Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1972. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-148). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Charlotte, NC, 2004. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 198-206).

This research project was designed to test, directly, the effects of perceived professional authority on producing attitude change among high school sophomores. The study utilized a social psychological theoretical orientation to examine a specific aspect of socially mediated information, namely, persuasive communication as it is influenced by the source or communicator of the persuasive message, “Authority, as it has been defined in this study, includes two factors: (1) the prestige and (2) the credibility of the source. The two professions selected were that of a physician and a social worker. It was expected that the physician, by virtue of his “higher perceived ,” authority as evidenced by previous research would be more effective in producing attitude change than would the social worker. Data was obtained by means of a modified version of the tradition pretest-posttest with control group design. Alcohol usage and abusage was selected as the topic of the persuasive communication. The dependent variable selected for study was the students’ attitude toward alcohol usage, as measured by the scores they received on an attitude instrument. The independent variable was the perceived authority of the source or communicator. The experiment utilized 140 students randomly selected from a total population of approximately 600 sophomore students. The 140 students were matched by triplets into six different experimental conditions from the scores each student received on an alcohol knowledge questionnaire. The experiment was conducted on two different days. On the first day, the students received the alcohol knowledge questionnaire; on the second day, the pretest, stimulus, and posttest were administered. A single actor, assuming both the physician and the social worker roles, delivered an identical message concerning the detrimental physical and psychological effects of alcohol usage. Statistical analyses utilized an analysis of covariance. The results showed that the experimental manipulation of perceived authority had no significant effect upon the students’ attitudes toward the use and abuse of alcohol. In other words, the physician failed to be more successful in producing attitude change than the social worker. Implications for the field of social work are mainly speculative. Social work directly involves the process of communication. However, the social work profession has infrequently dealt directly with the issue of influence (persuasion) as it is related to attitude change. The question of authority as it related to the effectiveness of the social worker still remains unanswered.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts Masters (Clinical Psychology). September 2018 / South Africa has seen its crime levels continuously rise; hence, South Africans are exposed to more trauma incidences that may cause posttraumatic stress symptoms. In addition, South Africa has been described as an angry nation with retaliatory behaviours such as road rage and xenophobic attacks on the increase. This research study hypothesized that exposure to multiple trauma events is related to the anger and aggression witnessed in South Africa. In a sample of 388 students findings found that as trauma exposure increases so do the posttraumatic symptoms. In particular, gender differences showed that multiple trauma exposure affect males and females differently. Females in particular reported higher intrusion symptoms and more anger than their male counterparts. Conversely, males reported increased propensity for aggressive responding with increased trauma exposure. This study highlights the high trauma exposure rates that South Africans are exposed to with females being particularly vulnerable. / M T 2019

No description available.

No description available.

An investigation of factors in the persuasion process was conducted in this thesis. Personalitys factors of dogmatism and Internal-External locus of control were examined to determine whether they would be meaningful predictors of opinion change to a persuasive communication. The researcher also examined whether these two personality factors would interact with varying degrees of source credibility.The researcher had expected both personality factors would be significant predictors of a criterion of attitude change, and that once statistical control for dogmatism and Internal-External locus of control had been provided, there would not be a significant relationship at the .05 level between source credibility and attitude change.To test these assumptions a controlled experiment was conducted with 94 subjects drawn from three Ball State University Journalism classes. The subjects were administered a pretest to determine their initial attitude to an issue of tuition tax credits (i.e., a credit that may be deducted from parents' income tax for children attending college). Subjects were subsequently exposed-to a persuasive communication which argued against the tuition tax credit proposal, and then retested to determine whether there had been a shift in opinion. After subjects had responded to the posttest they were asked to argue for and against the topic. According to Rokeach's theory of the "open and closed mind," the researcher had expected to find argumentation to be related to a person's belief system, whether it was open or closed, and therefore also correlated with attitude change.Findings of the multiple regression analysis failed to substantiate the original assumptions and the research hypotheses predicting a significant relationship between the two personality factors and attitude change at the .05 level were rejected.Argumentation, however did prove to be related to attitude change, significant beyond the .01 level, but was unbound to the two personality factors. The researcher proposed that this relationship could have been the result of cognitive dissonance on the part of subjects when they were forced to choose between two positively valued beliefs: 1) a belief that tuition tax credits could help ease the burden of rising college costs, and 2) a more traditional belief that "each man whould pull his own weight in society."According to this theory, subjects who changed in their initial liking for tuition tax credits from the pretest to posttest felt compelled to offer counterarguments to justify their switch in opinion in the face of information that tuition tax credits could ultimately benefit them.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2001. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-145). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.