The aim of the present study was to compare the effects of barefoot versus shod running on working memory. I recruited exercise science students from the University of North Florida who exercised recreationally. Participants ran both barefoot and shod while hitting targets (poker chips) on a running track and without targets. I measured working memory using backward digit recall and also recorded participants’ heart rate, speed, and target accuracy. The main finding from this study was that working memory performance increased in the barefoot condition when participants hit targets (poker chips). This result supports the idea that additional attention is needed when running barefoot to avoid stepping on objects that could potentially cause harm to the foot. Significant increases in participant’s heart rate were also found in the barefoot condition but not in the shod condition. No significant differences found in participants’ speed in the barefoot or shod condition, nor were there any in the target or no target condition. Together, these findings suggest that individuals working memory increases after at least sixteen minutes of barefoot running if they have to look at the ground to avoid objects that may cause harm to their feet. Barefoot running may help individuals of all ages; from delaying the onset of cognitive deterioration in the elderly, obesity prevention for individuals of all ages, to providing a boost in cognitive performance for children who are behind their peers in school.

Health related outcomes for individuals with chronic symptoms of illness can be influenced by complex, socio-emotional processes. The primary interest of this study was to determine whether perceived social support lessens the negative emotional appraisals of illness experience (e.g. anger, fear, hostile interpretations of illness), and the role of these emotional appraisals in health outcomes for those diagnosed either with a conventional chronic illness (e.g. diabetes, arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) or a functional somatic syndrome (e.g. fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel). Data for this study were collected from a series of four surveys administered online, which included measures of perceived social support (MSPSS), emotional representations of illness (IPQ-R), and health outcomes (SF-36). The sample included 151 participants (129 Female, 22 Male), all of whom experienced chronic somatic symptoms for at least 3 months, with 57 classified as having a conventional diagnosis (CD) and 94 with a functional somatic syndrome (FSS). The results suggest a potential mechanism for the buffering effect of social support, such that those with higher levels of social support reported lower degrees of emotional representations. After controlling for demographic and illness-related variables, social support was a significant predictor of emotional representations of illness. Emotional appraisals of physical symptoms predicted a majority of the health dimensions of the SF-36; including social functioning, role limitations due to physical problems and emotional problems, emotional well-being, vitality, and overall perception of general health. The pattern of findings underscores the need to consider the influence of psychosocial processes on both psychological and physical well-being in populations adjusting to chronic illness.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a new anxiety prevention program, the Parent Resilience Program. The program is a cognitive-behavioral based prevention program designed to reduce the risk of anxiety in young children, specifically by reducing parent stress and teaching coping skills. The sample consisted of the parents and/or caregivers of 12 preschool-aged children. Parents attended eight weekly sessions of a psychologist-led intervention. Significant reductions were observed related to the impact of shyness on the child’s quality of life as well as parental anxiety and stress, both of which are risk factors for developing an anxiety disorder. In line with this, trends toward reduction were also seen in child anxiety symptoms and behavioral inhibition. These preliminary results suggest that the Parent Resilience Program may be effective at reducing the risk factors associated with the development of anxiety disorders.

Moyamoya disease is a rare entity characterized by progressive narrowing of intracranial blood vessels. In most cases, Moyamoya does not respond well to medical therapy and often leads to surgical revascularization. The physiological benefits of the revascularization surgery for Moyamoya patients have been well documented, yet the effects of surgery on cognitive skills and abilities are far less studied. Participants in the current study were 33 patients, 24 to 85 years of age, who underwent revascularization surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. All patients underwent a physical and cognitive preoperative evaluation, where speech, memory, and intellectual processes were measured. After surgery, patients returned for three follow-up assessments over a period of six months. All patients experienced stabilization or improvement of physiological symptoms. Regarding cognitive functions, speech, memory, and intellectual processes improved significantly after surgery. Results showed not only a reduction of physiological symptoms, but also a significant cognitive improvement postsurgery. This study adds to the research of this disease and to the benefits of treatment. More research can only strengthen these findings and educate healthcare professionals; helping them reaffirm Moyamoya patients have a better quality of life, by reinforcing the benefits of revascularization surgery.

Implicit knowledge influences decision-making in a variety of areas, including conflict resolution and decisions about war. Individuals may unknowingly apply implicit knowledge from past experiences to present experiences, even if that information leads to less accurate decisions in the present experience. The current study is an exploration into how implicit knowledge of past international conflicts and fear of terrorism affects recommendations for military conflict resolution in current international conflicts. Priming is one way to make implicit knowledge salient, and participants in this study were implicitly primed to think of either the Iraq War, World War II, or no war in particular before reading a description of the Syrian Civil War. Participants reported their recommendations for resolving the conflict in Syria, including to what extent they would recommend that the United States intervene using military force. Fear of Terrorism, which is theoretically linked to knowledge and attitudes about Middle Eastern conflicts, was also measured. Results showed that support for U.S. military intervention in Syria was significantly impacted by Fear of Terrorism when participants had been primed to think of the Iraq War. This effect was such that, when primed to think of the Iraq War, higher Fear of Terrorism predicted greater support for military intervention in Syria. This effect did not occur in the other priming conditions. This study extends current research by examining how implicit priming of past conflicts and fear of terrorism interact to influence Americans’ decision-making in support for military intervention in Middle Eastern conflicts.

Adaptive memory demonstrates that memory is enhanced when information is processed because of its relevance to survival (Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, 2007). In the present experiments we examined whether there was a difference in individuals Need for Cognition (NFC) in regards to adaptive memory. Need for Cognition is characterized as the differences in individual’s preference for engaging in thought that requires effort. Specifically, individuals high in NFC could think of numerous ways to survive, thus being more likely to generate more thoughts and ideas, ultimately leading to better memory compared to low-NFC individuals. For both experiments participants read survival and moving scenarios and rated words according to each scenario. Participants received a surprise recall test on the rated words, and completed a NFC questionnaire. Experiment two examined true and false memories across multiple recall tests, giving participants three chances at recall prior to NFC scale. Results for experiment one indicated no effect of high and low NFC but there was an effect of scenario, indicating that the survival scenario led to greater recall than the moving scenario. Results for experiment two for target words, indicated that there was a significant effect for recall test as well as scenario, revealing that the survival scenario led to greater recall than the moving scenario. For false memories, high-NFC individuals gradually increased in recall from subsequent tests, compared to low-NFC individuals. Explanations for the lack of difference in high- and low-NFC individuals may be diminished from prompting a type processing that succeeds in increasing true and false memories for the low-NFC individuals, which is similar to high-NFC individuals.

As both a Working Memory (WM) task and as a more integrated reasoning process, moral decision making appears susceptible to interference by nociceptive stimuli. Differentiation, however, between conflicting occupation of WM resources and the influence of pain-induced autonomic activation as potential pathways of interaction represents a considerably more difficult task than simple measurement of WM performance. To clarify the basis of any noted effects, this study recorded both self-report pain intensity and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) as a separate measure of autonomic activation under a cold pressor task using a sample of 122 undergraduate participants. Recorded pain and physiological data was compared to rates of utilitarian decision making in the provided moral dilemmas. While there were significantly lower rates of utilitarian decision making in the pain condition, a warm-water painless condition showed comparably decreased rates. Comparison with GSR data suggests that the pain condition did not induce a significantly heightened state of autonomic activation. This suggests that while divided attention or occupation of WM resources does effect patterns of moral decision making, this is not reliant on a nociceptive stimulus.

In this current research I sought to answer two questions; 1) Do individuals have the capacity to recognize when they are being justly or unjustly socially excluded or conversely socially included? 2) Do the consequences of just and unjust social exclusion or social inclusion vary? In efforts to address these questions, I used perceptions of burden (i.e., participant’s overall contribution to a group task) to manipulate the perceived fairness of one’s inclusionary status to see how this affects the participants’ emotional and behavioral reactions. In Study 1, participants engaged in an imaginary group interaction in which they were burdensome (performing worse than the group) or non-burdensome (performing equal to the group) on a group-task while either being included or rejected. For Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to be burdensome versus non-burdensome, in a similar fashion as Study 1, and then ostracized or included by confederate players in a computerized group word game (i.e., Atimia). Participants in both studies reported their levels of perceived justice, needs satisfaction, social pain, negative affect, and aggressive behavior temptations. Participants in Study 2 also completed a behavioral aggression measure (i.e., candy allocation task). In Study 1, perceptions of justice had no impact on the consequences of social exclusion; rejected participants felt bad regardless of the fairness of their rejection. For included participants, unjust, compared to just, inclusion induced thwarted needs, increased social pain, negative affect, and aggressive behavior temptations (consequences similar to that of social exclusion). In Study 2 almost no differences emerged within the affective state of included individuals. Based primarily on the results of Study 1, it appears that burden may play a critical role in the ostracism experience. Further research is recommended to better understand this relationship.

A connection between self-monitoring, which is an individual difference in concern about self-presentation, and partner knowledge structures, which is how people organize thoughts about their current romantic partner, is explored in this study. There were two competing hypotheses. If people structure thoughts about their partner in a way similar to how they structure their social worlds, then low self-monitors would have integrated partner knowledge structures and high self-monitors would have compartmentalized partner knowledge structures. If people structure thoughts about their partner in a way that reflects their relationship motivations and needs then we would find the opposite pattern of results. We used a measure of compartmentalization and integration as well as Snyder’s (1974) Self-Monitoring Scale to explore our hypotheses. Although both low self-monitors and high self-monitors had relatively compartmentalized partner knowledge structures, we found support for the relationship motivations and needs hypothesis. Low self-monitors had more compartmentalized partner knowledge structures than did high self-monitors. In fact, low self-monitors were more likely than high self-monitors to have completely compartmentalized views of their partners. Reasons for these findings, limitations of this study, and future directions are discussed.

The current study examined the problem solving behaviors of novices and experts in a complex computer simulation. Dynamic decision-making and complex problem solving abilities were analyzed to investigate if experts are the most successful of all participants when simulating the role of CEO of a chocolate factory, CHOCO FINE. Participants included novices, business undergraduate students and psychology undergraduate students, and experts, small business owners. Results revealed that small business owners engaged in the most successful dynamic decision-making strategies. Experts compared to novices had more total monies at the end of the simulation, spent more time in the first two months of twenty-four months, spent less money on information collection overall, made the most changes in representatives and advertising, and less changes in market research. This study addressed the differences between novices and experts not only in performance, but also in behavior in a complex and uncertain situation. The findings from this research enhance the dearth of research in addressing the relationship between behavior strategy and performance specifically in the area of expertise. The research at hand extends the previous literature within the domain of decision-making and provides insight for the differences in behavior strategies between novice and expert subjects.