Thesis (M.S.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Dellaert, Frank; Committee Co-Chair: Rehg, James; Committee Member: Bobick, Aaron; Committee Member: Essa, Irfan; Committee Member: Smyth, Padhraic. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

This thesis examines an effort to increase energy conservation in low-income housing communities through an educational program. The Saving Green Program offered at Foundation Communities in Austin, Texas attempts to educate residents about their energy usage and ways to reduce it. Activities include a class, an in-home energy visit, and energy feedback reports. We take several approaches in analyzing the program’s impact. First, we conduct a descriptive characterization of participants with regards to income, household makeup, and electricity usage. We then interviewed program participants in order to assess impact and participant reaction. Finally, we conduct two quantitative analyses to measure effectiveness. These include a comparison between groups of participants and non-participants, and a comparison of participants’ electricity usage after the program against their own usage before the program. Our descriptive assessment shows that most in our sample are either single seniors or households with multiple children. Their electricity usage varies however nearly half of load usually goes to cooling and their usage appears to be uncorrelated with income. Load patterns are dictated more by apartment size than anything else. Interviews show that participants readily absorbed and disseminated information regarding plug loads, but had poor understanding of the importance of cooling load. Finally, our quantitative analysis shows, in accordance with the interviews, that participants did not exhibit any systematic change in electricity consumption in summer, however there is some evidence that winter load decreased after the program. / text

No description available.

Tyrimo tikslas buvo atskleisti ikimokyklinio amžiaus vaikų ir tėvų santykius kaip humaniškumo ugdymo šeimoje prielaidą. Darbe, remiantis ikimokyklinio amžiaus vaikų, jų tėvų ir pedagogų tyrimo duomenimis bei literatūros šaltiniais, parodoma, kad šeima tuo laikotarpiu vaidina pagrindinį vaidmenį formuodama vaikų humanišką elgesį. Vaikai humaniškai elgiasi su kitais žmonėmis tik tada, kai šeimoje vyrauja tinkama atmosfera, tėvai yra jautrūs, atviri ir atsakingi savo vaikams, išlieka prieš juos orūs. Tėvai gana humaniškai elgiasi su ikimokyklinio amžiaus vaikais, glaudžiai su jais bendrauja, paguodžia, supranta, yra jautrūs jų išgyvenimams, pagiria vaikų nuopelnus, su jais dalinasi ir sako tiesą, skatina ir patį vaiką elgtis humaniškai. Šeima duoda pirmą supratimą apie vaiką supantį pasaulį, jame esančius žmonių tarpusavio santykius. Šeima pirmoji padeda dorovinius pamatus, duoda pirmą supratimą apie humaniškus santykius tarp žmonių, ugdo tokius būdo bruožus, kaip atvirumą, jautrumą, užuojautą kitam. orumą, sąžiningumą ir t.t. Tyrimo metodika: L tipo (standartizuotas pokalbis su vaikais) ir Q tipo (uždaro tipo anketos pedagogams ir tėvams) diagnostinių duomenų. Ji padėjo tiksliai sužinoti tėvų, vaikų ir pedagogų nuomonę apie tėvų humanišką elgesį su vaikais. Tyrimo metodika buvo patikima, nes visas humaniško elgesio vertinimas buvo tik iš tiriamųjų ir nebuvo kito žmogaus subjektyvumo, primestos nuomonės. Tyrime dalyvavo 60 vaikų ir 60 tėvų bei 20 pedagogų iš estetinio lavinimo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The objective of research was to reveal the relationships between the preschool children and their parents, as the prerequisite of humanity education in a family. Based on the research data on the preschool children, their parents and educators and according to the sources of literature, work presents that in the given period of time family plays the fundamental role in forming the humane behavior of children. Children behave humane with other people only when there is the proper atmosphere at home, when parents are sensitive, open and responsible to their children and remain dignified in their eyes. The behavior of parents is enough humanistic with the preschool children, they closely communicate, comfort, understand their children, are sensitive to their empathies, commend the children’s merits, share with them, tell the truth and motivate the child to behave humane. Family gives the first understanding of the surrounding the child world and the people relations in it. Family is the first to lay the moral foundation; it gives the first understanding of the humane relations between people, and nurtures such characteristics as openness, sensitivity, compassion to other person, dignity, honesty and etc. Methods of research: L type (standardized conversation with children) and Q type (closed type questionnaires for educators and parents) diagnostic data. It specifically helped to find out the opinion of parents, children and educators on the humane behavior with the children... [to full text]

The following research paper was concerned with five basic objectives:(1) outlining the major theoretical and methodological approaches used in the reconstruction of early hominid social behavior/social structure as a context in which to view Richard Wrangham's and Michael Ghiglieri's phylogenetic models of stem-hominid social structure.(2) examining Wrangham's and Ghiglieri's models of stem-hominid and chimpanzee social structure.(3) indicating how theoretical and methodological aspects of structure essentially represent an extension of the theoretical and methodological approaches the same researchers applied to their models of chimpanzee social structure.(4) addressing the theoretical and methodological deficiences of Wrangham's and Ghiglieri's models of chimpanzee social structure.(5) providing suggestions for improved phylogenetic models of early hominid social structure.The first objective was achieved by: (a) reviewing Tooby and Devore's (1986) and Wrangham's (1986) evaluations of the major theoretical approaches and methodologies used in the reconstruction of hominid social behavior/structure (b) defining, classifying and evaluating Wrangham's and Ghiglieri's phylogenetic approaches within this context.The second objective was accomplished by outlining, analyzing, and comparing/contrasting Wrangham's and Ghiglieri's phylogenetic models of stem-hominid social structure (i.e.Wrangham 1986; Ghiglieri 1987, 1989) and Wrangham's and Ghiglieri's models of chimpanzee social structure (i.e. Wrangham 1975, 1979; Ghiglieri 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989).The third objective was achieved by recognizing how Wrangham and Ghiglieri used/stressed principles and concepts derived from evolutionary biology and/or behavioral ecology to develop their models of stem-hominid and chimpanzee social structure. This analysis showed that Wrangham's models of social structure were more favorably inclined toward the method of behavioral ecology than Ghiglieri's models, which favored a sociobiological paradigm. Furthermore, although neither researcher relied exclusively on the above theoretical approaches, the main thrust of their argument often centered around it. For instance, Wrangham's analysis of chimpanzee social structure (Wrangham 1975, 1979) indicated that the ultimate cause of that structure was ecological i.e., patchy food distribution leads to wide female dispersal for optimal foraging efficiency, which in turn favors a male kin breeding group that can maintain a territority that includes several individual female ranges. In contrast, Wrangham's phylogenetic model of the social structure of the stem-hominid (Wrangham, 1986) suggested that phylogenetic inertia may be partially responsible for the shared social features found among African Hominoidea. However, in the same work, Wrangham also suggested that further socioecological analysis of African apes may indicate whether food distribution and its effects on female dispersion/association may partially explain conservative African ape social features.Ghiglieri's phylogenetic model of the stem-hominid (1987, 1989), on the other hand, explained the conservative social features of bonobos, common chimpanzees, and hominids to be primarily a product of phylogenetic inertia and sexual selection. Furthermore, for Ghiglieri the most important sexual selection variable was a male communal reproductive strategy. This, according to Ghiglieri, is the ultimate cause of social structure. Notably, Ghiglieri (1984, 1985) had earlier stressed the overiding importance of a male communal reproductive strategy but was less dogmatic in his insistence that chimpanzees had essentially solved their ecological problems (e.g. that they had solved the food distribution problem by fusion-fission sociality; predators were never a real problem). Nevertheless, Ghiglieri's earlier position similarily expressed the idea that a communal reproductive strategy constituted the ultimate cause of social structure.The fourth objective was accomplished by presentation of an alternative model of chimpanzee social behavior which suggested that structure; the effect of phylogenetic inertia on social structure; chimpanzee social structure is the combined product of ecological and sexual selection forces: female optimal foraging, male mating strategies, and predator pressure. The model was considered by the author to be unique in that it integrated essential aspects of both Wrangham's and Ghiglieri's models and, in addition, provided support for Alexander's (1974) contention that predation pressure is an ultimate cause of ape social structure. The model also outlined scenarios for the evolution of chimpanzee group._ extensibility (fusion-fission sociality) and the capacity for warfare among chimpanzees.The last objective was achieved by a discussion of the implications that the author's model had for phylogenetic models of stem-hominid social structure. In this discussion the author reviewed the following issues as they related to the phylogenetic reconstruction of hominid social structure: the role of phylogeny and/or ecology in the causation of social encountered when using a phylogenetic referential model for the personal biases that enter into phylogenetic econstructions; pitfalls reconstruction of early hominid social evolution; the significance of chimpanzee models of social structure.The importance of the preceding study lay in its ability to stimulate improved conceptual models of African hominoid social structure. / Department of Anthropology

The relationships among counseling expectations, attitudes toward seeking psychological help, psychological distress, and intention to seek counseling have only been examined in one previous study (Vogel, Wester, Wei, & Boysen, 2005). The primary purpose of the current study was to replicate and address the limitations of the Vogel et al. (2005) study. First, a mediation analysis of attitudes on the relationship of expectations and intention to seek therapy was performed. Next, path analyses were used to test a model of the relationship among counseling expectations, attitudes toward seeking psychological help, psychological distress, and the intent to seek counseling, for men and women separately. In the hypothesized model, two separate paths were predicted to impact intentions to seek psychological help. First, three distinct expectations about counseling (personal commitment, facilitative conditions, and counselor expertise) were expected to influence attitudes toward seeking psychological help, which in turn, predicted intention to seek counseling. Second, psychological distress was expected to relate to the intent to seek therapy. Because the hypothesized model for both genders did not fit the data, exploratory path analyses were completed. In the final path model for men, additional paths from the expectancy factors personal commitment and counselor expertise to intent to seek therapy resulted in a well-fitting model. For women, an additional path between psychological distress and attitudes improved the model significantly. Impact of these findings for research and practice are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

This research examined the impact of eyewitness identification decisions on student-investigators. Undergraduates played the role of police investigators and interviewed student-witnesses who in Studies 1 and 2 had been shown either a good or poor view of the perpetrator or in Study 3 viewed either a Caucasian or an Asian criminal, in a video-taped crime. Based on information obtained from the witness, student-investigators then chose a suspect from a database containing information about potential suspects and rated the probability that their suspect was the culprit. Investigators then administered a photo lineup to witnesses, and re-rated the probability that their suspect was guilty. Student-investigators were highly influenced by eyewitness identification decisions, typically overestimating the information gained from the identification decision (except under conditions that led witnesses to be very accurate), and generally did not differentiate between accurate and inaccurate witnesses.

The first objective in this dissertation was to use microanalysis and a dyadic approach to investigate infant social responsiveness. Therefore, I developed a method that used a projective pairs framework: Parental social actions towards infants (i.e., overtures) projected particular infant behaviours. I analyzed whether infant behaviours following these overtures matched what the overture had projected; if they matched, the infant’s behaviours were a response. The data were one family’s home videos of their triplet infants (two males, one female), filmed when the infants were 6 to 15 months old. When the triplets were approximately three years old, clinical assessment indicated that one of the males had Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which impairs an individual’s social behaviors. The second objective here was to test whether the projective pairs framework would reveal early social deficits in the infant with ASD. This result would hold potential for earlier diagnosis (and thus earlier intervention). Researchers have used home videos to look for signs of ASD retrospectively, but these studies have been vulnerable to variability in the data, and often analyses of infant social behaviours did not connect these behaviours to their social, dyadic context. In this dissertation, the home videos were from one family; therefore the data were more homogeneous, and the projective pairs framework preserved the immediate context. The data for Study I were 23 minutes of excerpts (infants’ age 11-15 months). The microanalysis focused on overall infant responsiveness (i.e., the number of times each infant responded over the number of overtures that infant received). The infant with ASD was significantly less responsive than his two siblings. The data for Study II were all of the family’s home videos from when the infants were 6-15 months old (approximately 6 hours). Study II included (1) an exploration of specific functions of overtures (e.g., greeting the infant, getting the infant’s attention), and (2) an analysis of infant behaviours preceding overtures (e.g., looking at the parent, actively engaged elsewhere). The findings from Study II replicated Study I, they also painted a more complex picture. First, like his siblings, the infant with ASD responded to all non-social overtures, almost all helping overtures (e.g., taking a bottle that the parent had passed), and approximately half of overtures that served to seek his attention or to tell him to do something. Second, the infant with ASD was significantly less responsive to parental overtures that were more ambiguous (e.g., playing with the infant, narrating the infant’s actions). Third, regardless of the overture’s function, the infant with ASD was more likely to respond if he had looked at the parent immediately before the overture or if the overture included his name. A dyadic approach to the microanalysis of infant responsiveness identified those social interactions in which (1) the infant with ASD was as responsive as his siblings; (2) the infant with ASD was significantly less responsive than his siblings; and (3) the infant with ASD was the most responsive.

The purpose of this study was threefold: (a) develop, validate, and compare two measures, viewing time and choice reaction time, that sexual content induced delay (SCID; Geer & Bellard, 1996) among youth non-sexual offenders, university students, and adults who had sexually offended, (b) address some of the methodological weaknesses in prior research, and (c) examine the measures’ clinical utility by investigating their predictive validity via estimates of sensitivity and specificity. Viewing time (VT) assesses how long an individual takes to view an image of a single person while completing a task, and choice reaction time (CRT) measures how quickly and accurately an individual indicates to which category (there must be two or more from which the participant can choose) the presented stimulus belongs. I administered the two measures plus questionnaires on sexual orientation (Friedman et al., 2004) and social desirability (BIDR-6; Paulhus, 1991) to three samples: youth non-sexual offenders, university students, and adult sex offender. I examined the clinical utility of the measures by investigating their predictive validity via ROC estimates of sensitivity and specificity. Each measure consisted of a preset randomized presentation of computer-modified clothed male and female images of various ages. There are five central results from this study. First, both the VT and CRT measures produced subtest scores with high reliability, via item and scale analysis, with all three samples, and there appears to be one dominant underlying construct for both measures. Second, there were significant differences between the adult sexual offenders and the youth non-sexual offenders when assessed with the VT measures, but not between the youth non-sexual offenders and the university students. In this study, neither age nor education influenced these results. Third, there were significant differences between youth non-sexual offenders and the university sample when assessed with the CRT measure, but not between the adult sex offenders and either the youth non-sexual offenders or university students. Fourth, as evidenced by point two and three, the VT and CRT measures provided significantly different results. Finally, the VT measure demonstrated excellent clinical utility in its ability to differentiate adult heterosexual sexual offenders from non-sexual offenders (for example, AUC = 0.87 female mature images, 0.88 male child images).