Psychology Commons^™

New Research On Gender In Political Psychology, Angela L. Bos, Erin C. Cassese, Lauren E. Duncan, Jill S. Greenlee, Rebecca J. Hannagan, Monica C. Schneider

Psychology: Faculty Publications

This symposium consists of three papers written after a small mentoring conference, New Research on Gender in Political Psychology, which was held in New Brunswick, New Jersey, March 4-5, 2011. As junior scholars, we received a grant from the National Science Foundation (#SES-1014854) to organize a conference for the purposes of mentoring pretenure faculty and promoting scholarship on gender in political psychology. Each of the three articles in this symposium focuses on a different aspect of the conference.

The Psychological Benefits Of Participation In Leisure Pursuits For Adolescents, Caitlyn Mckay

Honors Theses and Capstones

This paper looks to better understand the effects leisure has on adolescents. Leisure is an important past time for adolescents since they have so much free time to pursue activities. The adolescents, their parents, recreation programmers, and school officials should be aware of the benefits and risks associated with different leisure pursuits so they can better help the adolescents’ transition into an adult who has a high level of psychologically well-being. After the different effects are analyzed, this paper offers recommendations to recreation programmers. These recommendations account for the different factors of leisure. Overall, this paper is an analysis of …

Examination Of Social Responding In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Paul Allison, Carlton Lyons, Charla Trubey

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Impairments in reciprocal pretend play are well documented in children with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The play of children with this disorder is characterized by deficits in spontaneous language, imitation, and social interaction. The effectiveness of many different behavioral teaching techniques has been examined in order to teach play skills to children with autism. The foundation for our research stems from the study conducted by MacDonald, Sacramone, Mansfield, Wiltz, and Ahearn (2009). The basis for their approach was founded upon the fact that children with autism have deficits in those behaviors listed above. Research supports the viability …

The Effect Of Different Training Regimens On Improved Sound Frequency Discrimination In Wistar Rats, Sam Cain, Elizabeth Grigoletti, Erin Walsh

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Rat subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The rats were presented with differing patterns of target and non-target frequencies, with the target remaining constant between groups while the non-target varied between groups. The rats were rewarded with food for successful bar presses while the target tone was playing, and no reinforcement was delivered for presses that occurred during the non-target tone. The groups were labeled as Control, Rapid, and Gradual. The control group experienced a silence in the place of non-target tone, while the rapid and gradual groups received the same tone in the beginning, but the …

Romance And Religion In College: The Predictors Of Quality In College Romantic Relationships, Emma J. Jaffe

Scripps Senior Theses

The primary goal of the current study was to investigate the influence of religion, conflict, sex, and duration on the quality of romantic relationships in college. The transition period of college lends itself to new opportunities and experiences in which young adults learn to express themselves within different types of romantic relationships. One aspect of college that influences these relationships is the emerging “hookup” culture, leading to relationships being less of a norm in college settings. Another influence of college is the diversity of students within the college setting, yielding higher rates of intercultural (or in the case of this …

Effects Of Social Influence In Transformational Christian Worship Experiences, Maggie J. Tietz

Scripps Senior Theses

There exists a severe deficit of studies exploring the psychological aspects of Christian worship experiences despite worship’s importance in Christianity and in many people’s lives. Transformational worship experiences can have lasting effects on one’s outlook and psychological functioning (Chou, 2008; Cutler, 1976; Ellison & George, 1994; Fife, Adegoke, McCoy, & Brewer, 2011; Salsman, Brown, Brechting, & Carlson, 2005), yet very few studies have investigated these experiences. The current study sought to explore the effects of group size and style of worship on participants’ feelings of deindividuation and focus on others within the congregation. Seventy-six middle aged adults from a range …

Implicit Encoding Explored Through The Flankers Task, Jaclynn V. Sullivan

Honors Projects

The problem we examined involves the process of selective attention and its relationship with implicit and explicit memory encoding. One task that has been used previously to examine selective attention is the flankers task, which consists of three items with the center item being the item that requires a response - the target. The two items on either side of the target are the “irrelevant” flankers. The correlated flanker effect is the difference in reaction time between the trials in which the flankers that are correlated with the correct response are present (congruent) and trials in which the flankers correlated …

Ptsd In Military Veterans: History, Evolution, And Policy Implications, Christine Albain

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

It is estimated that 30% of men and women who have served in war zones will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet, it is still a topic that is not fully understood or supported by American civilian culture. PTSD has, historically, been called many things, including malingering, shell shock, and battle fatigue and has greatly evolved as a psychiatric diagnosis. This poster will present the culmination of a comprehensive literature review, policy analysis, and a series of case studies related to PTSD among military veterans. The history and evolution of PTSD within military populations will be examined, with special care …

The Spirituality Of Addictions: A Christian Patristic Model And Procedure For Assessment, Alyssa Abbate, Ryan Abraham, Kelly Perfect, Diana Stribl

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Addiction theory has focused on the debilitating effects that drug addicts and alcoholics face. However, addiction can permeate much further into our lives than just through drugs and alcohol. Evagrius of Ponticus presented eight tempting thoughts that comprised all the beliefs, behaviors, items, and emotions that an individual can be disorderly attached to. These disordered attachments can have enslaving effects on an individual that constrains the person’s will and desire for freedom from these preoccupations. We also include a measure that assesses spiritual involvement and locus of control. The purpose of this study is to compile a psychological measurement that …

Recent Issues In Latino Labor And Migration Around The Globe: Interdisciplinary Approaches, Juan F. Casas, Jonathan Bruce Santo

Psychology Faculty Publications

This special issue contains articles that examine Latino labor and migration issues in various locations around the world. The articles bridge research and theory across disciplines and include studies incorporating a variety of methodologies to examine these important areas. These articles begin to fill some of the voids where a systematic and robust corpus of knowledge is lacking. The contributions address topics ranging from issues of worker perceptions of organizational justice to contexts of reception to pedagogical representation of migration. Finally, each contribution delineates the policy implications resulting from the processes and literatures that are examined.

An Erp Study Of Responses To Emotional Facial Expressions: Morphing Effects On Early-Latency Valence Processing, Zoe Ravich

Scripps Senior Theses

Early-latency theories of emotional processing state that at least coarse monitoring of the emotional valence (a pleasure-displeasure continuum) of facial expressions should be both rapid and highly automated (LeDoux, 1995; Russell, 1980). Research has largely substantiated early-latency differential processing of emotional versus non-emotional facial expressions; however, the effect of valence on early-latency processing of emotional facial expression remains unclear. In an effort to delineate the effects of valence on early-latency emotional facial expression processing, the current investigation compared ERP responses to positive (happy and surprise), neutral, and negative (afraid and sad) basic facial expression photographs as well as to positive …

Protective Behavioral Strategies And Their Relationship With Negative Alcohol Consequences Among Intercollegiate Athletes, Jeremy James Noble

Master's Theses

Researchers have shown that the college student population is a group with an elevated risk for participating in patterns of heavy episodic alcohol use. Studies have demonstrated that heavy episodic drinking (HED) is related to an increase in a multitude of negative consequences (Wechsler, Lee, Kuo, & Lee, 2002), including approximately 599,000 unintentional injuries and 1,825 deaths among college students each year (Hingson, Edwards, Heeren, & Rosenbloom, 2009). Within the college population, college athletes have exhibited more severe patterns of alcohol consumption as well as more frequent experiences with negative alcohol consequences, making them a population that is at an …

Nobody Studies Groups Anymore, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

When Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was asked about the level of gang activity in his city, he explained “I’m not a sociologist or an anthropologist, so I can’t share with you the root causes of gang violence that you see in urban areas” (Sims, 2007). He did not include “social psychologist” on his list of experts on gangs, because social psychologists don’t study gangs—in fact, social psychologists don’t even study groups anymore. That is why Lee Ross, Mark Lepper, and Andrew Ward (2010), in their chapter on history in the Handbook of Social Psychology concluded that (a) the study …

The Relationship Between Level Of Expertise And Holistic Processing In Chinese Character Recognition, Shirley Yin Ming Leung

Honors Theses

Evidence from past research suggests that when people process objects in which they are experts, such as faces and Roman letters, they usually engage in holistic processing which is the processing of multiple parts of a stimulus (Bukach, Gauthier, & Tarr, 2006; Wong et al., 2011). However, Hsiao and Cottrell (2009) found the opposite result such that novices used holistic processing in Chinese character recognition while experts did not. The current study explored the correlation between expertise and holistic processing of Chinese characters. We used the composite task to measure holistic processing of Chinese characters from English native- speakers who …

A Dual Process Model Of Stress Effects On Alcohol Consumption, Ivori Zvorsky

Honors Theses

The dual process theory proposes two forms of cognitive processing: implicit and explicit. The goal of the current study is to further investigate the dual process model of risky drinking, exploring the roles of executive functioning, implicit attitudes, and stress. 98 students from the University of Richmond participated in this study. After reading a stressful vignette, significant changes in Implicit Association Test (IAT) scores indicated that stress does heighten implicit “approach” associations for alcohol. Interestingly, when separated into low and high self-restraint groups, only participants with high self-restraint were significantly affected by the vignette. After testing for interaction effects, our …

Language And Memory For Motion Events: Origins Of The Asymmetry Between Source And Goal Paths, Laura Lakusta, Barbara Landau

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

When people describe motion events, their path expressions are biased toward inclusion of goal paths (e.g., into the house) and omission of source paths (e.g., out of the house). In this paper, we explored whether this asymmetry has its origins in people's non-linguistic representations of events. In three experiments, 4-year-old children and adults described or remembered manner of motion events that represented animate/intentional and physical events. The results suggest that the linguistic asymmetry between goals and sources is not fully rooted in non-linguistic event representations: linguistic descriptions showed the goal bias for both kinds of events, whereas non-linguistic memory for …

Drinking To Distraction: Does Alcohol Increase Attentional Bias In Adults With Adhd?, Walter Roberts, Mark T. Fillmore, Richard Milich

Psychology Faculty Publications

Previous research has shown that social drinkers continue to show attentional bias toward alcohol-related stimuli even after consuming a moderate dose of alcohol. In contrast, little is known about how alcohol acutely affects attentional bias in groups at risk to develop alcohol-related problems, such as adults with attentiondeficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Such individuals may show increased attentional bias following alcohol relative to nonclinical controls. The present study tested this hypothesis by examining acute alcohol effects on attentional bias in 20 social drinkers with ADHD and 20 social drinkers with no history of ADHD. Participants performed a visual-probe task after receiving …

Do You Really Love Me?: An Experimental Investigation Of Reassurance Seeking And Interpersonal Rejection, Kevin T. Cannon

Honors Theses and Capstones

The authors conducted an experiment to test the interpersonal model of depression (Coyne, 1976), and specifically the link between excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) and rejection. The present study involved college-aged romantic couples. Some participants were then manipulated into perceiving that their partner was seeking reassurance from them. Results support the main tenets of Coyne’s (1976) theory. Participants reported increased frustration and reduced felt closeness to dysphoric partners when they were led to believe that their partners were engaging in ERS. Effects on frustration were moderated by partners’ depression, while effects on felt closeness were partially mediated by frustration, yielding a …

Religiosity, Identity, And Depression In Late Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study, Erin Sandler

Honors Theses and Capstones

In this study, longitudinal associations among religiosity, identity style, identity commitment, and depression were examined in a sample of late adolescents. Online survey data were collected in two waves with an approximate six-week interval. Correlations demonstrated that high levels of negative aspects of religiosity, such as negative religious coping, predicted high levels of depression. Other aspects of religiosity, such as positive religious coping, did not predict depression. In addition, high levels of diffuse-avoidant identity style predicted high levels of depression, and high levels of identity commitment predicted low levels of depression. However, when a regression was performed with all the …

Teachers Engaging Parents As Tutors To Improve Oral Reading Fluency, Sara Kupzyk

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation examined the application of evidence-based tutoring for oral reading fluency (ORF) to a natural setting, using teachers as parent trainers. Measures used to determine the impact of parent tutoring included treatment integrity, student reading outcomes, attitudes towards involvement and reading, and social validity. Six teachers (second through fourth grade) were trained in a 3-hour workshop to develop individualized tutoring programs with parents. Following training, the teachers trained seven parents and students to use individualized tutoring programs. Training followed a behavior skills training model and incorporated video modeling and printed instructions to increase efficiency. A multiple-baseline design was used …

Motivation And Loss Aversion In The Health Savings Account Paradigm, Michael Holtje

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This investigation examined the role of “loss aversion” and consumers’ motivational orientations in the context of healthcare purchasing under the individual account paradigm and the defined benefit (insurance) paradigm. Specifically, this dissertation investigated (1) whether Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) encourage more prudent health care spending compared to traditional health insurance plans and (2) the impact of individuals' motivational preferences (either towards “gains” or towards “losses”) between decision tasks under each type of health plan.

Three experiments varied the type of healthcare plan that consumers had and the manner in which they received information (either as a “gain” or “loss”). The …

Intergenerational Support Systems: An Exploration Of Multigenerational Support Exchange, Ariela N. Litman

Scripps Senior Theses

Post-recession, middle-aged parents may provide various types of support to their grown children and parents. In the current study, parents age 40 to 60 (N =92) reported on a survey the support and affection they exchange with each child over age 18 (N =169) and each parent (N=185). The middle-aged generation (G2) differentiated among children (G3) and parents (G1) within families, and provided emotional, financial, and practical help on average to their children. The more dependent the child (G3), the more support was exchanged. Dependence was measured on normative status like education, employment, disability, and crisis as well as the …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Standardized And Personally Relevant Stimuli In Two Mood Induction Procedures, Kathleen Hazlett

Master's Theses (2009 -)

The experience of emotion is a critical component of behavior, cognition, and general human functioning. In order to better understand emotional experience, researchers have utilized mood induction procedures (MIPs) to elicit specific emotional responses. Previous studies have reviewed the effectiveness of various MIPs; however, these studies do not account for more recently developed picture datasets and are limited in their examination of the impact that personal relevance has on MIP effectiveness. The present study examined changes in emotion using four different MIPs that varied based on stimuli type (either Picture or Vignette) and relevance to the participant (Personally Relevant or …

Effects Of Fashion Ads On Young Adults' Physical Self-Assessments, Michaela Engdahl

Master's Theses (2009 -)

This study examined the effects of fashion advertisements on young adults' physical self-assessments, including mood, leadership role selection, body esteem, and attributional style. Two hundred seventy seven participants, including 110 men and 167 women completed a series of questionnaires. Results indicated that both men and women who were exposed to images of same-sex physical exemplars responded with an externalizing attributional style after imagining a hypothetical "bad" blind date. Men's reported mood was consistent with their cognitive judgment, indicative of having engaged in the self-serving bias, while women's mood was discordant with their externalization of the event. Gender differences and similarities …

Effects Of Violence On Youths' Perceptions Of Peer And Sibling Aggression, Jessica Houston

Master's Theses (2009 -)

The present study examined the relationship between youth exposure to violence in the home and community and their perceptions of the acceptability of aggression in interactions involving peers and siblings. The importance of the context in which the violence occurs was investigated, as well the ability of parent-child attachment to buffer the effects of violence on aggressive attitudes. A diverse sample of 148 children, ages 9 to 14, completed measures of interparental, parent-child, and community aggression, as well as a measure of mother-child attachment. Youths also rated the acceptability of aggressive interactions between two peers and two siblings in written …

The Effect Of Depth Judgments On Mental Workload In Laparoscopy Measured By A Visual-Spatial Secondary Task, Rebecca A. Kennedy

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Performing laparoscopic surgery is more attentionally demanding than traditional surgery. One challenge results from the surgeon operating in 3D space while referencing a 2D display that has limited and distorted depth cues. The goal of the present study was to compare two versions of a secondary task for measuring the mental workload associated with laparoscopic depth and nondepth movements. Twenty six undergraduate students at Old Dominion University performed a laparoscopic threading task in three separate orientations: X plane, Y plane, and Z plane. The threading task was performed in single-task conditions and dual-task conditions where it was paired with a …

Treatment Of Dual Diagnosis Post Traumatic Stress Disorder And Substance Use Disorders: A Meta-Analysis, Joshua Dolan

Dissertations (1934 -)

The dual diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders affects a large number of people. Various treatments have been used for addressing these co-occurring disorders and have now been empirically tested. These treatments can be divided into two categories: sequential and integrated. The goal of this study was to meta-analytically examine the effectiveness of these treatments and compare these two categories of treatment. Secondary objectives included the exploration of potential moderator variables and the symptom interplay between the two disorders after treatment. The results of the study suggested that treatment for the dual diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder …

Applying Ajzen's Theory Of Planned Behavior To A Study Of Online Course Adoption In Public Relations Education, Ann Knabe

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study used Icek Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior to research public relations faculty intentions of teaching online. All of the main predictor variables (Subjective Norms, Attitude toward the Act and Perceived Behavioral Control) were statistically significant at varying degrees in predicting intent to teach public relations online. Of the three, Subjective Norms was found to be the strongest predictor of Intention. Collectively, Subjective Norms, Attitude toward the Act and Perceived Behavioral Control explained 49% of the variance in intent to teach a public relations course online. Subsequent tests, however, revealed a poor model fit when the Theory of Planned …

Global Sleep Quality As A Moderator Of Alcohol Consumption And Consequences In College Students, Shannon R. Kenney, Joseph W. Labrie, Justin F. Hummer, Andy T. Pham

Heads Up!

The authors examined the relationship between global sleep quality and alcohol risk, including the extent to which global sleep quality moderated the relationship between alcohol use and drinking-related consequences. Global sleep quality was measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and alcohol-related consequences were assessed using the Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index (RAPI). The sample consisted of 261 college students (61.3% female, 58.2% Caucasian) who completed online surveys. Using a four-step hierarchical multiple regression model, global sleep quality was found to predict alcohol consequences, over and above assessed covariates (demographics and weekly drinking). Further, global sleep quality emerged as a …

Ethnicity Specific Norms And Alcohol Consumption Among Hispanic/Latino/A And Caucasian Students, Joseph W. Labrie, David C. Atkins, Clayton Neighbors, Tehniat Mirza, Mary E. Larimer

Heads Up!

Previous research has shown that social norms are among the strongest predictors of college student drinking and that normative misperceptions of more similar groups’ drinking behavior may be more influential on individual drinking than those groups perceived to be more different. However, limited research has explored the moderating role of ethnicity in this context. The current study examined the differential impact that Hispanic/Latino/a and Caucasian students’ normative perceptions of both typical and same-ethnicity college students’ drinking behavior had on their own drinking. Participants (N = 5,369 students; 60.4% female; 81.4% Caucasian; mean age 19.9 years) from two colleges completed …