Psychology Commons^™

The Intrinsic Motivation Of Immigrant Women In Male-Dominated Fields Of Study, Cassandra Edwards

Psychology

The present study examined the hypothesis that female students with first- or second-generation immigrant status (vs. their native-born peers) would be better prepared academically and have stronger intentions of pursuing and staying within their current field of study. We focused specifically on students in STEM versus non-STEM fields, as STEM fields are traditionally male-dominated. We predicted that female immigrant STEM majors in particular would not only perform better than their non-immigrant male peers, but also cope with stressors more efficiently and be less vulnerable to stereotype threat. We tested our predictions by assigning participants to one of two possible conditions …

Investigating The Roles Of Felt Obligation And Politics In The Context Of Procedural Justice-Outcome Relationships, Caitlin Briggs

Psychology

Social Exchange Theory positions employee felt obligation as a mechanism by which organizational justice leads to positive organizational outcomes such as decreased turnover and increased job satisfaction. However, little has been done to test the empirical value of this theoretical claim. Additionally, although organizational politics is generally negatively correlated with justice, investigation of the mechanism by which politics might influence justice is lacking. Here, I look at whether politics has a moderating role on procedural justice and felt obligation, and thus turnover intentions and job satisfaction, or in words, whether politics reduces the positive relationship between procedural justice and felt …

The Contributions Of Perceived Ethnic Discrimination And Rumination To Depression, Anxiety, And Anger In Emerging Adults, Alexis M. Lima

Psychology

Perceived ethnic discrimination (PED), a type of race-based social stress, is conceptualized as a subjective experience of discrimination based on phenotype, linguistic, or cultural characteristics. As an environmental stressor, it is associated with the same negative outcomes as other stressors such as greater depressive and anxious symptoms, poorer academic performance, and poorer health outcomes. Previous research has focused on PED’s association with mental and physical health outcomes, but cognitive factors (i.e., cognitive ruminations, coping strategies, executive functioning) that might mediate or moderate outcomes have received less attention. Moreover, while some research has investigated the associations of anger rumination and perceived …

Training The Whole Counselor: Qualitative Analyses Of Professional School Counselor Training In Central Virginia, Jason W. Fleshman

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The profession of school counseling is a dynamic one that has endured the evolving American educational landscape for over 100 years. This changing landscape has contributed to a sense of role confusion for professional school counselors in the United States. With much variation among states, school divisions, and even schools within the same division regarding the appropriate role of the professional school counselor, the research attempted to determine professional school counselor perceptions of their division-level and building-level training for their ASCA-defined inappropriate responsibilities in four school divisions in central Virginia. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, the research studied the lived …

Insightful Problem Solving And Emulation In Brown Capuchin Monkeys, E. Renner, Allison M. Abramo, M. K. Hambright, Kimberley A. Phillips

Psychology Faculty Research

We investigated problem solving abilities of capuchin monkeys via the "floating object problem," a task in which the subject must use creative problem solving to retrieve a favored food item from the bottom of a clear tube. Some great apes have solved this problem by adding water to raise the object to a level at which it can be easily grabbed. We presented seven capuchins with the task over eight trials (four "dry" and four "wet"). None of the subjects solved the task, indicating that no capuchin demonstrated insightful problem solving under these experimental conditions. We then investigated whether capuchins …

Temperament And Behavior Factors In A Community Sample Of Youth With Selective Mutism, Rachele Alexandra Diliberto

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Children with selective mutism often present as a very diverse population, with both oppositional (APA, 2013; Cohan et al., 2008; Steinhausen & Juzi, 1996), and anxious symptoms (APA, 2013; Kristensen, 2000; Vecchio & Kearney, 2009) most commonly reported. The first aim of the current study was to validate the presence of previously identified anxious and oppositional behavior factors in a community sample of youth with selective mutism. These factors were previously identified in a clinic sample of youth with selective mutism (Diliberto & Kearney, 2016). The second aim was to examine the association of anxious and oppositional behavior factors with …

The Development And Testing Of Potential Music Piracy Warnings, Joanne Ullman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A combination of technological, legal, and economic factors necessitates efforts to protect music from being illegally reproduced in a globally digital environment. Entities such as record companies, recording industry organizations, and special governmental agencies are committed to eradicating the unauthorized dissemination of copyrighted material. Furthermore, the FBI provides an official anti-piracy icon with accompanying text to be placed on websites and packaging. In support of these initiatives, the principal goal of this study was to empirically identify icon design elements that will most successfully communicate to consumers the illegality of unauthorized music reproductions.

Recommendations from extant literature indicate that viewers …

The Effect Of Incentives On Pupil Dilation During Recognition Memory: An Attentional Saliency Account Of The Pupil Old/New Effect, Lisa A. Solinger

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Another interesting feature of this OMS circuit is the strong surround suppression occurring in the inner retina, which enables both VG3-ACs and W3-RGCs to remain silent to the global image motion. Pharmacological evidence suggested wide-field and/or spiking ACs are the source of the inhibition. The specific AC types, however, have not been identified. To address this question, in chapter 3, I explored candidate cell types using transgenic mouse lines expressing Cre recombinase, mainly tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-Cre transgenic mice. In 2-photon guided patch clamp recordings, response patterns of TH2-ACs to object motion visual stimuli corresponded to inhibitory inputs of both VG3-ACs …

Behavioral Phenotypes Associated With Mptp Induction Of Partial Lesions In Common Marmosets (Callithrix Jacchus), Kimberley A. Phillips, C. N. Ross, J. Spross, C. J. Cheng, Alyssa Izquierdo, K. C. Biju, C. Chen, S. Li, S. D. Tardif

Psychology Faculty Research

Parkinson’s disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder with the core motor features of resting tremor, bradykinesia, rigidity, and postural instability. Non-motor symptoms also occur, and include cognitive dysfunction, mood disorders, anosmia (loss of smell), and REM sleep disturbances. As the development of medications and other therapies for treatment of non-motor symptoms is ongoing, it is essential to have animal models that aid in understanding the neural changes underlying non-motor PD symptoms and serve as a testing ground for potential therapeutics. We investigated several non-motor symptoms in 10 adult male marmosets using the MPTP model, with both the full (n …

Nonmonotonicity In Absolute And Relative Preferences For Real And Imagined Rewards, Nicholas Carfagno

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A key assumption in many studies examining valuation of reward is that participants’ preferences for various rewards are meaningfully, monotonically ordered with respect to other possible rewards. However, this assumption has not been systematically tested. Two studies consisting of 74 undergraduates from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and 122 community members demonstrated nonmonotonic reward preferences when provided with parametrically varied reward magnitudes. Although deficits in reward processing are believed to be a key feature of depression, depressed participants were more willing to work hard for rewards and exhibited more monotonic reward preferences than non-depressed participants. Relative to imaginary rewards, …

Reconsolidating: The Effect Of Spatial Context And Expectations, Chris R. Kiley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Consolidation is the process by which memories become stable over time. Accessing a previously consolidated memory trace brings it back into a labile state where it must then undergo a re-stabilization process known as reconsolidation. During this process memories are again susceptible to interference and may be updated with new information. Reconsolidation has been demonstrated in animals as well as in the procedural and episodic human memory systems. The exact boundary conditions for reconsolidation are not yet known. Some studies suggest that reconsolidation is only necessary when new information is presented in a spatial context that is indistinguishable from the …

The Relationship Between Mood And Implicit Learning, Kathleen Larson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation investigates whether a person’s current mood state influences their ability to learn implicitly. Implicit learning refers to learning about regularities in the environment without having conscious access to the information (e.g., Reber, 1967). According to the affect-as-information hypothesis, a positive mood increases global processing of incoming information and negative mood leads to local processing (e.g., Clore & Storbeck, 2006); however, most previous studies that investigated mood and cognition have focused on more explicit types of learning and decision making, but few have examined implicit processes. Thus, the current experiments examined how varying levels of mood and arousal affect …

An Examination Of Differences In Division I Fbs Student-Athlete Academic And Athletic Performance, Marissa Katherine Nichols

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The student-athlete literature if rife with studies that examine the factors that appear to improve or inhibit academic or athletic performance. However, internal characteristics that may influence variations in performance have been understudied, and athletic performance tends to be examined separately from academic performance. This study examined how different types of Division I FBS performers – high academic, high athletic; high academic, low athletic; low athletic, high academic; and low academic, low athletic – differ on three theoretical and conceptual frameworks representing internal factors. Each of the frameworks, Mindset, Personal Growth Initiative, and Student-Athlete Experiences, have positive attributes relative to …

An Examination Of Accuracy And Elaborations For Character Traits In A Narrative, Michael Palena

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

When people read a story, they often form a highly detailed representation known as a situation model. The event-indexing model (Zwaan, Langston, & Graesser, 1995) proposes that situation models are constructed along several indices, one of which is protagonist or character. While much research has been devoted to the study of tracking and forming trait-based models of fictional characters, little attention has been paid to the representation of characters’ external attributes. In Experiment 1, participants read a short story containing various characters and their attributes. Participants were then asked to recall the characters and their attributes, either according to their …

Monolingual And Bilingual Children's Language-Based Social Preferences In A Predominantly Monolingual Environment, Rachel Marie Stevens

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Monolingual children consistently display Social preferences for individuals who speak their native language with a native accent compared to individuals who speak a foreign language or speak their native language with a foreign accent. Two explanations have been proposed for these language-based preferences. The first explanation is that language cues a child to in-group membership and children prefer to affiliate with individuals who are members of the same in-group. The second explanation is that children display preferences for their native language and accent because that is what they are most familiar with, and children prefer familiarity over the unknown. The …

Relations Between Adverse Childhood Experiences And Current Maladaptive Beliefs In A College Sample, Ilana Starr Berman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cumulative childhood trauma has been associated with both symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. However, few studies have examined these relations with normative young adult populations nor have they explored the relation between childhood adversities and cognitive distortions as an outcome variable. The current study aimed to: 1) replicate and extend research on the relations between cumulative adversity, using a broad measure of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs; Felitti et al., 1998), which assesses both maltreatment (e.g., physical, sexual, emotional abuse and neglect) and exposure to elements of household dysfunction (e.g., caregiver substance use, witnessing maternal abuse), and mental health …

What Makes A Business Person A Criminal: An Examination Through Academic Dishonesty, Dakota Lee Fraley

Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined the interaction between environmental and individual difference characteristics in predicting perceptions of white-collar crime and likelihood to engage in academic dishonesty. It adopted a cross discipline approach that pulls literature from criminology, industrial organizational psychology and academic dishonesty to create the theoretical framework for what causes a person to deviate. General strain theory, rational choice theory and social exchange theory were employed to explain how integrity, perceived stress and perceived injustice could predict likelihood to commit academic dishonesty and perceptions of white-collar crime. Additional analyses looked at how self-control might moderate the relationships between perceived stress …

Examining Effects Of Technology Level And Reinforcer Arrangements On Preference And Efficacy, Audrey N. Hoffman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Applied behavior analysts use reinforcement to enact socially meaningful outcomes with the individuals that they work with. Identifying the ways in which reinforcers function optimally is an important consideration for behavioral research. Preference for reinforcers, and how effective reinforcers are, may change depending upon several factors. Two important factors to consider are how reinforcers are arranged and the technology level of the reinforcers used. Reinforcers can be delivered following every response in a distributed manner or they can be delivered following several responses in an accumulated manner. Additionally, leisure items used as reinforcers can be classified according to technology level, …

Misconduct-Related Discharge From Active Duty Military Service: An Examination Of Precipitating Factors And Post-Deployment Health Outcomes, Emily Brignone

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

U.S. military service members who are discharged from service for misconduct are at high risk for mental health and substance use disorders, homelessness, mortality, and incarceration. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the pre- and post-discharge experiences and characteristics of this highly vulnerable population in order to inform improved prevention and intervention strategies.

Administrative data from the Department of Defense and Veterans Health Administration for veterans of recent conflicts were used to conduct 3 related retrospective cohort studies. These included (1) an evaluation of the demographic and military service characteristics and service-connected disabilities associated with discharge for misconduct; …

Neurocognitive Correlates Of The Comprehensive Trail Making Test (Ctmt) In Brain Injured Children, Abigail Rose Mayfield

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Comprehensive Trail-Making Test (CTMT) is a commonly used assessment tool shown to be sensitive to brain dysfunction. Research has found cognitive abilities such as possessing speed, working memory, motor speed, sustained attention, and cognitive flexibility influence performance on the CTMT in non-clinical populations.

However, little research has been done to examine the neurocognitive abilities that influence performance on the CTMT in clinical populations. Research has demonstrated that the factor structure of the CTMT differs between clinical and non-clinical groups, which supports the need for further validation of the CTMT in clinical populations. This study examines the neurocognitive correlates that …

The Psychophysiological Correlates Of Personality, Trauma, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder And Social Support, Meghan E. Pierce

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Theories considering the etiology of psychopathy suggest that trauma exposure, specifically childhood maltreatment and sexual abuse, is related to the development of callous-unemotional traits in children and adolescents, which are precursors to psychopathic traits in adulthood. Furthermore, posttraumatic stress disorder has an opposite relationship with many of the emotional and behavioral components of the two-factor model of psychopathy. Specifically, PTSD is positively associated to IA and traits associated with it and negatively associated with FD. Thus, this study sought to expand upon the current theories of a trauma-based etiology of psychopathy by investigating the relationship between trauma, PTSD, and psychopathic …

Neural Processes Underlying Auditory Context Effects, Breanne Yerkes

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Auditory information within our natural environments is disorganized and often ambiguous, leaving our auditory systems with a complex task: organizing sound into coherent objects. The auditory system uses both current and prior information to assist in completing this task. The influences of previous context on current perception have been referred to as context effects. A contrastive context effect results in a current perception that is opposite of what is expected based on the physical stimulus properties presented during an immediate context. A facilitative context effect results in a current perception that is the same as the perception during the immediate …

Attitudes And Experiences Of Close Interethnic Friendships Among Native Emerging Adults: A Mixed-Methods Investigation, Merrill L. Jones

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Members of small minority groups like Natives, along with other minority groups that are rapidly growing in population are increasingly receiving research focus. With 1 in 3 U.S. residents identifying with racial or ethnic minority groups, close interethnic relationships are likely to increase as well. It will be important to understand processes of close friendship development between racially-different friends, along with the factors that help establish and maintain these close interethnic friendships. This information will be especially important for members of small minority groups, such as Natives.

We investigated Native friendship development and factors of close friendship with non-Native emerging …

An Exploratory Study Of Fifth-Grade Students’ Reasoning About The Relationship Between Fractions And Decimals When Using Number Line-Based Virtual Manipulatives, Scott Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Understanding the relationship between fractions and decimals is an important step in developing an overall understanding of rational numbers. Research has demonstrated the feasibility of technology in the form of virtual manipulatives for facilitating students’ meaningful understanding of rational number concepts. This exploratory dissertation study was conducted for the two closely related purposes: first, to investigate a sample of fifth-grade students’ reasoning regarding the relationship between fractions and decimals for fractions with terminating decimal representations while using virtual manipulative incorporating parallel number lines; second, to investigate the affordances of the virtual manipulatives for supporting the students’ reasoning about the decimal-fraction …

Examining The Effects Of A Strength-Based Therapeutic Assessment Process On Students’ Perceptions Of Teacher-Student Relationship, Hope, And Academic Competence, Teresa A. Duszlak

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

One major purpose of school-based assessment approaches is to identify ways to intervene to promote positive school academic, social and well-being outcomes for all students. Although schools traditionally use assessment tools to identify students’ weaknesses and needs, they can also use strength-based assessment tools to guide intervention planning and to validate students’ and teachers’ positive views of student skills and characteristics. Sharing these strengths and how to use them may enhance a student’s perception of the teacher-student relationship, hope and academic competence. Likewise, a second approach to assessment, called Therapeutic Assessment (TA), has yielded similar child outcomes for youth in …

Identifying The Underlying Components Of Delay Discounting Using Latent Factor Modeling, W. Brady Dehart

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many problematic behaviors can be conceptualized as choosing a smaller, immediate outcome over a larger, delayed outcome. For example, drug abuse involves choosing between the immediate euphoric effects of the drug and the delayed health and legal consequences of drug abuse. Individuals that consistently choose the smaller outcome are said to behavior “impulsively.” The goal of this dissertation was to understand how to change impulsive choice. Chapters 2 and 3 successfully demonstrate that impulsive choice can be altered by reframing how the choice is presented. For example, framing a delayed outcome using a specific date instead of a duration of …

Assessment Of The Impact Of The Premarital Interpersonal Choices And Knowledge (Pick) Program On Adolescents, Raquel R. Boehme

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study was conducted to determine if the information from the Premarital Interpersonal Choices and Knowledge (PICK) program How to Avoid Falling for a Jerk/ette helped positively change adolescents’ attitudes about relationships. The program was taught to 9,130 high school students (ages 14 -18) from 35 different high schools in a Western state.

Surveys were given at the beginning of the first class (pretest) and at the end of the final class (posttest). In addition to demographic information, students rated (1) their attitudes about what it takes to get to know a potential partner, (2) their belief that love alone …

Incremental Strategy-Oriented Feedback Promotes Positive Leadership Perceptions And Feedback Reactions, Lauren D. Murphy

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

In our lab experiment, participants who received negative strategy-oriented feedback associated with an incremental theory had more positive perceptions of a feedback deliverer and the feedback itself compared to recipients of comfort-oriented feedback associated with an entity theory.

Do Humans Prefer Faces? Zygomatic Muscle Responses To Neutral Faces Vs. Neutral Objects, Thomas J. Goetze

The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

The present study examined the significance of viewing images of neutral faces versus images of neutral objects on zygomatic muscle activity using facial EMG. Participants (60% women) from a pool of introductory psychology courses had their facial EMG recordings measured in response to images of neutral faces and neutral objects. Participants’ valence rating of each image was also recorded using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) in order to rate their emotional response to each image. The primary hypothesis was that participants would have greater activity in the zygomatic muscle region when presented with images of neutral faces as opposed to lessor …

The Influence Of Perceptions On Entrepreneurial Success, Josiah P. Peterson

Selected Honors Theses

The purpose of this work is to investigate and identify the influence of perceptions on entrepreneurial success. Entrepreneurs have been identified as instrumental to the economic survival of society and have therefore become the focus of an increasingly large number of studies. This thesis will expound upon those studies by focusing on aspects of the studies that pertain to entrepreneurial perceptions and success. This work will focus on three types of perceptions and how they influence success. It will focus on the perceptions the entrepreneurs have of themselves, the perceptions they have of their environments and the perceptions others have …