Browsing by Author "Hamilton, James"

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    Her Crowning Glory: Exploring the Implicit and Explicit Cognitive Biases of African American Women's Hairstyles and Their Relations to Judgments of Attractiveness, Professionalism, and Dominance
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2022) Horace, Janet; Roskos, Beverly; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    For African American women, hair is often touted as one of the most important characteristics when it comes to outward beauty and attractiveness. Hair can also be thought of an aesthetic style choice, as it can affect potential job and romantic prospects. The primary objective of this study was to measure the effects of African American women's hairstyles on levels of other's perceptions of the woman's attractiveness, professionalism, and dominance. Another objective of this study was to investigate stereotypes related to African American women's hair and their effects on memory and cognitive processing, in particular, the intragroup (or within-group) stereotypes and biases associated with straight and natural hairstyles of African American women by African American men and women themselves. Through the use of both an explicit (social perception task) and implicit (lexical decision task) measure I sought to observe not only the outward ratings of these measures, but also the underlying prejudices that may be present. I hypothesized that straight hair would cause the wearer to be seen as more attractive, more professional and less dominant overall than natural hair. Straight hair was associated with greater professionalism than natural hair especially on the explicit measure when paired with congruent stereotypes as predicted. It was also found that there was a gender difference on the implicit measure where men found straight hair significantly more professional than natural hair as predicted. There were no significant correlations found between differences in responses on the explicit and implicit measures.
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    The Last Decade: Longevity Expectations, Death Attitudes, and Health Care Use
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2021) Moran, Caitlin; Hamilton, James; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    Death becomes exponentially more probable with each year of aging. Acknowledging this when making health care decisions has important consequences for quality of life, as the benefits of care may not outweigh the costs if little time remains to enjoy those benefits. Death expectations across the lifespan influence how people prepare for and experience death, but little is known about the trajectories of death expectations in the final years of life and how those trajectories relate to health care use. Using biennial subjective survival probability (SSP) ratings gathered over the decade prior to death from participants ages 65 and older in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), latent profile analyses (LPA) were used to identify profiles of participants using meaningful subgroups. The optimal solution included four distinct profiles of SSP trajectories labeled realists, non-commitals, pessimists, and optimists. A series of t-test, chi-square, one-way ANOVA, and repeated measures ANOVA analyses were then conducted to identify characteristic features of the groups and assess for any differences in health care behaviors and death attitudes. Results demonstrated that two of four profiles had a significant increase in SSP from wave four to wave five: the optimists and non-committals. The pessimists were older at death than non-committals and realists, and were more likely to have had a final illness duration of more than a year than the full sample; pessimists had worse self-perceptions of health than optimists and realists; optimists were less likely to have a living will than the full sample and more likely to identify as African American than their representations in the full sample; and optimists reported fewer depressive symptoms and health conditions than pessimists. I also hypothesized that SSPs during the last decade of life would predict health care use in the same period and that optimists and realists would use more health care health care than pessimists; these hypotheses were not confirmed.
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    An Unplanned Test of the Anxiety Buffer Disruption Theory of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms
    Elmore, Dean; Hamilton, James; et al.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    Introduction: Anxiety buffer disruption theory (ABDT) suggests that traumatic events lead to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by dismantling the anxiety-buffering system outlined in terror management theory (TMT). We attempted to test ABDT using data collected from emerging adults related to their experiences in a severe tornado that struck their general geographic area. Methods: The current study employed a longitudinal design. Using data collected both before and after the tornado, we tested whether (a) pre-tornado self-esteem or past trauma moderated the effect of tornado exposure on later PTSD symptoms, and (b) whether the relation between level of tornado exposure and subsequent PTSD symptoms was mediated by decreased self-esteem. Results: Consistent with ABDT, in our final analysis we found that exposure interacted with both pre-tornado self-esteem and past trauma to predict PTSD symptoms, though the moderating effect of past trauma was only marginally significant. However, none of the predicted effects was mediated through pre- to post-tornado changes in self-esteem. Discussion: The current study provides partial support for ABDT by demonstrating that pre-tornado self-esteem and trauma history were risk factors for greater PTSD symptom severity among individuals who were more exposed to the tornado. However, the failed mediation effects challenge core aspects of ABDT. Despite several limitations to the current study related to the timing and nature of our measurements, as well as the composition of our sample, our use of prospective data to test ABDT offers unique insight into the social-cognitive elements of PTSD.