Social Psychology Commons^™

Gender And Modification Of Self-Traits In Online Dating: The Impact Of Anonymity, Social Desirability, And Self-Monitoring, Zagorski, Emma Von Zagorski

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Modification of self-traits is defined as a user's modification of his or her physical self-description between real life and online dating profiles. Personality traits may impact this modification in online dating. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of gender and modification of self-traits on measures of anonymity, social desirability, and self-monitoring to identify factors that contributed to deception in online dating. The theoretical framework used in this study was Paulhus' social desirability model to explain changes in social interactions with the inclusion of anonymity and the desire to be perceived in a favorable light. The research …

Performance Under Pressure: The Effect Of Explanatory Style On Sensory-Motor Performance Under Stereotype Threat, William R. Macphail

CMC Senior Theses

Do participants with external attribution styles outperform participants with internal explanatory styles in pressure-filled situations? Explicit-monitoring theory suggests that performance becomes impaired when conscious attention is devoted to performing a task normally carried out by automatic processes. Attributing potential failure to an external source (e.g., blaming a sudden gust of wind for a poor golf shot) can decrease the negative effects of stereotype threat, a social-psychological predicament known to engender feelings of stress similar to those experienced in pressure-filled situations, by preventing explicit monitoring from taking place. The current study examined whether individual differences in attribution style, as measured by …

A Qualitative Approach To Spiral Of Silence Research: Self-Censorship Narratives Regarding Environmental And Social Conflict, Christopher John Ryan

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this research is to seek narratives of self-censorship from in-depth interviews of 19 participants acquired through a purposive (criterion) sampling protocol. The primary research question driving this study is “What types of sanctions contribute to people choosing to self-censor their strongly held beliefs, values, and opinions.” Previous research conducted on the topic of self-censorship (generally under the rubric of the spiral of silence theory) has been predominantly quantitative and consideration of sanctions influencing self-censorship have been limited to fear of social isolation. I suggest that ostensibly important sanction variables have not been utilized within these existing frameworks. …

Cultural Models Of The Self, Susan Cross, Jonathan Gore

Jonathan Gore

Describes the cultural foundations of divergent models of the self and reviews recent research comparing Western, independent conceptions of the self with East Asian, interdependent views of the self. The chapter concludes with comments on how cross-cultural investigations can continue to inform research on the self and its role in behavior.

It's That Efa* Time Of Year (*Extreme Fan Addiction), Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

What an odd lot our ancestors must have been to let themselves get caught up in crazes like the 10th century dancing mania in Italy, or the alarming outbreak of biting mania in 15th century Germany, Italy, and Holland. Holland's 17th century tulipmania proved only economically painful, when wealthy families spent their savings buying and hoarding tulip bulbs, and were left in financial ruin when prices plummeted.

We are not so different from those long-gone dancers, biters, and tulipophiles, because a modern mania is about to descend upon us: March Madness. Sixty-four colleges and universities send their basketball teams into …

I ♥ U: Attachment Style And Gender As Predictors Of Deception In Online And Offline Dating, Mattitiyahu S. Zimbler

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Online dating is becoming an increasingly used method for meeting significant others. This study had two central goals. The first goal was to explore the factors that contribute to deception used to attract a romantic partner online. The second aim was to discover the reasons that people with different attachment styles might lie as well as their justifications and interpretations for those lies. Male and female single college undergraduates (N = 208), who had previously completed an attachment style measure via an online screening, were asked to complete an online dating profile and an email to a potential dating partner. …

Social Influence And The Acceptance Of Racially Charged Humor, Nicholas M. Joyce

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This study examined factors important in determining the acceptance of racially charged humor. It utilized a 2 x 3 design in which race of joke teller and group targeted by the jokes were manipulated. It measured people’s level of acceptance regarding the jokes and recorded participants’ behaviors. This study found that under the conditions in which comedians derogated their in-group, White participants demonstrated higher levels of acceptance and a greater likelihood to perform the jokes. This pattern was especially true when the comedian was Black.

Where Do We Draw Our Lines?: Approach/Avoidance Motivation, Political Orientation, And Cognitive Rigidity, Mindi S. Rock

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The current research explored how one’s motivational focus and political orientation may interact to produce cognitive rigidity. Past literature provides evidence for associations between approach-based orientation and cognitive flexibility and between avoidance-based motives and cognitive rigidity (e.g., Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993; Friedman & Förster, 2005; Förster, Friedman, Özelsel & Denzler, 2006, Isen & Daubman, 1984; Mikulincer, Kedem & Paz, 1990). Further, research on political orientation suggests a strong association between conservatism and cognitive rigidity (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). Can approach/avoidance motivation help explain this link between political orientation and rigidity? To answer this question, we manipulated approach/avoidance …

Enculturation, Allen Gnanam

Allen Gnanam

Enculturation is the process by which individuals of an ethnic group unintentionally, unconsciously, and naturally, acquire culture specific values, knowledge, behaviours, manners, and identities (Gob, Lee, & Yoon, 2008) (Grovtevant, Gunnar & Hellerstedt, 2006) (Kim & Omizo, 2006) (Constantine & Miville, 2006). There are many psychological concepts that can be linked to enculturation such as psychological protective factors, perceived sense of well being, social connectedness, psychological health, cultural identity, help seeking, self efficacy, and self esteem. Research literature pertaining to enculturation has illustrated that, the degree to which these psychological concepts are present within individuals, are strongly influenced by enculturation. …

The More You Know: Reviewing Concepts Using Student-Created Public Service Announcements, Pamela L. Bacon

Psychology Faculty Publications

In past course evaluations, my social psychology students consistently reported that they started offering their roommates unsolicited social psychological interpretations of their behaviors and beliefs. I began to wonder if my students’ desire to educate others could be harnessed to help them review course material. I reasoned that elaborating on the material covered in the class would help them learn (Loyens, Rikers, & Schmidt, 2007) and finding a creative outlet for their desire to teach others might preserve some roommate relationships.

In an attempt to encourage students to build on past material, I turned to one of the most well-known …

Community College Online Course Retention And Final Grade: Predictability Of Social Presence, Simon Y. Liu, Joel Gomez, Cherng-Jyh Yen

Educational Foundations & Leadership Faculty Publications

This study employed a quantitative research design to examine the predictive relationships between social presence and course retention as well as final grade in community college online courses. Social presence is defined as the degree of one's feeling, perception and reaction to another intellectual entity in the online environment. Course final grades included A, B. C, D, F, I, or W. Course retention was defined as successfully completed a course with an A to C grade. The results of the binary and ordinal logistic regression analyses suggest that social presence is a significant predictor of course retention and final grade …

Characteristics Of Aversive Racism, Bryan T. Hall

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Recently in the psychological field, attitudes are being recognized as existing on the explicit and implicit level (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Aversive racists have been defined as people low in explicit prejudice but high in implicit prejudice (Son Hing, Li, & Zanna, 2002). The purpose of this study was to determine what distinguishes those who are low in prejudice from aversive racists. Participants were compared on eight different constructs: authenticity, moral judgment development, moral identity, nonprejudice, social dominance, authoritarianism, empathy, and social desirability. No differences were found between low prejudice people and aversive racists. People high in explicit prejudice …

Acculturation, Allen Gnanam

Allen Gnanam

Acculturation is an experience/ phenomenon that occurs when groups of individuals with different cultural backgrounds engage in on going/ continuous physical contact, which in turn causes one or more of the different cultures too experience adaptation/ a change in their original cultural practices (Berry, 1997); (Berry, 2008). Acculturation is a phenomenon that occurs at a macro level/ group level and a micro level/ individual level, and this means that an individual of a certain ethnic minority group can experience acculturation differently than their ethnic minority group (Berry, 1997). Macro level acculturation occurs when the original culture of a specific ethnic …

Social Psychology, Calamities, And Sports Law, Michael Mccann

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the role of situational pressures, fundamental attribution errors, and legal frameworks in how professional sports actors respond to the threat and occurrence of calamities. Both natural and manmade threats to American health are likely to rise over the next decade. Such threats may include catastrophic weather, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and communicable disease pandemics. In response to these threats, professional sports leagues, professional athletes, fans, and media might engage in unprecedented behavior. Consider, for instance, increasingly-devastating weather patterns, and how they might animate leagues to relocate franchises to cities with more favorable forecasts. The same outcome might …

An Exploration Into Gender Role Conflict, Attitudes Toward Females, And Relationship Beliefs, Julia M. Wood

Doctoral Dissertations

Gender role conflict and negative attitudes toward females have been areas of increasing concern since the early 1970s. Research has shown that both gender role conflict and negative attitudes toward females cause complications for the person with such perspectives. Relationships are an area that has been impacted by gender role conflict and attitudes toward females. Determining the impact that gender role conflict and attitudes toward females have upon each other and upon relationship beliefs will increase awareness of the seriousness of these complications allowing clinicians to focus therapeutic interventions on methods that will increase relationship quality.

Using the Gender Role …

Corporate And Individual Influences On Managers' Social Orientation, Joachim W. Marz, Thomas L. Powers, Thomas Queisser

WCBT Faculty Publications

This paper reports research on the influence of corporate and individual characteristics on managers' social orientation in Germany. The results indicate that mid-level managers expressed a significantly lower social orientation than low-level managers, and that job activity did not impact social orientation. Female respondents expressed a higher social orientation than male respondents. No impact of the political system origin (former East Germany versus former West Germany) on social orientation was shown. Overall, corporate position had a significantly higher impact on social orientation than did the characteristics of the individuals surveyed.

An Analysis Of The Use Of Social Processes During Computer Use, Shawna R. Wimpy

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the claim that people use social processes relating to other humans when interacting with computers. A laboratory study (n = 38) manipulated two team factors, identity and interdependence and a stereotype activation effect to two labels, generalist and specialist. Subjects for this study were military members or civilians working for the military. The results show that none of the subjects reported being influenced by team or stereotype manipulations as given in self-reports. Incongruent to these findings, the behavioral data demonstrated that subjects were influenced by stereotype labels. There were no interaction effects between team factors and stereotype …

The Relationship Between Social Support And Professional Burnout Among Public Secondary School Teachers In Northeast Tennessee, Jackie C. Walker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teaching is reported to be a stressful occupation and social support is thought to mediate stress. The purpose of the study was to identify relationships between the level of professional burnout and social support of high school teachers in Northeast Tennessee. In this correlational study, a sample of 228 secondary school teachers in Northeast Tennessee completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Teacher Support Network Inventory (TSNI). Respondents' satisfaction with support and amount of support were ascertained from the TSNI. Data presentation included a demographic description of the sample and a description of teachers' work support, personal support, and recreational …

[Introduction To] Handbook Of Social And Clinical Psychology: The Health Perspective, C. R. Snyder, Donelson R. Forsyth

Bookshelf

From 1988 to 1991 Donelson R. Forsyth worked with C.R. Snyder and many other experts in the field of social and clinical psychology, editing a handbook that--at that time--summarized ongoing efforts in what was known as the social-clinical interface. This interface recognized the growing interdependency of these two fields. Up to that time social psychologists were mostly preoccupied with the study of the interpersonal determinants of thought, feeling, and action. Their work was primarily theoretically driven, the behaviors they sought to explain were the sort that occurred in everyday settings, and they preferred to test their hypotheses through laboratory experimentation. …

Assessment Of Heterosocial Performance : Development And Validation Of Self-Report Measures For Men And Women, Patti Lou Watkins

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Heterosocial cognitions, skill, and anxiety were identified as constructs which are components of heterosocial performance. Each of these constructs was defined, and Likert-scale items intended to reflect these definitions were generated. The possibility that these constructs differed for men and women was tested both consensually and statistically. Judges determined the suitability of of each item for each sex, as well as the appropriateness of each item for each construct. Items judged as belonging to the three constructs were assigned to three separate subscales of a self-report measure. The construct validity and reliability of each subscale were determined through, three administrations …

Symbolic Interaction And Social Planning: Perspectives From The Early Years, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The principal thesis of this paper is that the inadequacies of recent efforts at social planning are essential failures of theory, rather than failures of practice. Economic, land use and social welfare planners it is suggested have all shared a common unwillingness or inability to abandon commitments to an essentially utilitarian rhetoric of reasoned behavior, wherein means are matched with ends, persons are viewed as essentially self-interested and goal-directed rational problem solvers operating on schedules of goal attainment known or predictable by the planners. Symbolic interaction theory has resources to revitalize planning theory. Selected publications by John Dewey, G.H. Mead, …

A Comparison Of Attitudes Toward Community Colleges With Attitudes Toward Four-Year Colleges, Robert L. Gillespie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose. The purpose of this research was to determine if the attitudes of high school seniors toward community colleges and four-year colleges were significantly different according to socio-economic measures, and to see how they compared with their teachers'attitudes. (Abstract shortened.)