Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons^™

Differential Effects Of Rational And Emotional Framing On Ingroup And Outgroup Persuasion, Andrew Finnegan

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Ingroup and outgroup research has largely focused on why differing attitudes toward the ingroup and outgroup exist. Additionally, persuasion research has focused on the construction of persuasive messages using primarily central routes to persuasion (rational messages) more than peripheral (emotional messages) even though research does support that emotional argumentation is an effective method of persuasion. The current study sought to combine these ideas by observing the most effective method to persuade ingroup and outgroup members through rational and emotional message framing. Persuasive messages were presented to participants that 1) either favored the participant’s ingroup or outgroup and 2) used either …

Dose-Related Sex Differences In The Establishment Of Conditioned Disgust (Anticipatory Nausea), And The Effect Of Peripubertal And Adult Immune System Stimulation With The Endotoxin Lipopolysaccharide (Lps) On Learning And Memory In The Rat, Caylen J. Cloutier

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examined sex differences in the establishment of lithium chloride (LiCl) – induced conditioned disgust behavior (anticipatory nausea) to a distinct context, as well as, the establishment of conditioned place avoidance (CPA) using rodent models. Also examined were potential sex differences in response to treatment with the bacterial endotoxin, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and its effect on learning and memory. In Chapter 2, male and female naïve Long-Evans rats were injected (intraperitoneally; i.p.) with either 200 µg/kg LPS or 0.9% (NaCl), 90 minutes prior to i.p. injections of either 128 mg/kg LiCl or 0.9% NaCl, and immediately placed into a distinctive …

Habitat Use By Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops Truncatus, In Roanoke Sound, North Carolina, Shauna Marisa Mcbride

Dissertations

Information on the habitat use of a species is important to develop conservation efforts and management strategies for that species. Roanoke Sound, North Carolina is primarily a seasonal habitat for bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, from late spring to early fall, but little information is known about how dolphins use this area. Transect survey data and opportunistic survey data collected by the Outer Banks Center for Dolphin Research from 2009 to 2015 were used to analyze dolphin habitat use. The objectives of this project were to: 1) identify areas that were important to dolphins, 2) determine which behaviors were observed …

Correspondence Between Haptic And Visual Perception Of Stand-On-Ability: Do Hills Look As Steep As They Feel?, Jonathan Kenealy Doyon

Master's Theses

Vision and haptics play a central role in perceiving environmental layout to guide action. Hajnal, Wagman, Doyon, and Clark (2016) demonstrated that visual perception of stand-on-ability is accurate compared to action capabilities, whereas haptic perception of stand-on-ability reliably underestimates action capabilities. This finding contradicts Gibson’s (1979) theory of equivalence in perceptual systems, which suggests that perception should be equivalent regardless of modality. Previous comparisons of visual and haptic perception tested the modalities in isolation. The current experiment directly compares visual to haptic perception of stand-on-ability by using one perceptual system to estimate the other. Observers viewed a surface set to …

Effects Of Social Status On Responses To Social Defeat Stress In Female Syrian Hamsters, Ashley V. Campbell, Matthew A. Cooper

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Behavioral Reactions To Emotional And Physical Infidelity: An Evolutionary Perspective, Mandy Walsh Walsh

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis examined the effects of sex and type of partner infidelity, including both physical (i.e., sexually involved with another person) and emotional (i.e., emotionally involved with another person) infidelity, on mate abandonment behaviors. Previous research has demonstrated sex differences in emotional responses to infidelity, where men react more negatively to physical infidelity and women react more negatively to emotional infidelity. While various studies have investigated perceived behavioral reactions using imagined scenarios, this study expands current research by utilizing actual retrospective reports. It was hypothesized that males would engage in significantly more mate abandonment behaviors after experiencing a physical infidelity, …

Prejudice Toward Atheists In The United States As Related To Perceived Prevalence, Wanda D. Brooks

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

By manipulating mortality salience (MS) in place of life-threatening events to stimulate death-related thoughts, the current research contributes to the body of research supporting Terror Management Theory. It was hypothesized that religious participants should exhibit cultural worldview defense by scoring higher in anti-atheist prejudice following the MS manipulation than would those in the control condition. Further, this research extends the current research into Terror Management Theory as a cause for conflict among out-groups and explores its effects on cultural worldviews in the area of prejudice toward atheists. This includes examining how the perception of an increasing prevalence of atheists contributes …

Series Of Intermittent Heroin Injections Enhances Acquisition Of Operant Responding For Cues Paired With Natural Rewards, Jennifer Morrison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Repeated-intermittent heroin use has been implicated in altering learning processes. Ranaldi et al. (2009) and Morrison et al. (2011) demonstrated that repeated-intermittent heroin administration leads to an enhancement of conditioned reinforcement by a food-paired light stimulus; however, the mechanism governing this effect is still largely unknown. The aims of the present study were to examine modifications in Pavlovian and operant associations for cues paired with natural rewards after a series of intermittent heroin injections. The study consisted of three phases: (1) Pavlovian Conditioning Phase (4 days)- in which three groups of rats had a light stimulus paired with food, and …

Observational Assessment Of Empathy In Parent-Child Verbal Exchanges And Their Influence On Child Behavior, Patty Carambot

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Empathy, the ability to both experientially share in and understand others’ thoughts, behaviors, and feelings, is vital for human adaptation. Deficits in empathy development have implications across the lifespan for the development of prosocial behavior, social functioning, mental health disorders, and risk for antisocial behavior (e.g., Guajardo, Snyder, & Petersen, 2009; Moreno, Klute & Robinson, 2008). In light of these societal and individual burdens, it is imperative to foster and strengthen the development of this ability early in life to prevent or ameliorate such negative outcomes. This type of prevention can take a variety of forms, but parent and child …

Physiological Regulation, Psychosocial Adversity, And Proactive Versus Reactive Aggression: A Longitudinal Study, Wei Zhang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Two types of aggression in children and adolescents have been identified: reactive aggression (RA) and proactive aggression (PA). Despite the accumulating evidence suggesting differential temperamental, behavioral, cognitive, social-environmental, and neurobiological correlates in relation to the two types of aggression, no study has examined emotion regulation in children with RA vs. PA using psychophysiological approaches. In this study a sample of eight to 10 years old children participated in an emotion regulation task in which they were required to either induce or inhibit their emotions. They also reported their aggressive behavior using the Reactive-Proactive Aggression questionnaire (RPQ; Raine et al., 2006). …

Assessing The Impact Of Emotion In Dual Pathway Models Of Sensory Processing., James H. Kryklywy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In our daily environment, we are constantly encountering an endless stream of information which we must be able to sort and prioritize. Some of the features that influence this are the emotional nature of stimuli and the emotional context of events. Emotional information is often given preferential access to neurocognitive resources, including within sensory processing systems. Interestingly, both auditory and visual systems are divided into dual processing streams; a ventral object identity/perception stream and a dorsal object location/action stream. While effects of emotion on the ventral streams are relatively well defined, its effect on dorsal stream processes remains unclear.

The …

Social Factors Modulate Toxin (Licl)-Induced Conditioned Disgust Responses In Male Rats, Nathalie Boulet

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Rats, which are a non-emetic species, display conditioned disgust responses when re-exposed to a context previously associated with sickness. These conditioned disgust responses can be used to model anticipatory nausea in humans, a growing problem faced by numerous chemotherapy patients. This thesis found that social factors, in addition to contextual factors, can play a role in the expression of toxin (LiCl)-induced conditioned disgust in rats. The results show that a familiar, but not unfamiliar, social partner can serve as a cue for the display of conditioned gaping. Further, a variety of sensory cues may play a role in the development …

Spice: A Software Tool For Studying End-User’S Insecure Cyber Behavior And Personality-Traits, Anjila Tamrakar

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Insecure cyber behavior of end users may expose their computers to cyber-attack. A first step to improve their cyber behavior is to identify their tendency toward insecure cyber behavior. Unfortunately, not much work has been done in this area. In particular, the relationship between end users cyber behavior and their personality traits is much less explored. This paper presents a comprehensive review of a newly developed, easily configurable, and flexible software SPICE for psychologist and cognitive scientists to study personality traits and insecure cyber behavior of end users. The software utilizes well-established cognitive methods (such as dot-probe) to identify number …

The Tootling Intervention With Classdojo: Effects On Classwide Disruptive Behavior And Academically Engaged Behavior In An Upper Elementary School Setting, Melissa Mchugh Dillon

Dissertations

The current study was designed to replicate and extend the literature on the effectiveness of a classroom intervention known as Tootling (Skinner, Skinner, & Cashwell, 1998) to include an interactive technological component, ClassDojo, to decrease disruptive classroom behavior as well as increase academically engaged behavior. Tootling is a peer-monitoring intervention that encourages students to report instances of appropriate behaviors they have seen their peers perform. Thus far, studies utilizing direct observation data to measure disruptive behavior during Tootling (Cihak, Kirk, & Boon, 2009; Lambert, 2014, Lambert el al., 2015, Lum et al., 2015; McHugh et al., 2014) have shown reductions …

The Effect Of Auditory Stimulation On Sleep Disruption In West Indian Manatee (Trichechus Manatus Latirostris), Natalija Lace

Dissertations

Florida manatees inhabit waterways where motorized boats are common. Although manatee mortalities resulting from boat strikes are well documented, the effect of boat noise on some manatee behaviors, including rest, has not been investigated. This study focuses on rest behavior and used a playback experiment with four manatees at the Lowry Park Zoo in Florida. We tested their responses to playback stimuli of either boat noise, silence, or manatee calls. A playback trial was initiated when the focal animal showed behavioral characteristics of rest.

Results showed that rest was interrupted in response to the playback of boat noise for each …

Perceived Emotional Invalidation In A Developmental Context: Does Gender Matter?, Brian B. Johnson

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Emotional invalidation is the dismissal, minimization, or punishment of an individual’s emotional experience (Linehan, 1993). Although it has been sparsely studied, the research that has been conducted indicates that it is likely implicated in a multitude of psychopathology and adjustment issues. The current study had three main objectives. The first of these was to investigate the current perceptions of emotional invalidation in a peer interaction for emerging adults and how that is predicted by gender, perceptions of childhood emotional invalidation via caregivers, and gender of the caregivers. The second objective of this study was to investigate the propagation of emotionally …

Exploring Animacy As A Mnemonic Dimension, Joshua Edward Vanarsdall

Open Access Dissertations

There is a great deal of evidence across cognitive science that animacy, or more generally, the features that make up what it means to be a living thing, is a foundational dimension of human cognition. In perception, animates both capture attention (Pratt, Radulescu, Guo, & Abrams, 2010) and are relatively immune to change blindness (New, Cosmides, & Tooby, 2007). Developmental work places the animate-inanimate distinction as one of the first categories children learn (Opfer & Gelman, 2011). Work in neuroscience points toward a fundamental role for animacy in semantic memory (Caramazza & Mahon, 2003), and linguists have identified animacy as …

The On-Screen Water Cooler: Effects Of Televised User-Generated Comments On Cognitive Processing, Social Presence, And Viewing Experience., Jaclyn Ann Cameron

Doctoral Dissertations

Social television combines traditional television viewing and interactions with social media to create a phenomenon that connects otherwise autonomous viewers through a shared viewing experience. This dissertation explores one type of social television: on-screen user-generated comments. Although the practice spans multiple television genres, little is known about its effect on viewers’ cognitive processing of the media, perceptions of the social presence of other viewers, or the viewers’ experience of the media. Two experimental studies explored the effects of on-screen user-generated comments on cognitive processing of the media message, the effect of manipulating the content of on-screen user-generated comments and individual …

Discriminative Stimulus Effects Of 3,4-Methylenedioxypyrovalerone And 4-Methylmethcathinone, Michael D. Berquist

Dissertations

Recent escalation in the popularity of recreational synthetic cathinone (“bath salts”) use has prompted numerous scientific investigations of the neurochemical and behavioral effects of 3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) and 4-methylmethcathinone (4-MMC), two of the more common chemical constituents of these illicit “bath salts”. Previous neurochemical and electrophysiological studies have revealed that MDPV functions as a blocker, and 4-MMC as a substrate, at monoamine transporters, and both produce transient increases in extracellular monoamines. In addition, previous research has demonstrated that MDPV and 4-MMC support self-administration in nonhuman experimental subjects, and their rewarding effects are observed when paired with contextual cues in nonhuman models …

An Assessment Of Number Representation In The Small-Eared Bushbaby (Otolemur Garnettii), Tiffany Aycia Woodard Baker

Master's Theses

In an effort to explain the underlying mechanisms of number representation, both the object-file and the approximate number system have been proposed. Despite the recognition in animals, both nonhuman and human, it remains unclear how numbers are represented cognitively or what system is employed. Furthermore, primate numerosity research has been almost exclusively conducted within haplorhine species (monkeys and apes). Within the strepsirhines (lemurs, lorises, and galagos), it has only been investigated in 15 diurnal and cathermal Malagasy primate species. No study to date has looked at this ability in either African strepsirhines or nocturnal primates. To examine the extent of …

Establishing A Link Between Personality And Social Rank In A Group Of Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus), Erin Elizabeth Frick

Master's Theses

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) have been documented to possess personality traits that remain consistent over time (Highfill & Kuczaj, 2007) and across contexts (Kuczaj, Highfill, & Byerly, 2012). Such individual differences are thought to play an important role in various social contexts such as hierarchical dominance (Highfill & Kuczaj, 2010). The present study investigated the relationship between personality and social rank within a captive group of bottlenose dolphins housed at the Roatan Institute for Marine Science (RIMS). Social rank was established using questionnaires distributed to the RIMS experienced staff. Personality traits were derived from behavioral coding using context-specific …

Recognition Training For Faces Across Age Gaps, William Blake Erickson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Face recognition is a problem that has theoretical and applied value. However, the fact of facial aging is rarely addressed in research and unmentioned in the major theories of face recognition. Facial aging also has ramifications for missing persons and fugitive cases, confounding attempts by law enforcement to recover these people whose last known images are years or decades out of date. This dissertation reports three studies aimed at measuring baseline age-gap recognition ability and testing various training regimens designed to increase accuracy rates for this unique kind of recognition task.

Socio-Emotional Development In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Christiana K. Whitley

Honors Theses

The purpose of the present study was to determine which lesson from a social skills program would result in the greatest improvement in duration of social interaction for children with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) between the ages of five and fifteen. The Superheroes Social Skills Program (Jensen et al., 2011) includes lesson plans that focus directly on helping children with ASD develop communication skills in group settings. The data indicate that one specific lesson, Participation and Joining In, was responsible for the largest mean increase in duration of social interactions of participants. Social skills lessons were introduced …

The Influence Of Discrete Emotional States On Preferential Choice, Andrea M. Cataldo

Masters Theses

Past research has shown that emotion affects preferential choice outcomes. The goal of the present study was to further research on emotion and preferential choice by using mathematical modeling to investigate the effects of specific dimensions of emotion on the underlying mechanisms of preferential choice. Specifically, we aimed to determine whether the concurrent effects of positive-negative valence and situational certainty on attention and information accumulation threshold, respectively, would influence the magnitude of the similarity effect, a robust phenomenon in preferential choice. Participants first underwent either an Anger (negative and certain), Fear (negative and uncertain), or no (Control) emotion manipulation. All …

Buffering The Associations Between Negative Mood States And The Incentive Salience Of Alcohol: A Brief Mindfulness Induction, Adrian J. Bravo

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The present study examined drinking to cope (DTC) motives and state mindfulness (via a brief mindfulness induction) as two distinct factors that may enhance (DTC) and reduce (state mindfulness) the association between negative mood states (i.e., sadness and anxiety) and the incentive salience of alcohol (i.e., subjective alcohol craving and attentional bias for alcohol-related cues) among college student drinkers. Participants were 207 undergraduate students from a large, southeastern university in the United States that consumed at least one drink per typical week in the previous month. The majority of participants identified as being either White, non-Hispanic (n = 81; 39.1%), …

Measuring Team Collaboration And Effects Of Target Guidance In A Visual Search Task, Christopher Morley

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Many professional tasks, including military operations and medical operations, involve a team of operators searching for a target on a common visual display. Previous works on collaborative visual search employed analysis of mean response time (RT) and error rates, which may not offer direct measurement of the capacity of a team nor changes in performance across task time. Workload capacity, indexed by the capacity coefficient, C(t), measures performance efficiency for cognitive systems with multiple and concurrent information-processing channels (Townsend & Nozawa, 1995). The current study applied a workload capacity analysis to quantify performance efficiency of pairs of participants in a …

Relationship Investment And Unwanted Pursuit: An Experimental Study, Phoebe Tabb Hitson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

A significant positive correlation exists between relationship investment and the perpetration of unwanted pursuit among previous romantic partners. However, no experimental research has been conducted to enhance researchers’ knowledge of this phenomenon. This study contributed to the literature on unwanted pursuit by making investment an experimentally manipulated variable. Specifically, I employed fictional relationship scenarios with varying levels of investment to assess experimentally the impact of investment on an individual’s willingness to engage in unwanted pursuit after a breakup. It was hypothesized that higher investment would increase participants’ tendency to engage in unwanted pursuit. In addition, participants’ past perpetration of unwanted …

Acculturation And Enculturation, Perception Of Depressive Symptoms, And Help-Seeking Behaviors Among Korean Americans, Kristoffer Park

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The literature suggests that acculturation, enculturation, and the perception of mental health symptoms are some of the factors that explain help-seeking behaviors in Asian Americans. While there has been previous research addressing these concerns for Asian Americans as a unified ethnic group, few studies have examined these factors to explain help-seeking behaviors specifically in Korean Americans. 107 Korean Americans were recruited from Korean American churches in a large metropolitan city in the southeast region. Participants completed an online questionnaire, which included instruments assessing acculturation (AVS-R) and enculturation (EAVS-AA-R) levels as well as their perception of how problematic depressive symptoms were …

Effects Of Visibility And Alarm Modality On Workload, Trust In Automation, Situation Awareness, And Driver Performance, Smruti J. Shah

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Driving demands sustained driver attention. This attentional demand increases with decreasing field visibility. In the past researchers have explored and investigated how collision avoidance warning systems (CAWS) help improve driving performance. The goal of the present study is to determine whether auditory or tactile CAWS have a greater effect on driver performance, perceived workload, system trust, and situation awareness (SA). Sixty-three undergraduate students from Old Dominion University participated in this study. Participants were asked to complete two simulated driving sessions along with Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire, Background Information Questionnaire, Trust Questionnaire, NASA Task Load Index Questionnaire, Situation Awareness Rating Technique …

Associations Between Social Status Insecurity And Relational Aggression In Chinese Adolescents: Moderations Of Social Cognitive Prosesses, Yunyi Long

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Adolescents pay close attention to their social status and actively pursue it through certain social behaviors. Previous studies have revealed that when adolescents feel their social standing is unsafe, namely having social status insecurity, they often use relational aggression to cope with it. However, what roles different social cognition processes play on the association between social status insecurity and relational aggression are unclear in the literature. Additionally, given that the relationship between relational victimization and relational aggression has also been observed in the literature, social status insecurity may also exert an important mediating impact on such an association. Nevertheless, few …