Psychology Commons^™

Reading Mastery Versus Word Study Instruction As It Pertains To Third Graders' Reading Achievement Scores, Mia Sullivan

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study was conducted in order to compare two phonics-based approaches to teaching reading. The two approaches were Reading Mastery (SRA Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, 1995) and Word Study (Bear et al. 1996). While Reading Mastery has been compared to other reading methods to examine the effectiveness of instruction with reading achievement measures, there are no studies that compare Word Study to other methods of reading instruction. The purpose of the present study was to compare Reading Mastery and Word Study instruction groups in terms of reading achievement scores. This study included 36 third grade students, 18 in each group. All students were …

Traditional And Nontraditional Foster Parenting, Angela M. Baranzelli-Yoder

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Foster parents in nontraditional foster care programs receive more extensive, ongoing training and support than foster parents in traditional foster care programs. This study examined whether differences exist in the levels of perceived parenting stress, satisfaction, and efficacy among traditional and nontraditional foster parents. Twenty-four foster parents completed the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) and the Parenting Sense of Competence scale (PSOC). Nontraditional foster parents reported higher levels of overall parenting stress and lower levels of foster parent role satisfaction than did traditional foster parents. However, response profiles indicated that nontraditional foster parents had children with more emotional and behavioral problems …

Public Displays Of Affection With Relation To Comfort Levels And Culture, Janice R. T. Bryden

Graduate Theses

To determine the tolerance levels of public displays of affection between males, females, Hispanics, and White Non-Hispanics (Whites), a total of 152 participants completed the Attitudes Toward Public Displays of Affection Inventory. While the hypothesis that males would be significantly more tolerant than females of observing public displays of affection was statistically supported for certain settings and certain levels of affection, overall, results may not be clinically meaningful. The second hypothesis, that there would be a significant difference between Hispanics and Whites and their tolerance levels for watching public displays of affection, was not supported. Overall trends indicate passionately kissing …

Differing Death Scenarios: Self Esteem And Death Anxiety., Kenneth Grant Brewer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has found a correlation between death anxiety and self esteem. Researchers have found that both self-esteem and death anxiety play a significant role in an individual's behavior.

The purpose of this study was to investigate a correlation, if any, between death anxiety and self esteem using death related scenarios. It was hypothesized the high death anxiety groups will have lower self-esteem than the low death anxiety group, and that the low self-esteem group will have higher death anxiety than the high self-esteem group.

Results of an ANOVA indicate that there is a significant difference between the high death …

Social Anxiety: Attentional Bias In Reaction To Emotional Faces Before And After Participation In A College Level Public Speaking Course, Scott Walter Maieritsch

Dissertations

This study was designed to examine the effectiveness of a semester-long public speaking course in reducing the self-reported levels of communication anxiety and social anxiety among college students enrolled in such a course. The current study also sought to replicate and extend a recent line of research that has demonstrated that highly socially anxious individuals show an attentional bias away from emotional faces under conditions of social-evaluative threat. The current study extended this line of research by conducting the same reaction time procedure with participants in a pretest/post-test design. The project was designed to determine if groups (rating high vs. …

Adolescent Drinking And Driving: A Descriptive And Intervention Study, Emalee M. Fields

Masters Theses

Given the high rates of alcohol use and abuse among adolescents in our society, it is not surprising that drinking and driving is also relatively common. This paper starts with a summary of national statistics, which is followed by a critical review of previous interventions. The purpose of this project was to attempt to find an effective drinking and driving intervention for high school students which was relatively inexpensive, less time intensive than past interventions and required little or no training for the facilitator to present. Two related intervention conditions (a video only intervention and a slightly more extensive package …

Reproductive Experience And Aging : Possible Neuroprotective Effects Of Motherhood, Jessica Dawn Gatewood

Master's Theses

Hormonal fluctuations associated with pregnancy and post partum periods create significant changes in the brain and behavior in female rats. Animals were tested in a land version of the Morris Water maze for three days at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. At the ages of 12, 18, and 24 months animals were also tested in the same maze using a reversal task. At the conclusion of the study brains were analyzed for Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) to determine the amount of neurodegeneration among the groups. Multiparous animals showed significantly superior performance , followed by primiparous animals, and nulliparous animals …

Reflections Of A "Pre-Nominal" Cross-Cultural Psychologist, Gustav Jahoda

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

No abstract provided.

Subjective Culture, Harry C. Triandis

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

The definition of subjective culture is followed by a listing of the elements of subjective culture and an examination of the content of each element and the methodological problems in studying that element.

Hispanic Psychology: A 25-Year Retrospective Look, Amado M. Padilla

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Hispanic psychology has its roots in ethnic psychology and in cross-cultural psychology. The basic premise is that it is a valuable enterprise both theoretically and empirically to study the behavior of Hispanics. Over the past 25 years, research in Hispanic psychology has given way to a new scholarship or paradigm that calls for the recognition of intragroup variation which values within-group comparisons rather than relying exclusively on between-group effects. Acculturation and biculturalism have taken on special significance in Hispanic psychology. Further, Hispanic psychology must also consider the effects of racism and oppression on people and how these affect ethnic identity, …

Cultural Interpretation Of Dying And Death In A Non-Western Society: The Case Of Nigeria, Frank Eyetsemitan

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Using Western theories and perspectives as models, this chapter discusses the cultural interpretation of dying and death in a non-Western society. Also discussed, based on the historical, political, and cultural history of Nigeria, are the implications of dying and death for death preparation, the problem of death- causation diseases without external symptoms, and the special plight of widows. Suggestions are made on how to change current practices to alleviate the conditions of widows. The Nigerian experience provides a model for other non-Western societies with similar historical, political, and cultural backgrounds.

Cultural Factors In Complex Decision Making, Stefan Strohschneider

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Complex decision-making is conceptualised as the process of problem solving in meaningful and important, but complex, dynamic and partially opaque situations. This process is open to a number of cultural influences, among them educational practices, environmental predictability, and power distance. Two empirical studies that explore into the cultural relativity of this type of decision making use interactive computer simulations of complex problems as research instruments. There are a number of behavioural differences between participants from India and Germany which can be explained within a culture-theoretical framework and give reason for the plea to include cultural factors in theories on human …

Are Sexual Promiscuity And Relationship Infidelity Linked To Different Personality Traits Across Cultures? Findings From The International Sexuality Description Project, David P. Schmitt

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Over 17,000 participants responded to self-report measures of sexuality and personality as part of the International Sexuality Description Project. It was expected that romantic relationship infidelity would be associated with the personality traits of disagreeableness and a lack of conscientiousness across most cultures. Sexual promiscuity, on the other hand, was expected to relate to extraversion across most cultures. Analyses across 58 cultures from 52 nations revealed that romantic relationship infidelity was significantly associated with disagreeableness and low levels of conscientiousness across most cultures. Sexual promiscuity was related to extraversion across many, but not most, cultural regions. The expected pattern of …

Perception Of Interpersonal Behaviors Across Cultures, John Adamopoulos

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Cross-cultural psychology has played a very important role in identifying, describing, and even explaining psychological structures that are involved in the perception of interpersonal behavior. This chapter reviews work based on the research paradigm of subjective culture, which establishes that at least three interpersonal dimensions have been identified across cultures and historical periods: Association-Dissociation, Superordination-Subordination, and Intimacy-Formality. These three dimensions are often conceptualized as psychological universals, a notion that raises the question of the origins of the dimensions. By starting with the fundamental assumption that all social behavior is based on resource exchange, the chapter reviews a framework that attempts …

Cultural Variations In Parental Support Of Children's Play, Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

The purpose of this reading is to highlight the importance of play for children's development and to examine the role of parents in supporting children's play in various cultures. Although play is believed to be universal, the amount of attention devoted to play in a particular society depends in part on the cultural beliefs about the nature of childhood, and on the adults' specific goals for their young children. Researchers have found that some parents consider themselves appropriate social partners for their young children, but in many communities it is older siblings and peers who are the children's primary play …

Encouraging Depth Rather Than Surface Processing About Cultural Differences Through Critical Incidents And Role Plays, Richard Brislin

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Intercultural interactions will increase in the future given international business ventures, immigration patterns, recognition of minority group rights in various countries, and other social changes. People can prepare themselves by participating in formal educational and training programs that deal with understanding cultural differences and with communication across cultural boundaries. One approach to education and training is to analyze critical incidents that depict people in intercultural encounters that involve a misunderstanding or a difficulty. In addition to identifying exact reasons for the difficulties, people can also learn about research-based concepts that assist in understanding many other intercultural interactions they are likely …

Leadership And Teamwork In Developing Countries: Challenges And Opportunities, Zeynep Aycan

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Leadership and teamwork are the key factors contributing to organizational effectiveness if their attributes fit to the socio-cultural context. In this reading, the leadership and teamwork process are described in Developing countries (DCs). Developing countries, which comprise of 80 % of the world's population, are diverse in many ways. However, there are some common socio-economic, institutional, and political characteristics as well as shared cultural attributes. The first section addresses the difficulty of finding a definition of developing countries and lays out some common features. Next comes the presentation of six key socio-cultural characteristics that have implications for leadership and teamwork. …

The Making Of A Culturally Competent Counselor, Paul B. Pedersen

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Culturally competent counselors are accurately aware of culturally learned assumptions by themselves and their clients, comprehend the culturally relevant facts and information about a client' culture and are able to intervene skillfully to bring about positive change through counseling. A three-stage developmental framework proceeds from awareness to knowledge to skill in defining necessary competencies through a needs assessment. Examples of cultural bias are discussed and resistance to multicultural competence by counselors is described. Examples of facts and information needed to comprehend each cultural context meaningfully are identified and the possibility of multiculturalism as a "fourth force" in counseling is examined. …

Acculturation, Ethnic Identity, And Coping, Ute Schönpflug

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Ethnic identity is understood as a dynamic state, that is determined by three components: (1) by the degree of inclusion in the group of one's cultural origin; (2) the tendency to assimilate to the ethnic group of origin; and (3) the complementary tendency to differentiate from one's own ethnic group. In the same degree as the inclusion intensifies, the tendency to assimilate decreases and the tendency to differentiate increases and vice versa. A state of balance of the two complementary tendencies to assimilate and to differentiate is assumed to exist at an intermediate degree of inclusion (Brewer, 1992). The model …

Bilingualism: Language, Memory And Applied Issues, Jeanette Altarriba

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Bilingualism, or the knowledge of more than one language, is quite prevalent throughout the world. However, much of the cognitive literature that exists on language processing and memory retrieval has included participants who are monolingual speakers. The current chapter introduces the ways in which bilingualism has been investigated in the areas of autobiographical memory, memory recall, and communication in applied settings. The notion of code-switching or language-mixing is introduced as a strategic means through which bilingual memory may be fruitfully investigated.

Clinically Relevant Aspects Of Chronic Pain: Normal Personality Predictors, Stephen Ray Nitch

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

This study examined the normal personality characteristics of chronic pain patients using cluster analysis. To date, much of the research involving chronic pain and personality has assumed that signs of psychopathology are likely to be present (Jay, Grove, and Grove, 1987; Love and Peck, 1987). There have been some exceptions to this trend by researchers who sought to measure the normal personality structure of individuals with chronic pain (see Wade, Dougherty, Hart, and Cook, 1992). One of central aims of the current study was to further refine the psychosocial taxonomy of chronic pain patients by paying more attention to individual …

Effect Of Employment On Generativity In Married Mothers, Tracy Sierra Dern

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Generativity is Erikson's seventh stage of psycho social development in his life cycle theory, but he postulates different ways of achieving generativity for males and females. Erikson proposed that a woman achieves a sense of generativity from raising a family. However over the last twenty years social roles have changed and there is an increasing number of women developing careers. It is important to determine whether the role of employment has an effect on generativity in women. This study had ten women participants: five married with children, homemakers and five married with children, professionals. Using a semi-structured interview, the·participants shared …

Comparative Perceived Breast Cancer Risk Before And After An Intervention, Constance F. Welebir

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Breast cancer screening has the potential of early detection, more effective treatment, and possible arrest of certain breast cancers, yet many women do not adhere to screening guidelines. With research showing that people use social comparison while making risk judgments, often holding optimistically biased beliefs about their health, women who maintain an optimism bias about their breast cancer risk may not practice routine breast cancer surveillance. Therefore, effective interventions designed to inform women of their breast cancer risks and to encourage adherence to breast cancer screening guidelines are necessary. This study investigated the role that social comparison plays in risk …

A Study Of Guilt In A Southern Baptist Congregation, Thomas G. Hibbett

Tennessee State University Alumni Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Judging By Heuristic: Cognitive Illusions In Judicial Decision Making, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Many people rely on mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to make complex decisions, but this sometimes leads to inaccurate inferences, or cognitive illusions. A recent study suggests such cognitive illusions influence judicial decision making.

A 12-Year Prospective Study Of The Long-Term Effects Of Early Child Physical Maltreatment On Psychological, Behavioral, And Academic Problems In Adolescence, Jennifer E Lansford, Kenneth A Dodge, Gregory S Pettit, John E Bates, Joseph Crozier, Julie Kaplow

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether child physical maltreatment early in life has long-term effects on psychological, behavioral, and academic problems independent of other characteristics associated with maltreatment.

DESIGN: Prospective longitudinal study with data collected annually from 1987 through 1999.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Randomly selected, community-based samples of 585 children from the ongoing Child Development Project were recruited the summer before children entered kindergarten in 3 geographic sites. Seventy-nine percent continued to participate in grade 11. The initial in-home interviews revealed that 69 children (11.8%) had experienced physical maltreatment prior to kindergarten matriculation.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Adolescent assessment of school grades, standardized …

Interference Between Verbal Concept Formation And Spatial Mental Rotation In Female Subjects, Tamas Makany, Kázmér Karadi, János Kallai, Lynn Nadel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this study the relation between spatial cognition and verbal intelligence abilities was examined in case of 52 women. Interference between mental rotation performance and verbal intelligence scores was found. Women with good verbal abilities have lower scores in mental rotation tasks than subjects with poorer verbal abilities. This finding is in accordance with some basic models of a dual-coding system. The spatial functions represented in mental rotation interfered with verbal-based concept formation and lexical knowledge in college women.

Cultural Explorations Of Human Intelligence Around The World, Robert J. Sternberg

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

The goal of this article is to review cultural explorations of human intelligence around the globe. The article opens in the first part with a consideration of cultural studies that suggest that there is more to intelligence than IQ. It continues with the suggestion for what that "more" might be, namely, "successful intelligence." The second part of the article thus describes the theory of successful intelligence, as well as data from various cultures that support the theory. The third part of the article considers cultural conceptions, of implicit theories of intelligence. It is concluded that cultural studies suggest that conventional …

Cross-Cultural Research On The Five-Factor Model Of Personality, Robert R. Mccrae

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

The Five-Factor Model (FFM) is a comprehensive taxonomy of personality traits, which are tendencies to show consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions. Although it was originally identified in the United States, the model appears to describe personality structure well in a wide variety of cultures, suggesting that personality trait structure is universal. Age changes--decreases in Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness and increases in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness from adolescence to adulthood--also appear to be universal, as are gender differences. Current studies comparing the mean levels of personality traits across cultures show systematic patterns, but their interpretation is uncertain. The FFM is …

Studying Personality Traits Across Cultures: Philippine Examples, A. Timothy Church, Marcia S. Katigbak

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Trait perspectives are dominant in the study of personality cross-culturally. We review the questions addressed by researchers who study personality traits across cultures, including, among others, whether traits are used in all cultures to understand persons and their behavior, the universality versus culture-specificity of traits, the validity of imported and indigenous measures of personality traits, and the meaningfulness of trait comparisons across cultures. We then summarize evidence relevant to these questions in one collectivistic culture, the Philippines. Overall, personality research in the Philippines supports the applicability of traits and trait theory as a basis for understanding persons and their behavior …