Psychology Commons^™

Dose-Effect Relationship In Routine Outpatient Psychotherapy: Does Treatment Duration Matter?, Niklaus Stulz, Wolfgang Lutz, Stephen Mark Kopta, Takuya Minami, Stephen M. Saunders

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Objective: There is an ongoing debate concerning how outcome variables change during the course of psychotherapy. We compared the dose–effect model, which posits diminishing effects of additional sessions in later treatment phases, against a model that assumes a linear and steady treatment progress through termination. Method: Session-by-session outcome data of 6,375 outpatients were analyzed, and participants were categorized according to treatment length. Linear and log-linear (i.e., negatively accelerating) latent growth curve models (LGCMs) were estimated and compared for different treatment length categories. Results: When comparing the fit of the various models, the log-linear LGCMs assuming negatively accelerating treatment progress consistently …

Ethical Decision Making And Leadership: Merging Social Role And Self-Construal Perspectives, Crystal L. Hoyt, Terry L. Price

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

This research extends our understanding of ethical decision making on the part of leaders by merging social role and self-construal perspectives. Interdependent self-construal is generally seen as enhancing concern for justice and moral values. Across two studies we tested the prediction that non-leading group members’ interdependent self-construal would be associated with lower levels of unethical decision making on behalf of their group but that, in contrast, this relationship would be weaker for leaders, given their social role. These predictions were experimentally tested by assigning participants to the role of leader or non-leading group member and assessing the association between their …

Antiretroviral Therapy (Art) Side Effect Impacted On Quality Of Life, And Depressive Symptomatology: A Mixed-Method Study, Wei-Ti Chen, Cheng-Shi Shiu, Joyce Yang, Jane M. Simoni, Karen Fredriksen-Goldsen, Tony Szu-Hsien Lee, Hongxin Zhao

Psychology

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is known for its side effects. In this paper, we describe ART side effects as experienced by Chinese HIV+ individuals. This study presents two stages of a research project, combining qualitative in-depth interviews (29 HIV+ participants) with quantitative statistical data analysis (N = 120). All data was collected between July 2005 to March 2008 at Beijing's Ditan Hospital. Consent was obtained from each participant for the qualitative interview and again for the quantitative survey. During in-depth interviews, Chinese HIV+ patients reported experiencing digestive discomfort, skin rashes, numbness, memory loss, nightmares, and dizziness, which not only brought them …

Further Development Of A Model Of Environmental Commitment, Shane Boyd

Theses and Dissertations

Environmental commitment is a concept based on the investment model and interdependence theory literature. Interdependence theory and the investment model were originally geared towards the study of relationship commitment as function of relationship satisfaction and alternatives to being in that relationship. It has since been applied to areas outside of relationship commitment such as environmental commitment. Previous research has demonstrated that environmental commitment can be predictive of environmental behavior, above and beyond several different control variables that captured different aspects of the person-environment relationship (Davis, Le, & Coy, 2011; Davis, Green, & Reed, 2009). This project will strengthen the existing …

It’S Time To Fear! Interval Timing In Odor Fear Conditioning In Rats, Kiseko Shionoya, Chloé Hegoburu, Bruce L. Brown, Regina M. Sullivan, Valérie Doyère, Anne-Marie Mouly

Publications and Research

Time perception is crucial to goal attainment in humans and other animals, and interval timing also guides fundamental animal behaviors. Accumulating evidence has made it clear that in associative learning, temporal relations between events are encoded, and a few studies suggest this temporal learning occurs very rapidly. Most of these studies, however, have used methodologies that do not permit investigating the emergence of this temporal learning. In the present study we monitored respiration, ultrasonic vocalization (USV) and freezing behavior in rats in order to perform fine-grain analysis of fear responses during odor fear conditioning. In this paradigm an initially neutral …

How To Create An Ascii Input Data File For Unioda And Cta Software, Fred B. Bryant, Patrick R. Harrison

Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

UniODA and CTA software require an ASCII (unformatted text) file as input data. Arguably the most difficult task an operator faces in conducting analyses is converting the original data file from (a) whatever software package was used to enter the data, into (b) an ASCII file for analysis. This article first highlights critical issues concerning missing data, variable labels, and variable types that users must address in order to convert their data into an ASCII file for analysis using ODA software. Specific steps needed to convert a data set from its original file-type into a space-delimited ASCII file are then …

Heart Rate Variability As A Moderator Of Trauma Writing Outcomes, Alison Eonta

Theses and Dissertations

Writing about personal traumatic experiences is associated with beneficial effects on physical and psychological symptoms compared with writing about emotionally neutral events. However, not everyone benefits from trauma writing to the same extent. The present study hypothesized that the effectiveness of trauma writing may be moderated by emotion regulation, as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Research also shows that greater physiological reactivity is predictive of better trauma writing outcomes. Given the importance of physiological output in emotional processing, response training was developed and found to increase appropriate physiological reactivity. Because higher RSA is thought to indicate a more flexible …

Modified Impact Of Emotion On Temporal Discrimination In A Transgenic Rat Model Of Huntington Disease, Alexis Faure, Mouna Es-Sesddiqi, Bruce L. Brown, Hoa P. Nguyen, Olaf Riess, Stephan Von Hörsten, Pascale Le Blanc, Nathalie Desvignes, Bruno Bozon, Nicole El Massioui, Valérie Doyère

Publications and Research

Huntington's disease (HD) is characterized by triad of motor, cognitive, and emotional symptoms along with neuropathology in fronto-striatal circuit and limbic system including amygdala. Emotional alterations, which have a negative impact on patient well-being, represent some of the earliest symptoms of HD and might be related to the onset of the neurodegenerative process. In the transgenic rat model (tgHD rats), evidence suggest emotional alterations at the symptomatic stage along with neuropathology of the central nucleus of amygdala (CE). Studies in humans and animals demonstrate that emotion can modulate time perception. The impact of emotion on time perception has never been …

Hungarian Health Care: What Is The Cure?, Charlotte L. Rosen, Walter Whipple

Journal of Undergraduate Research

“Hungarians, rise, your country calls you! Meet this hour, whatever befalls you! Shall we freemen be, or slaves? Choose the lot your spirit craves!”1 This was proclaimed by the famous Hungarian poet, Petrofi Sandor, during the Hungarian Revolution of 1948. This battle cry is a taste of the deep-rooted spirit of the Hungarian people that has persisted throughout their tumultuous history. Because of its strategic location in Eastern Europe, Hungary has been conquered and ruled by other countries numerous times. Most recently Hungary was under Communist control until the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. Hungary has many social, economic, and …

Re-Interpreting Melton’S Study Of Gallery Density And Visitor Attention, Stephen Bitgood, Todd Mckerchar, Stephany Dukes

Research, Publications & Creative Work

The works of Edward Robinson and Arthur Melton conducted in the 1920s and 1930s are often cited, but rarely read. The focus of this article is on one of Melton’s (1935) classic visitor studies, re-examined in terms of several explanatory mechanisms including a decision-making model of visitor attention. Melton varied the number of paintings in a gallery from 6 to 36 in increments of 6. As the number of paintings increased, the proportion of paintings actually viewed decreased; however, the average viewing time per painting remained constant. Melton’s findings of decreased attention are discussed in terms of four possible explanations: …

Goats Favour Personal Over Social Information In An Experimental Foraging Task, Luigi Baciadonna, Alan G. Mcelligott, Elodie F. Briefer

Ethology Collection

Animals can use their environments more efficiently by selecting particular sources of information (personal or social), according to specific situations. Group-living animals may benefit from gaining information based on the behaviour of other individuals. Indeed, social information is assumed to be faster and less costly to use than personal information, thus increasing foraging efficiency. However, when food sources change seasonally or are randomly distributed, individual information may become more reliable than social information. The aim of this study was to test the use of conflicting personal versus social information in goats (Capra hircus), in a foraging task.We found that goats …

Augustine’S Theory Of Language; Its Integration With His Ontological Thought, John Rather, Dr. James Siebach

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the Confessions, St. Augustine writes that his conversion to Christianity was made possible by a prior conversion to philosophy. By the time of his Christian conversion, and for the rest of his life, Augustine’s philosophical and theological views were most deeply affected by Neoplatonism. It was by means of Neoplatonism especially, that Augustine sought to understand and defend his religious beliefs. Although these two ways of thinking seemed naturally conducive to Augustine, and did indeed enable him to defend many doctrines of the Catholic Church against philosophical attack, the combination was not without its resultant conflicts.

Spiritual Matter A Mormon Materialism For The 21st Century, Kevin Winters, Dr. Mark Wrathall

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In May of 1843, Joseph Smith gave a decisive statement against dualism: “There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; we cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter” (D&C 131:7-8). This led to a handful of expositions by various leaders and thinkers, such as Orson Pratt’s “The Absurdities of Immaterialism” or, more recently, Truman Madsen’s Eternal Man. But beyond Madsen’s brief treatment and a few other short works on the issue, …

Illuminating Incompleteness: Teaching Incompleteness In Finite Set Theory, Vanessa Stanfill, Dr. Dennis Packard

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the 1930s, a 24-year-old mathematician named Kurt Gödel developed a theorem showing that certain mathematical and logical systems, those capable of defining numbers, arithmetic, and multiplication, must be incomplete. These systems are incomplete, he showed, because they can generate certain true, but unprovable, statements. Gödel’s theorem has since become a common concept taught in advanced undergraduate logic courses. Undergraduate philosophy students attempting to understand incompleteness are usually well-grounded in basic Aristotelian and first-order predicate logic, as well as set theory. When they try to tackle Gödel’s proof, however, they are thrown into a dizzyingly unfamiliar new world of notation …

Heart Rate Response Under Induced Stress: A Comparison Of Individuals With High And Low Ruminative Tendencies, Douglas Marchant, Dr. Claudia Clayton

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Rumination can be defined as persistent, recyclic thinking (Rippere, 1977). There are characteristic differences between normal rumination, which is simply recyclic thinking, and depressive rumination, which is characterized by recyclic thoughts focused on one’s depressive symptoms and the ramifications of those symptoms (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). Therefore, depressive rumination is narrower in its content than normal rumination. Examples include revisiting private regrets and disappointments, focusing on feelings of loneliness, and dwelling on personal inadequacies (Davis & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). The following three examples of depressive rumination are characteristically different in focus than the depressive thoughts given above: “Why am I so sad?”, “Why …

Cannabinoid Modulation Of Reinforcement Maintained By Stimulation Of The Medial Forebrain Bundle In C57bl/6j Mice, Jason Wiebelhaus

Theses and Dissertations

Cannabinoid agonists, including marijuana containing delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), are found rewarding by humans. In addition to human self-reports and experimental studies that show marijuana is rewarding, contributions from preclinical studies also have implicated cannabinoid receptors in reward-motivated behavior. One way to assess these preclinical effects of cannabinoids is intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS), where an animal performs a response to receive electrical stimulation of a specific brain area or circuit known to be involved in reward. Drugs of abuse, such as psychomotor stimulants, facilitate responding for ICSS. While a few studies have shown facilitating effects of cannabinoids in rats, several have shown the …

Tokenism In Non-Native English Speakers: A Pilot Study, David A. Shwalb, Dr. Niwako Yamawaki

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Over the past decade the number of international students enrolled in colleges and universities in the United States has increased dramatically (Bollag, 2004). Currently, over 572,509 international students are attending American colleges and universities (Bollag, 2004), with approximately 2,000 at Brigham Young University (Light, 2004). Researchers acknowledge the important relationship between English proficiency and academic success for international students, but often fail to recognize many other possible obstacles to the academic success of international students. The purpose of this study was to identify and gain a better understanding of one such issue, specifically the negative impact token status may have …

Sex Differences, Cheryll Garn

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This study investigates whether males and females use distinct brain systems while performing a picture naming task. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that in some cognitive processing domains, such as spoken language comprehension, males and females differ in terms of brain hemisphere activation, with a tendency for stronger left hemisphere lateralization in males. The purpose of this study is to test whether an analogous hemispheric difference (or other systematic difference) might be found between males and females in a picture naming task, which includes visual and verbal processing components. Brain activation differences were assessed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) …

Correlation Between Electrically-Coupled Gaba Neurons And Arousal-Related Electocortical Activity, Marc Jones, Dr. Scott Steffensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In order to evaluate potential correlations between VTA GABA neurons and electrocortical activity, we studied electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in freely-behaving rats during different stages of their sleep-wake cycle.

Discharge Activity Of Ventral Tegmental Area Gaba Neurons During Alcohol Self-Administration, Adam Bevan, Dr. Scott Steffensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In today’s world addiction is pandemic. So many people are slaves to these controlling chemicals, from alcohol and street drugs to the more mild substances of coffee or over-thecounter medications. All these substances tend to influence brain chemistry, and the aim of our ongoing project is to uncover the effect of alcohol, cocaine and their anologues on midbrain circuitry. We believe that gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) neurons are primarily involved in addiction to these substances.

Summertime Blues, Jasmin Tahmaseb-Mcconatha

Psychology Faculty Publications

Vacations are an important ingredient in the recipe for a happy and fulfilled life. Unfortunately modern life seems to be ever more busy and more hectic. Research indicates that for most Americans a perceived lack of time is a major source of stress.

Generalization Of Executive Function Skills In Inclusion Settings For Students With Asperger's Syndrome, Cassandra Marcone-Wright

Theses and Dissertations

The purposes of this single case investigation were to research the effects of an intervention designated to prepare a student with Asperger's Syndrome for placement within a public high school. The student attended a specialized private school for grades 3-8. Upon entrance into eighth grade, the student entered the intervention program. This program included placement in a mainstream eighth grade social studies class with the accompaniment of the examiner. The intervention included daily feedback and strategies aimed to increase occurrences of task completion, increase executive function skills within the class setting, and decrease maladaptive behaviors. The identical areas of interest …

Study Of Differential Evoked Potentials In The Occipital Lobe Of The Human Cortex To Varied Spatial And Temporal Patterns, Michael A. Malstrom, Dr. Donovan Fleming

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Projecting from the retina of the human eye are two information tracts that are separate but very closely tied together. They are named for the size of the cell which they follow from the retina to the brain. The tract with larger cells is called the Magnocellular pathway (M-pathway), and the tract with smaller cells is called the Parvocellular pathway (P-pathway). The M-pathway processes information quickly and without acute definition and is suited for object location and tracking—where things are. The P-pathway processes data less quickly but with more definition and higher quality, including color vision.

White Matter Hyperintensities In The Normal Population, Callie Beck, Dr. Ramona O. Hopkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

White-matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are unidentified bright objects in the white matter regions of the brain and have been observed on magnetic resonance (MR) brain images since the mid-1980s. Numerous studies have been conducted to determine the relationship between WMHs and various pathologic conditions such as hypertension, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, brain atrophy, bipolar disorder, mania, depression, hemophilia, and following carbon monoxide poisoning. However, the etiology and mechanisms of WMHs remain unclear. A majority of the information regarding the prevalence of WMHs in normal healthy individuals comes from the control data in studies that focus on various illnesses such as bipolar …

Depressive Rumination: A Psychometic Analysis, Robert R. Bradbury, Dr. Claudia Clayton

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Steven Calder, Doug Marchant, and I have been studying depressive rumination for over a year and a half. Our first study was similar in content to the current study; however, because of our two ORCA grants, the current study is much more sophisticated. Depressive rumination is the consistent recycling of negative thoughts. Researchers have begun to examine the consequences of depressive rumination on cognition and daily functioning. The effect of mild-to-moderate stressors on heart rate and other physiological responses is an important measure of daily functioning, but to date only a single study has addressed the relationship between rumination, heart …

Links Between Childhood Physical Abuse And Psychosocial Adjustment In Adulthood, Jennifer Killpack, Dr. Christopher M. Layne

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Childhood physical and sexual abuse (CA) is associated with a greatly increased risk for problems in adulthood (Rumstein-McKean, & Hunsley, 2001). Prevalence rates of depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, interpersonal difficulties, and adult victimization are higher among women with a history of CA (Ornduff, Kelsey, & O’Leary, 2001). Social support is theorized to mediate the relationship between CA and adult psychosocial adjustment (Brewin, Andrews, & Valentine, 2000). Women who experienced both CA and adult sexual assault experience clinically significant levels of interpersonal problems unlike women who experienced adult assault but not CA, or women who had never been assaulted (Cloitre et …

Bullying Among Middle School Students, Paige Pfeiffer

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in opinions between students and the staff (teachers, non-certified support staff and certified support staff) in a suburban middle school with regard to bullying. The researcher summarized data from a survey administered to 671 participants within the school setting. The researcher analyzed which questions were relevant to the hypothesis, twelve questions were scored and the scores of students were then compared using a t-test to those of teachers, non-certified support staff and certified support staff. Overall, significant differences were noted between student and staff perceptions of bullying, and scores of …

Preexposure Of Licl And Cck-8: Effects On Taste Aversion Conditioning, Tyler J. Gerritsen, Gregory N. Ervin

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Taste aversion conditioning is a uniquely learned behavior. In most laboratory cases, the subjects receive a dose of the drug in question and a bottle of saccharin (sacc). Ordinarily, rats will strongly prefer drinking sacc to water (Fig. 1). Whereas with taste aversion, rats develop an aversion to the sacc and choose to mainly drink water instead. If the rat avoids the water as well as the sacc, the dosage is probably so strong that the rat loses motivation to drink anything. The actual reason for taste aversion is not known. Garcia and Koelling (1966) have suggested that aversion is …

Correlating The Purdue Spatial Visualization Test With The Wonderlic Personnel Test For American Football Players, Karthik Sukumar

Department of Computer Graphics Technology Degree Theses

This research study aims to find the relationship between the scores for the Purdue Spatial Visualization test (PSVT) and the Wonderlic Personnel test (WPT) for American collegiate football players. Fifty-five collegiate football players took part in the study by attempting the PSVT and the WPT. The scores on these tests were compared to find if there existed a correlation between the scores on both these tests. The results showed that the scores on both these tests had a significant correlation with respect to each other. But, the group that took the WPT before the PSVT showed a lower correlation between …

Data Analysis Using Regression Modeling: Visual Display And Setup Of Simple And Complex Statistical Models, Emil N. Coman, Maria A. Coman, Eugen Iordache, Russell Barbour, Lisa Dierker

Yale Day of Data

We present visual modeling solutions for testing simple and more advanced statistical hypotheses in any research field. All models can be directly specified in analytical software like Mplus or R.

Data analysis in any substantive field can be easily accomplished by translating statistical tests in the intuitive language of regression-based path diagrams with observed and unobserved variables. All models we presented can be directly specified and estimated in analytical software.

Students can particularly benefit from being taught the simple regression modeling setup of the path analytical method, as it empowers them to apply the techniques to any data to test …