Psychology Dissertations and Theses: Recent submissions
Now showing items 441-459 of 459
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Offset Masking in a Divided Visual Field Study
(University of Kansas, 2008-02-25)A problem in divided visual field studies which use event-related potentials as a dependent measure is the large number of horizontal eye movements participants make during experimental trials. Past attention research ... -
From Baby Babble to Childhood Chatter: Predicting Infant and Toddler Communication Outcomes Using Longitudinal Modeling
(University of Kansas, 2008-07-31)The importance of early communication development for later literacy, school achievement, and social interaction cannot be understated, according to a large body of literature. There is a consensus in the field of childhood ... -
Collateral Nonverbal Learning in a Peer-mediated Social Communication Intervention for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
(University of Kansas, 2008-04-07)Assessed collateral effects on the nonverbal communication behaviors of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders during their participation in two verbal communication interventions. Data was obtained through coding videotaped ... -
Information Processing in Multiple Sclerosis: Accuracy versus Speed
(University of Kansas, 2007-12-27)Previous research has suggested that slowed speed of information processing is the primary cognitive impairment that occurs in multiple sclerosis (MS). The proposed study employed multiple cognitive measures to replicate ... -
What Happens When Low Status Groups Start Moving Up? Prejudice and Threat to Group Position
(University of Kansas, 2007-11-20)Does threat operate as a cause or a consequence of prejudice? Three studies investigated how high status groups respond to low status groups' advances. I hypothesized that gays' status gains are threatening to heterosexuals' ... -
The Role of Inhibition in Reading for Young and Older Adults
(University of Kansas, 2008-05-14)The primary objective of the current research was to examine the impact of aging effects on inhibitory processes. Connelly et al. (1991) found that older adults were more disrupted by distraction in a reading with distraction ... -
Clinical Depression and Daily Activity Level
(University of Kansas, 2008-04-28)Depression has been linked to a number of health problems, including cardiovascular disease (CVD). One link may be depression-related decreases in physical activity. This study was designed to examine physical activity in ... -
A Longitudinal Study of Hope in Native American Children and Adolescents
(University of Kansas, 2007-09-25)Native Americans are at greater risk for trauma and negative mental health outcomes than the general population. Several protective factors have been identified within the Native American culture that may aid in decreasing ... -
Written emotional expression: Effects on weight loss and maintenance
(University of Kansas, 2007-10-16)The consequences of the current obesity epidemic are taking a serious toll on the health and the economics of our society. The prevention and treatment of obesity remain a challenge for researchers and society. Over the ... -
Developmental Instability and Psychological Fitness: Can Morphological Asymmetry Predict Psychopathology?
(University of Kansas, 2007-09-11)Developmental instability (DI) refers to an organism's failure to realize its ideal phenotype in a given environment. The most popular metric of DI is fluctuating asymmetry (FA), i.e., the degree to which bilateral ... -
Body Dissatisfaction, Weight Criticism, and Self-Reported Physical Activity in Preadolescent Children
(University of Kansas, 2008-05-29)The dramatic increase in the prevalence of pediatric overweight and obesity underscores the importance of efforts to increase physical activity levels among children. However, research has demonstrated that negative social ... -
A Dynamic Hobbesian Approach to Aggression and Self-Regulation
(University of Kansas, 2008-06-18)Theory and metatheory combine to create the unique paradigm that influences how researchers interpret data and make hypotheses. By examining one combination of theory (dynamic systems) and metatheory (a Hobbesian outlook), ... -
Divided Visual Field Study of Depression, Cognition, and Mood
(University of Kansas, 2007-11-26)This study compared the performance of 27 previously depressed and 21 never-depressed participants on a divided visual field task designed to examine the lateralization of emotional processing. Participants were asked to ... -
Biculturalism as a Protective Factor Against Antisocial Behavior
(University of Kansas, 2007-09-17)The current study examined the relation between antisocial behaviors and cultural status in a sample of Mexican American youth. Because rates of externalizing problems are high and because Mexican American children and ... -
The Influence of the Clustering Coefficient on Spoken Word Recognition
(University of Kansas, 2007-11-29)The clustering coefficient refers to the proportion of phonological neighbors of a target word that are also neighbors of each other. The influence of the clustering coefficient on spoken word recognition was examined in ... -
The Impact of Abuse Exposure on Memory Processes and Attentional Biases in a College-Aged Sample
(University of Kansas, 2007-11-07)This research assessed whether attentional biases in response to negative stimuli were related to the poor specificity and low levels of emotional language that have previously been observed in stressed individuals. The ... -
Reaction time and pupillary dilation measures of emotional information processing in dysphoria
(University of Kansas, 2008-03-28)Subclinical depressive syndromes such as dysphoria represent increased risk for developing depression and can lead to deleterious mental and physical health outcomes similar to those associated with major depression. Thus, ... -
Parent-Child Conversations Before, During and After a Dental Exam: Links to Remembering
(University of Kansas, 2007-12-18)The current study extends and connects two literatures: one focusing on parent-child reminiscing and the other focusing on children's independent recall of a novel activity. This study explored how parents and children ... -
Volitional Non-adherence in Pediatric Asthma: Its occurrence and relation to disease severity and self-efficacy
(University of Kansas, 2007-11-16)Recent adherence theories have diverged to include two subtypes of non-adherence: inadvertent (e.g., forgetting) and volitional. Volitional non-adherence focuses on deliberate changes that patients and families make to ...