Social Psychology Commons^™

A Review Of Psychosocial Support And The Challenges Faced In Disclosing Hiv Positive Status To Children In Kibera, Katherine Lesyna

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The AIDS pandemic has become an increasingly global problem as well as an everyday reality for most people living in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2009, an estimation of the number of adults and children living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa totaled around 22.4 million.1 The people that have been affected most by the pandemic are women and children.
In Kenya, about 1.5 million people are infected with HIV, about 180,000 of them being children.2 While a lot has been done to reduce HIV infections and treat those who are infected, children have been left behind until recently. There is still much …

The Uneven Distribution Of Social Suffering: Documenting The Social Health Consequences Of Neo-Liberal Social Policy On Marginalized Youth, Michelle Fine, Brett G. Stoudt, Maddy Fox, Maybelline Santos

Publications and Research

In 2009, British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett published "The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Strong", in which they argue that severely unequal societies produce high rates of ‘social pain”: adverse outcomes including school drop out, teen pregnancy, mental health problems, lack of social trust, high mortality rates, violence and crime, low social participation. Their volume challenges the belief that the extent of poverty in a community predicts negative outcomes. They assert instead that the size of the inequality gap defines the material and psychological contours of the chasm between the wealthiest and the most impoverished, enabling …

Who Is James Bond? The Dark Triad As An Agentic Social Style, Peter K. Jonason, Norman P. Li, Emily A. Teicher

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

If the Dark Triad are costly traits for individuals to have and individuals are predisposed to avoid interacting with selfish individuals, how do those who have those traits extract resources from their environment? We contend that a specific set of personality traits will enable individuals to do so. We showed that those who are disagreeable, extraverted, open, and have high self-esteem along with low levels of neuroticism and conscientiousness score high on the Dark Triad (Study 1: N = 216). Additionally, having a more individualistic and competitive approach to others and not a strongly altruistic orientation will also help those …

The Boys' Club: An Exploration Into The Social World Of A Las Vegas Casino Sports Book, Frederick W. Krauss

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This ethnography of the La Mesa Casino Sports Book explores the characteristics that frame the social world its regular patrons create. Specifically, I explain the characteristics of La Mesa’s sports bettors, the types of people who bet on sports, the mechanisms used to sustain participation in the scene, and how the sports bettors view themselves, their social world, and those outside of it. I argue that regular sports book patrons do not use the environment simply for sports betting. Rather, their complex interactional dynamics create a robust social world they come back to again and again to create a meaningful …

African American And Caucasian Males' Evaluation Of Racialized Female Facial Averages, Rhea M. Watson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The answer to what makes a face attractive has been debated for generations and studied in different disciplines. The current study investigated African American and Caucasian males' evaluation (attraction) to racialized female faces. Faces varied from 100% African American to 100% Caucasian (and included variations that were 25% of either group, or 50% of both groups). Twenty African American and 30 Caucasian men each viewed ten faces, and evaluated them in terms of their appearance and the likelihood that the men would interact with (befriend, date, or marry) the person pictured. Findings revealed that African American men found the 100% …

How Masculinity Works To Oppress Men As Defined By Iris Marion Young's Five Faces Of Oppression, Nathan Svare

Honors Capstones

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

The Impact Of Imagined Reactions On Feelings About Disclosing Stigmatized Vs. Non-Stigmatized Beliefs, David Briley

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Past research has shown that people tend to conceal some aspects of their status (e.g., HIV positive diagnosis, homosexual orientation) because they fear that they will be stigmatized (Chaudoir, 2009), however little to no research exists regarding the divulgence of beliefs that may be stigmatized (e.g., belief in Bigfoot, ghosts, unconventional religious beliefs). My thesis extends research on concealable stigmatized status to research on stigmatized beliefs, by examining the degree to which people’s feelings about disclosure of stigmatized beliefs are impacted by anticipated responses from other people. I investigated this issue by asking participants to write about either a conventional …

Omg! The Gossip Behind One Program's Effects On Interpersonal Relationship Expectations, Cailin Rocco

Honors Projects in Communication

This research investigates the effects of media on the interpersonal relationship expectations of television viewers. The study sought to better understand the implications of this topic in addition to determining whether one television program can affect the mindset of viewers. Through the use of an online survey, a focus group, a cultivation analysis of the television show Gossip Girl, as well as an analysis of the show’s fan pages this research discovered that television viewing has an impact on viewer expectations of relationships (as well as a general desire for themes within television programs in reality). This research demonstrates the …

Untangling Fear Of Crime: A Multi-Theoretical Approach To Examining The Causes Of Crime-Specific Fear, Mariel Alper

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Fear of crime has been a major research topic over the past several decades. However, multiple explanations have been proposed and no clear theoretical model exists. Building on existing research, this study attempts to build a crime type-specific theoretical model of fear. In particular, the predictive power of three theoretical models is explored. This study addresses several methodological shortcomings by measuring offense type-specific, emotionally-based fear of violent and property crime. The results suggest that the predictors of each type of fear vary, and some theoretical models are a better explanation of one type of fear than the other. Overall, the …

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 …

Racial Conflicts In Schools, Michael J. Martinez

Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology Research Exchange Conference

That racially motivated conflicts occur in schools is an indisputable fact that becomes evident upon review of both academic literature and popular media. Events such as the Jena 6 incident (Maxwell & Zehr, 2007), school wide racially motivated riots (latimes.com), and court rulings (theithican.org) are distressing examples that racial barriers are real and potentially dangerous for many students in this country. However, little is written about the nature of racial conflicts, including the actual process school leaders engage in when determining how or even whether to intervene in racial conflicts, and the affect those racial conflicts have on the school …

The Birds And The Bees: Sex And Personnel Security, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses gender identity and sexual activity as they relate to security personnel in the context of espionage.

The Attractive Female Body Weight And Female Body Dissatisfaction In 26 Countries Across 10 World Regions: Results Of The International Body Project I, Viren Swami, David A. Frederick, Toivo Aavik, Lidia Alcalay, Juri Allik, Donna Anderson, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study reports results from the first International Body Project (IBP-I), which surveyed 7,434 individuals in 10 major world regions about body weight ideals and body dissatisfaction. Participants completed the female Contour Drawing Figure Rating Scale (CDFRS) and self-reported their exposure to Western and local media. Results indicated there were significant cross-regional differences in the ideal female figure and body dissatisfaction, but effect sizes were small across high-socioeconomic-status (SES) sites. Within cultures, heavier bodies were preferred in low-SES sites compared to high-SES sites in Malaysia and South Africa (ds = 1.94-2.49) but not in Austria. Participant age, body mass index …

Campus Safety: Assessing And Managing Threats, Mario Scalora, Andre Simons, Shawn Vanslyke

Mario Scalora Publications

Since the shootings at Virginia Tech, academic institutions and police departments have dedicated substantial resources to alleviating concerns regarding campus safety. The incident in Blacksburg and the similar tragedy at Northern Illinois University have brought renewed attention to the prevention of violence at colleges and universities.

Campus professionals must assess the risk posed by known individuals, as well as by anonymous writers of threatening communications. The authors offer threat assessment and management strategies to address the increased demands faced by campus law enforcement, mental health, and administration officials who assess and manage threats, perhaps several simultaneously.

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 …

Para-Romantic Love And Para-Friendships: Development And Assessment Of A Multiple-Parasocial Relationships Scale, Riva Tukachinsky

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Parasocial-relationships (PSR) are viewers' imaginary relationships with media personae. Despite the growing body of research on PSR, the field is still lacking a clear conceptualization and precise measure of this phenomenon. The present study suggests a novel theorization of PSR as para-friendship and para-love. Study 1 demonstrates construct validity of a new Multiple-PSR scale using the logic of a multi-trait multi-method approach. Study 2 replicates the factorial solution using confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, Study 3 provides evidence for the criterion validity of the scales. Together, these findings suggest that PSR encompass several types of relationships that might mediate different media …

Therapeutic Discourse And The American Public Philosophy: On American Liberalism's Troubled Relationship With Psychology, Clifford D. Vickrey

Honors Theses

I explore the main currents of postwar American liberalism. One, sociological, emerged in response to the danger of mass movements. Articulated primarily by political sociologists and psychologists and ascendant from the mid-fifties till the mid-seventies, it heralded the "end of ideology." It emphasized stability, elitism, positive science and pluralism; it recast normatively sound politics as logrolling and hard bargaining. I argue that these normative features, attractive when considered in isolation, taken together led to a vicious ad hominem style in accounting for views outside the postwar consensus. It used pseudo-scientific literature in labeling populists, Progressives, Taft conservatives, Goldwaterites, the New …

Individualized Intimacy? : The Negotiation Of Self And Other In Heterosexual Relationships, Daniel Santore

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Sociologists working in various scholarly traditions posit an individualization of contemporary romantic relationships occurring in Western societies over the passed several decades. This dissertation uses North American and European theoretical perspectives on "individualized intimacy" as the basis for a qualitative interview study of 45 women and men involved in heterosexual relationships. In keeping with the theoretical perspectives that ground the study, the interviews focus on how concepts of self-development, communication, gender and social class collide with one another in, and serve to shape, respondents' narratives of self and other in intimacy. Findings demonstrate that: (a) regarding gender, women and men …

Understanding Alcohol-Related Sexual Assaults: Characteristics And Consequences, Sarah E. Ullman, Cynthia J. Najdowski

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Sexual assaults commonly involve alcohol use, but little is known about alcohol’s effects on many aspects of assaults and their aftermath. We investigated characteristics of victims, perpetrators, and assaults as a function of whether alcohol was involved in the assault, as well as differences in women’s post-assault experiences. Assaults prior to which only perpetrators were drinking differed not only from non-alcohol-related assaults, but also from those prior to which both perpetrators and victims were drinking. Understanding the effects of alcohol-related assaults is important for identifying victims who should be targeted for mental health and substance use interventions.

Alcohol-Related Help Seeking In Problem Drinking Women Sexual Assault Survivors, Sarah E. Ullman, Cynthia J. Najdowski

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Correlates of alcohol-related help seeking were studied in women sexual assault survivors who were current problem drinkers (N = 526) in a large metropolitan area in 2002-2003. Volunteer participants completed several valid and reliable instruments, which assessed alcohol use and misuse and related help seeking (i.e., the TWEAK, GFM, and MAST). Data were analyzed using logistic regression models. Results suggest that correlates of women survivors’ alcohol-related help seeking vary depending on the specific source. Limitations and implications are noted and recommendations for future research are made. This study was funded by the National Institutes on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

A Phenomenological Inquiry Of Chronic Homeless Individuals' Challenges To Independence, Dewana Hall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Homelessness is a comprehensive social problem affecting approximately 744,000 people in the U.S. Despite consistent efforts from politicians, state and local leaders, and service providers, the number of homeless people continues to rise. Although there are some explanations in the literature to account for the increase of homelessness, the literature tends to not include the voices of the homeless themselves. The purpose of this phenomenological study, which used Maslow's hierarchy of needs as its conceptual framework, was to understand the life experiences of members of the homeless population, as perceived by four male residents of a mission in an eastern …

A Phenomenological Examination Of The Influence Of Culture On Treating And Caring For Hispanic Children With Autism, Lynette Estrada

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and describe the influence culture has on the decisions Hispanic parents make to aid their children with autism. The research problems addressed are the influences culture may have on how professionals and external family members affect the choices parents make. Cultural and family systems theories formed the conceptual framework for the study. Researchers have found that cultural factors may lead to lower rates of diagnosis in Hispanic children with autism and parents' lack of knowledge of therapies and practices used to treat autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Five research questions guided this …

Citizen Professionals: The Effective Practices Of Experts Helping Community Organizations, Sarah Hippensteel Hall

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Although numerous local, state, and federal laws and policies address water pollution, many problems remain. To address these problems thousands of groups of citizens, who are concerned with their water resources - rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and groundwater - organized around the U.S. over the past several decades. To succeed, these community organizations need the resources and capacity to reach their goals. To gain capacity, some community organizations turn to people outside the organization for assistance. Citizen professionals are helpers who work jointly with an organization to help develop an organization's adaptive capacity to deal with challenges and achieve goals. …

Intrasexual Competition And Eating Restriction In Heterosexual And Homosexual Individuals, Norman P. Li, April R. Smith, Vladas Griskevicius, Margaret J. Cason, Angela Bryan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Restrictive eating attitudes and behaviors have been hypothesized to be related to processes of intrasexual competition. According to this perspective, within-sex competition for status serves the adaptive purpose of attracting mates. As such, status competition salience may lead to concerns of mating desirability. For heterosexual women and gay men, such concerns revolve around appearing youthful and, thus, thinner. Following this logic, we examined how exposure to high-status and competitive (but not thin or highly attractive) same-sex individuals would influence body image and eating attitudes in heterosexual and in gay/lesbian individuals. Results indicated that for heterosexuals, intrasexual competition cues led to …

Culture, Psyche, And Body Make Each Other Up, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung, Hans Ijzerman

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The commentaries make important points, including ones about the purposeful uses of embodiment effects. Research examining such effects needs to look at how such effects play themselves out in people's everyday lives. Research might usefully integrate work on embodiment with work on attribution and work in other disciplines concerned with body–psyche connections (e.g., research on somaticizing versus “psychologizing” illnesses and hypercognizing versus hypocognizing emotions). Such work may help us understand the way positive and negative feedback loops operate as culture, psyche, and body make each other up.

The Hard Embodiment Of Culture, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The way humans move and comport their bodies is one way they (literally) carry their culture. In pre-wired embodiments, body comportment triggers basic, evolutionarily prepared affective and cognitive reactions that subsequently prime more complex representations. Culture suffuses this process, because (1) cultural artifacts, affordances, and practices make certain body comportments more likely, (2) cultural practices, rituals, schemas, and rules promote the learning of an otherwise underspecified connection between a given body comportment and a particular basic reaction, and (3) cultural meaning systems elaborate basic affective and cognitive reactions into more complex representations. These points are illustrated with three experiments that …

Exploring Erotic Plasticity As An Individual Difference Variable: Theory And Measurement, Lorraine Benuto

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Baumeister's theory of female erotic plasticity is supported by a significant body of data suggesting that female sexuality is more malleable and more greatly influenced by cultural and contextual factors than male sexuality. Sex differences notwithstanding, it is reasonable to theorize that erotic plasticity might also vary across individuals. Based on a thematic/conceptual organization of relevant current literature, we explored erotic plasticity as optimally encompassed by six dimensions: (1) changes in sexual attitudes over time, (2) changes in sexual behaviors over time and across context, (3) fluidity of sexual behaviors along a same-sex/opposite-sex continuum (evidence of attraction and/or sexual involvement …

Relationship Predictors Of Unwanted Pursuit, Farrahdya Tassy

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The present study investigated relationship variables related to unwanted pursuit post dissolution of a romantic relationship. Online surveys were administered to 277 undergraduate and graduate students from a large southeastern university. Participants completed questionnaires that assessed levels of idealization, satisfaction, perceptions of alternatives to the relationship, investment size, commitment, and unwanted pursuit. These variables are often essential in romantic involvements, and contribute greatly to the continuation of a relationship. Additional measures of attachment, self-esteem, neuroticism, and jealousy were included to control for their potential effect on pursuit. The sample consisted of individuals who engaged in the pursuit of a former …

An Evolutionary Perspective On Humor: Sexual Selection Or Interest Indication?, Norman P. Li, Vladas Griskevicius, Kristina M. Durante, Peter K. Jonason, Derek J. Pasisz, Katherine Aumer

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Are people who are funny more attractive? Or does being attractive lead people to be seen as funnier? The answer may depend on the underlying evolutionary function of humor. While humor has been proposed to signal “good genes”, the authors propose that humor also functions to indicate interest in social relationships—in initiating new relationships and in monitoring existing ones. Consistent with this interest indicator model, across three studies both sexes were more likely to initiate humor and to respond more positively and consider the other person to be funny when initially attracted to that person. The findings support that humor …

Jurors’ Perceptions Of Juvenile Defendants: The Influence Of Intellectual Disability, Abuse History, And Confession Evidence, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Bette L. Bottoms, Maria C. Vargas

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Understanding jurors’ perceptions of juvenile defendants has become increasingly important as more and more juvenile cases are being tried in adult criminal court rather than family or juvenile court. Intellectual disability and child maltreatment are overrepresented among juvenile delinquents, and juveniles (particularly disabled juveniles) are at heightened risk for falsely confessing to crimes. In two mock trial experiments, we examined the effects of disability, abuse history, and confession evidence on jurors’ perceptions of a juvenile defendant across several different crime scenarios. Abused juveniles were treated more leniently than nonabused juveniles only when the juvenile’s crime was motivated by self-defense against …