Social Psychology Commons^™

Struggling To Survive: Addressing The Graduation Rate Of Cal Poly's Black Men, Malcolm Saleem Mills

Social Sciences

This research project examines and addresses the 2012 6-year graduation rate of Cal Poly’s Black men. Given President Armstrong’s 2022 vision for Cal Poly to be an: “Enriching, inclusive environment where every student, faculty and staff member is valued”; “Create a rich culture of diversity and inclusivity that supports and celebrates the similarities and differences of every individual on campus”; and “Enhances student success,” there is a startling lack of research addressing this demographic of students. A review of the literature highlights the issue of Black male graduation rates in higher education on a broader scale and examines the impact …

Tasseography From Jung's Perspective, Avetisian, Elizabeth

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

Approaching from Jung’s perspective this paper aims to understand how the unconscious communicates through symbolism that may be the basis for synchronicity arising from mantic procedures. A particular ritual of divination called tasseography will be studied whereby the seer interprets patterns in coffee grounds intuitively and by following a standard system of symbolism to foretell the seeker’s future life events or provide answers to seeker’s pressing life questions. The paper will examine various processes involved in the experience of tasseography and its ritual that enable the reader to predict the seeker’s future or bring light to the present or past …

Sourcing Enchantment: From Elemental Appropriation To Imaginal Symbolics, Schwartz, Michael

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

Critical theorists and social commentators agree that modernity and postmodernity suffer from historical pathologies of world disenchantment. What might be done? Drawing on John Sallis’ phenomenology of the elemental and Tibetan Buddhist teachings on elemental practices, this paper investigates the imagination in its doubling as imaginal in generating a symbolics of the self, world, and other that is always already enchanted; an aesthetics of existence where the world itself shows forth like a work of art replete with exorbitant logics.

Single Or Taken: The Effect Of Relationship Status, Gender, And Interaction With The Opposite Sex On Arousal And Spatial Ability, Kylie Mcgee

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this project is to examine the effect that relationship status, gender, and interaction with the opposite sex has on nervous system arousal and spatial ability. In the first experiment, 20 female participants were selected, 10 being in a committed relationship and 10 being single. Spatial ability and heart rate was measured for each participant before and after mixed-sex dyadic interactions. Results showed that a person’s relationship status does indeed have an effect on nervous system arousal after a mixed-sex dyadic interaction. In experiment two, 25 participants were studied, 13 participants were male and 12 were female. 7 …

Art Majors' Perceptions Of Their Self-Concept, Academic Self-Efficacy, And Social Identity, Sara E. Triplett

Masters Theses

This study utilized a qualitative approach was used to provide insight into students' perspectives on their self-concept, academic self-efficacy, and social identity in relation to their majors at a mid-size Midwestern university. Two undergraduate students majoring in 2D Studio Art and three undergraduate students majoring in Theater Performance were interviewed. Through individual interviews several themes emerged such as: 1) using art to have a meaningful impact on the audience, communicating a message, and clarifying their understanding of the world was important; 2) clear professional support strengthened art majors' self-efficacy; and 3) peer groups play a large part in art majors' …

A Study Of State College Faculty Trust In Immediate Supervisors, Anna Byrd

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative study investigated faculty trust in their immediate supervisors (academic deans and faculty chairs) in a state college setting. A survey instrument created for this study was based on existing research on trust in schools by Bryk and Schneider (2002) and Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (1998), as well as research on trust in corporate setting. The study’s purpose was to determine the types and frequencies of interactions between community college faculty and deans/faculty chairs – i.e., faculty immediate supervisors – that are related to higher levels of faculty trust. Also investigated were the relationships between faculty trust and demographic characteristics …

Bibliography For Interstices 2018: Beyond Human: Emotion And Ai, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker

Library Displays and Bibliographies

An annotated list of materials in the Leatherby Libraries to accompany the Interstices 2018: Beyond Human: Emotion and AI event held at Chapman University in February 2018. The event featured Lisa Joy, co-creator and executive producer of HBO’s Emmy winning hit series Westworld, Jon Gratch, Director for Virtual Human Research at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Institute for Creative Technologies and Caroline Bainbridge, a Professor of Psychoanalysis and Culture in the Department of Media, Culture and Language at the University of Roehampton London. The Leatherby Libraries also hosted two book club discussions of The Positronic …

Well-Being Concepts And Components, William Tov

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Well-being is a broad, multifaceted construct. This chapter reviews different ways of defining and measuring well-being and the implications this has for understanding the correlates and causes of well-being. Hedonic well-being (HWB), eudaimonic well-being (EWB), and other conceptions of well-being are discussed. Specific components and aspects of HWB are elaborated on. These include the distinction between affective and cognitive well-being. Major aspects of affective well-being include valence, frequency versus intensity, arousal, and interpersonal engagement. Major aspects of cognitive well-being include life satisfaction, life evaluation, and domain satisfaction. Processes underlying the structure of cognitive well-being are discussed including top-down versus bottom-up …

Neighborhood Cohesion, Neighborhood Disorder, And Cardiometabolic Risk, Jennifer N. Robinette, Susan T. Charles, Tara Gruenewald

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Perceptions of neighborhood disorder (trash, vandalism) and cohesion (neighbors trust one another) are related to residents’ health. Affective and behavioral factors have been identified, but often in studies using geographically select samples. We use a nationally representative sample (n = 9032) of United States older adults from the Health and Retirement Study to examine cardiometabolic risk in relation to perceptions of neighborhood cohesion and disorder. Lower cohesion is significantly related to greater cardiometabolic risk in 2006/2008 and predicts greater risk four years later (2010/2012). The longitudinal relation is partially accounted for by anxiety and physical activity.

More Than Just Talking: The Role Of Self-Disclosure In The Fast Friends Procedure, Chloe Shearer

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The Fast Friends (FF) procedure was developed to generate feelings of closeness in the laboratory through escalating, mutual self-disclosure by partners (Aron, Melinant, Aron, Vallone, & Bator, 1997). Research indicates that, in addition to generating feelings of closeness, self-disclosure can also benefit mood. This study examined not only the total, but also the relative amount of self-disclosure between dyad partners in the FF vs. control condition. It was found that while participants in FF engaged in more self-disclosure overall, disclosure within FF dyads was not equitable. Contrary to prediction, the FF procedure did not generate more positive feelings than the …

How And When Do Attributions Affect Relationship Satisfaction? Judgments Of Partner Suitability And Implicit Theories Of Relationships, Justus Rui Hao Wee

Dissertations and Theses Collection

Drawing on the traditional internal-external dichotomy embraced by attribution research in other non-relational domains, research on attributions in romantic relationships has largely focused on distinguishing between the impact of making partner (internal) and external attributions. Given that past research on relationship cognitions showed that people think in relationship specific ways (e.g., relational schemas; Baldwin, 1992), I propose the need for the inclusion for attributions that capture relationship-specific causes. With that in mind, the present research explored the incremental value of interpersonal attributions, which refer to the perception that a partner’s behaviors are caused by their love and care (or lack …

Housing Diversity In Children’S Literature, Carla Earhart

Charleston Library Conference

Previous studies have examined diversity in children’s literature: Gender diversity, racial diversity, religious diversity, and diversity in family composition. This project examines an often overlooked diversity issue in children’s literature: Housing diversity. In the stories they read and the accompanying images, children need to see a variety of housing environments and need to see the settings and the people portrayed in a positive manner.

Renting an apartment is an increasingly popular housing option for many families. However, many children’s books glamorize living in a traditional house. Using a rubric designed by the course instructor, students in a university immersive learning …

Selfie-Takers Prefer Left Cheeks: Converging Evidence From The (Extended) Selfiecity Database, Lev Manovich, Vera Ferrari, Nicola Bruno

Publications and Research

According to previous reports, selfie takers in widely different cultural contexts prefer poses showing the left cheek more than the right cheek. This posing bias may be interpreted as evidence for a right-hemispheric specialization for the expression of facial emotions. However, earlier studies analyzed selfie poses as categorized by human raters, which raises methodological issues in relation to the distinction between frontal and three-quarter poses. Here, we provide converging evidence by analyzing the (extended) selfiecity database which includes automatic assessments of head rotation and of emotional expression. We confirm a culture- and sex-independent left-cheek bias and report stronger expression of …

Tackling The Health Gap: The Role Of Psychosocial Processes, Nancy E. Adler, Jacinth J. X. Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In The Health Gap, Michael Marmot describes how, starting even before birth, social conditions set individuals on trajectories that eventuate in inequities in health and longevity. In addition to race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status linked to income and education plays a major role in determining health trajectories. The effects emerge not only at the very bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum, but across the whole range.1 The fact that health effects persist at levels where resources are more than adequate to fulfill material needs suggests that the health gap is not due only to material privation associated with poverty, but also …

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Ethnic Identity Development, Cognitive Complexity, Differentiation Of Self, And Reports Of Racial And Ethnic Microaggressions, Deshae C. Gatti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although individuals may not engage in racism consciously due to social undesirability, they may have biases that manifest in more subtle and unconscious ways. Research has found that people of color experiencing different racial and ethnic microaggressions in their everyday lives are subject to pervasive and negative impacts on their mental health, though little is known about the influence of one’s ethnic identity formation, affective processes, and cognitive processes. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the degree to which ethnic identity development, cognitive complexity, and differentiation of self were associated reported experiences of microaggressions. The analysis indicated that …

Two Questions, The Same Answer: The Role Of Demand In Prostitution And Sex Trafficking, Shamere Mckenzie

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Post-9/11 Media Coverage Of Terrorism, Zachary S. Mitnik

Student Theses

Media coverage of terrorist attacks plays an important role in shaping the public understanding of terrorism. While there have been several studies analyzing coverage of terrorist incidents prior to 9/11, there has been little research examining post-9/11 coverage. This study fills this gap by examining the media’s coverage of terrorism in the United States between the dates of September 12, 2001 and December 31, 2015. The analysis is based on a list of terrorist-related incidents and New York Times articles written on each incident. This study documents the amount of coverage received by these incidents and identifies the variables influencing …

Student Censorship In The Social Work Classrooms, Lisa Kozlowski

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Through the evolution of the field of social work, a divide in its ideologies has emerged and certain political and ideological groups such as the religious and conservatives have become underrepresented. As a result, over the years the liberal philosophies have emerged as the dominant group. This has led to a decrease in diversity within the field. Recognition of biases in the field of social work is difficult. Through a qualitative analysis method, this study was meant to explore if social work students feel they are free to share openly in the classroom, and if they are accepting of all …

Girls Are Us: A Collection Of Oral Histories From The Jmu Community, Anne M. Sherman

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

On a campus where women make up a majority of the student population, it is especially important that female voices are heard and given a platform on which they can control their own narrative. I wanted to give those female-identifying voices that platform. I conducted a series of interviews to examine how college-aged female-identifying students feel about their identity and how they construct that identity within the climate of the JMU community. I was particularly interested in the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexual preference, and ability. I asked each person to share their stories of times when they …

Why Are We Fascinated With Violence? An Investigation Of Mass Media’S Role In Depicting Violence As Entertainment., Kseniya I. Dmitrieva

Senior Honors Projects

A literature review was conducted to determine the most common patterns in violence- related topics portrayed in mass media. Psychological research suggests that violence is a by-product of society: as a learned behavior, violence and aggression are experienced through modeling by adults, peers, and outside sources. With the vast emergence of mass media in the 20th and 21st centuries, mass media channels have been branded “responsible” for the formation of aggressive behaviors in children and young adults. The relationship between publications of violent events in mass media and viewers’ role is far more complicated. Mass media is a common way …

The Experience Of Generalized Anxiety Disorder Through The Lens Of Abraham Lincoln: The Effects Of Mental Health Stigma, Daryl Claude Medina

Senior Theses

Living with generalized anxiety disorder, also known as GAD, in the United States of America is difficult not only for the individual, but also for the people around him or her. Lifestyle changes have to be made, family dynamics need to be adjusted, and last but not least, all relationships must become flexible. In fact, these major life changes are never fixed and must continually adapt to the needs of the individual with generalized anxiety disorder since it is a lifelong medical condition. As with any other mental illness, dealing with generalized anxiety disorder takes great sacrifice in terms of …

Fitspiration: Social Media's Fitness Culture And Its Effect On Body Image, Makenzie Norton

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Social media’s largest platforms, especially Facebook and Instagram, has revolutionized the average American’s accessibility to new subcultures, usurping the societal influence of traditional media forms while retaining many of their marketing methods. The following capstone research discusses how the fitness subculture and fitness-related content on social media affects male and female body image and body ideals. Through a content analysis of current literature, I provide connections between the marketing of fitness in American media and its influence on men and women’s body image. Using social comparison theory, I analyze prior research that explains the causes of body dissatisfaction and explain …

Signs Of Social Class: The Experience Of Economic Inequality In Everyday Life, Michael W. Kraus, Jun Won Park, Jacinth J. X. Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

By some accounts, global economic inequality is at its highest point on record. The pernicious effects of this broad societal trend are striking: Rising inequality is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries, continents, and cultures. The economic and psychological forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and in this theoretical review, we examine the role of daily experiences of economic inequality—the communication of social class signals between interaction partners—in this process. We theorize that social class signals activate social comparison processes that strengthen group boundaries between the haves and have nots in society. In particular, we argue …

What’S In It For Me? The Impact To Social Exchange Dynamics Of Hispanic Males Serving As Mentors In Formal Youth Programs, Annica Meza Dawe

Dissertations

Purpose: The U.S. Hispanic population is on the rise and will continue to be an important thread in the fabric of American society as a whole. However, in the midst of this burgeoning group lies its male subpopulation which faces its own unique challenges. One outlet that has demonstrated success for minorities is mentoring. Mentoring can provide Hispanic males with numerous benefits in a social exchange paradigm. Unfortunately the majority of mentoring research has focused solely on the perspective of the protégé, thus leaving mentor perceptions, particularly those of Hispanic males, unexplored. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study sought …

Preference Organization, Danielle M. Pillet-Shore

Communication

Conversation analytic research on “preference organization” investigates recorded episodes of naturally occurring social interaction to elucidate how people systematically design their actions to either support or undermine social solidarity. This line of work examines public forms of conduct that are highly generalized and institutionalized, not the private desires, subjective feelings or psychological preferences of individuals. This article provides a detailed and accessible overview of classic and contemporary conversation analytic findings about preference, which collectively demonstrate that human interaction is organized to favor actions that promote social affiliation (through face-preservation) at the expense of conflict (resulting from face-threat). While other overviews …

The Fear Factor: Exploring The Impact Of The Vulnerability To Deportation On Immigrants' Lives, Shirley P. Leyro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This qualitative study explores the impact that the fear of deportation has on the lives of noncitizen immigrants. More broadly, it explores the role that immigration enforcement, specifically deportation, plays in disrupting the process of integration, and the possible implications of this interruption for immigrants and their communities. The study aims to answer: (1) how vulnerability to deportation specifically impacts an immigrant’s life, and (2) how the vulnerability to deportation, and the fear associated with it, impacts an immigrant’s degree of integration. Data were gathered through a combination of six open-ended focus group interviews of 10 persons each, and 33 …

Warmth And Competence Traits: Perceptions Of Female And Male Nurse Stereotypes, Randolph E. Gross

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A nursing shortage looms ahead; 1.03 million new nurses will be needed by 2022 to meet society's healthcare needs. A major barrier to recruitment of women and men are nurse stereotypes. The literature suggests four female and four male stereotypes exist; however, no quantitative research exists that explores perceptions of non-nursing undergraduate students. Approximately, 90% of college students do not consider nursing as a career option, and 72% have misconceptions of what nurses do in reality.

According to social cognitive theory's Stereotype Content Model (SCM), perceptions are viewed through a combination of two dimensions: warmth and competence. The author devised …

Prostitution Survivors: Backlash In Australia, Melinda Tankard Reist

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This report is a personal account of prostitution survivors facing harassment from representatives of the sex industry in Australia. At events to promote a new collection of stories by survivors of the industry—Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade—speakers were intimidated and insulted. The survivors describe their experiences and their determination to speak-out against prostitution, even in the face of opposition.

“I Wonder What You Think Of Me”: A Qualitative Approach To Examining Stereotype Awareness In Appalachian Students, Chelsea G. Adams

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Historically, Appalachia has been stereotyped as being a culture bred in poverty and ignorance. Much research has shown that stereotyping reveals a pattern of behavioral change and an impact on psychological well-being for the stereotyped (e.g., Pinel, 1999; Woodcock, Jernandez, Estrada, & Schultz, 2012), and has largely been centered on race and gender (e.g., Byrnes, 2008; Tuckman & Monetti, 2011). Less is known about the development of culture-specific stereotypes such as those related to Appalachians – a highly stigmatized group (Daniels, 2014; Otto, 2002). The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of how adolescents in rural Appalachia …

Legal Responses To Nonconsensual Pornography: Current Policy In The United States And Future Directions For Research, Cynthia J. Najdowski

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Technological advances have created new avenues for the perpetration of sexual violence. The widespread availability of cameras has made it easier to take covert recordings of an individual’s intimate body parts, and whether sexually explicit images are recorded with or without an individual’s consent, growing access to the Internet has facilitated the nonconsensual dissemination of those images. Yet criminal laws have not kept pace with technology in most jurisdictions across the United States, and victims of nonconsensual pornography typically have no avenue by which to seek justice. There have been efforts to reform laws in a variety of jurisdictions, some …