Matching Items (18)
Description
This study investigates the presence of a dual identity defendant, and how sharing an in-group can create a judgment bias. A sample of 256 participants was used to test whether there was a relationship between judgment punitiveness, perceptions of shared identity, hypocrisy and the social identities (religion and sexual orientation) of the participants and a defendant charges with a sexual offence. Results suggest that Christian participants selected more punitive outcomes for the defendant compared to non-Christian participants. Further, participants were more punitive when the defendant was gay compared to when the defendant was heterosexual. Also, when the defendant was straight there was a stronger feeling of similarity between the participants and defendant compared to when the defendant was gay, and non-Christian participants had a stronger feeling of closeness to the defendant compared to Christian participants. There was a significant interaction found, suggesting that when the defendant was Christian and gay he was seen as more hypocritical compared to when he was Christian and straight; there was no interaction when the defendant was not Christian. These findings should aid in future research and a better understanding of how dual identity defendants are perceived in the courtroom.
ContributorsAltholz, Rachel Leah (Author) / Salerno, Jessica (Thesis advisor) / Hall, Deborah (Committee member) / Schweitzer, Nick (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The effects of over-the-counter drug (OTC) use on college students' health has been debated in the field of psychology with researchers arguing that poor sleep quality among college students is the result of polysubstance use. However, this explanation is not a foregone conclusion. These researchers have not adequately addressed the issue poor sleep quality among college students and its relationship to polysubstance use. This is an important issue because prolonged unsupervised OTC drug use and poor sleep quality can impact long-term health and lessen students' likelihood of being successful in college. This paper addresses the issue of OTC drug use with special attention to sleep quality. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index Scores were collected to assess subjective sleep quality and its relationship to OTC drug use. Several other risk factors including binge drinking, marijuana use, and illicit drug use were also accounted for in this model. This study argues that, although the current literature suggests that poor sleep quality is the effect of drug use rather than the cause; the relationships between these factors are still unclear. This study aims to fill a gap in the college drug use literature by establishing a relationship between poor sleep quality and OTC drug use in a college sample.
ContributorsLara, Gustavo (Author) / Vargas, Perla (Thesis advisor) / Burleson, Mary (Committee member) / Robles-Sotelo, Elias (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Over the past several years, engagement and embeddedness have become popular research topics for academics and practitioners alike. Research has demonstrated associations between these constructs and a variety of predictors and outcomes. Prior research has not, however, placed enough emphasis on the roles of employee type, industry type, and work setting in determining predictors and outcomes. Additionally, the relative roles of engagement and embeddedness in predicting outcomes have not been thoroughly investigated. This study investigated the predictors and outcomes of engagement and embeddedness among unskilled, production line employees working in food processing in the agricultural industry by conducting a survey of employees and their supervisors. Employees answered questions about personality, motivation, satisfaction, engagement, and embeddedness while supervisors answered questions about each employee's performance. Results suggest that both engagement and embeddedness predict employee satisfaction and that engagement does so more strongly, both of which support prior research. However, results contradict prior research by suggesting that embeddedness is strongly predicted by traits internal to the employee while engagement is not, and neither engagement nor embeddedness significantly predicts employee performance. Further, the findings suggest that employees working in different settings and industries may experience work differently, and the measurements used to understand their experiences should reflect these differences.
ContributorsBryan, Kathleen (Author) / Newman, Matthew L. (Thesis advisor) / Hall, Deborah L. (Committee member) / Schweitzer, Nick (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
From its founding, the United States has always claimed to be a nation of immigrants, yet in the past century the issue of immigration has become an even more contentious political issue surrounded by heated rhetoric filled with passion, but devoid of information. This thesis hopes to interrupt this rhetoric with a thorough analysis of immigration politics in Arizona through a legal lens, a theoretical lens and an empirical lens. While this thesis by no means looks at all facets of immigration politics, it informs in a manner that adds depth by providing information on the history behind, and legal arguments surrounding, the most contentious piece of immigration legislation in the United States at the moment. It then provides a theoretical analysis of how immigration legislation has created carceral networks and a panoptic gaze in Arizona specifically. It ends with a recommendation for further empirical research to partner with both the legal and theoretical frameworks. This thesis concludes that, fortified with over a century of case law, the plenary power doctrine is unwavering, and it makes federal immigration legislation an overly powerful tool in our political system from which the courts can offer little if any protection. Congress walks a fine line between preempting immigration regulation and devolving immigration regulation. SB 1070 and the 287(g) program are two contested areas of immigration regulation, which both exhibit and alter the power relationships of immigration politics in Arizona. Additionally, the application of the theories of Michel Foucault illuminates the power relationships at play in Arizona - from the power relationships among nation states in the broader political arena of geopolitics and colonialism to the face-to-face power relationship between a police officer and a stopped/detained/arrested person in a Foucauldian carceral network. This thesis ends with a call for empirical research that would yield an opportunity to analyze these relationships. This thesis discusses the importance of empirical study. It situates the study within the genre of surveillance studies and its theorists. It analyzes similar studies, and identifies the variables the most illuminating for this analysis. This thesis is written in the hope that a researcher will pick up where this thesis has left off.
ContributorsBycura, Marquette (Author) / Schweitzer, Nick (Thesis advisor) / Vargas, Perla (Committee member) / Simmons, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Long-term results of dietary weight loss interventions are not promising, with rates of weight loss maintenance at a mere 20%. Psychological factors related to weight maintenance include setting unrealistic weight goals, poor problem-solving skills, low self-efficacy, dichotomous thinking, and external locus of control. The ability to maintain a stable bodyweight over time has been associated with optimal health outcomes, lower stress levels, and higher general well-being. Dichotomous thinking has been associated with overeating and increased bodyweight. Cognitive restraint, disinhibition, and hunger are three dimensions of human eating behavior that appear to be important to understanding weight loss maintenance. Individuals who attempt to maintain their bodyweight via dietary restraint mechanisms are more susceptible to excessive eating episodes. Disinhibition has been found to be the strongest predictor of weight gain, while the research on the association between hunger and bodyweight is mixed. This study sought to evaluate the relationship between dichotomous thinking toward food and various eating behaviors (binge eating, cognitive restraint, disinhibition, and hunger). A multiple regression analysis revealed that binge eating, cognitive restraint, disinhibition, and hunger were each significant unique predictors of higher body mass index (BMI). Higher levels of hunger predicted lower BMI, controlling for cognitive restraint, disinhibition, and binge eating. Mediation analyses revealed that dichotomous thinking mediated the relationships between binge eating and BMI, cognitive restraint and BMI, and disinhibition and BMI. Further analysis revealed that binge eating mediated the relationship between dichotomous thinking and BMI, indicating that thinking of food in black-and-white could lead to higher rates of binge eating, and the excess calorie consumption could lead to increased BMI. The study findings suggest that a strong focus should be made to promote a more flexible attitude toward food in an effort to improve weight loss maintenance in the population.
ContributorsLee, Sohee, 1989- (Author) / Robles-Sotelo, Elias (Thesis advisor) / Vargas, Perla (Committee member) / Hall, Deborah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The thesis examines the intricacies involved with the language barriers experienced by patients with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) in medical encounters in the U.S. It examines the evidence showing the impact that language barriers have on both the quality of care and the satisfaction with care experienced by patients with LEP. It also presents an overview of the laws regulating these interactions and its limitations. It further examines the pros and cons of the use of interpreters as the primary strategy developed to operationalize these regulations, including lack of funding for medical interpreters, lack of appropriate training and certification, and language diversity. Additionally, language barriers are examined in the context of cultural differences that permeate all social encounters. One key finding of this review is that communication problems are not only an issue for the LEP population, providing health-care for all patients involve sharing information among multiple health-care providers, patients and their families. However, it is well-documented that LEP makes health-care communication exponentially more challenging. The work concludes with some possible solutions to improve the quality of care and satisfaction of patients with LEP.
ContributorsBrown-Mchone, Carlee Gail (Author) / Vargas, Perla (Thesis director) / Hall, Deborah (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This study compared mock jurors' verdict decisions regarding three different insanity defenses that are used across jurisdictions in the United States' Criminal Justice System. Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity (NGRI), Guilty Except Insane (GEI) and Guilty But Mentally Ill (GBMI) all have different effects on the defendant and on the system, but little is known about how jurors' will use these different verdicts. This study used a vignette and online survey delivered through MTurk to see which of the three verdicts, if rendered, would be more preferable by the mock jurors. It was predicted that GEI (a "compromise" verdict with elements from both NGRI and GBMI) would be more favorable than NGRI (the most lenient) but less favorable that GBMI (the strictest). However, the findings indicated that lay people cannot tell the difference between the three insanity verdicts: an equal proportion of mock jurors in each condition chose the relevant insanity verdict. Limitations, implications, and future directions are discussed.
ContributorsSiso, Cassidy Brooke (Author) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Thesis director) / Schweitzer, Nick (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Loss aversion manifests as a decision bias in which avoiding losses is preferred over acquiring rewards and can drastically alter an individual’s decision-making by overweighting potential losses relative to gains of equal magnitude. Consequently, individuals may require greater positive compensation to offset potential losses, exhibit contradictory choice preferences, or even avoid the decision entirely; and this behavior may be ascribed to an over-reliance on automatic, unconscious (intuitive) judgments rather than initiating analytic reasoning more capable of objectively evaluating outcomes.
Religion (specifically Christianity) is the topic of focus, as preliminary evidence suggests an individual’s intuitive inclinations positively correlate with and predict religious beliefs. Moreover, self-reported religious beliefs significantly differed as a function of inducing either intuitive or reflective mindsets. Therefore, the purpose of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that religious participants will display significantly greater levels of loss aversion than nonreligious participants.
This hypothesis extends from a previous study relating large-scale cultural and religious differences with loss aversion. While their results revealed religious orthodoxy strongly influenced loss aversion, the parameters elicited may be less stable as only two lottery questions were asked and religion was determined by cultural demographics. This study used the same design, but with a total of ten lotteries and a more detailed investigation into individual religious factors.
While loss aversion coefficients replicated the overall behavioral effect (Median θ = 2.6), independent sample, Mann-Whitney U tests did not yield any significant differences between Christian and Nonreligious participants (p > 0.05); nor did any of the religious factors examined account for a significant amount of variability.
This study attempted to add to current knowledge by further conflating the relationship between religiosity and adaptive decision strategies susceptible to errant and inconsistent behavior. While the hypotheses were unsupported, a null finding is still important, and future research re-testing this association or introducing causational designs may prove more fruitful in understanding these complex relationships.
Religion (specifically Christianity) is the topic of focus, as preliminary evidence suggests an individual’s intuitive inclinations positively correlate with and predict religious beliefs. Moreover, self-reported religious beliefs significantly differed as a function of inducing either intuitive or reflective mindsets. Therefore, the purpose of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that religious participants will display significantly greater levels of loss aversion than nonreligious participants.
This hypothesis extends from a previous study relating large-scale cultural and religious differences with loss aversion. While their results revealed religious orthodoxy strongly influenced loss aversion, the parameters elicited may be less stable as only two lottery questions were asked and religion was determined by cultural demographics. This study used the same design, but with a total of ten lotteries and a more detailed investigation into individual religious factors.
While loss aversion coefficients replicated the overall behavioral effect (Median θ = 2.6), independent sample, Mann-Whitney U tests did not yield any significant differences between Christian and Nonreligious participants (p > 0.05); nor did any of the religious factors examined account for a significant amount of variability.
This study attempted to add to current knowledge by further conflating the relationship between religiosity and adaptive decision strategies susceptible to errant and inconsistent behavior. While the hypotheses were unsupported, a null finding is still important, and future research re-testing this association or introducing causational designs may prove more fruitful in understanding these complex relationships.
ContributorsHowatt, Brian (Author) / Robles-Sotelo, Elias (Thesis advisor) / Vargas, Perla (Committee member) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
In recent years, the use of biologically based (neurological, neuropsychological, genetic) evidence in criminal trials as support for claims of mental impairments among offenders has increased in popularity. However, research on how exposure to those arguments affects jury decision-making remains unclear. Specifically, arguments rooted in biology sometimes mitigate and sometimes aggravate judgments of criminal responsibility for mentally ill offenders, and this discrepancy seems to stem from the specific conditions by which that disorder was acquired. The following study’s aim was to uncover the precise mechanism(s) behind this elusive effect. Utilizing a 2x2 between subjects experimental design, participants were presented with a hypothetical crime summary involving an offender with either an onset controllable or uncontrollable mental disorder. Ratings of criminal responsibility and other variables hypothesized to function as mediators were obtained after presentation of a prime supporting either a biologically deterministic or free will argument for human behavior in general. Results indicated that when the defendant’s disorder was the result of the his own actions (onset controllable), a biological prime decreased judgments of criminal responsibility; however, when the disorder was caused by factors out of his control (onset uncontrollable), the prime increased judgments of criminal responsibility. An examination of several possible mechanisms finds the effect mediated by the perception of control the defendant could have had over his own actions at the time of the crime. These results suggest that perceptions of behavioral control are an important contributor to jurors’ formation of criminal responsibility judgments when an offender possesses a mental illness; and arguments advocating a biological basis for human behavior reliably affect blame attribution, suggesting that a societal shift in the perception of free will as a result of increased exposure to biology in general may alter the framework of criminal responsibility judgments.
ContributorsHunter, Shelby (Author) / Schweitzer, Nick (Thesis advisor) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Forensic pathologists investigate unnatural or suspicious deaths in medico-legal cases and must be accurate and thorough in their analyses so that justice can prevail. This occupation, however, is immensely difficult, and mistakes can occur. These challenges are discussed here with suggestions for improvement. Implementing new technologies, better quality control, more research, and standardization of procedures are just a few of the multiple changes that can enhance forensic pathology.
ContributorsFitzgerald, Jesse Lee (Author) / McQuiston, Dawn (Thesis director) / Schweitzer, Nick (Committee member) / Lafond, Sue (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2013-05