Matching Items (26)
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- All Subjects: psychology
- Creators: Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics
Description
The current study investigated whether intermittent restraint stress (IRS) would impair fear extinction learning and lead to increased anxiety and depressive- like behaviors and then be attenuated when IRS ends and a post- stress rest period ensues for 6 weeks. Young adult, male Sprague Dawley rats underwent restraint stress using wire mesh (6hr/daily) for five days with two days off before restraint resumed for three weeks for a total of 23 restraint days. The groups consisted of control (CON) with no restraint other than food and water restriction yoked to the restrained groups, stress immediate (STR-IMM), which were restrained then fear conditioned soon after the end of the IRS paradigm, and stress given a rest for 6 weeks before fear conditioning commenced (STR-R6). Rats were fear conditioned by pairing a 20 second tone with a footshock, then given extinction training for two days (15 tone only on each day). On the first day of extinction, all groups discriminated well on the first trial, but then as trials progressed, STR-R6 discriminated between tone and context less than did CON. On the second day of extinction, STR- IMM froze more to context in the earlier trials than compared to STR-R6 and CON. As trials progressed STR-IMM and STR-R6 froze more to context than compared to CON. Together, CON discriminated between tone and context better than did STR-IMM and STR-R6. Sucrose preference, novelty suppressed feeding, and elevated plus maze was performed after fear extinction was completed. No statistical differences were observed among groups for sucrose preference or novelty suppressed feeding. For the elevated plus maze, STR-IMM entered the open arms and the sum of both open and closed arms fewer than did STR- R6 and CON. We interpret the findings to suggest that the stress groups displayed increased hypervigilance and anxiety with STR-R6 exhibiting a unique phenotype than that of STR-IMM and CON.
ContributorsShah, Vrishti Bimal (Author) / Conrad, Cheryl (Thesis director) / Newbern, Jason (Committee member) / Judd, Jessica (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Billions of people around the world deal with the struggles of poverty every day. Consequently, a number of others have committed themselves to help alleviate poverty. Many various methods are used, and a current consensus on the best method to alleviate poverty is lacking. Generally the methods used or researched exist somewhere on the spectrum between top-down and bottom-up approaches to fighting poverty. This paper analyzes a specific method proposed by C.K. Prahalad known as the Bottom of the Pyramid solution. The premise of the method is that large multinational corporations should utilize the large conglomerate of money that exists amongst poor people \u2014 created due to the sheer number of poor people \u2014 for business ventures. Concurrently, the poor people can benefit from the company's entrance. This method has received acclaim theoretically, but still needs empirical evidence to prove its practicality. This paper compares this approach with other approaches, considers international development data trends, and analyzes case studies of actual attempts that provide insight into the approach's potential for success. The market of poor people at the bottom of the pyramid is extremely segmented which makes it very difficult for large companies to financially prosper. It is even harder to establish mutual benefit between the large corporation and the poor. It has been found that although aspects of the bottom of the pyramid method hold merit, higher potential for alleviating poverty exists when small companies venture into this space rather than large multinational corporations. Small companies can conform to a single community and niche economy to prosper \u2014 a flexibility that large companies lack. Moving forward, analyzing the actual attempts provides the best and only empirical insights; hence, it will be important to consider more approaches into developing economies as they materialize.
ContributorsSanchez, Derek Javier (Author) / Henderson, Mark (Thesis director) / Shunk, Dan (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The rates of anxiety, depression, and attempted suicide for transgender individuals are extremely elevated relative to the general population. Yet, little research has been conducted about the transgender population regarding social transition (an individual presenting as their authentic/true gender, one different than the gender they were assigned at birth, in the context of everyday life) and parental acceptance. Both of which have been shown to impact the mental health of transgender individuals. The purposes of this study were: (1) To characterize a sample of transgender adults on their age of awareness of their authentic gender identity and their age of social transition. (2) Examine whether age of social transition, (3) parental acceptance, and (4) the gap in time between age of awareness and age of social transition (awareness-transition gap) were related to mental health. (5) Examine whether parental acceptance was related to age of social transition or to awareness-transition gap. (6) Examine whether age of social transition or awareness-transition gap interact with parental acceptance as correlates of mental health. The sample consisted of 115 transgender adults, ages 18 to 64. Measures were separated into 7 subheadings: demographics, transgender
on-cisgender identity, age of awareness, age of social transition, primary caregiver acceptance, secondary caregiver acceptance, and mental health. Hypotheses were partially supported for age of social transition with mental health, parental acceptance with mental health, and awareness-transition gap with parental acceptance. This study investigated under studied concepts of social transition and parental acceptance that appear to have an effect on the mental health of transgender adults.
on-cisgender identity, age of awareness, age of social transition, primary caregiver acceptance, secondary caregiver acceptance, and mental health. Hypotheses were partially supported for age of social transition with mental health, parental acceptance with mental health, and awareness-transition gap with parental acceptance. This study investigated under studied concepts of social transition and parental acceptance that appear to have an effect on the mental health of transgender adults.
ContributorsRosenberg, Beth Ann (Author) / Gonzales, Nancy (Thesis director) / Saenz, Delia (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / College of Public Service and Community Solutions (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The current Enterprise Requirements and Acquisition Model (ERAM), a discrete event simulation of the major tasks and decisions within the DoD acquisition system, identifies several what-if intervention strategies to improve program completion time. However, processes that contribute to the program acquisition completion time were not explicitly identified in the simulation study. This research seeks to determine the acquisition processes that contribute significantly to total simulated program time in the acquisition system for all programs reaching Milestone C. Specifically, this research examines the effect of increased scope management, technology maturity, and decreased variation and mean process times in post-Design Readiness Review contractor activities by performing additional simulation analyses. Potential policies are formulated from the results to further improve program acquisition completion time.
ContributorsWorger, Danielle Marie (Author) / Wu, Teresa (Thesis director) / Shunk, Dan (Committee member) / Wirthlin, J. Robert (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Abstract Chess has been a common research topic for expert-novice studies and thus for learning science as a whole because of its limited framework and longevity as a game. One factor is that chess studies are good at measuring how expert chess players use their memory and skills to approach a new chessboard con�guration. Studies have shown that chess skill is based on memory, speci�cally, "chunks" of chess piece positions that have been previously encountered by players. However, debate exists concerning how these chunks are constructed in players' memory. These chunks could be constructed by proximity of pieces on the chessboard as well as their precise location or constructed through attack-defense relations. The primary objective of this study is to support which one is more in line with chess players' actual chess abilities based off their memory, proximity or attack/defense. This study replicates and extends an experiment conducted by McGregor and Howe (2002), which explored the argument that pieces are primed more by attack and defense relations than by proximity. Like their study, the present study examined novice and expert chess players' response times for correct and error responses by showing slides of game configurations. In addition to these metrics, the present study also incorporated an eye-tracker to measure visual attention and EEG to measure affective and cognitive states. They were added to allow the comparison of subtle and unconscious behaviors of both novices and expert chess players. Overall, most McGregor and Howe's (2002) results were replicated supporting their theory on chess expertise. This included statistically significance for skill in the error rates with the mean error rates on the piece recognition tests were 70.1% for novices and 87.9% for experts, as well as significance for the two-way interaction for relatedness and proximity with error rates of 22.4% for unrelated/far, 18.8% for related/far, 15.8% for unrelated
ear, and 29.3% for related
ear. Unfortunately, there were no statistically significance for any of the response time effects, which McGregor and Howe found for the interaction between skill and proximity. Despite eye-tracking and EEG data not either support nor confirm McGregor and Howe's theory on how chess players memorize chessboard configurations, these metrics did help build a secondary theory on how novices typically rely on proximity to approach chess and new visual problems in general. This was exemplified by the statistically significant results for short-term excitement for the two-way interaction of skill and proximity, where the largest short-term excitement score was between novices on near proximity slides. This may indicate that novices, because they may lean toward using proximity to try to recall these pieces, experience a short burst of excitement when the pieces are close to each other because they are more likely to recall these configurations.
ear, and 29.3% for related
ear. Unfortunately, there were no statistically significance for any of the response time effects, which McGregor and Howe found for the interaction between skill and proximity. Despite eye-tracking and EEG data not either support nor confirm McGregor and Howe's theory on how chess players memorize chessboard configurations, these metrics did help build a secondary theory on how novices typically rely on proximity to approach chess and new visual problems in general. This was exemplified by the statistically significant results for short-term excitement for the two-way interaction of skill and proximity, where the largest short-term excitement score was between novices on near proximity slides. This may indicate that novices, because they may lean toward using proximity to try to recall these pieces, experience a short burst of excitement when the pieces are close to each other because they are more likely to recall these configurations.
ContributorsSeto, Christian Paul (Author) / Atkinson, Robert (Thesis director) / Runger, George (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
In this study, the implementation of educational technology and its effect on learning and user experience is measured. A demographic survey, pretest/posttest, and educational experience survey was used to collect data on the control and experimental groups. The experimental group was subjected to different learning material than the control group with the use of the Elements 4D mobile application by Daqri to learn basic chemical elements and compounds. The control group learning material provided all the exact information as the application, but in the 2D form of a printed packet. It was expected the experimental group would outperform the control group and have a more enjoyable experience and higher performance. After data analysis, it was concluded that the control group outperformed the experimental group on performance and both groups has similar experiences in contradiction to the hypothesis. Once the factors that contribute to the limitations of different study duration, learning the application beforehand, and only-memorization questions are addressed, the study can be conducted again. Application improvements may also alter the future results of the study and hopefully lead to full implementation into a curriculum.
ContributorsApplegate, Garrett Charles (Author) / Atkinson, Robert (Thesis director) / Chavez-Echeagaray, Maria Elena (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Token economies are a type of behavioral reinforcement that are particularly useful in classroom settings for increasing student compliance, for both typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorder. During this study, we implemented a token economy in an inclusive preschool classroom with tokens contingent on compliance to classroom rules. Three participants, two with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and one considered typically developing, were included in the study. Results indicated that levels of compliance increased for both the typically developing participant and participants with autism, and did not drop below baseline levels during the withdrawal phase, suggesting there was no lack of intrinsic motivation. Further, the typically developing participant and one of the participants with autism spectrum disorder had very similar levels of compliance, while the other participant had much higher levels of compliance throughout every phase, suggesting that the compliance levels for peers with more advanced repertoires with autism may differ from both typically developing peers and peers who have less developed repertoires. The implications of these results are discussed as they relate to compliance from an ABA perspective.
ContributorsEggen, Kelly (Author) / Hahs, Adam (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
Higher education institutions have increasingly sought to diversify the ethnic makeup of freshmen classes (Covarrubias, Herrmann, & Fryberg, 2016) and rates of Latinx college attendance have been rising (Hall, Nishina, & Lewis, 2017). However, despite comparable levels of earned-credits, Latinx students have lower rates of college completion (Contreras & Contreras, 2015). One potential explanation may be disproportionate increases in stress, and in particular, discrimination experiences reported by Latinx students during the transition from high school to college (Hunyh & Fuligni, 2012). As such, the aim of the current study was to examine whether everyday discrimination in high school and college were associated with changes in adolescent well-being and academic adjustment over the college transition in a sample of Latinx adolescents. Study participants were 209 Latinx adolescents (85.1% Mexican descent, 62.1% 2nd generation; 35.6% male; Mage= 17.59) who completed questionnaire assessments during the spring or summer before entering college (T1) and again during the first semester of college (T2; 88.5% retention). In both high school and college, participants completed a modified version of the Everyday Discrimination Scale (T1 α=.88, T2 α=.89; Williams et al., 1997). Dependent variables included internalizing symptoms in college (depressive symptoms {α = .95}, anxiety symptoms {α = .88}, stress symptoms {α = .94}; DASS; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995), and institutional records of college GPA. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted in SPSS 23 to examine associations between discrimination experiences (high school and college) and college internalizing symptoms and GPA, controlling for high school levels. Other covariates included immigrant generation status, sex, parent education (as a proxy for socioeconomic status), and whether the participant attended the focal higher education institution. Zero order correlations (Table 1) revealed that greater reports of discrimination in high school and college were associated with higher depressive symptoms, higher anxiety symptoms, higher stress, but not GPA in college (Table 1; all ps <.05). In multivariate analyses and after adjusting for covariates similar patterns emerged (Table 2). Greater reports of discrimination in college were associated with higher depressive symptoms (β = .18, p < .05), anxiety symptoms (β = .19, p <.05) and stress (β = .18, p <.05), but not GPA (β = -.04, ns). Everyday experiences of discrimination in high school were not significantly associated with college outcomes. In summary, our findings suggest that discrimination experiences among Latinx students in college, but not high school, are associated with increases in internalizing symptoms, including depression, anxiety and stress. Interestingly, discrimination experiences in high school and college were not associated with academic achievement in the first semester of college. Such findings suggest that higher education institutions should focus on global indicators of well-being during the Latinx college transition and seek to implement programs to: a) reduce stress associated with engaging in diverse college environments and b) reduce discrimination experiences on college campuses. Future research is needed for replication of these results and should also seek to further explore the trajectories of internalizing symptoms beyond the first semester of college.
ContributorsSills, Jessica (Author) / Doane, Leah (Thesis director) / Perez, Marisol (Committee member) / Castro, Saul (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Curiosity has been linked with many benefits, including increased overall well-being (Lydon-Staley et al., 2020) and greater academic achievement (Gottfried et al., 2016). The value that children place on learning new things and exploring novel ideas is unrivaled by older individuals. However, little research has been conducted to examine how parents may be able to help foster their children’s curiosity in a way that teaches them how to effectively search for and synthesize information. This paper aims to determine how parents’ language during a storybook task is related to their children’s strategy to collect rewards during a search game. Preliminary results suggest that parents may be able to encourage more effective search by asking more close-ended questions. These findings provide insight into how parents and guardians may be able to encourage their children to become better adept at searching for information by taking in clues about their environment and modifying their behavior to maximize their efforts.
ContributorsScirpo, Kalie Rose (Author) / Lucca, Kelsey (Thesis director) / Kupfer, Anne (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
This research paper covers many topics related to autism, including causes, treatment, DSM changes, and more. It is a review of current literature and journals and aims to give the audience a better understanding of the disorders and to discuss the changes in diagnostic criteria and prevalence of ASD.
ContributorsPeters, Emily Morgan (Author) / Stenhoff, Donald (Thesis director) / Hahs, Adam (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05