Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons^™

Effects Of Yellow Rectangular Rapid-Flashing Beacons And Novel Lane Markings On Motorists’ Yielding, Speed, And Headway At Multilane Uncontrolled Crosswalks, Jimmy Wayne Shurbutt

Dissertations

Several methods have been examined to increase motorists’ yielding to pedestrians and the distance at which they yield on multilane crosswalks at uncontrolled locations with relatively high average daily traffic (ADT). A series of 5 experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of rectangular rapid-flashing beacons (RRFBs) as effective pedestrian crossing aides. The first experiment found that the RRFBs produced a significant increase in yielding behavior at all 26 sites located in 3 cities in the United States. Data collected over a 2-year follow-up period at 22 of these sites plus 14-month follow-up at an additional 4 sites documented the …

Neurochemical Effects Of Amyloid-Beta Oligomers In Rats, John J. Panos

Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by memory loss and cognitive decline. Although the symptomology of Alzheimer’s disease is well defined, its precise etiology remains elusive. Animal models are invaluable for understanding the pathogenesis of this devastating disease. Knowledge of the neurochemical actions of amyloid-β oligomers in specific brain structures is essential for validating animal models of Alzheimer’s disease and for determining the most appropriate behavioral assays of memory. The specific aim of this project was to investigate the neurochemical effects of direct intracerebral infusion of amyloid-β oligomers in the rat. Experiment 1 investigated direct infusions of synthetic …

Inp 4004 Industrial/Organizational Behavior, Michael D. Coovert

Service-Learning Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Spirituality, Religiosity, And Weight Management In Black Women, Shené L. Bowie

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Background

Obesity is a major concern in the United States and Black Americans are among those with the highest rates of overweight, obesity, and related co- morbidities. While weight loss among Black women has been studied within the context of a faith-based setting, there is little information about the relationship between spirituality, or relationship with the transcendent, and self-efficacy in the achievement and maintenance of a healthy weight.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationships among spirituality, self-efficacy for physical activity and healthy eating, and body composition measures among Black women over the period of participation …

Testing The Efficacy Of A Computerized Behavioral Activation Treatment Of Depressive Disorders, Alyssa H. Kalata

Dissertations

The present study sought to examine the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a computerized behavioral activation treatment for depressive disorders (IMMBA), while also investigating potential mechanisms of action involved in the treatment of depression through the use of behavioral activation. Nine adults who met criteria for either Major Depressive Disorder or Dysthymic Disorder were recruited from Kalamazoo, Portage, and surrounding areas in Southwestern Michigan. All participants received ten sessions of IMM-BA treatment. Symptoms of depression and related information were assessed at pretreatment and one-week, onemonth, three-month, and six-month follow-up through the use of the Beck Depression Inventory - II (BDI-II), …

Effect Of Depression On Attention Via Mood Induction In A Healthy Population, Cheryl Mae Calvano

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

This project continues research into the cognitive attention of persons with a sad mood similar to that experienced by dysthymia. The project utilizes the Dot Probe Task to evaluate attention to affective stimuli presented in the International Affective Picture Set (IAPS). Participants were psychology students recruited from La Sierra University. Participants completed a word task that intended to induce a sad or neutral mood. The Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) was used to evaluate the efficacy of the mood induction. Overall, participant’s negative PANAS scale did not differ between groups. Groups differed between administrations of the PANAS on the …

Assessing Perfectionism And Coping In Athletes, Kirsten Hengstler

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

The Accuracy Of Observers' Estimates Of The Effect Of Glare On Nighttime Vision: Do We Exaggerate The Disabling Effects Of Glare?, Stacy Balk

All Dissertations

Designing headlights involves balancing two conflicting goals: maximizing visibility for the driver and minimizing the disabling effects of glare for other drivers. Complaints of headlight glare have increased recently. This project explored the relationship between subjective (discomfort and expected visual problems) and objective (actual visual problems) consequences of glare. Two experiments - a lab-based psychophysical study and a field study - quantified the accuracy of observers' estimates of the effects of glare on their acuity. In both experiments, participants over-estimated the extent to which glare degraded their ability to see a small high contrast target. Observers' estimates of the disabling …

Self-Construal And Insight Problem Solving, Junaid Salim Merrchant

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Self-construal research has shown that the way people view themselves impacts a variety of cognitive processes. Research has focused on two levels of self-construal: the interdependent self-construal, or when the self is represented in relation to others, and the independent self­ construal, or when the self is represented independently of others. Findings from the self­ construal and cognition research suggest that the interdependent self is associated with diffuse attention, while findings from the self-construal and creativity research indicate that the independent self is associated with divergent thinking important for creativity. The present study examined the effect of self-construal priming in …

Spatial Perception And Robot Operation: The Relationship Between Visual Spatial Ability And Performance Under Direct Line Of Sight And Teleoperation, Joshua Gomer

All Dissertations

This dissertation investigated the relationship between the spatial perception abilities of operators and robot operation under direct-line-of-sight and teleoperation viewing conditions. This study was an effort to determine if spatial ability testing may be a useful tool in the selection of human-robot interaction (HRI) operators. Participants completed eight cognitive ability measures and operated one of four types of robots under tasks of low and high difficulty. Performance for each participant was tested during both direct-line-of-sight and teleoperation. These results provide additional evidence that spatial perception abilities are reliable predictors of direct-line-of-sight and teleoperation performance. Participants in this study with higher …

An Experimental Analysis Of Couple Aggression Using A Response Choice Paradigm, Claudia R. Viggiano

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Research suggests that a majority of the violence reported by couples involves mutual, low-level acts of aggression; however, there is a dearth of research examining this "common couple violence" using a true experimental paradigm. The current study was designed to more closely approximate a naturalistic situation involving common couple violence by allowing participants to choose whether to retaliate in the face of provocation by their partner. Couples were randomly assigned to four conditions representing different patterns of provocation. Based on the assigned condition, participants received varying amounts of bad tasting juice allegedly poured for them by their partners across 5 …

Locus Of Control And The Age Difference In Free Recall From Episodic Memory, Paul Amrhein, Judith K. Bond, Derek Hamilton

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The authors investigated the relation of locus of control (LOC) to age differences in free-recall memory performance. Older and younger participants completed P. C. Duttweiler's (1984) Internal Control Index (ICI) and subsequently performed free-recall memory tasks. Compared with the younger participants, the older participants exhibited poorer recall with more intrusions and uncorrected repetition errors as well as reduced categorical clustering. For the older participants with less internal LOC, recall proportion and item-pair associative recall clustering were lower than for the older participants with more internal LOC. By contrast, the younger participants did not exhibit any LOC effects in their recall …

Psychometric Properties Of The Psychopathic Personality Inventory In A Non-Criminal Population, Julie Madeleine Woltil

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) is a self-report measure which was created to identify the personality traits of psychopathy in noncriminal populations. These personality traits were grouped into eight subscales in the PPI including Machiavellian Egocentricity, Social Potency, Coldheartedness, Carefree Nonplanfulness, Fearlessness, Blame Externalization, Impulsive Nonconformity and Stress Immunity. The hypothesized relationships and factor structure of this study follow the theory of psychopathy as being a disorder rooted in antisocial behaviors (often aggressive and impulsive in nature) and inappropriate emotional reactivity (characterized as a lack in empathy and anxiety). A confirmatory factor analysis was done with an ethnically diverse undergraduate …

Sour Grapes While You're Down And Out: Self-Serving Bias And Applicant Attributions For Test Performance, Kyle Garret Mack

Dissertations and Theses

Recent research has shown that outcome favorability (Ryan & Ployhart, 2000) and perceived performance (Chan, Schmitt, Jennings, Clause, & Delbridge, 1998a) are key determinates of justice judgments, suggesting that self-serving bias is a critical mechanism in the formation of applicant reactions. However, organizational justice theory continues to be the dominant paradigm for understanding applicant reactions. Chan and Schmitt (2004) have suggested a far ranging agenda for research into reactions, which includes considering reactions in a longitudinal framework and considering the natural effect of time on reactions. The current study incorporates these theoretical approaches and addresses these gaps in the research …

Cross-Informant Agreement Among Parents And Children, Staci S. Mullins

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Rating scales are often used by school psychologists to assess for emotional and behavioral disorders in students. While one advantage of rating scales is that data can be collected and assessed from multiple informants, research has shown that agreement between multiple informants is usually low to moderate, with the lowest being between parents and youth. The Conners Comprehensive Behavior Rating Scale (CBRS) is a new multi- dimensional rating scale claiming to have moderate parent/youth agreement. The purpose of this study was to analyze the cross-informant agreement between youth and parents using the Conners CBRS and then compare the correlations from …

Aggression To Gain Social Status: An Examination Of Middle And High School Females, Neely Snead Harvey

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The current study examined which type of aggression middle and high school females used most: indirect or direct aggression. Popularity (social standing) was also examined in order to help determine whether or not a female’s popularity was increased or decreased by which type of aggression, if any, she used the most. It was hypothesized that popular females used indirect aggression more than non-popular peers. Thirty participants were selected from grades seven through twelve at a rural combined middle/high school in Monongalia County, West Virginia. Participants were asked to nominate two popular and two unpopular females. Next, participants completed an aggression …

Gendered Perceptions Of Batterer Intervention Co-Facilitation, Dorothy Lynne Boston

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the experience of co-facilitating male batterer intervention groups as reported by male and female facilitators and to identify how that experience differs along gender lines, given that dual-gender facilitation is an expectation of licensing standards that has not been researched. The following research questions were asked: 1) are there notable differences in how co-facilitation of male batterer intervention groups is experienced by males and females, 2) are females more sensitive to and affected by issues of power and control within the facilitation process than their male peers, and 3) is it more …

Evaluations Of Apologies: The Effects Of Apology Sincerity And Acceptance Motivation, Ida Hatcher

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The present study examined the effects of apology sincerity and acceptance motivation on the facilitation of forgiveness of a transgression. Eighty-five undergraduates (26 males, 59 females) were randomly assigned to an Accepted Apology or a Rejected Apology condition. Participants wrote a detailed description of a situation in which they had experienced a transgression, the transgressor apologized, and they decided to accept or reject the apology. After completing their written descriptions, participants responded to a series of questions about the incident including their relationship with the transgressor, the time elapsed between the transgression and apology, the method of communication used to …

Implications Of Skinner's Verbal Behavior For Studying Dementia, Jeffrey Buchanan, Daniel Houlihan, Peter J.N. Linnerooth

Psychology Department Publications

Persons with dementia experience continual declines in a number of abilities. Language abilities are particularly hard hit and become increasingly impaired as the underlying disease progresses. These language impairments make verbal communication very challenging for family and professional caregivers. As a result, caregivers may inadvertently punish verbal behavior, thereby exacerbating the deterioration of verbal repertoires. Although the topography of language impairments associated with dementia have been well described, less empirical work has been conducted concerning how to minimize these impairments and their deleterious effects. In 1957 B.F. Skinner outlined his conceptualization of language and cognition in his book Verbal Behavior. …

Effects Of Patient Trauma On Hospital Staff Functioning: An Exploratory Study Of Psychological Distress Resulting From Trauma Exposure, Randy Allen Braley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study attempted to determine the relationship between exposure to traumatic experiences of hospitalized children and adolescents and the development of secondary traumatic stress, also known as compassion fatigue, vicarious traumatization, or burnout in clinical staff working with such patients. Hierarchical regression was used to test the hypotheses that: clinical treatment staff will experience higher levels of psychological distress following exposure to patient trauma and previous lifetime trauma events; clinical treatment staff will experience quality of patient relationships associated with the degree of exposure to patient trauma, previous lifetime or work-related trauma history, and level of supervisor support; clinical …

Assessment Of Early Maladaptive Schemas Via A Modified Stroop Task, Yelena Kholodenko

Theses Digitization Project

Processing biases play a major role in the understanding of anxiety disorders. The Schema theory hypothesizes that belief systems, early maladaptive schemas (EMS), cause selective processing of confirmatory information to the exclusion of disconfirmatory information. The current study was the first report attempting to provide empirical support for the measurement of EMS with a subtle cognitive processing assessment such as the Stoop task. A Schema Stroop task was constructed for the purposes of the current study.

Degrees Of Complexity And Flexibility In The Belief System And The Strength Of Identity Attachment To Belief Claims, Craig Allen Bray

Theses Digitization Project

Complexity and flexibility make unique but related contributions to the connection between belief system structure and self structure. This study was concerned with how individuals structure their beliefs. Three scales were combined to provide a measure of belief system complexity and flexibility and then correlated with the card sort results.

An Erp Investigation Of Hand-Based Bias On Visual Attention, John Philip Garza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent behavioral studies have investigated the importance of hand and arm position in visual attentional processes. Reed et al. (2006) found facilitated (faster) detection for targets that appear in the space near the hand, relative to targets appearing on the opposite side of a monitor display. The current study aimed to explore the potential bottom-up and top-down neural sources underlying this hand-bias effect on attention with ERP. Using a standard, non-predictive visual cuing paradigm, we examined early (N1, P1) and later (P3) ERP components in response target presentations in three conditions: with the non-responding hand resting on the table (Resting), …

Feeling Of Knowing And Retrieval Failure: Tip-Of-The-Tongue State Is Not The Only Option, Amanda C. Gingerich

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

We investigated whether individuals are able to differentiate being in a tip-of-the-tongue state from the metacognitive experience of knowing information, but being unable to recall it. Results indicate that being unable to recall known information is separate from, and more common than, experiencing a tip-of-the-tongue state.

A Model Of Flow And Play In Game-Based Learning The Impact Of Game Characteristics, Player Traits, And Player States, Davin Pavlas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, the relationship between flow state, serious games, and learning was examined. Serious games, which are games that convey something other than enjoyment (e.g., learning), are increasingly popular platforms for research, training, and advertisement. The elements that make serious games useful to researchers, trainers, and practitioners are closely linked to those that make up the positive psychology construct of flow state. Flow state describes an optimum experience that is encountered when a variety of factors are met, and is characterized by high focus, engagement, motivation, and immersion. While flow state is often discussed in the serious games literature, …

Observational Learning In Wild And Captive Dolphins, Deirdre Yeater, Stan A. Kuczaj Ii

Psychology Faculty Publications

Many non-human species imitate the behavior of others, and dolphins seem particularly adept at this form of observational learning. Evidence for observational learning in wild dolphins is rare, given the difficulty of observing individual wild animals in sufficient detail to eliminate other possible explanations of purported imitation. Consequently, much of the evidence supporting observational learning in dolphins has involved animals in captive settings. This research suggests that dolphins have an affinity for mimicry, and that they are more successful at observational learning if they choose to imitate another rather than being asked to do so. These results, combined with those …

A Behavioral Observation Study Of Turkish Drivers’ And Children's Safety Belt Use, Bryan E. Porter, Timo Lajunen, Türker Özkan, Kelli England Will

Psychology Faculty Publications

Researchers focused on child restraint use in vehicles travelling along Turkish roadways. Field observations occurred at 1.5 - 2 hour intervals during daylight hours between 1130 and 1930 in January 2009. Overall, 1,423 vehicles with children 8 years old and younger were observed completely. Drivers’ belt use was 52.1%. Children's use rate (over all age categories and restraint systems) was even lower at 29.4%. Unfortunately, 29.4% of these vehicles also had a child riding on another occupant's lap. The findings supported researchers’ concerns that children are at risk for traffic crash injuries and fatalities in Turkey, and that occupant protection …