This study examined the process of change in the early stages of psychodynamic psychotherapy for three patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). The three patients were in once-weekly psychotherapy at a university-based psychological clinic with supervised master’s level therapists in a clinical psychology doctoral training program. Subjective well-being and symptoms were monitored daily throughout treatment (consisting of 9, 12, and 13 sessions). Based on theory-driven models of therapeutic change (Phase Model of change: Howard, et al., 1986; Howard, et al., 1993), improvement in subjective well-being ought to occur early in therapy and prior to improvement in diagnosis-specific symptoms. Six phase-specific outcome patterns were defined (18 across the three patients) that ought to obtain according to the Phase Model of therapeutic change. Time-series analyses were applied to test whether the improvement realized in each case unfolded in the pattern predicted by theory. It did not, neither on a case-by-case basis, nor when all cases were taken together. Only 4 of the 18 conditions were satisfied. Though the findings are in no way definitive, the pattern of improvement in these three cases did not conform to that predicted by the Phase Model of therapeutic change. The current study provides an important methodological template for examining the process of change in psychotherapy using a time-series design.

The consequences of rape can be both psychologically and physically damaging to the victim. Unfortunately, it is all too frequently the case that attitudes against the victim in the form of acceptance of rape myths and other forms of victim-blaming serve merely to perpetuate these psychological consequences. This study looks at both the theoretical feminist and psychoanalytic perspectives that lay the groundwork for the foundations of Western culture’s inability to understand and empathize the female bodily condition in terms of rape and pregnancy, and the psychological effects that contribute to juror perceptions of rape victims and attitudes towards abortion. A study was run comparing a control trial transcript of a rape case, a transcript where the victim became pregnant, and one where she had an abortion as a result of her pregnancy, against responses to questions of rapist and victim-blame and empathy. The results were scattered, but overall there were significant differences in jurors perceptions of the rape, the victim, and the rapist that fluctuated as a result of pregnancy or abortion being admitted into evidence.

In the world's progressively globalized economy, national culture is becoming an increasingly relevant factor. For companies to be able to compete on both a domestic and an international scale, a holistic understanding of cultural values is necessary. This study compared the top 25 technological entrepreneurial firms in China and in the United States, respectively, to determine if there existed a difference in founder age, founder educational level, and management composition. Technological entrepreneurs in the United States are younger (p = .039) and less educated (p = .012) than technological entrepreneurs in China when they first establish their entrepreneurial firms. Additionally, there are more individual founders per American technological firm than there are for their Chinese counterparts. (p = .011) These findings on age, education level, and management composition are indicative of the underlying cultural values and business philosophies of each country. The results of the study can provide a better sense of the business and management principles that would be successful within the cultural context of the two nations.

Mental accounting is a technique for asserting self-control in the face of consumption decisions, functioning as a categorization system for income and expenses. A body of evidence supports the concept that consumers are driven by perception and emotion, not rational economic thought. Mental accounting is subject to the effects of cognitive biases, leading to imperfect financial behavior. In the following paper, I present a proposal for three consecutive experiments designed to investigate the influence that advanced planning (the formation of mental budgets) and unexpected financial shocks (windfalls) can have on our use of mental accounting to regulate spending. The dependent variable is a dollar measure of how much consumers indicated they are “willing to pay” (WTP) to hypothetically purchase a typical good. The experiments share an intertemporal manipulation of a monthly budget creation task. Experiment one investigates the combined effects of positive and negative windfalls and budget creation on WTP. Experiment 2 explores boundary conditions of timing on loss aversion by manipulating the length of the time period that separates a negative windfall from the WTP task. Experiment 3 focuses on one time period, manipulating wording of a negative financial shock to focus on framing effects. The three experiments, if carried out, should reveal significant effects on WTP, suggesting that manipulations of framing and timing can lead to inconsistent spending behaviors even in the presence of a self-control tool (the mental budget).

Though much research has been conducted concerning the horizontal and vertical attributes of individualism and, not much has been done comparing and contrasting an Eastern culture, collectivism to a specific aspect of American culture, individualism, such as Korean American. The 32-item INDCOL scale was used to measure the 4 attributes (Singelis et al., 1995). Contrary to the proposed hypothesis, this study found high scores in horizontal individualism in Korean American participants and high scores in horizontal individualism and horizontal collectivism in Korean participants. These results could indicate a shift towards a different attribute in the Korean and Korean American community.

Very little is known about red-legged seriema (Cariama cristata) vocalizations and behavior. The focus of my research was to analyze the structure of red-legged seriema primary calls and to begin to test hypotheses related to their function. Captive red-legged seriema behavior, both vocal and non-vocal, was recorded at 7 institutions located in the United States from May 2007 through November 2008. To test whether calls serve a predator alarm function, seriemas were presented with a large stuffed dog, representing a predator stimulus, and 2 control stimuli, a large, stuffed penguin and a large, flowering potted plant. Baseline recordings with no manipulations were also made throughout the day, during the course of the study. All recordings of seriema vocalizations were assessed using sound analysis software to generate sound spectrograms for comparison. I identified three different note types within the seriema primary call: upsweep notes (U), ladder notes (L), and two-part notes (T). Each call begins with a set of U notes that increase in rate and lead into the main part of the call, which is made of L and T notes. Each note type was assessed for duration, frequency, energy, and entropy measurements. These measurements were reduced using factor analysis into two relevant factors. There were substantial differences across individuals for note type acoustic structure. Group differences in note types, including sex, location, and age, were not found. When presented with the dog model, vocal responses were given by only 3 individuals. Overall, it may be possible to identify individual seriemas by analyzing the structure of their primary call, which may allow researchers to identify individuals without physical markers.

Homophobia in men may be, in part, due to reaction formation rooted in unacceptable same-sex attraction. Previous studies have not confirmed a covert same-sex attraction in homophobic men, which is necessary for a reaction formation theory of homophobia. This study sought to reveal possible covert same-sex attraction in homophobic men. In this study, heterosexual and homosexual male erotic images were presented in a passive S1/S2 stimulus prediction design to 48 self-identified heterosexual participants, grouped by homophobia. Three event-related potential responses related to valenced emotional processing were examined: the medial frontal negativity (MFN), the late positive potential (LPP), and the positive frontal slow wave (FSW). While homophobic men have a larger FSW in response to erotics across the board, F(1,46) = 3.88, p = .055, no significant interactions between homophobia and image content were found. As such, homophobic men may have more interest in erotic images in general, but this study does not demonstrate that homophobic men find homosexual erotics appetitive.

Humor has been identified as an important factor in the establishment of relationships. This study explores the use of humor in mental health therapy and how clients’ preferences for humor impact an evaluation of the therapy session. Forty-eight individuals currently receiving mental health therapy were examined along with the use of three forms of humor: positive, negative, and instrumental. There was a significant relationship between a preference for negative humor and session evaluation scores in which the more negative humor preferred, the lower the session ratings. Although not significant, other trends were noted between self-enhancing humor and session depth, aggressive humor and session depth, and affiliative humor and positivity. Gender differences and preference for humor were also examined with men reporting higher value on negative humor than women and women reporting greater post-session arousal than men. These findings are discussed in terms of the need for further research to consider factors that may have influenced the present study’s results.

This study examined the effect of colors and typography on attraction towards a product, tones evoked by the product, and likelihood that a participant would buy a product. Prior research has addressed how color and type influence visual design and those who come in contact with it in a multifaceted way. To measure this, participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk were asked to take part in an online survey on Surveymonkey.com. Assigned to one of four conditions of color and font combinations, Black or Purple paired with Modern or Script, participants answered questions about a sample product, a soda can. The study examined the combined and individual effects of the colors Black and Purple and the font types Modern and Script on the participants’ likelihood to purchase the product, their attraction toward it, and the perceived tone the product gives off. A 2x2 ANOVA was run to measure likelihood of purchase and attraction and a Pearson’s Chi-Squared test was used to measure both tonal questions. It was found that attraction to product was 1.19 times more likely with the product displaying Script font regardless of color and likelihood of purchase was 1.15 times higher with Script font regardless of color. Purple and Modern were most highly associated with the tonal word “Modern” for tonal question number one and for Black, the overall largest tonal association term was “Traditional,” for tonal question number. The finding for the color Purple approached significance and the other two of these findings were consistent with the hypothesis.

This study proposes a series of 3 experiments to explore how the use of mental imagery affects expert vs. novice golfers differently, by comparing alpha and beta waves. In Experiment 1 experts and novices will putt under a pressure task or no pressure task. The researcher will analyze golfers’ putting success rate in addition to examining alpha and beta waves. Experiment 2 will expand upon the expected results of Experiment 1, focusing on experts’ and novices’ use of task-relevant and task-irrelevant mental imagery as pre-performance routines just before a putting task, with all conditions facing pressure. Finally, Experiment 3 will explore experts’ vs. novices’ use of task-relevant and task-irrelevant mental imagery the day before the pressure putting task. Researchers are expected to find increases in alpha wave activity to occur prior to the putting task in experts regardless of condition, which is consistent with the attention-arousal set theory’s concept of an optimal state of performance. Novices should display increases in alpha wave activity and reach their optimal state of performance when the type of mental imagery they use helps them relax, which should lead to a higher putting success rate.