Matching Items (4)
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- All Subjects: Decision making--Psychological aspects.
- All Subjects: Abused women--Psychology.
- Creators: Hall, Deborah L.
Description
Recommendations made by expert groups are pervasive throughout various life domains. Yet not all recommendations--or expert groups--are equally persuasive. This research aims to identify factors that influence the persuasiveness of recommendations. More specifically, this study examined the effects of decisional cohesion (the amount of agreement among the experts in support of the recommendation), framing (whether the message is framed as a loss or gain), and the domain of the recommendation (health vs. financial) on the persuasiveness of the recommendation. The participants consisted of 1,981 undergraduates from Arizona State University. The participants read a vignette including information about the expert group making a recommendation--which varied the amount of expert agreement for the recommendation--and the recommendation, which was framed as either a gain or loss. Participants then responded to questions about the persuasiveness of the recommendation. In this study, there was a linear main effect of decisional cohesion such that the greater the decisional cohesion of the expert group the more persuasive their recommendation. In addition, there was a main effect of domain such that the health recommendation was more persuasive than the financial recommendation. Contrary to predictions, there was no observed interaction between the amount of decisional cohesion and the framing of the recommendation nor was there a main effect of framing. Further analyses show support for a mediation effect indicating that high levels of decisional cohesion increased the perceived entitativity of the expert group--the degree to which the group was perceived as a unified, cohesive group¬--which increased the recommendation's persuasiveness. An implication of this research is that policy makers could increase the persuasiveness of their recommendations by promoting recommendations that are unanimously supported by their experts or at least show higher levels of decisional cohesion.
ContributorsVotruba, Ashley M (Author) / Kwan, Virginia S.Y. (Thesis advisor) / Saks, Michael J. (Committee member) / Demaine, Linda (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Research in the area of childhood trauma has shown a substantial amount of psychological maladjustment following the experience of traumatic events in childhood. Trauma survivors are at risk for developing a multitude of adverse psychological outcomes as well as unsafe behaviors following the event of trauma. One unifying theme within these psychological sequelae is the nature of impulsive behaviors. Delay-discounting refers to the subjective decrease in value of a reward when its presentation is delayed. Delay-discounting is often used as an index of impulsive behavior. This study poses two primary questions: 1) Can childhood trauma predict rates of delay-discounting? 2) Could delay-discounting predict psychological maladjustment for individuals who have experienced childhood trauma? This study will seek to answer these questions using an online version of the Kirby et al., 1999 hypothetical delay-discounting method, as well as the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), to measure trait impulsivity. Measures of depression (BDI-II), life events (LEC), post-traumatic stress (PCL-C), and drug and alcohol abuse (DAST-20) will also be included. Participants included a sample of university students ages 18-52 (n=521, females = 386, males = 135) with a mean age of 25.19 years. Results indicated that childhood trauma was not a significant predictor of delay-discounting rate, nor was delay-discounting rate a significant predictor of psychological maladjustment. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
ContributorsForeman, Emily S (Author) / Robles-Sotelo, Elias (Thesis advisor) / Roberts, Nicole A. (Committee member) / Hall, Deborah L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The attractiveness of a reward depends in part on the delay to its receipt, with more distant rewards generally being valued less than more proximate ones. The rate at which people discount the value of delayed rewards has been associated with a variety of clinically and socially relevant human behaviors. Thus, the accurate measurement of delay discounting rates is crucial to the study of mechanisms underlying behaviors such as risky sex, addiction, and gambling. In delay discounting tasks, participants make choices between two alternatives: one small amount of money delivered immediately versus a large amount of money delivered after a delay. After many choices, the experimental task will converge on an indifference point: the value of the delayed reward that approximates the value of the immediate one. It has been shown that these indifference points are systematically biased by the direction in which one of the alternatives adjusts. This bias is termed a sequencing effect.
The present research proposed a reference-dependent model of choice drawn from Prospect Theory to account for the presence of sequencing effects in a delay discounting task. Sensitivity to reference frames and sequencing effects were measured in two computer tasks. Bayesian and frequentist analyses indicated that the reference-dependent model of choice cannot account for sequencing effects. Thus, an alternative, perceptual account of sequencing effects that draws on a Bayesian framework of magnitude estimation is proposed and furnished with some preliminary evidence. Implications for future research in the measurement of delay discounting and sensitivity to reference frames are discussed.
The present research proposed a reference-dependent model of choice drawn from Prospect Theory to account for the presence of sequencing effects in a delay discounting task. Sensitivity to reference frames and sequencing effects were measured in two computer tasks. Bayesian and frequentist analyses indicated that the reference-dependent model of choice cannot account for sequencing effects. Thus, an alternative, perceptual account of sequencing effects that draws on a Bayesian framework of magnitude estimation is proposed and furnished with some preliminary evidence. Implications for future research in the measurement of delay discounting and sensitivity to reference frames are discussed.
ContributorsBecker, Ryan J (Author) / Robles, Elías (Thesis advisor) / Sanabria, Federico (Committee member) / Hall, Deborah L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Touch appears to be an important component for understanding psychological and emotional well-being, as well as the formation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships later in life. While research about touch in relation to these topics is gaining momentum, there is still little evidence on the specific effects and processes that take place when touch is negative or harmful. The current study examined how women who have experienced physical or sexual abuse perceive touch in the context of interpersonal relations and in turn, how these experiences, perceptions and attitudes are related to depressive symptoms. Taking into consideration the significance of interpersonal touch, I speculated that 1) attitudes towards touch would be more negative among women who reported physical or sexual abuse than among women who did not; 2) among women who reported past abuse, increased abuse severity would predict increased current depressive symptoms; and 3) among women who reported past abuse, current attitudes towards touch would mediate the relationship between abuse severity and depressive symptoms. As predicted, results indicated that women who reported physical or sexual abuse had less positive attitudes towards touch than women who did not report any abuse. Echoing prior research, reports of childhood and adult abuse predicted increased depressive symptoms. Finally, for women who reported childhood abuse, Discomfort with Social Touch was a significant partial mediator of depressive symptoms, whereas for women who reported adult abuse, both Desire for More Partner Touch and Discomfort with Social Touch were significant partial mediators of depressive symptoms. Results suggested that negative attitudes towards general social touch, in particular, may play a strong role in mediating depressive symptoms among women who reported abuse.
ContributorsSchellenger, Kendall Elizabeth (Author) / Burleson, Mary H. (Thesis advisor) / Roberts, Nicole A. (Committee member) / Hall, Deborah L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015