Applied Behavior Analysis Commons^™

The Effects Of Brand Familiarity On Perceived Risks, Attitudes, And Purchase Intentions Toward Intimate Apparel Brands: The Case Of Victoria’S Secret, Jennifer Lynn Rose

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of brand familiarity on reducing consumers’ perceived risks in intimate apparel shopping, which in turn influence consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions toward intimate apparel brands. To predict relationships among perceptions of risk and consumer behaviors, the present study adopted the perceived risk theory (Cox, 1976) and a modified version of the theory of reasoned action (TRA; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975).

An online survey was conducted by recruiting adult females through a large Mid-Southern university in the U.S. Reliable and valid measures from previous research were adopted and modified to assess …

Measuring Consumer Expectations Of Salesperson Unethicality: A Scale Development, Amiee Mellon

Marketing Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation addresses how and what ethical expectations (prior to conducting business) affect customer trust of the salesperson. In order to do so, this dissertation achieves two things. First, a scale for measuring the consumer’s expectations of salesperson unethicality (CESU) is systematically developed and validated based on the existing ethics literature and previously developed scales. Second, the scale’s properties and potential application are examined through hypothesis testing regarding the effects of (1) word of mouth on brand equity and consumer’s expectations of unethicality, and the effects of (2) brand equity and consumer’s expectations of unethicality on trust of the salesperson. …

Effects Of Early-Adolescent, Mid-Adolescent, Or Adult Stress On Morphine Conditioned Place Preference, Chloe Shields

Senior Theses

In light of previous work demonstrating that stress can increase subjective drug reward in adult rats, the present study investigated the influence of stress on morphine conditioned place preference (CPP) in early-adolescent, mid-adolescent, and adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. Subjects in each age group were assigned to either a no stress condition or a stress condition in which they were exposed to an unpredictable eight-day schedule of elevated platform and synthetic fox odor stressors. Place conditioning then evaluated subjective morphine reward in all animals. Using a biased procedure, subjects were assigned to receive morphine on the initially non-preferred side of the …

The Effects Of Schedule Density Of Reinforcement For Alternative Behavior On Resurgence, Kathryn M. Kestner

Dissertations

Resurgence is the reemergence of a previously extinguished response when an alternative response no longer produces reinforcement. Although returning to previously successful methods for obtaining reinforcement is likely advantageous, resurgence also occurs in the form of treatment relapse. An individual may return to problematic behavior (e.g., aggression, self-injury, drug use) when an alternative behavior (e.g., communication response, coping skill, social behavior, etc.) is no longer successful at producing a reinforcer. Behavior analysts rely on treatments based on differential reinforcement of alternative behavior, and resurgence has been demonstrated following changes to reinforcement schedules due to errors in treatment integrity or intentional …

An Eye-Tracking Methodology For Testing Consumer Preference Of Display Trays In A Simulated Retail Environment, Erin Snyder, Rupert Andrew Hurley, Charles E. Tonkin, Kay Cooksey, Julie C. Rice

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Display trays have traditionally been used to support distribution packaging and retail stocking. Yet, it is becoming increasingly common to find display trays as devices to garner attention and increase the shelf presence of packaging. This paper presents a method for testing consumer preference of display trays for liquid dish soap and canned tomatoes in CUShop™, a consumer experience laboratory, using eye-tracking technology. It was hypothesized that display trays would increase total fixation duration and decrease time to first fixation on the respective products tested. However, it was determined that attention to products in a display tray was …

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Emotional Literacy Instruction On At-Risk Students, Shannon H. Garcia

Dissertations

This study examined the impact of social-emotional literacy instruction for at-risk adolescents ages 13 to 18 at the high school level. Of particular interest is the impact of social-emotional literacy instruction on at-risk youth Grades 9-12 in secondary high schools’ 8-week-long social-emotional literacy class through Project AWARE, particularly in the areas of suspension, expulsion, attendance, connectivity, attitude toward school, resiliency, and relational aggression rates; the data were analyzed using archival data and teacher interview. Project AWARE, the social-emotional literacy intervention examined in this study, educates and provides mentorship for at-risk students, while also providing a group educational component on relationships …

Summary Of The Performance Effects Of Sustained Operations, Valerie Gawron

Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments

Sustained operations missions are performed in diverse environments. These environments include military command and control, process control, medical practice, and security surveillance. Research on the related fatigue effects of sustained operations is reviewed for each of these diverse environments. For military surge operations, both ground and airborne command and control operators show similar decrements in visual performance as a function of sleep loss. Other decrements include increased number of errors in vigilance tasks and reaction time tasks. In process control experiments, longer shifts resulted in more variance in reaction time to grammatical reasoning tasks. Night shift was associated with slower …

Workplace Aggression: A Multi-Study Examination Of Work And Nonwork Consequences, Caitlin Ann Demsky

Dissertations and Theses

Workplace aggression has been associated with a number of detrimental employee and organizational outcomes, both at work and away from work. This dissertation includes three studies that expand our knowledge of the implications of workplace aggression in the work and nonwork domains. Further, this research illuminates the processes through which this relationship occurs by utilizing various sources of data from employees in a variety of contexts including universities, long term health care, and the USDA Forest Service. In Study 1, which was published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, multi-source data are utilized to identify the indirect effects of …

Dynamic Job Satisfaction Shifts: Implications For Manager Behavior And Crossover To Employees, David Ellis Caughlin

Dissertations and Theses

In this dissertation, I investigated job satisfaction from a dynamic perspective. Specifically, I integrated the momentum model of job satisfaction with the affective shift model and crossover theory in an effort to move beyond traditional, static conceptions of job satisfaction and other constructs. Recent research and theoretical development has focused on the meaning of job satisfaction change for workers and how such change impacts their decisions to leave an organization. To extend this line of inquiry, I posited hypotheses pertaining to: (a) job satisfaction change with respect to positive work behavior (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior, family-supportive supervisor behavior); (b) the …

Does Thin Always Sell? The Moderating Role Of Thin Ideal Internalization On Advertising Effectiveness, James A. Roberts, Chloe' A. Roberts

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Much of the current focus on the use of ultra-thin models in fashion magazines can be attributed to Madison Avenue which still operates under a “Thin Sells” ethos. Research to date, however, has provided equivocal evidence of the efficacy of thin models in advertising (Yu 2014). The present study’s two related objectives include: (1) determining whether model size has an impact on advertising effectiveness, and (2) if internalization of the thin ideal moderates this relationship. Study results suggest model size in fashion advertisements has no main effect on advertising effectiveness. Additionally, thin ideal internalization moderates the model size – advertising …

Least Among Brethren, Dami Onifade

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

I was in the second row of Dr. Jules Herrell’s psychology class on a brisk day in Washington DC when I heard about the prison experiment at Stanford University during a college lecture. Naturally, I was shocked to learn young men my age that had gone in as equals could turn on each other for a meager salary and free meals. I wanted to show this quality of people in situations involving intimidation, peer pressure and envy. My co-writers and I found a way into the narrative through the bond of two friends, Prince and Malachi. This allowed us a …

The Pid-5 Does Not Contain Validity Scales. Do You Care?, Carisha Kelsey, David G. Fischer

Student Research Symposium

The most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) provides clinicians with a new personality assessment tool, the Personality Inventory for DSM-5. It is one of a number of assessments provided for use “in research and evaluation as potentially useful tools to enhance clinical decision-making…” The PID-5 does not contain validity scales to assist clinicians in assessing personality and making diagnostic decisions. This research project seeks to answer the question, “Can the PID-5 be a useful tool without a set of validity scales provided to assist in the interpretation of results?” A literature …

The Effects Of In-Class Application Questions On Academic Behaviors, Julia Ricotta

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Interteaching is a behavioral method of teaching college co urses, where students take a more active approach to learning. The current study manipulated int erteaching preparation guides and studied the effects on exam scores, attendance, duration of discussion, and ratings of the discussions. Both groups received the same materials in di fferent formats. The control group completed full prep guides at home, which included factual an d application questions. The intervention group completed revised prep guides at home, whi ch included factual questions, and application questions in class. During discussions, the control group discussed answers to the full prep guides, …

Delay And Probabilistic Discounting Of Alcoholic Beverages, Frank L. Galante

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Discounting tasks were used to determine the degree to which college undergraduates discounted delayed and probabilistic alcoholic beverages. Tasks were framed in terms of gains (i.e.,obtaining a hypothetical amount of alcohol) and losses (i.e., losing a hypothetical amount of alcohol). In all gain and loss conditions, discounting was evident and was generally well described by a hyperboloid function. Gains were discounted more steeply then losses. There were no correlations between the median delay gain discounting rates and the median delay loss discounting rates. Likewise, there were no correlations between the median probabilistic gain discounting rates and the median probabilistic loss …

Paradoxical Interaction Between Ocular Activity, Perception, And Decision Confidence At The Threshold Of Vision, Aaron Schurger

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

In humans and some other species perceptual decision-making is complemented by the ability to make confidence judgements about the certainty of sensory evidence. While both forms of decision process have been studied empirically, the precise relationship between them remains poorly understood. We performed an experiment that combined a perceptual decision-making task (identifying the category of a faint visual stimulus) with a confidence-judgement task (wagering on the accuracy of each perceptual decision). The visual stimulation paradigm required steady fixation, so we used eye-tracking to control for stray eye movements. Our data analyses revealed an unexpected and counterintuitive interaction between the steadiness …

Establishing Conditioned Reinforcers In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Kristen Rollman

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often demonstrate restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviors, interests, and activities, often involving preoccupations with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest and an inability to adjust to changes in daily routines and schedules. Academic achievement and skill acquisition present a challenge in children with ASD, often times due to a lack of reinforcer options resulting from these deficits. The current study examines the use of free-operant stimulus preference assessments, progressive-ratio schedule reinforcer analyses, and a Pavlovian conditioning procedure in order to evaluate the establishment of new reinforcers that may be used to …

The Use Of Differential Reinforcement To Increase Participation/Engagement In Children With Autism In An Inclusion Setting, Kayla Gionti

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Abstract

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) would gain more from instructional material if they increased their participation and engagement in general education classrooms. However, these children often grow dependent on prompts from teachers and paraprofessionals to participate. This can impede the children from participating independently in other settings and from engaging with the instructional material presented to them. The purpose of this study was to increase independent participation, while decreasing the prompt dependency of 3 children with ASD in a general education classroom. The use of differential reinforcement and prompt fading increased the hand raising behavior of all three …

International Distance Coaching Of Therapists To Improve Verbal Behavior By Children With Autism, Ana Barkaia

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This study examined the effects of distance coaching on the mastery of therapists’ skills and the development of verbal behavior of children with autism. Three therapists and three children receiving early intervention services in the NGO Children of Georgia in the developing country of Georgia-Sakartvelo in Eastern Europe participated in this research. The therapists received distance coaching about the implementation of ABA therapy from Virginia. The intervention was recorded and coded by observers in Georgia-Sakartvelo and in Harrisonburg/Virginia,USA. The effects of distance coaching was investigated within a multiple baseline across participant.

Teacher Child Interaction Training As A Universal Prevention Program In Preschool And Kindergarten Classrooms, Jessica Rossi

Dissertations, 2014-2019

The current study assessed the effectiveness of Teacher Child Interaction Training (TCIT), an adaptation of Eyberg’s Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), on teacher and child behaviors in preschool and kindergarten classrooms. The sample included four classrooms in urban, socioeconomically disadvantaged and culturally diverse settings. Two preschool classrooms were included in the first study and one preschool and one kindergarten classroom were included in the second study. Both studies used a concurrent multiple baseline design to evaluate the effects of training and coaching on teacher and child behaviors in the classroom. The intervention focused on the development of a friendly attachment …

A Detailed Analysis Of Coaching In Teacher-Child Interaction Training (Tcit), Krystal M. Studivant

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Teacher-Child Interaction Training (TCIT) is a school-based prevention program in which teachers are taught to use basic principles of behavior modification in the classroom to prevent and reduce problem behaviors in young children. A key aspect of the effectiveness of TCIT is the in-vivo coaching, which allows for immediate feedback during the natural flow of teaching activities with children. The purpose of the current study is two-fold: a) to support the research on the effectiveness of the DePaul TCIT method in preschool classrooms and b) to analyze the content and quality of coaching statements. The intervention was introduced sequentially within …