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- Creator:
- Martin, Justin Thomas
- Description:
- The aim of the present study was to fit data to a structural equation model that includes conservatism, HIV-related stigma, and avoidance behavior. An exploratory factor analysis was performed, and a subsequent structural model was created with conservatism directly relating to avoidance and indirectly affecting avoidance through HIV-related stigma. Results showed that though the chi-square was significant, the structural model resulted in good model fit. In the full model, positive pathways were found between all latent variables, though the direct path between conservatism and avoidance was not significant in the full model. When tested alone, it was found that the pathway between conservatism and avoidance was significant and positive, and further tests indicated full mediation with 45.6% of the effect of avoidance mediated through stigma. Replication studies should be performed to validate these results, and future research should focus on expanding the avoidance latent variable by including HIV-testing rates.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Haghighat, Misha Daniali
- Description:
- The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between professor-student interactions and psychosocial well-being (loneliness, social anxiety) through the mediator of campus belonging. The college transition can be stress-inducing for students (representative of steadily increasing rates of loneliness and anxiety), due to an absence of support networks (e.g., parents). Positive professor-student interactions were examined given that they foster a sense of campus belonging, in turn affecting psychosocial well-being. The current study was comprised of undergraduate students (N = 298) enrolled at a Northern California University. Simple mediation analyses indicated that positive professor-student interactions were linked with a greater sense of campus belonging, which in turn was linked with sense of psychosocial well-being. Additional analyses examined if demographic groupings (gender, ethnicity, job hours, transfer status) differed in these effects. Results reflect the benefits of professor-student interactions in scaffolding students’ sense of psychosocial well-being, and recommendations for furthering ties preemptively.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Potter, Nicole Malia
- Description:
- Several studies suggest that the perirhinal cortex (PER) may function to unitize stimulus components across time or modalities, and multiple findings have supported the involvement of the PER in stimulus unitization during fear conditioning. However, the role of the PER in processing such stimuli during other aspects of fear learning, including fear extinction, have not been evaluated. The current study assessed the involvement of the PER during a fear extinction paradigm using a discontinuous or a continuous conditioned stimulus (CS). Rats were randomly assigned to one of four groups based on two factors: CS type (a continuous light versus a discontinuous light) and PER manipulation (Saline group or Muscimol group). Results showed that the PER is involved in fear expression regardless of the CS type; however, the PER had a stimulus-specific role in the recall of an extinction memory.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Schnider, Ashley Kay
- Description:
- The role of the perirhinal cortex (PER) in memory is well established; however, its role in perception remains controversial. The objective of the current thesis is to revisit this debate by using a series of experiments that aim to replicate and extend the current literature. Our current working model of the PER predicts that the PER will be involved in making perceptual discriminations when the task relies on a high-level visual discrimination that requires a “unitized” representation of the stimulus over features but not in cases where the discrimination could be solved on simple characteristics. In the present set of experiments, results did not provide evidence to support a perceptual role of the PER. However, there were significant limitations in the visual stimuli used in the third experiment. Due to this confound, further studies are necessary before any conclusions to PER function in this capacity can be drawn.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Ferrell, Rebecca S.
- Description:
- In response to an increasing crime rate after WWII, the United States began developing programs which were designed to assist in improving the lives of those living in poor and deprived conditions. In order to maintain accountability of these programs and reduce fraudulent funding, program evaluations were introduced. The present evaluation focuses on a program called Ascend Life Skills. Upon completion of the program, Ascend participants were asked if they would be willing to participate in an interview with Dr. Jennie Singer regarding the challenges and support offenders face in the community. A group of comparison subjects recruited through Sacramento County Probation Department and Sacramento Sheriffs Department were also interviewed and asked the same questions. Results suggested that the Ascend life skills program had helped participants learn new skills, find employment, maintain pro-social networks, and increase their self-esteem.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Goodman, Zachary T.
- Description:
- The process of adapting to a culture different from one’s own is multifaceted and interlaced with unique stressors for ethnic and cultural minorities. This study explored the acculturative stress experienced when individuals adjust their behaviors and beliefs in society. Moreover, the ecological and internal stressors encountered by minorities at disproportionate rates are examined from the perspective of acculturative stress, as well as the consequences of these stressors on mental health. The present study developed a structural equation model to test the efficacy of acculturative stress as a mediator of stressors (i.e., violence exposure and discrimination) on psychological well-being and depressive symptoms. Ultimately, acculturative stress functioned as a mediator between both community violence exposure and perceived discrimination on depressive symptoms. Acculturative stress operates as a mechanism through which ecological and internalized stressors can be harmful to ethnic minority mental health outcomes.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Nguyen, Patty
- Description:
- Research on ethnicity suggests that people’s understanding of ethnicity is embedded in a system of levels and the degree to which a setting is ethnically diverse may shape how people understand and identify with their ethnicity and related attitudes and emotions. Drawing on this body of work, this study investigated how ethnocultural empathy may vary by the ethnic composition of social context for White Americans and ethnic minority group members and how it may vary for ethnic minority group members with different ethnic identity levels. One-hundred and thirty-three undergraduate students served as participants and completed a questionnaire packet assessing percent diversity of social settings participants resided in, their ethnic identity, and their ethnocultural empathy. The results showed a strong ethnicity and ethnic identity effect with ethnic minority participants reporting greater ethnocultural empathy than White American participants and those ethnic minorities with a stronger ethnic identity reporting greater ethnocultural empathy.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Guthrie, Emily Salzano
- Description:
- The effects of exercise and leisure activity on positive mood, anxiety and depression in college age women was investigated. Individuals participated in a 30-minute activity, either exercise or reading, performed indoors or outdoors. Variables were measured using the MAACL to assess mood, the STAI to assess anxiety, and the CESD to assess depression. Participants were 100 female undergraduate students with a mean age of 22.09 (SD = 5.19). The sample was multi-ethnic with a majority of European Americans (56%). Contrary to the hypotheses, results indicated that participants who performed activities outdoors reported higher levels of state anxiety F(1, 98) = 10.75, p = .002 and depression F(1, 98) = 3.98, p = .050 than those who performed activities indoors. Further analyses indicated that those in the outdoor condition were higher in trait anxiety, thus random assignment did not minimize individual differences across conditions, and could account for the unexpected findings.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Abadie, Emeline Alice
- Description:
- Pairing the Elaboration Likelihood Model with Social Categorization Theory and Social Identity Theory, an experiment examined the effect of both the persuaders’ ethnicity and the strength of the targets association with their own ethnicity on being persuaded. A total of 180 participants from a single University rated their liking for a never-before-seen product after viewing a commercial with either Hispanic actors or European American actors. Although the results were non-significant, the research provided insight into the design and measurement of this topic for future studies.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Abhari, Bahareh
- Description:
- The current study examined mediation models to explain differences in sex and ethnicity in retrospective reports of parental physically abusive behavior for Asian, African, Latino, and White American college students. In addition, relationships between parenting styles, mother and father authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting and parent disciplining methods, nonviolent discipline, psychological aggression, and four corporal punishment items were explored. One corporal punishment item, shaking, partially mediated the relationship between ethnicity and reports of physically abusive behavior.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Psychology