Cognition and Perception Commons^™

Why Is The Crowd Divided? Attribution For Dispersion In Online Word Of Mouth, Stephen He, Samuel Bond

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The widespread availability of online word of mouth (WOM) enables modern consumers to assess not only the opinions of others about products and services, but also the extent to which those opinions are consistent or dispersive. Despite longstanding calls for greater understanding of mixed opinions, existing evidence is inconclusive regarding effects of WOM dispersion, and theoretical accounts have relied primarily on the notion of reference dependence. Extending prior work, this research proposes an attribution-based account, in which consumer interpretation of WOM dispersion depends on the extent to which tastes in a product domain are perceived to be dissimilar, so that …

The Effects Of Interview Length On Gender And Personality Related Bias In Job Interviews, Emily Condon

Scripps Senior Theses

The proposed study explores the cognitive miser approach to perception formation in job interviews, as well as factors that may motivate people to not act as cognitive misers. Personality type (introverted and extraverted) and gender are characteristics of people that are associated with many stereotypes (Heilman, 2001; Andersen & Klatzky, 1987), and can have a large influence on an employer’s perception of an applicant, particularly when the employer is acting as a cognitive miser. It is hypothesized that in longer interviews, employers will be motivated to not act as cognitive misers, because they have more information about the applicant, have …

Inventory Of Cognitive Distortions: Validation Of A Measure Of Cognitive Distortions Using A Community Sample, Michael B. Roberts

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine and evaluate further the psychometric properties of a self-report inventory of cognitive distortions using a nonclinical, community sample. A group of 474 individuals were contacted via the social networking site, Facebook, and through a college list-serve and were asked to complete multiple measures and also to send the link to other individuals, thus utilizing a snowball sample. The measures used included the Inventory of Cognitive Distortions (ICD), Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and a brief questionnaire to collect demographic information on each participant. Results revealed positive psychometric properties for …

Factors That Influence Perceptions Of Others: An Emphasis On Down Syndrome, Briana J. Walls

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The current study examined how physical characteristics influence perceptions others have of people with Down syndrome (DS). Participants were shown one of four pictures, which were an adult male with Down syndrome facial characteristics, an adult male without Down syndrome facial characteristic, a male child with Down syndrome facial characteristic and a male child without Down syndrome facial characteristics. After viewing one of the four pictures with a description of likes and dislikes of the person in the picture, the participants completed a questionnaire examining perceptions of cognitive-behavioral competence, emotional distance- discomfort, and occupational ability. The hypothesis of this study …

Javan Gibbon (Hylobates Moloch) Non-Vocal Social Communication And Gesture Use With Conspecifics, Melanie Bell

All Master's Theses

I explored gestures used by captive Javan gibbons (Hylobates moloch) at the Gibbon Conservation Center (Santa Clarita, CA). I hypothesized that a sender gibbon’s gesture modality would vary with the recipient gibbon’s attentional state and the sender would be equally likely to use all modalities (tactile, visual, actions, and facial expressions) when the recipient was attending (facing the sender), but would use more tactile gestures and actions when the recipient was non-attending (oriented away from the sender). I collected data from 10 individuals using all-occurrences sampling and an ethogram to score behaviors from video recordings. In 1,143 interactions, …

The Motivation To Comply With Internal Or External Moral Expectations: Is Just One Motivation Enough?, Huey Woon Lee

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Although researchers have shown how the need to reduce internal discrepancies between one’s current level of morality and one’s moral standard and the need to reduce negative social judgment drive pro-social behaviors, it remains unclear if the presence of both these motivations has additive effects on pro-social behaviors. I propose that the answer is no: people operate on a sufficient motivation principle when deciding to behave prosocially, that is, they should be equally prosocial whether one or both motivations are present. I further argue that individual differences in public (PUSC) and private (PRSC) self-consciousness affect people’s attention to the two …

Incarceration And Reintegration: How It Impacts Mental Health, April M. Marier, Alex Alfredo Reyes

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Background: Previous criminal justice policies have been non-effective leading to overpopulated prisons and unsuccessful reintegration. There is a lack of effective supportive and/or rehabilitative services resulting in high rates of recidivism and mental health implications. Objective: This study investigated the perceived impact that incarceration and reintegration with little to no supportive and/or rehabilitative services has on the mental health status of an individual. The emphasis was on participant perception and not on professional reports because of underreporting and lack of attention to mental health in the criminal justice system. Methods: Focus groups in the Inland Empire and Coachella Valley …

Traditional Masculinity & Advertising Image Approval, Danielle W. Kailing, Peggy Cantrell Phd

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project investigates the relationship between adherence to traditional masculinity and approval of selected advertising images. Because traditional masculinity includes characteristics supportive of aggression and dominance; I hypothesize that an increase in adherence to traditional masculinity will correlate with approval of the violence found in some print advertisements. Participants include 259 men who completed an anonymous, online, survey. Adherence to masculinity is measured using the Male Role Norm Inventory-Revised (MRNI-R) (Levant, et. al, 2007). Each picture is scored on a 5-point Likert Scale. As hypothesized, an increase in total MRNI-R score, is significantly correlated with an increase in the approval …

Anger In The Courtroom: The Effects Of Attorney Gender And Emotion On Juror Perceptions, Christian B. May

Honors College Theses

This study sought to examine the effects of gender stereotypes of emotional expression on jurors’ perceptions of an attorney’s competence. Participants watched a video of a closing statement of a male or female attorney expressing either anger or neutral emotions and were asked to give a verdict and rate the attorney’s competence. Participants rated an angry male attorney highest in competence and an angry female attorney lowest in competence. Results also showed that participants who viewed a male attorney were more likely to attribute the attorney’s emotions to the situation compared to participants who viewed a female attorney. The implications …

The Role Of Social Relationships And Culture In The Cognitive Representation Of Emotions, Sharon Koh, Christie N. Scollon, Derrick Wirtz

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There are individual and cultural differences in how memories of our emotions are cognitively represented. This article examines the cognitive representation of emotions in different cultures, as a result of emotional (in)consistency in different cultures. Using a continuous semantic priming task, we showed in two studies that individuals who were less emotionally consistent across relationships have stronger associations of their emotions within those relationships. Further, we found (in Study 2) that in a culture characterised by higher levels of emotional inconsistency across relationships (Singapore), stronger associations between emotions within relationships were found than in a culture characterised by emotional consistency …

Stranger Danger: Parenthood And Child Presence Increase The Envisioned Bodily Formidability Of Menacing Men, Daniel M.T. Fessler, Colin Holbrook, Jeremy S. Pollack, Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Due to altriciality and the importance of embodied capital, children’s fitness is contingent on parental investment. Injury suffered by a parent therefore degrades the parent’s fitness both by constraining reproduction and by diminishing the fitness of existing offspring. Due to the latter added cost, compared to non-parents, parents should be more cautious in hazardous situations, including potentially agonistic interactions. Prior research indicates that relative formidability is conceptualized in terms of size and strength. As erroneous under-estimation of a foe’s formidability heightens the risk of injury, parents should therefore conceptualize a potential antagonist as larger, stronger, and of more sinister intent …

Aligning Inside And Outside Perspectives Of The Self: A Cross-Cultural Difference In Self-Perception, Young-Hoon Kim, Chi-Yue Chiu, Sinhae Cho, Evelyn W. M. Au, Sunyoung Nicole Kwak

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Past research shows that European Americans tend to take a first-person perspective to understand the self and are unlikely to align the inside look with the outside gaze, whereas Asians tend to take a third-person perspective and are likely to shift their inside look in the direction of the outsize gaze. In three experiments, we compared Asians and European Americans' self-perceptions when the presence of their parents in the background of self-perception was primed or otherwise. Without the priming, both European Americans and Asians viewed themselves more positively from their own perspective than from their parents' perspective. With the priming, …

The Will To Lead: The Dynamic Integration Of Intrinsic Motivation And Social Change Leadership, Joshua M. Garrin

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

Discourse on the psychosocial substrates of human motivation reflects a hot-button theme in contemporary leadership research circles. For many aspiring leaders, role models and social support provide an undercurrent for instilling leadership attributes. Yet for others, the drive to optimize leadership potentials is a naturally occurring, internally guided event that is continually reinforced through self-regulatory processes. As such, questions remain as to which intrinsic motives underpin the leadership potentials that have implications for social change agency. To date, the extant literature fails to offer a comprehensive model that highlights (a) the self-motives that have preeminent applicability to intrinsic motivation, (b) …

The Power Of Workplace Wellness: A Theoretical Model For Social Change Agency, Joshua M. Garrin

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

As millions of individuals face the complex challenge of adopting prohealth behavior as a core lifestyle attribute, there is an ever-increasing need to take an opportunistic approach to practicing and internalizing such behavior. Time constraints, prioritization, and time mismanagement widely contribute to the perceived inability of individuals to adhere to prohealth behavior. Given vocation as a demand that constitutes approximately one third of daily life activity, the organizational setting has emerged as a context that can potentially offer a vast array of viable workplace wellness (WW) opportunities. Such initiatives go beyond framing organizations as vehicles for health behavior promotion—instead, the …

We’Ll Meet Again: Revealing Distributional And Temporal Patterns Of Social Contact, Thorsten Pachur, Lael J. Schooler, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

What are the dynamics and regularities underlying social contact, and how can contact with the people in one’s social network be predicted? In order to characterize distributional and temporal patterns underlying contact probability, we asked 40 participants to keep a diary of their social contacts for 100 consecutive days. Using a memory framework previously used to study environmental regularities, we predicted that the probability of future contact would follow in systematic ways from the frequency, recency, and spacing of previous contact. The distribution of contact probability across the members of a person’s social network was highly skewed, following an exponential …

Reimagining My Body, Center For Public Service

SURGE

I stood there, shoulders slouched, elbows locked, hands glued to the side of the toilet. My body convulsing, I told myself, “this is the last time, just one more time and you’ll get back on track tomorrow.” It wasn’t the last time. I had been forcing myself to purge for months at this point, and each time I hated myself for it.

It was something I couldn’t control. It wasn’t out of a need for attention as so commonly thought, but a pure need to be the unreachable level of thin that I thought would make me beautiful. I was …

Examining The Distinct Effects Of Emotive Triggers On Public Reactions To International Terrorism, Cigdem Sirin, Nehemia Geva

Selected Works Temporary Series

In recent years, a growing body of research has set out to examine the role that emotions play in shaping political attitudes and behaviors regarding terrorism. However, one major issue that is generally overlooked is whether the thematic relevance of emotive triggers leads to differential effects on people's reactions to international terrorism. Specifically, does anger—regardless of its source—tend to drive people towards supporting an aggressive foreign policy option to counter terrorism, or do the thematic underpinnings of anger (i.e., the specific contents that trigger this particular emotion, such as watching a news story about a recent terrorist attack) matter vis-à-vis …

The Role Of Instrumental Emotion Regulation In The Emotions-Creativity Link: How Worries Render Neurotic Individuals More Creative, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Letty Kwan, Shyhnan Liou, Chi-Yue Chiu, Lin Qiu, Jose C. Yong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Based on the instrumental account of emotion regulation, the current research seeks to offer a novel perspective to the emotions-creativity debate by investigating the instrumental value of trait-consistent emotions in creativity. We hypothesize that emotions such as worry (vs. happy) are some trait-consistent experiences for neurotic individuals and experiencing these emotions can facilitate performance in a creativity task. In two studies, we found support for our hypothesis. First, individuals higher in neuroticism had a greater preference for recalling worrisome (vs. happy) events in anticipation of performing a creativity task (Study 1). Moreover, when induced to recall a worrisome (vs. happy) …

The Influence Of Children's Affective Ties On The Goal Clarification Step Of Social Information Processing, Amanda C. Thorn

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Previous studies have shown that children’s social goals are influenced by
emotion and that emotions can be manipulated using relationships. The present study combines these previous findings by examining the effect of children’s relationships on social goals. Social goals were examined in second and fifth grade children using hypothetical ambiguous provocation situations in which the relationship between the participant and the provocateur was manipulated by inserting the name of a friend, enemy, or a neutral peer into the story. After each situation, children rated the importance of four different social goals, indicating which of the four would be the most …

Are All Voices Created Equal?: Conditional Indirect Effects Of Directness Of One's Voice On Perceived Uncertainty And Performance, Dennis Lawrence Poepsel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current investigations was to examine the effects of the amount of voice one is given during decision-making on group behaviors. In particular, across two studies, participants were members of groups that needed to make a decision. In these situations, participants were provided varying degrees of voice during a decision-making process. Depending on the study, participants were either given a direct voice (Personal Voice), an indirect voice (Group Voice), a direct voice and an indirect voice (Composite Voice), or were not allowed a voice (No Voice). The results of Study 1 found that having Personal Voice or …

Word Of Mouth And The Forecasting Of Consumption Enjoyment, Stephen He, Samuel Bond

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The digital era has permitted rapid transfer of peer knowledge regarding products and services. In the present research, we explore the value of specific types of word-of-mouth information (numeric ratings and text commentary) for improving forecasts of consumption enjoyment. We present an anchoring-and-adjustment model in which the relative forecasting error associated with ratings and commentary depends on the extent to which consumer and reviewer have similar product-level preferences. To test our model, we present four experiments using a range of hedonic stimuli. Implications for the provision of consumer WOM are discussed.

Analyzing The Determinants Of Group Identity Among Alevis In Turkey: A National Survey Study, Cigdem Sirin

Selected Works Temporary Series

This study systematically explores the factors that affect collective identity associations within the Alevi community in Turkey by employing the social identity approach and examining survey data collected through fieldwork. The results show that Kurdish Alevis express lower levels of attachment to their religious identity as compared to Turkish Alevis. The results also indicate that personal experiences of discrimination tend to increase one's prioritization of Alevi identity. Last, no significant differences are observed regarding group identity between Alevis who reside in urban areas and those who live in rural areas.

Emotion, Community Development, And The Physical Environment: An Experimental Investigation Of Measurements, George E. Boone

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

A wide range of research fields have studied how emotions and behavior are affected by the physical environment. This gestalt theorist approach of experimental research as well seeks to measure emotion (using the valence-arousal scale) and micro-scale community development interactions when weighted physical environment factors are adjusted. Community development (CD) interactions at the micro-scale have received but slight attention from scholars in the CD research field and this study aims partially to investigate developing objective measures from social observations. CD interactions from recordings along with self-reported emotion through surveys in four quasi-experimental groups (where the environments were constructed based on …

Motivation In Athletes With And Without Autism Spectrum Disorder: Sq, Eq And Aq Relationships To Preferred Feedback, Julia C. Harreschou

Scripps Senior Theses

All athletes are driven by motivation, sources or reasons to push their bodies to their limits and continue to do so regularly. There have been several studies concerning motivation in typical athletes, and many regarding social motivation in people with High Functioning Autism (HFA), however most have been limited to children, and there have been no investigations into HFA athletes’ motivation. The current study looks into the role of social dimensions in athletics, and tests how one’s gender and placement on the Empathy Questionnaire (EQ), Systemizing Questionnaire (SQ), and on the Autism Questionnaire (AQ) affect intrinsic motivation in athletics. It …

From College Student To Change Agent: A Triadic Model Of Self-Efficacy, Attribution, And Appraisal, Joshua M. Garrin

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

Beyond their newfound emancipation and opportunities for self-discovery, college students in the young adult stage of development are expected to achieve balance between their autonomous new world and the impending pressures of postgraduation life. The college student must not only reconcile issues related to identity formation, goal pursuits, and career exploration, but is expected to begin the process of identifying and developing the skills required to address salient social themes. How students establish competency beliefs, negotiate controllability over future outcomes, and appraise challenges have deep implications in their capacity to discover their social change “voice.” The following discussion proposes a …

Do Military Personnel Feel Excluded And Ignored In Post-Secondary Education, Clark Ryan-Gonzalez

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study was conducted to investigate whether returning veterans feel ostracized (excluded and ignored) and if they experience its immediate negative impact (reflexive pain response and thwarted basic needs) on university campuses. Additionally, this study was designed to investigate veteran students’ feelings of perceived burdensomeness, and three caveats of student engagement: student faculty engagement, community-based activities, and transformational learning opportunities. Participants in the study were 118 civilian and veteran students at the University of North Florida. All data were collected through a world wide web surveying program that allowed each participant to respond on computers from any location. Both …

Processing Angry And Happy Faces: The Effect Of Perceptual Load And Familiarity, Peter D. Petronio

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science & Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Peter D. Petronio in July of 2012.

Color In Context: Psychological Context Moderates The Influence Of Red On Approach- And Avoidance-Motivated Behavior, Brian P. Meier, Paul R. D'Agostino, Andrew J. Elliott, Markus A. Meier, Benjamin M. Wilkowski

Psychology Faculty Publications

A basic premise of the recently proffered color-in-context model is that the influence of color on psychological functioning varies as a function of the psychological context in which color is perceived. Some research has examined the appetitive and aversive implications of viewing the color red in romance- and achievement-relevant contexts, respectively, but in all existing empirical work approach and avoidance behavior has been studied in separate tasks and separate experiments. Research is needed to directly test whether red influences the same behavior differently depending entirely on psychological context.

The present experiment was designed to put this premise to direct test …

Navigating The Diverse Dimensions Of Stereotypes, With Domain Specific Deficits: Processes Of Trait Judgments About Individuals With Disabilities, Christina G. Boardman

Scripps Senior Theses

Stereotype groups are interrelated. For example, in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, racial minorities are referred to special education at a much higher rate than are majority racial groups (Tse, Lloyd, Petchkovsky, and Manaia, 2005; Harry, Arnaiz, Klingner, Sturges, 2008). The Stereotype Content Model describes stereotype relationships in terms of an interaction between competence and warmth. Warmth is the more consistent dimension. The nature of competence remains elusive (Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick, 2007; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, and Xu, 2002). Knowledge of relationships between stereotype groups, which themselves may be effects of bias, could factor into observed competence effects. …

Designing An "Information-Experience" Using Creativity Science Theory And Tools, Stephanie Belhomme

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

An “information-experience” encapsulated by a technological/digital audio-visual tool presents data and potentially meaningful information to prompt actionable knowledge concerning: “unspoken creative process elements;” their profound impacts on both how well our “physiology of creativity” functions; but also on how well foundational creative thinking and behavioral prerequisites (energy, motivation, imagination, and ownership) are leveraged.

The product: 1) introduces the user to one component of the CPS (Creative Problem Solving) Facilitation Process - Exploring the Challenge; 2) features a content specific component which prompts exploration of the many correlations between societal, organizational / community, human physiological / behavioral data, and the direct …