Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Briana S. Goff / The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain an in-depth understanding of the systemic effects of trauma, particularly war-related traumatic stress as a result of military deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, in a sample of recent war veterans and their spouses. With recent military deployments and redeployments of soldiers, empirical and clinical research is needed to eliminate further deterioration and retraumatization caused by personal and interpersonal traumatization that can lead to severe PTSD and other trauma-related symptoms. Much of the research on previous wars focused on the individual trauma survivor overlooking the impact on the couple and family system. This study focused on explaining the systemic effects of trauma as it specifically impacts couple relational systems. By employing qualitative analysis, six couples (12 participants) were selected from the original data set of 45 couples (90 participants). Participants completed questionnaires and separate individual standardized open-ended interviews about their traumatic experiences. The interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed producing four themes: positive impact of deployment on the couple’s relationship, the negative impact of deployment on the couple’s relationship, soldiers’ war-related trauma, and issues of secrecy. Two groups were identified (high trauma/high relational satisfaction group and high trauma/low relational satisfaction group), based on the quantitative measures that were completed by all participants. Participants reported both war deployment related and non-deployment related traumatic experiences. Many participants reported feeling as though they restarted their relationship upon returning home, while some described feeling closer to their spouse at redeployment. Participants reported having a common worry of if the soldiers would return home alive, soldiers’ missing many life events (i.e., child birth, etc.), and soldiers’ worry about the safety and health of their spouses. An interesting finding was that some couples with high levels of trauma can maintain high levels of relational satisfaction when they have knowledge and understanding of each other’s trauma history and have open, on-going communication, while some couples with high levels of trauma tend to have low relational satisfaction due to limited communication about their trauma history. Strengths and limitations of the study, research implications, and clinical implications were discussed.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / Mary E. Cain / Glutamate contributes to the neurological and behavioral changes that occur during differential rearing, and those that occur during conditioned hyperactivity and sensitization. Metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) in particular contributes to the psychostimulant reward pathway, plasticity, and differential rearing. The present study examined the role of mGluR5 in conditioning and sensitization in differentially reared rats. Rats were reared in an enriched (EC), impoverished (IC), or social (SC) condition for 30 days, after which they received repeated amphetamine (0.3 mg/kg) or saline injections. Following training, rats received an injection of the mGluR5 antagonist MTEP or saline prior to undergoing conditioned hyperactivity and sensitization tests. Results showed that MTEP attenuated conditioned hyperactivity and sensitization in IC but not EC and SC rats, suggesting that glutamatergic changes occur during differential rearing that alter the effects of MTEP on amphetamine conditioning and sensitization. Additionally, results demonstrated that enrichment rearing has a protective effect against conditioned hyperactivity at low doses of amphetamine.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communication / Curtis Matthews / The objective of this study is to shed light on the interaction between the theory of selective exposure and social identity theory. Both of these theories describe aspects regarding how individuals expose themselves to information. However, the driving question of the study was to investigate the behavior of individuals whom experience cognitive dissonance from an inconsistent political message, but are receiving that message from a member of their perceived in-group. The expectation was that moderating variables, such as strength of identification with an ideology as well as the level of knowledge would impact who would engage in selective exposure and choose to disregard in-group cues, or choose inconsistent messages to stay true to in-group pressures. In a Qualtrics experiment, participants (n=189) were divided into different groups, attitude consistent and attitude inconsistent and were exposed to a series of tweets. Each tweet was politically charged, with the attitude-consistent group presenting consistent messages paired with in-group cues, and in the attitude-inconsistent group presenting a dissonant message was paired with the in-group cue, and visa versa. Two factors revealed themselves to impact results and message choice — knowledge and strength of identification. Results revealed that individuals who had a high level of knowledge chose the consistent message more often than those with low knowledge. The strength of ideology variable influenced differences in both the speed in which they made decisions on which tweet to select, as well as how quickly they identified with an ideology level. This result revealed that those who are strongly identified with an ideology make decisions regarding political messages and ideology faster than those who are weakly identified. The current study contributes to the plethora of literature regarding these two theories and the political science area of study by supporting knowledge as a moderating variable between cognitive dissonance and social identity pressures. It also provides insight into the trends and patterns that can arise when time/speed are utilized as a variable to shed light on group identification differences. The insights with the variables of time, strength of ideology, level of knowledge, could lead to numerous future studies.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / Clive J. A. Fullagar / While researchers have begun to study “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975) as it applies to the workplace, little is known about the impact of leadership on followers’ flow experiences. The current study examined the effect of transformational leadership on followers’ experiences of flow. It was hypothesized that transformational leaders would have an indirect effect on flow through their positive influence on psychological climate. Bakker’s (2008) WOLF scale was used to assess work-related flow. Results supported the hypothesis; psychological climate fully mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and flow. Transformational leaders had a strong indirect effect on all three components of work-related flow: intrinsic motivation, work enjoyment, and absorption. It was also hypothesized that each of the five climate dimensions would significantly mediate the leadership-flow relationship. The dimensions were examined simultaneously in a multiple mediator model to identify the unique contribution of each dimension. Results indicated that three dimensions were significant mediators of the leadership-flow relationship: contribution, recognition, and challenge. Because Kahn (1990) found these dimensions to be indicative of psychological meaningfulness, this study builds on other research linking transformational leadership to perceptions of meaning. While transformational leadership strongly predicted all five climate dimensions, two dimensions failed to contribute to the prediction of flow and to the overall mediating effect of climate: role clarity and supportive management. Longitudinal research is needed to validate the causal nature of the findings in this study. By conceptualizing “flow” as a specific form of momentary cognitive engagement, the present study illustrates the applicability of “flow” to the workplace. The findings of this study point to leadership behaviors and climate conditions that are conducive to flow. Managers seeking to improve employee engagement can apply these findings to the workplace.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / Donald A. Saucier / Three studies were conducted to further validate the belief in pure evil (BPE) and belief in pure good (BPG) scales (Webster & Saucier, 2012). Study 1 assessed the relationships between BPE, BPG, and sociopolitical ideology, while Study 2 assessed the relationships between BPE, BPG, and various forms of religiosity. Study 1 and Study 2 also tested whether BPE and BPG predicted aggression and helping via support for relevant foreign (Study 1) or domestic (Study 2) policy issues above and beyond sociopolitical attitudes and religiosity, respectively. Study 3 tested whether BPE and BPG predicted evaluations of a prototypically (vs. non-prototypically) evil perpetrator and a prototypically (vs. non-prototypically) good apprehender. Together, these three studies showed that BPE consistently related to greater aggression and less helping, while greater BPG consistently related to less aggression and more helping, while demonstrating convergence but not redundancy with variables known to justify/suppress aggression or helping. In sum, these studies further demonstrate the reliability and validity of the BPE and BPG scales as well as provide solid groundwork for future correlational and experimental research on these constructs.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / Lester C. Loschky / While watching a film, the viewer begins to construct mental representations of it, which are called events. During the opening scene of a film, the viewer is presented with two distinct pieces of information that can be used to construct the event, namely the setting and an action by the main character. But, which of these two constructs are first cognitively represented by the viewer? Experiment 1 examined the time-course of basic level action categorization with superordinate and basic level scene categorization using masking. The results indicated that categorization occurred in a course-to-fine manner, inconsistent with Rosch et al.’s (1976) basic level theory. Interestingly, basic level action categorization performance did not reach ceiling when it was processed for a 367 ms SOA, suggesting that additional scene information and processing time were required. Thus, Experiment 2 examined scene and action categorization performance over multiple fixations, and the scene information that was fixated for each categorization task. Both superordinate and basic level scene categorization required only a single fixation to reach ceiling performance, inconsistent with basic level primacy, whereas basic level action categorization took two to three fixations, and led to more object fixations than in either scene categorization task. Eye movements showed evidence of a person bias across all three categorization tasks. Additionally, the categorization task did produce differences in the scene information that was fixated (Yarbus, 1967). However, could basic level theory still be correct when subjects are given a different task? When the same scene images were named, basic level action terms were used more often than basic level scene category terms, while superordinate level action terms were used relatively less often, and superordinate level scene category terms were hardly ever used. This shows that linguistic categorization (naming) is sensitive to informative, middle-level categories, whereas early perceptual categorization makes use of coarse high level distinctions. Additionally, the early perceptual advantage for scene categorization over basic level action categorization suggests that the scene category is the first construct that is used to represent events in scene images, and maybe even events in visual narratives like film.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Sonya L. Britt / Maurice M. MacDonald / This dissertation, consisting of three studies, explores the influence of self-esteem upon retirement planning behaviors. Data for all three essays was obtained from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY79). A Theory of Self-Esteem (Cast & Burke, 2002) served as a theoretical framework for each study. The first essay examined the association between information search behaviors and retirement planning actions upon two dimensions of self-esteem, consisting of efficacy and worth. Both information search behaviors and retirement planning actions were found to be associated with both dimensions. Attained levels of education and the masculine gender were also found to be significantly associated with each self-esteem dimension. Essay two explored creditworthiness as part of the identity self-verification (Stryker, 1980) and self-esteem buffer mechanism, and its association with pre-retirement planning behaviors. Higher levels of self-esteem, attained level of education, net worth, and net income were all found to be associated with individuals who were likely to engage in one or more preretirement planning behavior. Creditworthy practices, however, were not found to be associated with pre-retirement planning behaviors in this study. Essay three postulated that respondents who possessed a composite psychosocial profile consisting of Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965), Pearlin’s mastery scale (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978), and Rotter’s locus of control scale (Rotter, 1966) would be associated with engaging in one or more retirement planning behavior. Results showed that a composite psychosocial profile is associated with individuals likely to engage in one or more retirement planning behaviors. Attained levels of education, net worth, net income, and age were found to be associated with individuals likely to engage in one or more retirement planning behaviors. Results of these three studies demonstrate that an association exists between self-esteem and retirement planning behaviors. This study offers the first exploration of A Theory of Self-Esteem (Cast & Burke, 2002) in a consumer finance context since the theory’s establishment ten years ago. These findings are important to academicians, financial planners, financial counselors, financial therapists, and policymakers in developing future research, strategies for financial success, and in the formulation of public policy to promote personal financial well-being.

Master of Science / Department of Psychological Sciences / Mary Cain / Individuals suffering from depression primarily rely on pharmacological interventions to alleviate the incapacitating symptoms of the disorder. In addition to genetic differences underlying the etiology of depression, environmental factors play a key role as well. For example, environmental enrichment results in various neurotransmitter alterations, significantly affecting serotonin. To test the efficacy of novel antidepressant drugs in the preclinical laboratory setting, researchers commonly implement the forced swim test (FST) for rats or mice. However, the effect of environmental enrichment on the expression of depressive-like states in the FST is unclear, and it is unknown whether environmental enrichment or social isolation can alter the efficacy of the commonly prescribed antidepressant drug, fluoxetine. In the present study, locomotor activity and FST performance were measured after 30 days of rearing in enriched (EC), standard (SC), and isolated (IC) conditions. Results showed that regardless of the significant effect of fluoxetine on locomotor activity in EC, SC, and IC rats, fluoxetine failed to increase swimming and decrease immobility in all three environmental conditions, with enriched-fluoxetine rats displaying significantly less swimming behavior in the FST than enriched rats receiving vehicle control injections. These results suggest that differential rearing, specifically environmental enrichment, can alter the efficacy of antidepressants and may suggest that enrichment reverses the effects of fluoxetine.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychological Sciences / Jerome Frieman / Spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) live in highly-complex, female-dominated groups called “clans.” Due to their social arrangement, spotted hyenas were a logical species on which to test the social complexity hypothesis. In the present study, they were presented with a series of puzzle boxes designed to test problem-solving behavior. The five puzzles varied in difficulty. All spotted hyenas solved the puzzle with the lowest difficulty level, five out of six solved the medium puzzles at least once, and one out of six solved the high difficulty puzzle. Some decreases in behavior diversity and time working on the puzzles were observed over successful trials; however, the decreases were only significant for successful trials of one medium-level puzzle. Decreases in work time were observed for some unsuccessful trials and the decrease was statistically significant for the highest difficulty puzzle. Overall, spotted hyenas were proficient at problem solving in the present study. Social learning is an important component of a lengthy juvenile period for spotted hyenas, and they have also been shown to influence one another’s feeding behavior. Furthermore, spotted hyenas participate in scramble competition when feeding and forage for and hoard food. In light of these behaviors, social learning was examined using the social transmission of a flavor preference (STFP) procedure. STFP was not observed overall. The sex of the subjects did not significantly influence the results; however, subjects that interacted with each other longer were significantly more likely to show STFP. The STFP procedure may not be sensitive enough to detect social learning in spotted hyenas. Perhaps spotted hyenas have no need to learn STFP due to their digestive and/or immune systems. The results of the current experiments make important contributions to existing knowledge. Data from other species like spotted hyenas are vital for evaluating the generality of the social complexity hypothesis since support thus far has come from data on primates. This study was the first to investigate STFP in a species from the Feliformia suborder. Additionally, finding more evidence that spotted hyenas have advanced cognitive abilities is essential for researchers and zoo personnel who work with spotted hyenas in captivity.

Doctor of Philosophy / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Jared R. Anderson / Using a representative sample of married, active duty Air Force service members (N= 29,254), a theoretical model of community functioning was tested to examine the association between community functioning and three family outcomes (i.e., parent-child relationship satisfaction, family coping, and marital satisfaction). Tests of indirect relationships included measures of psychological resilience, depression, and PTSD, while rank and gender were examined as potential moderators. Results using structural equation modeling indicated that there was a direct, positive relationship between community functioning and all three family outcome variables and an indirect relationship through both psychological resilience and depression. In addition, there was a direct, negative relationship between community functioning and depression, as well as an indirect relationship through psychological resilience. Moderation was supported for rank only. These results demonstrate the importance of community functioning and resilience as they relate to service member’s mental health and family relationships. They suggest a potential framework in which community functioning and resilience may lead to reductions in individual and family risk factors.