Successfully managing interpersonal relationships requires both pursuing desirable bonds and forgoing those that could be costly. Balancing these goals might be more difficult for some than for others, especially for those with low self-esteem who are motivated to connect, yet stifled by their lack confidence in their abilities to attract desirable dating partners. So, when a potential date’s romantic interest is unambiguous, will they eagerly seize any opportunity to connect, or will the desirability of the person making the request influence their decision? In three laboratory experiments, single, female participants were randomly assigned to receive a romantic overture from an ostensible, single, male who was presented as a desirable or an undesirable dating partner. Independent of whether they accepted or rejected the target’s advances, lower, relative to higher, self-esteem individuals experienced more emotional and cognitive uncertainty and distress before and after making their decision. Desirability of the target moderated some of these effects, such that high self-esteem individuals appropriately distinguished between desirables and undesirables, whereas low self-esteem participants experienced distress at the thought of accepting or rejecting either target. Notably, the actual decisions participants made were unaffected by self-esteem, and driven instead by the extent to which the target was presented as possessing desirable social commodities. Results are discussed with reference to potential mechanisms driving self-esteem differences in balancing the pursuit of quality interpersonal bonds while avoiding costly relations.

Background and Purpose: Dental hygienists are targeted for practice expansion to improve public access to oral health care and, therefore, must demonstrate decision making capacity. This study aimed to identify and test the impact of factors influential in dental hygiene decision making. Organizational and gender factors were hypothesized to be most influential. Methods: A phased mixed methods approach was used. Phase I: A series of focus groups were conducted to inform a dental hygiene decision making model, which included key predictor variables and the outcome variable: decision making capacity. Phase II: Aspects of the model were tested via an electronic questionnaire and key informant interviews. Statistical and qualitative thematic analyses were conducted and then findings were merged for interpretation. Results and Interpretation: Focus groups yielded over 75 codes and 6 themes (+ 1 theme from the literature) comprising the model and guiding the survey. The survey had a 38% response rate, and moderate to weak correlations between predictors and the outcome measure were shown. The final statistical model demonstrated Individual Characteristics and graduating from a 3-year program together significantly predicted decision making capacity. When merged with the key informant qualitative data, Individual Characteristics were shown to be a product of broad environmental factors and educational preparation had a particularly strong influence. Conclusions: Individual characteristics and education are predictive of decision making capacity but are outcomes of broad structural influences. Thus, it is recommended that modifications are made to these structures to support dental hygiene decision making in expanded practice.

Can only a subset of individuals – those higher on the ability to understand the sources of emotions – determine whether to disregard or allow the effects of emotions when making decisions? I test two central predictions. First, I test whether individuals high on emotion understanding ability (EUA), one of the key dimensions of emotional intelligence, are less affected by incidental anxiety when making decisions involving risk than their lower ability counterparts. The rationale for this prediction is that individuals who have high EUA are able to correctly identify their source of anxiety and, based on perceived irrelevance, disregard incidental anxiety when making risky decisions, whereas individuals who have low EUA are confused about the source of anxiety and are more influenced by incidental anxiety when making risky decisions. Second, I test whether individuals high on EUA are more affected by integral anxiety when making risky decisions than their lower ability counterparts. The rationale for this prediction is that individuals who have high EUA are able to correctly identify their source of anxiety and, based on perceived relevance, use their integral anxiety to inform their risky decision making whereas those who have low EUA misattribute their anxiety and are less likely to incorporate their integral anxiety into their decision making. In Experiment 1, incidental anxiety reduced risk-taking among individuals with low EUA, but not among their higher ability counterparts. In Experiment 2, the interactive effect of EUA and incidental anxiety on risk-taking was eliminated when I identified the irrelevance of anxiety to the present decision, but it remained when the irrelevance was not identified. To explore the role of EUA in using the adaptive function of emotion in decision making, Experiment 3 assessed whether emotionally intelligent individuals who have high EUA incorporate integral anxiety, as measured by skin conductance responses, into their risk-taking, compared to those with low EUA. Contrary to expectations, the results of Experiment 3 showed that, when EUA was high, there was a negative effect of integral anxiety on risk-taking that was not significant. When EUA was low, there was a significant positive effect of integral anxiety on risk-taking.

No description available.

This experiment was a replication and extension of Pickel, Karam, and Warner's (2006) study by using wiretap evidence instead of hearsay. The design was a 2 (admissibility) X 2 (unusualness) factorial with a control group that had no critical evidence. Participants were 129 mock jurors who listened to an audio-recording of a trial and made some decision about the case. Results showed that the critical evidence had no effect on guilt judgments. However, the unusualness manipulation did have an effect on the memory of the critical testimony, in that the participants in the unusual groups had a better memory than the neutral groups. Explanations of the results are discussed, along with limitations and suggestions for future research. / Department of Psychological Science

Background and Purpose: Dental hygienists are targeted for practice expansion to improve public access to oral health care and, therefore, must demonstrate decision making capacity. This study aimed to identify and test the impact of factors influential in dental hygiene decision making. Organizational and gender factors were hypothesized to be most influential. Methods: A phased mixed methods approach was used. Phase I: A series of focus groups were conducted to inform a dental hygiene decision making model, which included key predictor variables and the outcome variable: decision making capacity. Phase II: Aspects of the model were tested via an electronic questionnaire and key informant interviews. Statistical and qualitative thematic analyses were conducted and then findings were merged for interpretation. Results and Interpretation: Focus groups yielded over 75 codes and 6 themes (+ 1 theme from the literature) comprising the model and guiding the survey. The survey had a 38% response rate, and moderate to weak correlations between predictors and the outcome measure were shown. The final statistical model demonstrated Individual Characteristics and graduating from a 3-year program together significantly predicted decision making capacity. When merged with the key informant qualitative data, Individual Characteristics were shown to be a product of broad environmental factors and educational preparation had a particularly strong influence. Conclusions: Individual characteristics and education are predictive of decision making capacity but are outcomes of broad structural influences. Thus, it is recommended that modifications are made to these structures to support dental hygiene decision making in expanded practice.

No description available.

This thesis is concerned with the factors underlying both selection and use of evidence in the testing of hypotheses. The work it describes examines the role played in hypothesis evaluation by background knowledge about the probability of events in the environment as well as the influence of more general constraints. Experiments on information choice showed that subjects were sensitive both to explicitly presented probabilistic information and to the likelihood of evidence with regard to background beliefs. It is argued - in contrast with other views in the literature - that subjects' choice of evidence to test hypotheses is rational allowing for certain constraints on subjects' cognitive representations. The majority of experiments in this thesis, however, are focused on the issue of how the information which subjects receive when testing hypotheses affects their beliefs. A major finding is that receipt of early information creates expectations which influence the response to later information. This typically produces a recency effect in which presenting strong evidence after weak evidence affects beliefs more than if the same evidence is presented in the opposite order. These findings run contrary to the view of the belief revision process which is prevalent in the literature in which it is generally assumed that the effects of successive pieces of information are independent. The experiments reported here also provide evidence that processes of selective attention influence evidence interpretation: subjects tend to focus on the most informative part of the evidence and may switch focus from one part of the evidence to another as the task progresses. in some cases, such changes of attention can eliminate the recency effect. In summary, the present research provides new evidence about the role of background beliefs, expectations and cognitive constraints in the selection and use of information to test hypotheses. Several new findings emerge which require revision to current accounts of information integration in the belief revision literature.

No description available.

No description available.