Social Psychology Commons^™

"Getting Ahead" Versus "Getting Along": Examining The Role Of Agency And Communion In Prejudice, Courtney A. Lunt

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The topic of prejudice has been extensively studied by psychologists, but there has been no work directly examining whether agency (“getting ahead”) and communion (“getting along”) influence prejudiced attitudes. Across three studies we examined whether these dimensions differentially motivate prejudiced attitudes towards immigrants and Syrian refugees. We expected that agency would positively predict prejudice for those low in communion but not for those high in communion and that a self-threat would amplify this effect. Additionally, we examined unmitigated agency (focus on agency to the exclusion of communion, distinct from high agency and low communion as separate factors) as it has …

Exploring How Parents Influence Role Acceptance Of Youth Athletes Through Multiple Perspectives, Michael J. Godfrey

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Role acceptance refers to the willingness of an athlete to fulfill expected role responsibilities (Benson, Eys, Surya, Dawson, & Schneider, 2013). Researchers have proposed several potential antecedents of role acceptance, one of which emphasized the influence of parents in this process (Eys et al., in preparation). With this in mind, the general purpose of the present study was to examine how parents influence the role acceptance process through multiple perspectives (e.g., parents, athletes, and coaches). To achieve this objective, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 participants (7 parents, 7 athletes, and 5 coaches) from four different types of interdependent team …

An Examination Of Newcomer Integration Processes In Sport Teams: A Socialization Perspective, Alex J. Benson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In highly interdependent groups, the ability to swiftly and successfully integrate newcomers is an important component to maintaining functional team dynamics. The current dissertation explored how sport teams structure the nature and timing of events that newcomers are put through by implementing specific socialization tactics. In the first manuscript, a qualitative study was initiated to garner descriptive insights into the tactics that are used to socialize athletes into sport teams. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with coaches, veteran athletes, and newcomer athletes (i.e., individuals in their first year as a team member). Participant insights were thematically analyzed and compared to existing …

Investigating Grandiose Narcissism As A Personality Process, Miranda Giacomin

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Though grandiose subclinical narcissism has predominantly been studied in structural terms—focused on individuals’ general tendencies to be more or less narcissistic—narcissism may also function as a personality process (i.e., narcissism fluctuates within-individuals across contexts or situations). Narcissism has also been conceptualized as a dynamic self-regulatory system, a set of coherent, mutually-reinforcing attributes, which orients individuals toward positive self-feelings (e.g., Campbell & Foster, 2007). In this dissertation, I empirically examine the possibility that narcissism has a meaningful process or state component and is more context-dependent than previously assumed. Manuscript 1 found that making people feel more connected to others (by increasing …

Influence Of Metaphoric Language On Juror Decision Making, Melissa Michelle David

Master's Theses

This paper examines the effects of metaphoric language on judgment, assessment and juror verdict decision making. It further examines potential interactions between the use of figurative language and defendant race on juror verdict decisions. Research has potential implications on how the recent cultural climate has changed racial biases within the realm of juror decision making.

The Effects Of A Trauma-Informed Care Training Program On Mental Health Professionals Knowledge, Skills, And Attitudes With The Smi, Angelina Pelletier

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Trauma has been found to be highly prevalent among individuals diagnosed with SMIs. Mental health professionals have been reported to misdiagnose or avoid addressing trauma in this population. There is a need to provide information about trauma and to foster awareness among mental health professionals who are treating individuals diagnosed with SMIs. With a TIC approach, operating from a recovery-oriented philosophy, there have been interventions created to address trauma and SMIs with the aim of developing awareness about trauma and the impact it may have on someone’s life. With these factors in mind, mental health professionals should be competent in …

Correlations Between Sexual Imagery And Sexual Cognitions, Jennifer L. Mcdonnell

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Analyzing the relationship between the visual imagery used in music videos, and the sexual cognition of viewers. Sexual cognition is the awareness of one's own sexual behavior, and its implications. The visual content of music videos was analyzed focusing only on the imagery used. The Heterosexual Script (Jhally, 2007) in particular is observed in most music videos, highlighting the sexual objectification of women and the dominant role of males. The direction of causality between the visual imagery and sexual cognitions can only be speculated using a number of theories, namely cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957), cultivation theory (Gerbner et al., 1994), …

Authoritariansim And Collectivism: Antecedents And Consequences Among College Students, Jasmine Samuel Ms.

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) suggests there are five distinct moral dimensions, which define morality as a whole. MFT can be broken down into two groups binding: in group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity-which encompass group morality. Harm/Care, fairness/reciprocity are individualizing dimensions, which highlight individual morality. Recent work has found MFT predicts sociopolitical ideologies, as well as sociopolitical attitudes. In an effort to better understand the existing relationships we investigate MFT as a predictor of sociopolitical parties, and attitudes Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). We also draw on similarities between Individualism/Collectivism and MFT. Specifically we demonstrate individualizing foundations, and dimensions …

Generation Rated X: Personality Traits, Sexual Attitudes, And The Effects Of Sexually Explicit Media On Attraction Among Men, H. Christopher Eckstein

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Previous research has indicated that exposure to pornography, or sexually explicit media (SEM), can lead married men to express a stronger desire for sexual intimacy (Staley & Prause, 2013). However, SEM exposure has also resulted in decreased physical attractiveness ratings among men evaluating their spouses (Kenrick, et al., 1989). Only a small amount of research has investigated the effects of SEM on attraction among unmarried males. The current study examined the effects of SEM in a sample of 108 heterosexual, undergraduate males. Participants evaluated pictures of 15 unknown women’s faces for physical attractiveness. They were then exposed to five minutes …

A Formative Evaluation Of A Smartphone Application For Couples: The Affectionate Gesture Planner, Patrick Robert Bortz

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

The Affectionate Gesture Planner (AGP) is a smartphone application (i.e., “app”) that aims to increase relationship satisfaction for couples in long-term relationships by prompting couples to complete loving acts for each other on a daily basis. The AGP app is informed by concepts from social exchange theory and the investment model (Rusbult, 1983), which predict that increasing the mutual exchange of beneficial investments to the relationship improves the quality and stability of the relationship. The present study is a formative evaluation on the prototype of the AGP app. Based on participant feedback, the AGP app will be improved prior to …

Reflections On Black Lives Matter In The Context Of Human Rights And Family Science, Shuntay Z. Mccoy, Anthony James

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

- While all lives do matter, the humanity of all lives is not collectively recognized.

- Violent contexts place an extraordinary amount of stress on Black youth, families, and communities.

- Systematic violence causes multiple transitions in families and threatens families' psychosocial adjustment.

- The collectivistic approach served as an adaptive response to varying levels of oppression faced by Black people since arriving in the Americas.

- Black Lives Matter has significant implications for the work of family life educators, researchers, and practitioners.

A Unified Framework Of The Shared Aesthetic Experience, Huakai Liao

CMC Senior Theses

Aesthetic expressions have been seen as the manifest of human culture. The psychology of aesthetics have proposed various models, describing the various phenomena related to aesthetic experience, such as sensory pleasure derived from aesthetic stimuli, emotional response toward aesthetic depiction, cognitive mastering over aesthetic emotion, etc. However, further examination reveals current models have theoretical limits for the explanation of society-wide aesthetic preference due to limited scope of focus. Thus, the current project proposes a new theoretical framework to describe the process through which the society comes to converge on aesthetic preference. Examination of related theories and experimental evidence shows that …

The Effects Of Cognitive Load And Stereotyped Groups On Punitiveness, Daniel Schmidt

CMC Senior Theses

The current study explores the interactions of cognitive load and stereotypes on emotions felt toward stereotyped groups and decisions of punitiveness for a crime. Dual processing models suggest that cognitive load can decrease deliberation and increase intuitive and emotional judgments. The Stereotype Content Model suggests that different stereotyped groups evoke different emotions. The current study tested the hypothesis that individuals under high cognitive load will be more likely to rely on stereotypical information and associated emotions when making decisions on punishment for a crime. Study 1 had 205 participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website complete an online survey in which …

Persuasion In The Health Field: Framing The Message For Attitude Change, Kelley Ogami

Scripps Senior Theses

The process of persuasion, the changing of a person’s attitudes, has often been applied to health communications designed to promote healthy behavior. Manipulation of aspects of the persuasive message can influence persuasion and the likelihood of attitude change. For a long time, the existing persuasion research had yet to examine how different types of message framing and intervention targets directly and in interaction with one another act as predictors of health attitude change. Therefore, this thesis addressed this lapse using an online survey to assess participants’ attitude towards the health issue of hypertension after reading a health message. This health …

Social Comparison And Self-Presentation On Social Media As Predictors Of Depressive Symptoms, Janet L. Uhlir

Scripps Senior Theses

Social media, an online arena for social behaviors such as self-presentation and social comparison, may have effects on users’ mood and mental health. Favorably presenting oneself is linked to positive outcomes such as higher self-esteem, whereas social comparison, in general and specifically upward social comparison to higher-performing others, is related to feelings of inadequacy, envy, and depression. Social comparison may explain the “Facebook depression effect,” acting as a mediator between time spent on social media and depressive symptoms. A correlational study is proposed that will ask 200 participants to report their time spent on various social media sites, self-presentation of …

Does The Pain Of Rejection Promote The Pleasure Of Revenge? A Neural Investigation Of Cingulo-Striatal Contributions To Violence, David Chester

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Aggression is a dynamic and costly feature of human behavior. One reliable cause of aggression is social rejection, though the underlying mechanisms of this effect remain to be fully understood. Previous research has identified two psychological processes that are independently linked to aggressive retaliation: pain and pleasure. Given recent findings that pain magnifies the experience of pleasure, I predicted that the pain of rejection would promote the pleasure of aggression and thus, aggression itself. I also expected that this indirect effect of aggressive pleasure would only be observed among individuals with weaker self-regulatory abilities that are necessary to cope with …

Body Part Structure Knowledge In Infancy, Rachel Jubran

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Human faces, bodies, and hands convey critical social information (e.g., emotions, goals, and desires). Infants, like adults, are sensitive to such social information. Unlike infants’ knowledge of the structure of the human face and body, not much is known about infants’ knowledge of hands and feet. The current study tested infants for their preference between intact hand images and ones in which the same hands were distorted (i.e., location of at least one finger was altered to distort the typical structure of the hand). Infants at 3.5 months of age had a preference for the reorganized hand image, demonstrating that …

Self-Expansion And Romantic Partner Request For Friendship Termination, Emily C. Wages

Scripps Senior Theses

According to self-expansion theory, there is an innate drive to gain new resources, identities, and perspectives, which causes people to seek and maintain interpersonal relationships. However, an individual’s relationship partners may come into conflict with each other. In the current research, 656 adults in established monogamous romantic relationships completed an online questionnaire about romantic partners asking them to give up a friendship. The researcher explored the prevalence of this friendship interference phenomenon and its relationship to sources of self-expansion. The amount of self-expansion provided by a friendship was manipulated through vignettes. Additional measures assessed the relationship between amount of self-expansion …

Bounded Rationality's Account For The Influence Of Group Identification On Ingroup Favoritism: A Field Investigation Using Jewish And Arab Populations In Israel, R. Matthew Montoya, Todd L, Pittinsky

Psychology Faculty Publications

We used the bounded rationality approach to explore the impact of group identification on intergroup relations. 1,289 Jewish and Arab citizens completed assessments of group identification, functional relations, and indices of ingroup favoritism. Results provided evidence of (a) a positive relation between group identification and ingroup favoritism; (b) perceptions of more positive functional relations that were associated with less ingroup favoritism; and (c) that high-identifiers who evaluated relations as positive experienced the lowest levels of ingroup favoritism. We discuss how the results clarify the complex relation between group identification and ingroup favoritism.

A 50-Year Review Of Psychological Reactance Theory: Do Not Read This Article, Benjamin Rosenberg, Jason T. Siegel

Psychology | Faculty Scholarship

Psychological reactance theory (PRT; Brehm, 1966) posits that when something threatens or eliminates people’s freedom of behavior, they experience psychological reactance, a motivational state that drives freedom restoration. Complementing recent, discipline-specific reviews (e.g., Quick, Shen, & Dillard, 2013; Steindl, Jonas, Sittenthaler, Traut-Mattausch, & Greenberg, 2015), the current analysis integrates PRT research across fields in which it has flourished: social psychology and clinical psychology, as well as communication research. Moreover, the current review offers a rare synthesis of existing reactance measures. We outline five overlapping waves in the PRT literature: Wave 1: Theory proposal and testing, Wave 2: Contributions from clinical …