Human Factors Psychology Commons^™

Choosing Death: The Moral Legitimacy Of Voluntary Active Euthanasia, Emma Rougeou

Honors Theses

During the last three decades, the issue of physician assisted suicide has captivated the interest of private citizens and state legislatures. Thinking about the matter of end-of-life concerns, particularly surrounding euthanasian (practices that hasten the deaths of suffering terminally ill people) have shifted. Views of private citizens and state-level legislation reflects a “slow shift to more permissive attitudes” (Cohen et al., 2012). Meanwhile, as recently as March 2026, state legislators in conjunction with the NY State Governor, passed a bill legalizing medical aid in dying for terminally ill patients. This thesis is intended to thoughtfully contribute to meaningful discourse on …

Rationale Behind Subtitle Usage In Non-Deaf Individuals Across Various Platforms, Jenna E. Kasselman

Honors Theses

Subtitles have a long history with the medium of audiovisual communication. Options for viewing media with added text have only increased with technology, and in the age of the internet, more accessible material is available than ever before. While numerous studies have been conducted on the beneficial effects of subtitles for both the deaf and the hearing, little academic publication has been done on the rates of subtitle usage, reasons for usage, and how that usage differs based on what media is being viewed. The current study examines subtitle usage, frequency of subtitle usage, and reasoning for that usage divided …

Are People More Likely To See Actions As Intentional When They Are Forced To Make Their Decisions Quickly? A Replication And Extension Of Rosset (2008), Andrew Elmore

Honors Theses

Rosset (2008) reported evidence of an intentionality bias, which is a key prediction of a model of human cognition that suggests that people learn to override intentional attributions of behavior, a dual-process model of intention attribution. A model that hypothesizes that when people are deprived of the time to develop deliberate thought processes, their default explanation for actions is intentional, and that this default attribution has to be consciously overridden. Rosset’s main method of testing this was by providing test sentences to participants and placing them into two scenarios where they had different levels of time to process the sentences. …

Influence Of Head Sway On The Availability Of Visual Information In An Affordance Task, Ron Dickson Jr.

Honors Theses

This thesis investigated how varying postural conditions and environmental challenges influence human affordance perception in virtual environments, focusing specifically on participants’ judgments about whether they could stand upright on sloped surfaces. Using virtual reality (VR) to simulate ramps at various inclines, participants assessed their ability to stand on these slopes under different postural constraints (unaided standing, leaning, and touch-supported). Data was collected on head movement dynamics, including movement magnitude, variability, and complexity, using measures such as Euclidean distance and effort-to-compress (ETC). Logistic and linear regression analyses revealed that slope angle and stance significantly impacted participants' affordance judgments and movement patterns, …

The Tripartite Influence Model Of Body Image And Disordered Eating Among Female Athletes: Testing An Expanded Model, Emma Nyrup Tonsberg

Honors Theses

The aim of the study was to investigate how different sources of sociocultural pressure (family, media, peers) described in the Tripartite Influence Model, and additions of teammate- and coach pressures, were associated with thinness-and muscularity internalization and appearance comparisons among athletes. Subsequently, these potential mechanisms were explored as predictors of disordered eating among athletes. Analyses included 71 female athletes. Athletes were recruited through a student subject pool recruitment portal, as well as with local and regional flyers and emails. Participants completed a series of self-report measures in Qualtrics. Hierarchical linear regression analysis was utilized to test the hypotheses. Partial support …

The Big Five And Dark Triad: The Role Of Personality In The Development Of Passion, Hannah Behar

Honors Theses

The present work explored the connection between personality and the Dualistic Model of Passion (DMP) and weather psychological safety moderated this relationship. The first study comprised 109 Introduction to Psychology students at the University of Richmond, and the second study measured 128 MTurk participants. The web-based survey administered to both samples consisted of measures assessing Harmonious Passion (HP), Obsessive Passion (OP), the Big Five traits, the Dark Triad traits, and Psychological Safety (PS). Due to reliability concerns, only OP and the Dark Triad traits could be used to assess the MTurk sample. Results from regression analysis showed that among MTurk …

Perceiving The Poster: How Suspicion Of Motives May Impact Perceptions Of Potential Allies Engaging In Online Activism, Kathrina Z. Durante

Honors Theses

Social media posts signaling support for various social and racial justice movements have emerged as an important aspect of social media use. However, little research has investigated how these posts and the social media users behind them are perceived by members of disadvantaged groups﹘those the messages are presumably intended to “help.” Though the post’s content and poster’s identity are likely important, the primary aim of this study is to investigate an individual difference variable in the perceiver, specifically disadvantaged group members’ Suspicion of Motives Index (SOMI) scores, which measure a general tendency to perceive White individuals’ attempts at non-prejudice to …

Food Related Intrusive Thoughts: A Pilot Study, Hoor Ul Ain

Honors Theses

Food related intrusive thoughts (FRITs), a type of intrusive thoughts, might be associated with greater frequency of food intake, greater anxiety and distress, and negative affect in general. However, little is known about the experience of FRITs in the moment. I hypothesized that (1) momentary food related intrusive thoughts or FRITs would be positively related to momentary negative affect and (2) that time since eating will moderate this relationship such that people with more time since eating will show a stronger positive relationship between FRITs and negative affect. These relationships were not found to be significant; however, there was a …

Why Diversity Is Not Enough: Perceptions Of University Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Initiatives Predict Institutional Belonging, Mckennah Lauber

Honors Theses

Belonging, including feelings of being valued in a larger institutional space, is important to student overall well-being. For students of color attending Primarily White Institutions (PWIs) (and other historically marginalized group members), institutional belonging maybe partially dependent on how they perceive diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. This study aims to assess individual differences in how DEI initiatives are experienced by students at PWIs in order to better understand how experiences of DEI initiatives on campuses may differentially impact students of color compared to White students. Belonging for students of color was found to be contingent on their perceptions of …

Justifying Antipathy?: Examining Racialized Perceptions Of Incarceration And Support For Mental Healthcare In Prisons, Jared Brassil

Honors Theses

The current U.S. criminal justice system has a disproportionate number of people suffering from mental illness. Additionally, many of these prisons not only lack the ability to properly treat these individuals, but in some cases may even worsen the problem. Public support, and importantly whom the public thinks the prototypical prisoner is, is important to know when advocating for reform. This research aims to investigate whether or not racialized perceptions of the U.S. criminal justice system impact support for mental healthcare reform in prisons. Given the exploratory nature of this work, potentially relevant individual difference variables are also investigated. An …

The Influence Of Motivation To Control Prejudice On Facial Processing Flexibility In Individuals Who Identify As Biracial, Chloë Steckart

Honors Theses

Facial processing is one of the most important and immediate aspects of cognition (Jaeger, 2019; Kovács, 2020). Race is an extremely salient facial processing cue that has immediate and long-term impacts on how we interact with others (Oosterhof & Todorov, 2008; Senholzi & Ito, 2013; Blascovich et al., 2017; Kawakami et al., 2022). Race is a powerful in-group in American contexts, and race cues in facial processing play a part in determining in- and out-group members (Tropp & Wright, 2001; Castano et al., 2002).

We investigated how race impacts the facial processing of individuals who identify as Biracial and whether, …

The Emotional Mechanisms Of Altruism Born Of Suffering, Mia Dini

Honors Theses

Introduction: Adverse childhood experiences have been found to be a predictor of both altruism inhibition and increased altruism (Altruism Born of Suffering) (Staub & Vollhardt, 2008). Factors affecting the development of altruism after ACEs are not well understood. The emotional mechanisms of emotion regulation and empathy development have both been independently linked to ACEs and to prosociality (Batson et al. 1991, Schroeder et al., 1988). This study aims to further investigate these emotional mechanisms as mediators and moderators of the Altruism Born of Suffering model. Methods: 418 participants completed a cross-sectional study assessing their Adverse Childhood Experiences, levels of prosociality, …

Stigma And Anxiety As Barriers To Help-Seeking Among University Of Richmond Students, Allison Walters

Honors Theses

There is a growing need for mental health services in the United States due to increased rates of psychopathology. Emerging adults, ages ranging from 18 to 24 years, experience high rates of psychopathology and thus have a strong need for available mental health treatments (Eisenberg et al., 2007). Despite this need and the efficacy of mental health treatment as a whole, there are many barriers to treatment utilization, including stigma. This study examines level of anxiety and stigma as barriers to help-seeking using data collected through the Healthy Minds Survey at the University of Richmond. Moderation analyses revealed that anxiety …

Investigating The Relationship Between Classroom Sense Of Belonging, Friendship Quality, And Peer Victimization., Addi Mansini

Honors Theses

Research examining the predictors of peer victimization, the experience of being aggressed upon by one’s peers, is important because studies have shown that peer victimization can have negative mental health and academic outcomes. This research aimed to examine classroom sense of belonging, the degree to which children feel that they are a valuable part of their class, as a predictor of peer victimization, with the hypothesis that high classroom belonging would be predictive of lower peer victimization among third through fifth grade students (N = 233; 119 female; Mage at recruitment = 9.48, SD = .68). A second objective was …

Do Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion (Dei) Initiatives Cause More Harm Than Good?: Extending Research To The Domain Of Lgbtq+ Discrimination, Lindsay Everhart

Honors Theses

Workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have been shown to delegitimize discrimination claims made by members of low-status groups, namely women and people of color (Dover et al., 2020; Kaiser et al., 2013). Previous research attributes this effect to the fact that DEI initiatives send signals of organizational fairness, thus causing individuals to overestimate the fairness of the organization and overlook discrimination claims. Given the fact that up to 40% of LGBTQ+ employees in one survey reported some form of workplace harassment due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, it is imperative that this line of research is …

Friendship In A Pandemic: Test Of An Experimental Intervention To Boost The Protective Effect Of Friendship Quality, Hyewon Hong

Honors Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the decrease of general wellbeing and increase in loneliness for many people. Friendships hold a well-established link to positive physical and mental health outcomes, particularly through the social support given by close, high-quality friendships and the improvement of friendship quality may be a novel way to counteract recent declines of mental health. The current research seeks to establish the efficacy of a created intervention designed to increase the friendship quality of an emerging adult population (N = 116). The theory behind the creation and implementation of such an intervention is discussed. The efficacy of …