Psychology Commons^™

Evolution And Development Of Reasoning And Argumentation: Commentary On Mercier (2011), David Moshman

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

For anyone who loves a strong major thesis—and I do—Mercier’s “Reasoning serves argumentation in children” [this issue] obliges right from the title. And for anyone who loves a carefully structured defense of a provocative perspective—and who does not?—Mercier’s article continues to fill the bill.

The “argumentative theory of reasoning” maintains that “reasoning is a fundamentally social ability” that “has evolved to serve argumentive ends: finding and evaluating arguments in a dialogic context.” There appear to be two distinguishable theses here: first, reasoning serves argumentive ends; second, reasoning has evolved. In their moderate versions, each thesis is true and useful; their …

Work And Mexican American Parent-Adolescent Relationships: The Mediating Role Of Parent Well-Being, Lorey A. Wheeler, Kimberly A. Updegraff

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

This study of Mexican American two-parent families (N = 246) examined the role of parents’ well-being (i.e., depressive symptoms, role overload) as a potential mechanism through which parent occupational conditions (i.e., self-direction, hazardous conditions, physical activity, work pressure) are linked to parent-adolescent relationship qualities (i.e., warmth, conflict, disclosure). Depressive symptoms mediated the links between maternal and paternal work pressure and parentadolescent warmth, conflict, and disclosure. For mothers, depressive symptoms also mediated the links between self-direction and mother-adolescent warmth, conflict, and disclosure; for fathers, role overload mediated the links between work pressure and hazardous conditions with fatheradolescent warmth.

Factor Structure Of The Assessment Of Qualitative And Structural Dimensions Of Object Representations (Aor) Scale, Gregory Pouliot

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Early childhood interactions with parents form parental representations (PR) that have been empirically associated with psychopathology. The Assessment of Qualitative and Structural Dimensions of Object Representations scale (AOR; Blatt et al., 1992) is one measure of PR that benefits from measuring implicit processes and minimizing self-presentation; however, little research has examined its factor structure. The present study used archival data from four previous studies containing clinical and nonclinical samples totaling 722 participants. Individuals were divided into two groups: the first was analyzed using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and the second underwent a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the EFA …

A Tale Of Passion: Linking Job Passion And Cognitive Engagement To Employee Work Performance, Violet Ho, Sze-Sze Wong, Chay Hoon Lee

Management Faculty Publications

We propose a model of job passion that links two types of passion, harmonious and obsessive passion, to employees’ work performance, via the mediating mechanism of cognitive engagement (comprising attention and absorption). Results from a survey conducted with 509 employees from an insurance firm indicate that employees with harmonious passion performed better at work, and that this relationship was mediated primarily by cognitive absorption, that is, the intensity of focus and immersion experienced by the employees when working. However, even though obsessive passion was negatively related to cognitive attention (i.e., the amount of cognitive resources spent thinking about work), it …

The Social Construction Of Self, Kenneth J. Gergen

Psychology Faculty Works

This article evaluates the view that the self is social constructed. It explains that a social constructionist approach to the self is critical insofar as it targets many of the traditional conceptions of self under discussion in this volume. It analyses the primary use of the term self in psychological and mental discourse, suggesting many ways in which the sources of knowledge about the realm of the mental are open to question. It cites the work of Michel Foucault and others who develop a sustained critique of what may be the dark side of the construction of the self as …

The Effect Of Speaker-Specific Information On Pragmatic Inferences, Daniel J. Grodner, J. Sedivy

Psychology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Preventing Girls’ Depression During The Transition To Adolescence, Jane Gillham, T. M. Chaplin

Psychology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Relational Being In Question: A Reply To My Colleagues, Kenneth J. Gergen

Psychology Faculty Works

I thank my colleagues for their generosity and their engaging reactions to my book. It is interesting, as well, to see the variations in the readings they give to the text. Churchill's initial view that I am not offering ontology is useful, as it speaks to a pervasive concern within the other commentaries that I am dismissing or dismantling cherished concepts of agency, experience, responsibility, and, indeed, physical reality. I underscore that the conception of relational being-just as these concepts-is a social construction. I do not wish to debate ontology but, rather, to explore how such constructions function, for good …

Rethinking Prayer And Health Research: An Exploratory Inquiry On Prayer’S Psychological Dimension, Adrian Andreescu

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

A brief literature review of cancer survival trials is employed by the author to raise questions

on their design and to bring speculatively into discussion concepts such as “worldview”,

“intentional normative dissociation”, and “psychosomatic plasticity-proneness”. Using prayer’s

psychological dimension as a way to unite such elements opens new fertile perspectives on

the academic study of prayer and health. In this context, it is suggested that a consistent

interdisciplinary research agenda is required in order to understand those biopsychosocial

factors interconnected within the process and outcome of prayer before attempting to

decipher the big answers laying dormant probably within the transpersonal …

Parental Discipline Styles: A Study Of Its Effects On The Development Of Young Adults At The University Level, Monica S. Del Toro

McNair Scholars Research Journal

The present study examined the significance of methods of discipline used by parents and how these methods of discipline consequently affect multiple aspects of their child's development well into adulthood. Participants were young adults ranging from ages 18-55 recruited from various university psychology courses. The participants were given an online questionnaire measuring quantitative data. This questionnaire asked about methods of discipline the participant’s parents used on them, if they were ever spanked as children, if they believe spanking to be harmful to children, which methods of discipline made them feel worse, and how they would rate their current level of …

Native American Mascots: A Quantitative And Qualitative Study Of Students’ Acceptability Perceptions Of Native Mascots Versus Theoretical Use Of Other Ethnic Groups’ Iconology By Sports Teams, Shae Hart

McNair Scholars Research Journal

United States’ sports teams have made use of the faces, cultures and traditions of the indigenous people of our country for many years. Despite the perception that many Native Americans feel this practice is racist and/or insulting, it continues. This study helps further analyze perceptions that lead to the acceptability by the public of continued use of Native American iconology by sports teams for their logos, names, nicknames and mascots. Students report that the use of such iconology is a compliment to Native Americans, whereas it is an insult to other ethnic groups when represented in the same manner.

Drive For Muscularity And Drive For Thinness: The Impact Of Pro-Anorexia Websites, Lilia Juarez

McNair Scholars Research Journal

In recent years, websites that stress the message of thinness as the ideal and only choice have surfaced on the internet. As a source of media, pro-anorexia websites have detrimental effects similar to other forms of media (e.g., magazines, TV). In addition, friends may be influencing one another to view these websites, thus increasing the risk of developing a drive for thinness in women and a drive for muscularity in men. Approximately 300 male and female undergraduate psychology students responded to questionnaires assessing: viewership and use of pro-anorexia websites, influence of friends to view pro-anorexia websites, drive for muscularity, and …

Lay Judgments About Child Custody After Divorce, Sanford L. Braver, Ira Mark Ellman, Ashley M. Votruba, William V. Fabricius

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

In a pair of studies, we examine lay people’s judgments about how hypothetical cases involving child custody after divorce should be resolved. The respondents were citizens called to jury service in Pima County, Arizona. Study 1 found that both male and female respondents, if they were the judge, would most commonly award equally shared custody arrangements, as advocated by most fathers’ groups. However, if the predivorce child care had been divided disproportionately between the parents, this preference shifted, slightly but significantly, toward giving more time to the parent who had provided most of that care, consistent with the Approximation Rule …

Assessment Of Implicit Attitudes Toward Women Faculty In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Math, Sarah Marie Jackson

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This study used two implicit attitude measures (a Go/No-Go Association Task; GNAT and a personalized GNAT; PGNAT) and three explicit measures to assess attitude change in faculty attending a diversity training session on women in STEM. It was hypothesized that (1) pre- and post-training explicit scores would correlate more strongly with the PGNAT than with the GNAT, (2) training would result in more positive attitudes toward women in STEM, and (3) difference scores would be greatest in the explicit scales, followed by the GNAT and PGNAT. Partial support was found for a stronger correlation between the PGNAT and explicit scores, …

Meaning Correlates Of Value Orientations, Shulamith Kreitler

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

The purpose was to explore the relations between value orientations and meaning assignment tendencies. The hypotheses were that values would be related to a certain number of meaning variables that would be similar in three cultural groups. The participants were 150 individuals of both genders living in Israel. They are from three cultural communities (50 participants each): Israeli, French, and Russian. They were administered the values inventory PQ IV by Schwartz (1992) and the Meaning Test by Kreitler and Kreitler (1990a). The relations between the values of hedonism, power, and benevolence and the meaning variables were analyzed by correlations. The …

Wireless Telesurveillance System For Detecting Dementia, William D. Kearns, James L. Fozard, Vilis O. Nams, Jeffrey D. Craighead

Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling Faculty Publications

Objective We hypothesized path tortuosity (an index of casual locomotor variability) measured by a movement telesurveillance system would be suitable for assisted living facility residents clinically diagnosed with dementia. Background We examined the relationship of dementia to path tortuosity and to movement speed and path length variability, both of which increase in dementia. Methods Daytime movements of 25 elders (19 female; 14 with dementia; average age 80.6) were monitored for 30 days using radio transponders measuring location with a maximum accuracy of 20 cm. After 30 days, the Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) and Revised Algase Wandering Scale-Community Version (RAWS-CV) …

Measuring Multilevel Constructs Theoretical And Methodological Features Of Team Behavioral Process Under Compilational Models, Toshio Murase

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since at least the 1950s, researchers interested in studying the dynamics of small groups have struggled with how best to measure interaction processes. Although team process measurement issues are not particularly unique in terms of content, measuring multilevel phenomena presents an interesting problem because structural aspects are integral components of emergence. The elemental content of multilevel phenomena is wholly unique and distinguishable from the elemental content of composite units, and emerges as individual behaviors compile to higher levels of analyses. Analogous to chemical structures, behavioral phenomena manifest at higher levels in different structural patterns as members connect to one another …

The German Discovery Of Sex (Spring 2011), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

In this course, we will use the tools of literary and cultural analysis, studying fictional, political, psychoanalytic and scientific works to investigate the emergence of modern sexual discourses in the German-speaking world. The Greek term “homo” (same) and the Latinate “sex” (sex) were first combined to describe someone with a sexual interest in members of their own sex in 1869 in the German-speaking world. Similar observations can be made about terms such as “heterosexual,” “masochist,” and “transvestite.” There was apparently an intense interest in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German-speaking central Europe in reconfiguring and reconsidering sexuality. Out of this …

An Analysis Of The Methodological And Human Error Within Momentary Time Sampling Data Collection, Joslyn Cynkus Mintz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Teachers often serve as data collectors for the problem behavior of referred students in their classrooms; yet, the accuracy of teacher data collection has rarely been directly assessed. Momentary time sampling (MTS) may be a potentially useful option for teacher data collection because it does not require continuous monitoring, but rather requires the teacher to score the occurrence or non-occurrence of targeted behaviors at given instances. Research has shown that the smaller the interval between observations, the less methodological error will be introduced into MTS. However, the use of short-interval windows requires additional effort on the part of the teacher, …

Growth After The Storm: Cognitive Processing And Social Support As Mediators Of The Relation Between Religious Coping And Posttraumatic Growth In Hurricane-Affected Women, Julia Vigna Bosson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Although many studies have detailed the maladies imposed by Hurricane Katrina, little work has examined potential benefits gleaned in the wake of the storm. Posttraumatic growth, a construct receiving increased attention in the literature, describes personal betterment or development following a traumatic event in areas such as perceived changes in self, a changed sense of relations with others, and a changed philosophy of life. Researchers have demonstrated a relation between posttraumatic growth and varying factors, including religious coping. The current study established a relation between religious coping and posttraumatic growth in a sample of hurricane-exposed women in Southeastern Louisiana and …

Individual Differences In Need For Affect And Reactivity, Ryan Thibodeau, Kelsey Krueger

Psychology Faculty/Staff Publications

People are different with respect to their emotional propensities, including emotional abilities/skills and emotional style. Regarding emotional abilities/skills, alexithymia (i.e., difficulties identifying and describing emotions; Bagby et al., 1994) and emotional intelligence (Mayer et al., 1999) have been among the more widely studied constructs. Regarding emotional style, research has examined the intensity of emotion (Larsen et al., 1986) and individual differences in general positive/negative affectivity (Watson et al., 1988) or specific emotions (e.g., anxiety; Spielberger, 1985). Notably, very little work has examined people’s motivation to pursue experiences that should give rise to strong emotion.

To fill this gap, Maio and …

Internal Shame, External Shame, And Depressive Symptoms: A Meta-Analytic Review, Ryan Thibodeau, Sangoom Kim, Randall S. Jorgensen

Psychology Faculty/Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Amount Of Contact, Relationship Quality, And Types Of Activities On Child Social And Emotional Functioning In A Youth Mentoring Program, Dorothy Maria Lipski

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Various factors in youth mentoring programs are associated with beneficial outcomes in youth. Extending mentoring research, this pilot study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Y's Brother/Sister program. The particular factors under study included the influence of the amount of contact between mentors and mentees, the self-reported quality of the relationship, and the types of activities engaged in on mentee's mental health. Ten mentees between the ages of 8 and 17 years of age (M = 11.5) were included in the study. Contrary to the hypothesis, the results show that more contact was associated with elevated levels of behavioral …

Cross-Cultural Risk Behavior In Financial Decisions And The Cushion Hypothesis, Jin Tan

CMC Senior Theses

92 students from a Southern California liberal arts college and two Beijing universities participated in an online questionnaire. Their cultural tendencies (i.e. level of collectivism and perception of family support) and responses to hypothetical investment scenarios were observed. Participants were asked to provide the amount they would invest in each scenario as well as a risk safety rating. The Chinese respondents reported higher cushion and collectivism scores than the Americans. Furthermore, the Chinese sample offered more money for the three riskiest scenarios; they also rated three scenarios safer than the Americans did. The cushion and collectivism scores were not found …

Express Yourself: The Effects Of Body Position On Non-Verbal Communication Of Emotions, Kathryn H. Mgrublian

CMC Senior Theses

Recent research has documented that we tend to use the face to express some emotions, but use the body to express other emotions. To understand the contributions of the body to non-verbal emotional communication, we compared the performance of able-bodied participants who were allowed to express emotions naturally (standing) to able-bodied participants who were confined to a wheelchair.  Theories of embodied emotion would predict that restraining the use of the body should change emotion production and communication confidence, especially for body-related emotions. Participants expressed six different emotions in three conditions: 1) naturally, 2) face only, and 3) body only. After …

Attention To Multiple Events Helps 2 1/2-Year-Olds Extend New Verbs, Jane B. Childers

Psychology Faculty Research

An important question in verb learning is how children extend new verbs to new situational contexts. In Study 1, 2 1/2-year-old children were shown a complex event followed by new events that preserved only the action from the initial event, only the result, or no new events. Children seeing events that preserved either the action or the result produced appropriate verb extensions at test while children without this information did not. In a follow-up study, children hearing new verbs produced more extensions than did children hearing nonlabeling speech. These studies suggest that attention to related events is helpful to young …

The Effect Of Identification Style On Confidence Inflation In Eyewitness Testimony, Kelsey L. Stratton

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to determine whether confidence inflation in eyewitness testimony can be altered by the effects of self-perception and public commitment, as manipulated by identification style. In order to investigate these specific effects, identifications and confidence reports were made using both private and public methods. Additionally, target-present and target-absent lineups were used in order to assess their relative effects and to control participant accuracy.

Results revealed that the best confidence-accuracy correlations, as determined by a comparison from pre-lineup measures, were a result of post-lineup, private identifications. This indicates that self-perception may be more responsible for confidence …

Familial Factors And Attachment Styles Of Male And Female Adult Children Of Alcoholics, Kristina M. Decker

Masters Theses

In the United States, alcohol use disorders represent some of the most prevalent mental health disorders. Research has begun to explore parental alcoholism and its impact on children and families. The present study sought to examine the relationship between parental alcoholism and adult attachment styles in adult children of alcoholics (A CO As), as well as the relationship with several familial factors such as gender of the alcoholabusing parent, family cohesion, family satisfaction, parent-child attachment, physical abuse, and verbal abuse. A sample of 223 college students completed a series of measures on parental alcoholism, family cohesion, family satisfaction, parent-child attachment, …

Knowing Whose [Sic] Calling: Telephone Telepathy, Clint Harvey

Masters Theses

This study focuses on the possible role of mental telepathy in perceiving the identity of telephone callers before the caller is known through the normal senses. Many people report that this phenomenon occurs frequently in their day-to-day lives prompting controlled laboratory experimentation. The data was collected during the summer of 2010. One of the most important goals in determining the existence of mental telepathy involves the replication of different modes of research in different laboratory settings. This research attempts to replicate data Rupert Sheldrake collected during the beginning part of this century, in which he reported significant findings from studies …

Submissive And Dominant Sexual Cognitions Of College Women With A History Of Sexual Abuse, Jisun Kelly Park

Masters Theses

The study investigated the effect of timing of sexual abuse on sexual cognitions of submission and dominance. Female college students completed questionnaires containing reports of history of sexual abuse, sex guilt, social desirability, and sexual cognitions. The results show that the childhood and the adulthood abused group have more frequent positive sexual cognitions, more frequent arousal to sexual cognitions, and higher intensity of sexual arousal to these sexual cognitions. The frequency of overall cognitions was the most significant predictor in predicting all submission and dominance sexual cognitions variables. This study while replicating previous findings that survivors of sexual abuse tend …