Psychology Commons^™

Establishing Auditory Discrimination And Echoic Stimulus Control With An Auditory Matching Procedure, Clare Christe

Dissertations

A generalized auditory matching repertoire is considered an early milestone in the development of verbal behavior (Greer & Keohane, 2006). Previous literature has demonstrated that the auditory matching (AM) protocol can improve echoics in individuals with developmental delays (Brown, 2005; Choi, Greer & Keohane, 2015; Du, Speckman, Medina, & Cole-Hatchard, 2017). However, some children experience difficulties with the match-to-sample (MTS) format of the AM protocol, if they are unable to perform delayed MTS tasks.

One alternative to MTS is the go/no-go procedure (Serna, Dube, & McIlvane, 1997), which requires the student to make a simple discrimination (i.e., same/different) between two …

Can A Brief Online Intervention Change Low-Income Caregivers’ Reported Use Of Spanking? A Randomized Controlled Trial, Hilary L. Richardson

Dissertations

Spanking is commonly used by parents (64-94%) in the United States as a strategy for managing undesirable child behaviors. Research has found that the use of spanking is particularly high among young mothers, low-income parents, and African American families. Decades of literature on the use of spanking has identified abundant detrimental outcomes for children such as increased externalizing behaviors, decreased long-term compliance, and less guilt following misbehavior, as well as serious outcomes in adulthood such as depressed mood and alcohol/drug use. There is also a risk for spanking to escalate to physical abuse. Thus, safer, more effective discipline strategies are …

The Effects Of Exaggerated Social Comparison Feedback On Work Performance, Michael Patrick Cusick

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of exaggerated social comparison feedback on work performance in an analogue setting. Following their first 15-minute session working on a simulated money transfer task, participants in the two experimental conditions received objective feedback, but one group received rank feedback understating their performance, while the other group received overstated rank feedback. Participants then performed the task again to evaluate potential changes in performance based on this feedback. One-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to measure differences in the number of correctly completed money transfers, percent of correctly completed money transfers, …

Action Real-Time Strategy Gaming Experience Related To Enhanced Capacity Of Visual Working Memory, Yutong Yao, Ruifang Cui, Yi Li, Lu Zeng, Jinliang Jiang, Nan Qiu, Li Dong, Diakun Gong, Guojian Yan, Weiyi Ma, Tiejun Liu

General Human Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Action real-time strategy gaming (ARSG)—a major genre of action video gaming (AVG)—has both action and strategy elements. ARSG requires attention, visual working memory (VWM), sensorimotor skills, team cooperation, and strategy-making abilities, thus offering promising insights into the learning-induced plasticity. However, it is yet unknown whether the ARSG experience is related to the development of VWM capacity. Using both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measurements, this study tested whether ARSG experts had larger VWM capacity than non-experts in a change detection task. The behavioral results showed that ARSG experts had higher accuracy and larger VWM capacity than non-experts. In addition, the …

Resume Ratings: The Influence Of Rater Individual Differences, Emily Ann Frye

Theses and Dissertations

Resumes remain a popular selection tool in practice but are rarely researched. Moreover, little is known about how much variability is present across resume ratings and how much of that variability may be attributed to the resume rater’s own individual differences. Therefore, the present study aims to address these issues by investigating the influence of resume raters’ characteristics on resume hirability and personality ratings. More specifically, drawing from the lens model and related research, the present study examines the association between resume rater personality, dispositional intelligence, gender, experience, and cognitive ability and hirability and personality ratings. Using a cross-sectional survey …

Together We Can An Analysis Of Barriers To Women In Leadership And The Unique Challenges Facing Women Of Color, Alexandria Redmond

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine and develop a scale on the current challenges facing women in leadership while giving special attention to the unique challenges facing women of color in leadership. The current study is the first of a multi-study scale development project for the Perceived Barriers to Women Leaders Scale (PBWLS). This paper aims to bring together literature on gender and ethnic differences in leadership and obstacles for women and women of color in attaining high-level positions in the workforce, and it also seeks to address measurement gaps in the literature. The final sample included 161 …

Psychopathy Assessment And Related Constructs: Differences And Distinctions For Primary And Secondary Psychopaths, Simon Saleem

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the assessment of psychopathy from the perspectives of two self-report scales that differ substantially their construction and conceptual approach to the fundamental clinical subtyping of psychopaths: primary versus secondary psychopathic presentations. The self-report scales used in this study were the Levenson Self-Report of Psychopathy Scale (LSRP; Levenson et al., 1995) and the Perkins’ Alienation Scale-Short Version (PAS; Perkins & Harper, 1998). It was hypothesized that the presence of psychopathy would demonstrate significant presence in the distribution of undergraduate students and additionally, that these measures would demonstrate construct validity and replicate previously established relationships between psychopathy measures and …

Protecting Healthcare Workers From Violence, Terry L. Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Growing violence in the community increases the risks of injuries to healthcare workers. This project assessed the levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and acknowledgment of professional accomplishments in healthcare workers in the community who were responsible for the care of confused and combative clients. The community healthcare workers were assessed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey-Medical Personnel. An intervention was then presented, which focused on self-awareness, including mood assessments, soothing rhythmic breathing, compassionate focused imagery, and the creation of a safe place to process criticism compassionately. The participants were resurveyed after 30 days by repeating the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human …

Addressing Disparities In Cross-Cultural Neuropsychological Assessment, Alicia Nuñez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There are existing disparities in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) assessment, diagnosis, and treatment among ethnic/racial minority children. Thus, greater empirical attention must be given to the neuropsychological assessment of Spanish-speaking children to address linguistic diversity and psychometric equivalence of commonly used measures, like the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children (WISC), across cultural groups. Therefore, this dissertation addressed the following aims: (I) examined the factor structure of the WISC–Fourth Edition Spanish (WISC-IV Spanish) in Hispanic children with ADHD, (II) evaluated the feasibility of developing short forms of the Spanish version of the WISC to expand the assessment toolbox for Spanish-speaking children with …

Memory And Stereotypes For Lesbian/Gay Characters, Amber Rose Williams

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Stereotype-consistency bias refers to the idea that people tend to remember stereotypical information about others better than non-stereotypical information (Fyock & Stangor, 1994). Limited research has examined how people may use stereotype-consistency bias when recalling information about LGBT characters in narratives (Bellezza & Bower, 1981; Clark & Woll, 1981; McGann & Goodwin, 2007; Snyder & Uranowitz, 1978). This line of research suggests that, instead of genuinely remembering stereotypical information better, participants tended to guess stereotypical answers to questions they do not know. In contrast to those studies, the experiment I conducted for this thesis suggests that heterosexual young adults tend …

The Prevalence And Predictors Of Complementary And Alternative Medicine (Cam) Use Among Racially/Ethnically Diverse College Students, Hermella Misiker

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Background: National data on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use, available through the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), convey higher prevalence of CAM use among college students compared to the general U.S population. NHIS findings also highlight non-vitamin non- mineral (NVNM) products are the most widely used form of CAM in the U.S. The purpose of this study was to identify the socio-cognitive and demographic predictors of CAM and NVNM use among a racially/ethnically diverse college student body.

Methods: An online survey was used to collect data from 392 University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. …

Musical Meter: Examining Hierarchical Temporal Perception In Complex Musical Stimuli Across Human Development, Sensory Modalities, And Expertise, Jessica Erin Nave-Blodgett

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Performing, listening, and moving to music are universal human behaviors. Most music in the world is organized temporally with faster periodicities nested within slower periodicities, creating a perceptual hierarchy of repeating stronger (downbeat) and weaker (upbeat) events. This perceptual organization is theorized to aid our abilities to synchronize our behaviors with music and other individuals, but there is scant empirical evidence that listeners actively perceive these multiple levels of temporal periodicities simultaneously. Furthermore, there is conflicting evidence about when, and how, the ability to perceive the beat in music emerges during development. It is also unclear if this hierarchical organization …

Eyewitness Recall And Identification Accuracy: Effects Of Stress In An Extreme Haunt And A Haunted House, William Blake Ridgway

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The impact of stress on eyewitness recall and identification accuracy has been studied extensively but with somewhat inconsistent results. Understanding the effects of stress are important if they are to be generalized to victims or witnesses of real crimes. This study consisted of two experiments that used an extreme haunt and a haunted house to examine attendees’ ability to recall details of and identify actors encountered, as a function of state anxiety and in the context of Deffenbacher’s (1994) catastrophe model of memory performance under anxiety. The results showed that physiological (i.e., heart rate) and psychological (i.e., State Anxiety Inventory) …

Examination Of Factors Reported By Athletes To Interfere With Their Lives Outside Of Sports, Jesse Scott

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The original Sport Interference Checklist (SIC) is a mental-health screening instrument designed to assess the extent to which mental health factors interfere with athletes’ performance during sport training or competition. In addition, the SIC appraises whether athletes are interested in pursuing psychological treatment for the aforementioned factors. Although validated, the SIC does not assess how the aforementioned factors affect athletes’ performance outside of sports. Doing so would permit professionals to examine the influence of these factors across sport training, sport competition, and life outside of sports.

The purpose of this study was to determine the psychometric properties and clinical utility …

Harmonic Delay Reduction, Jay E. Hinnenkamp

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Stimuli which, during the life of an organism, acquire the ability to increase the probability of behavior that they follow are called conditioned reinforcers. The concurrent-chains procedure has been used to study conditioned reinforcement for over 60 years. During this time several different models have been developed to explain how stimuli become conditioned reinforcers. The three experiments of this dissertation introduced a new quantitative model of conditioned reinforcement (DRT_H) and tested its predictions against four existing models. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that DRT_H improves upon the accuracy of its predecessor, delay reduction theory (Fantino, 1969), …

A Brief Online Acceptance And Commitment Training For Enhancing Outcomes Of A Cultural Competence Intervention, Elizabeth Tish Hicks

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In an increasingly diverse and multicultural society, there is a pressing and practical need for interventions to help professionals improve their cultural competence. Cultural competence trainings that target psychological flexibility in addition to knowledge, awareness, and skills may produce more efficacious results. The current study will examined the utility of targeting psychological flexibility (the ability to maintain contact the present moment and current internal experiences and to choose contextually appropriate, values-consistent behaviors, regardless of what one’s internal experiences are) as a process to enhance the impact of a cultural competence intervention with an Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT)-enhanced cultural competence …

Psychosocial Effects Of Shared Book Reading, Amy Halling

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many studies have examined the academic benefits of parents reading with their children, but few studies have looked at the psychological and social benefits, and even fewer have related the quality of shared book reading to psycho-social benefits. This study looked at whether positive and negative reading interactions during shared book reading predicted parent-child relationships, child social skills and child academic skills. Twenty-five parents of 4-year-olds read a story with their child and completed parent relationship and child social skills questionnaires. The reading interactions were then coded into two separate composite scores: positive and negative. Positive interactions did not significantly …

Making A Decision On Ethical Decision-Making Models, Melanie K. Johnson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Those in the helping professions, like psychology, counseling, and social work, have numerous ethical guidelines and codes to dictate ethical behavior. These codes, while extensive, do not encompass all situations. When professionals find themselves in an ambiguous situation, it is called an ethical dilemma. Many of the professional organizations that create ethical codes also recommend the use of ethical decision-making models. Ethical decision-making models provide steps, or instructions, on how to make an ethical decision when presented with an ethical dilemma.

Little research has been done on ethical decision-making models, so it cannot be concluded that these models actually help …

Impacts Of Racial Microaggressions On White American And Ethnic Minority Students In The College Classroom, Lesther A. Papa

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The racial and ethnic makeup of college is becoming more diverse as the general trend heads towards more bachelor's degrees being conferred to ethnic minority students. However, ethnic minority students often experience racial and ethnic microaggressions (REMAs) on campus either in the classroom or in the dorms. REMAs are subtle, chronic, and negative verbal and nonverbal exchanges that communicate hostility, degradation, or dismissiveness towards a member of an ethnic minority group. From the literature, REMAs have been found to impact both White and ethnic minority students and both White and ethnic minority professors commit microaggressions towards student of color. In …

Examining The Effects Of Aspects Of Resiliency And Vulnerability On The Relationship Between Experiencing Microaggressions And Mental Health Among Persons Of Color, Amanda K. Blume

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Ethnic minorities experience discrimination frequently, especially a subtle form of discrimination called microaggressions-which are linked with poorer mental health. This study examined protective factors against microaggressions. In this study, responding to microaggressions actively (as opposed to ignoring the situation) was linked with better mental health. When use of active coping strategies was low, microaggressions were associated with lower self-esteem and higher depression and anxiety. Alternatively, when use of active coping styles was high, microaggressions were associated with higher self-esteem and less depression, anxiety, and drug use. Responding to microaggressions is a disengaged way (such as attempting to ignore or avoid …

Rumination And Quality Of Life Among Northern Plains Indians, Devon S. Isaacs

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Native Americans (NAs) share unique risk factors for poor mental health. In response, mental health providers must address barriers to treatment while making the most of low resource situations. One way to increase usefulness of treatment is to address the mechanisms underlying multiple mental health disorders. Rumination is a style of thinking marked by repeated thoughts about distress and is well-recognized as a diagnostic factor for underlying disorders in the general population. Secondary data from the Mood Disorder Assessment Validation with Northern Plains Indians (NPI) pilot study was used to examine the relationship between rumination and anxiety, depression, and substance …

A Translational Examination Of Alternative-Response Discrimination Training And Resurgence, Kaitlyn O. Browning

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders often engage in severe forms of problem behavior. Reward-based behavioral interventions are highly effective at reducing levels of problem behavior and teaching more appropriate and adaptive alternative behaviors. Despite successful reduction in problem behavior during treatment, problem behaviors are susceptible to reoccurrence or relapse. Resurgence is a type of behavioral relapse that is particularly relevant to the treatment of problem behavior and may occur following the worsening of conditions of a more recently learned alternative behavior. That is, if the rewards that were used to teach the alternative behavior are removed …

Cultural And Contextual Influences On Mental Health, Stigma, And Substance Use Among Mena U.S. College Students, Molly Mechammil

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The aim of this dissertation was to investigate whether certain cultural and contextual factors influence Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) college students' mental health, alcohol/marijuana use, and experiences with mental health stigma and help seeking. Research with MENA college students is very limited, which leaves mental health providers with limited information on how to best support MENAs. MENAs report high rates of discrimination, and other research shows that many they may use religion as a way to cope with stressors such as discrimination. I examined whether religious coping might buffer the effects of discrimination on mental health outcomes. I also considered …

A Translational Investigation Of Reinforced Behavioral Variability: Implications For Promoting Behavioral Variability In Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Ann Galizio

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Behavioral variability is sometimes adaptive and can be maintained by the delivery of reinforcement. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show restricted and repetitive behaviors. Therefore, interventions to promote behavioral variability in individuals with ASD are needed. The present line of research was designed to inform such interventions by investigating reinforced behavioral variability from basic, applied, and translational perspectives. Each of these laboratory studies involved participants making sequences of well-defined responses, which were compared to previous responses. Responses that meet a variability contingency (i.e., were sufficiently different from previous responses) produced rewards. Studies 1 and 2 were basic experiments, …

Does Your Agency Embrace Evidence -Based Management Practices?, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

Other QIC-WD Products

Child welfare agencies are encouraged to use evidencebased practices in all aspects of their work to try to improve outcomes for children and families. The child welfare field has made improvements in using data, research, and evaluation to inform practice and decision-making, but still has a ways to go. The primary goal of the Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development (QIC-WD) is to build the evidence base regarding strategies to strengthen the child welfare workforce. One means of practicing evidence-based management for improving workforce outcomes is using workforce analytics. As part of the Child Welfare Workforce Analytics Institute, the QIC-WD …

Symptom Presentation Of Sexually Abused Youth: Associations With Abuse Attributions, Brittany Biles

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Child sexual abuse (CSA) outcomes are heterogeneous. Some victims display a combination of externalizing behaviors (e.g., aggression) and internalizing symptoms (e.g., depression), while others present with minimal symptoms (Domhardt, Munzer, Fegert, & Goldbeck, 2015). Among the factors that have been explored as relating to CSA outcomes are child characteristics (e.g., age; Dube et al., 2005), abuse-specific variables (e.g., abuse severity; Stroebel et al., 2012), and family variables (e.g., familial social support; Ryan, Kilmer, Cause, Watanabe, & Hoyt, 2000). Although much of the literature supports these factors as contributing to outcomes following CSA, conclusions have been inconsistent. Research has begun to …

Exploring How Communal Motivations And Gender Norms Predict Sexual Health Practices, Courtney Olds

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

In the U.S., one in four women under 20 will experience unwanted pregnancy (NCPTU, 2017). Additionally, young adults (15-24) account for half of the new STI’s (CDC, 2017). Previous research has found that gender norms can have detrimental impacts on factors related to safe sex practices (e.g., condom use) such as perceptions of responsibility, self-efficacy and partner communication (Bertens, et al., 2008; Fantasia, et al., 2014; French & Holland, 2013; Huber & Eresek, 2011; Impett, et al., 2006; Noar, et. al, 2002). Conversely, findings have shown that communal (other-oriented) motivations is a predictor of condom use intentions, however, it has …

Louisiana Progress Update- Redesigning The Child Welfare Worker Position, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

Other QIC-WD Products

When there is a high workload, there is often a lot of turnover and when there is a lot of turnover the remaining workforce has an even greater workload. The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) was all too familiar with this negative cycle and the impact it was having on its child welfare workforce. When DCFS became a Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development (QIC-WD) site, they were ready to make a significant change to their workforce operations. After a thorough needs assessment, DCFS decided to work with the QIC-WD on a job redesign project to strengthen …

Migrant Dreams, Egyptian Workers In The Gulf States, Rania M Rafik Khalil

English Language and Literature

Migrant Dreams is about the hopes and aspirations on which migrant workers thrive to achieve their goals. The first version of this book was published in 2017 in Arabic with the title Hatta yantahi al-naft (Until the End of Oil). Based on over a decade of fieldwork, observations and conversations, Samuli Schielke gives a detailed overview of the life of low-income Egyptian migrant laborers who relocated to the Arab Gulf States on temporary contracts, returned, then migrated again. The book focuses mostly on the story of Tawfik, an intelligent Egyptian young man from rural backgrounds who is compelled to achieve …

Effects Of Reward Magnitude Frames On Measures Of Delay Discounting In A Hypothetical Money Scenario, Michael Harman, Tiffany Kodak, Todd Mckerchar

Research, Publications & Creative Work

The current study analyzed the effects of three frames of reward magnitude – quantity, volume, and duration – on the rate at which college students discounted hypothetical, delayed monetary rewards. Hypothetical scenarios were presented using the fill-in-the-blank discounting questionnaire and participants made choices between immediate and delayed hypothetical monetary rewards. Scenarios framed the monetary choices as (a) quantity of dollar bills, (b) height (inches) of a stack of dollar bills, and (c) duration of time spent in a hypothetical cash machine to collect dollar bills. For each scenario, participants’ subjective values were used to calculate the area under the curve …