Psychology Commons^™

Current Methods And Future Directions Regarding Working Memory Training Research, Emily G. Wright

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

Cognitive training is the process through which individuals perform a series of computerized tasks over a period of weeks for the purpose of improving a variety of cognitive abilities. Cognitive training is important in commercial, clinical, and educational fields alike, considering the possibilities of improving and sustaining cognitive abilities in both typically developing and cognitively deficient populations. The present review assesses cognitive training paradigms targeting working memory. Working memory is a predictor of academic achievement and is closely related to mechanisms of higher cognition. In particular, the present review focuses past studies which have investigated the effects working memory training …

Childhood Sexual Abuse And Identity Development: The Role Of Attachment And Self-Esteeem, Joel David Dukett

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to examine how childhood sexual abuse (CSA) influences identity development along with attachment and self-esteem. The participants included 208 first-year female undergraduate students from Illinois State University. Students were afforded the opportunity to receive extra credit for their participation and could enter into a random prize drawing. Participants completed a demographics questionnaire, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, The Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire, Dimensions of Identity Development Scale, and the Hot Topics Questionnaire which assesses history of CSA. Of the participants, 145 (69.7%) were in the non-abuse group and 63 (30.3%) were in the abuse group. …

Automation Reliability And Performance Detection Using Two Systems Of The Multi-Attribute Task Battery, Brianna Alex

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

With the advancements of new and emerging technology in the modern cockpit, it is important to understand the effect of these enhancements on performance. Our research seeks to examine both the effect of display type and reliability level on an operator’s performance. The goals of this research are to evaluate and compare the new MATB-II to the original MATB, as well as to further investigate the effect of reliability level in a automated aviation environment.

In the current study, we empirically test the impact of a specified reliability level on performance for a controlled and modernistic automated aviation task. Previous …

[Accepted Article Manuscript Version (Postprint)] Entertainment-Oriented Gratifications Of Sports Media: Contributors To Suspense, Hedonic Enjoyment, And Appreciation, Alice Hall

Communication and Media Faculty Works

This survey study investigated contributors to viewers' hedonic enjoyment, appreciation, and emotional responses to a televised baseball game. There was an indirect relationship between athlete affinity and hedonic enjoyment by way of suspense. This relationship was moderated by the game's outcome such that suspense was associated more strongly with enjoyment when the viewer's team lost. Interest and knowledge of a player was the form of affinity that had a stronger relationship to suspense, rather than the viewers' sense of having a virtual friendship. Virtual friendship and sport involvement were associated directly with appreciation. Enjoyment and appreciation were associated with different …

Twelve-Month-Old Infants’ Encoding Of Goal And Source Paths In Agentive And Non-Agentive Motion Events, Laura Lakusta, Susan Carey

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Across languages and event types (i.e., agentive and nonagentive motion, transfer, change of state, attach/detach), goal paths are privileged over source paths in the linguistic encoding of events. Furthermore, some linguistic analyses suggest that goal paths are more central than source paths in the semantic and syntactic structure of motion verbs. However, in the nonlinguistic memory of children and adults, a goal bias shows up only for events involving intentional, goal-directed, action. Three experiments explored infants’ nonlinguistic representations of goals and sources in motion events. The findings revealed that 12-month-old infants privilege goals over sources only when the event involves …

"Now You Know What You're Reaching For...On The Up And Up": An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of Scholar Identity Development Among Black Male Achievers, Coretta Andréa Irby

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Common discourse concerning the educational trajectories of African American males consists of dismal future outcomes due to defective schooling experiences in kindergarten through twelfth grades. There has been a disregard of counter narratives of high academic achievement and overall school success coupled with a highlighting of failure through deficit-based research practices. Consequently, African American males are positioned as delayed or troubled, which serves to perpetuate educational inequity. This study attempts to increase the scarcity of literature by giving voice to the experiences of high achievement among African American adolescent males attending a school designed to support the achievement of impoverished …

Advocating For Children Is Everyone's Responsibility, Melody Bowdon

UCF Forum

Florida drew national media attention in 2008 when 2-year-old Caylee Marie Anthony of Orlando was reported missing. In the months and years that followed, her mother, Casey, was charged and ultimately acquitted of Caylee’s murder.

Psychosocial Correlates Of Perceived Stress And Depressive Symptoms Among Help-Seeking Hispanic Smokers, Monica Webb Hooper Phd

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Objectives: Research has demonstrated robust associations between perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and cigarette smoking. The extent to which these findings from the general population generalize to Hispanic smokers is unknown. The present study examined (a) correlates of perceived stress and depressive symptoms among help-seeking Hispanic smokers and (b) whether maladaptive coping and social support were related to stress and depressive symptoms. Design: Hispanic smokers (N=123) enrolled in an RCT completed demographic and smoking history, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, perceived social support, and maladaptive coping measures. Results: Bivariate associations indicated that perceived stress was positively correlated with depressive symptoms …

Suppression Of Stereotype Threat Negatively Impacts Self-Evaluations And Interpersonal Outcomes, Zheng Li

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

Stereotype threat is the situation when people under the pressure of confirming a negative stereotype that applies to them. Research shows that when people try to suppress the thought of being threatened, they tend to perform even worse. This study examines the effect of suppression of stereotype threat on females’ confidence on a gender-based stereotypical task (about spatial skills and science knowledge) and cross—gender interaction outcome. Participants first completed the moon task and then had a discussion with a male confederate before evaluating the willingness of future interaction and the perception of how the confederate views them. We hypothesized that …

Predictors Of Racial Prejudice: A Meta-Analysis Of The Influence Of Religion And Political Orientation, Kristin Broussard

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of religion and political orientation on racial prejudice through meta-analysis. 153 independent studies were analyzed with a random effects model using the Robumeta package in R, and moderator analyses were conducted for year of data and region of the U.S.

Suicidal And Non-Suicidal Self-Injury, Taylor Ash

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

A literature review over the differences between suicidal and non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents. This review looks into several factors and differences about why adolescents engage in the behaviors, reactions they receive when asking for help, and implications for future practice.

Identification Of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo By Teachers, Rachel Meisinger

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

Children with Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT) are characterized by a hypoactive, sluggish behavior pattern that does not fully fit the conceptualization of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as was previously believed. Interest in this topic has surged recently, perhaps due to the fact that many researchers now view SCT as a construct that exists outside of ADHD (Barkley, 2014). SCT is associated with unique etiology, impairment, and comorbidities. Unlike ADHD, SCT represents a more passive form of inattention that may not disrupt the classroom. Thus, SCT may go unnoticed despite the fact that it is related to many academic and social …

Mindfulness Tools For Veterans With Ptsd, Amy Davison

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

This is a literature review on mindfulness tools to enhance coping skills for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Traditional and modern techniques were studied extensively.

Self-Enhancement In Relation To Ptsd Stigma, Corina Klein

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

The majority of the population will experience at least one potentially traumatic event (PTE) in their lifetime, however, only about 10-20% of those people will develop a chronic, adverse reaction to the event. One factor that may help to explain resistance to PTSD is self-enhancement. Self-enhancement is a tendency to view oneself in an overly positive manner, even despite evidence to the contrary. Although this has been found to work as a barrier against PTSD, it may also perpetuate the biggest barrier to PTSD treatment: public stigma. This study examined the multiple ways that self-enhancement functions within the realm of …

Injunctive And Descriptive Norm Effects On Physical Activity, Monica Ehn

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

The purpose of the current study was to test the application of the focus theory of normative conduct (Cialdini, Kallgren, & Reno, 1990) on exercise; specifically how normative feedback (i.e., descriptive and descriptive plus injunctive norms) affects levels of physical activity using a non-self-report measure of physical activity.

Fifty-two participants between the ages of 18 and 23 were randomly assigned to either the descriptive or descriptive plus injunctive condition. The participants completed the first phase of the study individually, outside of the lab via Qualtrics. The participants completed a demographic questionnaire to obtain a sample description and the International Physical …

Fluid Grouping: Quantifying Group Engagement Around Interactive Tabletop Exhibits In The Wild, Florian Block, James Hammerman, Michael Horn, Amy Spiegel, Jonathan Christiansen, Brenda Phillips, Judy Diamond, E Margret Evans, Chia Shen

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Interactive surfaces are increasingly common in museums and other informal learning environments where they are seen as a medium for promoting social engagement. However, despite their increasing prevalence, we know very little about factors that contribute to collaboration and learning around interactive surfaces. In this paper we present analyses of visitor engagement around several multi-touch tabletop science exhibits. Observations of 629 visitors were collected through two widely used techniques: video study and shadowing. We make four contributions: 1) we present an algorithm for identifying groups within a dynamic flow of visitors through an exhibit hall; 2) we present measures of …

East-West Psychology Newsletter, Ciis

East-West Psychology Newsletter

This is the Spring 2015 edition of EWP News.

Factor Analyses Of A Social Support Scale Using Two Methods, Yu Yu, Cheng-Shi Shiu, Joyce Yang, Mingjiong Wang, Jane M. Simoni, Wei-Ti Chen, Joy Cheng, Hongxin Zhao

Psychology

Purpose: Evaluation and comparison of the factor structure of the Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey (MOS-SSS) using both confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with two samples of people living with HIV/AIDS in China.

Methods: Secondary analyses were conducted with data from two comparable samples of 320 people living with HIV/AIDS from the same hospital using the same inclusion criteria. The first sample of 120 was collected in 2006, and the second sample of 200 was collected in 2012. For each sample, CFA was first performed on the original four-factor structure to check model fit, followed …

The Effect Of Student And Program Variability On The Representativeness Of First-Trail-Only Data Collection, Andy Harrison

Culminating Projects in Psychology

Discrete trial teaching (DTT) is a popular teaching method in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis. Continuous trial-by-trial (TBT) data collection for DTT can be labor intensive and collecting data for the first trial only (FTO) holds the promise of reducing the workload for instructors. The existing literature comparing FTO data analysis to TBT data analysis reports widely varying results regarding the number of trials to mastery and the ability to maintain the skill. The current study utilized data from DTT programs for three participants to examine how closely the accuracy of the first trial in a series represents the …

Framing Group Projects: Leadership And Style In Small Group Dynamics, Jillian Bonafede

Honors Projects in Applied Psychology

The purpose of my Capstone was to look at small group dynamics and the factors that have a profound impact upon them. I used Bryant University’s IDEA Program as the template for my project for, and arena from which I collected my research. The IDEA Program is a three-day ideation and innovation program that all first-year students are required to participate in. I observed, filmed and questioned twenty-five of the first-year students participating in the program. After my research and analysis, I found that there were four factors that greatly influenced the dynamics of a small group, as well as …

The Ultimate Love-Hate Relationship: Examining Sport Commitment In Collegiate Track & Field Athletes, Kara Walsh

Honors Projects in Applied Psychology

The purpose of this study was to examine sport commitment among collegiate track and field athletes in order to determine what factors influence continued participation throughout an entire college career. A survey was administered to 431 track and field athletes across each of the three NCAA divisions. The survey included a modified version of the Athletes’ Opinion Survey based on the Sport Commitment Model (Scanlan et al., 1993), which measures the relationship between sport commitment, sport enjoyment, personal investments, social constraints, social support, involvement alternatives and involvement opportunities. Additionally, the survey included a modified version of the Exercise Commitment Scale …

Multidimensional Resilience In Honors Students At Bryant University, Haley Nicol

Honors Projects in Applied Psychology

College level honors programs are continuously working towards improvement of their programs and working towards improving the college experience for their students. Apart from recognition and developing a positive reputation for the university, the goals for these selective academic programs include better serving their students from both academic and professional perspectives, as well encouraging and increasing program completion retention rates. There are various ways of testing students to assess their mindset and personal drive as well as gauge the possibility of students graduating with successful completion of their Capstone project or thesis in their senior year. To better understand how …

College Student Stress, Kaylee Hafer

Posters

The purpose of this study was to clarify college student stress levels and understand possible correlations to their environments. Is there a differ-ence is student stress levels based on their ages or genders? Is there a difference in student stress levels based on their perception of high stress? The participants of this research consisted of (N=99) undergradu-ate college students. A modified stress scale, College Student Stress, was administered to measure the students various stressors and a t-test was used to evaluate the significant differences between variables. The results of this study showed that there were significant differences between the variables; …

The Perception Of Symmetry In Depth: Effect Of Symmetry Plane Orientation, Bart Farell

Biomedical and Chemical Engineering - All Scholarship

The visual system is sensitive to symmetries in the frontoparallel plane, and bilateral symmetry about a vertical axis has a particular salience. However, these symmetries represent only a subset of the symmetries realizable in three-dimensional space. The retinal image symmetries formed when viewing natural objects are typically the projections of three-dimensional objects—animals, for example—that have a symmetry in depth. To characterize human sensitivity to depth symmetry, experiments measured observers’ ability to discriminate stereo displays that were symmetrically distributed in depth and those that were asymmetrically distributed. Disparity values were distributed about one of four planes passing through the z-axis and …

Academic Success And Christian Affiliation In College, Eden M. Broberg, Mathea J. Krogstad

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2015

The goal of our study was to provide a more thorough understanding of the relationship between religious attitudes and academic success, and will provide direction for future research in this domain. Our research examined the relationship between Christianity, academic achievement, and mediating variables in college-aged students. Past studies regarding religion and academic success have found that in some communities, academic success is positively correlated with religious involvement. However, these studies primarily looked at academic success in relation to involvement in a religious community, and not to personal attitudes regarding religion. To gain a better understanding of the role of personal …

Education, Crystal C. Gray

Eddie Mabry Diversity Award

Education is a spoken word poem that explores many aspects of the African American struggle within (self-knowledge). It starts with an African American college student who is disappointed with the lack of courses about her culture. Most curricula in the United States tend to be from a Eurocentric perspective, leaving out a multitude of information about people of color. All groups of people of color have unique experiences, however, African Americans have the most known (or perhaps I should say, unknown) history. The standard explanation of their existence is often limited to the start of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, when …

Deconstructing And Reconstructing Rights For Immigrant Children, Erin B. Corcoran

Law Faculty Scholarship

Children rights advocates and scholars alike continue to call for the development of innovative and alternative rights models, which specifically provide for an expansive conceptualization of children’s rights. Central to their calls for reform is a simultaneous recognition that children’s rights must embody agency – a child’s voice (a proxy for autonomy) – free from governmental interference, as well as the establishment of certain fundamental “needs” that place an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure the child has, and affirmatively provide, when necessary. Reimagining children’s rights also requires reforming our laws in such a way that reflects children as …

Predicting Facebook Stalking: Examining Self-Control And Facebook Romantic Jealousy, Stephanie Renea Barrera

Graduate Theses

No longer do individuals have to wonder what others are doing on a daily basis. With the advent of social media, discovering other individual’s whereabouts and interests or gaining insight into their personal lives is at our fingertips. Facebook is the largest and most popular of these social networking sites with 1.06 billion users as of January 2013. With such a strong and prevalent presence in our lives, researchers have been examining the possible effects Facebook has on the population ever since Facebook first made its debut in 2004. Across various life domains, some studies show positive effects while others …

Self-Esteem, Anxiety And Suicidal Thoughts Among College Students, Shauna Stiles

Posters

The purpose of this study was to consider self-esteem, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts among college students. The research questions that were set out to answer were: R1-Is there a difference in stress and anxiety based on gender? R2-Is there a correlation between mental health and the stress among college students? After a long semester of gathering research and bringing everything together it is finally the day to show the hard and strenuous work that students put into these projects. Our class, being the first research methods class at Highlands College of Montana Tech, have gotten to learn how to complete …

The Correlation Between Diet, Exercise And Stress In College Students, Mary Catherine Hamm

Posters

The purpose of this study was to clarify whether or not there is a correlation between diet, exercise, stress and perceived personal health among college students. This study focuses on if age affects the amount of exercise and a person’s diet considering their stress levels, and perception of health. Surveys were distributed and students (N=30) at Montana Tech/Highlands College in Butte, Montana were asked to complete them following approval from the University of Montana Institutional Review Board. The results of this study concluded that non-traditional age students seem to get more things accom-plished, even though they reported higher levels of …