Browsing Psychology Theses and Dissertations by Issue Date

Bohon, Cara, 1981- 2010-11-30T23:12:52Z 2010-11-30T23:12:52Z 2010-06 http://hdl.handle.net/1794/10848 x, 73 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. The current study measured BOLD brain response using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the hypothesis that women with bulimia nervosa have a hyper-responsivity of the mesolimbic reward system. Women with bulimia nervosa and healthy controls (N=24) completed an fMRI paradigm involving anticipated and actual receipt of chocolate milkshake and a tasteless control solution. Women with bulimia nervosa showed less activation than healthy controls in the right anterior insula in response to anticipatory food reward and in the left medial orbitofrontal cortex, right posterior insula, right precentral gyms, and right mid dorsal insula in response to consummatory food reward. Covariates related to bulimia diagnosis accounted for some of these effects, but not all. Results suggest that bulimia nervosa may be related to hypo-functioning of the brain reward system rather than hyper-functioning. Implications for intervention and future research are discussed. Committee in charge: Jeffrey Measelle, Chairperson, Psychology; Jennifer Ablow, Member, Psychology; Don Tucker, Member, Psychology; Eric Stice, Member, Not from U of 0; William Harbaugh, Outside Member, Economics en_US University of Oregon University of Oregon theses, Dept. of Psychology, Ph. D., 2010; Covariates Mesolimbic reward systems Reward abnormalities Bulimia Neurosciences Psychobiology Clinical psychology Reward abnormalities among women with bulimia nervosa: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study Thesis

Kramer, Adam D. I. 2011-05-09T21:14:44Z 2011-05-09T21:14:44Z 2010-09 http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11157 xiii, 154 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. This dissertation explores two basic hypotheses about how humans make decisions when presented with a sequential series of options: 1) people have a desire to learn about or experience qualities of the set of options available to them and will delay choice to gain such knowledge; and 2) delaying decision-making in order to better understand the set of options available will lead to better knowledge of the distribution of potential options and better decision outcomes. Three studies, conducted on a total of 302 college student participants, used an "optimal stopping" paradigm, in which participants viewed a series of options (in Studies I and 2, the options determined how their time would he spent in the latter part of the study: in Study 3, the options represented qualities of a hypothetical potential housemate). Participants had to choose or reject each in turn. I show consistent support for two hypothesis: Decision-makers continue to view and review options in order to gain a better understanding of the distribution of potential options, and decision-makers who have a better understanding of the option space end up with higher-quality decisions, using objective, subjective, and revealed-preference measures of quality. These results were consistent for multi-attribute decisions, single-attribute decisions. hypothetical decisions, and non-hypothetical decisions using both within-subjects and between-subjects designs. Individual differences among decision-makers did not show any consistent individual difference results, though decision-makers higher in numeracy appear to make better use of the cues available to them. In sum, decision-making appears to he aided by understanding the distribution of options, suggesting that it is occasionally wise to delay or "procrastinate" choice in order to gain an understanding of potential options when choosing. Committee in charge: Sara Hodges, Chairperson, Psychology; Sanjay Srivastava, Member, Psychology; Paul Slovic, Member, Psychology; Lynn Kahle, Outside Member, Marketing en_US University of Oregon University of Oregon theses, Dept. of Psychology, Ph. D., 2010; Decision making Decision delay Procrastination Option potential Social psychology Experimental psychology Cognitive psychology Delaying decisions in order to learn the distribution of options Thesis

Wolfe, Andrea 2011-06-17T01:17:01Z 2013-06-04T17:45:41Z 2011-03 http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11293 xi, 48 p. : ill. (mostly col.) For most influence attempts in everyday life, success makes life easier and failure is a disappointment, not a tragedy. When U.S. soldiers deployed overseas attempt to influence civilians, however, success can save lives and failure can be deadly. Along with the high stakes consequences of influence attempts, soldiers face the challenges of bridging differences in language, culture, beliefs, and agendas. The current study examined cross-cultural influence attempts made by deployed soldiers, contributing to existing influence research by examining influence attempts in a complex and challenging wartime environment. Survey data from 228 military personnel with deployment experience to Iraq and Afghanistan revealed that empathy, respect, prior relationships, and familiarity with influence targets predicted success. Five influence technique clusters emerged, and use of technique clusters involving resources and positive feelings were more successful than negative tactics. Committee in charge: Dr. Holly Arrow, Chairperson; Dr. Gordon Hall, Member en_US University of Oregon University of Oregon theses, Dept. of Psychology, M.S., 2011; Cross-cultural communication Cultural training Influence techniques Military Information Support Operations Social psychology Military studies MISO Military influence tactics: Lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan Lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan Thesis

Hulette, Annmarie Cholankeril 2012-02-04T00:40:22Z 2012-02-04T00:40:22Z 2011-06 http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11929 xvii, 103 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. The purpose of this study was to investigate intergenerational relationships between trauma, dissociation, and emotion. Short and long term consequences of betrayal trauma on cognitive and emotion coping strategies in a sample of 67 mother-child dyads were explored. Group comparison, correlation, and regression strategies were used to examine relationships between the following variables: maternal and child trauma histories, maternal and child dissociation, maternal alexithymia, and child emotion coping strategies in response to distressful events. Experiences of high betrayal trauma were found to be related to higher levels of dissociation in both children and mothers. Furthermore, mothers who experienced high betrayal trauma in childhood and were subsequently interpersonally revictimized in adulthood were shown to have higher levels of dissociation than a group of mothers who had experienced high betrayal trauma in childhood but were not revictimized in adulthood. This may indicate that dissociation from a history of childhood betrayal trauma involves a persistent unawareness of future threats in the environment. Additional evidence consistent with this hypothesis was found. Maternal revictimization status was related to child interpersonal trauma history, suggesting that a dissociative unawareness for threats may extend to children. More generally, an association was found between maternal interpersonal trauma history and child interpersonal trauma history. Maternal dissociation was also predictive of maternal alexithymia. This relationship was examined because mothers high in alexithymia were hypothesized to display deficits in emotion socialization that could put their children at greater risk for dissociation. Evidence consistent with a relationship between maternal alexithymia and child dissociation was found. Furthermore, a significant association between maternal alexithymia level and child emotion coping strategy was revealed. Children with highly alexithymic mothers displayed higher levels of passive emotion coping strategies on a task assessing their reactions to a distressful parent-child event. This study provides evidence that the experience of parental trauma has intergenerational effects on children. It is an important first step towards longitudinal studies that can provide additional clarification of the nature of the relationships between these variables, as well as parent-child intervention studies that may help to prevent child trauma exposure and reduce symptomatology. Committee in charge: Jennifer Freyd, Chairperson, Psychology; Jennifer Ablow, Member, Psychology; Philip Fisher, Member, Psychology; Debra Eisert, Outside Member, Special Education and Clinical Sciences en_US University of Oregon University of Oregon theses, Dept. of Psychology, Ph. D., 2011; rights_reserved Clinical psychology Psychology Trauma Emotion Alexithymia Psychic trauma Dissociation (Psychology) Intergenerational Relationships between Trauma, Dissociation, and Emotion Thesis

Oppenheimer, Julia Erica, 1979- 2012-02-06T17:39:31Z 2012-02-06T17:39:31Z 2011-06 http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11930 xix, 176 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. Self-efficacy, a proposed vulnerability for anxiety, is thought to be rooted in repeated experiences during children's early years. Few studies have directly examined how these beliefs and behavior patterns are manifested in early childhood despite the importance of infancy and toddlerhood as times of major cognitive, behavioral, and regulatory developments that may play a role in the etiology of psychopathology. Thus a primary goal of this dissertation was describing early self-efficacy, measured as a child's behavioral responses and coping capacity during an impossible task. Factor analyses identified a latent self-efficacy construct based on children's observed task persistence, strategies used during the task, and flexible use of strategies. Through a growth model analytic framework this construct was used to examine individual differences in toddler self-efficacy. A linear growth model demonstrated excellent fit and decreasing self-efficacy over time, as well as significant variability in toddlers' initial responses and behavioral trajectories across an impossible task. An additional aim of this dissertation was to identify important predictors and concomitants of toddler self-efficacy at 17 months. Using a structural equation model, paths between self-efficacy and maternal psychopathology, maternal behavior, infant temperament and social-emotional correlates were examined. Analysis of theorized predictors revealed greater maternal anxiety at 17 months was predictive of lower self-efficacy and increased social-emotional problems. Greater maternal acceptance, responsiveness, and non-intrusiveness during infancy were associated with greater self-efficacy and lower symptoms at 17 months, demonstrating a longitudinal impact of maternal behavior a year later. However, early self-efficacy demonstrated limited associations with toddlers, social-emotional problems. As such, maternal psychopathology and maternal sensitivity appeared to be important predictors of children's elevated symptoms and self-efficacy even at this early age despite nominal direct associations between children's self-efficacy and symptomatology. Results demonstrated a multi-faceted construct of self-efficacy in toddlers, encompassing both persistence and coping abilities. This early self-efficacy measurement expanded definitions of efficacy and measured self-efficacy in a younger population than has previously been studied. Early variations in self-efficacy linked to maternal sensitivity during infancy and maternal anxiety indicate the importance of longitudinal associations between risk factors and toddler outcomes for understanding self-efficacy. Clinical implications for assessment and prevention are considered. Committee in charge: Jeffrey Measelle, Chairperson, Psychology; Jennifer Ablow, Member, Psychology; Dare Baldwin, Member, Psychology; Jane Squires, Outside Member, Special Education and Clinical Sciences en_US University of Oregon University of Oregon theses, Dept. of Psychology, Ph. D., 2011; rights_reserved Developmental psychology Clinical psychology Psychology Self-efficacy Toddlers Anxiety in children Understanding Early Vulnerabilities for Anxiety: Predictors of Self-Efficacy in Toddlers Thesis

Murakami, Jessica L., 1980- 2012-03-28T16:43:00Z 2012-03-28T16:43:00Z 2011-09 http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12097 xvii, 93 p. : ill. (some col.) Since Rosenzweig's "Dodo Bird Verdict" in 1936, the "common" versus "specific" factors debate has continued to polarize the field of psychotherapy. Treatment expectancy is an important but often overlooked common factor. The current study investigated the role of treatment expectancy in the Treatment of Adolescents with Depression Study (TADS). Four-hundred three adolescents ( M age =14.62, SD =1.56) filled out the Treatment Expectancy for Adolescents (TEA) measure prior to treatment randomization to one of four treatments: fluoxetine (FLX), cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), their combination (COMB), and placebo (PBO). Adolescents randomized to CBT or COMB also filled out the CBT Rationale Acceptance and Expectation for Improvement (C-RAEI) form during their second session of CBT. Before finding out their treatment assignments, adolescents endorsed higher treatment expectancies for COMB than CBT and medication only. Family income levels below $75,000 and higher levels of depression severity, hopelessness, and suicidality were associated with lower expectations for improvement with CBT. The presence of a comorbid anxiety disorder diagnosis was associated with lower expectations for medication without CBT. Separate random coefficients and logistic regression models identified treatment expectancy as a predictor of outcome for three primary outcome measures in TADS, irrespective of treatment assignment. Severity of depression moderated this relationship; mild to moderately depressed adolescents appeared to be more sensitive to the effects of treatment expectancy than marked to severely depressed adolescents. The opposite results were found for the self-rated outcome measure in TADS based on the C-RAIE. For marked to severely depressed adolescents assigned to CBT or COMB, acceptance of treatment rationale and expectancy for improvement were associated with treatment response. These results suggest that treatment expectancy is an important common factor of treatment for mild to moderately depressed adolescents prior to treatment initiation, although it may be especially important for initially skeptical, marked to severely depressed adolescents to "buy in" to treatment after treatment initiation. Treatment effects were still found after controlling for the effects of treatment expectancy on outcome. It seems that both the "common" factor of treatment expectancy and the "specific" factor of treatment assignment contributed to outcome in TADS. Committee in charge: Anne D. Simons, Chair; Gordon Nagayama Hall, Member; Holly Arrow, Member; Jeffrey Todahl, Outside member en_US University of Oregon University of Oregon theses, Dept. of Psychology, Ph. D., 2011; rights_reserved Developmental psychology Clinical psychology Psychology Adolescents Depression, Mental -- Treatment Expectancy Teenagers -- Mental health services The “Ignored Common Factor”: The Role of Expectancy in the Treatment of Adolescent Depression Role of Expectancy in the Treatment of Adolescent Depression Thesis

Schumacher, William Miller 2012-04-19T00:40:43Z 2012-04-19T00:40:43Z 2011-12 http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12167 xi, 56 p. : ill. (some col.) To investigate resilience against combat stress, 175 interviews from the Veterans' History Project were coded using the Deployment Risk and Resiliency Inventory and analyzed using the Linguistic Inventory and Word Count. Contrary to hypotheses, higher levels of social support did not predict psychological outcomes, nor did social support differ between wars. Low variance in the social support measure likely contributed to the null results. The amount of combat experiences the veteran discussed did significantly predict psychological outcomes, replicating previous findings. This indicates that the LIWC measures are good indicators of psychological outcome. Committee in charge: Holly Arrow, Chairperson; Jennifer Freyd, Member; Phil Fisher, Member en_US University of Oregon University of Oregon theses, Dept. of Psychology, M.S., 2011; rights_reserved Clinical psychology Psychology Combat stress Linguistic Inventory and Word Count Social support Veterans -- Mental health Resilience Among Veterans: An Archival Study Thesis

Saucier, Gerard Akers, Laura Akers, Laura 2012-12-07T23:12:00Z 2012-12-07T23:12:00Z 2012 http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12522 Culturally shared beliefs about societies and humanity play a prominent part in world events, from beliefs about the histories and destinies of nations to beliefs about the appropriate relationship between humanity and the natural world. Many of these beliefs are "metanarratives," simplified representations of past and future societal trends, which often have narrative elements, such as goals, dramatic features, a sense of suspense for group members, and affective judgments about the passage of events over time. In this exploratory study, lifelong residents of the United States (N = 299 undergraduate students and 88 members of a web sample of older adults) indicated their degree of agreement with 73 metanarrative statements. Factor analysis of the students' personal belief scores for the 73 metanarratives revealed a pattern of clustering into six factors, indicating that people tend to believe in families of metanarratives. The six factors were Traditional Religion, American Secular Values, International Cooperation, Eco-Romanticism, Anti-Government Cynicism, and Rational Progress. The web sample largely replicated this structure, but with only four factors. The factors were highly correlated with political party affiliation and other psychosocial and demographic variables, including religiousness, Saucier "isms" factors, and MFQ moral foundations. Participants were also asked about the extent to which some of their strongest beliefs were reflected in their personal activities: career choice, leisure time, spending money, voting, joining groups, reading and viewing, and discussion. The 73 metanarratives were coded for several narrative features: evaluative schema (such as Progress or Looming Catastrophe), presence of standard story elements (context, problem, outcome), presence of goals, and presence of references to cognitively exceptional elements (circumstances beyond the ordinary), such as the sacred, transcendental, unique, or extreme. For both samples, metanarratives with an evaluative schema indicating two possible paths were more motivating than those with only one outcome (e.g., stability or a cycle of recurring ups-and-downs). Further, those with goals were more motivating than those without, and for the web sample, those with cognitively exceptional elements were more motivating than those without. Further study of metanarratives should help to better illuminate the factors leading to individuals' decisions to participate in their larger societies. en_US University of Oregon All Rights Reserved. beliefs cultural psychology metanarratives motivation narratives political psychology Patterns in Individual Endorsement of Societal Metanarratives Electronic Thesis or Dissertation

Moses, Louis Mahy, Caitlin Mahy, Caitlin 2012-12-07T23:13:19Z 2012-12-07T23:13:19Z 2012 http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12537 Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to carry out one's intentions. This is a critical ability for children to develop in order to function independently in their daily activities. This dissertation examines the role of executive functioning in preschoolers' PM in two studies that vary the executive demand at different stages of the PM task. Study 1 investigated the role of task difficulty during the retention interval prior to the PM task. A difficult working memory task during the delay period resulted in worse PM performance in 4- and 5-year-olds compared to an easy working memory task. In addition, children's working memory, planning ability, and theory of mind correlated with PM but only in the difficult filler task condition. Study 2 examined age differences between 4- and 5-year-olds in PM task performance when the task: (1) was embedded in an easy or difficult ongoing task, (2) had an instruction to focus on the intention versus an instruction to focus on the distractor activity during the retention interval, and (3) varied in the salience of prospective targets. Overall, 5-year-olds performed better on the PM task than 4-year-olds. Children also had superior PM when targets were salient compared to non-salient and marginally superior PM when they received an instruction to monitor their intention compared to when they received an instruction to focus on the distractor activity. In addition, positive relations between executive functioning and PM were documented. Taken together, these studies suggest that disrupting or encouraging monitoring has a direct impact on PM performance in certain conditions. The implications of these results for theories that suggest differing roles for controlled processes in PM are discussed. en_US University of Oregon This work is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ children executive function inhibitory control monitoring prospective memory theory of mind Investigating the Role of Executive Processes in Young Children's Prospective Memory Electronic Thesis or Dissertation

Vogel, Edward Fukuda, Keisuke Fukuda, Keisuke 2012-10-26T04:00:42Z 2014-12-29T21:12:31Z 2012 http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12391 Visual long term memory (VLTM) research has shown that we are capable of learning a virtually infinite amount of visual information. At the same time, visual short term memory (VSTM) research has shown that there is a severe limitation in the amount of information we can simultaneously apprehend at a given time. How does the severe capacity limitation in the initial uptake of information influence the encoding of information into VLTM? To this date, there has been no direct test of such influence, and the effect of such limitation has been unclear. Here, we demonstrate that, across wide varieties of conditions, the severe-capacity limitation in VSTM dictates the encoding of information into VLTM by determining the "bandwidth" of information transfer. This finding has a substantial implication for the understanding of the role of severely-capacity limited VSTM in forming many types of VLTM representations. en_US University of Oregon All Rights Reserved. Individual Differences Visual Long Term Memory Visual Short Term Memory The Capacity of Visual Short Term Memory Determines the Bandwidth of Information Transfer into Visual Long Term Memory Electronic Thesis or Dissertation