Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

A Novel Measure Of Narrative Self-Functioning And Its Role In The Transformative Potential Of Psychedelic Experience Across Clinical And Non-Clinical Participants, Nicole M. Amada

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The eudaimonic field of well-being is founded on the idea that self-knowledge and the realization of one’s potential is at the heart of what it means to strive for well-being. While the “self” is at the core of this perspective, theories derived from this field have yet to incorporate neurocognitive conceptualizations of the self, and account for the collection of self-referential cognitions that influence striving for well-being. Such a theory and measure could fill this theoretical gap and be applied in person centered interventions to capture change in these processes over time. One such intervention utilizes psychedelic experience as a …

The Case Of The Disappearing Owner: Do Dogs Show Behavioral Evidence Of Violation Of Expectation?, Rita Kanagat

Theses and Dissertations

The What the Fluff challenge became a series of viral YouTube videos that started in 2018. In the videos, a person stood behind a blanket in a doorway in front of their dog and lifted and lowered the blanket revealing and obscuring themselves, and finally disappearing with a final blanket drop. The dogs’ reactions were varied but were suggestive of a violation of expectation response. We conducted a community science study that employed methodologies consistent with the What the Fluff Challenge paradigm that were conducted in the owners’ homes with their dogs. Each owner was required to run a control …

Relationships Between Cognitive Abilities And Patterns Of Children’S Classroom Behavior At Age Nine, Seré Elizabeth Politano

Theses and Dissertations

Teacher reports are often used to indicate how well children perform in school and help clinicians identify behavioral problems, such as inattentiveness (Charach et al., 2009). However, various factors may have an effect on teacher ratings of children’s behavior, which can have downstream effects on children’s academic achievement (Teisl et al., 2001). Given teachers play a large role in identifying at-risk youth, it is important to understand how their reports of children’s behavior are associated with childhood outcomes such as cognitive development, which is closely tied to academic achievement (Metcalfe et al., 2013). The present study aimed to identify patterns …

Authentic Mindfulness Within Mindfulness-Based Interventions: A Qualitative Study Of Participants' Experiences, Supakyada Sapthiang, Edo Shonin, Paul Barrows, William Van Gordon

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

There are concerns that participants of some modern mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are receiving a superficial form of mindfulness training. However, empirical investigation of this issue according to participants’ first-hand experiences has been limited. Thus, this qualitative study aimed to capture the first-hand perspectives relating to authentic mindfulness of participants who had recently attended an MBI in the UK. Ten adults completed a recorded, online semistructured interview. Based on a thematic analysis, the following four master themes were identified: (a) authentic mindfulness as a construct, (b) positive aspects of the training, (c) something missing, and (d) recommendations for authenticity. Although all …

Cognitive Illusion, Lucid Dreaming, And The Psychology Of Metaphor In Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen Contemplative Practices, Michael R. Sheehy

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

A classic set of eight similes of illusion (sgyu ma’i dpe brgyad) are employed recurrently throughout Indian and Tibetan Buddhist literature to illustrate the operations of cognition, its correlative perceptions, and experiences that emerge. To illustrate a Buddhist psychology of metaphor, the fourteenth century Tibetan scholar and synthesizer of the Dzogchen (rdzogs chen) or Great Perfection system, Longchen Rabjam Drimé Ödzer (1308-1363), composed his poetic text, Being at Ease with Illusion. This work on illusion is the third volume in Longchenpa’s Trilogy of Being at Ease (Ngal gso skor gsum) in which he presents a series of Dzogchen instructions on …

Interactions In The Mind: Examining Metacognition's Role In Entrepreneurial Performance, John Sebesta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To better understand the mental processes that shape entrepreneurial performance, this dissertation examines the moderating effect of metacognitive abilities on the relationship between cognitive style and entrepreneurial alertness on performance at the opportunity identification and planning stages of the entrepreneurial journey. Prior research identifies these factors as components of an entrepreneurial mindset. However, the present research develops and examines theoretically driven predictions regarding how the factors interact. Using a sample of seventy teams participating in a business plan competition enables performance evaluation at these early steps in the entrepreneurship process. The hypotheses were not supported, but post hoc analyses indicate …

Must Be Music On The Brain: The Effects Of Music On Performance Accuracy, Hannah Wright, Jillian Graham, Cameron Smith, Ephreme Megenta

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Music is present during a large portion of our day-to-day lives. Previous research has shown varying results on the effects of music on an array of cognitive-based task performance. Much of the previous literature has solely focused on the effects of one type of music or the effects of music on one specific task; furthermore, many of the tasks used to measure cognitive performance have been lab-based and unnatural from what would be encountered in the real world. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the effects of multiple types of music on multiple relevant, naturalistic cognitive tasks. …

Gender Bias In Story Recounting, Cecilia Garcia, Zali White, Keeley Trainer, Madison Oliver

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Gendered language permeates sections of our lives in ways that we may not realize. Previous research indicates a relationship between biases and gendered language; however, it has primarily been conducted with children as the participants rather than adults (Seitz, et al., 2020). This study aimed to investigate this and identify the relationship between gendered language and implicit bias. Passages using gendered language can alter the listener's perspective in terms of the gender identification of an otherwise unlabeled protagonist. Therefore, to explore this phenomenon, participants of this study were given an androgynous story with masculine and feminine phrases. Then, a multiplication …

Updated Perspectives On Linking School Bullying And Related Youth Violence Research To Effective Prevention Strategies, Dorothy L. Espelage, Susan M. Swearer

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Bullying, a subset of aggression, has been an international focus of scholarship for several decades and has been declared as public health concern globally (Espelage, 2015; Hymel & Espelage, 2018; Kann et al., 2018). An abstract literature search with the terms “adol*” and “bully*” yielded 382 peer-reviewed journal articles from 2001 through 2010, and an astounding 1585 articles from 2011 through 2020.

Within the last decade, there has been a concerted effort among scholars to reach a consensus on how bullying should be defined, operationalized, and assessed, how it differs from other forms of aggression (e.g., dating violence), and how …

Process Depletion In Emotion Regulation, Christian Capistrano Boeckner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The ability to regulate emotions via reappraisal is considered an important skill that is associated with greater well-being. However, the effectiveness of emotion regulation is impacted by individual differences, and its adaptiveness may vary depending on context. For example individuals from vulnerable populations such as children and mothers in the context of poverty often demonstrate less optimal reappraisal, that is in turn associated with maladaptive behaviors. Given its consequence on mental health, it is critical to understand mechanisms that influence reappraisal to maximize its adaptive consequences. The current study explored conditions that could either facilitate or impair reappraisal success. We …

Cultural Values And Maintaining The Status Quo, Andrew Clapper, Adam Smiley, Michael Oliver

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

Research on status quo bias suggests that all else equal, people prefer to maintain the current state of the world rather than making changes (Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988). Relatedly, people tend to value objects more when they possess them than when they do not, in what is known as the “endowment effect” (Kahneman et al., 1991; Morewedge et al., 2015). However, little attention has been paid to reaction times in making decisions in the presence of a status quo or a possessed object. Our study examines the individual differences which affect reaction times in selecting between status quo and novel …

Misinformation Alters Personality Assessment Scores, Tyler Shapland

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Misinformation has become a common topic in everyday life, typically referring to inaccurate information within news stories or on social media. This research focuses on a different type of misinformation, how misinformation impacts an individual's personal information such as personality assessment scores. More specifically, can personality trait and state scores be suggestively influenced by false feedback? Similar to personality traits and states, previous false feedback literature has found that an individual’s self-reported confidence, self-esteem, and mood ratings can be suggestively influenced. In two preregistered experiments in this study, participants completed a personality assessment test, were exposed to false feedback about …

Second Victim Syndrome And Organizational Support For Healthcare Providers: A Scoping Review, K R. Petryszyn, J P. Young, E R. Neil, J E. Benedict, L E. Eberman

Clinical Practice in Athletic Training

Introduction: Healthcare providers may experience critical incident, medical error, or other adverse patient events in their clinical practice. Those that do encounter such events, may experience second victim syndrome (SVS), a condition in which providers feel psychological, cognitive, or physical reactions rendering care in these instances. Those with SVS may experience symptoms such as anxiety, depression, or burnout. Organizational support may mediate the impacts of SVS after an adverse patient event. We conducted a scoping review to explore and synthesize the literature on the support strategies implemented by healthcare organizations in the United States, for healthcare providers, after adverse patient …

State Level Mental Health Education Compared To Suicide-Related Behavior In Adolescents, 2019, Sonia Rao

Honors Theses

Objective: Determining correlations between state level mental and emotional health (M&E) education and suicide prevention (SP) education to suicide-related behaviors (I.e. feeling sad or hopeless, suicide ideation, making a suicide plan, suicide attempt, suicide attempt treated by medical personnel, and death by suicide) within high school adolescents aged 15-19 within the United States in 2019.

Methods: State level education policies, M&E and SP, were retrieved from the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE). Self-reported adolescent suicide related behaviors were retrieved from the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS). Data on deaths by suicide of youth aged 15-19 …

Unbounding Rationality: Observing And Mitigating K-12 Public Education Administrators’ Cognitive Bias, Julie K. Mesaros

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Humans tend to simplify complex decisions by employing cognitive bias(es). Cognitively biased decision-making by public administrators can be adversely consequential for public organizations, public employees, and the public interest. Given the historical scope of experimental research on cognitive bias in the social and physical sciences, public administration scholars should continue to advance such research across various public sectors. This dissertation study responded to the long-ago call of Herbert Simon for empirical research situated in specific public or political contexts. This qual-QUAN mixed-method study had two main aims: (1) explore decisions that K-12 public education administrators make in personnel management and …

“It’S Loving Yourself For You”: Happiness In Trans And Nonbinary Adults, Elliot Tebbe, Haley L. Bell, Kendal Cassidy, Sonia Lindner, Emily Wilson, Stephanie L. Budge

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Expanding upon the larger body of literature that focuses on adverse mental health concerns among trans and nonbinary (TNB) populations, emerging research has recently begun to investigate positive outcomes and psychological well-being among TNB people. This study contributes to this growing area of research by investigating one subjectively experienced aspect of well-being—happiness—among TNB adults residing in the central Great Plains region of the United States. For this study, 20 TNB adults participated in semistructured interviews where they were asked to reflect on how they experienced happiness generally and in relation to being TNB, and what fostered or impeded their happiness. …

Variable- And Person-Centered Approaches To Examining Construct-Relevant Multidimensionality In Writing Self-Efficacy, Morgan Les Debusk-Lane, Sharon Zumbrunn, Christine Lee Bae, Michael D. Broda, Roger Bruning, Ashlee L. Sjogren

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Self-efficacy is an essential component of students’ motivation and success in writing. There have been great advancements in our theoretical understanding of writing self-efficacy over the past 40 years; however, there is a gap in how we empirically model the multidimensionality of writing self-efficacy. The purpose of the present study was to examine the multidimensionality of writing selfefficacy, and present validity evidence for the adapted Self-Efficacy for Writing Scale (SEWS) through a series of measurement model comparisons and person-centered approaches. Using a sample of 1,466 8th–10th graders, results showed that a bifactor exploratory structural equation model best represented the data, …

Working Memory Performance: Is Subjective Measurement A Better Predictor Than Cognitive Load?, Megan Mccray

Dissertations and Theses

We rely on our capacity for rapid attention switching to conduct multiple tasks simultaneously. Leading working memory models assume that memory maintenance and attention-demanding secondary task processing cannot coincide. Any reduction in memory maintenance activities occurring due to secondary task processing leads to impaired recall. This temporal relationship is typically characterized through the proportion of time spent attending to the concurrent processing task, also called cognitive load. Although the primary determinant of forgetting in leading models, recent findings show limitations to cognitive load effects in multitasking. We investigated whether the effects of cognitive load are a byproduct of subjective task …

“I Ask Questions!”: An Investigation On Conspiracy Theorizing, Epistemic Curiosity, And Social Vigilantism In Examining Fanatic Conspiracy Theory Support, Hillary Copeland

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

This study uncovered factors associated with increased conspiracy theory fanaticism by examining the structural components of conspiracy thinking to predict continuous support for specific conspiracy theory propositions. Participants' level of discordant knowledge in conspiracy thinking, comprised of subjective certainty and locus of perceived social opposition, was quantified to predict continuous support for specific conspiracy theory propositions (H1). Findings suggest that underlying differences in the epistemic structure of conspiracy theorizing can be measured to predict the potential negative outcomes of increased conspiracy thinking. Social vigilantism was also examined as a partial mediator to help explain the relationship between discordant knowing conspiracy …

Does Encouraging Use Of Self-Testing In An Introductory Psychology Course Increase Effective Study Behaviors?, James Koppenhofer

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Students continue to use ineffective study strategies in classroom settings. Research suggests the efficacy of student study strategies may be enhanced by learning encouragement interventions. The present study implements a flashcard-oriented learning encouragement intervention in an applied setting and measures its effectiveness through a one-group pretest-posttest design which was used with three surveys. Undergraduates were recruited from two sections of an Introductory Psychology course (n=89) and all students received the learning encouragement intervention. Results indicated that the intervention increased flashcard use, and exam performance was correlated with flashcard use when measured immediately after the intervention. After the intervention …