Theses and Dissertations - Department of Psychology

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Blogging and self-disclosure: the role of anonymity, self-awareness, and perceived audience
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2011) Okdie, Bradley Michael; Guadagno, Rosanna E.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Research indicates that the self-disclosure of personal views may occur more often online but that the repercussions for such disclosure may have severely negative consequences (Bargh & McKenna, 2004;Bray, 2004; Nussbaum, 2004). The current study sought to obtain a better understanding of the effect of anonymity, self-awareness, and perceived audience on self-disclosure. The experimental design was a 2 (Anonymity: high vs. low) by 3 (Perceived audience: none vs. limited vs. everyone) between subjects design. Self-awareness--assessed using a measure of trait self-consciousness--was investigated as a mediator of the relation between self-disclosure and the independent variables. To examine this, participants visited the lab at two times. At time 1, they filled out individual difference measures. At time 2, participants were told that they were helping test new blogging software and were asked to write about the typical day of a student. Anonymity was manipulated by either asking participants to enter their full name as their userid (low anonymity) or were told their anonymous userid would be "green". Participants were then told that their blog entry would be deleted, visible to all participants in the study, or published to the Internet and visible to all. Results indicated that, while the manipulation check data revealed that the manipulations worked as intended, the analysis of the blog entries indicated that were no significant differences in self-disclosure. Thus, our results suggest that individuals who self-disclose online are not affected by anonymity or audience size.
Children's selective attention in contextual cueing
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2012) Yang, Yingying; Merrill, Edward C.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
In this thesis, 20 younger children (6-7 years old), 20 older children (9-10 years old) and 20 young adults (18-21 years old) were tested using a modified contextual cueing procedure. They located one particular cartoon character (target) among two sets of other cartoon characters (distracters). The main purpose was to investigate how age interacts with selective attention in contextual cueing. Selective attention was manipulated by varying the degree of similarity between two sets of distracters. Specifically, two levels were used: low heterogeneity (distracters were similar to each other), and high heterogeneity (distracters were different from each other). The results suggested that the younger children exhibited impaired implicit learning in the low heterogeneity condition yet intact implicit learning in the high heterogeneity condition. In contrast, the adults demonstrated robust implicit learning in both conditions. The older children performed at an intermediate level, exhibiting intact implicit learning in both conditions yet at a slower acquisition rate in the low heterogeneity condition than the adults. Therefore a clear transition pattern was observed indicating a developmental difference in selective attention in the acquisition of contextual cueing effects. Older children and adults were more capable of exhibiting contextual cueing effects in the absence of a salient feature difference between distracter sets, suggesting an effective selective attention mechanism based on expectancy. Younger children relied more on salient features than spatial co-occurrences in visual search, suggesting a deficit in the selective attention mechanism. This deficit might be related with factors such as difficulty in perceptual grouping, immature selective attention competence, and limited perceptual and working memory capacities.
Epidemiology of naps: association with sleep, ethnicity, and age
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2010) Soeffing, James Patrick; Lichstein, Kenneth L.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Common knowledge supports the belief that occasional napping is a ubiquitous human behavior, yet epidemiological reports on napping vary in methodological quality and tend to focus on specific sub-groups of the lifespan. A notable weakness in the napping literature is a lack of data on African Americans, and an ongoing question is whether daytime napping has a negative impact on nighttime sleep. Given these limitations in the literature another study seemed warranted. The present study uses a high quality epidemiological data set collected via random digit dialing that includes 50 men and women in each age decade ranging from 20 to 80+, and a substantial proportion of African Americans, to answer the following questions. What is typical napping Behavior? Are there ethnic or gender differences in napping behavior? How does napping behavior change across the adult lifespan? Do persons with insomnia nap more than normal sleepers? Is there a relation between daytime napping and quality of nighttime sleep? The results suggested that a majority of people nap and naps are more frequent in African Americans and persons with insomnia, with older adults napping more frequently, but taking briefer naps. A significant relation was also found between daytime napping and nighttime sleep with daytime napping relating to increased onset latency and decreased total sleep time on the following night but with daytime napping also relating to increased wake time in the middle of the night and decreased total sleep time on the previous night.
The objectivity demand: experiences and behaviors of psychologists in capital case evaluations
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2012) Neal, Tess Marie-Schrader; Brodsky, Stanley L.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Mental health professionals who work in the legal system are bound by ethical standards to practice objectively and to leave personal beliefs and opinions out of their work; however, whether objectivity is practiced is an empirical question. This series of studies was designed to examine the effect of human bias and error in clinical forensic evaluations. Four specific aims were achieved: 1) integrating quantitative and qualitative methods in compiling descriptive information about forensic psychologists' occupational socialization processes, awareness of biases, capital punishment attitudes, and behaviors in capital case evaluations; 2) investigating how psychologists' personal attitudes toward capital punishment influence data interpretation and conclusions in assessments of capital defendants; 3) comparing evaluator awareness of bias to implicit bias; and 4) generating hypotheses for future research on bias recognition and mitigation. The studies involved a three-part mixed-method plan, starting with a qualitative interview with board-certified psychologists (N = 20). The purpose of the first study was to explore forensic psychologists' thoughts about and experiences with potential biases. An unexpected wealth of data emerged regarding strategies psychologists use to mitigate the effects of biases. Twenty seven unique bias correction strategies were discovered. Study two surveyed a large national sample of forensic psychologists (N = 334). Psychologists' personal attitudes toward capital punishment systematically predicted from whom they were willing to accept capital case referrals. This novel finding has not been documented elsewhere in the literature. An analysis of actual capital case reports was undertaken in the third study to examine the report-writing behavior of forensic psychologists (N= 122 reports). Results suggest psychologists act in more biased ways in than they think they do. Individual clinicians accounted for a large portion of the variance (up to 68%) in several outcome variables indicative of potential bias. Since bias is an issue worthy of concern, the field has a duty to teach new practitioners to become aware of and minimize the effects of potential biases. The strategies discussed herein may be beneficial for inclusion in clinical training programs to emphasize objectivity in the process of clinical judgment and decision-making.
Physical and emotional symptom burden and advanced chronic illness: dyadic concordance
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2013) Eichorst, Morgan Kay; Allen, Rebecca S.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Over 40 million Americans act as an informal caregiver to someone over the age of 65. While there are many benefits to informal caregiving, research has highlighted associated challenges, such as accurately understanding the care recipient's medical and emotional symptoms. The current study aims to understand symptom reporting of informal caregivers by examining dyadic concordance of physical and emotional symptom reports. In addition to examining baseline correlations with demographic and psychosocial variables, the study examines a reminiscence and creative activity project as a possible intervention to increase concordance. Participants included 45 African American or Caucasian dyads, comprised of one chronically-ill older adult and one caregiver. Pearson correlations and six mixed ANOVAs were performed. Concordance was examined for symptom presence/absence as well as associated symptom distress. Physical and emotional symptom concordance were examined separately. Results indicated only two demographic variables (caregiver income adequacy and care recipient education) significantly related to concordance. Caregiver stress was related to lower concordance as was care recipient negative affect. Higher symptom reports by the care recipient were associated with decreased concordance for physical but not emotional symptoms and distress. Results of the ANOVAs indicated no improvement in concordance for intervention dyads compared to control dyads (N=28). Results are discussed in light of previous research on concordance as well s a model of caregiving stress. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
Predicting childhood externalizing disorder in at-risk youth: an analysis of the autonomic nervous system, temperament, and parenting
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2014) Jimenez-Camargo, Luis Alberto; Lochman, John E.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
The aim of the current study was to clarify the pathways by which externalizing behavior can be predicted in preadolescents at risk for aggression. This study examined how parental involvement, autonomic reactivity, and the temperament traits of effortful control and negative affect related among themselves when predicting externalizing behavior as reported by parents and teachers. Although the literature has found associations for each of these variables to behavior individually, no study to date has examined how these variables interact with each other simultaneously when predicting behavior in a sample of at-risk preadolescents. Given past research, it was hypothesized that negative affect would have an indirect relationship to externalizing behavior through autonomic regulation and parental involvement. Effortful control was also thought to moderate the relationship between autonomic reactivity and behavior. Lastly, it was predicted that autonomic reactivity would be associated with parental involvement. A sample of 360 preadolescents was used to test the model noted above using structural equation modeling procedures. This sample was largely male, African American, and of low-middle socioeconomic status. The results of the models varied by the reporter. With teacher report, behavior was not predicted, but significant relationships among autonomic reactivity, parental involvement, and negative affect were found. With parent report, negative affect predicted externalizing behavior indirectly through parental involvement. Autonomic reactivity and effortful control were also predicted externalizing behavior. Significant gender differences were also found using parent-report of behavior. The differences in findings by reporter and the implications for the prevention and treatment of externalizing behavior are discussed.
Variability in self-reported normal sleep across adulthood
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2013) Dillon, Haley Rebecca; Lichstein, Kenneth L.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
This study used archival data to examine variability in sleep diary measures across a two-week period. Data were analyzed for 592 normal sleepers (defined as absence of sleep disorder) ranging in age from 20 to 96 years. Variability was examined in four sleep diary parameters: total sleep time (TST), number of nighttime awakenings (NWAK), sleep-onset latency (SOL), and wake time after sleep onset (WASO) for the overall sample and by age, sex (male, n = 294, female, n = 298) and race (White, n = 415; Black, n = 177). Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated from multilevel models to describe the extent to which self-reported sleep varied within- and between-individuals across the two-week period. Night-to-night differences in sleep within the same individual generally exceeded sleep differences between individuals for TST, SOL, and WASO. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to test for age, sex, and race differences in night-to-night, intra-individual variability (measured by the intra-individual standard deviation across nightly values for each individual). Results showed that the amount of intra-individual variability in TST and NWAK decreased with older age. Further, the degree of reduction in variability in TST associated with age was dependent on sex and race. Although effect sizes were small, females tended to have more intra-individual variability in SOL and NWAK than males. Results of this study provide empirical support for considerable night-to-night variability in subjective sleep in the general population and should be taken into account in future research linking sleep with various psychological and physical health outcomes. Methodological implications regarding measurement/research design are also discussed.

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Browsing Theses and Dissertations - Department of Psychology by Subject "Behavioral sciences"

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