Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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- All Subjects: Personality
Description
Sometimes difficult life events challenge our existing resources in such a way that routinized responses are inadequate to handle the challenge. Some individuals will persist in habitual, automatic behavior, regardless of environmental cues that indicate a mismatch between coping strategy and the demands of the stressor. Other individuals will marshal adaptive resources to construct new courses of action and reconceptualize the problem, associated goals and/or values. A mixed methods approach was used to describe and operationalize cognitive shift, a relatively unexplored construct in existing literature. The study was conducted using secondary data from a parent multi-year cross-sectional study of resilience with eight hundred mid-aged adults from the Phoenix metro area. Semi-structured telephone interviews were analyzed using a purposive sample (n=136) chosen by type of life event. Participants' beliefs, assumptions, and experiences were examined to understand how they shaped adaptation to adversity. An adaptive mechanism, "cognitive shift," was theorized as the transition from automatic coping to effortful cognitive processes aimed at novel resolution of issues. Aims included understanding when and how cognitive shift emerges and manifests. Cognitive shift was scored as a binary variable and triangulated through correlational and logistic regression analyses. Interaction effects revealed that positive personality attributes influence cognitive shift most when people suffered early adversity. This finding indicates that a certain complexity, self-awareness and flexibility of mind may lead to a greater capacity to find meaning in adversity. This work bridges an acknowledged gap in literature and provides new insights into resilience.
ContributorsRivers, Crystal T (Author) / Zautra, Alex (Thesis advisor) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Kurpius, Sharon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Perceptions of the self differ between cultures, generally between those cultures in the West and East. Some of the ways that these individuals from these cultures may differ are in their self-construal, their collectivist and individualist tendencies, and how they perceive control in their lives. The current study proposes that some of these differences are influenced by different concepts individuals hold regarding the "soul", or inner self. These concepts may be promoted by the different religious beliefs prominent in different regions. The Soul Perception Index, being developed through this study, measures belief in multiple souls, a universal soul, a single soul, or no soul. It was predicted that a belief in a single soul will correlate with an individual view of the self (individualism, independent self-construal, internal locus of control), and a universal or multi-soul belief will correlate with an interdependent view of the self (collectivism, interdependent self-construal, and external locus of control). We found that these variables did not significantly differ in their relationships with soul belief. However, Indian Hindu participants and Chinese participants seemed to score highly on all self-view variables and all soul perception types indicating that individuals from these cultures may be more predisposed to hold opposing beliefs simultaneously while US Christians are not.
ContributorsNaidu, Esha Svetha (Author) / Cohen, Adam (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Johnson, Kathryn (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
A recent controversy has surrounded service dogs in public environments. Use of service dogs may trigger discrimination against individuals with non-visible disabilities. Major goals of this thesis study are to examine if significant differences exist in personality perceptions and attitude towards service dog owners with visible disabilities versus those with non-visible disabilities, and whether these perceptions and attitude predict how they would be treated in a public setting. The study employed a mixed 2 x2 factorial experiment design. The first independent variable was visibility of the disability, with the two levels being visible vs non-visible, and this factor was non-repeated in nature. The second independent variable was the target of evaluation, with the owner and the dog being the two levels, and this was a repeated measure. Specifically, this study assessed personality perceptions using the Big Five personality traits (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness to Experience) and operationalized attitude in terms of the positivity of personality perceptions. Additionally, this study examined whether an owner of a service dog with a non-visible disability would be treated differently from their counterpart who has a visible disability. In the study, participants were given a scenario and picture where they encounter an individual who either had a visible or non-visible disability with a service dog at a restaurant. Then, participants rated the owner and the dog individually on the Big Five personality traits, and indicated whether and how likely they would seat the individual and their service dog at the restaurant. When considering the visibility of a disability alone, an individual with a non-visible disability was perceived as less conscientious. When considering how the owner and the dog were perceived regardless of visibility of disability, owners were rated significantly lower than their dog on agreeableness and extraversion, but significantly higher on openness to experience. There was also a significant difference in treatment of the dog owners based on the visibility of their disability, service dog owners with non-visible disabilities have a higher likelihood of experiencing unlawful treatment. Furthermore, personality perceptions and attitude were significantly correlated with treatment for both individuals with non-visible and visible disabilities. Together, findings of this study inform the design of future research. Future research on this topic may help inform policy makers the challenges and unfair treatment facing individuals who have non-visible disabilities.
ContributorsSanta Cruz, Alyssa Ann (Author) / Kwan, Virginia (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05