Psychology Commons^™

Struggling To Survive: Addressing The Graduation Rate Of Cal Poly's Black Men, Malcolm Saleem Mills

Social Sciences

This research project examines and addresses the 2012 6-year graduation rate of Cal Poly’s Black men. Given President Armstrong’s 2022 vision for Cal Poly to be an: “Enriching, inclusive environment where every student, faculty and staff member is valued”; “Create a rich culture of diversity and inclusivity that supports and celebrates the similarities and differences of every individual on campus”; and “Enhances student success,” there is a startling lack of research addressing this demographic of students. A review of the literature highlights the issue of Black male graduation rates in higher education on a broader scale and examines the impact …

Predictors Of Return To Work After Multidisciplinary Rehabilitation Evaluation For Prolonged Post-Concussion Symptoms, Michelle C. Capozzoli

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) comprise the majority of TBI’s sustained. For most individuals with mTBI, post-injury sequelae resolve within approximately three months after injury, yet a minority experience prolonged post-concussion symptoms (PCS) associated with poor long-term functioning, including inability to return to work (RTW). Research on RTW following mTBI has found moderate support for pre-injury and post-injury factors on employment outcomes, while injury factors have largely demonstrated a weak relationship. However, critical factors that may predict long-term outcome in mTBI are often not included in these studies, such as pre-morbid psychopathology, prior TBI, occupational decision-making latitude, litigation-seeking, and insurance …

The Surrender To God Scale: Psychometric Validation And Psychological Correlates, Kelley Pugh, Andrea D. Clements, Jameson K. Hirsch

ETSU Faculty Works

(1) Surrender to God (STG), is a construct which quantifies the extent to which an individual willingly relinquishes control to God. (2) An STG scale has been developed, yet remains unvalidated, as it relates to psychological constructs. (3) Utilizing undergraduate participants (N=249), we conducted a psychometric validation of the STG scale, and examined its potential relation with depression, anxiety, stress, and suicide risk

Using The Operant Model Of Effective Supervision To Predict Employee Engagement For Leaders In A Hospital System, David Patrick Kelley Iii

Theses and Dissertations

Leadership has been a popular topic of conversation for decades. Despite an abundant amount of attention the topic has received, the literature seems to fall short when describing what effective leaders do in a day to day context. A theory introduced by Komaki (1986), called the Operant Model of Effective Supervision (OMES), was designed to answer the tough questions about leadership that have been left unanswered. Research on the theory has resulted in multiple methods to accurately measure leadership behavior within an operant paradigm. One of these methods is an in-basket assessment that has been shown to reliably capture day …

Language Translation For Mental Health Materials: A Comparison Of Current Back-Translation And Skopostheorie-Based Methods, Amelia Kathleen Black

Theses and Dissertations

As mental health professionals seek to disseminate information in many languages in order to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population, it is important to consider the methods of written translation that the field is choosing to employ. The method chosen for translation can affect the accuracy and usability of the translated text. This study begins with a survey of current literature, the results of which suggest that the most popular translation method in the mental health field is back-translation, a translation method based in the premise that translating a text back into its original English after it has …

Book Review: La Muerte Del Verdugo: Reflexiones Interdisciplinarias Sobre El Cadáver De Los Criminales De Masa, Vincent Druliolle

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Review of La Muerte del Verdugo. Reflexiones Interdisciplinarias Sobre el Cadáver de los Criminales de Masa, ed. Séviane Garibian (Buenos Aires: Miño y Dávila editores, 2016)

Using Autoencoder To Reduce The Length Of The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (Ados), Sara Hussain Daghustani

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis uses autoencoders to explore the possibility of reducing the length of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), which is a series of tests and observations used to diagnose autism spectrum disorders in children, adolescents, and adults of different developmental levels. The length of the ADOS, directly and indirectly, causes barriers to its access for many individuals, which means that individuals who need testing are unable to get it. Reducing the length of the ADOS without significantly sacrificing its accuracy would increase its accessibility. The autoencoders used in this thesis have specific connections between layers that mimic the sectional …

The Convergence Of Psychology And Neurobiology In Flavor-Nutrient Learning, Kevin P. Myers

Faculty Journal Articles

Flavor evaluation is influenced by learning from experience with foods. One main influence is flavor-nutrient learning (FNL), a Pavlovian process whereby a flavor acts as a conditioned stimulus (CS) that becomes associated with the postingestive effects of ingested nutrients (the US). As a result that flavor becomes preferred and intake typically increases. This learning powerfully influences food choice and meal patterning. This paper summarizes how research elucidating the physiological and neural substrates of FNL has progressed in parallel with work characterizing how FNL affects perception, motivation, and behavior. The picture that emerges from this work is of a robust system …

Individual And Social Factors Related To Perceptions Of Rape, Caitlin O'Brien-Masonis

Theses and Dissertations

Ninety-two men, including twenty pairs of male friends, completed a series of self-report measures that sought to measure their levels of rape myth acceptance and asked men to estimate their friend’s level of rape myth acceptance. Further self-report measures assessed participants’ likelihood to intervene as bystanders, social and ethical risk taking behaviors, and definitions of rape as demonstrated through responses to questions about a hypothetical sexual assault. Analyses indicated that participants were moderately accurate in assessing their friend’s level of rape myth acceptance. Additionally, friends showed similar levels of rape myth acceptance. Level of rape myth acceptance was found to …

Vmpfc Activation During A Stressor Predicts Positive Emotions During Stress Recovery, Xi Yang, Katelyn M. Garcia, Youngkyoo Jung, Christopher T. Whitlow, Kateri Mcrae, Christian E. Waugh

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Despite accruing evidence showing that positive emotions facilitate stress recovery, the neural basis for this effect remains unclear. To identify the underlying mechanism, we compared stress recovery for people reflecting on a stressor while in a positive emotional context with that for people in a neutral context. While blood–oxygen-level dependent data were being collected, participants (N = 43) performed a stressful anagram task, which was followed by a recovery period during which they reflected on the stressor while watching a positive or neutral video. Participants also reported positive and negative emotions throughout the task as well as retrospective thoughts …

Innovating At Cultural Crossroads: How Multicultural Social Networks Promote Ideas Flow And Creativity, Roy Y. J. Chua

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Diversity in social networks is often linked to enhanced creativity. Emerging research on exposure to diverse informational resources (e.g., ideas and knowledge) however has painted a more complex picture regarding its effect on individuals’ creative performance. This research examines the effects of culturally diverse networks on the flow of ideas and individuals’ creativity. Combining social network analysis with experimental methods, two studies using different samples found that a culturally diverse network increases the likelihood of receiving culture-related novel ideas (but not other types of novel ideas) from network contacts, whether or not these contacts share one’s own culture of origin. …

Sadomasochism: Descent Into Darkness, Annotated Accounts Of Cases, 1996-2014, Robert Peters

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

A collection of accounts of sadomasochistic sexual abuse from news reports and scholarly and professional sources about the dark underbelly of sadomasochism and the pornography that contributes to it. It focuses on crimes and other harmful sexual behavior related to the pursuit of sadistic sexual pleasure in North America and the U.K. It is intended to be a resource to educate people about how sadomasochism can lead to harmful and even deadly sadistic sexual behavior.

The Harmful Sexual And Non-Sexual Behaviors Of Trafficked Women And Children In Mexico: A Study Of Victims Of Sexual Exploitation, Arun Kumar Acharya, Lilia Susana Padilla Y Sotelo, Jose Juan Cervantes Niño

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

During the last 17 years, since the adoption of the Palermo Protocol, authorities at international and national levels have investigated and prosecuted trafficking cases, and aided victims. Nevertheless, every day thousands of people around the world are sold, lured with false promises and exploited. In Mexico, 10,000 young girls and women are said to be trafficked into cities for sexual exploitation every year. Trafficked victims suffer a wide range of sexual exploitation, physical and psychological violence, human rights violations including their right to dignity, and cruel and inhumane treatment, creating vulnerability and isolation. To cope, many victims adopt harmful sexual …

What Does "Happiness" Prompt In Your Mind? Culture, Word Choice, And Experienced Happiness, Ji Eun Shin, Eunkook M. Suh, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Kim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

What three words come to your mind in association with ‘‘happiness’’? We analyzed the 1563 words reported by 521 Korean and American participants in this free association task. The most frequently endorsed word was ‘‘family’’ in Korea, whereas the most popular word among Americans was ‘‘smile.’’ The overall frequency of social words(e.g., relationships, social emotions) reported by Koreans was higher, and the most often mentioned relationship type differed between the two groups (family in Korea; friend in the US). Nonetheless, both in Korea and the US, individuals who mentioned more social words were significantly more satisfied with their lives. The …

Middle Ground Approach To Paradox: Within- And Between-Culture Examination Of The Creative Benefits Of Paradoxical Frames, Angela K. Y. Leung, Shyhnan Liou, Ella Micron-Spektor, Brandon Koh, David Chan, Roni Eisenberg, Iris K. Schneider

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Thriving in increasingly complex and ambiguous environments requires creativity andthe capability to reconcile conflicting demands. Recent evidence with Western samplessuggested that paradoxical frames, or mental templates that encourage individuals torecognize and embrace contradictions, could produce creative benefits. We extendedthe timely, but understudied, topic by studying the nuances of for whom and whycreative advantages of paradoxical frames emerge. We suggest that people endorsinga middle ground approach are less likely to scrutinize conflict and reconcile withintegrative solutions, thus receiving less creative benefits of paradoxical frames. Fivestudies that examined individual and cultural differences in middle groundendorsement support our theory. Study 1 found that …

The Savanna Theory Of Happiness, Satoshi Kanazawa, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This chapter describes the savanna theory of happiness, which posits that it may not be only the consequences of a given situation in the current environment that affect individuals’ happiness but also what its consequences would have been in the ancestral environment. The theory further suggests that the effect of such ancestral consequences on happiness is stronger among less intelligent individuals than among more intelligent individuals. Consistent with the theory, being an ethnic minority, living in urban areas, and socializing with friends less frequently all reduce happiness, but the effects of these conditions are significantly stronger among less intelligent individuals …

Registered Replication Report: Dijksterhuis & Van Knippenberg (1998), Michael O'Donnel, Leif Nelson, Evi Ackermann, Balazs Aczel, Yuk Yue, Jennifer Tong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998) reported that participants primed with a category associated with intelligence (“professor”) subsequently performed 13% better on a trivia test than participants primed with a category associated with a lack of intelligence (“soccer hooligans”). In two unpublished replications of this study designed to verify the appropriate testing procedures, Dijksterhuis, van Knippenberg, and Holland observed a smaller difference between conditions (2%–3%) as well as a gender difference: Men showed the effect (9.3% and 7.6%), but women did not (0.3% and −0.3%). The procedure used in those replications served as the basis for this multilab Registered Replication Report. …

Revealed Traits: A Novel Method For Estimating Cross-Cultural Similarities And Differences In Personality, Cory Costello, Dustin Wood, William Tov

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Cross-cultural research on personality has often led to surprising and countertheoretical findings, which have led to concerns over the validity of country-level estimates of personality (e.g., Heine, Buchtel, & Norenzayan, 2008). The present study explores how cross-cultural differences can be indexed via revealed trait estimates, which index the personality traits of individuals or groups indirectly through their likelihood of responding in particular ways to particular situations. In two studies, we measure self-reports of personality, revealed traits, and revealed preferences for different expected effects (e.g., experiencing excitement) of two cultural groups (U.S. and Singaporean participants). We found typical East–West differences in …

Utilization, Receptivity And Reactivity To Interactive Voice Response Daily Monitoring In Risky Drinking Smokers Who Are Motivated To Quit, Amy M. Cohn, Hoda Elmasry, Sarah J. Ehlke

Psychology Faculty Publications

INTRODUCTION Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology has become an increasingly popular and valid method for collecting Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) data on a variety of health-risk behaviors, including daily alcohol use and cigarette smoking, and for stimulating behavior change. However, very little research has evaluated the parameters of IVR compliance and reactivity in respondents who may have greater problem severity than samples previously examined in published IVR studies. This study examined the prevalence and correlates of use, receptivity and reactivity to IVR monitoring in 77 untreated risky drinking smokers who were motivated to quit within the next 6 months.

METHODS …

The Interactive Effects Of Deployment And Other Organizational Dynamics On Sexual Harassment In The Military, Clinton Dean Kelly

Theses and Dissertations

Higher rates of sexual harassment in the military have been well documented in the existing literature. However, not much is known about how the deployment of women effects the odds of sexual harassment of females. This study used three public use datasets collected by the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) in 2006, 2010, and 2012 from active duty soldiers in the Air Force, Army, Marines, and Navy to evaluate the effect of deployment on five different types of sexual harassment. Organizational factors such as sex-ratio, paygrade, masculinity, and organizational climate were also evaluated in relation to sexual harassment. Lastly, the …

Well-Being And Physiological Reactivity To Stress, Sheilagh Fox

Theses and Dissertations

Because of the impact of stress on health, it is important to understand the variables that underlie cardiovascular reactivity to stress because it may lead to more focused targets of intervention for helping people to reduce or otherwise better manage their stress. The purpose of the present study was to answer the following questions: does lack of eudaimonic well-being (a combination of psychological and social well-being) predict increased cardiovascular reactivity to stress in a clinically distressed population? And does increased eudaimonic well-being protect against increased cardiovascular reactivity to stress when hedonic well-being (a combination of positive affect and life satisfaction) …

Perceived Entitlement Causes Discrimination Against Attractive Job Candidates In The Domain Of Relatively Less Desirable Jobs, Margaret Lee, Marko Pitesa, Madan M. Pillutla, Stefan Thau

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

People generally hold positive stereotypes of physically attractive people and because of those stereotypes often treat them more favorably. However, we propose that some beliefs about attractive people, specifically, the perception that attractive individuals have a greater sense of entitlement than less attractive individuals, can result in negative treatment of attractive people. We examine this in the context of job selection and propose that for relatively less desirable jobs, attractive candidates will be discriminated against. We argue that the ascribed sense of entitlement to good outcomes leads to perceptions that attractive individuals are more likely to be dissatisfied working in …

Estimating Hiv Medication Adherence And Persistence: Two Instruments For Clinical And Research Use, David A. Wohl, A. T. Panter, Christine Kirby, Brooke E. Magnus, Michael G. Hudgens, Andrew G. Allmon, Katie R. Mollan

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) requires lifelong daily oral therapy. While patient characteristics associated with suboptimal ART adherence and persistence have been described in cohorts of HIV-infected persons, these factors are poor predictors of individual medication taking behaviors. We aimed to create and test instruments for the estimation of future ART adherence and persistence for clinical and research applications. Following formative work, a battery of 148 items broadly related to HIV infection and treatment was developed and administered to 181 HIV-infected patients. ART adherence and persistence were assessed using electronic monitoring for 3 months. Perceived confidence in medication taking and self-reported barriers …

Human Factors Applied To Perioperative Process Improvement, Joseph R. Keebler, Elizabeth H. Lazzara, Elizabeth Blickensderfer, Thomas D. Looke

Publications

• Human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) is its own scientific discipline that can be applied to understanding performance in perioperative medicine.
• Humans are not perfect decision makers and are affected by a variety of factors that can greatly harm their ability to perform, including attention, bias, stress, and fatigue.
• HF/E has a unique perspective on human error, and HF/E can illustrate how moving away from blame can enhance safety.
• HF/E offers strategies for undertaking a systematic approach to assessment of work processes in perioperative medicine that can be used to increase safety and wellbeing of patients and providers.

Changes In Depressive Symptoms Among Adolescents With Asd Completing The Peers® Social Skills Intervention, Hillary Schiltz, Alana J. Mcvey, Bridget Kathleen Dolan, Kirsten S. Willar, Sheryl Pleiss, Jeffrey S. Karst, Audrey M. Carson, Christina Caiozzo, Elisabeth M. Vogt, Brianna D. Yund, Amy V. Van Hecke

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Depression is a common concern among people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is often associated with social skills and relationship challenges. The present data, from a randomized controlled trial, examined the effect of PEERS^® on self-reported depressive symptoms via the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) among 49 adolescents with ASD. Findings revealed that many CDI subscale scores declined (p’s <  0.05) and were related to direct social contact on the Quality of Socialization Questionnaire at posttest (p’s <  0.05). Exploratory analyses uncovered that suicidality was less evident following PEERS^®. Findings support the notion that social functioning and depression may be intimately intertwined in ASD; therefore, bolstering social skills in ASD may positively influence other domains of functioning, including mental health.

Resilience Portfolios And Poly-Strengths: Identifying Protective Factors Associated With Thriving After Adversity, Sherry L. Hamby, John H. Grych, Victoria Banyard

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Objective: Interest in protective factors for adversity has burgeoned, but the set of examined protective factors remains limited and most studies have focused on a single or narrow set of adversities. Using the resilience portfolio model as a conceptual framework, this study seeks to identify promising protective factors for individuals exposed to violence and other adversities. We include strengths drawn from the positive psychology literature in addition to established protective factors. We also explore the utility of the concept of poly-strengths, or the number of different types of protective factors an individual has. Method: Participants were 2,565 adolescents and adults …

Neurocognitive Correlates Of Treatment Response In Children With Tourette's Disorder, Susanna W. Chang, Joseph F. Mcguire, John T. Walkup, Douglas W. Woods, Lawrence Scahill, Sabine Wilhelm, Alan L. Peterson, James Dziura, John Piacentini

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

This paper examined neurocognitive functioning and its relationship to behavior treatment response among youth with Tourette's Disorder (TD) in a large randomized controlled trial. Participants diagnosed with TD completed a brief neurocognitive battery assessing inhibitory functions, working memory, and habit learning pre- and post-treatment with behavior therapy (CBIT, Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics) or psychoeducation plus supportive therapy (PST). At baseline, youth with tics and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) exhibited some evidence of impaired working memory and simple motor inhibition relative to youth with tics without ADHD. Additionally, a small negative association was found between antipsychotic medications and youth's …

The Role Of Personality Traits On Goal Commitment: A Moderation Analysis, Matthew Hendrick Mellegers

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Managers and researchers alike have long yearned for a solution to garner peak performance from employees. With the use Locke and Latham’s goal setting theory as a motivational foundational principle, goal commitment was predicted from four primary personality traits commonly found in scientific literature: general self-efficacy, conscientiousness, honesty/humility, and learning goal orientation. The possible moderation effect of goal difficulty on these relationships was also explored. 248 undergraduate students at California State University, San Bernardino were presented personality inventories, followed by an anagram word task, and were assigned to either an easy or hard goal condition. Goal commitment was measured at …

The Influence Of Control Strategy On Event Segmentation, Vanessa Carlos

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The dual mechanism of cognitive control framework (DMC) describes cognitive control via two strategies: proactive and reactive. Individuals using a proactive strategy, focus on actively maintaining goal-relevant information in memory, whereas reactive individuals store goal-relevant information and retrieve it when cues are present. Reimer and colleagues (2015, 2017) added cue-probe location shifts to the typical AX-CPT, as well as, a virtual-reality environment version of the AX-CPT. Through this, they found that the effect of location shifts vary depending on whether a proactive or reactive mode of control is utilized. Thus, the aim of the present study was to test whether …

Effects Of Competition In Violent And Nonviolent Video Games On Aggressive/Prosocial Behavior, Christopher Edward Hawk

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research shows that playing violent video games leads to increases in aggressive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. However, recent research has questioned the reliability of these findings. Two important variables associated with aggressive outcomes that have yet to be fully explored in the violent video game literature are the competitive aspects of the games and the outcomes of that competition (e.g., winning or losing). The present study was a two (gameplay: violent vs. nonviolent) by two (difficulty: easy vs. hard) by three (competition: no competition vs. competition win vs. competition lose) between-subjects factorial design, with aggressive/prosocial behavior measured as the …