Psychology Theses and Dissertations
Browse by
This collection contains some of the theses and dissertations produced by students in the University of Oregon Psychology Graduate Program. Paper copies of these and other dissertations and theses are available through the UO Libraries.
Recent Submissions
-
The Impact of Religious Bias on Mental Health and Academic Performance: Implications for Diversity in Academia and Science Fields
(University of Oregon, 2019-01-11)Science thrives when there is a continuous flow of new ideas and diverse generations of scholars contributing to the field. Although academic institutions aim to encourage diverse viewpoints, a culture of atheism among ... -
Towards an Integrative Study of Self
(University of Oregon, 2019-01-11)The study of self within psychology has been limited in a number of ways. Two sets of empirical studies extended the study of self beyond traditional trait-based self-perception. In the first set of studies, seven hundred ... -
Adolescent Social Motives: Measurement and Implications
(University of Oregon, 2019-01-11)The study of decision making during adolescence has received considerable attention throughout the history of developmental psychology, justifiably, given the marked increases in morbidity and mortality that belie otherwise ... -
Neural Responses to Unfamiliar Infant Faces in Mothers Raising Young Children Under Conditions of Economic Adversity: An Event-Related Potential Study
(University of Oregon, 2019-01-11)Infant faces represent highly salient visual stimuli that have been shown to elicit intuitive caregiving behaviors in healthy adults. However, the temporal dynamics of infant face processing in parents of young children ... -
The Role of Parenting Sense of Competence in Supporting Academic Achievement: Implications for Strengths-Based Parenting Programs
(University of Oregon, 2019-01-11)Children’s language and social-emotional development are important predictors of academic success. Children raised in poverty enter school already at-risk academically due to lower levels of language and social emotional ... -
Close Quarters: College Women's Experiences of Campus Sexual Violence
(University of Oregon, 2019-01-11)College women face high rates of sexual violence and rarely report their experiences to school officials. Even when victims do report, their cases infrequently result in the expulsion of their perpetrators. As such, many ... -
Comparative and Cross-Cultural Validity of the Moral Actions Questionnaire, a Measure for Ethical Virtue
(University of Oregon, 2018-10-31)Though current personality models provide a starting point for measuring ethical virtues, ethical content may not be fully captured in existing personality inventories due in part to the systematic elimination of ... -
Characterizing the Structure of Infants' Everyday Musical Input
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06)Infants acculturate to their soundscape over the first year of life (e.g., Hannon & Trehub, 2005a; Werker & Tees, 1984). This perceptual tuning of early auditory skills requires integrating across experiences that repeat ... -
Boredom and the Need for Agency
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06)Humans are highly motivated to avoid boredom. What is the functional role of boredom, and why is it so aversive? An empirical study tested the hypothesis that a need for agency, or control over one’s actions and their ... -
Probing the Representation of Decision Variables Using EEG and Eye Tracking
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06)Value based decisions are among the most common types of decisions made by humans. A considerable body of work has investigated how different types of information guide such decisions, as well as how evaluations of their ... -
Regulating mind-wandering and sustained attention with goal-setting, feedback, and incentives
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06)The present set of experiments investigated three potential means of regulating mind-wandering and sustained attention: goals, feedback, and incentives. The experiments drew up goal-setting theory from industrial/organizational ... -
Internal Body Awareness Among Sexual Trauma Survivors: A Multi-Method Study
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06)Sexual trauma, in addition to being a human rights violation, harms people in numerous ways, including negative psychological and physical outcomes. Body-based interventions reduce sexual trauma symptoms, but limited ... -
Context-Specific Inhibitory Control Training in Adolescents with a Range of Early Life Stress Exposure: Employing a Translational Neuroscience Approach for Innovative Intervention Development
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06)Early experience critically shapes cognitive, affective, and behavioral development, and experiences of early life stress (ELS) have been documented to negatively impact developmental trajectories. An increasing need exists ... -
You Failed To Go Fast Enough To Win Your Prize: Biological Reactivity and Cognitive Vulnerability to Acute Stress in Early Childhood
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06)A well-developed body of literature has established the deleterious effects of chronic stress on children’s cognitive development. However, there has been almost no research examining the impact of acutely stressful ... -
Neurobiological Foundations of Self-Conscious Emotion Understanding in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders
(University of Oregon, 2018-04-10)This dissertation explored the subjective experience and neural correlates of self-conscious emotion (SCE) understanding in adolescent males with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and age-matched neurotypical ... -
Role of Mindfulness in Economic Risk-Taking
(University of Oregon, 2018-04-10)Despite evidence of mindfulness’ effects in down-regulating risk-taking associated with mental and physical health, there is almost no research examining mindfulness’ role in economic risk-taking. To address this gap, ... -
Development and Initial Validation of a Scale Measuring Young Children’s Awareness of Trait Cognitive Control
(University of Oregon, 2018-04-10)Success in early childhood requires fluent cognitive control functioning and the ability to select and execute effective regulatory strategies across many new contexts including academics and social interactions. Cognitive ... -
Violation of Sacredness and Violence
(University of Oregon, 2018-04-10)This dissertation aims to present a model of sacredness – MAPR – that emphasizes four components to empirically study sacredness: source of meaning (M), experience of awe (A), protection against the profane (P), and ... -
Effects of a Dual-Generation Intervention on Supportive Parenting Behaviors and their Relation to Child Brain Function for Selective Attention in Families from Lower Socioeconomic Status Backgrounds
(University of Oregon, 2018-04-10)Parents and Children Making Connections – Highlighting Attention (PCMC-A) is a dual-generation intervention program for families from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds that includes parenting training for parents and ... -
Holy day effects on language: How religious geography, individual affiliation and day of the week relate to sentiment and topics on Twitter
(University of Oregon, 2018-04-10)Religious belief and attendance predict improved well-being at the individual level. Paradoxically, geographic locations with high rates of religious belief and attendance are often those with the differentially high rates ...