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- Creators: Department of Psychology
Description
My project is designed to provide art education to incarcerated youth in Arizona. This project will address two current issues in Arizona; the underfunding of art programs and high rates of incarceration. As of 2021, there are no state-funded art programs in Arizona. Arizona is tied with Texas for the eighth highest rate of incarceration in the country. In Arizona, 750 out of every 100,000 people are incarcerated. This project is an art course for incarcerated youth. The project includes a packet detailing the course content and assignment details, a class syllabus, a course flyer, and a certificate of completion. The course is intended to be taught at the Adobe Mountain School facility. The course is designed so that it can be implemented in other facilities in the future. The class will be taught by volunteers with a background in studio art, design, or art education. Each student will receive a course packet that they can use to keep track of information and assignments. Instructors will use the course packet to teach the class. The course focuses on drawing with charcoal and oil pastel, which will build a foundation in drawing skills. The course covers a twelve-week semester. The course content packet includes a week-by-week breakdown of the teaching material and project descriptions. The course consists of two main projects and preparatory work. The preparatory work includes vocabulary terms, art concepts, drawing guides, brainstorming activities, and drawing activities. The two main prompts are designed for students to explore the materials and to encourage self-reflection. The class is curated so that students can create art in a low-risk, non-judgemental environment. The course will also focus on establishing problem-solving and critical thinking skills through engaging activities.
ContributorsSheppard, Eve (Author) / Cornelia, Wells (Thesis director) / Jennifer, Nelson (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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
Police use of force has become a topic of national discussion, particularly in the wake of the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Currently, the focus seems to be on individual officers and their individual attitudes and beliefs. Given that use of force is an individual decision it is intuitive to think that an officer's decision to use force would be impacted by his or her attitudes and beliefs. This reasoning ignores the larger social and organizational contexts within which police officers are situated. Specifically, an officer's peer culture and department may exert control over his or her attitudes and behaviors regarding use of force. The purpose of the current study is to determine whether these larger social contexts impact an individual's perceptions regarding use of force. Using data from a nationally representative survey sample, the study finds that individual attitudes significantly predict officers' willingness to report another officer's excessive use of force. However, this relationship weakens when including measures of peer culture and departmental influence. These findings suggest that perceptions of use of force are influenced by more than just individual attitudes towards use of force. Limitations and future research suggestions are discussed.
ContributorsMorse, Stephanie Jean (Author) / Wright, Kevin (Thesis director) / Ready, Justin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Introspective awareness refers to direct access to one’s own internal and subjective thoughts and feelings (Wimmer & Hartl, 1991). Two theories, simulation theory and theory-theory, have been used to understand our access to our mental states. Simulation theory (Harris, 1991) involves imagining yourself in another person’s situation, reading off of your mental state, and attributing that state to the other person. Theory-theory (Gopnik, 1993) involves an interrelated body of knowledge, based on core mental-state constructs, including beliefs and desires, that may be applied to everyone—self and others (Gopnik & Wellman, 1994). Introspection is taken for granted by simulation theory, and explicitly denied by theory-theory. This study is designed to test for evidence of introspection in young children using simple perception and knowledge task. The current evidence is against introspective awareness in children because the data suggest that children cannot report their own false beliefs and they cannot report their on-going thoughts (Flavell, Green & Flavell, 1993; Gopnik & Astington, 1988). The hypothesis in this study states that children will perform better on Self tasks compared to Other tasks, which will be evidence for introspection. The Other-Perception tasks require children to calculate the other’s line of sight and determine if there is something obscuring his or her vision. The Other-Knowledge tasks require children to reason that the other’s previous looking inside a box means that he or she will know what is inside the box when it is closed. The corresponding Self tasks could be answered either by using the same reasoning for the self or by introspection to determine what it is they see and do not see, and know and do not know. Children performing better on Self tasks compared to Other tasks will be an indication of introspection. Tests included Yes/No and Forced Choice questions, which was initially to ensure that the results will not be caused by a feature of a single method of questioning. I realized belatedly, however, that Forced Choice was not a valid measure of introspection as children could introspect in both the Self and Other conditions. I also expect to replicate previous findings that reasoning about Perception is easier for children than reasoning about Knowledge.
ContributorsAamed, Mati (Author) / Fabricius, William (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Kupfer, Anne (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
The United States has become home to the largest incarcerated population in the world, containing 25% of the world's prisoners (NAACP, 2013). Within this population, young men of color appear to be severely overrepresented. This phenomenon can be better understood with the aid of a multi-disciplinary approach within the social sciences. Evolutionary theory is combined with multiple psychological and sociological perspectives, in order to more deeply understand the multi-level intersection of prejudice and discrimination against society's disadvantaged or vulnerable populations. A synthesis of the multiple theoretical angles of social dominance theory, affordance management, and life history theory is used to suggest a threat-based, attributional framework for understanding punitive decision-making and policy support. This conceptualization also considers the importance of the legal system in effecting social change. Future research within the legal arena is recommended to enable a more refined understanding of punitive ideology and implicit bias within the criminal justice system.
ContributorsLeiferman, Lindsay M (Author) / Szeli, Ãâ°va (Thesis director) / Gómez, Alan (Committee member) / Neuberg, Steven (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The purpose of this project was to explore whether perceptual differences exist between meth, marijuana, and alcohol users who acknowledge that they have a substance abuse problem and those who do not acknowledge that they have a substance abuse problem. Additionally, this project was taken a step further to analyze whether these differences changed as harder drug users were progressively phased out of the sample. The data for this project were obtained from a larger study conducted through ASU. The larger study collected questionnaire data from over 400 incarcerated men at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. Two samples were created to assess differences between users who acknowledge that they have a substance abuse problem and those who do not. The purpose of the first sample was to explore whether differences exist between meth, marijuana, and alcohol users when “hard” drug users are progressively eliminated from the sample. The purpose of the second sample was to get a more comprehensive look at all individuals who marked that they used either meth, marijuana, or alcohol. The data showed that there are no apparent differences between meth, marijuana, and alcohol users who acknowledge that they have a substance abuse problem, but that there may be differences between those who do not acknowledge a substance abuse problem.
ContributorsJohnson, Brianna Marie (Author) / Wright, Kevin (Thesis director) / Chamberlain, Alyssa (Committee member) / Barnhart, Patricia (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor, Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Previous research has shown that there is a significant relation between one’s attentional abilities and one’s motor coordination. However, little research has been done that compares attention’s effects on the two major motor skills and what that could mean for one with significant attention problems. Additionally, there has not been much research done on this topic among a population of preschool-aged children. The current study sought to explore the relation between attention and motor coordination among a sample of preschoolers. A comparison of gross motor skills and fine motor skills was also assessed in order to address any potential differing effects. A sample of twenty-six preschool children participated in an experiment consisting of completing fine motor tasks, gross motor tasks, and an attention task. Additionally, parent and teacher surveys were collected that asked both parents and teachers to report their child’s behaviors at home. It was hypothesized that attention would have a significant relation with fine motor skills because past research has found that the variable of inattention is highly correlated with weaker fine motor skills. However, the current study found that attention had a more significant relation with gross motor skills. This finding was reflected across the experiments that the children completed and across the parent/teacher surveys.
ContributorsGoldentyer, Gabriela (Author) / Amazeen, Eric (Thesis director) / Kupfer, Anne (Committee member) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Teacher assessments are often used alongside parent assessments to identify behavioral problems and patterns in school-aged children. These assessments can aid in the diagnosis of disruptive behavior disorders and are used to screen children for targeted delinquency prevention programs. Although researchers have heavily studied the relationship between parent and teacher assessments, not as much research has analyzed teacher assessments alone, specifically semiannual teacher assessments. Teacher assessments are typically conducted during the fall semester, normally a couple months into the school year, or during the spring semester, normally a couple months after the winter break period. Using data from the Pittsburgh Youth Study (PYS), we aimed to determine the temporal stability and predictive utility of semiannual teacher assessments of children's behavioral problems from 2nd grade to 5th grade. Results showed that mean assessment scores increased from the fall to the spring semester across all 4 grades. We also found that teacher assessments of behavioral problems in grade school were significantly correlated with future serious violence. Although our statistical model did not identify a specific time period or semester when these assessments were most predictive, we observed a pattern where the spring semesters were more predictive for the younger grades, and the fall semesters were more predictive for the older grades. Future research could aim to understand why this pattern exists and what its implications are.
ContributorsForthun, Marisa Nicole (Author) / Pardini, Dustin (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
The United States (USA) and the United Kingdom (UK) have a long and complicated history, but through this they have learned an abundance of things from each other. In this paper, I will argue that the two countries still have much to learn from each other to this day about how to enforce the law and manage crime. An important structure that the United Kingdom helped influence the United States in was the development of their criminal justice system. Although the two country’s values differ, there are great similarities in the ways the two countries deal with crime but numerous differences as well. Looking deeper into the differences between the two systems can help future research identify new and innovative ways to combat crime and actively reduce crime rates. This paper will compare violent crime rates in the USA and UK for four years (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017). Doing so will provide evidence regarding the degree to which the police in each country have been able to effectively enforce the law. After evaluating these differences, I will conclude with a discussion of the key items that I believe each country should take from the other to create a path forward to better justice. Our societies are constantly evolving, creating a necessity to progress our laws and aspects of the criminal justice system, and examining internal workings will only tell so much. There is never a reason to stop learning from each other, which is why this type of research is important.
ContributorsEubanks, Hannah E. (Author) / Spohn, Cassia (Thesis director) / Fradella, Hank (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Sibling interactions are natural contexts for learning about the appropriate expression of emotions. The emotionally charged nature of sibling interactions creates a convenient context to explore emotional reactivity and regulation. The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among parent-reported sibling relationship quality, observed sibling prosocial and antisocial behaviors displayed when playing a competitive marble game, and children's emotions coded from videotape. The sample consisted of 58 twin children who are currently participating in the longitudinal Arizona Twin Project. Parents completed the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire online at 5 and 8 years. Additionally, a competitive marble game interaction between the siblings took place in the home at 8 years and was videotaped for objective coding of prosocial, antisocial, and control behavior. Facial expressions were also coded from videotape using Emotient FACET software across the marble game interaction. Three mean composites of emotion were created, including positive and negative emotional facial expressions. Results showed that parent reported warmth did not predict the occurrence of positive emotions during the sibling interaction. However, siblings with high conflict showed less fear during the interaction. Parent reports of warmth predicted the extent to which siblings differed on emotion expression, however conflict did not. Parent ratings of conflict and warmth did not predict the extent to which the sibling dyad was emotionally intense. Findings regarding genetic and environmental effects were in line with previous reports of genetic influence on prosocial behavior and negative emotion, and expressions of joy being influenced by the environment. This study investigated noteworthy aspects of the sibling relationship that appear to promote children's adaptive development.
ContributorsGanase, Anaelle Shelina (Co-author) / Oro, Veronica (Co-author) / Roth, Winter (Co-author) / Doane, Leah (Co-author) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Co-author, Thesis director) / Miadich, Samantha (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05