Psychology - Theses

Impairment and Executive Functioning Associated with Symptoms of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo, ADHD, Anxiety, and Depression

Whitney Lee Muhlenkamp Wood — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:52:24 PDT

This study examined the relationships among Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT), ADHD, anxiety, and depression symptom sets in a college sample, and the extent to which these symptom sets predicted executive functioning and functional impairment. Also, this study investigated (a) the extent to which functional impairment and executive functioning (EF) problems were uniquely accounted for by SCT symptoms when controlling for ADHD, anxiety, and depression symptoms, and (b) which high symptom group accounted for the greatest amount of impairment. College students (N = 458) completed a demographic questionnaire and self-report scales of ADHD, SCT symptoms, anxiety, and depression symptoms, as well as functional impairment and EF problems. Students were divided into four groups: high levels of SCT symptoms (High SCT: n = 45), high levels of ADHD symptoms (High ADHD: n = 10), high levels of SCT and ADHD symptoms (High SCT + ADHD: n = 15), and those without high levels of SCT or ADHD symptoms (Controls: n = 388). Thirteen percent of the sample was found to have high levels of SCT, and most of these students did not have a diagnosis of ADHD or high number of ADHD symptoms. The results indicated that SCT symptoms share a moderate to strong correlation with the other symptom sets; however, high levels of SCT symptoms often occur separate from high levels of ADHD, anxiety, or depression symptoms. Interestingly, SCT symptoms accounted for the most unique variance for both EF problems and functional impairment. Both SCT groups (High SCT and High SCT + ADHD) demonstrated more impairment and executive function problems than the controls. It appears that SCT may be a separate clinical construct worthy of additional study in college students.

The Politics of Affirmation Theory: The Effects of Group-Affirmation on Biased Political Attitudes

Gaven Allen Ehrlich — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:48:27 PDT

Although it has been well-established in the literature that affirming the individual self reduces the tendency to exhibit in-group biases, the limited amount of research exploring the relationship between group-affirmation and bias is inconsistent and somewhat contradictory. In some cases affirming one's identity as a group member seems to reduce biased thinking and hostility towards out-groups, but in other cases it seems to strengthen it. Perhaps the effects of group-affirmation depend on the nature of the group that is being affirmed. According to the multiple self-aspects framework (McConnell, 2011), one's overall self-concept can be seen as a collection of various context-dependent selves. Affirming one's identity as a particular group member (one of these "selves") may, therefore, make the attitudes and biases associated with that particular group more salient resulting in a greater tendency to exhibit them. In the current study, I explore this idea and attempt to clarify some of the ambiguity surrounding the concept of group-affirmation. Specifically, I tested whether affirming participants' membership in a group relevant to politics (political party affiliation) and their membership in a group unrelated to politics (university affiliation) had contrasting effects on their political biases. I found that while political party-affirmation increased negative attitudes towards members of the opposite party and led to more overlap between personal and perceived in-group support for controversial political policies (self-party overlap), university-affirmation produced no increase in negative out-group attitudes and only a modest increase in self-party overlap relative to a control condition. These effects held only for people highly identified with a given political party.

Coping with Negative Feedback in the Health Domain: Are Race Differences in Coping Related to Weight Disparities among Blacks and Whites?

Lindsay Renee Kraynak — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:44:39 PDT

While overweight and obesity are problems for many adults, there are significant racial disparities, such that Blacks suffer higher rates than Whites. A number of health conditions that are linked to overweight and obesity, including diabetes and hypertension are also more prevalent among Blacks than among Whites (Glover, Greenlund, Ayla, & Croft, 2005; Pleis & Lethbridge-Çejku, 2007). With the knowledge that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has suggested that there are psychological components to obesity, this research aims to investigate psychological components that may contribute to the weight/health disparity between Blacks and Whites. Other research has demonstrated that Blacks perceive race-related prejudice and discrimination in the health domain (Blocker et al., 2006; LaVeist, Nickerson, & Bowie, 2000; Lillie-Blanton, Brodie, Rowland, Altman, & McIntosh, 2000). Yet, it is unknown how they cope with racism in this domain, and whether the voluntary strategies of discounting, disengagement, and devaluing (Major & O'Brien, 2005) have unintended consequence that contribute to weight disparity between Blacks and Whites.

This study was designed as a conceptual replication of Major, Spencer, Schmader, Wolfe, & Crocker (1998, study 1). The design included giving participants false feedback on an ostensible assessment of their risk for developing excess visceral fat. The primary goal was to examine whether the coping strategies mentioned above, which are commonly used among Black students in an academic domain, would be used by Black adults upon receiving negative feedback in the health domain. The sample included 79 Black and White adults recruited from the City of Syracuse, ages 18-44. While the majority of these participants had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of < .30, the cut-off for obesity, error resulted in the inclusion of eight obese participants. Results of hierarchical regression analyses indicate that Black participants did not report greater use of these coping strategies when confronted with feedback that they were at increased risk of developing excess visceral fat (compared to Whites in this same feedback condition and Blacks and Whites in the control condition). Instead, race did not seem to affect devaluing or disengagement, and negative feedback resulted in less, not more, discounting among Blacks than Whites who also received negative feedback. Although, the finding from one study cannot act as conclusive evidence, results of this study suggest that differences in self-reported use of these three coping strategies does not suggest an explanation for the weight disparity. However, differences in reported beliefs regarding health-promoting behaviors offer insight into how future research projects can examine potential mediation between race and negative health outcomes.

Effects of Age on Contextually Mediated Associations in Paired Associate Learning

Jennifer Patricia Provyn — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:08:32 PDT

Older adults demonstrate an associative memory deficit that has been attributed to difficulty binding item information to contextual information (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000). Accounts of temporally-defined episodic associations that depend upon contextual retrieval (TCM Howard & Kahana, 2002) predict that a deficit in item-to-context binding will result in fewer backward (b-a) and transitive (a-c) associations. To measure group differences in backward and transitive associations, younger and older participants learned single function lists of paired associates with no contextual overlap (e.g., j-k, l-m) and double-function lists of paired associates consisting of chains of pairs (e.g., a-b, b-c). Although younger adults out-performed older adults on both pair types, there was a robust pair-type by age interaction. We suggest the older adults performed better than would be expected on the contextually overlapping double-function pairs due to an associative deficit in item-to-context binding, which resulted in the generation of fewer competing responses. Relative to younger adults, older adults made significantly more intrusions. Intrusion levels were normalized to equate for group differences and subsequent analysis indicated that younger adults made a larger proportion of associative intrusions to double-function probes than did older adults. The propensity of older adults to make fewer associative intrusions to double-function pairs suggests that older adults did not generate these associations. Thus, group differences in both correct recall probabilities and intrusion analysis suggest that backward and transitive associations are sensitive to aging. The results are discussed within the theoretical framework of the temporal context model and the hypothesis that older adults are impaired at forming new item-to-context associations.

How People React To Social Psychological Accounts of Wrongdoing: The Moderating Effects of Culture

Ying Tang — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 08:17:24 PST

While social psychological research has produced much insight into the causes of human behavior, its emphasis on "the power of the situation" has been met with resistance from laypeople. Previous research found that American participants, when provided with different accounts of wrongdoing, were comfortable endorsing dispositional explanations of the behavior, but suspected that psychologists were exonerating wrongdoers when they were provided with situational explanations. The current study extends this research by examining the moderating effect of culture on laypeople's perceptions of different explanations of wrongdoing. Chinese and American participants read about two hypothetical studies about wrongdoing and learned that either situational factors or personality variables seemed to account for the behavior. They then made responsibility attributions for the wrongdoer from both their own perspective and from what they perceived was the psychologists' perspective. When given dispositional explanations, both Chinese and Americans reported consistency between their own and what they perceived to be the psychologists' perspectives. However, when given situational explanations, although Chinese participants again reported consistency between their own and the psychologists' perspectives, American participants thought the psychologists were exonerating the wrongdoer, an effect that was mediated by their level of agreement with the psychologists' conclusions about human behavior. These findings shed light on why social psychological research sometimes faces a backlash and on cross-cultural variations in how people explain human behaviors. Practical implications of the study include a reminder that when social psychologists package their messages, they should take into account the biases of different targeted audiences.

Can Social Norms Theory Explain Sexual "Hookups" Among First-Year College Women?

Shannon Marie Sweeney — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:26:19 PST

"Hookups" are sexual encounters between partners who are not in a traditional committed romantic relationship. The majority of college students engage in hookup behavior, but little is known about the social-cognitive determinants of this behavior. The present study used social norms theory to prospectively examine the influence of norms on sexual hookups among first-year college women. A total of 483 incoming female students were recruited at the beginning of August 2009. After completing a baseline survey in person, participants completed brief, monthly surveys online from August 2009 to August 2010. Surveys assessed sexual hookup behavior monthly; injunctive norms were assessed in August 2009 and December 2009. Students demonstrated both pluralistic ignorance and false consensus effects in regards to two types of injunctive norms: peers' attitudes toward hookup behavior and peers' hookup limits. As the discrepancy between self and perceived other hookup limits increased, the likelihood of engaging in future sexual hookups decreased. Further analyses revealed that participant's own personal hookup limit was the strongest predictor of future sexual hookup behavior.

Enhancing Male HPV Vaccine Acceptance: The Role of Altruism and Awareness of Male Specific Health Benefits

Katherine Bonafide — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 04:26:05 PDT

While considerable research exists on female HPV vaccine acceptance, research is needed to clarify factors that facilitate vaccine uptake among boys and men. The benefits of male HPV vaccination exist on an individual and community level. Male HPV vaccination provides personal health protection to recipients, and can provide female health protection by minimizing transmission of HPV to sexual partners. As such, male vaccine acceptance may be enhanced by emphasizing both altruistic motives (female health protection) and personal health benefits. A sample of college-age men (N = 200; M age = 19.3; 31% Non-White) completed computer-administered surveys and were presented with one of four informational interventions that varied in the inclusion or exclusion of altruistic motives and in terms of the extent to which male specific HPV-related illnesses and vaccine benefits were stressed. HPV vaccine acceptance was assessed immediately following the intervention with items assessing vaccine interest and willingness to receive it. Consistent with predictions, those who received the intervention emphasizing both altruistic motives and male specific information endorsed the greatest vaccine acceptance (M = 3.6, SD = 1.0). Additionally, perceived HPV susceptibility and stigmatization concerns toward the vaccine emerged as significant predictors of vaccine acceptance. Findings suggest that provider-based and community level interventions that stress both altruistic motives and personal health benefits of vaccination may enhance HPV vaccine uptake among young men.

Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Intention Understanding In Friendship: An Electrical Brain Imaging Study in Dyads with Shared Representations of Actions

Nisa Patel — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 04:22:24 PDT

A growing body of research demonstrates congruence between observed actions and integrated templates of past self-related motor experiences facilitate intention understanding of others, especially for couples in love. Little is known, however, about the spatio-temporal dynamics of this facilitation mechanism in populations with varying levels of dyadic emotional bonds (friendship) and self-other closeness (IOS). To address this, we tested intention understanding in 24 dyads with high levels of friendship and IOS, by utilizing high-density 128-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings and behavioral measures (accuracy and reaction times). Behavioral results showed no significant differences for accuracy. Participants were, nevertheless, faster at understanding intentional actions compared to accidental actions, independently of the agent who was acting. A negative correlation was also observed between reaction times for decoding accidental actions and IOS levels, suggesting that the closer participants felt to their best friends the faster they understood their accidental actions. Electrophysiological results extended these findings by demonstrating that visual-evoked potentials (VEPs) for understanding friends' accidental actions were characterized by a significant scalp potential field from 46 to 266 ms after stimulus onset. LORETA source estimation of this specific scalp potential field revealed a left-lateralized current source density maximum in the middle temporal gyrus (MTG). The recruitment of the MTG for understanding friends' accidental actions reinforces its involvement in social perception, and suggests that the MTG may play a crucial role in error detection for intentions performed by individuals with whom participants share high IOS levels.

Generality of Treatment Effects: Evaluating Elementary-Aged Students' Abilities to Generalize and Maintain Fluency Gains of a Performance Feedback Writing Intervention

Bridget Hier — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 04:22:23 PDT

Although writing ability is a skill that has been argued to be equally important as reading skills in the development of early literacy and is necessary for academic success (Berninger et al., 2006; Graham, MacArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2007), national estimates of students' writing ability in the United States indicate that in 2002, 72% of elementary-aged students were unable to write with grade-level proficiency (Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003). This finding presents a clear need for empirical, evidence-based interventions that aim to improve students' writing skills, and performance feedback is one type of intervention that has been shown to do so (Eckert et al., 2006). However, no study to date has examined the generalization and maintenance of writing fluency gains that have been developed as a result of performance feedback interventions. The primary goal of this study was to determine whether 51 third-grade students assigned to a performance feedback intervention condition demonstrated evidence of greater (a) writing fluency gains, (b) generalization of writing fluency, and (c) maintenance of writing fluency in comparison to 52 students assigned to a practice-only control condition. Results revealed that although students assigned to the performance feedback condition demonstrated significantly greater writing fluency growth during the course of the intervention than students assigned to the practice-only condition, evidence for maintenance and generalization of intervention effects was limited. These findings suggest that, in isolation, performance feedback may produce short-term desired effects on students' writing fluency growth, but that explicit programming of generality may be required to produce long-term achievement gains.