Implicit association of racial stereotypes is brought about by social conditioning (Greenwald & Krieger, 2006). This conditioning can be explained by attractor networks (Sharp, 2011). Reducing implicit bias through meditation can show the effectiveness of reducing the rigidity of attractor networks, thereby reducing subjectivity. Mindfulness meditation has shown to reduce bias from the use of one single guided session conducted before performing an Implicit Association Test (Lueke & Gibson, 2015). Attachment to socially conditioned racial bias should become less prevalent through practicing meditation over time. An experimental model is proposed to test this claim along with a reconceptualization of consciousness based in meditative practice.

Objective: The goal of this research was to determine whether alternate-line shading (zebra-striping) of grid-based displays affects the strategy (i.e., “visual flow”) and efficiency of serial search. Background: Grids, matrices, and tables are commonly used to organize information. A number of design techniques and psychological principles are relevant to how viewers’ eyes can be guided through such visual works. One common technique for grids, “zebra-striping,” is intended to guide eyes through the design, or “create visual flow” by alternating shaded and unshaded rows or columns. Method: 13 participants completed a visual serial search task. The target was embedded in a grid that had 1) no shading, 2) shading of alternating rows, or 3) shading of alternating columns. Response times and error rates were analyzed to determine search strategy and efficiency. Results: Our analysis found evidence supporting a weak effect of shading on search strategy. The direction of shading had an impact on which parts of the grid were responded to most rapidly. However, a left-to-right reading bias and middle-to-outside edge effect were also found. Overall performance was reliably better when the grid had no shading. Exploratory analyses suggest individual differences may be a factor. Conclusion: Shading seems to create visual flow that is relatively weak compared to search strategies related to the edge effect or left-to-right reading biases. In general, however, the presence of any type of shading reduced search performance. Application: Designers creating a grid-based display should not automatically assume that shading will change viewers search strategies. Furthermore, although strategic shading may be useful for tasks other than that studied here, our current data indicate that shading can actually be detrimental to visual search for complex (i.e., conjunctive) targets.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the personality traits that are associated with socioeconomic mobility, specifically pertaining to individuals from working class backgrounds. Socioeconomic mobility is an important issue to examine due to the persistence of intergenerational poverty and the difficulty with which to resolve it. Extensive research explicitly shows the dilemma of intergenerational transmission of poverty exists and continues to persist regardless of revised policies. Many aspects each individual experiences have been proven to affect economic attainment, such as race, family background, parental efficacy, social discrimination, area of residency, welfare, education, and intelligence. Although these are recognized in this paper, they are, for the most part, ignored as determinants, as the focus is on the personality traits defining the upwardly mobile, and similar characteristics exist, even while disregarding the above ignored qualities. Mainly social identity theory and identity theory, but also motivational theory, personal efficacy theories, and other related theories, have determined social participation, perception of social class and poverty, control of emotions, impulse control, personal efficacy, social identity, motivation, victimization and dependence or the lack thereof, are all major determinants of mobility.

The effects of ambient room temperature on social cognition were examined in the current study. This study included 202 participants who completed a computer-based survey consisting of eight items measuring participants’ self-perception and desired social dynamics. I included these constructs because they serve to empirically examine the claims put forth by the Socio-Relational Framework of Expressive Behavior (Vigil, 2009). Participants completed the survey in experimental settings with the ambient room temperature ranging from 67.8 °F to 77.2 °F. I identified several important relationships that support the current theoretical framework, such as the differential desire for either affiliative or avoidant social responses, and the differential inflation of either empowerment or trustworthiness descriptors in colder and warmer conditions, respectively. Implications of the findings for future research are discussed.

The researcher investigates the effect of viewing positive and negative cosmetic surgery images, with short descriptive scenarios, on acceptance of cosmetic surgery. Two hundred ninety-nine participants were assigned to view one of three conditions: positive before/after cosmetic surgery pictures and an accompanying scenario, negative pictures and scenario, or no pictures or scenario (control), followed by the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale (ACSS, Henderson-King & Henderson-King, 2005), the Body Parts Satisfaction Scale (Berscheid, Walster, & Bohrstedt, 1973), and the Physical Self Description Questionnaire (Marsh, Richards, Johnson, Roche, & Tremayne, 1994). There was a significant relationship between ACSS Intrapersonal subscale and picture/scenario type, specifically that the positive picture/scenario type participants had a higher Intrapersonal Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery score. There was also a significant relationship between picture/scenario type & physicality, with four of the 11 subscales, physical activity, sport competence, strength, and endurance, being significantly related to acceptance of cosmetic surgery. Results show significant bivariate correlations between cosmetic surgery acceptance and the physicality aspect of body image as measured by the PSDQ, and total body image as measured by the BPSS. Ethnicity and gender were also significant indicators of cosmetic surgery acceptance. The researcher expects that these results could generalize to society as a whole because of the many people that view cosmetic surgery makeover shows on television. Viewing cosmetic surgery images in the media could possibly decrease body image and alter intrapersonal beliefs toward cosmetic surgery.

Music is one of the most popular activities while driving. Previous research on music while driving has been mixed, with some researchers finding music to be a distractor and some research finding music to be facilitative to driving performance. The current study was designed to determine if familiarity with the music might explain the difference found between self-selected and experimenter-selected music, and whether the difficulty of the driving conditions affected music’s relationship to driving performance. One hundred and sixty-five University students participated in a driving simulation both with music and without music. Under the “with music” condition, participants were randomly assigned to three music conditions: self-selected music, experimenter-selected familiar music, and experimenter-selected unfamiliar music. In the simulation drive, participants first drove under a simple, low-mental workload condition (car following task in a simulated suburban road) and then drove under a complex, high-mental workload condition (city/urban road). The results showed that whether music was self- or experimenter-selected did not affect driving performance. Whether the music was familiar or unfamiliar did not affect performance either. However, self-selected music appeared to improve driving performance under low-workload conditions, leading to less car-following delay and less standard deviation in steering, but also caused participants to drive faster, leading to faster mean speed and higher car-following modulus, but not more speed limit violations. Self-selected music did not have any significant effect in high-mental workload conditions.

Strategy instruction can improve memory performance, but some training programs are more effective than others. Some scholars propose that a key element to boosting the benefits from training programs is enhancing or emphasizing self-regulatory factors, such as knowledge about memory, beliefs about ability, or motivational factors. Research supporting this claim evidence adds that programs that enhance trainees’ confidence in their abilities improve memory performance and that multifactorial programs are more effective than strategy-training-only programs. Setting performance goals and receiving feedback are two self-regulatory factors known to relate to memory performance that may sometimes be included in some training programs. However, previous research has not directly compared the effectiveness of strategy instruction with and without goal-setting and performance feedback elements. This was the purpose of the present research: We compared strategy instruction with goal-setting and positively-framed feedback across three assessments of memory performance, strategy use, and task commitment. Participants were 48 university students who were randomly assigned to two conditions: All participants watched a brief memory strategy video, but participants in the Strat+GFB condition set goals for their memory performance and received positively-framed objective performance feedback and participants in the StratOnly condition did not. Research assistants conducted the experimental procedures individually with participants in 1-hour-long Zoom video calls. Primary outcome measures (memory performance, strategy use, and task commitment) were assessed three times, once before and twice after strategy instruction, with or without goal-setting and feedback between each test, depending on condition assignment. Shopping list recall tests were used to assess memory performance, and the number of to-be-recalled stimuli increased at each testing occasion as 15 additional items were added at each trial. Participants recalled more items, but a smaller percentage of the items, over time, and this pattern was not different for the experimental conditions. Additionally, number of strategies used, as self-reported on a retrospective checklist, increased from before to after strategy instruction. Importantly, the Strat+GFB condition maintained levels of commitment to the memory tests across the three trials, whereas the StratOnly condition reported drops in their task commitment. Study results emphasize that including self-regulatory factors, such as setting goals and receiving feedback, may increase commitment to a task, however those benefits may not immediately translate to better memory performance when training and testing is part of a brief, single experimental session. We suggest that future research evaluate a multiday memory intervention with the addition of goal-setting and feedback. Results of this study suggest that including goal-setting and feedback as part of a training program may benefit trainees’ commitment, which we speculate could aid individuals in maintaining persistent effort despite challenges and ultimately lead to better performance over a longer term.

The circumstances of responding to loss due to human death are among the most stressful experiences encountered in life. Although grief’s symptoms are typically considered essential to their gradual diminishment, possible negative impacts of complications related to grief are also well known, and have been associated with detriments to mental and physical health. Grief, however, can also generate transformative positive change. Thus, albeit ineludible, responding to loss is not uniformly experienced, expressed, or understood. It is also culturally-shaped, making attempts to define “normal” grief, as well as to label some grief “abnormal”—and to medicalize it—possibly problematic. Bereavement (the situation surrounding a death) and mourning (the publicly expressed response to loss due to death) are changing. Some of these changes (e.g., the increase in hospice care settings prior to deaths, and alterations in the ritual responses following all deaths—irrespective of their context) may have important implications for avoiding grief’s possible complications and for promoting its potential benefits. An improved alignment of grief theory, research, and practice is warranted; but theories of grief are diverse, and historically have not been empirically well-supported. This research articulates a new grief model, the loss-processing framework, featuring three dimensional components (perception, orientation, and direction). As a first step toward validation of the framework, also included is an empirical study examining retrospective descriptive reports of adult loss response relating to the first of these three dimensions (perception). As an interpretive, translational approach to understanding grief, the loss-processing framework may serve to positively impact grieving, health, and life quality.

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As the greatest considerations in health-care design have traditionally been functional —hygiene, efficiency, and flexibility for changing technology— hospitals have evolved to become dehumanizing spaces. In this thesis two specific groups of chronically ill children who have among the longest inpatient stays are studied: cancer and organ transplant patients. Being under immunosuppressive drugs, these children are physically vulnerable thus are kept completely isolated. These long stays and isolation can be very depressing for them. This thesis undertakes the challenge of designing a fully isolated space that doesn’t feel like one or in other words “a micro-town within a bubble”. The author intends to achieve this goal through strong visual connections, natural lighting, and creative space planning.