Social Psychology Commons^™

The Relative Strength Of Populist Attitudes, Religiosity, And Locus Of Control In Predicting Climate-Change Denial, Ryan Reynaldo Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

As climate change becomes an increasingly urgent global issue, the persistence of climate denial presents a significant barrier to progress. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence from NOAA and NASA, many individuals continue to deny the reality or severity of climate change. Previous studies have examined factors like anti-elitism and anti-egalitarianism in climate skepticism; however, no known research has assessed the relative strength of populist attitudes, religiosity, and locus of control in predicting climate denial. This quantitative, cross-sectional survey was conducted to fill that gap. Locus of control theory, which focuses on how individuals perceive events as within or beyond their control, …

Differences Between The Reintegration Of Combat Veterans And Noncombat Veterans While Controlling For Stigma, Caroline Ramos

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Veterans face challenges in reintegrating into civilian life. Experiences of public stigma arise from socially learned stereotypes about military service and mental health issues, which can impact veterans' ability to reintegrate following military deployment successfully. Goffman’s theory of stigma details its influences on personal adjustment. The purpose of this quantitative research study utilizing a survey design was to assess the role of public stigma as a mediator between the type of deployment and veterans’ reintegration experiences. A snowball sample of 85 recently discharged veteran volunteers representing combat zone deployed or non-combat zone deployed completed the Military Stigma Scale and the …

Nature Vs. Nurture In Albuquerque: What Breaking Bad And Better Call Saul Teach Us About How We Talk About Criminals, Max Romanowski

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul focus on the criminal transformation of their two main characters, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk). While quite similar on the surface, Walter and Jimmy’s narratives represent two different criminal transitions, evoking the classic nature vs nurture conversation. Both of these shows bring the conversation to the idea of inevitability. The nature vs. nurture argument is a popular one because it acts as a teaching tool for how we think and talk about criminal behavior. At first, it follows that since criminality was in Walter White’s nature the whole time, his …

Forgiveness In The Workplace: Exploring Prosocial Effects On Psychological Safety, Trust, And Interpersonal Citizenship Behaviors, William Thai

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the intricate relationships between racial microaggressions, unforgiveness, decisional forgiveness, and workplace outcomes (i.e., psychological safety, trust, and interpersonal citizenship behaviors). Despite organizations' efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), racial microaggressions persist, leading to feelings of injustice and unforgiveness among affected employees. This research posits that forgiveness, particularly through a modified REACH intervention (Worthington, 2001), serves as a vital coping strategy for managing the emotional distress associated with microaggressions, facilitating personal and relational healing.

Using a sample of 238 participants who identified as racial or ethnic minorities, I employed a moderated mediation analysis to assess the …

Community Crime And Safety: An Investigation Of Gender Differences In The Daily Stress Process, Jennifer W. Robinette, Jennifer R. Piazza, Robert S. Stawski

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Few studies have investigated the associations between community crime rates and affective well-being, and how that relationship may differ according to gender. Using data from the National Study of Daily Experiences and the Uniform Crime Reporting Program, the current study examined gender differences between daily affective experiences, crime rates, and perceptions of neighborhood safety. Although feeling unsafe in one's neighborhood was related to worse affective well-being (i.e., higher negative affect/lower positive affect) and larger affective responses to daily stressors, crime rates were not. Women's negative affect was more strongly tied to daily stressors, whereas men's was more strongly tied to …

Cultural Contexts Differentially Shape Parents’ Loneliness And Wellbeing During The Empty Nest Period, Andree Hartanto, Lester Wei Xiang Sim, Davelle Jing Yi Lee, Naydanna M. Majeed, Jose C. Yong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The coming decades will see a substantial increase in the population of older adults, accompanied by significant demographic and family structure changes worldwide. As a result, the empty nest period—the postparental phase in parents’ lives when their children have left home and they are no longer engaged in childrearing—is becoming an increasingly common experience in Western and Asian cultures. The current theoretical review examines the psychological consequences of the empty nest period on loneliness and well-being across cultures, emphasizing the impact of cultural factors on these experiences. By synthesizing research from Western and Asian contexts, we explore two primary theoretical …

Wherefore Art Though Competitors? How Situational Affordances Help Differentiate Among Prosociality, Individualism, And Competition, Yi Liu, Adam W. Stivers, Ryan Murphy, Niels Van Doesum, Jeff Joireman

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

The Triple Dominance Measure (choosing between prosocial, individualistic, and competitive options) and the Slider Measure (“sliding” between various orientations, for example, from individualistic to prosocial) are two widely used techniques to measure social value orientation, that is, the weight individuals assign to own and others’ outcomes in interdependent situations. Surprisingly, there is only moderate correspondence between these measures, but it is unclear why and what the implications are for identifying individual differences in social value orientation. Using a dataset of 8021 participants from 31 countries and regions, this study revealed that the Slider Measure identified fewer competitors than the Triple …

Experimental Evidence Of Instagram Influencers’ Impact On Well-Being, Kimberly Yiting T'Ng, Kai Qin Chan, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

With Instagram influencers holding significant sway over public perception, their presumed psychological impact on young adults has gathered public attention. It has been claimed that influencers, known for showcasing enviable lifestyles, have the potential to affect their followers’ well-being. However, these claims have been based on correlational data that focuses on diffused indicators of social media consumption rather than specific features of Instagram. This limits our insight into the direct effects of Instagram on well-being. We experimentally investigated the effects of a brief exposure to Instagram influencers on the well-being. Our results showed that viewing profiles of demographically similar social …

Dispositional Optimism, Sleep, And Trait Affective Mediators: A Latent Variable Approach, Nicole Ruiying Chen, Nadyanna Binte Mohamed Majeed, Adalia Yin Hui Goh, Paye Shin Koh, Jonathan Louis Jie Sheng Chia, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Dispositional optimism has been shown to be associated with better sleep. However, most existing studies rely on subjective assessments of sleep, which may not align with objective assessments of sleep. Additionally, research investigating the mechanisms underlying the association between optimism and sleep is lacking. Moreover, the confounding role of possible content overlap in measures relevant to the constructs of interest has been neglected. To address these gaps, we utilised latent variable analysis and investigated the mediating role of depression and trait anxiety across two large-scale studies (total N = 2312), with objective sleep measures included in Study 2. In Study …

Umbrella Review Of Meta-Analyses On The Risk Factors, Protective Factors, Consequences And Interventions Of Cyberbullying Victimization, K. T. A. Sandeeshwara Kasturiratna, Andree Hartanto, Crystal H. Y. Chen, Eddie M. W. Tong, Nadyanna M. Majeed

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The increasing prevalence of cyberbullying victimization has become a commonplace issue globally. Although research has explored various predictors and consequences of cyberbullying victimization, most focus on a narrow range of variables or contexts, highlighting the need to comprehensively review and synthesize the wealth of empirical findings. We conducted a systematic review of meta-analyses on cyberbullying victimization, incorporating 56 meta-analyses and 296 effect sizes (sample size range 421–1,136,080, sample size median 53,183; searched via EBSCOhost ERIC, EBSCOhost PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, 13 cyberbullying-related journals, Google Scholar and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses) to address the following critical questions: (1) What …

Youth's Career Adaptability In Untung Jawa Island, Lydia Freyani Hawadi, Gary Collins Brata Winardy, Hasna Hafizhah Salma

Psychological Research on Urban Society

The development of coastal regions is a pivotal aspect of Indonesia's ‘poros maritim dunia’ national agenda. This study focuses on Untung Jawa Island, a designated 'tourism village' off the coast of Jakarta, to investigate how the aspirations and perspectives of its young population align with this developmental drive. This study focuses on the viewpoints of the active Karang Taruna group members on the island, as they represent the youth engaged in community development. Utilizing a qualitative exploratory phenomenology design, this study employs Focused Group Discussions (FGD) to gain insights into how the youth perceive their potential career based on their …

Bridging The Protection Gap: Innovative Approaches To Shield Older Adults From Ai-Enhanced Scams, Ld Herrera, London Van Sickle, Ashley L. Podhradsky

Research & Publications

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly gaining popularity as individuals, groups, and organizations discover and apply its expanding capabilities. Generative AI creates or alters various content types including text, image, audio, and video that are realistic and challenging to identify as AI-generated constructs. However, guardrails preventing malicious use of AI are easily bypassed. Numerous indications suggest that scammers are already using AI to enhance already successful scams, improving scam effectiveness, speed and credibility, while reducing detectability of scams that target older adults, who are known to be slow to adopt new technologies. Through hypothetical cases analysis of two leading scams, the …

Refereed Research - Religiosity And Sociality As Sources Of Resilience For Women Subsistence Entrepreneurs During The Pandemic, Rozina Akther

Subsistence Marketplaces

This study examines challenges faced by subsistence women entrepreneurs during COVID-19, the crisis of 2020, and their resilience in addressing the circumstances. The results of qualitative interviews with 13 subsistence marketplace women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh are presented in this article. In the current study, two themes are found to best capture the experiences and resilience of women business owners in the subsistence marketplaces. Furthermore, the study provides important insights from informant interviews, showing how women business owners navigate their operations during a pandemic. It highlights attributes such as relational strength and faith in a higher power that contribute to their …

Remembering And Forgetting: National Identity Construction In Tolkien’S Middle-Earth, Sara Brown

Journal of Tolkien Research

The medieval period in Europe saw the development of vernacular literatures, grown out of oral tradition and classical mythology, in which epic poems were a means of preserving culture, sharing a moral code, and offering solace in times of hardship. These epic poems, usually transcribed or translated in monastic scriptoria, were passed down through generations and enabled the sharing of memory via storytelling. In many ways, this early literature, rooted as it was in both the religious and the secular aspects of life in this time, was as much a part of the identity of the various European peoples as …

The Extent To Which Race, Ptsd Symptoms, And Attitudes Toward Help-Seeking Predict Help-Seeking Intentions/Help-Seeking Behavior Among Veterans, Lenora Elizabeth Rogers

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Veterans who are returning to civilian life often experience barriers to seeking mental healthcare. The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental, correlational study was to determine the extent to which race, PTSD symptoms, and attitudes toward help-seeking (psychological openness, help-seeking propensity, indifference to stigma) predict help-seeking intentions and help-seeking behavior among military veterans. Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior was the basis for this study. A convenience sample of 105 veterans (53 African Americans, 52 Caucasians) were recruited via Alchemer. Standard multiple regression analysis showed that help-seeking propensity was a significant predictor of help-seeking intentions, with higher scores on help-seeking propensity predicting …

Local Crime And Substance Use Disorders: A Comparison Of Midlife Adults In The 1990s And 2000s, Jennifer W. Robinette, Jason D. Boardman, Kathleen Mullan Harris

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

This study investigated how sociopolitical changes in the United States between the 1990s and 2000s may explain the increase in substance use disorders and reduced longevity in more recent cohorts of US midlife adults. The 2008 recession which drastically increased unemployment rates across the country may have had negative implications for downstream contextual and individual processes, including both local crime rates and substance use disorders. The Midlife in the United States Survey cohort (1995; n = 6148; 20–75 years) and the MIDUS Refresher cohort (2011; n = 3543; 23–76 years) reported on substance use disorders. These data were linked to …

The Pilling Process: Significance Quest, Self-Verification, And Fusion In Online Incel Forums, Gregory J. Rousis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Incels (short for “involuntary celibates) are an online community of men who blame women for their reputed sexual and romantic failures. The misogyny of their worldview, called the blackpill, has inspired multiple instances of real-world violence against women. Alarmingly, we know little about the temporal processes whereby an incel goes from joining an online community to becoming deeply aligned (i.e., “fused”) with the group. This project sought to address this by scraping incels’ most popular web forum and using text analysis to identify psychological mechanisms that could be responsible for incels’ fusion. The resulting dataset consisted of 1,097,841 unique discussion …

The 21st Century Coach: A Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Resource For Youth Lacrosse Coaches, Maria D'Ugo, Jillian Lowey, Sean Mapoles, Brian Gearity

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

This document provides educational information, resources, and support to coaches and administrators with the goal of empowering and encouraging diversity, equity, and inclusion in daily sporting practices. This document may aid in efforts to increase inclusion and participation in youth sport, specifically lacrosse. Furthermore, it may help to increase coaches’ and administrators’ cultural awareness and competencies.

Categorical Differences: Social Identity Heuristics Predict Differences In Cognitive Empathy, Corey Ronald Sims

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The current study aimed to identify if there was a relationship between cross-ethnic racial identity and cognitive empathy for others and whether social and personal identities mediated this effect. Self-categorization theory was used as the theoretical framework. In this study, it was hypothesized that cross-ethnic racial identity significantly predicts empathic accuracy, and that social and personal identities mediate this relationship. A non-experimental, researcher-designed survey was used to collect participant data and demographic characteristics. Participant inclusion criteria were an age between 18 and 55, U.S. citizenship, and a self-identification as Asian American, Black American, Hispanic American, or White American. The Cross-Ethnic …

Exploring The Denial Of Institutional Racism: Impacts Of Social Identity, Perceptions Of Privilege, And Threat, Kalen Charles Kennedy

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation consists of one correlational and one experimental study grounded in Social Identity Theory, which posits that individuals derive a significant portion of their self- concept from their membership in social groups (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). One’s social identity plays a crucial role in how individuals interpret intergroup relations. Building on this understanding, I explored factors that may explain the denial of institutional racism among White individuals, focusing on the importance of their racial identity, attitudes towards White privilege, and the perception of social threat. In Study 1, which included 193 White participants, a weak positive correlation was found …

Daily Stress, Problematic Social Media Use, And Executive Functions: A Daily Diary Approach, Wee Qin Ng

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

A growing body of research suggests that daily stress may be a risk factor for problematic social media use. However, findings concerning the relation between stress and social media use are mixed, suggesting the presence of moderators that may buffer the relation between stress and problematic social media use. Further, previous studies have relied on either cross-sectional designs or longitudinal designs that may not fully capture daily experiences of stressors and social media use. To overcome these limitations, the present study utilized a 7-day daily diary study to investigate the within-individual associations between daily stress and problematic social media use. …

Deliberately Making And Correcting Errors In Mathematical Problem-Solving Practice Improves Procedural Transfer To More Complex Problems, Janson Boon Khang Yap, Sarah Shi Hui Wong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

How can students effectively learn and transfer mathematical procedures to solve new problems? Here, we tested the effects of deliberately committing and correcting errors during mathematical problem-solving practice on transfer of the learned procedures. In two experiments, university students were instructed on mathematical algorithms (synthetic division and matrix multiplication) and solved practice problems during open-book study. Learners were then tested on flexibly adapting the algorithms to solve novel problems that were structurally more complex or embedded in “real-life” scenarios (i.e., mathematical word problems). Deliberately committing and correcting procedural errors during problem-solving practice yielded better transfer than errorless repeated practice (Experiment …

Devices And Dining: A Cross-Cultural Analysis Of Mobile Device Use In Italian And American Restaurants, O'Malley Jenkins

Senior Theses

The field of technology ethics has seen increasing growth and interest over the years. Many have begun to consider the impacts of technology’s use and whether it is being employed in a healthy manner by users. However, there has been limited investigation into whether the ways in which technology use varies across cultures. This study begins to address this gap by researching Italian and American device usage in fast food settings. Non-participant naturalistic observations were used to record data for 89 Italian and 88 American customers of fast food restaurants. Analysis of the collected data indicates that Americans use their …

Does Relationship Conflict Reduce Novel Idea Communication Through Perceived Leader Openness? Power Distance Orientation As A Moderator, Ming-Hong Tsai

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate why followers have low perceptions of leader openness and thus feel reluctant to communicate novel ideas by examining leader–follower relationship conflict (i.e. interpersonal incompatibility) and a follower’s power distance orientation (i.e. an acceptance of uneven power distribution in organizations) as antecedents. Design/methodology/approach: The research administrators conducted a three-wave work behavior survey in Study 1, a laboratory experiment in Study 2, and an online experiment in Study 3. Findings: The results demonstrated that leader–follower relationship conflict reduced followers’ perceptions of leader openness. However, the negative impact of relationship conflict became non-significant when followers have high …

Registered Replication Report: A Large Multilab Cross-Cultural Conceptual Replication Of Turri Et Al. (2015), Braeden Hall, Kathleen Schmidt, Jordan Wagge, Savannah C. Lewis, Sophia C. Weissgerber, Felix Kiunke, ..., Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

According to the justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge, people can truly know something only if they have a belief that is both justified and true (i.e., knowledge is JTB). This account was challenged by Gettier, who argued that JTB does not explain knowledge attributions in certain situations, later called “Gettier-type cases,” wherein protagonists are justified in believing something to be true, but their belief was correct only because of luck. Laypeople may not attribute knowledge to protagonists with justified but only luckily true beliefs. Although some research has found evidence for these so-called Gettier intuitions, Turri et al. …

Investigating Gender Bias In Large Language Models Through Text Generation, Shweta Soundararajan, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

Large Language Models (LLMs) have swiftly become essential tools across diverse text generation applications. However, LLMs also raise significant ethical and societal concerns, particularly regarding potential gender biases in the text they produce. This study investigates the presence of gender bias in four LLMs: ChatGPT 3.5, ChatGPT 4, Llama 2 7B, and Llama 2 13B. By generating a gendered language dataset using these LLMs, focusing on sentences about men and women, we analyze the extent of gender bias in their outputs. Our evaluation is two-fold: we use the generated dataset to train a gender stereotype detection task and measure gender …

Investigating The Effects Of Empathy On Implicit Race Bias, Macy Kisiel

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Over the years there have been changes to social norms, which now discourage expressions of prejudice, and changes in many people’s self-reported attitudes, but prejudice is still a major issue in present-day American society. One important step toward addressing prejudice and social injustices is to understand the psychological processes that underlie and strengthen them. The current study aimed to use an empathy passage to positively prime the schema about a minority person of color and manipulate regulation of implicit bias. The study utilized a mixed 2 × 2 design. Sixty-four participants (Mage = 20.88 years, SD = 4.75 years) were …

An Examination Of Food And Alcohol Disturbance Based On Sexual Orientation In A Sample Of Women Who Binge Eat, Alicia M. Moulder

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Food and alcohol disturbance (FAD), characterized by disordered eating behaviors in the context of drinking alcohol to enhance intoxication, counteract alcohol’s calories, or both, is associated with increased risk of negative drinking consequences. Previously established as a phenomenon occurring in college students, research has begun to support that FAD may also occur in nonstudents. Three particularly vulnerable groups for FAD may include women, individuals with history of binge eating, as well as sexual minority individuals. Consequently, the goals of the current study were to elucidate differences in FAD engagement between sexual minority women (SMW) and heterosexual women using a sample …

Weight Bias Internalization And Disordered Eating: Examining The Role Of Sexual Orientation In A Sample Of Women Who Binge Eat, Meredith I. Turner

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Sexual minority women and heterosexual women endorse different rates of disordered eating symptoms. Weight bias internalization (WBI), or self-directed negative attitudes and beliefs about oneself due to their weight, is known to be associated with binge eating and other disordered eating behaviors. However, little is known about the influence WBI may have on disordered eating symptoms across various sexual orientations. Therefore, this study examined disordered eating, WBI, and the association between them among sexual minority and heterosexual women. Specifically, the study aims were to (1) compare instances of WBI and disordered eating symptoms between sexual minority and heterosexual women, (2) …

Relational Resilience, Grace, And The Role Of Divine Forgiveness, Bethanie Pusey

Senior Honors Theses

The constructs of relational resilience, divine forgiveness, and grace have recently grown in popularity within the field of positive psychology, yet their associations have thus far remained unexplored. The present study sought to fill this gap in the literature and determine what relationship exists between these variables while controlling for other related factors such as interpersonal forgiveness, self-forgiveness, spirituality, and general resilience. Participants (N = 247) from a large private Christian university provided responses to both trait and conflict-specific measures. Correlational findings supported significant positive relations between relational resilience and divine forgiveness, interpersonal forgiveness, and self-forgiveness. Relational resilience was …