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Title: Examining dynamic interpersonal processes associated with alliance rupture in psychotherapy
Creator: Luo, Xiaochen
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Alliance ruptures refer to tensions and negative processes between therapist and patient. Identifying ruptures is important because research shows that ruptures play an important role in establishing therapeutic alliance and in promoting therapeutic changes. However, previous studies have not used within-person methodology to explore the dynamic and dyadic processes of interpersonal behaviors in ruptures and thus there is little evidence to guide clinicians in the identification of ruptures....
Show moreAlliance ruptures refer to tensions and negative processes between therapist and patient. Identifying ruptures is important because research shows that ruptures play an important role in establishing therapeutic alliance and in promoting therapeutic changes. However, previous studies have not used within-person methodology to explore the dynamic and dyadic processes of interpersonal behaviors in ruptures and thus there is little evidence to guide clinicians in the identification of ruptures. The current study utilizes an intensive single-case analytic approach to examine how patients' and therapists' dominance, warmth, and interpersonal complementarity are associated with in-session confrontation ruptures and withdrawal ruptures in sixteen adult psychotherapy sessions from eight independent therapeutic dyads. Interpersonal behaviors and ruptures were coded and processed at a half-minute interval. Dynamic factor analysis models were fit to examine the relationships between interpersonal variables and ruptures for each single session. Generalizability was examined by comparing results within dyads and across dyads. Patient's increased cold or dominant behaviors, as well as the dyad's increased dominance complementarity, were related with confrontation ruptures in more than one third of the sessions. Therapist's decreased dominant behaviors and patient's increased dominant behaviors were related with withdrawal ruptures in more than one third of the sessions. The results also identified dyad- and session-specific patterns that did not generalize across cases but may be of clinical interest. These findings highlight the important roles of both therapists' and patients' behaviors as well as their synchronization on dominance in the development of alliance ruptures, extended our knowledge on within-person interpersonal dynamics associated with ruptures, and emphasized the need to examine both idiographic and nomothetic processes of alliance ruptures.
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Title: DETERMINANTS OF SINGLEHOOD SATISFACTION
Creator: Oh, Jeewon
Date: 2022
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: lthough everyone experiences singlehood, people’s experiences and satisfaction with singlehood have not been as thoroughly examined as people’s experiences with romantic relationships. However, single people make up a heterogeneous group and the proportion of single people is rising in many places (Jones & Gubhaju, 2009; Lee & Payne, 2010; U. S. Census Bureau, 2020), making it particularly timely to identify predictors of a satisfying single life. Across a series of studies, this dissertation...
Show morelthough everyone experiences singlehood, people’s experiences and satisfaction with singlehood have not been as thoroughly examined as people’s experiences with romantic relationships. However, single people make up a heterogeneous group and the proportion of single people is rising in many places (Jones & Gubhaju, 2009; Lee & Payne, 2010; U. S. Census Bureau, 2020), making it particularly timely to identify predictors of a satisfying single life. Across a series of studies, this dissertation aimed to examine psychological factors underlying a satisfying single life. First, I examined how attitudes about romantic relationships changed and their links to well-being (Study 1). Expectations toward relationships at the societal level and individual level changed over time. Fewer people perceived marriage as a necessity in recent years. However, even among single people, those who perceived marriage as a necessity tended to report higher life satisfaction. Within individuals, people expected fewer benefits and fewer negatives from being in a relationship over time, and expectations had differential links with life satisfaction and singlehood satisfaction. Even though expectations and resulting singlehood satisfaction might be assumed to change because of major life events (e.g., job loss), trajectories of singlehood satisfaction were not moderated by most major life events except experiencing declines in self-rated health was associated with lower levels of singlehood satisfaction (Study 2). Asking long-term single people, I identified events that single people perceived to be influential for their singlehood (Study 3; e.g., experiences that highlighted their independence). Regardless of the actual event, perceiving the event to be positive predicted higher life satisfaction and singlehood satisfaction. I integrated findings across studies and discuss implications, limitations, and future directions.
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Title: Modeling decision processes in the use of lethal force : the role of racial bias in judging faces
Creator: Harder, Jenna Anne
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: To empirically address the question of whether and why police officers are more likely to shoot Black than White suspects, psychologists have developed the First-Person Shooting Task (FPST): a laboratory task in which participants must make shooting decisions based on rapid assessments of whether a Black or White target is holding a gun versus a harmless object. Typically, studies employing the FPST have found that participants' errors and reaction times show a bias toward shooting Black...
Show moreTo empirically address the question of whether and why police officers are more likely to shoot Black than White suspects, psychologists have developed the First-Person Shooting Task (FPST): a laboratory task in which participants must make shooting decisions based on rapid assessments of whether a Black or White target is holding a gun versus a harmless object. Typically, studies employing the FPST have found that participants' errors and reaction times show a bias toward shooting Black targets over White targets. Evidence for the mechanisms behind this bias is mixed, but several studies point to stereotypic associations between the category "Black" and some indication of threat (e.g. weapon possession). Collectively, this past work is suggestive that racial bias on the FPST is influenced by racial bias in threat perception. I investigated this hypothesis across three studies. Participants rated Black and White faces with regard to how "threatening" the faces appeared, then completed the FPST 3-15 days later. Behavioral and process-level (Drift Diffusion Model) methods were used to determine whether racial bias in a participant's threat ratings explained racial bias in the FPST. Across two stimulus sets, results indicated that although participants displayed process-level racial bias, this was not explained by biased threat perceptions. I consider implications such as the possibility that biased shooting decisions are produced by information-processing mechanisms rather than affective mechanisms.
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Title: LIFE IS NOT JUST BLACK AND WHITE : THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL CLASS CUES ON RACE IN AN AFFECT MISATTRIBUTION PROCEDURE
Creator: Carrillo, Alejandro
Date: 2022
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Indirect measures of racial bias, such as the Affect Misattribution Procedure, Evaluative Priming Task, and the Implicit Association Task, have been used to provide evidence of stereotypical associations and valenced evaluations towards different racial categories. However, a common limitation shared across these tasks is the tendency to use simplistic racial stimuli that do not capture or account for the multiple categories people may belong to. That is, it is unlikely that people are...
Show moreIndirect measures of racial bias, such as the Affect Misattribution Procedure, Evaluative Priming Task, and the Implicit Association Task, have been used to provide evidence of stereotypical associations and valenced evaluations towards different racial categories. However, a common limitation shared across these tasks is the tendency to use simplistic racial stimuli that do not capture or account for the multiple categories people may belong to. That is, it is unlikely that people are perceived and evaluated along a single feature (i.e., race) but rather at the intersections of multiple categories (i.e., race, age, attractiveness, social class, etc.). Social class, in particular, is a strongly evaluated category and has been shown to share stereotypic associations with race (Moore-Berg & Karpinski, 2019). Thus, this thesis investigated the effects of social class on racial evaluations in an AMP task. Social class was manipulated using occupational clothing in Study 1 and residential areas in Study 2, while race was limited to Black and White men. Across two studies, participants demonstrated a consistent, unexpected pro-Black bias. In addition, an effect of social class was only found in Study 2 such that high-class primes were associated with positive responses. Regarding social class, the results suggest that the manipulations chosen may play an important role in categorization; however, future research is needed to examine just how different class representations impact evaluation.
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Title: Social categorization of situational groups : the role of coalitional tracking
Creator: Felix de Souza Keller, Victor Nahuel
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Research has shown that when people encounter other individuals, they can rapidly and efficiently keep track of information such as the sex, age, or coalition of those individuals. An outstanding question in the field is what kind of information individuals draw on to keep track of coalitions. Some theories of our coalitional psychology suggest that the essential ingredient for coalitions is the presence of cooperative and competitive goals - e.g. political parties that are competing for...
Show moreResearch has shown that when people encounter other individuals, they can rapidly and efficiently keep track of information such as the sex, age, or coalition of those individuals. An outstanding question in the field is what kind of information individuals draw on to keep track of coalitions. Some theories of our coalitional psychology suggest that the essential ingredient for coalitions is the presence of cooperative and competitive goals - e.g. political parties that are competing for roles in government, basketball teams that are competing for points, etc. This leads to the prediction that merely perceiving that groups of individuals have competing goals will lead to categorization of those individuals in terms of coalitions even if the goals are restricted to a short-lived situation - i.e., the groups are situational. In three studies, the preponderance of the evidence indicates that situational goals are not enough to elicit coalitional categorization. This suggests that our psychology of coalitions may rely on more than just the patterns of competition and cooperation between those around us.
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Title: Understanding the association between perceived discrimination, racial identity and well-being
Creator: Yap, Stevie C. Y.
Date: 2011
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: An extensive body of literature suggests that perceived racial discrimination is related to negative well-being outcomes. However, the role that racial identity plays in this relationship is unclear. Past research has suggested three roles for racial identity in the relationship between perceived racial discrimination and well-being: racial identification mediates the relationship between perceived discrimination and well-being (Rejection Identification Model), racial identification moderates...
Show moreAn extensive body of literature suggests that perceived racial discrimination is related to negative well-being outcomes. However, the role that racial identity plays in this relationship is unclear. Past research has suggested three roles for racial identity in the relationship between perceived racial discrimination and well-being: racial identification mediates the relationship between perceived discrimination and well-being (Rejection Identification Model), racial identification moderates the relationship between perceived discrimination and well-being (Buffering Hypothesis), and racial identification leads to perceptions of racial discrimination, which in turn relate to higher well-being (Discounting Hypothesis). Given the mixed evidence for these theorized relationships, the aim of this study was to test and compare these three theoretical models using a sample of 3,613 children of immigrants in the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (Portes & Rumbaut, 2006). Overall, the results of this study lent the greatest support for the Rejection Identification Model and some support for the Discounting Hypothesis, but these results must be interpreted with caution given the relatively small effect sizes garnered across these analyses.
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Title: PARTNER ACCURACY IN HUMOR PERCEPTION AND ASSOCIATIONS WITH RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION
Creator: Purol, Mariah Faith
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Partners tend to evaluate each other’s personalities and behavior with some degree of accuracy and inaccuracy or idealism. A person’s humor style—the degree to which they use positive (i.e., affiliative) or negative (i.e., aggressive) forms of humor—is highly subjective, evaluative, and important for people’s relationship satisfaction. The current study extends work on partner perception by examining accuracy and bias in people’s perception of their partners’ humor styles. I recruited 261...
Show morePartners tend to evaluate each other’s personalities and behavior with some degree of accuracy and inaccuracy or idealism. A person’s humor style—the degree to which they use positive (i.e., affiliative) or negative (i.e., aggressive) forms of humor—is highly subjective, evaluative, and important for people’s relationship satisfaction. The current study extends work on partner perception by examining accuracy and bias in people’s perception of their partners’ humor styles. I recruited 261 heterosexual couples (N = 522 individuals; Mage = 65.42, SD = 12.31) who completed self- and partner-reports of humor styles. Truth and Bias modeling revealed that, although bias varied across styles of humor, participants consistently demonstrated accuracy in their judgements of their partner’s humor styles. In general, relationship satisfaction was positively associated with individuals reporting their partners using positive forms of humor (i.e. affiliative and self-enhancing humor). Relationship satisfaction was negatively associated with individuals reporting their partners using aggressive forms of humor. Bias forces were moderated by relationship satisfaction such that assumed similarity biases were stronger among those in particularly satisfying relationships. The results are discussed in the context of the origins of truth and bias in partner reports of humor in close relationships.
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Title: Internalizing symptoms and personality color parental reports of child temperament
Creator: Clark, David Angus
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Depressed mothers have negatively distorted views of the personalities and behaviors of their children. This is potentially problematic as parental reports of child behavior are a popular method of collecting data on children. The current study sought to extend the existing literature by investigating the degree to which internalizing symptomology and personality traits influence both mothers’ and fathers’ reports of their child’s temperament. This was done by applying the tri-factor model ...
Show moreDepressed mothers have negatively distorted views of the personalities and behaviors of their children. This is potentially problematic as parental reports of child behavior are a popular method of collecting data on children. The current study sought to extend the existing literature by investigating the degree to which internalizing symptomology and personality traits influence both mothers’ and fathers’ reports of their child’s temperament. This was done by applying the tri-factor model (Bauer et al., 2013) to data collected from the parents of 222 children (ages 3-5 years). Personality and psychopathological symptoms were related to both mothers’ and fathers’ perspectives of their children. However, the effects varied somewhat across dimensions of child temperament, and mothers and fathers. These results support concerns that psychological characteristics influence parental perceptions of their children. This work provides guidance regarding the contexts in which parents’ may be biased informants of child temperament.
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Title: Measuring hope : an empirical approach with validation in rural Myanmar
Creator: Bloem, Jeffrey R.
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Development economists have recently begun considering the role of hope in determining various observed behaviors relating to both production and consumption decisions of the poor. Although several papers have examined how the concepts of hope and aspirations may fit into existing economic theories, empirical studies have yet to validate a reliable approach to measure hope. This paper seeks to fill this gap by adapting an empirical approach to measure hope, developed by psychologists, to the...
Show moreDevelopment economists have recently begun considering the role of hope in determining various observed behaviors relating to both production and consumption decisions of the poor. Although several papers have examined how the concepts of hope and aspirations may fit into existing economic theories, empirical studies have yet to validate a reliable approach to measure hope. This paper seeks to fill this gap by adapting an empirical approach to measure hope, developed by psychologists, to the context of rural Myanmar. In this paper, a detailed description of the survey instruments of this measurement approach is presented along with several validity tests. These tests include: An investigation of construct validity, which examines how educational attainment, gender, and age correlate with hope and aspirations. A factor analysis testing for conceptual validity, which examines how hope relates to several related, but distinct, concepts such as self-efficacy and locus of control. And an examination of empirical validity by testing how measurements of hope correlate with perceptions of household welfare and the provision of basic necessities. This study finds that, with sufficient effort adapting survey instruments to a local context, the measurement approach developed by psychologists performs relatively well in rural Myanmar. Although future research could make various improvements, this study provides the necessary foundation for viable and reliable empirical measurements of hope in developing countries.
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Title: The same beast or different animals? : examining differential etiologic associations between binge eating and compensatory behavior with impulsivity and perfectionism
Creator: Spanos, Alexia
Date: 2012
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Despite the use of binge eating and compensatory behavior in distinguishing diagnostic categories and subtypes of eating disorders, little research has examined the etiologic validity of distinguishing among disorders/subtypes based on these phenotypes. The current project used cross-sectional and longitudinal data to examine etiologic overlap between binge eating and compensatory behavior and explore impulsivity as a differentiating factor in the relationship between these variables....
Show moreDespite the use of binge eating and compensatory behavior in distinguishing diagnostic categories and subtypes of eating disorders, little research has examined the etiologic validity of distinguishing among disorders/subtypes based on these phenotypes. The current project used cross-sectional and longitudinal data to examine etiologic overlap between binge eating and compensatory behavior and explore impulsivity as a differentiating factor in the relationship between these variables. Participants included 1,434 female twins from two twin registries. Binge eating and compensatory behavior were assessed with the Minnesota Eating Behavior Survey. Impulsivity was assessed with the control subscale of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. Pearson correlations were used to examine phenotypic associations and trivariate Cholesky decompositions were used to explore etiologic associations between impulsivity, binge eating and compensatory behaviors (cross-sectionally and across-time). Cross-sectional and longitudinal findings indicated a small-to-moderate degree of overlap between binge eating and compensatory behavior. In addition, although overlap with impulsivity was generally small for both phenotypes, greater phenotypic and etiologic associations were found between impulsivity and compensatory behavior. Genetic relatedness appears to account for more overlap between the three variables than nonshared environmental influences, with compensatory behavior sharing greater overlap with impulsivity than binge eating. However, residual estimates are substantial, indicating most of the etiology of binge eating and compensatory behavior is unaccounted for by impulsivity. Substantial etiologic uniqueness in binge eating and compensatory behavior suggests merit in the addition of diagnostic categories that focus on one behavior in the absence of the other (e.g., purging disorder). Findings also indicate impulsivity may be a differentiating factor between these disordered eating phenotypes.
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Title: Enhancing achievement through intervention : how conscientiousness and cognitive ability impact responses to goal setting and implementation intentions interventions
Creator: Corker, Katherine S.
Date: 2012
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Developing effective educational interventions is an important goal for educators and researchers alike. Previous research has found associations between performance in academic settings and characteristics such as Conscientiousness and cognitive ability. However, these dispositional characteristics tend to be stable and might be difficult to influence without considerable effort. The current research therefore investigated the efficacy of two interventions that attempted to influence lower...
Show moreDeveloping effective educational interventions is an important goal for educators and researchers alike. Previous research has found associations between performance in academic settings and characteristics such as Conscientiousness and cognitive ability. However, these dispositional characteristics tend to be stable and might be difficult to influence without considerable effort. The current research therefore investigated the efficacy of two interventions that attempted to influence lower level constructs that are closer to the performance outcomes. Studies 1a and 1b tested an implementation intentions intervention in two samples (participants at a large Midwestern university and Mechanical Turk workers). The results of these studies showed that merely reminding students to complete their homework was more effective at inducing homework completion than reminding participants to complete it while also having them set implementation intentions to do so. Study 2 tested a boundary goal setting intervention that asked participants to raise their lower boundaries for success in their introductory psychology class, either in conjunction with an implementation intention or not. The results of Study 2 found little indication that raising boundary goals impacted performance in the course independent of the level at which the goals were initially set. Furthermore, setting implementation intentions actually decreased performance levels. There was little evidence that either Conscientiousness or cognitive ability moderated reactions to the interventions across all studies. Overall, the results of the two studies suggest that interventions that attempt to influence lower level variables such as strategies and goals have promise for promoting achievement in academic contexts. The results add to the literature on the effectiveness of reminders for helping to overcome barriers to the initiation of goal-directed behavior.
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Title: SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES ON SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING
Creator: Suchyta, Mark
Date: 2022
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Subjective well-being, a broad term which refers to how individuals evaluate the quality of their own lives as well as the presence and intensity of emotions they experience on a day-to-day basis, has been gaining increasing attention in both academic and policy circles as a useful measure of human well-being. This interest has inspired a large research literature spanning over 170,000 books and articles to date. However, few sociologists have engaged with this topic, which is a shortcoming...
Show moreSubjective well-being, a broad term which refers to how individuals evaluate the quality of their own lives as well as the presence and intensity of emotions they experience on a day-to-day basis, has been gaining increasing attention in both academic and policy circles as a useful measure of human well-being. This interest has inspired a large research literature spanning over 170,000 books and articles to date. However, few sociologists have engaged with this topic, which is a shortcoming considering that we are well suited to examine the interplay between objective conditions and subjective perceptions. Furthermore, only a small subset of studies considers the influence of experiences in nature and the conditions of the biophysical environment on subjective well-being. In this study, I addressed these gaps in the literature by examining the social and environmental influences on individual subjective well-being. I conducted three distinct studies, each at a different level (i.e. state, national, and cross-national). As a sociologist, I remained attentive to how factors such as class, gender, and race and ethnicity contribute to social inequalities in subjective well-being. I conclude with an assessment of subjective well-being as an indicator of sustainable development that reflects the mutual flourishing of humans and the rest of the natural world.
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