Recent global statistics estimate 20% of all cancer incidence could be prevented if Americans would modify their eating habits to increase fruit and vegetable intake to the minimum recommended level of five servings daily. Educational strategies to change eating behavior would benefit from a greater understanding of psychosocial and demographic factors related dietary behavior. Secondary analysis of a nationally representative survey of 2655 adults was completed to assess differences between low-income and high-income adults in psychosocial, demographic, and educational factors related to fruit and vegetable intake. Significant differences in self-efficacy, awareness/knowledge, and cost and availability of fruits and vegetables were found between the low-income and high-income groups. In the low-income group, 37% of the variance in total fruit and vegetable consumption was explained by psychosocial and demographic factors, with demographics, self-efficacy and awareness/knowledge being the most significant predictors. In the high-income group, 34% of the variance in total fruit and vegetable consumption was explained by psychosocial and demographic factors, with self-efficacy alone accounting for 14% of the variance. This research suggests that, regardless of income category, social cognitive factors, in particular self-efficacy and knowledge/awareness of the health message, are stronger predictors of fruit and vegetable consumption than are perceived barrier factors. Given the weaknesses of the survey instrument, the findings need to interpreted with caution. Policy inferences can be suggested from this research, but would need further research findings before implementation of nutrition policy recommendations. The implications of these research findings are that nutrition education interventions to increase fruit and vegetable consumption should be aimed at affecting those psychosocial factors that are predictive of behavior change. In particular, differences by income level between psychosocial, education, and behavior responses underscore the need for tailoring educational interventions by income group for greater impact. The most relevant psychosocial predictors of fruit and vegetable consumption in adults are self-efficacy, awareness/knowledge of the health message, social support, and weak intent. The most relevant demographic predictors were smoking status, educational level, and age. Income level appears to share variance with other demographic variables and should be explored in further research. / Ph. D.

The construct of mood (defined as a transient feeling state) has been shown in numerous studies to have a great effect on our daily lives. The purpose of the present study was twofold: (1) to investigate the effects of mood on psychomotor test performance, and (2) to examine the conceptualization of mood more closely. An experiment was conducted investigating the effects of positive (happy, elated) and negative (sad, depressed) mood on a newly developed Air Force selection battery. In addition, self-efficacy, perceived performance, and causal attributions were measured as potential contributors to the mood-performance relationship. Subjects consisted of Air Force Recruits at Lackland Air Force Base. Mood was manipulated by showing emotionally laden film clips before administering the test battery. The selection battery consisted of psychomotor tests, which measure reaction time and hand-eye coordination. The mood and performance model was tested through the structural equation modeling technique, LISREL. Results indicated that mood did not have an effect on any of the variables in the model. However, this null result was likely due to a relatively weak mood induction. Self-efficacy was found to predict both performance and perceived performance, and performance was found to predict perceived performance. Post-hoc analyses revealed that performance predicted mood such that subjects who performed well were in a better mood than subjects who performed poorly. What is still in question is whether mood, in turn, influences performance. The conceptualization of mood was examined by addressing the counter-intuitive theory by Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1988) that positive and negative mood are two independent factors. This theory was examined by comparing factor structures from two different mood scales. On a more traditional scale in which only extremely worded mood items are included, positive and negative mood factors were not found to correlate. However, on a newly constructed mood scale entitled the Composite Mood Checklist (CMC), the mood factors were found to significantly correlate in a negative direction. This finding lends evidence to Spector et al.'s (1995) argument that positive and negative mood independence is an illusion created by artifactual mood scales. / Ph. D.

The current study examined the relative effectiveness of motivational feedback compared to cognitive-behavioral skills training delivered in bibliotherapy format to college students. The effectiveness of matching alcohol abuse interventions with participant's stage of change was also explored. The study's design utilized an assessment only control group and collateral informants to strengthen the validity of the conclusions. Participation in the cognitive-behavioral skills training and motivational feedback interventions did not lead to greater reductions in participants' alcohol use and alcohol related problems than assignment to an assessment only control group. No significant differences were found between these three groups on any of the drinking measures from pre-test to l-month and from pre-test to the 2- month follow-up. Only time effects were observed on alcohol related problems and frequency of heavy alcohol use across the 3 experimental conditions. Tentative explanations for the lack of support for the effectiveness of these interventions are discussed in the paper including sample size and statistical power, intervention compliance, and intervention fidelity. A number of changes which might enhance the effectiveness of these interventions are also discussed in the paper. The study also found no significant Intervention X stage of Change X Time interactions to support the effectiveness of matching intervention to participants' stage of change. Tentative hypotheses for this finding are discussed in the paper including issues related to the measurement of stages of change. Competing hypothesis regarding the relative and incremental utility of outcome and self-efficacy expectancies were also examined in the study. Pre-test efficacy expectancies consistently predicted a significant proportion in participants' frequency of alcohol use and moderate use at 1 and 2-month follow-ups beyond concurrent use outcome expectancies were unable to add to the prediction of drinking behavior beyond self-efficacy and concurrent drinking behavior. This pattern of results support Bandura's (1986) view that efficacy expectancies subsume most of the predictive power of outcome expectancies. Further, as predicted by Bandura, prior drinking behavior alone did not fully explain future use, rather students perceptions of efficacy also guided future use. / Ph. D.

This study tested portions of a social-cognitive model that explained the mechanisms involved in the parent decision-making process that ultimately drive and maintain children's health care use. Eighty-seven primary caretakers of children ages 4 to 9 years completed measures of child health and behavior, parental stress and functioning, and social cognitive measures related to parenting and health care use. Primary care use data over the two-years prior to recruitment were collected from primary care providers. Regression analysis showed that social cognitive measures were significant predictors of pediatric primary care services. Specifically, parental stress interacted with general parenting self-efficacy; parents with high stress and high parenting self-efficacy were more likely to use pediatric primary care services. Self-efficacy for accessing physician assistance and parental outcome expectations for pediatric physician visits were positively related to pediatric primary care use. These social cognitive variables accounted for more variance than variables traditionally included in health care use research (i.e., child behavior, parental distress, and parent health care use). Best Subsets analysis resulted in an overall best predictive model that accounted for 29.8% of the variance in pediatric primary care use. In this model, the interaction between parental stress and general parenting self-efficacy was the best predictor of use, accounting for 11.5% of the variance in physician use. High internalizing behavior scores, higher self-efficacy for accessing physician assistance, use of medication, and more parent health care visits were associated with higher pediatric primary care use in this overall model. While acknowledging the role of child health and behavior, this study extends the literature by demonstrating the importance of considering parental perceptions of burden, confidence, and ability to help themselves and their family. Implications for health care professionals and directions for future research are discussed in light of these finding. / Ph. D.

The purpose of the present study was to expand researchers' understanding of work motivation by taking a pattern approach to the examination of the dimensions of goal orientation. To explore the differential behavior of people who possess different goal orientation patterns, the present study sought to verify the existence of optimal and least optimal patterns using two important motivational outcome variables: self-efficacy and exerted effort. In addition, the role of the performance-approach goal orientation (PGO) dimension within the context of goal orientation patterns was examined. Data was collected from a sample of college students who were asked to perform a puzzle solving task and complete scales assessing their effort exerted and self-efficacy related to this task. Three hundred and seventy one participants were classified into 8 patterns. The results confirmed the existence of an optimal and a least optimal pattern of goal orientation for self efficacy and partially confirmed the existence of such patterns for exerted effort. The findings also suggested that PGO is better understood when it is examined in the context of goal orientation patterns. Specifically, PGO exhibited adaptive behaviors when paired with a strong learning goal orientation (LGO) and weak performance-avoid goal orientation (AGO), and maladaptive behaviors when paired with a strong AGO and low LGO. Taken as a whole, the results indicated that the use of goal orientation patterns produces findings that have not been previously demonstrated by traditional variable-oriented approaches. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed. / Ph. D.

In this research, I attempted to show that increasing a person's computer self-efficacy is a viable route to making that person more likely to use a computer tool when given the opportunity to do so. I also show the strong link between a person's computer self-efficacy and intentions to use a computer. Computer self-efficacy is a person's belief about his or her ability to successfully use a computer. Subjects in this field experiment were 193 students in eight introductory computer classes at two colleges. I attempted to increase their computer self-efficacy through their participation in a self-efficacy-increasing strategy that used goal-setting, self-reinforcement, and feedback. Half of the subjects randomly received this strategy, and half received a placebo strategy, which was not expected to have any influence on the subjects' computer self-efficacy. Due to the subjects’ insufficient use of the strategies, I was unable to increase the computer self-efficacy of the subjects through this strategy. Although the subjects’ computer self-efficacy was not increased, I was still able to see the effect of computer self-efficacy on a person's intentions to use a computer. Of all the variables tested in this study, computer self-efficacy was the best predictor of intentions to use a computer—better than computer experience, computer ownership, academic major (computer-related vs. not computer-related), instrumentality beliefs about computers, and others. This finding showed that computer self-efficacy is a construct that people should pay attention to, particularly people who design computer tools, those who choose which tools to use, and those who train others on new computer tools. These people should particularly understand the needs of users with low computer self-efficacy and how to best meet those needs. Additionally, I tried to find out why the subjects did not participate in the use of the strategy. It appears that the main problem in my implementation of the self-efficacy strategy was not providing the subjects the proper amount of time, encouragement, and incentive for learning and practicing the strategy. My results also showed that those who used the strategy had higher computer self-efficacy than those who didn't use the strategy; that is, those who could benefit most from the self-efficacy strategy (those with low computer self-efficacy) were less likely to use it. This finding underscores the importance of providing a supportive environment for people to learn and practice the strategy, so those with low computer self-efficacy will be able to use the strategy successfully, rather than avoid the strategy before they even get a chance to learn or use it. / Master of Science

Parents of children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have been shown to experience increases in stress, depression, and anxiety, which are also associated with child behavior problems related to ASD, such as aggressive behaviors and tantrums. Literature examining potential mechanisms that underlie the relationship of child behavior problems and parental anxiety/depression are scarce. The current study seeks to examine the roles of parental stress, parent self-efficacy, and emotion coaching as mediators between child behavior problems and parental anxiety/depression. Using a sample of 134 mothers who completed an online survey, these potential mediators were tested with regression analyses. Parental self-efficacy was found to mediate parental stress and parental depression/anxiety. Parental self-efficacy was also found to moderate child conduct problems and parental emotion coaching. There was a positive relationship between conduct problems and emotion coaching for mothers with high self-efficacy. Implications and future research will be discussed. / Master of Science

Very little empirical evidence exists linking the motivational traits portion of the motivational traits and skills framework to goal setting processes. The present study explored relationships between motivational traits, task-specific self-efficacy and self-set goal level during a computer-based task. Along with direct assessment of these relationships, we assessed whether task-specific self-efficacy mediates relationships between motivational traits and self-set goal level. In the current study, we also examined the ability of motivational traits to provide an increment in the prediction of motivational outcomes over currently accepted goal orientation constructs. Analyses suggest that the motivational traits personal mastery and motivation related to anxiety are consistent predictors of task-specific self-efficacy but inconsistent predictors of self-set goal level while competitive excellence entirely unrelated to motivational outcomes. Motivational traits failed to provide any significant increment in the prediction of task-specific self-efficacy over respective goal orientation constructs. Implications and future directions are discussed. / Master of Science

Social anxiety is widely thought to be positively associated with alcohol use. However, these studies rely primarily on self-report of drinking behavior. This research aimed to further explore this research by assessing blood alcohol concentration (BAC), a physiological measure of alcohol intoxication, as the dependent measure in naturalistic settings (i.e., fraternity parties). Results from Study 1 suggest a weak relationship between self-reported anxiety levels and BAC. Study 2 was based on Burke and Stephen's (1999) proposed social cognitive model in which alcohol expectancies and drink-refusal self-efficacy act as moderators of the relationship between dispositional social anxiety and alcohol consumption. Analyses (n=86) did not support a relationship between social anxiety and alcohol use, nor the moderating effects of alcohol expectancies and drink-refusal self-efficacy. Implications for this type of research and possible future directions are discussed. / Master of Science

The present study set out to examine whether negative goal-performance discrepancy (GPD) feedback for one task could have a negative effect on goal-setting associated with an unrelated, distinct task. A series of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. Results show that large versus small negative GPD feedback on a creativity task impacted levels of specific self-efficacy for a stock-predicting task, which indicated a motivational spillover effect. However, large negative GPD on the creativity task was not evidenced to impact performance goals for the stock-predicting task, as hypothesized. Results also indicate that the larger the magnitude of negative GPD feedback, the more individuals experienced an increase in negative mood and decrease in positive mood, however mood was not evidenced to impact performance goals. / Master of Science