Psychology Commons^™

Race Ethnicity & Youth Perception Of School Safety, Sterling Jose Jackson

Wayne State University Theses

This study investigates how race/ethnicity, sex, and age influence students' perceptions of school safety. Students' perception of being safe and their concerns about violence while attending school are paramount to academic and social development. In a national survey teens were queried regarding various subject matters. The type of school attended was important within the survey being private, public, and parochial. The findings of this investigation purport that blacks are more likely than whites to be concerned about school violence and safety. Schools with an inability to provide a safe learning environment for students may experience adverse outcomes regarding students' academic …

Effectiveness Of Different Corticosterone Administration Methods To Alter Corticosterone Levels In Serum And Depressive-Like Behavior In Female Rats, Jennifer Marie Kott

Wayne State University Theses

There is wide variation in the current literature on rodent models of high levels of chronic stress. This study aims to reduce these discrepancies by investigating the effects of 3 different administration methods of corticosterone (CORT; the endogenous stress hormone in rodents) and the differential effects it has in the female sex. The majority of studies utilize male rodents, while research in female rodents is largely under-investigated. This study will utilize female rats and 3 different administration routes: a) subcutaneous implantation of a CORT pellet, b) CORT in the drinking water, and c) CORT by a daily subcutaneous injection, and …

Acoustic Cues Of Physical Formidability In Cage Fighters, Stefan Mattias-Maria Goetz

Wayne State University Theses

Across the animal kingdom, the sex that experiences the most reproductive variance tends to evolve sexually dimorphic traits—both behavioral and morphological—which aid in reproduction. Human evolution has been marked by greater male intrasexual selection and as a result, men display a variety of secondary sexual characteristics, putatively serving to enhance biological fitness. Among these, fundamental frequency, closely related to perception of pitch, among men is half that of women. Likewise, monotonicity, that is, variance in pitch across an utterance, is higher in men (i.e., women show greater variance in pitch) while formant dispersion, which gives the voice its timbre, is …

Neural Correlates Of Episodic Memory Formation In Children And Adults, Lingfei Tang

Wayne State University Theses

The medial temporal lobe (MTL) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) are two key brain regions that support episodic memory formation in both children and adults, but the functional developmental of these regions remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the development of neural correlates of episodic memory formation using functional MRI with a subsequent memory paradigm, administered to a cross-sectional sample of 83 children and adults. We found that MTL subregions showed an age-related increase in activation supporting memory formation of complex scenes. In addition, a functionally defined scene-sensitive region in the posterior MTL also showed similar increase and predicted better …

Twin Gestation And Neuropsychological Outcome Of Preschool Age Children Born Prematurely, Jamie Christine Piercy

Wayne State University Theses

Multiples are thought to be at increased risk for developmental outcome deficits in the preschool years, following preterm birth. However, little research has been conducted to determine whether this group remains at higher risk in the age of artificial reproductive techniques and the modern NICU. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether multiplicity is a risk factor for neuropsychological outcome deficits in a sample of 118 preschoolers (49 multiples, 75 singletons) born prematurely (<34 weeks gestation). As predicted, there were significant relationships between multiplicity and outcome measures, however, the direction of the effects were opposite to our prediction, with multiplies demonstrating superior performance. Additionally, significant multiplicity by sex interactions revealed a female twin advantage over male twin and singleton performance. In this preschool age sample, preterm multiples were not at a disadvantage when compared to singleton counterparts, demonstrating either equivalent or superior neuropsychological performance.

Factors Influencing The Unethical Behavior Of Business People, Adam Boes

Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Modern Psychological Studies

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of The Self In Partner Behavior Interpretation, Lauren M. Acri, Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr.

Modern Psychological Studies

This study examined how aspects of the self (i.e. self-concept clarity, self-expansion, and inclusion of the other in the self) influence relationship attributions. A sample of 92 (20 males, 72 females) college students in a relationship received a series of surveys assessing their levels of self-concept clarity, self-expansion, and inclusion of the other in the self Additionally, they completed a survey assessing whether they make relationship enhancing attributions when interpreting behavior. Self expansion and inclusion of the other in the self positively correlated with relationship enhancing attributions. However, there was no significant relationship between self-concept clarity and relationship enhancing attributions. …

Short-Term Attachment Outcomes Of Infants In The Child Welfare System, Tracy Markowitz

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Children with prenatal substance exposure are often born into families of low socio-economic status, low educational level, and with restricted access to health services. Pregnant substance-using mothers tend to reject, neglect, and generally misattune to their infant children. These environmental risk factors increase the likelihood of negative developmental outcomes such as poor academic performance, externalizing behaviors, and an insecure attachment style. In compliance with the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act and the Adoption and Safe Families Act, Child Welfare Services often places at-risk infants into traditional or kinship foster care placements. This study looked at how placement type and …

Utilization Of The Alabama Parenting Questionnaire Across Family Structures: Do The Same Constructs Apply?, Leah Michelle Adams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

America has experienced a marked increase in non-nuclear family structures over the last five decades. The evolution of more diverse family systems has led some researchers to eschew a “one size fits all” approach to parenting assessment, as these measures may neglect or misconstrue parent-child dynamics unique to non-nuclear families. The current study examined the underlying factor structure of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ) in two distinct family structures to determine if parenting constructs were replicated across groups. Participants included 246 mothers from single parent and two-parent households in Louisiana. Statistical analyses included exploratory factor analysis, replication analysis, hierarchical regression …

Stereotype Threat And Racial Differences In Citizens’ Experiences Of Police Encounters, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Bette L. Bottoms, Phillip Atiba Goff

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We conducted 2 studies to investigate how cultural stereotypes that depict Blacks as criminals affect the way Blacks experience encounters with police officers, expecting that such encounters induce Blacks to feel stereotype threat (i.e., concern about being judged and treated unfairly by police because of the stereotype). In Study 1, we asked Black and White participants to report how they feel when interacting with police officers in general. As predicted, Blacks, but not Whites, reported concern that police officers stereotype them as criminals simply because of their race. In addition, this effect was found for Black men but not Black …

Graduate Bulletin, 2015-2016, Minnesota State University Moorhead

Graduate Bulletins (Catalogs)

No abstract provided.

What Are The Possible Causes For Autism Spectrum Disorder?, Rochel Preiserowicz

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Ever since the mid 1980’s when Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) started to become increasingly prevalent, researchers have been trying to find a possible cause for it. Autism Spectrum Disorder is a developmental disorder that manifests itself in children who are between 18-30 months old. People with autism have reduced social skills, and they have a difficult time communicating verbally and non-verbally. Autism is diagnosed through a questionnaire and other instruments that allow psychologists, psychiatrists, speech therapists, neurologists and many other doctors to determine if a child has a form of ASD. There are many theories about what causes autism. It …

Virtual Rapport With Extraverted Agents, Jacqueline Brixey

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Studies from psychology conclude that "birds of a feather flock together"- or, in other words, people tend to seek companionship with those who have a similar personality to their own. Researchers in the fields of Linguistics and Psychology have found numerous markers that differentiate the dialogue of extroverts from that of introverts. Recent work in Human Computer Interaction has sought to understand the nature of creating and maintaining rapport between humans and Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs).

Seeking an interdisciplinary approach that combines knowledge from HCI, Linguistics, and Psychology, I sought to establish whether introverted users report the highest level of …

Perspectives On Feminine Cultural Gender Role Values From Latina Leaders And Community Residents, Nazanin Mina Heydarian

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Marianismo and machismo are gender values prescribed to women and men respectively within Latino cultures. Characteristics associated with these gender values can be pro- or anti-social. Individuals, regardless of their own sex, self-identify with characteristics prescribed to both genders. There is little research examining how Latinos conceptualize and self-identify with both marianismo and machismo. The present study contributes to the literature by classifying how Latina leaders and non-leader community residents describe characteristics associated with marianismo and machismo. I identified characteristics of marianismo and machismo and their associated pro- and anti-social dimensions by means of a thematic analysis. The following characteristics …

Effect Of Cooperativeness Of The Parent On Juvenile Probation Officer Decision-Making Using A Randomized Controlled Design, Tamara Kang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Juvenile probation officers acknowledge the importance of gaining the parents' cooperation during supervision to ensure the best chance for rehabilitation. However, there is reason to believe that officers may attend to parental cooperativeness to inform decisions on how much to involve the parent in supervision. The importance of the parent is well accepted, but the effect of parental cooperation on officers' decisions concerning the juvenile's fate on supervision has yet to be examined. Aim 1 of this study examined the extent to which an officer's response to a first instance and second instance of noncompliance was affected by the cooperativeness …

Re-Specifying The Sacred Values Scale, Adon Lee Neria

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

An object or value becomes sacred when a person feels compelled to protect and admire it. When a person holds a Sacred Value (SV) they are less likely to accept compromises, or "taboo tradeoffs," to that value and will behave less rationally to protect it from perceived slights. Though research on SV has replicated well, there has yet to be a popularized scale measuring it. A previous attempt at developing a multidimensional scale for measuring the degree to which a person holds any value as sacred was made that resulted in a 15-item measure. Though this version demonstrated good predictive …

Anticipated Telehealth Device Usage In Younger Adults, Tyler Bull

HIM 1990-2015

Telehealth and telemedicine have revolutionized the healthcare system in terms of access to information and remote medical treatment. While there is a great deal of literature on current perceptions of telehealth care systems, relatively little is known about perceived user needs and acceptance of future telehealth systems. One way to assess future attitudes is to evaluate anticipated usage of telehealth devices through perceived advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, this study seeks to assess the reliability of a new measure of technology acceptance that capitalizes on human motivation using self-determination theory. An online survey consisted of an original 40-item measure of motivation …

Matriarchs And Sweethearts And Rebels, Oh My! Archetypes As An Approach To Multiple Group Membership, Alissa N. (Gebben) Neal

HIM 1990-2015

The purpose of this thesis was to examine a potential cognitive mechanism for simultaneous processing of age, race, and gender schemas. Marcus and Fritzsche (2014) propose that the outcome of the tripartite relationship of age, race, and sex are associated with archetypes, and that these archetypes categorize different intersections uniquely. To facilitate this, age groups selected were “old” and “young”, race groups selected were “Black” and “White”, and sex/gender groups selected were “female” and “male”. Several photographs representing each intersection were selected from LinkedIn for use in the pilot study, which were rated via a survey measuring the target’s stereotype, …

Perceived Locus Of Control In The Children Of Military And Civilian Families Affected By Deployment And Divorce, Rebekah Z. Kanefsky

HIM 1990-2015

This study was designed to explore the differences between locus of control (LOC) in children from civilian and military families and to investigate whether military deployment is associated with an external locus of control more than other family dynamics. The literature has focused on the negative implications of external LOC for children’s mental health and achievement as well as in childhood chronic illness, parental absence, and parental alcoholism. However, prior research regarding this construct related to children of military families is significantly lacking. In the present study, LOC was measured by the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale for Children, a …

Deciphering Holland's Code, Dennis D. Turner

HIM 1990-2015

The Party Exercise found on countless career guidance websites and popularized by the best-selling, job-hunting book What Color Is Your Parachute (Bolles, 2015) purports to provide an estimate of an individual's Holland's code. This study examines whether this commonly used Party Exercise accurately predicts an individual's Holland's code (Holland, 1997). Undergraduate students (N=473) completed The Party Exercise and then the Self- Directed Search (Holland & Messer, 2013). The results of this study do not support the use of this popular “Party Exercise” as a valid estimate of an individual's Holland code.

Temperament And Child Maltreatment: A Closer Look At The Interactions Among Mother And Child Temperament, Stress And Coping, Emotional And Behavioral Regulation, And Child Maltreatment Potential, Amanda Lowell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Several theoretical risk models were proposed previously regarding the prediction of child maltreatment. Although child maltreatment was predicted individually in these models by such variables as parent temperament, emotional and behavioral regulation, stress, coping, and child temperament, these variables were not yet examined collectively. As such, a new transactional theory was proposed for the current study. As part of this study, a national community sample of 158 culturally diverse mothers of young children who were between the ages of 1½- to 5-years rated their own temperament, emotional and behavioral regulation abilities, parenting stress, daily hassles, and coping behaviors as well …

Treatment Matching In Ptsd: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis Based On Therapeutic Mechanisms Of Action, Benjamin Trachik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study takes an initial step toward deriving a method for empirically based, theory-driven treatment matching in a military population suffering from PTSD. Along with the more overt symptoms of PTSD (e.g., persistent hyperarousal), secondary cognitive symptoms have also been shown to be significantly associated with avoidance and intrusive symptoms, as well as contribute to functional impairment. Based on the factor analytic and treatment literature for PTSD, it appears that there are two central mechanisms associated with beneficial therapeutic change that underlies both CPT and PE treatments (i.e., habituation, changes in cognitions). Additionally, different traumatic events and peritraumatic responses …

Affective And Autonomic Responses To Erotic Images Among Young Women With And Without Sexual Difficulties, Natasha De Pesa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Existing models of female sexual dysfunction (FSD) are broad and do not provide information about how to improve existing interventions. The purpose of the current study is to extend the empirical application of a disgust model of FSD (de Jong, van Overveld, & Borg, 2013) to a population of young women reporting difficulties with sexual desire and/or arousal and related distress. Sixty college-aged females participated in the study and were placed into two groups based upon their reports of sexual functioning and sexual distress: a control group (i.e., no sexual difficulties or distress) and a clinical group (i.e., difficulties with …

Configural Displays: The Effects Of Salience On Multi-Level Data Extraction, Audrey Fok

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Displays are a useful tool for users and operators to understand information quickly. Configural displays are effective in supporting focus and divided attention tasks through the use of emergent features. Emergent features are highly salient and are generally used to support divided attention task However, due to the salience of emergent features, a potential performance costs to focused attention tasks arises with configural displays. To address this cost, semantic mapping has been used to map salience techniques to information needed by focus attention tasks to increase their saliency (Bennett & Walters, 2001; Bennett et al., 2000). Semantic mapping is the …

The Effect Of Precipitation On The Spread Of Mosquito-Borne Diseases: A Case Study Of Florida Counties, Marvin Osbourne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The state of Florida is the third most populous state in the United States of America, with six (6) of its metropolitan areas dubbed as the fastest growing in the entire country. A mosquito bite may mean the transmission of a virus or disease which might be fatal. Hence, there is a need for the state to control mosquitoes through the various Departments of Mosquito Control in each of its sixty-seven (67) counties. Six locally acquired mosquito-borne viruses which affect humans and animals in the state of Florida were considered. This thesis used statistical methods to examine data for rainfall, …

Boundaries: The Relationships Among Family Structure, Identity Style, And Psychopathology, Kaylin Ratner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research has long held that family of origin plays a significant, if not critical, role in mental health. The purpose of the present study was to provide theoretical evidence to support the feasibility of a new target for clinical intervention by demonstrating that identity style, the way individuals take in and process identity-relevant information, is a mediating factor between family cohesion and psychopathology. Secondly, this study aimed to provide empirical evidence for identity boundaries, or the cognitive barrier that dictates the assimilation and disposal of identity-relevant information, by linking identity style to one*s ability to differentiate the self from others. …

Assessment Center Structure And Construct Validity: A New Hope, Christopher Wiese

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Assessment Centers (ACs) are a fantastic method to measure behavioral indicators of job performance in multiple diverse scenarios. Based upon a thorough job analysis, ACs have traditionally demonstrated very strong content and criterion-related validity. However, researchers have been puzzled for over three decades with the lack of evidence concerning construct validity. ACs are designed to measure critical job dimensions throughout multiple situational exercises. However, research has consistently revealed that different behavioral ratings within these scenarios are more strongly related to one another (exercise effects) than the same dimension rating across scenarios (dimension effects). That is, results from ACs suggest that …

Team Interaction Dynamics During Collaborative Problem Solving, Travis Wiltshire

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contributes an enhanced understanding of team cognition, in general, and collaborative problem solving (CPS), specifically, through an integration of methods that measure team interaction dynamics and knowledge building as it occurs during a complex CPS task. The need for better understanding CPS has risen in prominence as many organizations have increasingly worked to address complex problems requiring the combination of diverse sets of individual expertise to achieve solutions for novel problems. Towards this end, the present research drew from theoretical and empirical work on Macrocognition in Teams that describes the knowledge coordination arising from team communications during CPS. …

The Subjective Gameplay Experience: An Examination Of The Revised Game Engagement Model, Katelyn Procci

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The study of the subjective gameplay experience spans multiple disciplines, from teachers who want to harness the power of gameplay to enhance instruction to game developers hoping to create the next big hit. Despite decades of interest, little agreement has been found regarding the way constructs—such as immersion, involvement, presence, and flow—are used to describe the subjective gameplay experience. Without the consistent usage of well-defined constructs, it becomes impossible to further scientific understanding of this domain. This dissertation examined the theoretical evolution of the key subjective gameplay experience constructs. From this, definitions for immersion, involvement, presence, and flow were extracted. …