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The increase in obesity since the 1980's has been associated with fast-food consumption. In hopes that calorie labeling will be an effective tool to combat obesity, congress included a provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) that will require all restaurants with twenty or more locations to post calorie information for each menu item. Current research has provided mixed results regarding the effectiveness of calorie labeling, but overall seems to suggest that calorie labeling may only be effective among certain populations. In September, 2012 McDonald's began to post calorie labels on their menu boards before it was federally mandated under the ACA. This policy provided the opportunity to study the impact of calorie labeling on the purchasing behavior of McDonald's patrons. This cross-sectional study was designed to determine if self-perception of diet, self-perception of health, smoking, physical activity, fruit and vegetable intake, or knowledge of daily calorie requirements is associated with the likelihood of noticing or using calorie labels, or total calories purchased. In addition, relationships between noticing or using calorie labels with total calories purchased were also examined. Receipts and survey responses were collected from 330 participants who purchased food and beverage items from 27 different McDonald's locations within a 20 mile radius of downtown Phoenix, Arizona. Results indicated that only 16.1% of the sample reported using calorie labels, and those who reported using calorie labels purchased an average of 136 fewer calories. Multivariate analysis indicated there were no statistically significant relationships between self-perception of diet, self-perception of health, smoking, physical activity, fruit and vegetable intake, or knowledge of daily calorie requirements with the likelihood of noticing or using calorie labels, or total calories purchased. However, it is possible that the small sample size of participants using calorie labeling precluded any statistically significant relationships among these variables from emerging. Further research with larger sample sizes should be conducted, to investigate individual level factors that may be associated with use of calorie labeling.
ContributorsBrown, Alan (Author) / Ohri-Vachaspati, Punam (Thesis advisor) / Bruening, Meredith (Committee member) / Wharton, Christopher (Christopher Mack), 1977- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Collaborative learning is a potential technique for teachers to use to meet the diverse learning needs of the students in their classrooms. Previous studies have investigated the contexts in which the benefits of collaborative learning show greater presence. The most important factor found was the quality of the interactions. Studies have suggested that high achieving students are capable of improving the quality of interactions. This bears the question if prior knowledge plays an influence in the learning outcome of students in collaborative learning. Results show that high prior knowledge students do not face a detriment in having low prior knowledge students as a partner comparing to having another high prior knowledge student and that low prior knowledge students show significantly higher learning outcome when partnered with a high prior knowledge partner than with another low prior knowledge student. It is therefore likely that having a high prior knowledge student within a dyad improves the quality of interaction, resulting in greater learning outcome through collaborative learning.
ContributorsKeyvani, Kewmars (Author) / Chi, Michelene (Thesis director) / Wylie, Ruth (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Humans are biased toward teleological explanations of natural phenomena. The promiscuous teleology account posits that this proclivity is rooted in the detection of supernatural agency behind the design of the natural world. This idea is supported by numerous positive correlations of religious belief and agreement with teleological explanations of natural phenomena, but it is challenged by findings that non-believers often agree with them as well, suggesting the need for an adjudicating experiment. The current experiment tested whether considering similar teleological explanations of nature causes explicitly theistic and atheistic people to think about God, which would suggest that the teleological bias has roots in agency detection. Participants (N = 608) were randomly assigned to consider teleological explanations of either human-caused phenomena or natural phenomena, with the main prediction that considering the natural item set would make theists relatively faster to categorize God as real but make atheists relatively slower to categorize God as imaginary. The data did support this hypothesis, suggesting that people across the theistic belief spectrum automatically think of God when thinking about nature’s purpose, and thus the teleological bias might be rooted in the detection of supernatural agency. Implications for theories of teleology, study limitations, and potential future directions are discussed.
ContributorsScott, Matthew (Author) / Cohen, Adam B (Thesis advisor) / Kenrick, Douglas T (Committee member) / Brewer, Gene A (Committee member) / Becker, David Vaughn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Individuals encounter problems daily wherein varying numbers of constraints require delimitation of memory to target goal-satisfying information. Multiply-constrained problems, such as compound remote associates, are commonly used to study this type of problem solving. Since their development, multiply-constrained problems have been theoretically and empirically related to creative thinking, analytical problem solving, insight problem solving, intelligence, and a multitude of other cognitive abilities. Critically, in order to correctly solve a multiply-constrained problem the solver must have the solution available in memory and be able to target and access to that information. Experiment 1 determined that the cue – target relationship affects the likelihood that a problem is solved. Moreover, Experiment 2 identified that the association between cues and targets predicted inter- & intra-individual differences in multiply-constrained problem solving. Lastly, Experiment 3 found monetary incentives failed to improve problem solving performance likely due to knowledge serving as a limiting factor on performance. Additionally, problem solvers were shown to be able to reliably assess the likelihood they would solve a problem. Taken together all three studies demonstrated the importance of knowledge & knowledge structures on problem solving performance.
ContributorsEllis, Derek (Author) / Brewer, Gene A (Thesis advisor) / Homa, Donald (Committee member) / Blais, Chris (Committee member) / Goldinger, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021