Psychology Commons^™

Persuasive Impact Of One-Sided Videos On Reasoning About Abortion, Suzanne M. Dodd, Andrea Bailey Sims, Stephen E. Buggie

Modern Psychological Studies

A study was conducted to assess the volatility of college students' reasoning about abortion. It is widely believed that individuals' views on this controversial issue have crystallized and are resistant to persuasion. The study investigated the persuasive impact of an opposing argument on subjects' current beliefs on the abortion issue. Thirty-three unpaid students of either gender at a private liberal arts college were shown a one-sided video on abortion presenting either the pro-life argument or the pro-choice argument. Subjects were Christians of various denominations. Abortion attitude was measured before and after the video using the Reasoning About Abortion Questionnaire (Parson, …

Interactions Of Depressed Mothers And Their Infants: A Review Of The Literature, Anita Kochanoff

Modern Psychological Studies

This paper reviews various research conducted to understand the effect of maternal depression on mother-infant interactions. It begins by reviewing theories on infant behavior that focuses on self-regulation and theories on mothers' behavior, including the causes of depression following the birth of a child (i.e. postpartum depression). A review of published empirical results of mother/infant interactions are presented along with descriptions of the coding systems used in these studies. Evidence suggests that infant behavior and emotion is significantly affected by the emotional state of the mother.

Female Managers: Their Struggle At Work And In The Home, Beth A. Mull

Modern Psychological Studies

The struggles that female managers face at work and in the home are reviewed. Research suggests that sex role stereotypes, discrimination, lack of mentors, and tokenism contribute to the "glass ceiling effect." Studies on the struggle in the home focus on female managers' role conflict and role overload as they juggle home and employment responsibilities. Spousal influences are also noted in their amount of contribution to child and household duties, their attitudes of career precedence, and their earning power as compared to their wives. Consequences of the female manager's struggle are noted, including lower pay, lack of upward influence, "fear …

Personality Factors Associated With Negative Affect: Application Of The "Big Five" Taxonomy To Depression And Anxiety, Kent W. Anderson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to examine the patterns and discriminant utility of the five-factor model of personality ("Big Five," consisting of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness factors) with depressed and anxious outpatients.

One hundred two outpatients seeking services at a community mental health center in a small western community participated in the study. Subjects were 41 clients with a depressive disorder, 31 with an anxiety disorder, and 30 in a mixed clinical control group. Subjects completed the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness to Experience Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI).

Results indicate that both depressed and anxious clients score in the "very …

A Correlational Study Of Hardiness, Health, And Burnout Among Teachers In The Sullivan County School System, Deborah F. Morelock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among hardiness, health and burnout and to investigate the relationships of the subscales of hardiness to health and to the subscales of burnout among teachers in the Sullivan County School System. The Hardiness Test was used to measure hardiness and the Maslach Burnout Inventory Form Ed to measure burnout. Results of the Health Evaluation and Risk Test was reported on the Educators Demographic Data Survey. The study sample consisted of 501 teachers. A statistically significant relationship was revealed between hardiness and health; among the hardiness subscales, commitment accounted for the …

Intermittent Consequences And Problem Solving: The Experimental Control Of “Superstitious” Beliefs, Ruth A. Heltzer, Stuart Vyse

Psychology Faculty Publications

Three groups of college students were asked to determine how points were earned in a task that allowed the assessment of response variability. All students received points for sequences of eight presses distributed across two keys (four presses on each key). One group received a point for each correct sequence, one group received points on a fixed-ratio 2 schedule, and one group received points on a random-ratio 2 schedule. There were no significant differences in nonverbal response variability across the three groups, and the fixed-ratio 2 and random-ratio 2 groups obtained equivalent point totals. However, participants in the random-ratio group …

Extrapolating Human Probability Judgment, Daniel N. Osherson, Edward E. Smith, Tracy S. Myers, Eldar Shafir, Michael Stob

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

We advance a model of human probability judgment and apply it to the design of an extrapolation algorithm. Such an algorithm examines a person's judgment about the likelihood of various statements and is then able to predict the same person's judgments about new statements. The algorithm is tested against judgments produced by thirty undergraduates asked to assign probabilities to statements about mammals.

The Effectiveness Of Group Counseling On Adolescents, Jennifer Deitch-Pepperell

Whittier Scholars Program

This project consists of a literature review, a study of group counseling effects on adolescents aged 12-18, and personal observations. This literature review will discuss the effectiveness of group counseling on adolescents while discussing the different typesof group counseling and their effects. This study also examines a key theory developed by James Garland ultimately concluding that group counseling is beneficial to adolescents at any level of development.

Front Matter

Modern Psychological Studies

No abstract provided.

Validation Of A Portuguese Form Of Templer's Death Anxiety Scale, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

To translate Templer's Death Anxiety Scale into the Brazilian Portuguese Escala de Ansiedade de Morte, linguistic validity was first established by back-translation and calculating bilingual split-half reliability coefficients. Even-numbered items achieved a minimally adequate .59, while the odd-numbered items attained a satisfactory .91. The internal consistency of the Escala (.77) matches that found for the original scale. The construct validity was tested by replicating the interactions of the English form with (1) the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, (2) the Purpose-in-Life Test, and (3) Levenson's measure of locus of control. The Escala performed as expected, save for some difficulty with the locus …

An Assessment Of Role Ambiguity, Role Conflict, Role Frustration, And Job Satisfaction Of Presidents At Selected Private Four-Year Colleges In The Southeastern United States, Gary W. Juhan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current literature has suggested that the role of the college president has perhaps become too ambiguous, complex and demanding for an individual to perform for an extended period of time. The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship between perceived role ambiguity, role conflict, role frustration and job satisfaction of selected private college presidents in the Southeastern United States. The method of the study was correlational in design. Using a thirty-seven item questionnaire developed by the author, data were collected from 141 college presidents of institutions within the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The institutions were private …

Organizational Culture: How Changes Impact Attitudes Toward Job Satisfaction, R. M. Browder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to examine how a shift in elements of organizational culture impacted attitudes toward job satisfaction in a medium-sized, consumer-owned electric utility over a period of 13 years. The unit of analysis was a municipal utility distributing electrical energy to approximately 27,000 customers. Data collection included the Science Research Associate Employee Inventory, a review of the organization's documents, and a subjective Job Satisfaction Questionnaire. A one-tailed z-test was performed to test whether or not the proportion of employees answering favorable in one survey was greater than the proportion answering favorable in the other survey. It …

Conceptualizing The Youthful Male Sex Offender: A Meta-Analytic Examination Of Offender Characteristics By Offense Type, Roger B. Graves

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A review of the literature demonstrates that, to date, no concerted effort has been made to conceptualize and develop typologies for youthful male sex offenders on the basis of offense type. Such typologies are deemed important to the understanding of possible developmental antecedents for sexual offending, as well as to the development of theory-driven, empirically based interventions and preventions. This study attempts to begin the conceptualization process through a meta-analytic examination of 140 research samples that provide data on over 16,000 individuals who have committed sexual offenses as youth. Three subtypes of offenders are identified on the basis of offense …

Children's Understanding Of Intentions, Emotions, And Intention-Emotion Relationships, Kathleen Grace Haver, Elaine M. Justice

Modern Psychological Studies

This study examined children's understanding of the role of intentionality in social interactions. Four, six, and eight year olds were read stories, illustrated with simple pictures, depicting accidental or deliberate actions. The study used a forced choice paradigm that asked children to indicate which of two pictures showed (1) an intentional (or unintentional) act and (2) a situation in which the victim would be sad (or mad). Six and eight year olds, but not Four year olds, correctly identified deliberate actions at above chance levels. Eight year olds identified accidental actions and situations in which the victim would be mad …

The Effects Of Education On Homophobic Attitudes In College Students, Janell Horton, Mark Senffner, K. Schiffner, E. Riveria, Judith G. Foy

Modern Psychological Studies

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether attitudes towards homosexuals could be modified by education from a biological or moral/religious perspective. Sixty-eight male and fifty-seven female volunteers from a mid-sized Catholic liberal arts university were randomly assigned to two groups. The first group viewed a video discussing homosexuality from a biological perspective. The second group viewed a video discussing homosexuality from a moral/religious perspective. The subject's attitudes towards homosexuality were measured with a modified version of Smith's "Homophobic Scale" (Lumby, 1976) immediately after viewing the video. A two-way (video x gender) ANOVA revealed significant main effects of video …

Birth, Death, And Recreation: An Archetypical Interpretation Of Mary Shelley's Waking Vision, Irish-Ann Burch

Modern Psychological Studies

Mary Shelly, the author of Frankenstein (Shelley, 1831), experienced a waking vision, leading to the creation of Frankenstein. Using Jungian theory, the characters in Frankenstein can be understood as projections of Mary's repressed feelings. These projections occurred because of Mary's strong identification with the mother archetype, consisting of 1) the maternal element and 2) the Eros. Mary had a hypertrophy (exaggerated identification) of the maternal element and a strong identification with the Eros, due to the early death of her mother and the later deaths of her three children. These events combined to produce Mary's unique personality development and her …

Visual Attention And Saccadic Eye Movements In Complex Visual Tasks, John M. Henderson

Faculty Publications

An open peer commentary of Fischer and Weber's article "Express Saccades and Visual Attention" published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1993), 16, 553-610.

The Relationship Amond Self-, Teachers', And Peers' Perceptions Of Competence For Children With Severe Behavior Disorders, Anna Marie Stewart, David S. Glenwick

Modern Psychological Studies

This study investigated the feasibility of Harter's multidomain perceived self-competence scales with children evidencing severe behavior disorders. Subjects were 46 children in a psychoeducational day treatment program. The younger group (n=29), ages 5--7 years, was administered Harter's Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance for Young Children. The older group (g=17), ages 8--9 years, was administered Harter's Self-Perception Profile for Children. Additionally, the children rated their peers on a peer rating scale, and their teachers rated the children's competence using Harter's teacher rating scales. The resulting pattern of correlations among self-, teachers', and peers' ratings, and ttests comparing self- …

Worry And The Inhibition Of Emotionally Valanced Stimuli In A Directed Forgetting Paradigm, T. Michelle Brown, Rich Metzger, Carol Bilbrey

Modern Psychological Studies

There is considerable evidence in support of an attentional bias among clinically anxious individuals for threatening stimuli. However, a similar bias is not usually found in non-clinical anxious individuals and neither population has tended to show a response bias for mood-congruent information. We proposed that the measurement of anxiety in normals has previously been flawed due to questionnaires which do not accurately select pathological worry, the cognitive component of anxiety. First, we administered the Penn State Worry Questionnaire and selected only those with the most extreme high and low scores. At the time of testing, these subjects were given a …

Personality Factors Related To Sobriety For Participants In Alcoholics Anonymous, Harold L. Goodearle, Colleen Hester

Modern Psychological Studies

The effects of extraversion introversion (E-I), locus of control (LC), and attitudes towards a "Power greater than ourselves" (PGO) on number of relapse episodes, number of times in treatment, and length of sobriety were explored. Volunteers from local Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) groups (n=72) and two inpatient treatment centers (n=52) completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory, the Rotter Locus of Control measure, a questionnaire designed by the author to assess attitudes concerning the concept adopted by A.A. of a PGO, and a brief self report survey. Results of the multiple regression analyses exploring the effects of E-I, LC, and PGO indicated the …

Effects Of Juror And Expert Witness Gender On Jurors' Perceptions Of An Expert Witness, Lynelle Vondergeest, Charles R. Honts, Mary K. Devitt

Modern Psychological Studies

This study examined the effects of juror and expert witness gender on jurors' perceptions of an expert witness. Undergraduate psychology students completed the Bern Sex Role Inventory and then read an edited trial transcript of an armed robbery case. The trial transcript contained expert testimony from a polygraph examiner. In half of the transcripts the expert was male and in the other half the expert was female. Subjects were then asked to render a verdict and answer questions about their perceptions of the witnesses and the trial. No significant effects were found in either the verdicts or the questionnaire responses …

Perceptions Of Date Rape On A College Campus, Donita A. Phipps, Christine M. Szekeres

Modern Psychological Studies

The occurrences and attitudes about date rape were surveyed at a small Midwestern college campus. They were measured through a vignette in which a date rape occurred, and a survey which contained demographic questions, true/false and Likert scale items. The Likert items were divided into three types: 1) nine questions a date rapist would strongly agree with (male initiator items); 2) nine questions someone sophisticated about rape would strongly agree with (egalitarian items); and 3) three neutral questions (bystander items). From these items a male-initiator and egalitarian score was derived for each S. T-test results indicate that male Ss had …

Front Matter

Modern Psychological Studies

No abstract provided.

The Presence Of Gender Biases And Sex-Role Stereotypres In Animated Children's Movies, Tracey K. Wheatcraft

Modern Psychological Studies

This study explored the occurrences of gender biases and sex-role stereotypes in animated children's movies. The contents of thirteen movies were analyzed in this study, including both adventure and romance-based selections. Six of the movies featured female central characters and seven featured male central characters. The results of the study indicate that gender biases are present in the number of males and females portrayed (p < .01) as well as in the number of rescue behaviors exhibited by the characters (p < .01). Stereotypical differences in masculine and feminine personality characteristics were shown to be present, but not to a significant extent (p > .05).

Adolescent Coping Styles And Response To Stress: A Study Of The Relationship Between The Preferred Coping Styles Of Female Senior High School Students And Their Levels Of Anxiety And Self-Confidence When Facing A Major Academic Stressor, Elizabeth J. Lawson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

A growing body of research indicates the importance of coping strategies when an individual responds to environmental demands. Community concern about the maladaptive responses of some adolescents, limited research with this age group, and the development of a new Australian measure of adolescent coping provided the impetus for this study. The study was conducted with 141 female students in their final year of High School. They completed the Adolescent Coping Scale (ACS) in March, and measures of anxiety and self-confidence in November, just before major external examinations. Behavioural rating scales were completed by parents and teachers. The adolescent group reported …

Self-Concepts Of Career Level Ii And Iii Teachers And Career Ladder Eligible Teachers In The Public Schools Of Tennessee, Lois C. Myers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a significant difference in the self concept of Career Level II and III teachers and teachers who are eligible to apply but have not elected to participate in the Career Ladder Program in the public schools of Tennessee. The technique of causal-comparative research was used in this study. The Tennessee Self Concept Scale (TSCS), developed by William Fitts, was selected as the appropriate instrument for use in this study. The TSCS is a versatile instrument that measures ten dimensions related to self concept: total level of self esteem, self …

The Effects Of Sex And Sexual Orientation On Attractiveness Judgments: An Evolutionary Interpretation, William R. Jankowiak, Elizabeth M. Hill, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

If attractiveness judgments reflect biologically important reproductive criteria, men should base judgments of potential partners on objective physical criteria more than do women; homosexuals and heterosexuals of the same sex should perceive attractiveness in the same terms, regardless of the sex-object choice. To test this theory, photographs of men and women (20 each) were presented to members of four subject groups, solicited on an opportunistic basis. Subjects were asked to rank the sets of photographs separately on the dimensions of physical attractiveness and general social attractiveness. We found some sex differences across sexual orientation. There was less variation among men …

Occupational Stress Among Nurse Administrators In General Hospitals In Tennessee, Ruby T. Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the level of occupational stress among nurse administrators and to identify the types of strategies used by nurse administrators to deal with or manage occupational stress. The study examined the relationship between selected demographic variables, occupational stress, and strategies. The research design included five research questions along with seven null hypotheses testing the relationship between occupational stress and demographic variables--age, gender, marital status, years of professional nursing experience, years as a nurse administrator, educational attainment, and hospital bed capacity. There were seven additional hypotheses testing the relationship between the same demographic variables …

Identifying Differences Among Male Sex Offenders: Child Molesters Versus Exhibitionists Versus Voyeurs, David P. Defrancesco

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Social histories and testing data were compiled during initial placement assessments of 147 individuals arrested and charged as child molesters, exhibitionists, and voyeurs. These data were statistically analyzed using discriminant analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Child molesters, exhibitionists, and voyeurs were found to differ with regards to history of voyeurism; Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) L scale scores; sexual arousal in response to a violent scenario involving a 12-year-old male, measured via penile plethysmography; and age. Implications of these results are discussed relative to the population sampled and future research.

Glucose, Exercise, And Short-Term Memory, Brenda Davidson, Cheryle Sanders, Gwendolyn K. Murdock

Modern Psychological Studies

This investigation determined the short-term memory effects of glucose and exercise. It was hypothesized that (a) glucose enhances short-term memory and (b) intense exercise diminishes short-term memory. Subjects were middle-aged volunteers who regularly exercise. Two within-subjects variables were (a) glucose vs. no-glucose, and (b) before- vs. after exercise. A between-subjects variable was no-glucose beverage type: aspartame, saccharin, or water. Performance on Subtest IV of the Wechsler Memory Scale was the dependent variable. A glucose by exercise interaction suggested an influence of fitness level. In a second experiment, short-term memory was assessed before, and at 20-min. intervals after exercise. Weight and …