Psychology Commons^™

The Under-Explored Role Of Tiredness In Alcohol Use And Sexual Risk-Taking Among Gay And Bisexual Men, Brett M. Millar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Numerous factors have been shown to increase the likelihood of risk-taking in the realms of alcohol use and sexual behavior— and many studies have focused on these behaviors among gay and bisexual men (GBM), given the health disparities that exist in substance use and HIV/STI infections. After a brief review of the person- and situation-level variables that have already been identified, I will argue for the relevance of also considering a previously under-explored situation-level factor in alcohol use and sexual risk-taking: sleep-related fatigue, referred to here as tiredness. While tiredness has been shown, in the sleep science literature, to impair …

Psychoanalysis And Modernity: A Failure To Find Relief From Existential Terror, Erin Liat Claridge

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project considers the ways in which culture—the symbols and institutions that guide behavior and provide meaning to the individuals living within a community—serves a defensive function against conscious awareness of existential terror. The term existential terror refers to the cognitive and emotional experience of recognizing the inevitability of death, which is often accompanied by feelings of angst, isolation from others, and awareness of meaninglessness. In this dissertation, I will argue that the broad shift from traditional culture based on Judeo-Christian religious beliefs and communal forms of social life to modernity represents a slow but destabilizing deterioration of the defensive …

Walking As Ontological Shifter: Thoughts In The Key Of Life, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With walking as ontological shifter I pursue an alternative to the dominant modernist episteme that offers either/or onto-epistemologies of opposition and their reifying engagements. I propose this type of walking is an intentional turning towards a set of radical positions that, as integrative aesthetic and therapeutic practice, brings multiplicity and synchronicity to experience and being in an expanded sociality. This practice facilitates the conditions of possibility for recurring points of contact between the interiority perceived as ‘body’ and the exteriority perceived as ‘world.’ While making evident the self’s at once incoherence with it-self, it opens to a space beyond the …

A Playful Context Enhances Bilingual And Monolingual Preschoolers’ Mastery Motivation And Private Speech, Jeremy Sawyer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Children’s private speech (audible self-talk) has been studied primarily as a cognitive tool for thinking, planning and self-regulation. This study investigated whether private speech may also function as a tool for motivation. Vygotskian and self-determination theory suggest that children can develop to become agentic and inspired, or conversely disengaged and alienated, based largely on their social conditions of development. Thus, it is important to investigate children’s motivational processes in social and educational contexts that are central to child development. U.S. preschool enrollment is expanding, accompanied by a decline in play-based pedagogy and growth of didactic, teacher-centered approaches. To illuminate the …

An Experimental Investigation Of Emotional Labor Display Rules And Performance In A Human Resources Sexual Harassment Interview Simulation, Jolie M.B. Terrazas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Human Resource (HR) professionals are expected to engage in emotional labor (EL), or, management and control of their own emotions and emotional expression, during sexual harassment (SH) investigations. This EL expectation, or display rule (DR), is dynamic and complex requiring suppression of emotions and expressions of neutral empathy and is thus termed a dynamic neutral-empathic DR. Prior research shows that DRs in other occupations function as job demands that can deplete employees’ personal resources and negatively affect performance. The current study investigates the impact of the dynamic neutral-empathic DR by testing a process model that was developed via an …

Social Media Use And Media Literacy In Relation To Adolescents' Understanding Of The Internet, Kasey L. Powers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Digital media has permeated American culture among users of all ages. By early adolescence, youth are using and consuming media at unprecedented rates. While the majority of content consumed remains largely television and movies, often streamed through new channels like Amazon and YouTube, video games and apps also comprise a portion of the media diet. As youth enter adolescence, their usage of social media, defined as any platform that allows interactive communication in response to online posting, becomes more prevalent.

In this study, I explore Internet and social media use and its impact on adolescents’ understanding of media in three …

Behavioral Responses To Pulses Of Light In The Longfin Inshore Squid, Doryteuthis Pealeii (Lesueur, 1821), Stavros P. Hadjisolomou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The coleoid cephalopods (octopus, squid, and cuttlefish) are masters of rapid, adaptive camouflage. Unlike the slower hormonal chromatophore control of flatfish and chameleons, coleoid mollusks can change body patterns in milliseconds. Visual camouflage in coleoids is driven by a sensorimotor system consisting of visual input of their surroundings, a sophisticated central nervous system for information processing, and a neuromuscular control for body patterning. Motor neurons selectively activate millions of muscles, alternately expanding and reducing the pigmented chromatophores to generate visible brown, red, orange and yellow patterns on the skin. Below the chromatophore-layered skin are two types of reflecting cells, iridophores …

Understanding The Role Of The Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex In Emotional Memory Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation And Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, R. Rachel Weintraub-Brevda

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Emotional stimuli can have both beneficial and detrimental effects on memory, such that emotional stimuli can be distracting from current neutral working memory goals, while also leading to enhanced episodic memory for the distracting emotional stimuli. Recent evidence suggests that the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) has multiple roles in the enhancing effects of emotion on memory through top-down/controlled processes, including 1) coping with negative distraction and 2) elaborative encoding of negative information. Additionally, previous research has alluded to hemispheric differences in the VLPFC (Chapter 1). However, previous research has been correlational, with no strong laterality tests of the VLPFC. Two …

Roles Of Gabab, Muscarinic And Nicotinic Receptor Signaling In The Acquisition And Expression Of Fructose And Fat-Conditioned Flavor Preferences And Acquisition Of Quinine-Conditioned Flavor Avoidances In Rats, Francis M. Rotella

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In addition to increased intake of sweet solutions by mammals, learning, particularly classically-conditioned “Pavlovian-like” learning, also plays an important role. An orosensory conditioned flavor preference (CFP) can be elicited by pairing one novel flavor (conditioned stimulus, CS+) with a fructose solution and a second novel flavor (CS-) with a saccharin solution. Rats will prefer the CS+ flavor in a subsequent 2-bottle choice test with both flavors mixed in saccharin. Previous pharmacological analyses revealed that systemic administration of dopamine (DA) D1 and D2 as well as NMDA, but not opioid, receptor antagonists eliminated the acquisition (learning) of fructose-CFP. Further, expression of …

Individual Levels Of Bias And Immigration Policies In The United States: A Test And Extension Of The Dual Processing Model Of Bias, Lorraine Phillips

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study was a test and extension of the Dual Process Model of bias on attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in the United States. The Dual Process Model predicts that people who score higher on either the Social Dominance Orientation scale or the Right Wing Authoritarian scale will hold more negative attitudes toward immigrants, particularly if immigrants are viewed as a threat. A sample of 315 participants from across the United States was recruited using Amazon’s M Turk site. This study used a combination of attitudinal measures, policy scales, and experimental vignettes. The study found that the Dual …

Narrating The Future: Understanding How Student Narratives Relate To Outcomes In Community College, Tanzina Ahmed

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Community colleges are an increasingly important entry point into higher education for adults in the United States (21^st-Century Commission, 2012). Students often hold diverse opinions on and engage in complex meaning-making around the community college institution (Daiute & Kreniske, 2016; Deil-Amen, 2016). Furthermore, students’ varied interpretations of community college might influence and predict their academic performance. To investigate that assumption, this study asked 104 students to write about community college within three genres (i.e. types) of narratives that afford different author-purpose-audience opportunities for meaning-making. In the Letters genre, students wrote a letter to a close partner about their …

Thinking About The Self While Talking To Someone Else: Investigating Self-Focus In Conversation, Carrie Dimatteo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although research has shown that self-focus brings attention to how one is doing relative to standards and changes behavior to better meet those standards (Carver & Scheier, 1981; Duval & Wicklund, 1972), this process has rarely been tested within conversations. Three experiments tested (1) whether state self-focus, measured by looking at oneself on-screen during online video chats, varied as a function of changing self-standard discrepancies (manipulated by conversation topics) or by traits related to self-focus (self-esteem, social anxiety, and self-consciousness) and (2) how state self-focus, manipulated by the presence or absence of the self on the video chat screen, and/or …

Making Sense Of Missing Sessions: Attendance Patterns In Posttraumatic Stress Disorder And Substance Use Disorder Treatments, Margaret Rauen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current study examined the diverse ways individuals with co-occurring Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Substance Use Disorders (PTSD-SUD) attend treatment. The study was a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial for PTSD-SUD (Ruglass et al., 2017), in which participants meeting criteria for both PTSD and SUD (N=82) were randomized to either Concurrent Treatment of PTSD and SUD using Prolonged Exposure (COPE: n=39) or Relapse Prevention Therapy (RPT: n=43). Latent class growth analysis (Muthén & Muthén, 2000) revealed three distinct classes of attendance as the model of best fit. Diagnostic, but not demographic, variables were significantly associated with treatment attendance …

From Targets To Agents: Women's Perceptions Of Their Vulnerability And The Strategies They Use To Resist, Alexis Halkovic

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Women in the U.S. are sexually victimized at high rates and are socialized to believe they are unable to defend themselves. While there is ample evidence that women can successfully fight off assailants using physical force (Clay-Warner, 2002; Ullman, 2007), women’s self-defense training initiatives are not funded by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) or any national anti-violence organizations (Carlson, 2014). The NRA, on the other hand, tailors programs to instruct women to use guns for self-defense leaving them as the only national organization promoting women’s right to defend themselves (Carlson, 2014). This project interrogates how women think about their …

Ecologies Of Embodied Minds Embedded: Radical Romantic Perspectives On Architectures Of Technology, Sharmaine Browne

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores Romantic responses to the role of architectural technologies in the development of material being, consciousness, and culture by applying a critical approach in which I combine radical embodied cognitive theory, ecocritical perspectives, and a phenomenological lens to select Romantic texts written from 1789 to 1884 in response to industrial modernity. While scholarship has thoroughly explored technology as a cultural force which inevitably shapes consciousness, I propose that a slight shift of emphasis from technology’s external influence to the material internalization of its influence allows for new perspectives—particularly in light of recent proposals in cognitive philosophy which assert …

Mechanisms Of Navigation In Fiddler Crabs: An Analysis Of Allocentric And Egocentric Contributions, Stephen G. Volz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Navigation in biological systems is a complex task-set that involves learning processes and may include constructing representations of features of their environment. Across the animal kingdom, different learning mechanisms have evolved to similar spatial problems. The extent to which mechanisms are conserved across taxa are an important research area that can guide our understanding of the cognitive dimensions of navigation. Recent studies of mammals, birds, and arthropods has found that these animals often attend to multiple forms of sensory cues, and to either integrate the solutions generated by these cues, or at times prefer one form of cue over another. …

Past Peer Victimization Experiences And Current Psychological Well-Being And Ethnic Identity Among South Asian College Students, Rejitha Nair

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Very little is known about the peer victimization experiences of South Asian immigrant students and the factors involved in these experiences. The present study retrospectively investigated the peer victimization experiences of South Asian immigrant students in high school, the perceived reasons for victimization, and how these experiences relate to their psychological well-being and ethnic identity as college students. Two hundred and twenty college students, who were first or second generation immigrants from South Asia (e.g., India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal) and attended high school in the United States, participated in the study.

Overall, the results revealed that …

An Exploratory Investigation Of Animal Hoarding Symptoms In A Sample Of Adults Diagnosed With Hoarding Disorder, Jennifer E. Ung, Mary Dozier, Christiana Bratiotis, Catherine R. Ayers

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: The extant research on animal hoarding has a dearth of information on animal hoarding tendencies in adults diagnosed with hoarding disorder (HD). In the present study, we investigated possible recurrent animal hoarding behavioral and symptom patterns in individuals diagnosed with hoarding disorder. Methods: Hoarding severity scores from baseline assessments for 65 community-dwelling adults diagnosed with HD were analyzed with respect to their present and past animal ownership characteristics. Results: Approximately half of participants reported currently owning pets, and pet owners in the sample reported currently owning an average of two pets. Of the participants who reported currently owning animals, …

Women Who Perpetrate Partner Violence: The Role Of Attachment Insecurity And Emotion Regulation, Diana Adele Robinson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a prevalent and destructive social problem affecting millions of people around the world. Although partner violence has been widely examined among women, few studies have focused on women in the role of perpetrator. The purpose of this investigation was to identify the underlying mechanisms of IPV perpetration among college women. Specifically, we investigated the relationship among attachment insecurity (i.e., anxious and avoidant), emotion regulation (ER) strategies (i.e., expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal), and IPV among a sample of college women. Participants (N = 177) were recruited from a Southern California university and completed measures …

A Parent Education Curriculum For Decreasing Stress In Families Raising A Child With An Autism Spectrum Disorder, Hannah L. Wohlk

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Research has consistently shown that parents raising a child with autism spectrum disorders, or ASDs, have higher levels of stress than parents of typically-developing children or children with other disabilities. These parents’ higher levels of stress are attributed to a number of different factors, including early atypical development, getting the diagnosis, lack of awareness of resources, lack of support from their communities, unmet resource and schooling needs for their ASD child, financial strain, strain on the couple relationship, managing maladaptive behaviors, regulatory problems of the ASD child may experience, communication problems between ASD child and parent, parents’ perception of their …

His, Hers, Or Theirs? Coparenting After The Birth Of A Second Child, Patty X. Kuo, Brenda L. Volling, Richard Gonzalez

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

This study examined changes in coparenting after the birth of a second child. Mothers and fathers from 241 two-parent families reported on their spouse’s coparenting cooperation and conflict with their firstborn child before (prenatal) and four months after the birth of a second child. Parents completed questionnaires (prenatal) on gender role attitudes, marital satisfaction, and firstborn children’s temperamental characteristics. Parents also reported on the secondborn infant’s temperament at 1 month following the birth of the second child. Coparenting conflict increased across the transition, whereas cooperation decreased. Couples in which fathers reported greater marital satisfaction were more cooperative 4 months after …

From Efficacy To Global Impact: Lessons Learned About What Not To Do In Translating Our Research To Reach, Carolyn Becker

Psychology Faculty Research

Although members of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies have made significant strides towards the collective goals outlined in our mission statement, we routinely acknowledge that our ability to develop empirically supported treatments exceeds our success in improving dissemination and implementation of said interventions. Further, as noted by Kazdin and Blase (2011), even if we succeeded in having every clinician world-wide administer our best treatments with excellent competency, we still would be unsuccessful in markedly impacting the worldwide burden of mental illness because most treatments require intensive labor by expensive providers. To this end, Kazdin and Blase and others …

Food Insecurity And Eating Disorder Pathology, Carolyn Becker, Keesha M. Middlemass, Brigitte Taylor, Clara Johnson, Francesca Gomez

Psychology Faculty Research

Objective: The primary aim of this study was to investigate eating disorder (ED) pathology in those living with food insecurity. A secondary aim was to investigate whether any-reason dietary restraint, weight self-stigma, and worry increased as level of food insecurity increased.

Method: Participants (N = 503) seeking food from food pantries completed questionnaires assessing level of food insecurity, demographics, ED pathology, dietary restraint, weight self-stigma, and worry.

Results: Consistent with hypotheses, participants with the highest level of food insecurity (i.e., adults who reported having hungry children in their household) also endorsed significantly higher levels of binge eating, overall ED …

Polygenic Hazard Scores In Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease, Chin Hong Tan, Bradley T. Hyman, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Christopher P. Hess, William P. Dillon, Gerard D. Schellenberg, Lilah M. Besser, Walter A. Kukull, Karolina Kauppi, Linda K. Mcevoy, Ole A. Andreassen, Anders M. Dale, Chun Chieh Fan, Rahul S. Desikan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Identifying asymptomatic older individuals at elevated risk for developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) is of clinical importance. Among 1,081 asymptomatic older adults, a recently validated polygenic hazard score (PHS) significantly predicted time to AD dementia and steeper longitudinal cognitive decline, even after controlling for APOE e4 carrier status. Older individuals in the highest PHS percentiles showed the highest AD incidence rates. PHS predicted longitudinal clinical decline among older individuals with moderate to high CERAD (amyloid) and Braak (tau) scores at autopsy, even among APOE e4 non-carriers. Beyond APOE, PHS may help identify asymptomatic individuals at highest risk for developing Alzheimer's neurodegeneration.

Stability And Change In Parenting And Adjustment Profiles Across Early, Middle, And Late Adolescence In Chinese American Families, Su Yeong Kim, Shanting Chen, Lester Sim, Yang Hou

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Chinese American parents have a reputation for being “tiger” parents, and Chinese American adolescents are widely viewed as “model” minorities. However, these stereotypes fail to capture the within-group variation among Chinese Americans. This chapter aims to present findings on Chinese Americans’ parenting profiles and adolescent adjustment profiles. Four parenting profiles were identified. Supportive (high levels of positive and low levels of negative parenting) was the most prevalent parenting profile, followed by tiger (high levels of both positive and negative parenting), easygoing (low on both positive and negative parenting), and harsh (low levels of positive and high levels of negative parenting). …

Tackling The Health Gap: The Role Of Psychosocial Processes, Nancy E. Adler, Jacinth J. X. Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In The Health Gap, Michael Marmot describes how, starting even before birth, social conditions set individuals on trajectories that eventuate in inequities in health and longevity. In addition to race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status linked to income and education plays a major role in determining health trajectories. The effects emerge not only at the very bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum, but across the whole range.1 The fact that health effects persist at levels where resources are more than adequate to fulfill material needs suggests that the health gap is not due only to material privation associated with poverty, but also …

Sexual Conflict In Mating Strategies, Norman P. Li, Jin Chuan Yong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Why do men and women come into conflict over mating and sex? This chapter examines the adaptive reasons, which trace back to key differences in minimum obligatory parental investment (Trivers 1972). Reflecting these differences, men tend to be relatively eager for casual sex, whereas women are relatively more cautious, requiring their sexual partners to be of higher quality or committed for a longer duration. As each side strives for its own reproductive interests, the other side’s strategy is often interfered with, resulting in conflict.

Virtue, Positive Psychology, And Religion: Consideration Of An Overarching Virtue And An Underpinning Mechanism, Lindsey M. Root Luna, Daryl R. Vantongeren, Charlotte Witvliet

Faculty Scholarship

The virtues are a central focus of research at the intersection of positive psychology and the psychology of religion and spirituality. Humility, patience, and gratitude are addressed in the target articles of this special issue. Beyond examining each individual virtue, we argue here that the connections among virtues also warrant empirical attention. Specifically, we explain the unity of the virtues thesis, which suggests that individual virtues may be a part of a larger overarching construct, which we propose may be practical wisdom, or simply general virtuousness. Similarly, we propose that a common mechanism, such as automatic self-regulation, may facilitate these …

Criminal Responsibility: Meta-Analysis And Study Space, Lauren E. Kois

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Criminal responsibility (CR; i.e., sanity) has garnered significant research attention over the years. While some variables predicting insanity outcomes are consistent, others are not. Study-level characteristics, such as sample selection, variability in the operational definition of insanity, or other unknown influences may explain discrepant findings. It is critical to consolidate these variables and systematically assess differences in methodology to understand the state of the literature and to guide future research. As such, I conducted the first meta-analysis and study space analysis (see Malpass et al., 2008) in this area. Only 16 studies met inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis. Summary effects …

Parallels Of Love And Hate Defined By Attachments, Nicole Spann

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The assertion, “It’s a thin line between love and hate,” is often referenced to express the relative ease of a sole emotion morphing from one extreme to next. Both love and hate generate the same physiological fluctuations which include, but are not limited to, a racing pulse, sweaty palms, releasing of hormones, and some degree of excitability. While physiologically the responses are the same, psychologically and philosophically they are considered opposites. In the sphere of psychology, it is going from what is considered normal behavior or a normal response to abnormal behavior or an abnormal response (McKay, 2016). For this …