Psychology Masters Theses
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At the intersection of gender and sexuality: the role of a counselor in the co-transitioning process
(North Dakota State University, 2024)Transgender and gender-diverse people experience prejudice, invalidation, and minority stress. There have been strides towards counselor competency when working with this population, however research is limited in exploring ... -
Applying a modern situational measure to improve the reliability, validity, and outcome predictability of dream assessment
(North Dakota State University, 2024)Dreams are hallucinatory activity occurring during sleep that nearly everyone experiences. To understand and research dreams, the field needs a reliable and valid dream assessment tool. The current, most used, measure (Hall ... -
Gating of food and non-food information from working memory
(North Dakota State University, 2024)Prior research has suggested that biased attention towards food cues in the environment may contribute to the onset and maintenance of binge eating. Here, we examine whether individuals who report high levels of binge ... -
Are two heads better than one? Investigating the influence of collaboration on creativity
(North Dakota State University, 2024)Creativity and collaboration are considered fundamental skills for student success in STEM Education (Karimi & Pina, 2021) and are consistently among the top-ranked skills for employers (Flaherty, 2021). To assess creativity, ... -
Antisocial and Prosocial Peer Experiences and Social Cognitions as Predictors of Children's Responses to Harassment from Peers.
(North Dakota State University, 2009)The current study examined whether prosocial and antisocial peer experiences and cognitions are predictive of changes in children's coping behaviors in response to peer victimization. Longitudinal data spanning two time ... -
Gaze Cuing, Familiarity, and the Self
(North Dakota State University, 2009)Attention researchers have known for over a decade that people have a tendency to shift their attention automatically to a location gazed at by another person (e.g., Friesen & Kingstone, 1998). This social orienting ... -
The Influence of Vulnerable Narcissism on College Adjustment
(North Dakota State University, 2010)Attending a university is one of the first major life transitions for many young adults, and it presents a number of important challenges, difficulties, and stressors. Thus, students with certain personality characteristics ... -
I'm Seeing Red!Literally: The Effect of Metaphoric Representation on Perception
(North Dakota State University, 2010)Metaphor is often used to represent abstract concepts using concrete domains (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). One set of metaphors that has long been of interest, but seldom studied, is the set of those linking color and emotion. ... -
Literal vs. Symbolic Immortality: Exploring the Relative Strengths of Religious Paths to Death-Transcendence
(North Dakota State University, 2010)According to terror management theory, religious worldviews provide protection from mortality concerns by providing feelings of literal immortality ( conscious life after death) and symbolic immortality (the essence of ... -
Conquering Avoidance by Avoiding Death: The Effects of Mortality Salience on Goal Value, Goal Commitment, and Goal Pursuit in Depressive Individuals
(North Dakota State University, 2010)Research into the antecedents and consequences of successful goal pursuit is reviewed within the framework of a proposed existential intervention for depression. Behavioral perspectives propose that insufficient goal ... -
Rumination and Problem Solving: A Focus on Dispositions, Processes, and the Five-Step Framework
(North Dakota State University, 2010)Rumination is a method of responding to and coping with negative moods that involves repetitively and passively focusing on the causes, consequences, and symptoms of negative mood (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991 ). Research has ... -
Creativity and Randomness
(North Dakota State University, 2010)Major theories of creative cognition are reviewed in the present thesis. These theories are diverse yet seem to converge on similar key processes. One definition of creativity emphasizes going beyond stereotypical responses ... -
The Relationship Between Features and Edge Types in Natural Images
(North Dakota State University, 2011)One of the most important processes in the human visual system involves detecting and understanding edges. Edges allow humans to break a visual scene up into meaningful chunks of information. Without edges, a visual scene ... -
Changes in Negative Affect Following Pain (vs. Nonpainful) Stimulation in Individuals With and Without a History of Nonsuicidal Self-Injury
(North Dakota State University, 2011)Theoretical models of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI; i.e., purposeful destruction of body tissue without suicidal intent) suggest that individuals engage in NSSI in order to regulate intense emotions. However, empirical ... -
Facial Expression Recognition in People with Differing Levels of Eating Disorder Symptoms
(North Dakota State University, 2022)Previous studies of emotion categorization abilities of people with eating disorders used accuracy and reaction time to identify performance deficits for these individuals. The conclusions from this literature have been ... -
Sex Differences in Response to a Large 200-Person Audience using the Trier Social Stress Test in Pre-Recorded Virtual Reality
(North Dakota State University, 2022)The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) induces stress in the lab by having participants complete challenging tasks in front of an audience. The TSST has been adapted to virtual reality (VR), eliminating in-person audience ... -
Exploring the Effects of Interleaving on Mind-Wandering
(North Dakota State University, 2021)Research has shown that interleaving (a study technique where two topics are practiced in an alternating fashion) enhances learning and memory. However, it is unclear whether interleaving impacts the frequency of mind-wandering. ... -
The Inkblot Re-conceptualized: Developing an Implicit Situational Judgment Test of Multiple Components of Poor and Optimal Functioning
(North Dakota State University, 2021)Situation judgment tests (SJTs), which provide a balance between global personality measurement and context-specific social-cognitive processes, can be combined with implicit measurement approaches to limit some of the ... -
Hawk and Dove Stress Response Profiles in Humans
(North Dakota State University, 2011)A recent evolutionary theory hypothesizes that there are two primary biobehavioral profiles of stress responding. Labeled "hawk" and "dove," each is characterized by divergent patterns of autonomic nervous system and ... -
Changing Dating Behavior Expectations by Using Judgmental Anchors to Induce Cognitive Dissonance
(North Dakota State University, 2018)This study expanded upon literature separately examining numerical anchors and cognitive dissonance, by attempting to use numerical anchors to induce cognitive dissonance and change dating behavior expectations. The high ...
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