Psychology Commons^™

Gender Differences Are Disappearing: Attitudes On Sex Trafficking Tactics And Rape Victimization

Symposium of Student Scholars

Commercial sexual exploitation by force, fraud, and coercion are tactics used by sex traffickers. Although sex trafficking is an ongoing, pervasive problem, there is no known research on gender differences regarding knowledge and attitudes about sex trafficking tactics and the perception of these women and girls as victims of rape. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare male and female college students' knowledge and attitudes regarding sex trafficking tactics and their beliefs about whether these individuals are rape victims. Consistent with rape myth acceptance research on gender (Russell & Hand, 2017), we hypothesized that there may be gender …

Awareness Of Sex Offender Registration Policies And Self-Reported Sexual Offending In A Community Sample Of Adolescents, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Hayley M. D. Cleary

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Sex offender registration laws are widely implemented, increasingly restrictive, and intended to serve both specific and general deterrent functions. Most states have some form of policy mechanism to place adolescents on sex offender registries, yet it remains unclear whether adolescents possess the requisite policy awareness to be deterred from sexual offending. This study examined awareness of sex offender registration as a potential sanction and its cross-sectional association with engagement in several registrable sexual behaviors (sexting, indecent exposure, sexual solicitation, and forcible touching) in a community sample of 144 adolescents. Results revealed that many adolescents were unaware that these behaviors could …

Pre-Commitment To Moral Values, Nicholas R. Herzog, Justin F. Landy, Emma E. Levine

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

When faced with reoccurring tradeoffs between moral values, people can address them by considering the specifics of each case or by setting policies that predetermine how they will address similar cases. Previous research on moral judgment has often focused on isolated tradeoffs, and therefore, it is unclear which decision strategies are preferred in contexts with reoccurring tradeoffs. Across our studies, participants judged people who precommitted to always prioritizing one value more positively than people who adjusted their priorities based on the specifics of each case. Our findings have important implications for understanding public perceptions of complex policies.

The Social Consequences Of Absolute Moral Proclamations, Elizabeth Huppert, Nicholas R. Herzog, Justin F. Landy, Emma E. Levine

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

Across six studies (N = 3348), we find that people prefer targets who make absolute proclamations (i.e. "It is never okay for people to lie" ) over targets who make ambiguous proclamations ("It is sometimes okay for people to lie" ), even when both targets tell equivalent lies. Preferences for absolutism stem from the belief that moral proclamations send a true signal about moral character--they are not cheap talk. Therefore, absolute proclamations signal moral character, despite also signaling hypocrisy. This research sheds light on the consequences of absolute proclamations and identifies circumstances in which hypocrisy is preferred over consistency.

Synergistic Effect Of Bilingualism And Exercise On Executive Function, Laura Putlek, Jose Antonio, Corey Peacock, Mercedes Fernandez

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

Memory Consolidation During Sleep, K I. Thompson, Jonathan Banks, Jose Antonio, Jaime Tartar

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

How To Make A Winner: How Hormones And Experience Shape The Brain Of The Victor, Mariana Moguel Mendez, Allison George, Mary A. Holschbach

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

Intranasal Zinc Treatment Ameliorates Behavioral Deficits Caused By Chronic Stress And Traumatic Brain Injury In Mice, William R. Kochen

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

Good People Don't Need Medication: How Moral Character Beliefs Affect Medical Decision-Making, Sydney Elizabeth Scott, Justin F. Landy

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

How do people make decisions? Prior research focuses on how people's cost-benefit assessments affect which medical treatments they choose. We propose that people also worry about what these health decisions signal about who they are. Across four studies, we find that medication is thought to be the "easy way out", signaling a lack of willpower and character. These moral beliefs lower the appeal of medications. Manipulating these beliefs--by framing medication as a signal of superior willpower or by highlighting the idea that treatment choice is just a preference--increases preferences for medication.

Creatine And Cognitive Functioning: Part 1 Body Composition, Jessica Garcia, Catherine Weber, Alexsandra Alvarez-Beaton, Akshita Patel, Alexandra C. Nieto, Paige Napolito, Haley Watters, Rithin Manimaleth, Jonathan B. Banks, Jose Antonio

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

Creatine And Cognitive Functioning: Part 2 Body Composition, Catherine Weber, Alexsandra Alvarez-Beaton, Akshita Patel, Alexandra C. Nieto, Paige Napolito, Haley Watters, Jessica Garcia, Rithin Manimaleth, Jose Antonio, Jonathan B. Banks

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Exercise On Encoding And Recall Of Information, Wilford M. Miranda, A Berg, Trenton Cronk, Leanne Boucher, W. Matthew Collins

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

The Mindful Athlete: How Mindfulness May Improve Athletic Performance, S A. Suarez, Magnus Poulsen, Alexandra C. Nieto, Jonathan B. Banks

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

Utilizing The Community-Based Research Approach To Examine Mental Health And Support Services Issues Related To Hiv-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder, Renato M. Liboro

Psychology Faculty Research

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated neurocognitive disorder is an emergent public health problem known to HIV researchers and scientists, but unfortunately, is a concern that still needs to be better recognized by people living with HIV and HIV service providers. Research studies have reported that between 30 to 50% of people living with HIV who have access to combination antiretroviral therapy are and will be affected by this disorder. This raises the need to find more appropriate research approaches for examining issues that will significantly impact people living with HIV experiencing or at risk of developing neurocognitive impairments. People living with …

Children’S Cognitive Reflection Predicts Conceptual Understanding In Science And Mathematics, Andrew Young

Faculty Research and Creative Activities Symposium

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005) is the dominant measure of adult individual differences in analytic vs. intuitive cognitive style. The task was designed to measure a person's tendency to override and inhibit an intuitive response that is incorrect and engage in deliberate reflection that leads to a correct response. The CRT is a meaningful predictor of a diverse range of adult psychological and behavioral outcomes, including conceptual change in science and math learning (Shtulman & McCallum, 2014; Gómez-Chacón et al., 2014). The present research employed a newly developed CRT for children, the CRT-D (Young et al., 2018), to …

Effects Of A School-Based Social-Emotional And Character Development Program On Peer, Family, School, And Neighborhood Contexts: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial, Naida Silverthorn, Kendra M. Lewis, Niloofar Bavarian, David L. Dubois, Alan C. Acock, Samuel Vuchinich

Faculty Research and Creative Activities Symposium

Aims: To evaluate the impact of a school-based social-emotional and character development program on the various socializing contexts of youth. Methods: A matched-pair, cluster-randomized controlled trial included 1,170 students from 14, low-income, urban, Chicago Public Schools. Outcomes were assessed longitudinally for a cohort of youth followed from grades 3 to 8. Multilevel growth-curve modeling and endpoint analyses were conducted on indicators of peer, family, school, and neighborhood contexts. Results: Students in PA schools had slower rates of decline and higher end-point scores than students in non-PA schools across all of the contexts examined. For example, impacts were observed for positive …

Attention Restraint, Working Memory Capacity, And Mind Wandering: Do Emotional Valence Or Intentionality Matter?, Alexandra C. Nieto, Matthew S. Welhaf, Anum Mallick, Jonathan B. Banks

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

Attention restraint appears to mediate the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and mind wandering (Kane et al., 2016). Prior work has identifed two dimensions of mind wandering—emotional valence and intentionality. However, less is known about how WMC and attention restraint correlate with these dimensions. Te current study examined the relationship between WMC, attention restraint, and mind wandering by emotional valence and intentionality. A confrmatory factor analysis demonstrated that WMC and attention restraint were strongly correlated, but only attention restraint was related to overall mind wandering, consistent with prior fndings. However, when examining the emotional valence of mind wandering, attention …

Introduction: From Lab Bench To Weight Bench, Jaime L. Tartar, Corey Peacock

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

Humor Improves Women’S But Impairs Men’S Iowa Gambling Task Performance, Jorge Flores‑Torres, Lydia Gómez‑Pérez, Kateri Mcrae, Vladimir López, Ivan Rubio, Eugenio Rodriguez

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is a popular method for examining real-life decision-making. Research has shown gender related differences in performance, in that men consistently outperform women. It has been suggested that these performance differences are related to decreased emotional control in women compared to men. Given the likely role of emotion in these gender differences, in the present study, we examine the effect of a humor induction on IGT performance and whether the effect of humor is moderated by gender. IGT performance and parameters from the Expectancy Valence Model (EVM) were measured in 68 university students (34 men; mean …

Identifying Employees Who Fit With Electronic Communication Styles, Britany Telford Mills

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Electronic communication is no longer solely used by globally dispersed work teams. It is an integral part of today’s organizations whether they include remote workers or not. Therefore, it is important to understand how employees perceive electronic communication from their supervisor and the impact that perception has on the worker. Researchers have been adamant in the assertion that relationship-oriented communicated is better conducted face-to-face. The current study seeks to add to the existing body of research by (1) examining how the proportion of relationship-oriented communication that is electronic affects both subordinate perceptions of communication openness and subordinate job satisfaction, and …

A Review Of Autobiographical Memory Studies On Patients With Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders, Yujia Zhang, Sara K. Kuhn, Laura Jobson, Shamsul Haque

Psychology Student Publications

Background

Patients suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders demonstrate various cognitive deficiencies, the most pertinent one being impairment in autobiographical memory. This paper reviews quantitative research investigating deficits in the content, and characteristics, of autobiographical memories in individuals with schizophrenia. It also examines if the method used to activate autobiographical memories influenced the results and which theoretical accounts were proposed to explain the defective recall of autobiographical memories in patients with schizophrenia.

Methods

PsycINFO, Web of Science, and PubMed databases were searched for articles published between January 1998 and December 2018. Fifty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria. All studies implemented the …

Functional Localization Of The Frontal Eye Fields In The Common Marmoset Using Microstimulation, Janahan Selvanayagam, Kevin D. Johnston, David J. Schaeffer, Lauren K. Hayrynen, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Copyright © 2019 the authors. The frontal eye field (FEF) is a critical region for the deployment of overt and covert spatial attention. Although investigations in the macaque continue to provide insight into the neural underpinnings of the FEF, due to its location within a sulcus, the macaque FEF is virtually inaccessible to electrophysiological techniques such as high-density and laminar recordings. With a largely lissencephalic cortex, the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a promising alternative primate model for studying FEF microcircuitry. Putative homologies have been established with the macaque FEF on the basis of cytoarchitecture and connectivity; however, physiological investigation …

Book-Sharing As A Context For Fathers And Mothers To Enhance Language Development Of Their Preschool Children, Yagmur Seven

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Poor reading levels is a pervasive problem in the US. For example, two of every three eigth grade students in the US are estimated to demonstrate insufficient reading comprehension skills. Early use of decontextualized language, in which the language expressed is removed from the here and now, serves as a precursor of academic language proficiency. Starting as early as the third year of life, decontextualized language is less likely to be practiced in lower socio-economic status (SES) households. Although storybooks offer a rich context for practicing the language with young children, reading storybooks alone is not adequate to promote conversational …

Promoting Healthy Sleep Practices Among Parents Of Young Children: A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial, Kristin Lynn Edwards

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

One of the most significant and underrecognized public health concerns in young children is related to the consequences of inadequate sleep. Inadequate sleep may result in problems related to behavioral regulation, executive functioning, and academic performance. ‘Sleep hygiene’, a term that describes consistent daytime and nighttime practices that promote healthy sleep, has been found to significantly increase sleep duration and improve sleep quality in the pediatric population. Researchers have found that many parents have a poor understanding of sleep hygiene. The purpose of this study was to determine if an educational intervention increased parental knowledge and practices of sleep hygiene …

Health-Promoting Behaviors And Subjective Well-Being Among High School Students, Nicholas David W. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In positive psychology, a greater emphasis is placed on the presence of indicators of both physical and mental health. This study examined the relationship between 12 health-promoting behaviors and subjective well-being (SWB; e.g., happiness) in a sample of 450 high school aged youth from five high schools in two states. Participants reported on their dietary habits, physical activity, abstinence from tobacco products, abstinence from alcohol, and sleep hygiene (i.e., 8 unique components) as well as a multidimensional assessment of SWB (i.e., life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect). It was hypothesized that increased engagement in each of the health-promoting behaviors …

An Exploration Of Contextual Factors Of Weight-Based Discrimination Against Business Leaders, Ellen Hermann Lynch

Dissertations

Two-thirds of the adult population of the United States are considered overweight (Ogden, Carroll, Kit, & Flegal, 2013) and are susceptible to weight-based discrimination in the workplace (Rudolph, Wells, Weller, & Baltes, 2009). The weight-based discrimination experienced by business leaders is relatively unknown. The present research used Leader Categorization Theory (Lord & Maher, 1991) as a framework to examine the extent to which a business leader’s weight is associated with their perceived leadership qualities and effectiveness in two studies. The first study isolated the relationship between the base rate of weight in an organization and the assumed weight of the …

Use Of The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (Moca) In A Rural Outreach Program For Military Veterans, Michelle M. Hilgeman, Eugenia M. Boozer, A. Lynn Snow, Rebecca S. Allen, Lori L. Davis

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a free, easily accessible screener ideal for rural areas where resources are limited. We examined administration and scoring by Veteran Community Outreach Health Workers (VCOHWs); compared positive screening rates using two cutoff scores; and examined predictors of education-adjusted scores in N = 168 rural military Veterans from the Alabama Veteran Rural Health Initiative. Accuracy of administration (95 percent) and scoring (68 percent) was calculated and recommendations are offered. Higher than expected rates of positive screens were observed (40 percent using 24/30 cutoff) in this relatively young (M = 55 years) community-dwelling sample. Age, education, …

The Influence Of Infant Temperament On Maternal Sensitivity In Preterm Infants, Suzanne Vaccaro

Psychology ETDs

Infants who experience sensitive caregiving are at lower risk for numerous adverse outcomes. This is especially true for infants born preterm, leading them to be more susceptible to risks associated with poorer quality caregiving. Some research suggests that preterm and full term infants differ on in temperament, which may contribute to findings that caregivers of preterm infants are often found to display less sensitive responding to their infants. To investigate the associations between term status, infant temperament, and maternal behavior, videotaped play interactions and a measure of temperament, the Infant Behavior Questionnaire were coded for samples of preterm and full …

Font Fails To Improve Reading On Assessment Tasks, Steven L. Powell M.A., Denton S. Warburton M.A., Ashton D. Trice Ed.D

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

Dyslexie is a font type that was created specifically to address the challenges that individuals with Dyslexia face. This font-type consists of distinctive characteristics in each letter that are suggested to be more easily distinguishable from one another, such as a bolded bottom portion of each letter, additional inter-letter spacing, a greater x-height, and capitalized letters that are slightly italicized and bolded. Although the author claims that it improves the reading performance of individuals with Dyslexia, the literature on its effectiveness is conflicting. The current study investigates the effectiveness of Dyslexie compared to two commonly used fonts on readers’ comprehension …

A Rubric For Evaluating And Designing Survey Research In Neuropsychology, Emily F. Matusz, Bernice A. Marcopulos, Thomas M. Guterbock

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

The current study presents recommended guidelines for neuropsychologists in accordance with best practices used in survey research design and data reporting. Although there have been improvements in the quality of research design and data reporting of neuropsychological surveys over time, several areas are still in need of improvement. A rubric, created from these recommended guidelines, is intended to provide neuropsychologists with an easily accessible tool to help further improve the quality of of survey research in neuropsychology.