<p> This research offers a framework that explains how observers respond to moral violations when considering the amount of power and status held by violators. It follows the group processes literature on the characteristics of power and status. A proposed theory describes that prior to witnessing moral violations, observers develop moral expectations about potential violators on the basis of the levels of power and status attributed to the violators. When the moral violations occur, the moral expectations about the violators, as well as the resources available to the violators, in turn, affect the judgment and punishment decisions of the observers toward the violators. An online vignette study and a laboratory experiment test my predictions based on the proposed theory by varying the relative levels of perceived power and status between evaluation targets (i.e., violators) and evaluators (i.e., observers). </p><p> Vignettes used in Study 1 described that observers had lower, equal, or higher power/status compared to violators in hypothetical scenarios. In Study 2, observers were assigned with either lower or higher power/status relative to violators in a group interaction setting in which the observers experienced differential risks of retaliation from the violators. Both studies assessed expectations of observers about the moral character of potential violators before exposing the observers to details of a moral violation committed by the designated violators. Punishment decisions of observers examined in Study 1 were attitudinal measures while those in Study 2 were based on behavioral reactions.</p><p> Results indicate that prior to the immoral incident, observers developed lower moral expectations about violators with greater power and higher moral expectations about violators holding greater status. However, these expectations did not always translate into moral judgment and punishment. While viewing the violation as immoral regardless of power/status held by the violators, depending on the context, observers might or might not penalize the violators differentially across the power/status spectra. Fears of retaliation from violators who utilized resources attached to varied power and status positions did not affect how observers punished the violators. Therefore, results of the studies suggest a resilient power and status hierarchy despite the disruption of moral norms.</p><p>

<p> Transcultural migration is a growing phenomenon, yet research on the lived experience of individuals who willfully leave the security and comfort of their home nation and socio-cultural support to migrate alone as adults to a foreign nation where they do not have citizenship, do not look like the locals, and do not share the local mother tongue had not been previously researched. Marcia&rsquo;s (2002) work on identity exploration and May&rsquo;s existential psychological works (e.g., 1953), particularly his notion of &ldquo;the stages in consciousness of self&rdquo; (p. 100), served as major theoretical foundations of this research. Giorgi&rsquo;s (2009a) descriptive phenomenological psychological method was used, as it aligns with the qualitative and existential nature of this topic. I interviewed three transcultural migrants and analyzed the data sets with imaginative variations to yield an essential psychological structure that describes the phenomenon. Fourteen constituents were identified: the presence of a call to adventure, an urge to defy the sense of confinement or frustration, an appetite to develop one&rsquo;s potential for action in the world, indefinite and flexible migration plans, an imagined or desired horizon as the destination, commitment depending on the passion for and pursuit of growth and challenges, identity reflections on being different, a sense of extra effort or work, constant revival of earlier psycho-social crises, questioning traditional cultural boundaries, integrating cultural experiences into cultural identity and orientation, rebellion against cultural judgment-based interactions, cultural flexibility through experiential understanding, and heightened awareness of global, local, and identity politics. These findings support the existing literature emphasizing migrants&rsquo; openness to experience and interest in developing personal potential (Madison, 2009), their sense of extra effort (Moreau et al., 2009), and a pluralistic sense of political and socio-cultural identity (e.g., Ortega, 2016). In addition, the present findings challenge preconceived notions of culture, suggesting that concepts of cultural orientation, rather than racial/ethnic identity, and cultural humility in place of cultural competency have greater functional applications to the transcultural phenomenon. Some clinical, educational, socio-cultural, and political implications are presented. Future studies are encouraged to examine various transcultural possibilities.</p><p>

The purposes of this study were: (a) to compare the impact of One-to-One (OTO) mentoring interventions administered in the high school setting, and the workplace of the students who participated in the School-to-Work (STW) transitional program, and (b) to identify how the participants perceived their experience in the OTO mentoring program and the STW transitional program. A qualitative approach was used to identify how participants perceived their mentoring experiences with the STW and OTO mentoring programs by utilizing focus groups and content analysis. A quantitative approach was used to compare the statistical differences of outcomes between the STW and OTO mentoring programs, by utilizing descriptive statistics, independent samples Wests, chi- square analyses, and logistic regression. The sample was limited to participants in the STW and OTO mentoring programs resulting in 21 participants for the qualitative approach and 114 participants for the quantitative approach. Results from the qualitative approach indicated that focus group participants in the STW program were satisfied with the program and the relationship with their mentors. They also suggested that the STW program be lengthened to include the entire academic year. Participants from the OTO focus group were dissatisfied with their program due to inadequate mentor involvement. Results from the quantitative approach showed that the increase in school attendance for the STW program’s at-risk Black male youth was statistically significant compared to the OTO program participants; the STW program participants displayed a better outlook for attending college that was statistically significant compared to those in the OTO program; and the OTO program participants displayed a better outlook for permanent employment compared to those in the STW program. Therefore, this study finds that mentoring can contribute to reducing school absences and high school completion in order for at-risk Black adolescents to attend college. It is recommended that the OTO program be restructured to eliminate the disparity that exists regarding the administration of the STW program and the OTO program.

This study examined contextual and situational influences on older adults’ decision to complete advance directives by means of a conceptual framework derived from symbolic interactionist theory and a cross-sectional, correlational research design. It was hypothesized that completion of advance directives among older adults would be associated with visiting or participating in the care of a terminally ill or permanently incompetent individual sustained by technology. Using a 53-item questionnaire, computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI) were conducted with 398 community dwelling adults between September and October 2003. Respondents were contacted using random-select dialing from a listed sample of 99% of household telephone numbers in one South Florida census tract. Over 90% of households in this tract include an individual age 65 or older. The results revealed that contrary to most reports in the literature a substantial proportion of older adults (82%) had completed advance directives and that the link between older adults and document completion was mainly through attorneys and not mandated agents, health care professionals. Further, more than one third of older adults reported that religion/spirituality was not an important part of their life, suggesting that the recommended practice of offering religious/spiritual counseling to all those approaching death be reexamined. The hypothesis was not supported (p > .05) and is explained by the situational emphasis on the variables rather than on structural influences. In logistic regression analysis, only increasing age (p = .001) and higher education (p = < .001) were significant but explained only 10% of the variance in document completion. Based on the findings, increased interdisciplinary collaboration is suggested with regard to the advance directive agenda. Since attorneys play a key role in document completion, other professions should seek their expertise and collaboration. In addition, the inclusion of a religious/spiritual preference section in all living wills should be considered as an essential part of a holistic and individually appropriate document. Implications for social work education, practice, and advocacy are discussed as well as suggestions for farther research.

<p> The purpose of this research is to address how coercive police interrogation tactics can lead to a phenomenon rising in social consciousness, false confessions, with specific attention paid to the most popular form of police interrogation tactics, the Reid Technique. This research surveyed current law students to understand their perspectives regarding perceived coercion of certain interrogation tactics and the likelihood that such coercive interrogation tactics would elicit a false confession. The researcher also set out to determine if providing the psychology behind coercive interrogation tactics, and how they may lead to false confessions is perceived as useful to law students, and how likely it is that they would utilize such information in their future practices. This research is a first of its kind in that no other research has examined false confessions as related to law students; the only research regarding surveying criminal justice professionals surveyed law enforcement professionals, the interrogators, themselves. Although, presumably, due to a low sample size no significance was determined for the intervention used, there are still practical applications for the results of the research conducted. </p><p>

<p> Quality of life in mentally ill older adults is an important area to target in psychiatric rehabilitation. Additionally, the ability for these individuals to live a more independent lifestyle and/or to feel fulfilled is a major contributor to their happiness. Therefore, mental health practitioners must have an understanding of how to help older adults diagnosed with a serious mental illness reach their optimal potential as enrollment continues to increase in mental health day programs. The intent of this study was to better understand mental health day program caregiver&rsquo;s experience in working with this population and to provide a description of what a mental health day program was like for the mentally ill residents under their care. The first task was facilitated by semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Secondly, a set of more survey-based questions were added to the interview design in an attempt to set the contextual stage of the described experience. It was believed that combined data would provide a more in depth perspective and set the stage to better explore the caregiver experience. Moreover, this approach is consistent with the generic qualitative method, which allows survey data to be integrated with interview data; in this case to help produce the work context of the caregiver. The combined data would then include attitudes, values, opinions and perspective on what works, what does not work and what could work better in relation to their work with this population. Using a data-driven, inductive coding model advocated by Boyatzis (1998) for conducting thematic analysis, three stages were developed: Stage 1. Sampling and design; Stage 2. Developing themes and codes; and Stage 3. Validating the use of the code. The results of this analysis yielded a total of 33 codes and 299 coded segments (participant comments coded). As a result, three themes were derived from the 12 patterns: 1) Caregivers&rsquo; Attitude towards Mental Health Day Programming, 2) Value that Caregivers Found within Mental Health Day Programs and 3) Caregivers&rsquo; Thoughts, Opinions and Feelings of Necessary Programmatic Model and Services. The original intent of his study was to determine 1.) how residential caregivers perceive specific characteristics or services as being an essential part of a mental health day program based upon their experience in working with older adult residents who have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness, 2.) whether identified services describe a particular mental health day program model or approach (Clubhouse, Psychosocial Rehabilitation or Rehabilitation Skills Training, or Peer/Consumer-Run) that would be the best program fit for older adults diagnosed with a serious mental illness, and 3.) the personal care home caregivers&rsquo; perception of how these services are expected to: provide stimulation and a desire for older adults to learn or grow; create an opportunity for older adults to be a part of the program; and promote older adults in taking part or engaging program activities are addressed. However, it was soon apparent that this type of evaluative research was well beyond the scope of the dissertation. Consequently, a less evaluative and more general descriptive qualitative approach was undertaken wherein the focus was changed with the attempt to 1.) better understand mental health day program caregiver&rsquo;s experience in working with this population, 2.) provide a description of what mental health day programming was like for the mentally ill residents under their care, and 3.) set the contextual stage of the described experience. To the extent that this objective was met was left to the eye of the beholder, but it was hoped that the results would set the stage and lay the groundwork for the next step of the more evaluative approach abandoned for the generic qualitative descriptive study that follows. Thus the original intent was included here given the adage that the best evaluation is always description (Patton, 2008).</p><p>

<p> The research on military families during deployments, especially in recent years, has been prolific but also, at times, contradictory. Some studies have reported increased risk while others have reported resilience. Possible reasons for the risk and resilience controversy, as well as the understudied population of overseas military families, were the subject of this study. Currently, there is no research on the experience of deployment for military families who are stationed in foreign countries. The exact number of family members is unknown; however, just under 200,000 military members serve overseas. The first research question examined the effect of duty station (continental United States, English-speaking host nation, and non-English speaking host nation) on a family member&rsquo;s ability to cope. The second research question examined the relationship of acculturation with coping. The third research question examined the relationship of perceived social support with coping. It was hypothesized that families who were stationed overseas would be less able to cope, and that those who lived in non-English speaking host nations would experience even greater difficulty coping. Acculturation and perceived social support were identified as possible mediating factors for coping. Coping was measured using Carver&rsquo;s COPE Inventory (2013) and limited to only three of the 15 subscales: positive reinterpretation and growth, use of instrumental social support, and use of emotional social support. This study used the contextual model of family stress as a theoretical framework for understanding the interplay of deployment, duty station, acculturation, and perceived social support and how they resulted in risk or resilience as measured by coping. This study was designed as descriptive survey research with convenience sampling as the main recruitment method. An electronic survey was created and data from 173 adult military family members, mostly female spouses, were used to conduct nonparametric hypotheses testing. Results from the Kruskal-Wallis test by ranks showed a non-significant effect of duty station on coping. Results from Spearman&rsquo;s rank correlation coefficient revealed a weak association among acculturation and the subscales of coping, but a moderate, positive association between coping and perceived social support. The study was limited by the small sample size and lack of homogeneity among groups. Further research on this population is supported by the lack of literature and suggestions for future studies are presented.</p><p>

abstract: Affiliative touch, such as physical affection between relationship partners, activates neural systems associated with reward, relaxation, and attachment. Co-sleeping is a common practice among romantic partners, and the social context of sleep is linked to well-being. The effect of touch during sleep, however, remains largely untested. As a first study, 210 married couples were asked how much they generally touched during sleep and how important it was for them to touch during sleep. I hypothesized that perceptions of more spousal touch during sleep, as well as greater importance placed on that touch, would be associated with better quality of sleep. Given the strong links between touch and attachment, and previous findings of poor sleep associated with attachment anxiety, these effects were expected to be greatest among spouses higher in attachment anxiety (who might benefit most from a sense of security arising from touch). Separate regression analyses were run for husbands and wives, controlling for affective symptoms of depression (which were significant predictors of poor sleep for both spouses). For both spouses, higher reports of amount and importance of touch during sleep predicted better quality of sleep. For wives, the predicted interaction was significant, but in the opposite direction: Reported amount and importance of spousal touch during sleep was positively related to sleep quality only among those with lower attachment anxiety, whereas it was unrelated among those with higher attachment anxiety. Higher attachment anxiety also was related to worse sleep among wives, but not husbands. It may be the case that wives who are lowest in attachment anxiety may feel more comfortable when being touched by their partners. As a result, they may touch more often, place more importance on touch, and be more likely to experience rewards of touch such as better sleep quality. The findings lend support to the idea that social touch can serve a regulatory function, even during sleep. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2017

<p> This research describes psychological values as they appear in social commerce related online marketing campaigns. Values are studied by their functional roles, which is what they do, rather than what they are (Gouveia, Milfont, &amp; Guerra, 2014). According to the functional theory of values, values guide actions and express needs. Marketing campaigns and values are explored because both marketing and values seek to guide actions and express needs. Exploring this calls for a qualitative study using content analysis. This research conducts two content analysis studies to verify accuracy. The first uses an open coding method, and the second uses a qualitative deductive analysis approach. The results retrieved throughout both studies use different word codes, but when listed together indicate that insightfulness, knowledge, and social support show the highest frequency and co-occurrence. Both studies also show that digitoral marketing campaigns rely much more on thriving needs than survival needs. Both studies confirmed, however, that survival needs are mostly expressed through displays of power, obedience, personal stability, and survival.</p><p>

abstract: ABSTRACT This thesis proposes that a focus on the bodily level of analysis can unify explanation of behavior in cognitive, social, and cultural psychology. To examine this unifying proposal, a sensorimotor mechanism with reliable explanatory power in cognitive and social psychology was used to predict a novel pattern of behavior in cultural context, and these predictions were examined in three experiments. Specifically, the finding that people judge objects that require more motor effort to interact with as farther in visual space was adapted to predict that people with interdependent self-construal(SC) , relative to those with independent SC, would visually perceive their cultural outgroups as farther relative to their cultural in-groups. Justifying this cultural extension of what is primarily a cognitive mechanism is the assumption that, unlike independents, Interdependents interact almost exclusively with in-group members, and hence there sensorimotor system is less tuned to cross-cultural interactions. Thus, interdependents, more so than independents, expect looming cross-cultural interactions to be effortful, which may inflate their judgment of distance to the out-groups. Two experiments confirmed these predictions: a) interdependent Americans, compared to independent Americans, perceived American confederates (in-group) as visually closer; b) interdependent Arabs, compared to independent Arabs, perceived Arab confederates (in-group) as closer; and c) interdependent Americans, relative to independent Americans, perceived Arab confederates (out-group) as farther. A third study directly established the proposed relation between motor effort and distance to human targets: American men perceived other American men as closer after an easy interaction than after a more difficult interaction. Together, these results demonstrate that one and the same sensorimotor mechanism can explain/predict homologous behavioral patterns across the subdisciplines of psychology. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Psychology 2013