Psychology Commons^™

Facial Contrast Is A Cross-Cultural Cue For Perceiving Age, Aurélie Porcheron, Emmanuelle Mauger, Frédérique Soppelsa, Yuli Liu, Liezhong Ge, Olivier Pascalis, Richard Russell, Frédérique Morizot

Psychology Faculty Publications

Age is a fundamental social dimension and a youthful appearance is of importance for many individuals, perhaps because it is a relevant predictor of aspects of health, facial attractiveness and general well-being. We recently showed that facial contrast—the color and luminance difference between facial features and the surrounding skin—is age-related and a cue to age perception of Caucasian women. Specifically, aspects of facial contrast decrease with age in Caucasian women, and Caucasian female faces with higher contrast look younger (Porcheron et al., 2013). Here we investigated faces of other ethnic groups and raters of other cultures to see …

An Experimental Investigation Of The Interpersonal Ramifications Of Lateness To Workplace Meetings, Joseph E. Mroz, Joseph A. Allen

Psychology Faculty Publications

Individuals often attend meetings at work to which at least one person arrives late. Building from attributional theories of interpersonal behaviour, we conducted an experiment to determine the cognitive, affective, and behavioural components of people's reactions to meeting lateness. Participants read one of eight experimental vignettes that described someone arriving 5 or 15 min late to an important or unimportant meeting, after which the person who arrived late offered either a controllable or an uncontrollable reason for being late. Participants reported greater anger and a willingness to punish the late arrival who gave a controllable excuse, whereas sympathy and prosocial …

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction And Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation As An Intervention For Chronic Pain Management, Elizabeth A. Mccallion

Psychology ETDs

Chronic pain is a public health concern impacting approximately 100 million Americans; more than the rates of diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer combined. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is an effective treatment for chronic pain; however, the effects of MBSR tend to be small. A recent study suggests that tDCS in combination with a mindfulness-based intervention may enhance the learning of mindfulness skills (Witkiewitz et al., 2015). The current study used a randomized design to examine the effectiveness of active tDCS (2.0 mA) -enhanced MBSR compared to sham tDCS (0.1 mA)- enhanced MBSR. Participants were individuals diagnosed with chronic …

Combat Experiences, Iso-Strain, And Sleep Quality Affect Symptoms Of Posttraumatic Stress Among Working Post-9/11 Veterans, Gilbert Patrick Brady Jr.

Dissertations and Theses

Despite the growing need, prior research on how the civilian work domain may affect posttraumatic stress is scarce. Moreover, few if any studies have investigated how perceptions of one's job and insomnia may shape traumatic stress symptoms, post-combat. Presently, about 4 million Americans have served in the "Global War on Terrorism," including nearly 1 million reservists. By contrast, 8.7 million Americans served in the Vietnam War: over twice the number of U.S. military personnel who have fought since 9/11. Surprisingly, combat experiences alone do not explain the majority of posttraumatic stress disorder cases, even after multiple deployments, suggesting the presence …

College For The Sake Of What? Promoting The Development Of Wholly Educated Students, Michael P. Yoder

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

There is increasing pressure on institutions of higher education to accurately measure student success. What was once thought of as a way to develop students holistically via a liberal arts degree, higher education is now often regarded as a means to an end: a well-paying job. Lost in the drive for quantifiable data is the holistic development of individuals who are capable of interacting with and influencing the world around them. Thus, higher education struggles to respond to market pressures while maintaining a focus on wholly developing individuals. In this research study, it is proposed that student “success” should include …

Social Context-Dependent Activity In Marmoset Frontal Cortex Populations During Natural Conversations, Samuel U. Nummela, Vladimir Jovanovic, Lisa De La Mothe, Cory T. Miller

Psychological Sciences and Counseling Faculty Research

Communication is an inherently interactive process that weaves together the fabric of both human and nonhuman primate societies. To investigate the properties of the primate brain during active social signaling, we recorded the responses of frontal cortex neurons as freely moving marmosets engaged in conversational exchanges with a visually occluded virtual marmoset. We found that small changes in firing rate (∼1 Hz) occurred across a broadly distributed population of frontal cortex neurons when marmosets heard a conspecific vocalization, and that these changes corresponded to subjects' likelihood of producing or withholding a vocal reply. Although the contributions of individual neurons were …

Signature Strengths: A Positive Psychology Intervention With Informal Caregivers, Megan C. Macdougall

Dissertations

The adverse effects of caregiving on informal caregivers’ physical and mental health are well documented (Pinquart & Sorensen, 2003; Vitaliano, Zhang, & Scanlan, 2003). Many evidence-based treatments exist to address caregiver distress and burden (Gallagher-Thompson & Coon, 2007). Positive aspects of caregiving, however, have received considerably less attention in the literature. At present, there are relatively few interventions that have a primary focus on improving positive aspects of caregiving. The current study tested an established positive psychology intervention with informal caregivers of older adults. This internet-based study employed a three group randomized controlled design. One hundred and fifty-five women caring …

A Novel Surveillance Approach For Disaster Mental Health, Oliver Gruebner, Sarah R. Lowe, Martin Sykora, Karen Shankardass, S V. Subramanian, Sandro Galea

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Background

Disasters have substantial consequences for population mental health. Social media data present an opportunity for mental health surveillance after disasters to help identify areas of mental health needs. We aimed to 1) identify specific basic emotions from Twitter for the greater New York City area during Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall on October 29, 2012, and to 2) detect and map spatial temporal clusters representing excess risk of these emotions.

Methods

We applied an advanced sentiment analysis on 344,957 Twitter tweets in the study area over eleven days, from October 22 to November 1, 2012, to extract basic emotions, …

Posttraumatic Reactions To Psychosis: A Qualitative Analysis, Weili Lu, Kim T. Mueser, Stanley D. Rosenberg, Philip T. Yanos, Neisrein Mahmoud

Publications and Research

The current study aimed to evaluate the potentially traumatic aspects of psychotic symptoms and psychiatric treatment of psychosis using qualitative methods. Participants included 63 people with first episode psychosis or multiple psychotic episodes recruited from an inpatient psychiatric unit and an urban state psychiatric hospital in the North East region of the United States. Quasi-structured interviews were used to explore those aspects of symptoms and treatment that were perceived as traumatic Emotional reactions to the most traumatic aspect of symptoms and treatment, during and after the event, were also examined. Participants described a number of traumatogenic aspects of psychotic symptoms, …

When You Aren't Who Your Friends Are: The Moderating Influence Of Racial Similarity On The Association Between Friendships And Mental Well-Being, Philip Tostado

Dissertations and Theses

Friendships are a mental health resource for adolescents. Their availability and strength have been shown to predict lower levels of depression, higher self-esteem, and higher life satisfaction. They can also alleviate the stress that often leads to negative mental health outcomes. However, studies examining the stress process rarely consider the fact that social networks like friendship groups are not a static resource that effects all people the same way. Rather, demographic characteristics of both the individual and their friends could change the role of friendship networks within the stress process.

In this thesis, I investigate the importance of one such …

Importance Of Auxiliary Theories In Research On University-Community Partnerships: The Example Of Psychological Sense Of Community, N. Andrew Peterson, Paul W. Speer, Christina Hamme Peterson, Kristen Gilmore Powell, Peter Treitler, Yuqi Wang

Collaborations: A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice

Psychological sense of community (PSOC) has long been recognized as a key element of successful collaborative initiatives, particularly university-community partnerships. A critical challenge involves the development of auxiliary theories that guide the specification of measurement models in studies of PSOC and other theoretical constructs. Auxiliary theories can be especially useful in clarifying the differences between scales and indexes, and how each is uniquely specified and validated. Scales are based on reflective measurement in which classical test theory can be applied (e.g., reliability estimation, confirmatory factor analysis) to evaluate scores that are hypothesized to be highly correlated and as representing manifestations …

Ignorance Is Bliss: Emotion, Politics, And Why Whites Avoid Information About Race, Evangelina Derosa

Honors Scholar Theses

This study investigated partisan differences, as well as guilt, anger, and shame as motivating emotions, to understand and predict information avoidance on topics related to race and policing. We predicted liberals would be more likely than conservatives to seek information on topics related to race; guilt, anger, and shame would be motivating emotions to seek information. We expected liberals to use guilt, anger, and shame as motivating emotions to seek information, and expected conservatives to experience lower levels of these emotions, and therefore avoid such information. Participants (N=420) were given information about police violence against people of color. …

Perceptions Of Athletes In Disabled And Non-Disabled Sport Contexts: A Descriptive Qualitative Research Study, Sheryl L. Chatfield, Michael Cottingham Ii

The Qualitative Report

The term supercrip suggests extraordinary feats but is sometimes applied to any proficiency demonstrated by an athlete with a disability. This use of the term potentially undermines spectator appreciation for achievements of the upper echelon of disability sports participants. Prior disability sport researchers have suggested that a comparison of individuals’ perceptions of athletic heroes with and without disabilities has potential to help disability sport marketers counter the supercrip stereotype. The purpose of this research was to explore differences in perceptions by comparing participant descriptions of role models with and without disabilities. Research participants, who consisted of undergraduate students at a …

Patients And Nurses And Doctors Oh My!: Nurse Retention From A Multi-Foci Aggression Perspective, Kevin Oliver Novak

Dissertations and Theses

Attrition is a serious issue in the nursing industry. One factor influencing rates of attrition in nursing is aggression victimization at work (Estryn-Behar et al., 2010). However, there is little research in the aggression literature that examines how aggression from different sources affects attrition (both job and career turnover) differently. This study attempts to better understand the linkages between aggression victimization and nursing attrition; specifically how aggression from different sources (i.e. patients/patients’ families, coworkers, and licensed independent practitioners) differentially affects retention factors (i.e. job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and career commitment). This study also attempts to understand the role that prosocial …

The Interaction Of Mindful Awareness And Acceptance In Couples Satisfaction, Jennifer Krafft, Jack Haegar, Michael E. Levin

Psychology Faculty Publications

Past studies indicate that the awareness and acceptance facets of trait mindfulness both independently predict relationship satisfaction. However, this study hypothesized that the combination of awareness and acceptance might be a stronger contributor to relationship functioning than either in isolation. Regression analyses were used to test whether mindful awareness and acceptance interact in predicting couples satisfaction in a sample of dating or married college students (n = 138). Acceptance was positively associated with couples satisfaction, while awareness was unrelated. These two mindfulness facets interacted such that greater awareness was related to poorer satisfaction when acceptance was low, but was …

The Association Between Romantic Relationships, Self-Efficacy And Sports Self-Efficacy In Female Athletes As Measured By Salivary Cortisol, Merideth Byl, Ivelina Naydenova

Journal of Counseling and Psychology

This study examined the difference between relationship self-efficacy and sport self-efficacy in female athletes (n=13) through surveys and salivary cortisol. The female athletes provided saliva samples for cortisol measurements through a baseline sample, a behavioral relationship efficacy test sample, and an athletic event sample. Results were gathered through self-reported answers to multiple surveys taken before or after playing Jenga®. The pattern of results supported the hypothesis that there is significant positive correlation between sport self-efficacy and relationship self-efficacy. We also found a significant positive correlation between relationship self-efficacy and relationship satisfaction, but only for male participants. The study’s …

Women’S Sexual Initiation: The Impact Of Gender Roles And Relationship Type, Sara Gonzalez-Rivas

Dissertations

Sexual script theory is the theoretical foundation for understanding how sexual interactions are navigated, including sexual initiation. Sexual initiation occurs when an individual conveys interest in sexual activity when sexual behaviors are not yet in progress. Past research has demonstrated that women initiate sex less frequently than men in other-sex relationships, perhaps due to traditional sexual scripts. The current research literature lacks data on sexual initiation among women in same-sex relationships. This study investigated the impact of perceived gender roles on women’s sexual initiation, the role of partner sex on women’s initiation behaviors, if perceived gender roles account for initiation …

‘We Don’T Talk Gypsy Here’: Minority Language Policies In Europe, William S. New, Hristo Kyuchukov, Jill De Villiers

Philosophy: Faculty Publications

The Roma constitute an ideal case of educational injustice meeting linguistic difference, racism, social marginalization, and poverty. This paper asks whether human-rights or capabilities approaches are best suited to address issues related to the language education of Roma students in Europe. These children are disadvantaged by not growing up with the standard dialect of whatever language is preferred by the mainstream population, and by the low status of the Romani language, and non-standard dialect of the standard language they usually speak. We examine language education for Roma students in Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria, describing similarities and differences across …

Regulating Emotions In Response To Power Distance In Meetings, Rebekka Erks, Erin Nyquist, Joseph A. Allen

Psychology Faculty Publications

Purpose – Meetings are a necessary part of work. This research focuses on how power distance in meetings affects emotional labour, including whether leader-member exchange (LMX) serves as a moderator for this relationship. It is hypothesized that power distance in meetings would lead to higher levels of emotional labour in meeting attendees, and that higher levels of LMX would make this relationship even stronger.

Design/methodology/approach - The authors used a panel sample of full-time working adults from a variety of industries who regularly attend meetings. Participants completed a survey with items related to power distance, emotional labour, and LMX. Hypotheses …

The Influence Of Adult Attachment Orientations And Multicultural Competence On Higher Education Faculty Perceptions Of Ell Students, Helene Zongo Brou

All Student Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation was to explore the influence of adult attachment orientations and multicultural competence on higher education faculty perceptions of ELL (English Language Learner) students. My primary research question is whether difficulty working with ELL students, from the perspective of faculty members, is associated with individual differences in adult attachment orientations or cultural competence. There were 60 faculty members from three Midwestern American universities who completed the survey. Faculty perceptions, the dependent variable, were measured through faculty reports of their attitudes towards ELL students and their perceived adequacy of the English language proficiency of ELL students. The …

Pilot And Feasibility Test Of An Implementation Intention Intervention To Improve Fruit And Vegetable Intake Among Women With Low Socioeconomic Status, Michele A. Debiasse Phd, Rdn, Deborah J. Bowen Phd, Sherry L. Pagoto Phd, Joseph M. Massaro Phd, Nawfal Istfan Md, Phd, Lisa M. Quintiliani Phd, Rd

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Fruit and vegetable intake (FVI), a modifiable risk factor for chronic diseases, is lower in low socioeconomic status (SES) populations. Implementation intentions (a specific type of planning that extends the Theory of Planned Behavior) has been studied to improve FVI, but not exclusively with low SES groups. Using mixed methods, we evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of an implementation intention intervention (versus a general plan) to increase FVI in women with low SES. For the pilot randomized controlled trial, demographics, body mass index, attitude, perceived behavioral control, goal intention strength, and FVI were measured at baseline and FVI …

There Will Come A Time When You’Ll Have To Leave Something Behind, Yolanda Hood

UCF Forum

Goodbyes are never fun, except when they are.

Recommendations For Developing Video Games To Address Depression Among College Students, John Bodycombe

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Depression is a significant problem on college campuses, and the data shows that prevalence is on the rise (The National Survey on Drug Use and Health [NSDUH], 2014; Stewart, Ricci, Chee, Hahn, & Morgenstein, 2003). Depression impacts the well-being of students and puts them at risk for a variety of issues (Leach, 2009; Adams, Wharton, Quilter, & Hirsch, 2008; Serras, Saules, Cranford, & Eisenberg, 2010; Cranford, Eisenberg, & Serras, 2009; Weitzman, 2004). Many students with depression do not receive care (Blanco, Okuda, Wright, Hasin, Grant, Liu, & Olfson, 20008; Eisenburg and Chung, 2012), or receive care that is not minimally …

The Impact Of Negative Affect And Positive Self-Perception On Acquired Capability For Suicide In The Veteran Population, Clara Luisa Fajardo

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Suicide is currently the 10th leading cause of death among Americans overall and is the second leading cause of death among American adults between the ages of 18 and 34 (Kochanek, Murphy, Xu, & Tejada-­‐Vera, 2016). In addition to the number of people who die by suicide, each suicide death costs $1,287,534 in lost revenue, mental health costs, and medical expenses (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). Suicide also takes a toll on people who knew or were close with the person who died. For every one suicide, there are approximately 115 suicide survivors. Put another way, sixty percent …

Learning To Think Slower: Review Of Thinking, Fast And Slow By Daniel Kahneman (2011), Samuel L. Tunstall, Patrick N. Beymer

Numeracy

Daniel Kahneman. Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 499 pp. ISBN 978-0374275631.

As an expansive review of Kahneman and others' work over the past half-century in understanding human decision-making, Thinking, Fast and Slow provides Numeracy readers much to consider for both pedagogy and research. In this review, we outline Kahneman's core argument—that humans use both rash (emotional) System 1 thinking and slow (logical) System 2 thinking—then discuss how such systems might be addressed in a quantitative literacy classroom.

Think Twice: Review Of Thinking, Fast And Slow By Daniel Kahneman (2011), Anne Kelly

Numeracy

Daniel Kahneman. Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 499 pp. ISBN 978-0374275631.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman significantly sharpens our understanding of human decision-making and the systems of thinking that underlie it. He offers a compelling critique of the rational-agent model, arguing that, while we can and do use reason, we often fall back on a type of thinking that operates quickly and requires less cognitive effort but is vulnerable to faulty belief.

Measuring Numeracy In A Community College Context: Assessing The Reliability Of The Subjective Numeracy Scale, Kate S. Wolfe, Sarah L. Hoiland

Numeracy

In this paper, our goals were to assess the suitability of the Subjective Numeracy Scale (SNS), developed for health-care use, in a new context with predominantly minority students at a South Bronx community college and to identify any race/ ethnicity, gender, and ESL enrollment effects. The scale assesses perceptions of quantitative reasoning skills and preferences for data presentation. This scale was given to a convenience sample of students in behavioral sciences classes. Results show that the SNS scale was reliable with our sample using the full thirteen-question scale or the shorter eight-item version. Gender, race/ ethnicity, and English as a …

Coming Together: How Science, Art, And Law Affect Change In The Treatment Of Lgbtq Persons, Lucas Liner

Honors Projects

The ongoing LGBTQ rights movement saw one of its biggest victories in the landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which recognized same-sex marriages in the United States. This decision was affected by not just scientific understanding of homosexual persons, but by artistic portrayal, demonstrations, and previous judicial decisions regarding homosexuality. The course of the American LGBTQ rights movement seems to run parallel to that of the German gay rights movement of the early 20th century, with a coming together of science, law, and art leading to change, both public and political. This paper highlights the work of Magnus Hirschfeld, a …

An Investigation Of The Neural Components And Saccade Sequences That Enable Direct Navigation Through Virtual Space, Daniel R. Barto

Psychology ETDs

Spatial navigation is a critical behavior for nearly all life forms. The ability to navigate to a destination and to remember how to return to that destination involves numerous brain processes such as perception, attention, memory, learning, proprioception, and distance estimation. The study of spatial navigation, in various organisms and on different sorts of maze-apparatuses, has revealed what is required of the brain and what is required of the environment to enable successful navigation. This dissertation adds to this vast literature by examining the physiological and behavioral components involved in human navigation in a virtual environment.

The primary aim of …

Perspectives On Personality Assessment Of Children With Limited Cognitive Ability, Jasmine Fayeghi Schnurstein

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Personality assessment can be an important part of diagnosis and treatment planning with children and adolescents. Consequently, research in personality assessment with children and adolescents has received attention; however, there is still limited research in this area with children of below average cognitive capacity. In order to gain better understanding of the current practice of personality assessment of children with below average IQ, this interpretative phenomenological study explores expert psychologists' experience and recommendations for future practice. Structured interviews were conducted with four clinical psychologists with an expertise in personality assessment with children, including children with below average intelligence. Five themes …