Social Psychology Commons^™

Correlates Of Help-Seeking Following Stalking Victimization: A Study Of College Women, Saige E. Jutras, Katie Edwards, Kateryna Sylaska

Honors Theses and Capstones

The current study explored factors related to college women’s coping processes associated with stalking using an online survey methodology. Results (N= 305 college women reporting stalking victimization within the last three years) showed that 85% of women disclosed their stalking experiences most commonly to female friends. Additionally, women used a variety of coping mechanisms in response to their stalking victimization; although avoiding thinking about or acting on the stalking experience were the most common strategies, victims rated direct forms of coping as more effective in deterring the stalking behavior. Women’s coping responses to stalking were related to a …

Form And Functionality Of Playful Aggression In Young Adults, Catlin H. Dennis

Scripps Senior Theses

Ethological and developmental studies have demonstrated the presence and importance of playful aggression for primates and children; additional studies suggest that playful aggression is also present in adulthood but is adapted and incorporated into relationships in different ways than it previously was in childhood. Little is known about young adults’ perceptions of playful aggression in romantic relationships, especially among same-sex couples. This study investigated perceptions of aggression when the sexual orientation of the couple, the severity of aggression, and the response of the recipient, who was receiving the aggression, were manipulated in a series of scenarios. Young adults, ages 18 …

Reefer Madness To Marijuana And Legalization: Media Exposure And American Attitudes Towards Marijuana (1975-2010), Richard James Stringer

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

American attitudes toward marijuana have varied greatly from the time it was criminalized in the 1930's until 2010, and public opinion favoring the legalization of marijuana has steadily risen since 1990. Since the media is purported to have had an impact on the legislation rather than objective risk factors, it is possible that the marijuana epidemic could be the result of a socially constructed moral panic. As such, this study utilized General Social Survey data to examine the relationship between media exposure and attitudes toward the legalization of marijuana from 1975 through 2010, 1975 through 1990, and 1991 through 2010. …

There Are No "Innocent Victims": The Influence Of Just World Beliefs And Prior Victimization On Rape Myth Acceptance, Rebecca Lynne Vonderhaar

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Approximately 209,000 women report being raped every year. Of those 209,000 rapes, only 19,491 arrests were made (U.S. Department of Justice 2011). Furthermore, reports estimate that one out of every three women will be raped at some point in her life (Amir, 1971). The prominence of rape in the United States, as well as the disparity between documented rapes to the police and victim reports of rape, is problematic for researchers in fully understanding the breadth of the problem. Considering that rape occurs at such an overwhelmingly high rate and frequently goes unreported, it is important to understand the attitudes …

Genre, Birth Cohort, And Product Perception: Responses To Background Music In Commercial Advertising, Cassidy R. Cavanah

Scripps Senior Theses

Research shows that music transmits both embodied (universally perceptible) and referential (culturally specific) meanings. The present study sought to explore the persuasive power of music in commercial advertising, and the complex ties that exist between music, life experience and perception. The study looked at how the perception of a product could be altered in accordance with specific embodied and referential meanings. With a focus on the effects of music genre and birth cohort on product perception, embodied meanings were expected to produce similar results across birth cohorts, and referential meanings were expected to produce significantly different results. A total of …

Phantom Islands A Collection Of Short Stories, Marie Buckner

Dissertations and Theses

This collection of short stories takes its name from various islands historically believed to exist and at one time or other located on maps, sometimes remaining on them for centuries, but later removed after they were proved to be illusory. Reports of these islands usually came from sailors as they explored new realms, mistaking actual islands for imaginary ones or by geographical error. Illusions can persist unchallenged for ages. A similar yet modern illusion is the persistence of vision, a phenomenon by which an afterimage, say, on a screen, is thought to persist on the retina for approximately one twenty-fifth …

And None For Gretchen Weiners, Center For Public Service

SURGE

In the four years I’ve spent at Gettysburg College, it’s safe to say that my experience has been largely influenced by my membership in Greek Life. I’ve developed a personal leadership style and feel accomplished by the strong relationships I built with other women. But this year, I developed a stronger understanding of the inequities that exist within the Greek community. [excerpt]

Se Habla Inglés Aquí: Las Dificultades En El Tratamiento De La Depresión En Latinos En Los Estados Unidos, Melissa Kim Dundas

World Languages and Cultures

This project attempts to identify and bring to light the issues relating to treatment of Latinos and native Spanish speakers in the United States. The stigma surrounding depression is already strong in the U.S., and when minorities, who tend to have their own views of mental health disorders and who are less likely to seek treatment for any mental health disorder they might have, are added to the picture, the rates of treatment go drastically down. There are many factors that play into whether or not Latinos will seek treatment for depression, many of which revolve around language and culture, …

Cross-Cultural Adaptation, Validation And Reliability Of The Brazilian Version Of The Richmond Compulsive Buying Scale, Priscilla Leite, Bernard Range, Monika Kukar-Kinney, Nancy Ridgway, Kent Monroe, Rodolfo Ribas Jr., J. Landeira-Fernandez, Antonio Egidio Nardi, Adriana Silva

Marketing Faculty Publications

Objective: To present the process of transcultural adaptation of the Richmond Compulsive Buying Scale to Brazilian Portuguese.

Methods: For the semantic adaptation step, the scale was translated to Portuguese and then back-translated to English by two professional translators and one psychologist, without any communication between them. The scale was then applied to 20 participants from the general population for language adjustments. For the construct validation step, an exploratory factor analysis was performed, using the scree plot test, principal component analysis for factor extraction, and Varimax rotation. For convergent validity, the correlation matrix was analyzed through Pearson’s coefficient.

Results: The scale …

An Examination Of Summer Bridge Programs For First-Generation College Students, Emily Christine Otewalt

Psychology and Child Development

During the last fifty years, nearly half of all students who entered a two- or four-year university withdrew without obtaining a degree. Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnic minority students, and students who were the first in their family to attend college were particularly vulnerable to this attrition. The following senior project examines current research on the backgrounds and attrition rates of first-generation college students, how "Summer Bridge Programs" aim to assist these students, and where shortcoming exist in current "Summer Bridge Program" assessments.

Social Relations, Health Behaviors, And Health Outcomes: A Survey And Synthesis, Louis Tay, Kenneth Tan, Ed Diener, Elizabeth Gonzalez

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The primary goal of this paper is to summarise current evidence on social relations and health, specifically how social integration and social support are related to health behaviors and health outcomes, using results from published reviews. Our analysis revealed that social relations are beneficial for health behaviors such as chronic illness self-management and decreased suicidal tendency. The salutary effects of general measures of social relations (e.g. being validated, being cared for, etc.) on health behaviors (e.g. healthy diet, physical activity, smoking, alcohol abuse) are weaker, but specific measures of social relations targeting corresponding health behaviors are more predictive. There is …

Examining Coping Strategies Of Young Girls Victimized By Relational Aggression: A Phenomenological Study, Dana Simmons

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to discover the coping strategies developed by young girls victimized by the phenomenon of relational aggression.This study examined the experiences and coping strategies developed by kindergarten, first, and second grade girls who attend a rural Georgia primary school. The co-researchers were selected from a pool of 294 female students who were identified by teachers as having experienced relational aggression. I used semi-structured interviews with co-researchers, document analysis, and art activities to gather data. I collected, analyzed, and interpreted data conforming to Moustakas' (1994) transcendental model. Roth and Cohen's (1986) theory on stress and …

Why States Should Ban Adolescent Driving (Cont'd), Vivian E. Hamilton

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Why States Should Ban Adolescent Driving, Vivian E. Hamilton

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Rising Income And The Subjective Well-Being Of Nations, Ed Diener, Louis Tay, Shigehiro Oishi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We explored whether rising income in nations is associated with increasing subjective well-being (SWB), with several advances over earlier work. Our methods are improved in that across time, the same well-being questions were asked in the same order, and we employed broad and equivalent representative samples over time from a large number of nations. We also assessed psychosocial factors that might mediate the relation of income and SWB. We found that changes in household income were associated with concomitant changes in life evaluations, positive feelings, and negative feelings. The effects of gross domestic product (GDP) change were weaker and significant …

Horizontal Workplace Aggression And Coworker Social Support Related To Work-Family Conflict And Turnover Intentions, Sarah Elizabeth Van Dyck

Dissertations and Theses

Horizontal workplace aggression is a workplace stressor that can have serious negative outcomes for employees and organizations. In the current study, hierarchical regression analyses were used to investigate the hypotheses that horizontal workplace aggression has a relationship with turnover intentions, work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict. Coworker social support was investigated as a potential moderator in these relationships. Surveys measuring these constructs were administered to a group of 156 direct-care workers (specifically, certified nursing assistants, or CNAs) in a long-term assisted living facility corporation in the Northwestern United States. Results indicated that horizontal workplace aggression had a significant and positive relationship …

Mimicry And Just World Beliefs: Mimicking Makes Men View The World As More Personally Just, Marielle Stel, Kees Van Der Bos, Su-Hsien Samantha Sim, Sonja Rispens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

People's just world beliefs are related to how they feel and behave towards others: the stronger people hold beliefs that the world treats them fairly, the more they feel and act pro-socially towards others. It is conceivable, therefore, that pro-social feelings and behaviours towards others can strengthen people's personal belief in a just world, especially when people expect these positive feelings to be returned. Because mimicry enhances pro-social feelings towards others, we argue that mimicry may strengthen peoples’ personal just world beliefs via positive feelings for the mimicked person and the expectation that these positive feelings are returned. Moreover, we …

The Beast Had To Marry Balinda: Using Story Examples To Explore Socializing Concepts In Ugandan Caregivers’ Oral Stories, Valeda Dent, Geoff Goodman

Brooklyn Library Faculty Publications

Within the context of storytelling as oral tradition, this paper uses a grounded theory approach to explore a single research question about the socializing concepts found in examples of stories told to young children by their mothers and grandmothers in a rural Ugandan village. These story examples were gathered during the implementation of a socio-educational intervention project. The aims of this paper are to provide a descriptive analysis of the emergent themes and constructs in these story examples against the backdrop of a relevant theoretical framework and life in this rural Ugandan village.

Traumatic Brain Injury: The Relationship Of Psychosocial Variables And Location Of Injury To Post-Injury Depression, Alicia L. Smith

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) affects nearly 1.4 million people in the United States annually, and of these, 10% to 77% will experience post-injury depression. Psychosocial variables such as previous substance and alcohol abuse, prior mental illness, low educational attainment, and poverty have been identified as possible risk factors. Additionally, the location of injury appears to play a key role particularly if the injury occurs in the left hemisphere. This study examined archival data from brain-injured patients in an effort to better understand the factors related to post-TBI depression. Past medical records of brain-injured adults (N = 52) were reviewed …

The Importance Of Female Choice: Evolutionary Perspectives On Constraints, Expressions, And Variations, David Frederick, Tania A. Reynolds, Maryanne L. Fisher

Psychology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

This chapter introduces the reader to some of the influential perspectives on female mate choice in human evolutionary biology, including parental investment theory. We then present two key theories in evolutionary psychology that have been applied to understand variations in women’s mating preferences and choices: sexual strategies theory and strategic pluralism theory. Although the importance of female choice has gained widespread acceptance in the biological sciences, the influence that female choice has on mating systems can be limited by many factors, such as control over mating decisions by parents and men’s control over women’s sexuality. Despite these constraints on female …

Parental Behavior Control As A Moderator Between Close Friend Support And Conduct Problems, Gabriel C. Watson, Sarah K. Sifers, Daniel Houlihan

Psychology Department Publications

Objective: Potential moderating effects between parental control and close friend support on youth conduct problems have not been investigated. Goals of this study were to investigate for a possible curvilinear relationship between parental behavioral control and child conduct issues, as well as the potential that parental control will moderate the relationship between friend support and those behaviors.

Design: Surveyed 101 youth and their parents in a small Midwestern United States metropolitan area.

Results: Through hierarchical regression, the current study shows a curvilinear main effect for parent control on conduct problems. Additionally, close friend support is a protective agent only for …

Word Of Mouth And The Forecasting Of Consumption Enjoyment, Stephen He, Samuel Bond

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The digital era has permitted rapid transfer of peer knowledge regarding products and services. In the present research, we explore the value of specific types of word-of-mouth information (numeric ratings and text commentary) for improving forecasts of consumption enjoyment. We present an anchoring-and-adjustment model in which the relative forecasting error associated with ratings and commentary depends on the extent to which consumer and reviewer have similar product-level preferences. To test our model, we present four experiments using a range of hedonic stimuli. Implications for the provision of consumer WOM are discussed.

Improving Self-Esteem Through Art For Incarcerated Youth, April Murphy, Jeff Beaty, James Minnick

Social Work Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Societal Norm Manipulation And Presentation Order On Perceived Relationship Satisfaction, Tina Rene Negley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While many studies have examined the effects of persuasion on attitudes, few studies have focused on using norms to change perceived satisfaction. This study addressed the need for literature assessing the effects of societal norms on perceived relationship satisfaction. Participants in this study were randomly provided with one of two surveys: one with a set of normative statements regarding an "average couple" that were over-exaggerated, the other with understated norms. Analyses looked to identify whether individuals presented with the high norms were more likely to rate their relationship satisfaction lower, after controlling for demographic and personality characteristics. Hierarchical regression revealed …

Analyzing The Determinants Of Group Identity Among Alevis In Turkey: A National Survey Study, Cigdem Sirin

Selected Works Temporary Series

This study systematically explores the factors that affect collective identity associations within the Alevi community in Turkey by employing the social identity approach and examining survey data collected through fieldwork. The results show that Kurdish Alevis express lower levels of attachment to their religious identity as compared to Turkish Alevis. The results also indicate that personal experiences of discrimination tend to increase one's prioritization of Alevi identity. Last, no significant differences are observed regarding group identity between Alevis who reside in urban areas and those who live in rural areas.

Finding Still Waters And Green Pastures: Understanding And Reducing Stress In Urban Church Planting, David R. Dunaetz

Selected Faculty Publications

The work of urban church planters is often hindered by high levels of stress. Stress may be viewed as a process that involves stressors and an individual’s perceptions of both the level of threat and his or her ability to deal with the threat. The long term and the short term consequences of stress can be attenuated through appropriate coping strategies such as problem solving, prayer, and seeking social support. Recent empirical evidence indicates that exposure to nature is also very effective, a strategy that might be especially beneficial to urban church planters and their ministries. Several practical applications are …

Everyday Confrontation Of Discrimination: The Well-Being Costs And Benefits To Women Over Time., Mindi D. Foster

Psychology Faculty Publications

Taking action against discrimination has positive consequences for well-being (e.g., Cocking & Drury, 2004) but most of this research has focused on collective actions and has used methodologies assessing one point in time. This study therefore used a diary methodology to examine how women’s everyday confrontations of discrimination would affect measures of subjective and psychological well-being, and how these relationships would change over time. In a 28-day online diary study, women indicated their daily experience of discrimination, described their response, and completed measures of well-being. Results showed that at the beginning of the study, using indirect confrontation predicted greater well-being …

Child And Family Predictors Of Bullying In Middle School Students, Rene Michele Nota

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the shared variables that contribute to direct and indirect aggression, specifically bullying and to explore the role of family context, and adolescent personality characteristics on predicting bullying behavior. The theoretical framework of this study was based on evidence that no specific element can describe why some individuals are at risk for behaving aggressively and other are more resilient. The study included 259 middle schools students in grades six through eight. The students were enrolled at a single middle school located in a suburban area. The largest group of students was African American, …

Diversity And Motivations Among Volunteers In Nonprofit Youth Development Programs, Emily Thielmann

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

Portland, Maine, has a variety of programs that connect volunteers with youth based on particular risk factors. While there are many criteria that affect the outcomes programs yield for youth, the quality and reach of many of these small nonprofit programs is dependent on their volunteer capacity. The goals of this descriptive research project were to identify: nonprofit youth development program volunteer characteristics compared with local populations and volunteers nationally; motivations or benefits such volunteers associate with volunteering; and factors associated with volunteers’ overall satisfaction and longevity.

Friendship As A Relationship Infiltration Tactic During Human Mate Poaching, T. Joel Wade

Faculty Journal Articles

Previous research has characterized human mate poaching as a prevalent alternative mating strategy that entails risks and costs typically not present during general romantic courtship and attraction. This study is the first to experimentally investigate friendship between a poacher and his/her target as a risk mitigation tactic. Participants (N = 382) read a vignette that differed by whether the poacher was male/female and whether the poacher and poached were friends/acquaintances. Participants assessed the likelihood of the poacher being successful and incurring costs. They also rated the poacher and poached on several personality and mate characteristics. Results revealed that friendship increased …