Psychology Commons^™

Personal Rules As A Model Of Self-Control, Michael Zhang, Dr. Harold Miller

Journal of Undergraduate Research

To begin, I believe that the process of grant proposal writing was very important to both formulating my research idea and design as well as requesting the necessary assistance for the realization of this project. The idea which was developed has its origins with prominent psychologist, George Ainslie—personal rules are conceptually known as verbal commitments which we generate ourselves in order to control our behavior, e.g., we may tell ourselves that we will never cheat on an examination and this rule is effective if we follow through on it; however, the delineation of their effectiveness was only ever explained theoretically—the …

The Harrowing Of Hell: Salvation For The Dead In Early Christianity, Kendel Christensen, Dr. David Paulsen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project exceeded my grandest expectations. Not only did we achieve our main objective of tracking the history and evolution of the soteriological problem of evil, but our connection to restoration themes was so salient that the Journal of Book of Mormon and Restoration Scripture accepted our offer to write a piece for them. They liked it so much that we are now in the final editing stages of a follow-up piece. Both articles can be accessed by going to http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/authors/?authorID=715 (note: the second article will not be accessible until sometime during the first quarter of 2011).

Infants’ Intermodal Perception Of Canine (Canis Familairis) Facial Expressions And Vocalizations, Jacob Jones, Dr. Ross Flom

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Several studies have shown that in the first months of life, infants discriminate faces and speech sounds under a diverse range of conditions. These results suggest that infants’ capacity to discriminate faces and speech sounds changes over the course of development: Younger, but not older, infants discriminate a wider range of speech sounds and faces. Finally, studies have also shown that if infants do not continue to receive exposure to a particular language or the faces of a given species, infants may lose the ability to discriminate those speech sounds or faces. (Kuhl, Williams, Lacerda, Stevens, & Lindblom, 1992; Werker …

Moral Conceptions And Parent-Adolescent Congruence: What Does It Mean To Be A Moral Person?, Ryan James Funk, Dr. Sam Hardy

Journal of Undergraduate Research

When I began working with Dr. Sam Hardy, I started in a simple data entry position. I would spend ten hours a week entering responses to survey questions into a computer program. As I spent more and more time in Sam’s lab doing data entry, I began to have more and more questions about the research. “What is this measure for?” I wondered and “How does it help us investigate adolescent moral development?” In weekly meetings with Sam’s lab, I had a chance to ask these questions and Sam answered them by involving me more and more in the research. …

Using Behavioral And Physiological Measures Of Anxiety In Autism, Katherine Taylor, Dr. Mikle South

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of my study was to examine behavioral and physiological measures of anxiety in an effort to understand the appearance of anxiousness in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). With the help of my mentor, Dr Mikle South, and his other research assistants, I modified Ned Kalin’s (e.g., 2003) human intruder paradigm for monkeys, originally based on Ainsworth’s “Strange Situation” (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970) for use with children. The phases of the experiment proceeded as follows:

After-School Violence In Samoa, Devan Stevens

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the Polynesian Islands of Samoa, there is a prevalence of after-school violence associated with school rivalries that is of serious concern to the local governments and community members. There is a paucity of research done in Samoa concerning adolescent aggression. Thus, the need for research is great. Samoan newspapers frequently report inter-school violence and a plethora of acts of aggression amongst the Samoan adolescents (e.g. Samoa Observer April 12, 2010). These acts of violence are often planned and executed by the students of several different school districts, unbeknownst to school officials. Although rarely do these scuffles involve guns, it …

Effects Of Chronic Ethanol On Vta Gaba Neuron Synaptic Activity, Stephanie Sandoval, Dr. Scott Steffensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The mesocortico limbic system is implicated in drug reward. An important substrate underlying chronic effects of ethanol on Dopamine (DA) neurotransmission in the mesolimbic pathway is gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA)(Ludlow et al. 2009). VTA GABAergic interneurons are the primary inhibitory regulator of DA neurons and a subset of GABA(A) receptors may be implicated in the switch from heavy drinking to dependence. Previous studies have shown that chronic ethanol results in a significant down regulation in the expression of D2 receptors in ethanol consuming rats versus the controls. This possibly results from persistent DA …

Effects Of Acute Ethanol On Gaba Neuron Synaptic Responses, Kyle Ellefsen, Dr. Scott Steffensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The nucleus accumbens is a midbrain structure which is thought to influence pleasure and reward. The physiology of this area is also thought to be altered in a state of addiction, including alcoholism. The nucleus accumbens receives most of its dopaminergic input from another midbrain structure, the ventral tegmental area (VTA). The purpose of my research was to characterize the effects of acute ethanol administration on the firing rate of those VTA dopamine neurons by analyzing the change in the electrophysiological properties of inhibitory GABA neurons in the VTA, which are thought to directly regulate VTA dopamine firing rate.

The Efficacy Of Using Animal-Assisted Therapy To Decrease Maladaptive Behaviors In Children With Reactive Attachment Disorder, Trisha Markle, Dr. Gary Burlingame

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This study is currently still in progress. We are in the final stages of a pilot study that was supported by this ORCA grant. A new and funded version of the study will begin in January based upon the findings of the pilot. As noted in our IRB, our pilot study was conducted as a quality improvement project at Utah State hospital (USH).

Effects Of Chronic Alcohol Intoxication On The Dopaminergic Reward Pathway, Brian Hoyt, Dr. Scott Steffensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My research project studied the effects of chronic alcohol intoxication on the brain’s pleasure center (the mesocorticolimbic system). I worked with JungJae Park (M.S. in neuroscience) and three other undergraduate students. Because rats dislike the taste of alcohol, we injected the alcohol directly into their abdominal cavity. This was done under isoflourane anesthesia to avoid any discomfort for the animals. We injected three experimental rats an intoxicating dose of alcohol twice daily for three weeks. Three other rats were used as control subjects (received saline injections twice daily).

Effects Of Mood On Error Processing, Alexander Gray, Dr. Michael Larson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This study will help us to better understand the neurophysiological correlates of error processing–the cognitive function of detecting mistakes. Also, this study will help clarify the potential generation process of this neurophysiological correlate, specifically called the error-related negativity (ERN).

The Influence Of Positive Affect On Working Memory, Brenna S. Adams, Dr. Michael J. Larson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Positive affect, or positive emotion, is associated with improvements in most cognitive abilities, such as creative problem solving (Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987), the integration of information for strategic decision-making (Estrada, Isen, & Young, 1997), and verbal fluency (Phillips, Bull, Adams, & Fraser, 2002). However, recent studies report that positive affect also fosters increased distractibility, impairing working memory (Dreisbach, 2006; Dreisbach & Goschke, 2004). Working memory refers to the neural system involved in “temporary maintenance and manipulation of information” (Baddeley, 2002, p. 85).

Exploring Stimulus Variability In Applicant Attractiveness, Robert L. Dipboye, Lyndsey Dhahani

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Previous research on physical attractiveness bias in job applicant evaluations has ignored three important issues. First, the sex-typing of the positions for which applicants are evaluated is usually weak despite the need to provide strongly male and female-typed positions in testing for beauty is beastly effects. Second, the samples of stimuli used in the manipulations of applicant sex, attractiveness, and sex-typing of the job are small. Third, the statistical analyses used in testing hypotheses fail to incorporate variability among both human participants and stimuli. The present research corrected for these three omissions in an experiment in which participants evaluated the …

Empathy In Autism, Oliver Johnston, Dr. Mikle South

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Autism is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder with primary deficits in social communication. The purpose for this research was to investigate whether difficulties with empathy – the ability to feel what others feel – might contribute to the core social difficulties. This paper outlines the process used over the last year to study empathy in autism and to identify the brain processes associated with empathy in autism.

Exploring A Potential Prejudice Against Theism In Social Psychology, Allen Sabey, Dr. Brent D. Slife

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the world of psychological thought and theory, psychologists attempt to explain human behavior. In this attempt, biases and prejudices are crucial to identify and discuss. Prejudices and biases tend to distort or exclude interpretations or explanations that could be meaningful for certain people or certain situations. Slife and Reber (2009) have recently argued that an implicit and pervasive prejudice against theism exists in psychology. This prejudice prevents the inclusion of certain theistic explanations for the serious theist. This prospect of a pervasive implicit prejudice against theism is significant given that many psychologists and researchers hold a theistic world-view. Identifying …

Tantruming And Talking: Measuring Treatment Outcome In Preschool Autism Treatment Programs, Jaime Ballard, Dr. Mikle South

Journal of Undergraduate Research

One in every 133 children in Utah has autism, a disorder characterized by poor social and communication skills (U.S. Autism Rate Soars Twentyfold in 20 Years, 2007). These rates are climbing across the nation. As more children are born with these disorders, schools and other educational facilities are struggling to develop proven programs to help these children function on a daily level. These programs, and the surveys designed to assess their effectiveness, often do not take into consideration which behaviors are most important to parents and teachers of children with autism. Parents and teachers are in the best position to …

Defining And Measuring Infant Habituation, Denise Free, Dr. Ross Flom

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Although we arguably know very little about the actual process of infant habituation, in assessing infant conditioning, controlled habituation is the procedure used most often. It may be that how infants habituate could vary as a function of their age. In addition a perceived “inability” at one age may reflect instead an incomplete period of familiarization or habituation. Most studies have used the same criterion for infants of different ages, and it may be more appropriate to vary the criterion of habituation or familiarization as a function of infant age.

The Mediated Effects Of Moral Identity On Religiosity And Prosocial Behaviors, David Rackham, Dr. Sam Hardy

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The proposed project sought to examine moral identity as a mediation of relations between religiosity and positive and negative behaviors among emerging adults. Upon receipt of the ORCA grant in February 2010, Dr. Hardy and I began the data analysis. The analysis was performed on a large (n=3,000) national data set of college age students. It was hypothesized that moral identity will be found to be a significant mechanism of religiosity and various outcome variables. Originally, structural equation modeling was going to be used to test a model whereby moral identity is a mediator of relations between religious commitment and …

An Evaluation Of The Clinical Use Of Phenytoin For Preventing Early Post-Traumatic Seizures In Traumatic Brain Injury Patients, Sierra Debenham, Dr. Erin Bigler

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I evaluated the Montreal General Hospital’s use of the anti-seizure medication phenytoin in all traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients admitted to the hospital over the course of 2 years. I then evaluated the information to evaluate how effective the phenytoin treatment was in preventing early TBI.

An Emergent Approach To Analogical Inference, Paul Thibodeau, Stephen J. Flusberg, Jeremy J. Glick, Daniel A. Sternberg

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In recent years, a growing number of researchers have proposed that analogy is a core component of human cognition. According to the dominant theoretical viewpoint, analogical reasoning requires a specific suite of cognitive machinery, including explicitly coded symbolic representations and a mapping or binding mechanism that operates over these representations. Here we offer an alternative approach: we find that analogical inference can emerge naturally and spontaneously from a relatively simple, error-driven learning mechanism without the need to posit any additional analogy-specific machinery. The results also parallel findings from the developmental literature on analogy, demonstrating a shift from an initial reliance …

A Note On Pigs’ Knowledge Of Hidden Objects, Christian Nawroth, Mirjam Ebersbach, Eberhard Von Borell

Memory Collection

Object permanence is the notion that objects continue to exist even when they are out of observer’s sight. This ability is adaptive for free ranging animals who have to cope with a dangerous and highly changeable environment and allows them to be aware of predators sneaking in their proximity or to keep track of conspecifics or food sources, even when out of sight. Farm animals might also benefit from object permanence because the ability to follow the trajectory of hidden food or objects may lead to a higher predictability of subjects’ environment, which in turn might affect the level of …

The Role Of Pain-Related Catastrophizing In Outcomes And Recovery From Minimally Invasive And Surgical Procedures For Treating Temporomandibular Disorders, Aaron Martin

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the ability of pain-related catastrophizing to predict outcomes following non-surgical and surgical intervention for temporomandibular disorders (TMDs). The interpersonal context of pain-related catastrophizing, referred to as the communal coping model, was also examined to determine if patient perceptions of punishing and solicitous responses from significant others would moderate or mediate relations between pain catastrophizing and outcomes. The role of pain duration as a moderator of the relation between pain-related catastrophizing and perceived significant other responding was also examined. A total of 94 patients were identified for which 65 had follow-up outcomes that could be examined. Patient …

Novel Behavioral Markers In The Ppt1-/- Mouse Model Of Infantile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis, Joshua Thomas Dearborn

Dissertations

Infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (INCL) is a lysosomal storage disease that is debilitating and fatal to children before their teenage years. The palmitoyl protein thioesterase 1 (PPT1) knockout (Ppt1-/-) mouse is an appropriate animal model that mimics much of the symptomology and brain pathology of the human disease. Ppt1-/- mice display blindness, seizures, and motor deficits and die well before wild-type mice. However, little is known about the cognitive and behavioral abilities of the Ppt1-/- mouse. This study was conducted to examine further the behavioral phenotype of the Ppt1-/- mouse model of INCL by evaluating the animals’ abilities in such …

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Disability And Health-Risk Behaviors, Sophia Miryam Schussler-Fiorenza Rose Md, Phd

Population Health Matters (Formerly Health Policy Newsletter)

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Sexual Scripts In Men's And Women's Interpretation And Endorsement Of Items Measuring Self-Reported Sexual Aggression, Sarah Kristen Buday

Dissertations

Previous research on sexual aggression mainly focused on men as perpetrators and women as victims; more recently, the focus has shifted to include women as perpetrators of sexual aggression as well. This study sought to examine two different measures of sexual coercion perpetration (Revised Sexual Experiences Survey [SES-LFP] and the Post-Refusal Persistence Scale [PRPS]) in terms of their convergent validity for both men and women and to examine gender differences and similarities in item interpretation. In addition, participant agreement with traditional and non-traditional sexual scripts was examined for its association with endorsement of coercion. Participants were 648 individuals (426 women, …

Parental Abuse, Risky Behavior And Psychopathic Traits In Adolescents And Early Adults, M P. Chorney, J M. Reistad, Scott Risser, Ph.D.

2013 Undergraduate Research

This study examines the associations between parental abuse, risky behavior, and affective psychopathic traits. Ninety-one (49% males) rural adolescents and young adults (between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five) participated in an investigation of gene and environment interactions. The sample consisted of high school and undergraduate college students. These participants provided self-reports of parental abuse, risky behaviors, and psychopathic affective traits. Results suggested that psychopathic traits, especially a lack of remorse and parental abuse, independently account for some risky behavior.

Associations Between Religious Fundamentalism And Attitudes Towards Homosexuality: A Study Into The Differences Between Attitudes Towards Gay Men And Lesbians As Individuals And Same Sex Relations., Katie Clark

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

It has long been reported in social research that individuals demonstrating a higher degree of religiosity lend to exhibit more negative attitudes towards homosexuality. However, there is little research in the literature that differentiates between altitudes towards gays and lesbians as individuals and the intimate acts they perform with the same sex. This research proposes to first of all confirm whether there is a relationship between religious fundamentalism and attitudes towards homosexuality, and further to decipher the potential differences in altitudes towards gays and lesbians as individuals and same-sex acts. A self-report survey was completed by 94 students at a …

Effortless Awareness: Using Real Time Neurofeedback To Investigate Correlates Of Posterior Cingulate Cortex Activity In Meditators' Self-Report, Kathleen A. Garrison, Juan F. Santoyo, Jake H. Davis, Thomas A. Thomhill Iv, Catherine E. Kerr, Judson A. Brewer

Publications and Research

Neurophenomenological studies seek to utilize first-person self-report to elucidate cognitive processes related to physiological data. Grounded theory offers an approach to the qualitative analysis of self-report, whereby theoretical constructs are derived from empirical data. Here we used grounded theory methodology (GTM) to assess how the first-person experience of meditation relates to neural activity in a core region of the default mode network—the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). We analyzed first-person data consisting of meditators' accounts of their subjective experience during runs of a real time fMRI neurofeedback study of meditation, and third-person data consisting of corresponding feedback graphs of PCC activity …

The Association Between Conduct Problems And Bullying For Youth With And Without Callous-Unemotional Traits, Farrah N. Golmaryami

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The current study aims to examine whether the association between conduct problems and bullying are accounted for by different factors in those with and without callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Participants included 284 students in the 4^th through 7^th grades. Results indicated that conduct problems and bullying were significantly correlated, and that this association was not moderated by CU traits. Moreover, anger dysregulation, and to some extent, victimization, were more strongly associated with conduct problems in those with lower levels of CU traits. Furthermore, conduct problems were more strongly related to attitudes towards bullying for those lower on CU traits …

The Lived Experiences Of Master's Level Counseling Students In Beginning Skills Classes: A Qualitative Study, Brian K. Knight

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

According to McAuliffe and Lovell (2006), regardless of the training received in skills classes, master’s level counseling students continue to be rote in their approach to clients and their use of counseling skills as opposed to understanding how skills fit into the helping process. Students also experience confusion manifested by fear, anxiety, self-doubt, and questioning of abilities to perform the required skills (Skovholt & Jennings, 2005). The purpose of this research study was to explore the lived experiences of master’s level counseling students in a beginning counseling skills class. I used Perry’s (1970) scheme of cognitive and intellectual development …