Psychology Commons^™

Evaluating Computerized Math Performance Using Progressive Ratio Schedules In Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Lauren Stroker

Theses and Dissertations

One method of assessing reinforcer strength is to use a progressive ratio (PR) schedule of reinforcement, whereby response requirements to access reinforcers gradually increase. PR schedules have been used to assess reinforcer potency in numerous applications with nonhumans in basic research, children and adults with disabilities, and individuals with histories of substance abuse problems. However, the utility of PR schedules to determine robust reinforcers has not been assessed with children with attention deficit – hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) regarding academic tasks, such as mathematics. The inability to remain on task presents a challenge for teachers in schools, and poses detrimental effects …

Hands, And Numbers, And Dots Oh My! Examining The Effect Of Nearby-Hands On Counting And Subitizing, Gabriel Allred

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The “nearby-hand” effect (Tseng, Bridgeman, & Juan 2012), an alteration of performance caused by the presence of our hands in the visuospatial area, has been found in learning, attention, and working memory tasks (Brockmole, Davoli, Abrams, & Witt, 2013a). However, no work to date has been published demonstrating a relationship between the nearby-hand effect and judgments of magnitude, including subitizing and counting. It is suggested by Tseng, Bridgeman, and Juan (2012) that nearby-hands affect attentional disengagement, yet little experimental evidence is available to support this notion. Given the serialized nature of counting, which requires attentional disengagement from item to item …

Latent Classes Of Childhood Poly-Victimization And Associations With Suicidal Behavior Among Adult Trauma Victims: Moderating Role Of Anger, Ruby Charak, Brianna M. Byllesby, Michelle E. Roley, Meredith A. Claycomb, Tory A. Durham, Jana Ross, Cherie Armour, Jon D. Elhai

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

The aims of the present study were first to identify discrete patterns of childhood victimization experiences including crime, child maltreatment, peer/sibling victimization, sexual violence, and witnessing violence among adult trauma victims using latent class analysis; second, to examine the association between class-membership and suicidal behavior, and third to investigate the differential role of dispositional anger on the association between class-membership and suicidal behavior. We hypothesized that those classes with accumulating exposure to different types of childhood victimization (e.g., poly-victimization) would endorse higher suicidal behavior, than the other less severe classes, and those in the most severe class with higher anger …

A Mother's Spiritual Journey With Her Disabled Son: An Autoethnography, Margaret C. Higgins Edd

Dissertations

Abstract

This autoethnographic research delves into a mother’s experiences with her disabled son over thirty-five years. Beginning with a thick description of the crib accident that resulted in physical and cognitive disabilities that profoundly change the course of both mother and son’s life, this research chronicles the search for meaning, community, and healing as they negotiate the realms of medicine, education, career, family, and spirituality. Models of disability that seek to explain various ways in which society often views disability are examined, but none resonate with the researcher’s intimate experiences nor satisfies her deepest needs for insight and healing. Making …

Examining Justifiable And Unjustifiable Cultural Biases In Psychological Science, Jordan D. Hyde

Theses and Dissertations

Research in cultural psychology suggests that mind and behavior are necessarily cultural. The implications of this perspective call into question assumptions of scientific psychology's cultural neutrality and indicate that it may be a form of cultural community in its own right. As such, it seems that it will necessarily be defined by certain cultural biases that are exclusive of other cultural biases. Nevertheless, providing that scientists can strive to identify their explicit and implicit cultural biases, and so long as they can define their sciences in terms of cultural biases that are rational and mandatory within the internal logic of …

Violation Of Long-Term Mate Preferences, M. L. W. Long, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Violations of short-term mate preferences refer to instances in which a person in a short-term, casual sexual relationship has mate preferences that were in place when the relationship commenced but subsequently are not being met.

Advertising, Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Advertisements, which are widely available, can provide insights into the evolved preferences of target audiences and serve as a useful supplement to other methods in evolutionary psychology research. This chapter discusses how advertisers create content that strategically exploits consumers’ values and preferences and how advertising content can provide insights into various aspects of our evolved psychology.

Differential Parental Investment, Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Differences in minimum obligatory parental investment contributed by men and women lead the sexes to diverge in their sexual strategies and affective experiences, although under certain conditions, men’s mating preferences converge with women’s. This chapter first describes necessary or obligatory parental investment, examines the origins of sex differences in obligatory parental investment, describes examples of such differences across a range of species, and highlights the consequences of these differences in terms of human sexual strategies, conflicts, and affective experiences.

Violation Of Short-Term Mate Preferences, Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Violations of short-term mate preferences refer to instances in which a person in a short-term, casual sexual relationship has mate preferences that were in place when the relationship commenced but subsequently are not being met.

Cross Cultural Regularities In The Cognitive Architecture Of Pride, Daniel Sznycer, Laith Al-Shawaf, Yoella Bereby-Meyer, Oliver Scott Curry, Delphine De Smet, Elsa Ermer, Sangin Kim, Sunhwa Kim, Norman P. Li, Maria Florencia Lopez Seal, Jennifer Mcclung, Jiaqing O, Yohsuke Ohtsubo, Tadeg Quillien, Max Schaub, Aaron Sell, Florian Van Leeuwen, Leda Cosmide, John Tooby

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Pride occurs in every known culture, appears early in development, is reliably triggered by achievements and formidability, and causes a characteristic display that is recognized everywhere. Here, we evaluatethe theory that pride evolved to guide decisions relevant to pursuing actions that enhance valuation and respect for a person in the minds of others. By hypothesis, pride is a neurocomputational program tailored by selection to orchestrate cognition and behavior in the service of: (i) motivating the costeffective pursuit of courses of action that would increase others’ valuations and respect of the individual, (ii) motivating the advertisement of acts or characteristics whose …

Called To Power, Errol N. Mclean

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Use Of The Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services To Assess And Improve The Job Performance Of Individuals With Disabilities, Madison Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Employers often do not have the means to identify the specific variables that influence poor work performance, particularly for employees with disabilities. The Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services (PDC-HS) is a tool designed to identify these variables and potential solutions to employee performance problems. Although the PDC-HS has been used with a variety of employees, it has not been examined for use with individuals with disabilities. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the PDC-HS with adults with disabilities in an integrated workforce, to increase the productivity of two employees when required to perform a pricing task. Results showed that the PDC-HS …

Leader Emotion Management Behavior And Perceived Leader Effectiveness: The Moderating Roles Of Gender And Culture, Julianna Fischer

Theses and Dissertations

A key aspect of successful management includes a leader’s responsibility to manage employees’ emotions (Leavitt & Bahrami, 1988). This form of management can be reflected in a number of behaviors, such as demonstrating consideration and support for employees, providing frequent emotional “uplifts,” and managing interactions and relationships among coworkers (Kaplan, Cortina, Ruark, LaPort, & Nicolaides, 2014). Emotion-related skills and abilities have been supported as critical assets in management (e.g., George, 2000; Pescosolido, 2002). However, this evidence has not been sufficiently verified in a cross-cultural setting. The cultural value of gender egalitarianism, or the degree of gender role differentiation in a …

An Examination Of The 16pf Validity Scales As Predictors Of The Scale Of Accurate Personality Prediction (Sapp), Katherine E. Schmieder

Theses and Dissertations

The Scale of Accurate Personality Prediction (SAPP) was derived from the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16-PF) as a measure of self-knowledge by comparing the degree of similarity of a participant’s predicted and obtained 16 PF results. The purpose of this study was to examine the utilization of the16PF validity scales as potential predictors of an individual’s score on the Scale of Accurate Personality Prediction (SAPP). A series of multiple regression analyses were performed on the current database of 641 respondents. Additionally, to provide additional validity, the database was split into two halves, and the multiple regression analyses were run on …

Development Of A Student-Perspective Based Scale On Instructor Approachability, Xin Zhao

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Students respond to instructor characteristics. Instructor approachability is one such characteristic that is often discussed yet inconsistently defined in the literature. The purpose of this study was to construct and validate a new measure, the Instructor Approachability Scale. The present study used a rationally derived process to generate a list of items that are representative of instructor approachability. Factor analysis was conducted to establish psychometrics for the scale. Regression analyses were then conducted to examine the impact of instructor approachability on several outcomes, including students’ help-seeking attitudes, satisfaction with the course, and mastery of course content. Several significant main …

Parenting Styles And Child Outcomes In Puerto Rican Families, Jeisianne Rosario Colón

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to evaluate observed parenting dimensions and styles among Puerto Rican parents living in Puerto Rico and its relationship to internalizing and externalizing child problems. Participants included 51 families with a child between the ages of 6 and 11. Families engaged in different behavioral observational tasks such as: making puzzles, recess, or solving a problem. The Parenting Styles Observation Rating Scale was used to code the observations and the Child Behavior Checklist was used to assess for behavioral problems. Overall, parents received high ratings on warmth, demandingness, and autonomy granting. Supportive demandingness was negatively associated …

Meta-Emotions In Daily Life: Associations With Emotional Awareness And Depression, Natasha Haradhvala

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Meta-emotions are emotions that occur in response to other emotions (e.g., guilt about anger). Although preliminary evidence indicates that depression is associated with a greater likelihood of meta-emotions, much remains unknown about meta-emotions, including how regularly they are experienced and whether emotional awareness constructs (including attention to and clarity of emotion) influence their occurrence. In the present study, we aim to establish norms for meta-emotions in everyday life, determine whether increased emotional awareness is associated with a greater likelihood of meta-emotions, and examine whether negative emotions about negative emotions (negative-negative meta-emotional experiences) are associated with depressive severity. We recruited an …

Letter Teaching In Parent–Child Conversations, Molly Farry-Thorn

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Societies engage in cross-generational transfers of information, enabling cultural transmission of skills such as tool use and language (Tomasello, 2001). Reading and spelling are two of the most important cultural tools that are transferred to children in modern societies. This transfer begins with informal experiences in the home and continues with formal teaching at school. One skill that is critical to a child’s success during the first years of reading and spelling instruction is decoding, which is the ability to sound out written words. Decoding ability depends, in part, on a child’s knowledge of letters (Lonigan, Burgess, & Anthony, 2000). …

Examining Criterion A: Dsm-5 Level Of Personality Functioning As Assessed Through Life Story Interviews, Patrick Cruitt

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Several studies have examined the Level of Personality Functioning Scale (LPFS) from the DSM-5 as rated using diagnostic interviews conducted by trained clinicians (Few et al., 2013; Zimmermann et al., 2014). These studies have demonstrated the reliability and validity of the LPFS, but suffer from a common limitation, namely, that diagnostic interviews probe specifically for information pertaining to functioning. This probing may inflate reliability and introduce confounds into the assessment of functioning. The purpose of the current analyses is to examine the reliability and validity of personality functioning ratings obtained in the absence of information pertaining to personality disorder criteria. …

Testing A Comprehensive Model Of Body Image, Anxiety, And Eating Pathology Among College Men, Emily Katherine White

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Historically, researchers conceptualized eating disorders, subclinical eating pathology, and negative body image as issues that only affected women. However, more recent research suggests that men experience significant body image concerns that mirror current Western cultural ideals of appearance (i.e., desire to attain a lean, muscular physique with very little body fat). Theoretically, men with a strong desire to achieve this cultural ideal (i.e., drive for muscularity) may experience dissatisfaction with their appearance (i.e., muscle dysmorphia), unpleasant psychological states (e.g., social physique anxiety), and engage in potentially harmful behaviors related to eating pathology (e.g., body checking) that lead to clinical impairment …

Predicting Aggression In Late Adolescent Romantic Relationships: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study, Christina Caiozzo, Jessica Houston, John H. Grych

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

This study sought to prospectively predict aggression in the romantic relationships of 1180 college students from the United States (807 females; 373 males) over the course of two months with a set of intrapersonal risk and protective factors, including personality characteristics that rarely have been examined in this population. After accounting for prior dating aggression, perpetration of verbal aggression was predicted uniquely by aggressive attitudes, emotion regulation, and for females, narcissism. Perpetration of physical aggression was predicted by aggressive attitudes, but only at low levels of emotion regulation, and the interaction of callous-unemotional traits, emotion regulation, and gender: males with …

Advances In Research With Lgbtq Youth In Schools, Nicholas C. Heck, Paul V. Poteat, Carol S. Goodenow

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Over the past decade, there has been an increase in scholarship devoted to the topic of sexual and gender minority youth in schools (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning; LGBTQ). In this special section, we highlight this group of LGBTQ youth, a group that needs as many allies as possible, a group that lacks the social standing, the financial capital necessary, and the rights afforded to adults to directly influence the political climate in ways that affect their lives. Collectively, these seven data-driven articles are reflective of the innovation that is occurring in our field as we continue …

A Replication And Extension Of The Peers® For Young Adults Social Skills Intervention: Examining Effects On Social Skills And Social Anxiety In Young Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Alana J. Mcvey, Bridget Dolan, Kirsten S. Willar, Sheryl Pleiss, Jeffrey S. Karst, Christina L. Casnar, Christina Caiozzo, Elisabeth M. Vogt, Nakia S. Gordon, Amy V. Van Hecke

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Young adults with ASD experience difficulties with social skills, empathy, loneliness, and social anxiety. One intervention, PEERS® for Young Adults, shows promise in addressing these challenges. The present study replicated and extended the original study by recruiting a larger sample (N = 56), employing a gold standard ASD assessment tool, and examining changes in social anxiety utilizing a randomized controlled trial design. Results indicated improvements in social responsiveness (SSIS-RS SS, p = .006 and CPB, p = .005; SRS, p = .004), PEERS® knowledge (TYASSK, p = .001), empathy (EQ, p = .044), direct interactions (QSQ-YA, p = …

Practicing Emotionally Biased Retrieval Affects Mood And Establishes Biased Recall A Week Later, Janna N. Vrijsen, Paula T. Hertel, Eni Sabine Becker

Psychology Faculty Research

Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) can yield clinically relevant results. Only few studies have directly manipulated memory bias, which is prominent in depression. In a new approach to CBM, we sought to simulate or oppose ruminative processes by training the retrieval of negative or positive words. Participants studied positive and negative word pairs (Swahili cues with Dutch translations). In the positive and negative conditions, each of the three study trials was followed by a cued-recall test of training-congruent translations; a no-practice condition merely studied the pairs. Recall of the translations was tested after the training and after 1 week. Both recall …

Sex Differences In The Relationship Between Planum Temporale Asymmetry And Corpus Callosum Morphology In Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes): A Combined Mri And Dti Analysis, William D. Hopkins, A. M. Hopkins, M. Misiura, E. M. Latash, M. C. Mareno, S. J. Schapiro, Kimberley A. Phillips

Psychology Faculty Research

Increases brain size has been hypothesized to be inversely associated with the expression of behavioral and brain asymmetries within and between species. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing the relation between asymmetries in the planum temporale (PT) and different measures of the corpus callosum (CC) including surface area, streamline count as measured from diffusion tensor imaging, fractional anisotropy values and the ratio in the number of fibers to surface area in a sample of chimpanzees. We found that chimpanzees with larger PT asymmetries in absolute terms had smaller CC surface areas, fewer streamlines and a smaller ratio of fibers to …

Acting Is Repetition, Job Barnett

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

A short discussion of repetition in acting.

Animals In The Wild, Brittany Samson

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

As a photographer, I am extremely interested in the concept of perception and I let this concept drive most of my artistic work. I present four images from my photographic series “Animals in the Wild,” which explore this idea of perception. These four images: Giraffe, Dinosaur, Buffalo, and Bunny—are drastically varied photos that include no real animals, but instead beg the mind to perceive shapes, colors, figure, and coincidence as an animal.

From Combat Zones To The Classroom: Transitional Adjustment In Oef/Oif Student Veterans, Lorrie Kato, Jeremy D. Jinkerson, Sarah C. Holland, Henry V. Soper

The Qualitative Report

With 600,000 veterans of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom enrolled in higher education with the Post-9/11 GI Bill, recognizing and responding to their predictable adjustment issues is imperative. Existing qualitative research has identified some transitional issues encountered by small groups of veterans. Because of qualitative research’s limited generalizability, however, themes may be viewed as more generalizable when corroborated by student veterans in different regions. In order to provide an in-depth description of the themes related to the post-deployment adjustment process, the first author conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 student veterans from a Southwestern community college who were returning to …

Insect Consciousness: Commitments, Conflicts And Consequences, Colin Klein, Andrew B. Barron

Animal Sentience

Our target article, “Insects have the capacity for subjective experience,” has provoked a diverse range of commentaries. In this response we have collated what we see as the major themes of the discussion. It is clear that we differ from some commentators in our commitments to what subjective experience is and what the midbrain is capable of. Here we clarify where we stand on those points and how our view differs from some other influential perspectives. The commentaries have highlighted the most lively areas of disagreement. We revisit here the debates surrounding whether the cortex is essential for any form …

Dissociable Early Attentional Control Mechanisms Underlying Cognitive And Affective Conflicts, Taolin Chen, Keith M. Kendrick, Chunliang Feng, Shiyue Sun, Xun Yang, Xiaogang Wang, Wenbo Luo, Suyong Yang, Xiaoqi Huang, Pedro A. Valdes-Sosa, Qiyong Gong, Jin Fan, Yue-Jia Luo

Publications and Research

It has been well documented that cognitive conflict is sensitive to the relative proportion of congruent and incongruent trials. However, few studies have examined whether affective conflict processing is modulated as a function of proportion congruency (PC). To address this question we recorded eventrelated potentials (ERP) while subjects performed both cognitive and affective face-word Stroop tasks. By varying the proportion of congruent and incongruent trials in each block, we examined the extent to which PC impacts both cognitive and affective conflict control at different temporal stages. Results showed that in the cognitive task an anteriorly localized early N2 component occurred …