The Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) in recent years is beginning to become more popular. This project evolves around the development of the field as well as critiques of the field. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of CSR, it lends an interesting way to understand religion as well as religious experiences. One of those religious experiences, conversion, is examined and explored through the use of conversion narratives from western women who were formally Christian but converted to Islam. Many themes arise out of this research that paves the way for trying to understand religious experiences. Overall, the project focuses on interpreting the conversion narratives to gain a better understanding of religious conversions for the sake of anthropology, philosophy, and cognitive psychology.

The high prevalence of substance use disorders is well-documented among criminal offenders. Drug courts are specialty judicial programs designed to: 1) improve public safety outcomes; 2) reduce criminal recidivism and substance abuse among offenders with substance use disorders; and 3) better utilize scarce criminal justice and treatment resources. Drug courts operate through partnerships between the criminal justice, behavioral health and public health systems. Offenders participate in an intensive regimen of substance abuse treatment and case management while under close judicial supervision. Drug courts' effectiveness in reducing criminal recidivism and drug use has been documented through numerous primary studies as well as meta-analytic reviews. The task remains now to determine the causal mechanisms of drug courts. The current study conducted preliminary activities to develop a measure to assess drug court structures and practices based upon the Ten Key Components of drug courts (NADCP, 1997). The creation and use of such a measure is necessary to the understanding of how drug courts work, why and how best to invest scarce judicial and treatment resources to optimize drug court participant and program outcomes. An iterative process was conducted such that results from previous activities informed subsequent steps in the measurement development process. Participants consisted of a convenience sample of drug court personnel at three local drug courts as well as academic experts in drug courts and measurement. Preliminary measurement development activities included: 1) a comprehensive review of the literature; 2) semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders to inform item development; 3) construction of a draft survey protocol; 4) expert reviews of the draft survey protocol and initial item pool to assess item construct and content validity, response format and clarity; 5) pile sort activity, wherein participants sorted items into piles, one for each measure sub-construct and one `other' pile; 6) exploratory factor analyses based on a joint-proportion matrix derived from pile sort activity data on which items best represent measure sub-constructs; 7) cognitive interviews completed by key stakeholders to review items retained from exploratory factor analyses; and 8) final revisions to the item pool based upon results from cognitive interviews. The item pool developed through the current research will be used as the basis for a future large-scale pilot test to determine the true factor structure underlying the preliminary measure developed. Results of this future research are expected to identify similarities and differences in the underlying factor structure compared to the Ten Key Components.

xv, 173 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Both Buddhist scholars and psychological researchers have suggested that mindfulness practice may result in greater empathy, but previous research has found mixed results. In addition, Buddhist philosophy suggests that mindfulness should influence the perception of and felt connection to others. Little research, however, has examined such an influence. The present studies examined the effect of dispositional mindfulness, as well as short- and long-term mindfulness meditation practice, on trait and state empathy, social perception, and felt connection to others. Study 1 manipulated mindfulness with a guided meditation CD and found that participants in this condition experienced more serenity and less negative emotion relative to control conditions. Study 1 also clarified the relationship between dispositional mindfulness (measured with the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire), empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index), and felt connection (Allo-Inclusive Identity Scale). Results showed that different facets of mindfulness had different correlates. Higher observing scores were related to greater empathic concern and perspective taking; higher nonreactivity scores were related to less personal distress; and higher describing scores were associated with greater felt connection to others. Mindfulness was also associated with social perception such that higher nonreactivity scores were associated with greater ease in making emotion inferences from short video clips and higher describing scores were associated with making more mental state inferences in a modified empathic accuracy task. In Study 2, a randomized 8-week mindfulness intervention caused increases in dispositional mindfulness, especially describing scores, relative to a waitlist control condition. The intervention also resulted in increased serenity and joy and decreased negative affect and tension. Except for changes in serenity, these changes were fully mediated by increases in dispositional mindfulness. Those in the intervention condition decreased in personal distress to others' suffering, increased in the amount of mental state inferences they made for empathic accuracy targets, and increased in their ability to make inferences at times when the targets were actually having a thought or feeling. Thus, mindfulness training not only resulted in intrapersonal changes such as greater serenity and less tension; it also increased cognitive and emotional abilities important for empathy toward other people. / Committee in charge: Bertram Malle, Co-Chairperson, Psychology; Sanjay Srivastava, Co-Chairperson, Psychology; Sara Hodges, Member, Psychology; Mark Unno, Outside Member, Religious Studies

abstract: Although models for describing longitudinal data have become increasingly sophisticated, the criticism of even foundational growth curve models remains challenging. The challenge arises from the need to disentangle data-model misfit at multiple and interrelated levels of analysis. Using posterior predictive model checking (PPMC)—a popular Bayesian framework for model criticism—the performance of several discrepancy functions was investigated in a Monte Carlo simulation study. The discrepancy functions of interest included two types of conditional concordance correlation (CCC) functions, two types of R2 functions, two types of standardized generalized dimensionality discrepancy (SGDDM) functions, the likelihood ratio (LR), and the likelihood ratio difference test (LRT). Key outcomes included effect sizes of the design factors on the realized values of discrepancy functions, distributions of posterior predictive p-values (PPP-values), and the proportion of extreme PPP-values. In terms of the realized values, the behavior of the CCC and R2 functions were generally consistent with prior research. However, as diagnostics, these functions were extremely conservative even when some aspect of the data was unaccounted for. In contrast, the conditional SGDDM (SGDDMC), LR, and LRT were generally sensitive to the underspecifications investigated in this work on all outcomes considered. Although the proportions of extreme PPP-values for these functions tended to increase in null situations for non-normal data, this behavior may have reflected the true misfit that resulted from the specification of normal prior distributions. Importantly, the LR and the SGDDMC to a greater extent exhibited some potential for untangling the sources of data-model misfit. Owing to connections of growth curve models to the more fundamental frameworks of multilevel modeling, structural equation models with a mean structure, and Bayesian hierarchical models, the results of the current work may have broader implications that warrant further research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Psychology 2015

abstract: Accurate data analysis and interpretation of results may be influenced by many potential factors. The factors of interest in the current work are the chosen analysis model(s), the presence of missing data, and the type(s) of data collected. If analysis models are used which a) do not accurately capture the structure of relationships in the data such as clustered/hierarchical data, b) do not allow or control for missing values present in the data, or c) do not accurately compensate for different data types such as categorical data, then the assumptions associated with the model have not been met and the results of the analysis may be inaccurate. In the presence of clustered/nested data, hierarchical linear modeling or multilevel modeling (MLM; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) has the ability to predict outcomes for each level of analysis and across multiple levels (accounting for relationships between levels) providing a significant advantage over single-level analyses. When multilevel data contain missingness, multilevel multiple imputation (MLMI) techniques may be used to model both the missingness and the clustered nature of the data. With categorical multilevel data with missingness, categorical MLMI must be used. Two such routines for MLMI with continuous and categorical data were explored with missing at random (MAR) data: a formal Bayesian imputation and analysis routine in JAGS (R/JAGS) and a common MLM procedure of imputation via Bayesian estimation in BLImP with frequentist analysis of the multilevel model in Mplus (BLImP/Mplus). Manipulated variables included interclass correlations, number of clusters, and the rate of missingness. Results showed that with continuous data, R/JAGS returned more accurate parameter estimates than BLImP/Mplus for almost all parameters of interest across levels of the manipulated variables. Both R/JAGS and BLImP/Mplus encountered convergence issues and returned inaccurate parameter estimates when imputing and analyzing dichotomous data. Follow-up studies showed that JAGS and BLImP returned similar imputed datasets but the choice of analysis software for MLM impacted the recovery of accurate parameter estimates. Implications of these findings and recommendations for further research will be discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Psychology 2016

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Past research has shown the likelihood of work-to-family conflict in employees' struggle to manage work, family, and personal life, however, work-to-family conflict remained unexamined in employees' job attitudes at different job levels. Previous studies highlighted that employees at higher job level experience greater work-to-family conflict than employees at lower job level. The purpose of the study was to examine the moderating effects of job level (supervisory or managerial and nonsupervisory or nonmanagerial) on the relationships between work-to-family conflict and job attitudes (job satisfaction, work engagement, organizational commitment, and turnover intention). In this quantitative study, the theoretical framework included conflict theory and role enhancement theory. A convenience sampling of 149 working adults, aged 18 years to 65 years) volunteered to participate in an online survey. Participants completed an online survey. Collected data were analyzed using regression analysis. Based on the results, job level of the working adults moderated the relationships between work-to-family conflict and job attitudes, such that the relationship between work-to-family conflict and job attitudes of the working adults was stronger at high job level than at low job level.The findings may contribute to positive social change by providing useful information for human resource and management personnel of organizations in designing job level-specific training programs (e.g., work-life balance practices) and structuring appropriate settings (e.g., alternate work locations) to take control of leading, managing or coordinating projects, tasks or events in their work situations.

Changes in schools can cause teachers to experience an intensification of work as they strive to meet expectations of students, parents, and administrations. This study includes an examination of factors that may lead to work intensification (WI) for teachers. The study also includes an examination of how years of experience and teacher perceptions of administrative support may moderate the relationship between teachers' impressions of WI and their job satisfaction. Based on equity theory, data were collected using a Likert-type scale survey distributed to 9 public high schools in southern California. A test for correlation was performed followed by a hierarchal ordinal logistic regression analysis to test for significant relationships and strength of those relationships. Findings revealed at a .95 confidence level a significant relationship between factors of WI and teacher impressions of WI in the areas of the addition of more students to the classroom, fear of losing job, changes in curriculum, decreased pay, the addition of students with special needs in to the classroom, and changes in technology use in the classroom. Findings also revealed that the addition of furlough days, fear of losing job, decreased pay, and an increase of students with special needs in the classroom were significantly related to decreased job satisfaction. Findings revealed that perceptions of administrative support moderate the relationship between teacher impressions of WI and job satisfaction. This study allows for better understanding of how years of experience and administrative support may moderate the relationship between factors of WI and teacher job satisfaction so policy-makers may make better-informed choices that support student education.

Parenting children with neurodevelopmental deficits (NDDs) is very stressful, more so than the parenting of typically developing children. There is considerable research on the topic of chronic stress experienced by caregivers; however, less is understood of parental stress experienced when raising children with NDDs. The purpose of this study was to examine how parental traits and habits, in the forms of mindfulness and social support levels, affect this cohort's general stress levels. The study was guided by Self-Determination Theory, which explored how parental acts could be classified along a continuum of being intrinsically or extrinsically derived. A convenience sample of parents (n =71) with a child diagnosed with at least one NDD were recruited from online support groups on Facebook. The participants fully completed the Parental Stress Scale to measure parental stress, the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale to measure trait mindfulness, and the Family Support Scale to quantify social support to the family. Correlation analysis and multilinear regression analysis were used to determine that higher levels of social support and mindfulness in the participants predicted lower levels of perceived parental stress; the model was statistically significant, R²=.284, F(2,68)=13.504.p<.001. As a set, the two predictors accounted for 28.4% of the variation in stress. This study helps to promote positive social change by providing informing data on population-specific research, which can assist in the development of empirically supported treatments that could be used by professionals and paraprofessionals in treatment planning, therapies, and psychoeducational interventions.

People experiencing mental health illnesses such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who do not receive mental health treatment services (MHTS) are at a higher risk of committing crimes. The research problem of this study was to fill the gap in the literature concerning gender, sex at birth, and gender identity differences as predictors of attitudes toward perceived stigma in help-seeking behavior (HSB) and use of MHTS. The sample size included 5,000 participants in the de-identified secondary data set of students from 26 universities and colleges across the United States. The Healthy Minds Study collected these data in 2016-2017 using the Patient Health Questionnaire. To address the research questions guiding the study, one-way ANOVA was used to test for differences in groups based on sexual orientation and gender identity for measures of perception of stigma, use of MHTS, and HSB regarding receiving mental health services. Between groups, MANOVA was used to assess differences in groups based on gender identity and sexual orientation on a linear combination of the dependent measures of perception of stigma in use of MHTS and HSB. There were directional differences between groups based on independent variables gender and sexual orientation on measures of the dependent variables perception of stigma in use of MHTS and of HSB. However, a closer examination of the results indicated that the effect size associated with the directional differences was weak. The results from this study may help clinicians to identify treatment challenges related to biological sex and gender identity and help to influence future interventions to better accommodate the contemporary population of men and women experiencing symptoms of PTSD.