Despite a wealth of studies, no consistent personality predictors of scholastic cheating have been identified. However, several highly-relevant variables have been overlooked. I address this void with a series of three studies. Study 1 was a large-scale survey of a broad range of personality predictors of self-reported scholastic cheating. The significant predictors were psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism, low Agreeableness and low Conscientiousness. However, only psychopathy remained significant in a multiple regression. Study 2 replicated this pattern using a naturalistic, behavioural indicator of cheating -- plagiarism as indexed by the internet service Turn-It-In. The psychopathy association still held up after controlling for intelligence. Finally, Study 3 examined possible motivational mediators of the association between psychopathy and cheating. Unmitigated achievement and moral inhibition were successful mediators whereas fear of punishment was not. Implications for researchers and educators are discussed.

<p> Supervision is an essential component in the development of scientist-practitioner psychologists, and currently one of the primary ways that aspiring professional psychologists develop practical skills and receive training in their field. Although research has demonstrated that supervisors utilize diverse approaches, the literature has not yet identified different supervisor personal styles and the effects that these may have on supervision. This study contributes to the understanding of the personal styles of supervisors by adapting the psychotherapy construct known as the personal style of the therapist (PST) to the assessment of the personal style of the supervisor (PSS). The study focused on developing the scale, evaluating its psychometric properties, and identifying broad similarities and differences in supervisory styles. The result is a 34 item self-report scale that evaluates eight distinct dimensions of a supervisor's personal style. The psychometrics of the measure were evaluated, as well as general tendencies in supervisors' PSS and differences based on demographic characteristics. Findings indicate that supervisors sampled tended to: work within a flexible framework; bring themselves into supervision, either by self-disclosing or revealing their emotional states; think about supervisees in their personal time; be slightly more facilitative than didactic; have a slightly more active approach to managing conflict; and view multicultural issues as central to supervision. PSS differences were found based on supervisor's gender, ethnicity, licensure level, supervision model, psychotherapy model, and hours of supervision provided a week. A discussion of the implications of the findings and possible training uses of the PSS-Q as well as the limitations of the study is included.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this quantitative, single-subject research was to examine the effects of hemisphere integration on maladaptive behaviors as measured by the BASC-III assessment. Morgan and Sideridis report that problem behavior rates in United Schools range from 10-30% and 92% of teacher respondents identified that problem behaviors have worsened over their careers (2013). Research has been done on the importance of neuroscience in the field of education, but there is a gap between the research and application. Baseline data on the targeted behaviors was collected by administering the BASC-III Teacher Rating Scale (TRS) on the participant to two special education teachers and a general education teacher, as well as, having the participant independently fill out the Self-Report of Personality (SRP). The student then engaged in two daily integrated hemisphere activities in the form of a Tell Me Activity. Data was collected on the frequency of errors and the duration of that activity. The intervention was administered for 30 trials. After the 30 trials, all participants were then given the BASC-III assessment again. Pre and Post BASC-III T Scores were compared to determine student growth. The participant showed growth in 20 out of 45 BASC-III categories over three TRS reports (15 categories each report). The participant also showed growth in 8 out of 15 BASC-III categories on the SRP. While although the participant showed growth, the participant showed minimum growth in functional levels. Overall, this research remains inconclusive due to the researcher&rsquo;s inability to determine the functional relation between the intervention and maladaptive behaviors.</p><p>

<p>This study was designed to evaluate the ability of Mind Reading, a computerized program created for individuals with autism spectrum disorders, to improve the emotion recognition abilities of juvenile offenders. Emotion recognition is one component of empathy, a quality that has been shown to be deficient in juvenile offenders. Determining methods to help reduce offending, including investigating whether subcomponents of empathy can be impacted individually, is necessary to help improve the safety of society and to provide effective services to offenders. The study contributed to the body of knowledge related to impacting the behaviors of juvenile offenders. A sample of 13 juveniles offenders was divided into treatment and control groups. Both groups completed pretreatment assessments of empathy and emotion recognition. The treatment group used the Mind Reading program; the control group had treatment as usual. The two control groups were reevaluated after the intervention to determine if the Mind Reading program impacted either overall empathy or emotion recognition skills. The study results did not reach statistical significance as there was not enough power to detect changes. Although not statistically significant, the treatment group demonstrated a trend toward higher levels of emotion recognition, indicating the potential utility of the Mind Reading program and the need for larger studies to further investigate the program?s utility. An individualized, computer-based education/treatment program could potentially provide support to a large number of difficult-to-reach youth.

<p> Relationship conflict in groups has been shown to be detrimental to group outcomes, and research notes that emotion or affect plays a significant part in its development. The Need for Affect (NFA) is a construct that reflects an individual&rsquo;s attitude toward emotion and their level of desire to either approach or avoid emotion-inducing situations This study examined the relationship between NFA and relationship conflict in groups, then sought to determine whether the neuroticism personality trait was a moderator to that relationship. Members of 14 small workgroups (N = 68) in various organizations were administered a 67-question survey designed to (1) measure their individual need for affect level, (2) score their Big Five personality traits, and (3) measure intragroup conflict in their respective groups. Neuroticism was one of the five personality traits of interest because it has been shown to have a negative correlation with NFA. Pearson&rsquo;s correlational analysis was run to test the neuroticism &ndash; NFA relationship, as well as the NFA &ndash; relationship conflict relationship. PROCESS moderation analysis was also conducted to test the moderation effect of neuroticism on the NFA &ndash; Conflict relationship. There was a significant negative correlation between neuroticism and NFA. However, no significant relationship existed between NFA and relationship conflict, and neuroticism did not significantly moderate that relationship.</p><p>

<p> Many people with a history of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) report lingering symptoms that cause difficulties in everyday functioning as well as interpersonal communication. These changes are likely due to cognitive and emotional processing changes following injury. The association between personality and executive functioning (EF) is an emerging field with a small but growing body of research. Overall, that research has suggested that there is some relationship between personality, cognition, and emotional factors. Existing research exploring the interaction of personality and EF has tended to sample populations without executive dysfunction. Not all individuals with mild TBI are reported to have enduing cognitive and other impairments, but a recognized proportion report ongoing problems&mdash;i.e., the so-called &ldquo;miserable minority&rdquo; described by Ruff et al. (1996). </p><p> A sample of 19 veterans with a history of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) was recruited from Sierra Nevada Healthcare System. Consistent with past research, veterans were tested for personality using the NEO-Five Factor Inventory-3 and executive functioning using three measures: DKEFS Color-Word, DKEFS Verbal Fluency and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. </p><p> Significant associations were found between Neuroticism and Inhibition, Agreeableness and Inhibition as well as Openness and Updating. Findings are consistent with common persistent symptoms following TBI: decreased energy reserve, headache and increased sensory overstimulation. Findings support using NEO assessment measures in clinical assessment to describe daily functioning in common language to make targeted recommendations. Future research in different TBI populations (moderate, severe, polytrauma) could strengthen findings. It is also recommended that the NEO measures are used to measure response to treatment.</p><p>

Despite a wealth of studies, no consistent personality predictors of scholastic cheating have been identified. However, several highly-relevant variables have been overlooked. I address this void with a series of three studies. Study 1 was a large-scale survey of a broad range of personality predictors of self-reported scholastic cheating. The significant predictors were psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism, low Agreeableness and low Conscientiousness. However, only psychopathy remained significant in a multiple regression. Study 2 replicated this pattern using a naturalistic, behavioural indicator of cheating -- plagiarism as indexed by the internet service Turn-It-In. The psychopathy association still held up after controlling for intelligence. Finally, Study 3 examined possible motivational mediators of the association between psychopathy and cheating. Unmitigated achievement and moral inhibition were successful mediators whereas fear of punishment was not. Implications for researchers and educators are discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

As a genre, fantasy seeks to validate the unconscious world of dreams, to insist not merely on its existence in the human psyche, but on its essential, vital presence. A work of fantasy begins, typically, with the implicit or explicit suggestion of "preferable modes of reality" (Spivack 1987, x) and moves toward the hero's integration of previously unconscious elements of the self. The narrative structure mirrors that movement: at the heart of fantasy is the journey toward a goal and the subsequent return home. This circular journey is an apt metaphor for the quest for identity, which is the focus of my dissertation. To be "at home"--spiritually and soulfully with our deepest selves, one guide in the fantasy realm insists--is the ultimate goal of mortal life. The introductory chapter contains an overview of relevant Jungian concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious and Eriksonian life-cycle psychology which help illuminate the universal elements of the hero's quest. The choice of works for my study reflects my premise that the quest for identity takes shape according to the hero's place in the life cycle. The pragmatic values, goals, and struggles of persona-crafting, for example, differ greatly from those of mid-life reckoning with mortality. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and John Ruskin's tale, "The King of the Golden River", are the focus of the second chapter, which concerns the individuation of child heroes. The third chapter treats works with heroes in the transformative stage between adolescence and adulthood: Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I, Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and George MacDonald's Phantastes. In the fourth chapter, the quest for a renewed sense of identity takes the form of a dialectic between past and present selves in C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces and Le Guin's Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea. The concluding chapter examines MacDonald's Lilith and H. Rider Haggard's She, two works which give imaginative treatment to concepts of afterlife and the unnatural prolongation of mortal life, respectively.

An empirical study was performed to test two explanations of changes in beliefs following from major life events. On the one hand, Cognitive-experiential Self-theory would predict that, in the aftermath of major life events, individuals go through a personal process of adjusting their basic beliefs about self and world on the basis of what they have experienced. On the other hand, script theory and social constructionist thought would predict that the well socialized individual has prior knowledge of the changes in cognition that should accompany any major life event. According to these approaches, when the event occurs, the individual undergoes the very changes he or she already knew one should undergo. Reports of actual and hypothetical experiences of seven major life events by 272 undergraduates indicated that for six of the seven events those who had and had not experienced the event had virtually identical understandings of the effects of the event. For the seventh event, sexual abuse, a coherent pattern of differences between the reports of those who had and had not experienced the event was found. The results were interpreted as largely supporting the script and social constructionist position. The contribution of personal experience to socially held scripts was also discussed.

<p> Athletes are given many forms of advice about how to think in ways that promote persistence in the face of aversive and fatigue-producing events. This study evaluated the impact of different kinds of verbal statements on task persistence by athletes. Competitive CrossFit athletes from the Western United States were recruited to participate in one of two experiments. Experiment 1 employed a within subject, alternating treatments design (ATD); Experiment 2-used a pre-and-post group comparison. The ATD investigated the efficacy of three kinds of specific statements designed to increase performance during a demanding and stress-producing task: two were suggested by traditional sports psychology (a statement to focus on the task and a statement to distract from the task), and one suggested by Relational Frame Theory (RFT) and the concept of psychological flexibility (a statement to focus on willingness to persist in the face of aversive emotions). The pre/post group design aimed to replicate and statistically improve the power of the effects indicated in Experiment 1. Results from this program of research suggest that the statement focused on openness to experience improved task persistence significantly over baseline, and more so than a statement instructing athletes to distract themselves from the task. The willingness statement was also marginally more effective than the statement prompting the athletes to focus directly on the task.</p>