Browsing by Subject "Psychology"
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Item A case for ethical development in co-curricular environments(2010-08) Morton, Craig; Paton, Valerie O.; Lan, William; Taylor, Colette M.Co-curricular experiences can provide a rich context for student learning, but there has been little research on the direct learning contribution they make. This study is designed to explore the impact of various co-curricular experiences on students within different curricular environments to determine how co-curricular experiences contribute to ethical reasoning development. There is no organized theory or framework regarding how co-curricular environments contribute to ethical reasoning development. However, Astin‟s Input-Environment-Output (I-E-O) Model provides a general theoretical foundation for environmental impact on student learning (Astin, 1993). Lawrence Kohlberg‟s preeminent ethical reasoning research gives further direction. It was grounded in Piaget‟s cognitive development stage theory from the 1930‟s (Wright, 1995; Nichols & Day, 1982). Kohlberg‟s work in the 1950‟s eventually expanded Piaget‟s two stage model within the autonomy stage to six stages of moral development: stages one and two at the pre-conventional level, stages three and four at the conventional level, and stages five and six at the post-conventional level (Wright, 1995). This study was conducted at a large research institution in the southwest United States in partnership with an institutional assessment effort to gather information on student learning in ethics courses. The study used the Defining Issues Test (DIT) developed by James Rest (Bebaeu, Rest & Narvaez, 1999), which places individuals in Kohlberg's continuum of ethical reasoning. One hundred eighty-two studentsparticipated in the DIT pretest at the beginning of the semester and the DIT posttest at the end of the semester. The primary treatment variable was exposure to the material in two courses that met institutional criteria for ethics curriculum; the control group consisted of students in a non-Ethics course. See “Ethics” note at end. Supplemental questions were added at the DIT post-test to gather demographics including participation in selected co-curricular environments. The resulting data was analyzed using a linear regression to identify which variables were predictive of improved posttest scores on the Defining Issues Test. The research study findings indicated that students‟ DIT scores increased, but that neither curricular nor co-curricular environments had a statistically significant impact.Item A content analysis of employee satisfaction surveys(Texas Tech University, 2003-08) Hull, Penny LNot availableItem A study of comorbidity in high school students: relationships of self-reported depressive symptoms, eating attitudes, body dissatisfaction, self esteem, and social support in adolescent males and females(Texas Tech University, 2005-08) Santos, Melissa; Richards, Steven; Hendrick, Susan S.; Borrego, Joaquin P.; Bleckley, M. KathrynDepression is one of the most common mental health disorders seen in adolescence. Low self-esteem, lack of social support and poor body image have been found to be risk factors for depression. However, these risk factors have not adequately explained why adolescent female rates of depressive episodes rise to almost twice that of males. One of many hypotheses proposed in the research is that the concurrent increase seen in eating disorders in adolescent females may be able to explain part of this precipitous rise in female cases of depression. This line of research proposes that a portion of the increase in adolescent depression in females can be explained, in part, by comorbid eating disorders symptomatology. The present study explored this hypothesis, along with related issues in comorbidity. This study had several aims. The primary focus of the study was to look at the comorbidity between disordered eating and depressive symptomatology in male and female high school students. A secondary aim of the study was to look at the relationship between disordered eating and depressive symptoms, along with several of their risk factors: low social support, low self-esteem and low body satisfaction. In particular, when the effects of these three risk factors are statistically controlled for, does disordered eating contribute above and beyond these risk factors to depressive symptoms? Finally, a modified version of the gender additive model was examined which hypothesized that a combination of disordered eating and body dissatisfaction variables combine to increase depressive symptoms in females. Two hundred and two high school students participated in this study. Results indicate that depression and eating disorders are two significant problems facing both male and female adolescents today. Forty percent of students met criteria for possible significant depressive symptomatology while 12% of students met criteria for possible significant disordered eating symptomatology. Comorbidity was seen in 12% of students who met criteria for significant depressive and disordered eating symptoms. The modified gender additive model was not supported in this study. Implications and limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are discussed.Item A study of comorbidity in high school students: Relationships of self-reported depressive symptoms, eating attitudes, body dissatisfaction, self esteem, and social support in adolescent males and females(2005-08) Santos, Melissa; Richards, Steven; Hendrick, Susan S.; Borrego, Joaquin P.; Bleckley, M. KathrynDepression is one of the most common mental health disorders seen in adolescence. Low self-esteem, lack of social support and poor body image have been found to be risk factors for depression. However, these risk factors have not adequately explained why adolescent female rates of depressive episodes rise to almost twice that of males. One of many hypotheses proposed in the research is that the concurrent increase seen in eating disorders in adolescent females may be able to explain part of this precipitous rise in female cases of depression. This line of research proposes that a portion of the increase in adolescent depression in females can be explained, in part, by comorbid eating disorders symptomatology. The present study explored this hypothesis, along with related issues in comorbidity. This study had several aims. The primary focus of the study was to look at the comorbidity between disordered eating and depressive symptomatology in male and female high school students. A secondary aim of the study was to look at the relationship between disordered eating and depressive symptoms, along with several of their risk factors: low social support, low self-esteem and low body satisfaction. In particular, when the effects of these three risk factors are statistically controlled for, does disordered eating contribute above and beyond these risk factors to depressive symptoms? Finally, a modified version of the gender additive model was examined which hypothesized that a combination of disordered eating and body dissatisfaction variables combine to increase depressive symptoms in females. Two hundred and two high school students participated in this study. Results indicate that depression and eating disorders are two significant problems facing both male and female adolescents today. Forty percent of students met criteria for possible significant depressive symptomatology while 12% of students met criteria for possible significant disordered eating symptomatology. Comorbidity was seen in 12% of students who met criteria for significant depressive and disordered eating symptoms. The modified gender additive model was not supported in this study. Implications and limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are discussed.Item A study of the relationship between place of residence and academic success for male students at Texas Technological College(Texas Tech University, 1965-05) Parrish, Jesse H.The problem of the study was to examine the relationship and correlation between place of residence while in college and academic success for male students at Texas Technological College.Item An analysis of the results of two self-improvement programs(Texas Tech University, 1971-08) Pritchett, Early PriceNot availableItem An exploration of Holland's personality types and associated religious orientations(Texas Tech University, 1988-05) Thorley, WarrenJohn L. Holland has developed a comprehensive theory of personality types with broad empirical support. The primary application of the theory has been in the vocational realm, but the theory has implications for a variety of other domains including avocational interests, values, self-concept and religious orientation. The present investigation examines relationships between Holland's personality styles and religious orientation. Religious orientation was operationalized by an integration of Gordon Allport's extrinsic and intrinsic religious orientations with Batson and Ventis' means, end, and quest orientations. Kreml's two-dimensional model of ideological style and cognitive style was utilized to account for associations between religious orientation and personality style. The ideological style dimension was measured by the Conservatism Scale (CS). The cognitive style dimension was assessed by the Dogmatism Scale (DS). A 2x3 factorial MANOVA with religious orientation and gender as classification variables and Holland's personality styles as dependent variables demonstrated statistically significant main effects for religious orientation and gender. ANOVAs with comparison of means revealed that students with a quest orientation display more Artistic characteristics than students with an end orientation. Additionally, means oriented individuals display more Conventional attributes than quest oriented individuals. CS was negatively correlated with Artistic personality style and positively correlated with the end orientation, suggesting that the Artistic style is manifested in the quest orientation by a rejection of traditional beliefs with a preference for an independent, creative search for answers. The association of the Conventional style with the means orientation appears to be based on an acceptance of traditional beliefs in conjunction with a preference for authority and structure. A positive correlation of DS with the means and end orientations links both of these approaches with a dogmatic cognitive style. The end orientation was associated with high religious interest, church attendance and a conservative outlook on life, in contrast to the quest orientation which reflected relatively less formal religious involvement and a more liberal outlook. The majority of the sample reported that religious beliefs influenced educational/vocational decisions. The relevance of these findings for counseling and research was explored.Item Attrition and body mass index change in pediatric weight management: the predictive value of demographic and mental health variables(2016-08) Lotz, Elijah John Strong; Keith, Timothy, 1952-; Gray, Jane; Pont, Stephen; Stark, Kevin; Rodriguez, ErinChild and adolescent obesity has increased dramatically in the last few decades, and remains a pressing health concern in the United States. Responding to the problem of obesity in youth has been a challenge, as body mass index (BMI) change is difficult to attain, and attrition from pediatric weight management programs is often very high. The purpose of the current study was to identify demographic and mental health variables that can predict attrition and BMI change in a pediatric weight management program using multiple linear regression and binary logistic regression. Participants were children and adolescents with obesity 6-18 years of age and their parents living in the central Texas area and participating the a hospital-based multidisciplinary pediatric weight management program. Results provided several significant findings. Rates of attrition from the intervention were similar to findings from prior research. No study variables significantly predicted dropout prior to the third visit. However, parent’s preferred language, taking psychiatric medication at the first visit, and symptoms of inattention were all significant predictors of dropout prior to the fourth visit. In paired-samples t- tests, unstandardized BMI scores increased significantly from first to last visit, while BMI z-scores decreased significantly. Average time between visits significantly predicted unstandardized BMI change and BMI z-score change in this sample. Last visit number was also a significant predictor of unstandardized BMI change. Implications, limitations, and areas of future research are discussed.Item Belief-directed exploration in human decision-makers : behavioral and physiological evidence(2012-05) Otto, Anthony Ross, 1983-; Markman, Arthur B.; Love, Bradley C.; Huk, Alexander; Poldrack, Russell; Gureckis, ToddDecision-making in uncertain environments poses a conflict between the goals of exploiting past knowledge in order to maximize rewards and exploring less-known options in order to gather information. The descriptive modeling framework utilized in previous studies of exploratory choice behavior characterizes exploration as the result of a noisy decision process, rather than a process reflecting beliefs and/or uncertainty about the environment. It stands to reason that people do not merely negotiate the exploration-exploitation dilemma by stochastically making choices, but rather, fully utilize their knowledge of the environment structure and integrate their trial-by-trial observations of choice in order to direct exploratory choice. The work presented in this dissertation evaluates this hypothesis. As the previous used tasks structures and descriptive models obfuscate this more sophisticated form of belief-directed exploration, I describe a novel exploration-exploitation task that affords disentanglement of reflective belief-directed exploration strategy from a reflexive and naïve exploration strategy. The former strategy is distinguished from latter by its ability to update its belief states in the absence of direct observations of choice payoff changes. Accordingly, we specify cognitive models instantiating these two choice strategies and in the first experiment, we find evidence that behavior is by and large better characterized by a reflective strategy, and further, that choice latencies appear to index value computations carried out in implementing such a strategy. In a second experiment, I reveal how physiological arousal (measured by Skin Conductance Responses) appears to index a form of value computation similar to what is prescribed this reflective model, and further, how individual differences in physiological response to these value signals bear on choice behavior. In a third experiment, I demonstrate how this sophisticated form of choice behavior carries cognitive costs, and following the contemporary model-based/model-free reinforcement learning framework, I show how placing concurrent decision-makers under cognitive load diminishes the contribution of the more sophisticated reflective exploration strategy, fostering reliance on stochastic, reflexive form of exploratory choice behavior.Item Break down the walls : how the “folder effect” influences the transfer of learning(2011-05) He, Jingjie; Svinicki, Marilla D., 1946-; Markman, ArthurCategorizing knowledge into different disciplines and units may block knowledge within separate “folders”, which could limit its later retrieval and transfer to new contexts. To test this hypothesis, two experiments had been conducted. In one experiment, participants memorized a list of words with or without cuing which category these words belonged to. One week later, they were asked to recall all the positive adjectives, which required them to retrieve words that came from different categories. In the other experiment, participants read exactly the same story but embedded in two different subject domains or no context. A survey report was presented to test whether people from different contexts would have different transfer effect. The current study replicated previous results that successful transfer was hard to observe in the laboratory settings without explicit prompts. The memory test and transfer task in this study were too difficult and resulted into to the poor performance of the participants. The initial hypothesis had been neither supported nor rejected. To test the hypothesis, future studies could reduce the time interval between study and test, and modified the transfer task to lower the difficulty of the experiment.Item A computerized intervention for depression : a randomized clinical trial(2014-12) Sandoval, Luis Roberto; Ainslie, Ricardo C.One in ten adults in the U.S. report depression, and thirty-eight percent of those receiving treatment are receiving minimally adequate treatment. Studies show that evidence-based Internet interventions are highly effective in treating depression at a low cost. The aim of this study was to reduce symptoms of depression in subjects through the use of a new, electronic Problem Solving Treatment (ePST). Adult participants with moderate to severe depression symptoms were randomly assigned to either treatment or a wait-list condition. The Beck Depression Inventory-II was used as the primary outcome measure. A Repeated Measure Design with one factor in the between (treatment vs control) and one factor in the within (pre, mid-point, and post-treatment) was used in the analysis. Study results showed that participants in the ePST group improved their depression symptoms (from Moderate to Mild levels of depression) after receiving 3 session of ePST, as well as after receiving six session of ePST (from moderate to minimal levels of depression). On the other hand, participants assigned to the control group remained with Moderate levels of depression.Item A culture of dissonance : Wassily Kandinsky, atonality, and abstraction(2014-05) Boland, Lynn; Henderson, Linda Dalrymple, 1948-A Culture of Dissonance: Wassily Kandinsky, Atonality, and Abstraction by Lynn Edward Boland, Ph.D. Supervisor: Linda D. Henderson Wassily Kandinsky's interest in music as a source for abstraction in painting has often been noted in the scholarship on his art. However, no studies have sufficiently explained how the artist employed musical strategies, especially as he was developing his abstract style in the first decade of the twentieth century. Kandinsky's looked primarily to Arnold Schoenberg's new musical idioms and theories, and he was deeply inspired by highly dissonant music, but his ideas were set within a much broader context that further suggested and encouraged the expressive and transformative power of dissonance. By the late nineteenth century, extended passages of dissonance were common in musical compositions. At the same time, the concept of dissonance as a positive force was suggested in a wide range of late nineteenth-century literature, including the writings of Friedrich [should be this spelling throughout] Nietzsche, occult authors, popular texts on physics and experimental psychology, as well as within music and art theory. Close readings of Kandinsky's theoretical texts and selected works of art provide insights into how he might have understood and employed these concepts in his formation of an abstract style. Kandinsky's paintings Impression III (Concert) of 1911 and Composition VII of 1913 are the primary artistic foci of this study, along with his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art and the anthology Der Blaue Reiter, which he co-edited. This dissertation will seek to restore the concept of musical dissonance and its application in the visual arts to its historical context for Kandinsky. This will facilitate more informed formal analyses of Schoenberg's music and Kandinsky's paintings, which, in turn, suggest strategies of atonal musical composition applied to abstract painting. Additionally, this dissertation will establish an artistic context of visual dissonance that goes beyond Kandinsky, including artistic movements in France and Russia, allowing additional comparisons and a consideration of the larger impact of these ideas.Item Defining "normal" in their own image: psychological professionals, middle-class normativity, and the postwar popularization of psychology(2009-12) Hill, Victoria Campbell; Davis, Janet M.This dissertation examines the relationship between the growth and popularization of psychology in American life in the postwar period and Americans’ belief that theirs is a “classless,” or overwhelmingly middle-class, society. I argue that psychology has, until recently, inadvertently naturalized middle-class norms of self-perception, communication, aspirations, and subjectivity. From the 1950s on, the United States has been what observers call a “therapeutic culture.” Psychological ideas have infused the major arenas of American life, including the educational, judicial, commercial, political, personal, and interpersonal realms. This project examines the origins and development of psychological professionals’ views of class, highlighting the professional, economic, disciplinary, and cultural factors that combined to form those views. I analyze a small but persistent thread of dialogue in the professional literature of the period that questioned mainstream psychological assumptions about class, and I explore how that impulse developed into major mental health policy initiatives in the 1960s, then was undermined by political and social conflicts. I also develop a case history of one mental health project that attempted to transcend psychology’s class biases, only to be contained by structural and disciplinary factors. After examining psychological professionals’ views of various publics, this project investigates a series of publics’ views of psychological practitioners. I draw on popular portrayals of postwar psychological practitioners across various media, including one particular working-class medium, postwar men’s adventure magazines, and employ classic cultural studies readings to analyze the significant differences in the portrayals.Item Development and validation of a textbook in applied psychology(Texas Tech University, 1979-08) Foster, Judith Jeannine CappsNot availableItem Differential Effects of Association and Semantics on Priming and Memory Judgments.(Texas Tech University, 2008-08) Buchanan, Erin M.; Maki, William S.; Taraban, Roman M.; DeLucia, Patricia R.; Maki, Ruth H.Semantic memory is the storage of world knowledge or facts, while associative memory contains information about how words are related in context of speech or writing (Tulving, 1993; Nelson, McEvoy, & Dennis, 2000). For example, the word pair CAT-DOG is semantically related because cats and dogs have many of the same features, such as legs, tails, fur, house pets, etc. CAT-DOG is also associatively related because the words appear together frequently in text such as “it’s raining cats and dogs”. Research examined to see if these two types of memory are separable or if all context and dictionary knowledge are contained in one memory system (Lucas, 2000). Currently, results are mixed on the separability of these two memory systems, where effects are seemingly dependent on stimuli used. Previous studies had difficulty controlling for both relationships for word pairs, meaning that word pairs were dually related despite claims for single relationships. Several studies were designed using large semantic and associative word norm databases (Maki, McKinley, & Thompson, 2004; Nelson, McEvoy, Schreiber, 2004). These databases made it possible to create separate word lists; so only one relationship (semantic or associative) was present. From there, priming for both memory types was tested using a rapid serial visual presentation task (RSVP) and judgment task. In the RSVP task, participants watched a very fast presentation of symbols, which were either distractors or target words. Participants were required to name the target word they saw among the distractors. Priming occurred when target words that were related were named more than unrelated target words. In a judgment task, participants were asked to read two words and rate how much they thought the words belonged together based on their feature overlap (how many features they share) or their associative relationship (how many people out of 100 would put them together). Judgments were part of the related word pair for the RSVP task to create priming. Priming for both relationships was found, which indicated that these two systems were separate. Judgments showed that people could separate the two memory systems when making judgments. Associative judgments were processed by associative information but not semantics, while semantic judgments required both associative and semantic information. However, attentional differences in judgments found previously did not transfer to priming results (Buchanan, Maki, & Patton, 2007). These studies, including priming tasks, showed that information appeared to be readily accessible (including semantic information) but in a different order of processing. Associative information appears to be processed earlier at a word or lexical level while semantic information is processed later and in a separate store. From there, judgment processes might occur even later than information processing used for priming.Item Do I have enough time? The effects of perceived test difficulty and perceived time pressure on cognitive performance(2016-12) Stein, Evan Marc; Markman, Arthur B.Previous research on time pressure has shown that time pressure has paradoxical effects on task performance. Findings from previous studies show that time pressure can either help or hurt performance. Thus, it was hypothesized that an inverted U-shape relationship between time pressure and cognitive performance might explain the inconsistent results. In the current study, we used a 2 (Practice set difficulty: easy vs. hard) x 2 (Perceived time pressure: low vs. high) between-subjects design to investigate the effects of perceived test difficulty and perceived time pressure on cognitive performance. Participants either received an easy or hard practice set of Remote Associate Task problems. After, participants were told that 10 mins was either a sufficient (i.e., low perceived time pressure) or insuffient (i.e., high perceived time pressure) amount of time to complete a 30-item test. Upon completion of the test, participants then answered a battery of questionnaires regarding their personality, behavior, and beliefs. Results showed that there was no effect of perceived test difficulty or perceived time pressure on creative task performance or time spent on items. Exploratory analyses using the self-report surveys showed that ADHD behaviors, impulsivity, procrastination, need for cognition, and regulatory focus interacts with perceived test difficulty and perceived time pressure. Findings from this study provides insight into the influence of individual differences on perceived test difficulty and perceived time pressure. Understanding how people with different personalities, behaviors, and beliefs perceive time will help elucidate the different contexts under which time pressure can impair or improve performance.Item The effects of student psychology on remedial math success : a case study on non-academic interventions(2015-05) Ferrell, Benjamin Butler; Cantu, Norma V., 1954-; Reddick, Richard, 1972-; Sharpe, Edwin R; Svinicki, Marilla D; Roueche, John EThis single case study explored the relationship between non-academic interventions that supported student psychosocial factors and remedial math success. The theoretical framework proposed that remedial math success was linked to psychosocial factors as described by Bandura’s social cognitive theory rather than merely cognitive factors possessed by the student. The literature review revealed that remedial math success in community colleges was chronically problematic, that psychosocial factors were fundamental to human development and learning and well supported by neuroscience, and that above average academic success has long been positively correlated with programs of non-academic interventions. According to the findings of this study, non-academic interventions such as case management, cohorts, accelerated remedial math coursework, childcare, and emergency financial assistance, provided psychosocial support essential to learning and development, which in turn resulted in extraordinary success in remedial math completion. The conclusion drawn from the findings is that effective psychosocial support is essential to achieving exceptional remedial math success rates.Item An experimental test of collegiate drinking norms(2011-05) Patel, Amee Bipin; Fromme, Kim; Beevers, Christopher G.; Beretvas, Susan N.; Josephs, Robert A.; Markman, Arthur B.Social norms play a pivotal role in both explaining the development and maintenance of collegiate alcohol use and creating prevention and intervention programs targeted at reducing heavy drinking. By theoretically functioning as a model of normative and popular behavior, descriptive and injunctive norms are consistently associated with college drinking. In the current study, we endeavored to test the mechanisms through which social norms influence drinking by experimentally manipulating normative beliefs. Participants (N = 181) were assigned to one of nine conditions in a 3 (descriptive norms (DN): positive, negative, none) x 3 (injunctive norms (IN): positive, negative, none) experimental design. Norms exposure occurred within a series of three same-gender Internet-based chat room sessions. The norms manipulation was partially successful in creating groups with distinct normative beliefs, with the no norms groups failing to maintain a neutral norm for both descriptive and injunctive norms. Consequently, no descriptive norms groups were combined with positive descriptive norms groups and no injunctive norms groups were combined with negative injunctive norms groups, resulting in a 2 (DN: positive, negative) x 2 (IN: positive, negative) design for analyses. Overall findings for type (DN, IN) and valence (positive, negative) of norms indicated that participants globally reduced descriptive norms and drinking from pre-chat room to post-chat room, regardless of the type or valence of the manipulation, indicating that there were no experimental effects by condition. Whereas drinking appeared to stabilize at post-chat room, descriptive norms continued to decrease by three-month follow-up. Injunctive norms and personal attitudes about alcohol use also decreased by three-month follow-up. Although we were unsuccessful in changing normative beliefs in expected directions, these findings have important implications for college prevention and intervention programs for reducing drinking. The lack of experimental effects suggested that changing norms may be more complex than previously hypothesized and that changes in norms may not result in changes in drinking, which is the purported mechanism of change in norms-based interventions. These results further suggested that continued research is necessary to provide empirical support for a causal link between norms and drinking and that alternative explanations for the association between norms and drinking need to be considered.Item Figure-ground relations as these influence discrimination learning in monkeys and children(Texas Tech University, 1956-08) Viaille, Harold D.Not availableItem From battlegrounds to the backcountry : the intersection of masculinity and outward bound programming on psychosocial functioning for male military veterans(2014-08) Scheinfeld, David Emmanuel; Rochlen, Aaron B.This study investigates the promise of using therapeutic adventure as an alternative therapeutic approach to address a public health issue: Veterans reticence towards seeking mental health assistance, despite their rising rates of mental health issues. To examine how the intersection between conformity to traditional masculine norms and Outward Bound for Veterans (OB4V) programming impacted psychosocial development, a quasi-experimental, longitudinal design was implemented on 159 male Veterans. The primary goals were twofold: 1) to determine whether improvement in six therapeutic outcome variables occurred due to the OB4V intervention; 2) to discover whether male Veterans’ level of conformity to traditional masculine norms influenced change in the therapeutic outcome variables. Outcome variables included: 1) mental health status; 2) personal growth initiative; 3) attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help; 4) psychological mindedness; 5) restriction of emotions; 6) subjective wellbeing. Results indicated a significant effect of treatment, suggesting that the OB4V treatment promoted Veterans improvement in all the therapeutic outcome variables, except psychological mindedness. Findings also showed that the significant effect of treatment was associated with Veterans’ improvement in therapeutic outcome variables over all time points irrespective of their level of conformity to traditional masculine norms.
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