Applied Behavior Analysis Commons^™

Maintenance Of Language And Learning Skills Using Peak Relational Training During Extended School Closure, Kayla Marie Welch

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental and neurological disorder that affects how people communicate, interact with others, behave, and learn. Applied Behavior Analysis is a scientific approach to predicting and influencing behavior that has been applied successfully in supporting children with ASD. Due to communication and intellectual differences experienced by those diagnosed with ASD, it is important to identify therapies and interventions that focus on language development as well as maintenance of intervention gains during unexpected lapses in instruction. The PEAK Relational Training System (Dixon et al., 2017)is a treatment framework that exists within ABA to address language and …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Self-Compassion Training With Disability Support Staff, Jessica M. Venegoni

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The current study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of self-compassion training with disability support staff concurrently completing their college education for career advancement. The intervention was guided by a combined Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Self-Compassion training framework. The ACT Matrix was utilized within the study prior to intervention to determine values within self-compassion and to identify three behaviors to target within the weekly self-compassion training, and daily behavior report (Polk and Schoendorf, 2014). During the intervention phase, daily reported self-compassion behaviors and weekly reported self-compassion scores were collected (Neff, 2003a; Belisle et al., 2022), as well as their …

Examining The Function Of Stone Wrapping Behavioral Pattern In Balinese Long-Tailed Macaques (Macaca Fascicularis), Patricia Mitchell

All Master's Theses

Long-tailed macaques (LTMs, Macaca fascicularis) have multiple stone handling (SH) patterns that vary in form and complexity across different populations, but little is known about the group of Balinese LTM’s motivation to wrap stones in the Monkey Forest of Ubud, Indonesia. This study focuses on whether the SH pattern, wrap (WRP), is an object play behavior with the potential of becoming a more functionally complex behavior (e.g., tool use). SH sequences were collected using all-occurrence and focal sampling and examined using the program Behavioral Observation Research Interactive Software (BORIS). In total, 322 minutes of footage were reviewed for both stones …

Positive Motivational Self-Talk: The Influence Of Gender On Performance, Perception Of Self-Talk, And Performance Anxiety During A Disc Golf Putting Exercise Before And After A Self-Talk Intervention, Samantha L. Hennessy

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Old Minds, New Marketplaces: How Evolved Psychological Mechanisms Trigger Mismatched Food Preferences, Michal Folwarczny, Tobias Otterbring, Valdimar Sigurdsson, Lynn K. L. Tan, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Principally due to unhealthy food choices, almost half of adults worldwide are overweight or obese. Current food retail practices bear some responsibility for such public health issues. We argue that numerous attempts to promote healthy eating have been unsuccessful due to the failure to account for our outdated evolved food selection mechanisms. Building on the evolutionary mismatch hypothesis and contrasting ancestral versus present-day foraging environments, we discuss how marketing activities exploit evolutionarily old food preferences and elicit unhealthy food choices for profit maximization at the expense of public health in terms of food consumption. We conclude by explaining how to …

The Effects Of Rater Training On Rater Effects And Validity Of Direct Behavior Ratings, Abigail E. Pruitt

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Educators have a responsibility to accurately measure student behavior in order to identify students in need of additional behavioral support. Current behavior screening tools can be lengthy or difficult to complete, and Direct Behavior Ratings (DBRs) offer a solution. However, DBRs are rater-mediated assessments, prone to rater effects. Rater training methods can be used to mitigate these rater effects, but previous research has not investigated the best training method for reduction of rater effects. Additionally, Many Facet Rasch Measurement (MFRM) provides an opportunity to adjust student ratings in response to individual rater tendencies of severity and leniency. Therefore, the primary …

Evaluating The Effects Of Client-Set Versus Coach-Set Goals In The Context Of A Health-Coaching Intervention For Physical Activity, J. Logan Gibson

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Health coaching is a relatively new integrated health role in which practitioners use a combination of behavioral interventions to evoke health-related behavior changes; however, there is a lack of valid evidence to support health-based claims. We investigated the effect of an approximation of a health coaching intervention on three college students' number of steps per day. We provided participants with weekly telehealth coaching sessions focused on goal-setting and feedback and used Fitbits to track the results. We used a multiple baseline across participants design to compare daily steps across four phases; self-monitoring, self-monitoring with experimenter-set goals and feedback, self-monitoring with …

Using A Behavioral Skills Training Model For Instructing Educators In Functional Assessment And Intervention Procedures In The Classroom Setting, Lorne Thomas Balmer

Theses and Dissertations

Educators often manage behavior through suppression rather than working to address the root cause of problematic behavior in the classroom. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 mandates the use of functional assessment for students with varying exceptionalities to ensure students are educated in the least restrictive environment. However, functional assessment is an evidence-based strategy that could be employed by all teachers to enhance classroom management practices universally. Behavioral skills training is a research-validated approach that is often used to train professionals on a number of skills.

The present study investigated the use of a behavioral skills training …

Ideological Boundaries Of Status Advantages: Legislative Effectiveness In The House Of Representatives In The United States Congress, Francois Collet, Gianluca Carnabuci, Gokhan Ertug, Tengjian Zou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Prior research assumes that high-status actors have greater organizational influence than lower-status ones, that is, it is easier for the former to get their ideas and initiatives adopted by the organization than it is for the latter. Drawing from the literature on ideology, we posit that the status-influence link is contingent on actors’ ideological position. Specifically, status confers organizational influence to the degree that the focal actor is ideologically mainstream. The more an actor’s ideology deviates from the mainstream the less will her status translate into increased organizational influence. We find support for this hypothesis using data on the work …

Theater And Peacebuilding In Post-Conflict Settings: Participants’ Experiences In The Morning Star Theater Program In South Sudan, Shiphrah Mutungi Akandiinda

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation explores the role of theater for peacebuilding in post-conflict settings through the analysis of experiences of participants in the Morning Star Forum Theater for Peacebuilding in South Sudan. Arts-based activities, including theater, have increasingly gained momentum as viable interventions for peacebuilding in post-conflict zones. Much of the existent research fails to capture the experiences of the theater participants themselves. Using narrative inquiry, this study interviewed 12 community members who participated in the Morning Star Forum Theater event. In particular, this study focused on how experiences of Morning Star Theater events impacted interpersonal growth and relationship-building, thus positively impacting …

The Relationships Between Dimensions Of Inclusive Leadership And Aspects Of Employee Engagement: Crucial Connections For Organizational Success, Rosalind F. Cohen

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In light of the current economic conditions in the United States brought about by the COVID pandemic, the war for talent is at a high point, and the acquisition and retention of qualified employees are highly competitive. Because employees want to feel challenged by their work and need to feel a sense of belonging, organizations that create engaging and inclusive cultures are at an advantage and need to understand how leadership behaviors can impact these cultures. This three-phased exploratory concurrent mixed-methods research study posed two questions to bring light to the relationship between Inclusive Leadership, Employee Engagement, and individual or …

Education For Citizenship: A Study Of The Effects Of Cocurricular Student Philanthropy Education On Prosocial Behavior, Félix José Alonso

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this concurrent mixed-methods study is to explore the use of student engagement and cocurricular student philanthropy education as an approach to awareness raising and as a mechanism for creating a culture of philanthropy among college students. This dissertation is a synthesis of the review with a consensus that student engagement and cocurricular student philanthropy education create greater awareness, learning, and intentions around philanthropy and prosocial behavior, as well as increased instances of making charitable contributions and civic engagement. The study concludes that student engagement and cocurricular philanthropy education are effective mechanisms for creating a culture of giving. …

Click-Enter-Send: The Relationship Experiences Of People Who Are Blind Or Visually Impaired In Text-Based Workspaces, Kelly Bleach

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Companies have increasingly turned to text-based communications to recruit, hire, and manage a distributed remote workforce. For people who are blind or visually impaired, this movement presents both challenges and opportunities for attaining and retaining employment. Does the potential isolation of telework have a negative effect on workplace relationships for people who are blind or visually impaired? Does participation in text-based workspaces mitigate stereotypes and stigmatization experienced by people with visible disabilities? Using a constructivist grounded theory framework, this study explored how people who are blind or visually impaired experience relationships in text-based workspaces. Building and maintaining social connections and …

The Effects Of Venlafaxine And Voluntary Exercise On Chronic Unpredictable Stress Induced Anxiety, Marly Mcgowan

Senior Independent Study Theses

Anxiety disorders can impair cognition and emotional control, particularly in the face of novel situations, which is concerning due to the high prevalence of such diagnoses. Exposure to unpredictable chronic stress can provide a way to induce anxiety-like behaviors in rodents by disrupting the stress response systems, including the HPA axis and autonomic nervous system. Pharmacological treatments, including SNRIs like venlafaxine, and voluntary exercise are both anxiolytic treatments that can alleviate the impacts of chronic stress. Using unpredictable chronic stress to mimic the human condition, and exposure to venlafaxine and exercise to mitigate the stress, the open field and elevated …

What Happens After A Shark Incident? Behavioral Changes Among Australian Beachgoers, Ingrid Van Putten, Nick Mcclean, Andrew Chin, Sue Pillans, Carla Sbrocchi

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Sharks (Selachimorpha) have an important ecological function and are both valued and feared by people around the world. Shark bite incidents present a high consequence risk in terms of human health and safety. In Australia, shark interactions with humans are most frequently recorded for the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas), and tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier). Human anxiety of encountering sharks may be elevated relative to the actual level of risk due to intensive media coverage, which typically emphasizes a narrative of highly abundant animals actively targeting human water users. This narrative …

Replication Of A Nonsequential Renewal Model And Investigation Of Extinction Cues For Attenuating Renewal, Brianna G. Sarno

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Laboratory models of renewal are critical to inform clinical practice to reduce the occurrence of relapse and facilitate the maintenance of treatment gains. Nonsequential renewal is a modified procedure developed by Sullivan et al. (2018) that provides an alternative arrangement to study operant renewal in a manner more consistent with clinical experience. Experiment 1 replicated the procedure of Craig et al. (2019) to compare renewal of target responding in rats that were exposed to the nonsequential or sequential renewal procedure. Experiment 2 investigated the use of an olfactory extinction cue in mitigating renewal. In Experiment 1, the Nonsequential Group displayed …

Evaluating Dro With Asymmetrical Magnitude Of Reinforcement, Lindsey M. Hronek

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) is a reinforcement schedule used in behavior analytic procedures aimed at decreasing various forms of challenging behavior. DRO commonly includes a reinforcement component and an extinction component; a reinforcer is delivered on an interval-based schedule dependent on the omission of a target behavior and the reinforcer is withheld following the occurrence of the target behavior (i.e., extinction). Although interventions using DRO can be effective for challenging behavior, procedures that include extinction can at times be impractical or lead to undesirable side effects. A DRO schedule can be implemented without extinction, but previous research has …

Agents At Work: Modeling How Space Can Influence People In The Workplace, Jovan Poposki

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

People interact with space in ways that are important to consider when designing an office. Not considering this relationship has led to the dissatisfaction of employees post-occupancy. In this thesis, I present an agent-based model that incorporates several characteristics of agents, such as work ethic and sociability, and explores their behaviours and social interactions in the workplace. The model is first tested on a commercial workspace, varying agent parameters to see how they change the behaviour of the model. I find that agents with extreme personalities are happiest, and show a bimodality in the distribution of time spent in various …