation form. An individual possessing an external locus of control orientation believes that reinforcement is the result of luck, chance, fate, or under the control of powerful others. An individual possessing an internal locus of …

A Comparison Of Self Ratings Of Change Done Dependently And Independently, Pamela P. Irwin

Masters Theses

A total of 243 Mental Hygiene and Introductory Psychology students completed ratings of adjustment in January of 1976. In May of the same year, 65 of the original Mental Hygiene students and 110 of the Introductory students completed the post-testing under one of four procedures. The post-testing procedures were: 1) dependent testing (defined as post-testing with awareness of pre-testing results) with an option to change their original test; 2) independent post-tesing which was the traditional method; then completion of dependent rating; 3) testing of their recall of original ratings, then dependent testing; and 4) dependent testing without the option to …

A Comparison Of Low And Middle Socio-Economic Status Blacks On Two Measures Of Intelligence, Anthony Young

Masters Theses

The testing of persons with highly dissimilar cultural backrounds has received increasing attention since mid-century. In America, the practical problems of cross-cultural testing has been chiefly associated with subcultures or minority cultures within the dominate culture. Havinghurst (1951), in citing cultural differences which may affect intelligence performance named social class among the major types of culture in the U.S. A review of the literature revealed that research is close to unanimous in showing that there are significant differences in intelligence performance of children and youth from different socio-economic backrounds. These findings revealed that children of higher socio-economic status (SES) levels …

The Effects Of Self-Concept Instruction As Part Of The Basic Speech Course, Gayle Lynn Davenport

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Androgyny And Its Relationship To Time Competence And Inner-Directedness In A College Sample, Margaret A. Padula

Masters Theses

It has been shown that there is a tendency to ascribe different stereotyped sex-roles to men and women (Breecher, 1969; Broverman, Vogel, Braverman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972; Chafetz, 1974; Bem, 1974) and that these sex-roles were previously thought to be the ideal of mental health for both (Braverman, et al., Chesler, 1971). Recent investigation shows that this is not necessarily the case. It was found that a high degree of sex-role typing is not only personally limiting, but also correlated with high anxiety, low self-esteem, and lower overall intelligence (Gray, 1957; Maccoby, 1966; Fasteau, 1974). Bem (1974) has developed the …

The Effects Of Crowding, Density, And The Duration Of Each On Learning, Richard A. Neetz

Masters Theses

Ninety-six male albino rats were housed from weaning in groups of 4, 8, or 16 animals. For all group sizes, animals were housed either in cages of a constant size (crowding) or in cages with floor space proportional to group size (density). Six animals from each of these conditions were tested for learning after either 55 or 109 days on a straight alley, a Lashley III maze, and a Y-maze. On the straight alley, no significant differences in running speed were found between durations, crowding and density, or group size. A significant trials effect was obtained (F=63.28, df=15/900, p < .01). On the Lashley III, a significant trials effect was obtained for running speed (F=102.27, df=8/480, p < .01) and errors (F=63.80, df=8/480, p < .01). The duration comparison showed the 55 day group making significantly more errors than the 109 day group (F=5.36, df=1/60, p < .05). No significant differences were found on running speed or errors between crowding and density or group size. On the Y-maze, the 55 day group had significantly more avoidances than the 109 day group (F=6.47, df=1/60, p < .05). …

Muscle Relaxation Training: A Comparison Of Emg Biofeedback With Verbal Instruction, Michael D. Dennis

Masters Theses

The effectiveness of two muscle relaxation modalities, EMG biofeedback and verbal relaxation instruction, were compared. Fifteen college students were assigned to two experimental groups and a non-treatment control condition. Measurements of frontalis muscle activity were taken prior to, during and following three 20-minute training sessions. Results based on a set of non-orthogonal contrasts indicated significant relaxation effects for relaxation instruction when pre-training levels were compared to training completion and post-training levels. Experimental groups differed only at training completion where relaxation instruction was superior to EMG biofeedback. The necessity of careful scientific research of biofeedback techniques to be used in clinical …

The Body Language Of Self-Disclosure, Duane Connett

Masters Theses

A study was conducted to investigate the relationship of the Jourard Self-disclosure Inventory (JSDI) to 1) nonverbal behavior and 2) actual disclosure (validation of the JSDI) as measured by the number of words and speaking time. Latency was also involved. From 120 students completing the inventory 30 students scoring in the upper 30% (high-disclosers) and 30 from the lower 30% (low-disclosers) were chosen to participate in an interview. The interview consisted of 30 topics of varying intimacy about which Ss disclosed. The high-discloser group and low-discloser group were compared by a rating scale for “open” behaviors “closed” behaviors during the …

A Didactic Group Therapy Program For The Treatment Of Depression, John J. Hansen

Masters Theses

A study was conducted to examine the pretest - posttest change scores on the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale between an experimental group and control group of geriatric subjects. From a total of 22 subjects tested, eleven were randomly chosen for the experimental group and eleven were randomly chosen for the control group. All subjects were residents of a self-care unit of a nursing home. The subjects used in the experimental group were involved in ten sixty-minute didactic group therapy sessions, while the control group subjects were not treated. A t - test was used to determine the differences between the …

Initial Impact Of Physical Attractiveness On A Counselor's Perceived Helpfulness And Rated Personality Traits, Jodell Lorna Cheska

Masters Theses

A total of 230 students, 122 high school and 108 junior college students viewed a taped presentation of a counselor who was presented as either attractive or unattractive in physical appearance. Another group just heard the audio portion of the attractive tape. Students then rated their impressions of the counselor on 12 personal traits and their perceived helpfulness of the counselor on 16 problems. The attractive counselor was perceived to be significantly more attractive and professional than the unattractive counselor. The attractive counselor was not seen as significantly more helpful with any of the 16 problems presented. The unattractive counselor …

Schizophrenia: Institutionalization And Dependence, Jerry L. Boyd

Masters Theses

The review of the literature dealt with dependence in mental patients. Additional focus was given to the process of patienthood as it relates to the acquisition of dependence. Research on schizophrenia was then discussed and the special interaction of the schizophrenic and the environment was explicated. Finally, attention was given to the unique relationship between the schizophrenic mental patient and dependence.

57 Ss from a rural area in the midwestern United States were given the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (Form C). Ss were divided into 3 groups. The groups were matched according to age, sex, race, marital status, and education. …

An Attempt To Find Auditory Communication In The Squirrel Monkey Via Cooperative Conditioning, Michael T. Bardo

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.