Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons^™

Affect Regulation In The Context Of Sexual And Gender Minority Stress: A Scoping Review Protocol, Daphne Y. Liu, Benjamin A. Swerdlow, Shao Yuan Chong, Nadia Kako, Alex Rubin, Nicholas S. Perry

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Objective

To provide a broad, comprehensive picture of affect regulation in the context of sexual and gender minority stress, this scoping review aims to identify and synthesize methods, methodologies, and available evidence pertinent to emotion regulation and coping in the context of minority stress among sexual and gender minority (SGM) people.

Introduction

SGM people face disproportionately high rates of mental health problems due to experiences of minority stress and lack of social safety. Theories and growing evidence suggest that affect regulation plays a critical role in SGM people’s well-being in the face of minority stress. Researchers have largely studied emotion …

Fixation Duration As Effective Biomarker For Cognitive Function: A Developing Systematic Review, Nicholas Kurtz

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Eye-tracking technology has transformed psychological research by providing a non-invasive, real-time window into attention, perception, and cognitive processing (Ahlstrom & Friedman-Berg, 2006). Fixation duration—defined as the length of time the gaze remains stable between saccades—has been continually utilized as a key biomarker of cognitive function, providing measurable insights into variant populations and their stage of cognitive development (Negi & Mitra, 2020). This ongoing systematic review synthesizes research examining fixation duration in relation to constructs such as attentional control, working memory, processing efficiency, and effortful or inhibitory control. The current review aims to answer whether longer fixation durations equate to better …

Physiological Response To Concealed Information In A Mock-Crime Paradigm​, Ezra Koenigsberg, Tamya Mchenry, Jasmine Manzana, Taylor Powell, Samantha Jackson

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

The Concealed Information Test (CIT), based on Lykken’s guilty knowledge framework, measures physiological responses when individuals recognize crime-related details compared to neutral alternatives. Previous studies show that variations in stimulus presentation enhance the CIT’s accuracy, especially through changes in electrodermal activity and heart rate. However, few studies have tested whether a Qualtrics-based mock-crime version of the CIT can replicate these physiological patterns. This study addresses that gap by adapting the CIT for a digital research environment. The goal is to determine whether participants show greater physiological arousal—measured through skin conductance, heart rate, and respiration—when exposed to crime-related “critical” stimuli compared …

Emotional Eating Behaviors And Parental Feeding Practices In Three-Year-Old Children And Their Association With Body Composition One Year Later, Keely Wright, Kenia Rivera, Elysia Poggi Davis

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Emotional eating – eating in response to negative emotions regardless of hunger – is an obesogenic trait that often develops in childhood and remains a habit through adulthood. Greater emotional eating is associated with a higher body mass index (BMI; kg/m2) in 7-12-year-old children (Webber et al., 2009). However, few studies have examined the relations between emotional eating and weight gain in preschool-aged children. Moreover, there is limited research on parental feeding practices and weight gain in preschool-aged children. The current work investigated the association of emotional eating behaviors during an emotional eating task in three-year-old children with change in …

Impact Of Acute Stress On Circadian Rhythm Regulation Of Locomotor Activity In Syrian Hamsters, Raquel A. Villarreal, Laura E. Garcia, Mario Gil

Research Symposium

Background: Disruptions of circadian rhythms, caused by factors such as environmental changes or stress, are linked to health conditions, including metabolic disorders, cardiovascular diseases, and mood disorders. Circadian rhythm disturbances are particularly relevant for understanding the etiology of conditions like insomnia, depression, and anxiety. The circadian rhythm, primarily regulated by the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) in the hypothalamus, coordinates biological processes to align with daily environmental cycles. Acute stress, especially when experienced immediately upon waking, has been shown to disrupt these rhythms, impair sleep regulation, and exacerbate mood dysregulation. Given the significant clinical implications, understanding how stress impacts circadian rhythms is …

Active Musical Engagement Versus Passive Music Listening: Effects On Emotional Modulation, Claudia Allocca

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study explored how different forms of musical engagement, actively playing versus

passively listening, impact emotional regulation following exposure to a stressor. The goal was

to better understand whether active participation in music offers greater emotional benefits

compared to simply listening, as previous research often highlights music’s role in emotional

modulation but overlooks the influence of performance-based engagement. A total of 28

participants either played music or listened to music and then completed both pre- and post-

stressor measures assessing mood, mental task load, and heart rate. Contrary to the original

hypothesis, findings revealed that participants from the listening group …

Examining The Effects Of Post-Traumatic Self-Blame And Shame On Response To Laboratory-Induced Pain, Adi Rosenthal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Extant research has made clear the link between self-criticism and engagement in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). As posited by the Defective Self Model of NSSI, individuals who experience feelings of self-hatred may perceive pain as deserved and engage in NSSI (Burke et al., 2021). Individuals exposed to interpersonal trauma are at higher risk of engaging in NSSI, and also frequently experience trauma-related self criticism, namely shame and self-blame. More work is needed; however, to understand how self-critical post-traumatic cognitions contribute to risk for NSSI engagement for interpersonal trauma survivors. The current study uses a combination of lab-induced pain and self-report measures …

The Power Of Words: Unpacking Language's Role In Educational Inequities, Zara Yokohama, Liz Beccari, Malcolm Jasmin

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

The language used to describe racial disparities in education may inadvertently influence how we address them. Framing such disparities as “achievement gap” rather than as “inequality in educational outcomes” assumes a deficit thinking mindset, shifting focus from the structural injustices contributing to education disparities to individuals, resulting in decreased prioritization of racial equity (Quinn & Desruisseaux, 2022). We aim to replicate this prioritization effect, specify the language driving the effect, and examine the impact of frames on perceptions of how to achieve racial equity. Participants were randomly assigned to conditions framing racial equity concerns as: a racial achievement gap, racial …

Multiple Timescales Of Temporal Context In Risky Choice: Behavioral Identification And Relationships To Physiological Arousal, Hayley R. Brooks, Peter Sokol-Hessner

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Context-dependence is fundamental to risky monetary decision-making. A growing body of evidence suggests that temporal context, or recent events, alters risk-taking at a minimum of three timescales: immediate (e.g. trial-by-trial), neighborhood (e.g. a group of consecutive trials), and global (e.g. task-level). To examine context effects, we created a novel monetary choice set with intentional temporal structure in which option values shifted between multiple levels of value magnitude ("contexts") several times over the course of the task. This structure allowed us to examine whether effects of each timescale were simultaneously present in risky choice behavior and the potential mechanistic role of …

The Effects Of Positive Anticipation On Optimistic Cognitive Bias And Emotional Resilience In Rats, Megan Hooper

Honors Theses

The anticipation of positive events and optimism have been shown to improve health and emotional states in rats and humans. The current study is interested in the impact of positive anticipation on optimistic cognitive bias and emotional resilience, as well as neural markers of resilience. Male (n = 12) and female (n = 12) rats were assigned to either unpredictable positive expectancy response (UPER) training or the control (CON) group (n = 6 per group). Optimism was assessed using an ambiguous cue test (ACT) in which the rats were trained to associate a specific visual pattern with a high-value (Froot …

Gender And Deception: Moral Perceptions And Legal Responses, Gregory Klass, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Decades of social science research has shown that the identity of the parties in a legal action can affect case outcomes. Parties’ race, gender, class, and age all affect decisions of prosecutors, judges, juries, and other actors in a criminal prosecution or civil litigation. Less studied has been how identity might affect other forms of legal regulation. This Essay begins to explore perceptions of deceptive behavior—i.e., how wrongful it is, and the extent to which it should be regulated or punished—and the relationship of those perceptions to the gender of the actors. We hypothesize that ordinary people tend to perceive …

Let It Go: Cognitive Strategy Use Selectively Changes Temporal Context Effects In Risky Monetary Decision-Making, Hayley R. Brooks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Some of the most influential modern theories of risky monetary decision-making assume that choices result from stable, trait-like preferences, invariant to contextual influences such as recent events. Recent research has challenged this assumption, demonstrating that decisions under risk, even when values and their probabilities are explicit and known, are contextually sensitive, affected by recent events on multiple timescales, including immediate (previous monetary outcomes), neighborhood (recently encountered values), and global (cumulative earnings relative to dynamic expectations) events. Such temporal context-dependencies are perplexing, because relying on recent events at any timescale is inconsistent with the assumed goal of risky monetary decision-making: to …

Mental Health Stigma And Law Enforcement Officers, Moses Park

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological research was to describe the perception of law enforcement officers (LEOs) about the stigmatizing behavior they experienced from fellow officers in their organization, after they sought mental health services, following a traumatic event they were involved in.

Methodology: The methodology for this research study will be qualitative from a phenomenological perspective. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 12 active and retired LEOs who served in southern California.

Findings: After the analysis, seven major findings were yielded. The major findings of the study are: (a) Within the law enforcement …

Individual Differences In Processing Of Garden-Path Sentences: The Role Of Obsessive- Compulsive Personality Traits, Antonio Cardoso

Honors Theses

A great deal of previous research has investigated the real-time processing and offline interpretation of garden path (GP) sentences. This work has shown that GP sentences cause substantial processing disruptions, as revealed by regressive eye movements during reading, as well as incorrect answers to comprehension questions. The current study was designed to investigate whether variability in the processing of GP sentences could be explained by individual differences in personality traits, specifically obsessive-compulsive personality traits. In an eyetracking while reading experiment, participants read GP sentences with both a comma manipulation and a verb type manipulation. Results replicated previous findings in that …

The Relationship Between Social Media Use And Depression And Anxiety Symptoms During Covid-19, Tene'sha L. Crews, Christina Sheerin

Undergraduate Research Posters

The rise of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a global surge in exposure to disaster and crisis-related media. Increases in poor mental health outcomes such as anxiety and depression, are associated with increased exposure to such media content (Abbas et al., 2021; Riehm et al., 2020; Zhao & Zhou, 2020). In recent years, social media has become one of the most widely used sources for news; approximately 48% of adult Americans receive their news from social media (Pew Research Center, 2021). During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in social media use due to social distancing and …

The Effect Of Magnitude And Probability On Plea Bargain Decision-Making, Megan L. Small

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Decision-making is studied in various aspects of life and can be especially vital in the context of the criminal justice system, such as plea bargains. Previous research in this area used a less commonly used task (fill-in-the-blank) in addition to a student sample (Falligant & Pence, 2019). The current study uses probability discounting to study the choice between accepting a plea bargain for a shorter incarceration sentence or risking a trial with a longer sentence on a sample of adults with experience in the criminal justice system. Three sentence durations, or magnitudes, were used (1 year, 5 years, and 25 …

Facts From Fiction: Packaging Misinformation, Angel Ray Houts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research established that readers learn both accurate and inaccurate information from fictional stories. The current study explored factors that might moderate the impact of misinformation. Participants read fictional stories that contain three assertions; the first two were labeled as set-up assertions, and the last were labeled as the critical assertion. First, there was a manipulation of plausibility of information within the stories by presenting either assertions with truthful information, assertions with small lies (plausible misinformation), or assertions with big lies (implausible misinformation). Second, there was manipulation of reliability of the fictional stories by presenting big lies or truthful information …

Effect Of Mood On Humor, Virginia Randall

Senior Honors Theses

Humor is a social tool that has been documented for hundreds of years with a plethora of studies being produced to attempt to piece together a comprehensive definition of the concept. Among these studies, there have been several analyses regarding the psychological, cognitive, psychobiological, and neural effects of humor, and how they are outwardly manifested. Additionally, several social contexts have been considered. In analyses of humor, several theories have been produced, many based off of figurehead concepts within the field of psychology.

Primary interest of this research study was in whether these studies and theories can support whether there is …

Examining How Adverse Childhood Experiences And The Underlying Processes Of Trait And State Impulsivity Influence Suicidal Behavior, Julia K. Duran

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

ABSTRACT

Due to the effects of ACEs and impulsive behavior on mental and physical health, it is important to better understand the relationship between these two as well as how they both may influence choices, such as suicide. Numerous studies have identified impulsive behavior as a risk factor for suicide, however, recent research has identified several underlying independent processes that make up impulsivity. This study uses a broad assessment of trait and state impulsivity to gather a more discrete understanding of the underlying processes that contribute to impulsive behavior. The short version UPPS-P scale was used to measure negative urgency, …

Effects Of Alcohol Intoxication On Hostile Attribution Bias And Relational Aggression In Women, Alita M. Mobley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol intoxication is consistently linked to physical and sexual aggression in men, but not women. The lack of evidence supporting the relationship between alcohol and aggression for women could be due to a failure to measure relational aggression (i.e., harmful social manipulation), the form of aggression more commonly employed by women. Further, alcohol intoxication may interfere with the interpretation of social cues, resulting in greater perceived provocation in ambiguous social interactions and increased aggression. The current study examined the relationship between alcohol intoxication and relational aggression in women and the extent to which interpretation of social cues (i.e., hostile attribution …

America's Newest Boogeyman For Deviant Teen Behavior: Violent Video Games And The First Amendment, Joseph C. Alfe, Grant D. Talabay

Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum

Are violent video games harming America’s youth? Is it possible a series of interconnected circuit boards can influence children (or even adults) to become, themselves, violent? If so, how should our society-- and government-- respond?

To properly answer this last query, violent video games must be viewed through the lens of the First Amendment. Simply put: do games depicting grotesque acts of depravity so profound as to negatively influence the psyche warrant the full constitutional protections ordinarily guaranteed under the mantle of free speech and expression? Are these guarantees without limit? If not, how far may the government go in …

Raped-Related Beliefs And Social Reactions, Tara Pursley

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

Many agree that sexual violence is a pervasive problem, but there is less agreement regarding how to classify and define various experiences of rape. Research has demonstrated that the beliefs one holds about rape are the strongest indicator for how both victims and non-victims of sexual assault perceive and classify unwanted sexual experiences. What is less understood is the way that this perception influences how non-victims respond to a victim’s disclosure of sexual assault. The current study sought to fill this gap. Participants included 119 female college students (M_age = 19.23, SD = 1.98; 81% White). Results revealed that …

The Effects Of Mortality Salience And Autonomy Priming On Worldview Defensiveness, Joseph P. Conti

ETD Archive

Terror Management Theory posits that people are motivated to defend against death awareness by maintaining cultural beliefs and behaviors that transcend mortality— sometimes motivating hostile, even militaristic, defenses of one’s culture. In contrast, self-determination theory suggests that autonomous regulation (self-determination) serves as a platform for personal growth and well-being. However, the present thesis suggests that, in addition to fueling growth, self-determination may also help buffer against the awareness of mortality, thus mitigating the impact of death awareness on hostile cultural worldview defense. To test this hypothesis, American participants were randomly assigned to be reminded of mortality or a control topic, …

Anti-Fat Bias And Attentional Capture, Larissa Catherine Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Explicitly-rated anti-fat attitudes are correlated with weight-based discrimination, which is rampant in society today as many countries grapple with soaring rates of obesity. Early perceptual processes, such as conscious awareness and visual attention, may be biased based on the weight of the perceived or the perceiver, or any number of individual perceiver characteristics regarding weight-biased attitudes and experiences. The three experiments presented used continuous-flash suppression (CFS) to mask body stimuli, thereby hoping to gain insight into attentional capture of unseen images and its relation to anti-fat attitudes. The pattern of findings in the three experiments presented suggest that what makes …

Commitment And Romantic Alternative Monitoring, Lane Laurel Ritchie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines cognitive and behavioral factors involved in the management of potential alternative partners. Two studies are described here, each in a separate paper. The first study investigates perceptions of potential alternative partners as presented in an experimental paradigm (Study 1) and the second study examines links between alternative monitoring and relationship outcomes, measured longitudinally in survey research (Study 2). In the first study, Perceptual Downgrading and Relationship Commitment, I use a well-established paradigm to test a novel series of questions: Do individuals in committed relationships perceive attractive others as less attractive than single people do? This phenomenon …

Mortality Salience And The Effects Of Autonomy On Death Anxiety, Dylan Earlin Horner

ETD Archive

The present research built on prior work suggesting that mortality salience (MS) can undermine psychological well-being and explored the previously-untested hypothesis that autonomy can mitigate that effect. Specifically, the study investigated the effects of primed autonomy on measured death anxiety following a reminder of mortality. Participants (n = 119) were randomly assigned to either an MS or control condition and then, following a delay, were primed with the concept of either autonomy or being controlled. Death anxiety was then measured. Results found that MS increased death anxiety among those in the controlled prime condition, but not among those in the …

Music, Video And Perception: An Investigation Into Shaping Attitudes Toward Fish And Their Natural Habitat, Kayla-Ann Hemmings

All Master's Theses

The current study investigated the influence of music and video on perceptions of fish, willingness to help aquatic conservation efforts, and attitudes about the marine environment. Participants were randomly distributed to one of six groups which varied by presenting information about marine life in a video format or through printed text (i.e., video or pamphlet) and on the background music that played during the presentation of that information (i.e., ominous, uplifting, or no sound). Participants, then, completed several counterbalanced measures, including rating how much six different words (i.e., three positive and three negative) applied to fish, Willingness to Conserve questions …

A Parametric Analysis Of Choice Under Risk, David W. Sottile

Masters Theses

Accurate assessment of risk propensity is important because risky choices underlie a broad range of behavioral problems. The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) is an assessment that measures propensity to engage in risky choice. While this is a useful assessment, the BART changes two variables that affect risky choice simultaneously, probability of an undesirable outcome and stake size, which cannot be separated within the context of the BART. The goal of this study was to evaluate the separate and combined effects of key factors that are likely to risky choice (Magnitude of payoff, probability of an undesirable outcome, and stake …

Binocular Rivalry Of Emotional Expressions, Daniel Stephen Lumian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A central debate in defining emotional space is whether emotions are organized categorically (e.g., fear, happy, disgust) or continuously (i.e., along the independent dimensions of valence and arousal). Emotional facial expressions are one tool often leveraged in trying to define emotional space. Faces are rich sources of social and emotional information. Faces, like emotions, can be organized in either categorical (e.g., happy, sad) or continuous (e.g., open-closed) ways. Therefore, understanding the relatedness of emotional facial expressions to each other may shed light on the underlying structure of emotions. Binocular rivalry (BR) is a tool which can be leveraged to measure …

Applying Psychological Theories Of Personality, Identity, And Intergroup Conflict To Radical Violence: A Case Study Of Extremist Behavior, Sydney Flynn

CMC Senior Theses

This paper aims to address possible psychoanalytical explanations for the heinous acts in which terrorists, particularly ISIS, engage. It focuses on Harold D. Lasswell’s principles of the id, ego, and superego as well as Tajfel and Turner’s social identity theory. Within the framework of these two theories, relevant psychological and social psychological theories are discussed in order to explore a possible connection between the psyche of violent perpetrators and their actions. By exploring these connections, I find that there may be more nuanced psychological explanations for these violent acts, which could lead to new methods of weakening perceived biases, intergroup …