Browsing Psychology Masters Theses by Title
Now showing items 21-40 of 43
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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 ... -
False Memories in Depression: Vulnerability Factor or Symptom?
(North Dakota State University, 2015)False memories are sometimes generated when recalling words from lists in which the words are conceptually related. People think of concepts that are associated with the lists but which were never presented. Previous ... -
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 ... -
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 ... -
Health Risk Feedback: The Effects of ACE Insight on Stress Reactivity
(North Dakota State University, 2018)Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) has lasting repercussions throughout an individual’s lifetime. An adult with a history of childhood trauma is at increased risk for excessive stress reactivity, which ... -
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. ... -
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 ... -
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 ... -
Intuitive Risk Aversion and Reflective Risk Taking in Gain-Framed Economic Games
(North Dakota State University, 2013)We typically think of risk taking as impulsive, but evolutionary pressure may actually favor playing it safe as a default strategy. In the context of dual-process theory of reasoning (Evans, 2003), we hypothesized that ... -
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 ... -
The Psychological Benefits of Positively-Focused Writing
(North Dakota State University, 2013)Writing about potent positive events has been shown to be associated with physical health benefits in a manner similar to the expressive writing paradigm originally espoused by Pennebaker and Beall (1986). Little has been ... -
Re-Examining the Psychometric Properties of the Massachusetts General Hospital Hairpulling Scale
(North Dakota State University, 2014)Trichotillomania is characterized by recurrent hair pulling resulting in hair loss and has been shown to have a significant impact on the health and social functioning of individuals with the disorder. Despite a growing ... -
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 ... -
The Role of Distress Tolerance in Cognitive Control Training for Dysphoria
(North Dakota State University, 2018)Cognitive Control Training (CCT) is an area of research which has been hypothesized as a way to decrease symptoms of depression. The purpose of this study was to replicate the results found by others using the PASAT, and ... -
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 ... -
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 ... -
Sleep Quality and Sympathovagal Balance during Stress
(North Dakota State University, 2015)Sleep has been shown to be associated with the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system at rest and during stress. However, sleep has not been examined in the context of sympathovagal balance ... -
A Test of an Interactive Model of Binge Eating in Men
(North Dakota State University, 2013)Past research has shown that a combination of high perfectionism, high body dissatisfaction, and low self-esteem is predictive of binge eating in college women (Bardone-Cone et al., 2006). The aim of the present study was ... -
To Be or Not To Be: An Empirical Test of English Prime as Theory
(North Dakota State University, 2012)English Prime is a language prescription advocating the abolition of all forms of the verb “to be” from usage. Such benefits of a “to be”-less form of communication might include an increased appreciation for the essential ... -
Treating Objects like Women: The Impact of Terror Management and Objectification on the Perception of Women's Faces
(North Dakota State University, 2014)According to terror management theory, humans are threatened by the awareness of death and counter this threat by investing in cultural systems that make them feel like they are more than mortal animals. Based on this ...