Social Psychology Commons^™

The Influence Of Dialecticism On Savoring Across Cultures, Soyeon Kim

Dissertations

The present study investigated the influence of dialectical thinking on the ways in which people savor positive experiences across culture. Although both the concept of savoring (i.e., the capacity to attend to, appreciate, and regulate positive experience) and the concept of dialecticism (i.e., a prevalent Eastern philosophy that values the interconnectedness of all things, constant changes in life, and coexistence of contradictory phenomena) are essential topics in contemporary psychology, there is a lack of theory and research that links together these two concepts within a cross-cultural framework. Literature has shown that emotion is a product of culture and norms; East …

Using Moral Foundations Framing To Influence Partisan Attitudes Toward Latino Immigrants, Salma Moaz

Master's Theses

This study aims to use Moral Foundations Theory to reduce prejudiced attitudes towards Latino immigrants. Research has shown that liberals and conservatives tend to differ in their support of moral foundations. Liberals are more likely to endorse individualizing moral foundations (fairness and caring for others) while conservatives are more likely to endorse binding moral foundations (sanctity, loyalty, and authority). Participants read one of two brief messages in support of Latino immigrants framed in either the binding or individualizing morals. the hypothesis was that conservatives who read the binding message will have more pro-immigrant attitudes, be more supportive of pro-immigrant policies, …

Layperson's Norms Surrounding Politician Sexual Misconduct And Sexual Harassment, Yelyzaveta Distefano

Master's Theses

While there are legal definitions of what actions and circumstances constitute gender based prejudiced, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape, less is known about lay people's norms and perceptions of what behaviors and situations qualify as each of these categories, especially involving the role of context in which ambiguous social-sexual behaviors occur. Additionally, sexual harassment paradigms have not explored the unique power relationships of politicians and those working under them in political office, an especially topical locale of workplace SH in a post #MeToo America. 277 participants completed a survey with a 2 (setting: workplace, office party at the bar) …

An Experimental Test Of Fiedler's Contingency Model Of Leadership Effectiveness: The Effect Of Gender, Samantha De Souza

Master's Theses

The present study is an experimental test of Fiedler's (1967) Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness across genders, as Fiedler's Contingency Model has been tested largely with male participants. The model predicts group performance based on four key variables: leadership style, as indexed by the Least-Preferred Coworker (LPC) Scale, and three situational variables, leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. In situations characterized by high leader-member relations, and low position power, Fiedler predicts a negative correlation between the leader's LPC score and group performance when groups perform a structured task (Octant II), and a positive correlation when groups perform an unstructured …

Mortality Salience, Group Membership, & Reciprocity, Fatima A. Martin

Dissertations

This study investigated the effects of mortality salience, group membership, partner's behavior, and adherence to the norms of positive and negative reciprocity. Three-hundredeighty- four participants completed the either a mortality salience or control (where mortality was not salient) induction, a group membership induction, a personal norms of reciprocity scale, one round of a single-shot trust game (a measure of positive reciprocity), and one round of a singleshot ultimatum game (a measure of negative reciprocity). During the trust game, an ostensible interaction partner received a small monetary endowment, and contributed either that entire endowment or less than half of it (keeping …

The Flexible Impact Of Affective States On Group Decision-Making And Ideational Creativity, Young-Jae Yoon

Dissertations

Positive and negative affect are often thought to influence the cognitive performance of individuals and groups via their effects on two different dimensions of cognitive processing style: heuristic vs. systematic processing, and global vs. local attentional focus. Recently, research has suggested that the effects of affective states on the analytic and creative performance of individuals depend on the relative dominance of heuristic vs. systematic processing (for analytic performance) and of a global vs. local attentional focus (for creative performance) just prior to the affect's arousal (Huntsinger, Isbell, & Clore, 2014; Huntsinger & Ray, 2016). Extending this individual-level evidence to small …

Decreasing Women's Endorsement Of Benevolent Sexism, Kelsey Berryman

Master's Theses

The aim of the current study was to reduce women's endorsement for benevolent sexist beliefs. the intervention aimed to educate women about the prevalence and seriousness of benevolent sexism. as this is a subtle and deceptively positive type of sexism, women are particularly susceptible in endorsing it (Glick & Fiske, 2001). in order to increase awareness for benevolent sexism in their everyday lives, some participants read an informational text about the pervasiveness and harmfulness of benevolent sexism in the U.S. This text was read after participants had already written about a time they engaged in benevolent sexism to elicit negative …

The Effect Of Imagined Intergroup Contact On Heterosexism, Laurel Mertz

Master's Theses

Heterosexism and other forms of prejudice against the LGBTQ community remain prevalent across the world. Thus, the study of how to reduce heterosexism has become a much more common and necessary domain of research in recent years. Previous research has demonstrated mixed results of the effect of imagined intergroup contact on heterosexism. the current study sought to evaluate various contexts in which imagined intergroup contact would decrease or increase levels of both implicit and explicit heterosexist attitudes. I predicted that individuals who imagined winning a basketball game with a gay teammate would display more positive attitudes toward gay men whereas …

The Dogmatism Of Dissent: How Open-Minded Cognition Influences Protest Attitudes, Chad Osteen

Master's Theses

While protestors are often thought of and portrayed as dogmatic actors on the political stage, research has yet to empirically investigate the cognitive processes of protestors. While previous research has investigated how open-minded cognition relates to political party and ideology, its relationship to political activism has remained under studied. This study used a between subject's design to determine how priming system rejection may affect open-minded cognition and protest attitudes. The sample of 450 participants recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk is based off a power analysis with small to medium effect sizes (r2=0.25) and a power of .95. Using SurveyGizmo software, …

Perceived Appropriateness Of Sexual Misconduct In Hookup Culture: Roles Of Power And Motives, Milan Alexandra Tvardek

Master's Theses

This study used hypothetical depictions of hookup scenarios to assess the perceptions of 388 participants for whether specific interactions between third-party characters involved sexual misconduct and the perceived appropriateness and wrongfulness of those behaviors. The current research examined the role of three independent between-subject variables in perceptions of sexual misconduct perpetration: a) Sex Motive (Low, High); b) Chronic Power (Low, High); and c) Acute Power (Low, High, Control). Results showed that individuals high in sex driven motivation, compared to those who less often hookup for sex driven reasons, perceived some perpetrators to be more wrongful but also expected these perpetrators …

The Impact Of Regulatory Fit On Confrontations Of Bias, Rayne Bozeman

Dissertations

Anti-Black racism remains a major problem in contemporary American life, with deleterious consequences for Blacks. White allies possess social power to change the status quo by confronting racism. Although confrontation reduces biased behavior and prejudiced attitudes, many people refrain from spontaneously confronting. Persuasive appeals may encourage ally confronting. When these appeals are strategically framed in a manner that matches people’s regulatory orientation, they are expected to experience a sense of fit, which makes them feel better about the tasks they are engaged in. Two studies tested whether experiencing regulatory fit would enhance the persuasiveness of a pro-confrontation message. Participants were …

Reflections On Life: Replication And Extension, Karen Osowski

Master's Theses

This study used an experimental methodology to examine positive affect and gratitude as mediators of the beneficial impact of an intervention in which older adults savor "life lessons" they have learned in growing older on measures of psychological well-being (i.e., positive attitudes toward aging, life satisfaction, anxiety, state self-esteem, and state hope). In the following pages, I first review the background literature on gerontology and quality of life as well as describe, in detail, the original experiment (Smith & Bryant, 2018) that formed the foundation of the proposed research. Next, I describe several extensions of this earlier study that are …

What's Wrong With Being Single: Lowered Relational Value Bias Toward Single People, Darian Farrell

Master's Theses

This study examined the perceived relational value of single individuals (compared to that of coupled individuals). I hypothesized that, participants would be more likely to make the conjunction fallacy in the single condition vs. the coupled condition, when asked whether or not it was more likely that the target person from the condition was a single teacher vs. teacher. The data supported my hypothesis: participants in the single condition were significantly more likely to make the conjunction fallacy than participants in the coupled condition. My study also tested whether or not the need to belong acted as a moderator for …

Political Essentialism And Affective Polarization, Chase Wilson

Dissertations

Affective polarization, the phenomenon of liberals and conservatives treating each other as disliked outgroups, is increasingly intense (Iyengar & Westwood, 2015; Pew, 2016). In the present research, I used the construct of psychological essentialism (Medin & Ortony, 1989) to help understand this intergroup phenomenon. Specifically, I measured political essentialism, or the belief that political ideologies are strongly determined, informative, discrete and/or immutable, and tested the relationship between these beliefs and affective polarization. I approached this question with both correlational and experimental methods. In a correlational study, political essentialism overall is found to covary positively with affective polarization and social avoidance …

Actor's And Partner's Self-Discrepancy As Moderators Of The Relationship Between Negative Events And Reflected Appraisals: A Daily Diary Study Examining The Actor-Partner Interdependence Model In African American Couples, Natalie J. Hallinger

Dissertations

Self-worth influences how individuals perceive the health of their romantic relationships

in response to adverse experiences, especially interpersonal threats. Though explicit

self-esteem is often used as an indicator of self-worth in investigations of relationship

functioning after interpersonal threats, particularly those focusing on perceptions of felt

love and acceptance, actual:ideal self-discrepancy is an evaluative aspect of the self

that may have more direct impacts on romantic relationship functioning after negative

events that are unrelated to the relationship. Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence

Model to analyze dyadic data from 150 African American couples using multilevel

regression models, the current study’s results were contrary …

The Loyola Experience: Increasing Belonging And Retention Among Underrepresented Students, Michelle Seli Aku Adzido

Master's Theses

Retaining underrepresented (e.g. first-generation and ethnic minority) students remains a challenge within higher education. Fostering a sense of belonging on campus is key to successfully retaining and increasing academic performance among underrepresented students. Peer-to-peer and faculty mentoring provides opportunities to form social bonds and potentially increase belonging. Mentoring may also connect students from underrepresented backgrounds with campus resources, thus contributing to their knowledge and utilization of campus resources, or self-advocacy. I recruited 95 racial minority and first-generation participants. They reported self-advocacy, belonging, grade point average (GPA), and retention intentions. I test whether participation in a mentoring program (versus control) operated …

Effects Of Affiliative Motivation And Confrontation Style On Anti-Black Attitudes And Social Consequences, Jamie Patrianakos

Master's Theses

Anti-Black racism occurs on a daily basis and comes with both physical and psychological costs to its targets. One effective way to reduce discrimination is through confrontation, which could come in the form of a hostile accusation of racism (hot confrontation) or a polite emphasis on egalitarian values (cold confrontation). However, confronting often has social costs that may include damaging the relationship between the confronter and the perpetrator. This research determined whether social relationships can reduce anti-Black bias while also serving as a buffer against the social consequences of confronting. Participants (n = 168) were randomly assigned to a 2(affiliative …

Group Decision-Making From An Evolutionary/Adaptationist Perspective, R. Scott Tindale, Tatsuya Kameda

Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Over the 20 years that Group Processes & Intergroup Relations has been in existence, evolutionary theory has begun to play a larger role in our understanding of human social behavior. Theory and research on group decision-making is no exception and the present paper attempts to briefly highlight how an evolutionary/adaptationist perspective has informed our understanding of how groups reach consensus and make collective choices. In addition, we attempt to show that humans are not the only species that use group processes to make important choices. Looking for similarities and continuities among research domains with different species should lead to a …

Perceived Partner Sexism And Stigma Consciousness: How 'Prince Charming' Undermines Relationship Satisfaction, Danielle Lauren Kellogg

Master's Theses

Perceived discrimination (outside of the relationship) relates to negative relationship outcomes, moderated by stigma consciousness (DeHart, 2017). Women who report higher (versus lower) levels of perceived partner benevolent sexism (i.e., perceptions of one's partner's endorsement of sexist attitudes) experience more negative relationship outcomes as well (Hammond & Overall, 2013; Hammond & Overall, 2014; Hammond & Overall, 2015). In addition, relationship partners adopt more traditional gender roles after becoming parents, which fosters benevolent sexism (Trillingsgaard, Baucom, & Heyman, 2014). In this study, married or cohabiting women with children were randomly assigned to either a sexism manipulation or control condition, prior to …

Intersectional Stereotypes Of Race, Gender, And Facial Structure And Evaluative Judgments Of Leadership Ability And Workplace Fit, Avery Nichole Waklatsi

Master's Theses

Though the labor market is highly competitive and diverse, minority groups only hold 26.7%, of board positions, in companies on the Fortune 500 list (Alliance for Board Diversity Census, 2013). When tasked with hiring managers whom are presented with equivalent job qualifications, evaluators may rely on their subjective impressions in making an employment decision. The evaluator's subjective impressions may be informed by stereotypes of the groups to which applicants belong. The current study tests how stereotypes pertaining to race, gender, and facial structure inform evaluator judgments of managerial applicants' leadership ability and workplace fit. Leadership ability and workplace fit are …

The Psychological Impact Of Smartphones: The Effect Of Access To One's Smartphone On Psychological Power, Risk Taking, Cheating, And Moral Orientation., Amanda Christine Egan

Dissertations

Egan and Larson (2015) found that access to one’s smartphone resulted in an increase in one’s sense of psychological power. Psychological power is associated with a variety of behavioral outcomes, many of them moral in nature (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003). This dissertation attempted to conceptually replicate the findings obtained by Egan and Larson (2015) and to extend them by testing whether smartphone-induced power had moral implications. Specifically, Study 1 tested whether access to one’s smartphone increased psychological power, and in turn promoted risk taking and a shift in moral orientation. Study 2 tested whether access to one’s smartphone increased …

Status Quo Vs. Change In The Face Of Death And Uncertainty, Justin S. Cheng

Dissertations

A diverse array of empirical research posits a general tendency for people to prefer the status quo over change, all else being equal. In two experiments, we explore the status quo preference phenomenon from a motivated cognition, uncertainty management perspective. Extending the precepts of several related empirical traditions (e.g. terror management theory, system justification theory and related topics), we explore the premise that uncertainty management processes activate social cognitive mechanisms directly favoring the status quo, similar to previously established process mechanisms such as terror management. Across two studies, we find support for the idea that both uncertainty and mortality salience …

Influence Of Metaphoric Language On Juror Decision Making, Melissa Michelle David

Master's Theses

This paper examines the effects of metaphoric language on judgment, assessment and juror verdict decision making. It further examines potential interactions between the use of figurative language and defendant race on juror verdict decisions. Research has potential implications on how the recent cultural climate has changed racial biases within the realm of juror decision making.

Group-Level Differences Of Moral Foundations, Jeremy Winget

Master's Theses

Previous research has started to map the moral domain for individual actors. In particular, Haidt and colleagues (Haidt, 2007, 2008; Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt & Joseph, 2004) have extended the moral domain beyond the traditional notions of justice and rights concerns. From this line of research, moral foundations theory emerged, which holds moral intuitions derive from innate psychological mechanisms that co-evolved with cultural institutions and practices. However, to date, there has not been a systematic demonstration of how these moral foundations operate within intergroup settings. Janoff-Bulman and Carnes (2013) have proposed a comprehensive model of the moral landscape that …

Backlash Against Working Mothers, Kala Jean Melchiori

Dissertations

Research by Rudman and colleagues (2012) has detailed how people who defy social stereotypes (called vanguards) experience discriminatory backlash for acting counter-stereotypically. In the present research, I took Rudman's Backlash and Stereotype Maintenance Model (BSMM) and applied it to working women and working mothers. Due to the different content of the stereotypes of working women versus working mothers, I predicted that the process through which perceivers engage in backlash against the two groups is different. I used the theory of Ambivalent Sexism to shape my predictions for how working mothers are vulnerable to different forms of backlash than working women …

The Effects Of A Multi-Layer Accountability System On Teacher Self-Efficacy And Classroom Goal Orientations And Its Impact On Student Performance, Christine Poindexter-Harris

Dissertations

The Effects of a Multi-layer Accountability System on Teacher Self-efficacy and Classroom Goal Orientations and its Impact on Student Performance

There are multiple factors that affect student academic achievement, including student, parent, and teacher factors. The present research studies the relationships among teacher self-efficacy, classroom goal orientations and structures, and student performance. Previous studies have shown a strong correlation between teacher self-efficacy and classroom goal orientation. Although much research has been done on both issues, very little research has taken into account the role of organizational education structure and its impact on how teachers may or may not change to …

Bystander Confronting Of Anti-Black Racism: Effects Of Belonging Affirmation And Confrontation Training, Rayne Bozeman

Master's Theses

Confronting has the potential to reduce prejudice, especially when implemented by a non-target group member. Not knowing how to respond and fearing social rejection have been identified as barriers to confronting in previous studies. The current study tests whether providing training to confront prejudice and affirming the need to belong helps individuals overcome these barriers. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three training conditions: prejudice confrontation training (PCT), rude comment training (RCT), or no training control group (NT). Participants were also randomly assigned to one of two belonging conditions: belonging affirmation or control. Participants were then asked to imagine …

The Influence Of Backlash On Self-Sexualization And Cognitive Depletion, Mallory Helen Elizabeth Nurse Grembowski

Master's Theses

A woman who acts agentically in the workplace is more likely to be disliked and viewed as less competent than a woman who acts caring and communal. The negative consequences for acting outside of a cultural stereotype are called backlash. Cultural gender stereotypes for western society depict women as warm and communal while men are agentic and independent. Women in the workplace act outside of the cultural stereotype, and thus face backlash from their peers. This study examines the extent to which women utilize self-sexualization as a recovery strategy to cope with the fear of backlash, and ultimately how these …

Brushing It Off? Applying The Theory Of Planned Behavior To Dental Visit Behavior, Rebecca Starkel

Dissertations

During the last decade, utilization of dental care services has decreased among working age adults. Given the importance of dental visits in the maintenance oral health, and the link between oral and overall health, this trend is disturbing. In order to better understand the reasons behind this downward trend, the current study uses the Theory of Planned Behavior to identify the most influential factors in one’s decision to visit the dentist, modified to include three additional components: affect, habit, and oral health knowledge. Two surveys were conducted to measure the following components as they relate to the dental visit: attitudes, …

Dbt And Bereavement: A Multiple Baseline Design, Marissa Marshak

Dissertations

This is an interpretive, single-subject design study, which followed a non-concurrent multiple baseline design to understand the processes of bereavement treatment. The study comprised six groups (n=29) enrolled in the General Adult Loss Groups after the loss of a family member. The researcher used mixed methodologies to understand the bereavement process, group work process, and DBT process. The objective was to evaluate whether the timing of implementing DBT, or DBT at all, improved coping outcomes. Two groups served as control groups, and the remaining four groups received a 5-weeklong 45-minute voluntary modified intervention of DBT at staggered intervention start points. …