Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons^™

Dressed To Impress: The Effect Of Victim Attire On Helping Behavior, Sergio W. Carvalho, Diogo Hildebrand, Sankar Sen

Publications and Research

Charitable organizations often rely on pictures of victims to raise support for their causes. We examine the effect of donor perceptions of a novel aesthetic element of a victim’s physical appearance – his/her attire – on helping. In line with our theorizing, a field study, a survey and an experiment, together, show that donor perceptions that a victim is well attired reduces helping by diminishing her perceived need. Moreover, we show that this negative effect of neat attire on helping behavior is weaker for more physically attractive victims than for their less attractive counterparts. These findings establish a victim’s attire …

The Effect Of Task Interruptions And Reliable Cues On Detection Changes Within Dynamic Scenes, Kimberly N. Perry

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Interruptions are a common problem for attention and pose a threat to visual task performance. The Memory for Goals (MFG) theory suggests that strongly and accurately encoded cues can assist the ability to resume a primary task after an interruption (Altmann & Trafton, 2002). Encoded cues can undergo an activation decay during an interruption and become forgotten. Currently, there has been limited research on how visual interruptions affect cued recall within a dynamic environment. Thus, the goal of the present study was to examine the effect of cuing and task interruptions on change detection within dynamic scenes. Undergraduate students watched …

Motivational And Physiological Dysregulation Due To Development And Onset Of Obesity Via Melanocortin 4 Receptor +/- Haploinsufficiency, Alex Steiner

Theses and Dissertations

Obesity is one of the leading most health risks around the world, being especially problematic in the United States. A combination of high-fat diets and genetic abnormalities are to blame for the ever-growing number of obese individuals.

Melanocortin 4 receptors are vital for regulating energy expenditure and feeding behaviors; mutations of the receptors have been found to be the leading monogenetic cause of obesity. Using MC4R +/- haploinsufficient rats being fed a range of dietary fat, we investigated the physiological and motivational differences using a locomotor task, an operant task with fixed and progressive ratios, as well as a distraction …

Recent Trends, Current Research In Cyberpsychology: A Literature Review, Amarjit Kumar Singh, Pawan Kumar Singh

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Cyberpsychology refers to the study of the mind and behavior in the context of interactions with technology. It is an emerging branch, which has focused on the psychological aspects connected to the increasing presence and usages of technology in modern lives. This paper traces recent advancement and trends of Cyberpsychology is an emerging domain of knowledge and goes on the give a literature review of the same. An analysis of the recent research and literature covering 300 most relevant research papers from the period of 2012 to 15, August 2019 was conducted to determine and shape the research pattern based …

Judging Facial Expressions Of Emotion: Effects Of Gender, Raine Palladino

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined how quickly people recognize happy, neutral or angry emotional expressions on faces that varied in gender presentation and femininity/masculinity of facial features. Facial features influenced judgments of emotion more for women than men. Neutral expressions were more likely seen as angry on a woman’s face.

The Effects Of Hand Holding On Cancer Patients Level Of Anxiety: A Single-Case Study, West Loveland

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore how the anxiety levels of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients receiving chemotherapy are affected while holding hands with a secure attachment. This study utilized three experimental single-case designs: participant one measured under a B-design, participant two measured under a B-A design, and participant three measured under an A-B design. Each participant’s anxiety was assessed during six chemotherapy treatments and one meeting with their primary oncologist to discuss the prognosis of their cancerous disease. Results visually indicate a greater effect on anxiety reduction during treatment when the intervention is utilized compared to only having a …

Like Me, Do What I Say, & Think About My Influence: The Effects On Witness Choosing And Metacognition, Brittany Race

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Confidence can be a strong predictor of accuracy if circumstances are ideal (Wixted & Wells, 2017), but ideal circumstances are not always present. As such it is important to understand ways to ameliorate potentially negative effects on eyewitness metacognition. Rapport building, though seen as an important element of police/witness interaction (Vallano et al., 2015), can lead to some potentially negative memory effects (Wright et al., 2015). Additionally steering, or the process of directing a witness toward a particular suspect, can increase false identifications. Recently the researcher has developed a paradigm meant to better calibrate confidence by reinstating the context of …

Hating Evil: Understanding The Role Of Evil In Interpersonal Hate, Carmen Merrick

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research has demonstrated that hate is a protective emotional response to perceived evil, yet the dimensions by which people perceive evil have not been clearly identified. Research has also indicated that it is evil to feel hate, which presents an interesting paradox: if hate protects us from evil, then how can it be evil to feel hate? The present research attempts to identify the dimensions of evil and elucidate the relationship between hate and evil by comparing it to the relationship between dislike and evil. Study 1 tested how participants identified evil in third person scenarios. As predicted, evil was …

Measuring Contextual Factors Associated With Experiential Avoidance Using A Behavior Analogue Paradigm, Meaghan M. Lewis

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between levels of state and trait experiential avoidance across two different contexts using behavior analogue methodology. Performance on the cold pressor task (threshold, tolerance, endurance, and intensity; Zettle et al., 2012) was compared to performance on a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST; Kirschbaum et al., 1993) to obtain a behavioral measure of experiential avoidance that was standardized across these four behavioral indices. Data were collected from a convenience sample of undergraduate students (N = 133) from college classrooms on the campus of Western Michigan University. …

Assessment Of Sex Differences And Amphetamine On Schedule-Induced Polydipsia, Min Park

All NMU Master's Theses

Amphetamine (AMPH) is one of the most common psychotropic drugs abused in the United States. Its major pharmacological effect is to increase synaptic dopamine levels in the mesolimbic reward pathway, which in turn causes behavioral effects in animals, and subjective effects in humans. These reinforcing properties of AMPH trigger very strong levels of craving the drug, and eventually result in patterns of compulsive use of AMPH. Regarding psychostimulant action, female rats have been reported to be more vulnerable to the reinforcing effects of psychostimulants. In the current study, schedule-induced polydipsia (SIP), an animal model of compulsive behavior, was applied for …

How Does Alcohol Intoxication Impair Risk Detection Of Sexual Assault? Testing An Integration Of Alcohol Myopia And Social Information Processing Theories, Alexander James Melkonian

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sexual assault among young adults is a highly prevalent public health concern. Alcohol is often implicated as a risk factor for sexual assault through its impairing effects on an individual’s ability to process and respond to social cues in the environment. The effect of alcohol myopia can result in greater focus of attention on salient environmental cues. The relationship between alcohol intoxication and resulting behavior may depend on what type of information is most salient. The current study examined the effects of alcohol on social information processing as it relates to sexual assault risk detection. Method: Participants were 48 young …

Naturally Better? A Review Of The Natural‐Is‐Better Bias, Brian P. Meier, Amanda J. Dillard, Courtney M. Lappas

Psychology Faculty Publications

People are frequently exposed to products and services that are labeled natural (e.g., Nature Made Vitamins or GoJo Natural Orange Hand Cleaner). The frequency with which this label is used suggests that it delivers an advantage in marketing and sales. Our review examines the preference for and perception of naturalness and reveals that people have a bias for items described as natural in many domains including foods, medicine, beauty products, cigarettes, and lighting. These preferences abound even when the natural item is identical or not objectively better than the non‐natural or synthetic item. We believe this bias may be driven …

Allocation To Groups: Examples Of Lord's Paradox, Daniel B. Wright

Educational Psychology, Leadership, and Higher Education Faculty Research

Background Educational and developmental psychologists often examine how groups change over time. Two analytic procedures – analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and the gain score model – each seem well suited for the simplest situation, with just two groups and two time points. They can produce different results, what is known as Lord's paradox. Aims Several factors should influence a researcher's analytic choice. This includes whether the score from the initial time influences how people are assigned to groups. Examples are shown, which will help to explain this to researchers and students, and are of educational relevance. It is shown that …

Preschool Self-Regulation: A Predictor Of School Readiness, Romin Emmanuel Geiger

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Substantial evidence from previous research has supported the idea that greater self-regulation in the form of “cool” self-regulation or executive functioning and “hot” self-regulation or effortful control is associated with higher academic achievement within the preschool years and school readiness in the kindergarten years (Anaya, 2016; Carlson, 2005). However, there are only a few studies that assess the prediction of school readiness through validated cool and hot self-regulation tasks (Carlson, 2005; Krain, Wilson, Arbuckle, Kastellanos, & Wilham, 2006; Rothbart, Ellis, Rueda, & Posner, 2003; Thompson & Giedd, 2000). There also few studies examining to what extent cool and hot-self-regulation tasks …

The Impact Of Musical Components On Retrieval Performance, Adkins Franklin Dane

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Many students claim that they can study well while listening to music (Anderson & Fuller, 2010; Patton, Stinard, & Routh, 1983), but how does listening to music affect students’ ability to encode and recall studied information? Previous research on background music and attention has revealed mixed results, with some studies indicating that background music can help reduce inattentional blindness (Beanland, Allen, & Pammer, 2011), while others suggest that music may hinder the attention of the listener (by Shih, Huang, & Chaing, 2012). Additionally, individual differences in working memory capacity impact one’s ability to store and retrieve information, as well as …

Discriminative Stimulus Effects Of Putative Antipsychotic Drugs, Alex Lekander

All NMU Master's Theses

This study attempted to further explore the discriminative stimulus properties of antipsychotic drugs, by establishing the typical antipsychotic drug chlorpromazine, and the atypical antipsychotic drug clozapine as discriminative stimulus in two different groups of rats. The rats trained to discriminate chlorpromazine from vehicle failed to do so reliably, however nine of ten rats trained to discriminate 1.25 mg/kg clozapine from vehicle were able to acquire the discrimination in 19.1 sessions. The clozapine cue partially generalized (63.13% drug lever responding [SEM = ± 18.91]) to the antimalarial drug methylene blue at the 7.5 mg/kg dose, but not to the antimalarial quinacrine. …

The Effects Of Automation Transparency And Reliability On Task Shedding And Operator Trust, William Everett Lehman

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Because automation use is common in many domains, understanding how to design it to optimize human-automation system performance is vital. Well-calibrated trust ensures good performance when using imperfect automation. Two factors that may jointly affect trust calibration are automation transparency and perceived reliability. Transparency information that explains automated processes and analyses to the operator may help the operator choose appropriate times to shed task control to automation. Because operator trust is positively correlated with automation use, behaviors such as task shedding to automation can indicate the presence of trust. This study used a 2 (reliability; between) × 3 (transparency; within) …

Conceptualization Of Faculty Work Motivation: Overcoming The Impasse, Julie Nikolaeva Thompson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The work motivation literature is at an impasse. At the same time, changing economic and social conditions necessitate an ongoing transformation for how organizations motivate their workforce. Although changes in the nature of work have captured the attention of researchers, calls for more research to further develop work motivation theory have largely gone unnoticed. The scarcity of new theoretical research contributes to a lack of contextual understanding in work motivation. As such, organizational leaders continue to develop interventions based on the findings of potentially outdated work motivation theories. This may lead to diminished work motivation, productivity, and commitment, particularly for …

Age-Dependent Effects Of Eedq On Cocaine-Induced Locomotor Activity And D2 Receptor Supersensitivity, Angie Teran

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The neurochemical changes occurring between the preweanling period and adolescence could be crucial for understanding the role development plays in the manifestation of psychotic behaviors. N-ethoxycarbonyl-2-ethoxy-1,2-dihydroquinoline (EEDQ) fully attenuates the DA agonist-induced behaviors of adult rats, while potentiating the DA agonist-induced locomotor activity of preweanling rats. My specific hypotheses were as follows: (1) Systemically administered EEDQ would block the cocaine-induced locomotor activity of adult rats. (2) Systemically administered EEDQ would potentiate the cocaine-induced locomotion of preweanling rats. (3) EEDQ would increase the E_max values (a measure of D2 receptor sensitivity) of preweanling rats, but not adolescent or adult rats. …

Building A Statistical Model Of The Drivers Of Self-Presentation, Kathleen Jocoy

Theses and Dissertations

The attempt to maintain a consistently positive public image is known as self-presentation; however, the structure of self-presentation has not been adequately explored. This paper aimed to identify a theory-based model for self-presentation by examining the relationship between personality traits and utilization of self-presentational behaviors. A review of the literature suggested self-presentation would be best modeled with a second order two-factor model with second order factors of Evaluation and Response. The second order factor of Evaluation is expected to explain the first order factors Perceived Anonymity, Sociability, and Communality while the second order factor of response is expected to explain …