The purpose of this study was to explore the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in medical laboratory science, as perceived by laboratory administrators. To collect and evaluate these perceptions, a survey was developed and distributed to over 1,400 medical laboratory administrators throughout the U.S. during January and February of 2013. In addition to demographic-based questions, the survey contained a list of 16 items, three skills traditionally considered important for successful work in the medical laboratory as well as 13 EI-related items. Laboratory administrators were asked to rate each item for its importance for job performance, their satisfaction with the item's demonstration among currently working medical laboratory scientists (MLS) and the amount of responsibility college-based medical laboratory science programs should assume for the development of each skill or attribute. Participants were also asked about EI training in their laboratories and were given the opportunity to express any thoughts or opinions about EI as it related to medical laboratory science. This study revealed that each EI item, as well as each of the three other items, was considered to be very or extremely important for successful job performance. Administrators conveyed that they were satisfied overall, but indicated room for improvement in all areas, especially those related to EI. Those surveyed emphasized that medical laboratory science programs should continue to carry the bulk of the responsibility for the development of technical skills and theoretical knowledge and expressed support for increased attention to EI concepts at the individual, laboratory, and program levels.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Burnout is the emotional, mental, and physical strain associated with prolonged work stress (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1986). Although this is a problem in many professions, mental health providers are at a heightened risk of burnout (Salyers et al., 2015). One of the reasons for this increase in burnout may be the demands put on mental health workers to manage their own emotions while dealing with the intense emotional and mental health situations of their clients. Emotional labor, or the management of emotions at work, is conceptualized as two different emotion regulation strategies: surface acting and deep acting (Grandey, 2000). Surface acting, or faking emotions, has been associated with significant mental health and job-related problems, including burnout in populations such as call center employees and service workers. The psychological impact of deep acting, or internally attempting to change your emotions, is less clear, and may actually be associated with positive outcomes (Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011). However, little work has looked at the impact of emotional labor on mental health providers. The current study aims to examine how surface acting and deep acting are related to burnout over time in mental health providers. The proposed study is secondary analysis from a Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) funded trial “The impact of burnout on patient-centered care: A comparative effectiveness trial in mental health (Salyers et al., 2018). 193 Clinicians reported burnout symptoms and frequency of employing emotional labor strategies at baseline, with 127 clinicians completing all four time-points: baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analyses and cross-lagged panels to examine the impact of surface acting and deep acting on burnout over the course of 12 months. Surface acting was significantly associated with all three dimensions of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment) cross-sectionally. Using cross-lagged panel models, depersonalization at baseline significantly predicted surface acting three and six months later. Surface acting and personal accomplishment had a bidirectional relationship: increased surface acting at baseline was associated with personal accomplishment at three months and decreased personal accomplishment at baseline and was associated with increased surface acting at three and six months. Deep acting moderated the relationship between surface acting and personal accomplishment at baseline, but not longitudinally. The current study is the first study that has examined the relationship between surface acting and burnout in community mental health professionals. While surface acting may not result in burnout three months later for dimensions other than personal accomplishment, two dimensions of burnout (depersonalization and decreased personal accomplishment) were associated with higher levels of surface acting three and six months later. This suggests that surface acting may have consequences for feelings of accomplishment at work, but more so, may be used a coping mechanism in reaction to some aspects of burnout.

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The current study examined preservice teachers’ expectations for student academic, behavior, and social, outcomes using the Prognostic Outlook Scale (Thelen, Burns, & Christiansen, 2003). A 2 x 2 x 2 MANOVA analysis was used to determine differences between label specificity (i.e., Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition diagnostic label versus the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act [IDEA] Emotional Disturbance [ED]) label, behavioral presentation (i.e., internalizing versus externalizing) and symptom severity (i.e., mild versus severe). The goal was to identify labels that elicit higher expectations for students with ED in order to inform the labeling practices within the school setting. Results suggested statistically significant differences for the behavioral presentation (p < .001) condition. Statistically significant interactions for behavioral presentation and label specificity (p = .043) and behavioral presentation and severity (p = .045) were also found. Implications and limitations of findings will be discussed.

The Stroop effect is commonly demonstrated by measuring the time required to identify the colour of the ink (e.g. blue) in which a colour word (e.g. RED) is printed and illustrates a strong interference effect when the prepotent response of processing the word must be inhibited to respond correctly to the colour of the ink. Longer response latencies in colour-identification tasks involving emotional words versus neutral words, an effect dubbed the Emotional Stroop (ES), is often likened to the type of interference found in the Stroop task. However, research has suggested that the effect of attentional modulation in Stroop tasks may be very different from the kind of emotional interference found when comparing reaction times to emotional versus neutral words (McKenna & Sharma, 2004). Proportional congruency experiments using the Stroop task manipulate the amount of incongruity present in a block of trials (Logan & Zbrodoff, 1979), and demonstrate attentional modulation as a change in the size of the Stroop effect such that a greater amount of Stroop interference in a block is associated with a smaller Stroop effect. Manipulating the proportion of interference trials may inform understanding of the differences between Stroop colour-word interference and emotional-word interference. In three experiments, we manipulated the proportion of emotional words in a mixed-list design to study the effect of proportion manipulation on the ES. An enlarged ES was found in blocks of trials that contained more emotional interference; a finding contrary to attentional modulation seen for proportion manipulations of congruency in the Stroop task. The differences between the ES effect and the Stroop effect are discussed, including the role of response incongruity as one possible reason for the discrepancy. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / In three experiments, we investigated the role of proportionally more or less emotional interference on a colour naming task. Emotional interference in the form of emotional words was compared to response interference where participants see mismatched and matched colour words (e.g. the word ‘NIGHTMARE’ in green versus the word ‘BLUE’ in green). We expected participants to be able to learn which blocks contained more emotional word content and to adapt in order to reduce this slow-down effect. Instead, participants were especially slow on emotional words when they were in blocks that contained more emotional word interference. The possible importance of emotional stimuli to participants over the task demands of naming the colour of a word, as compared to other kinds of interference, is discussed.

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Conspiracy theory beliefs have become ubiquitous within our society. One cannot partake in any form of media without confronting different conspiracy theories, such as beliefs that the Earth is flat, that birds are not real, that the moon landing was fake, or that vaccines cause autism spectrum disorder. Conspiracy theories are beliefs that revolve around false explanations of public and political events concerning a secret organization with malicious intent. What makes people vulnerable to conspiracy theory beliefs? Prior research indicates that people often adopt conspiracy beliefs in an attempt to reduce feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and threat. Unfortunately, prior research also suggests that conspiracy theory beliefs might not relieve these negative emotional states. As a result, one might conclude that conspiracy theory beliefs are misguided attempts to regulate one’s emotional state during times of anxiety and uncertainty. The goal for the current research was to gain a greater understanding of who may be more susceptible to conspiracy theory beliefs. As prior research has shown that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) often predict poorer emotion regulation, we wanted to explore whether ACEs may predict conspiracy theory beliefs as explained through emotion dysregulation. In this exploratory research, we recruited 719 participants online through Sona at East Tennessee State University (Mage= 19.98) and asked participants to complete two scales to measure conspiracy theory beliefs, the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale (GCB) and the Conspiracy Mentality Scale (CM), as well as self-report measures of ACEs and emotion dysregulation. Results showed that ACEs did not directly predict conspiracy theory beliefs; however, when emotional dysregulation was included as a mediator, ACEs predicted conspiracy theory beliefs on both GCB and CM scales. This suggests that people who indicated experiencing more ACEs within the first 18 years of life tended to score higher in emotion dysregulation and will have more difficulty regulating their own emotions when it comes to social and environmental problems. Because of this, individuals who experienced more ACEs may rely on external factors and maladaptive coping strategies, such as conspiracy theory beliefs, to regulate their negative emotional states. Although ACE scores were not a direct determining factor in conspiracy theory beliefs, they can be used to reveal and better understand other maladaptive traits and the possibility of developing psychological disorders in the future. As this research was exploratory, future research will need to confirm these findings, ideally with a more diverse sample in age, race and educational background. Despite these limitations, the current study aids in our understanding about who may be more susceptible to engaging in conspiracy theory beliefs and can inform about possible interventions in the future.

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