The 2010 National HIV/AIDS Strategy outlined three important goals for managing the current HIV pandemic in the U.S.: (1) reduce the number of people who become infected with HIV; (2) improve access to health care and health-related outcomes for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLH/A); and (3) reduce HIV-related health disparities. Each of these goals tacitly depends upon reducing HIV-related stigma, and this study examined how HIV+ individuals evaluate coping efforts to overcome stigma’s impact on quality of life (QOL). a structural regression model was developed to instantiate the reappraisal process described by Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional theory of stress and coping, and this model indicated that maladaptive coping fully mediated the relationship between dispositional forgiveness and perceived stigma, which supports the prediction that coping efficacy is related to stress reduction. Additionally, maladaptive coping fully mediated the relationship between dispositional forgiveness and QOL, supporting the contention that forgiveness is a critical aspect to the evaluative process that influences how PLH/A cope with stigma. Lastly, the model showed that when PLH/A engaged in maladaptive coping to mitigate stress-related stigma, these individuals experienced increased stigmatization and reported significantly lower levels of health-related QOL. in contrast, PLH/A that reported higher levels of dispositional forgiveness …

Research has not explicitly examined the link between key components of terror management theory (TMT) and body image without the use of mortality salience. This project explored the link between cultural worldview, self-esteem, body image, and death anxiety. Multiple measures were used to create a structural equation model examining relationships between body image and death anxiety as mediated by body image in the context of TMT. The proposed model did not fit the data. Minor modifications were made to the model keeping within the proposed theoretical perspective. In the modified model the relationships between cultural worldview and death anxiety as mediated by body image were either non-existent or weak. Hierarchical regression analyses did suggest that some aspects of body image indeed did predict some, but not all dimension of death anxiety in this sample of young adults.

The results of the study showed that D-Amphetamine had a significant effect on the acquisition of the active avoidance conditioning (CAR).

This study examined the potentially differing emotional consequences of sexual versus non-sexual traumas in both a student and a community residing treatment seeking sample of women. The extent to which a trauma survivor considers the traumatic event central to her identity (CES) was examined as a potential mediator between traumatic events and PTSD. Additionally, the extent to which a women views herself and her body as a sexual object, to be valued based on her appearance and sexual usefulness to others (sexual self-objectification: OBCS), was examined as a potential mediator between traumatic event and event centrality. Study results showed survivors of sexual assault reported greater CES and PTSD symptoms (PCL-S) than non-sexual trauma survivors in the student population. Mediation results showed sexual self-objectification (OBCS-Shame) significantly mediated the relationship between trauma type and CES, and CES significantly mediated the relationship between type of trauma and PTSD symptoms in the student population only. Data from the community sample did not support these conclusions as women from this sample reported higher PCL-S, CES, and OBCS-Shame scores across categories of trauma.

This research demonstrates that experience with uncontrollable reinforcement, here defined as continuous non-contingent positive feedback to solution attempts of insoluble problems, fails to produce the proactive interference phenomenon, learned helplessness, while uncontrollable aversive events, here defined as negative feedback to solution attempts of insoluble problems, produces that phenomenon. These results partially support the "learned helplessness" hypothesis of Seligman (1975) which predicts that experience with uncontrollable reinforcement, the offset of negative events or the onset of positive ones, results in learning that responding is independent of reinforcement and that learning transfers to subsequent situations. This research further demonstrates that experience with controllability, here defined as solubility, results in enhanced competence.

The area most widely associated with osmoreception has been the lateral preoptic nucleus. However, Hatton (1976) proposed that the nucleus circularis could be the actual osmoreceptor in the hypothalamus. The present study supported Hatton by using 30 rats which were randomly assigned to sham, lateral preoptic, and nucleus circularis lesion groups. After a 2-week post-operative period, half of each group was injected with isotonic saline while the other half was injected with hypertonic saline. Water consumption was measured at 10-minute intervals for one hour. Following a 4-day recovery period, the injection procedure was reversed. Analysis of difference scores, computed by subtracting the amount of water consumed after isotonic injection from the amount of water consumed after hypertonic injection, revealed a significant difference between the nucleus circularis group and the other two groups.

Intersensory transfer of training was systematically investigated for visual to tactual and tactual to visual situations. College students were trained in one modality on a successive-shape-discrimination task, then transferred to the opposite modality to perform a related-shape-discrimination task. The investigation showed successful transfer in both directions, Transfer from vision to touch was specific to the situation wherein all discriminata were exactly the same In the two tasks. In contrast, transfer from touch to vision appeared to be a function of the subjects' ability to retain some type of schematic representation of the primary object as a mediational device to facilitate visual discrimination between the primary object and one of a slightly different shape.

This investigation was designed to determine relative effects of monetary reward and knowledge of results on complex-choice reaction time tasks. Subjects were twenty-five male and thirty-two female undergraduate students. Apparatus consisted of nine stimulus lights and eight response keys. Subjects were required to add the number of lights presented, subtract the sum from a constant, and press the correctly numbered response key. Reward subjects received twenty-five cents for responses faster than a predetermined criterion, and twenty-five cents was deducted for slower responses. Knowledge of results subjects were told their reaction times after each trial. Results indicated (1) no significant differences between any conditions, (2) a significant overall practice effect (.01 level), and (3) that males were significantly faster than females (.01 level).

This study was concerned with the degree to which the practice of transcendental meditation (TM) aids in the long-term reduction of anxiety. The Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS), short form, was given to 16 Ss about to learn the technique of TM and to 16 control Ss. Eighteen weeks later, the TMAS was again administered to both groups. A significant difference was found in TMAS score reduction between the two groups, with the meditation group showing the greater reduction. These findings lend support to the hypothesis that TM aids in the long-term reduction of anxiety. It is recommended that further research in this area be undertaken to further validate the results of this study.

The Interpersonal Communication Inventory, a self-report instrument for assessing social skills, was given to undergraduate college students to determine its reliability. Following this administration, other small groups of undergraduates were asked to complete an attraction scale, the Interpersonal Communication Inventory, an assertiveness scale, and a sociometric questionnaire. Results confirmed the Inventory as a reliable instrument, but a stepwise multiple linear regression did not support the hypothesis that the Inventory was a useful predictor of sociometric choice. In addition, Pearson product moment correlations between the Inventory and an assertiveness scale did not confirm the prediction that the two instruments would measure behaviors from different response classes. Definite conclusions could not be stated due to lack of validity data for the Inventory and possible confounding variables.

Longitudinal methods have become an improved and essential means of measuring intra-individual change over time. Yet one of the greatest and most hazardous drawbacks studying participants over multiple sessions can be the loss of participants over time. This study attempts to illuminate the problem of attrition in longitudinal research by estimating the mean effect sizes for participant loss across 57 studies published in 13 prestigious journals which regularly use older participants. Results estimate overall attrition to be around 34% of the original sample. The subsequent break down of attrition into its subtypes yield mean effect sizes for attrition due to Refusal (8%), Loss of contact (10%), Illness (6%), and Death (14%) in studies sampling from adults 50 years or older. Analyses were then conducted via meta-analytic one-way ANOVA and weighted regression to identify possible moderators of overall attrition and their four subtypes.

In the increasingly competitive world of retail banking, organizations are focusing their attention on customer service as a means of increasing customer loyalty and retention. With this goal of increasing customer retention, the link between the attitudes of the service provider (employee satisfaction), the customer interaction behaviors that those attitudes lead to (customer service quality), and the attitudes that those behaviors generate in the customer (customer satisfaction) has become an increasingly important area of investigation. The goal of this research is to analyze the relationships that exist between these three variables: employee satisfaction, customer service quality, and customer satisfaction in a mid-sized retail bank. Data from three separate surveys collected during the same time period in 137 branches of a regional bank are analyzed using multiple regression analysis to determine whether relationships and interactions exist at a banking center level. While results of the analyses did not show a significant relationship between the variables, issues relevant to this determination are discussed and conclusions drawn regarding the nature of these constructs.

This study was designed as an attempt to extend Schneider and Shiffrin's (1977) automatic versus controlled processing distinction into the area of visual perception. Hasher and Zacks (1979) proposed a continuum of automatic processes, with processes which encode the fundamental aspects of the flow of information as the anchor of the continuum. They presented evidence that depressed people perform more poorly than nondepressed on effortful (controlled) memory tasks, but not on automatic tasks. Tachistoscopic and free inspection presentation of Piaget's (1961/1969) primary geometric illusions meet two of Hasher and Zack's criteria for automatic and effortful tasks, respectively. Consequently, multiple regression techniques were used to determine the relationship between depression (operationally defined as score on the Beck Depression Inventory) and method of presentation of a Piagetian primary illusion, the Müller-Lyer. Furthermore, correlations were determined between tachistoscopic versus free inspection of the Müller-Lyer illusion and forward versus backward digit span (operationally defined as score on the WAIS Digit Span subtest), since forward and backward digit span have been linked theoretically to automatic and effortful processing, respectively.

Individuals with a minority sexual identity, such as lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGB) face increased risk for stigmatization surrounding their sexual identities and subsequent psychological distress. Sexual minorities of color (SMOC) face the same difficulties faced by White sexual minorities, often compounded with stigma and discrimination linked to their racial/ethnic identities. However, because SMOC remain underrepresented in research on LGB issues, empirically-driven knowledge about these groups is lacking, even among outcomes where noted disparities exist, such as depression. Emerging adulthood may be a particularly important period for understanding effects of intersectional identities and discrimination among SMOC, who often navigate identity-related milestones and experiences independently for the first time within this developmental period. This study examined the relationships between discrimination based upon racial/ethnic and sexual intersecting identities and depression symptoms among emerging adults, as well as ways that group identity factors (ethnic identity, sexual identity, conflicts in identity allegiances) moderated this relationship. Findings indicated that experience of intersectional discrimination was strongly, positively related to depression symptoms. Ethnic identity negatively related to depression independently, but not in the regression model accounting for other variables. Identity factors were not found to statistically significantly moderate the relationship between discrimination and depression symptoms. Discussion …