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Genotypic Handedness, Memory, and Cerebral Lateralization (open access)

Genotypic Handedness, Memory, and Cerebral Lateralization

The relationship of current manual preference (phenotypic handedness) and family history of handedness (genotypic handedness) to memory for imageable stimuli was studied. The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that genotypic handedness was related to lessened cerebral lateralization of Paivio's (1969) dual memory systems. The structure of memory was not at issue, but the mediation of storage and retrieval in memory has been explained with reference to verbal or imaginal processes. Verbal mediation theories and supporting data were reviewed along with imaginal theories and supporting data for these latter theories. Paivio's (1969) dual coding and processing theory was considered a conceptual bridge between the competing positions.
Date: August 1980
Creator: Perotti, Laurence Peter
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Learned Helplessness and Attentional Focus (open access)

Learned Helplessness and Attentional Focus

Ninety undergraduate students who scored as high or low on the Snyder Self-monitoring Scale participated in an experiment designed to determine the joint effects of self-monitoring and controllable or uncontrollable outcomes upon subsequent performance on three short-term memory tests. High and low self-monitoring subjects were assigned to one of three conditions: (1) controllable feedback, in which subjects received response contingent positive, "correct," and negative, "incorrect," feedback on a word association task; (2) uncontrollable feedback, in which subjects were given noncontingent feedback (70% negative and 30% positive); and (3) no-treatment. Measures of attentional focus were included in order to examine the role of attentional processes in the obtained results. In addition, the joint effects of treatment and self-monitoring on subjects' attributions were investigated. As predicted, the performance of high selfmonitors was significantly impaired by uncontrollability (learned helplessness), while that of low self-monitors was facilitated by controllability (learned competence). Results were discussed as supporting the contention that high self-monitors rely heavily on knowledge of environmental contingencies in order to control their environment. When their typically effective strategy is unsuccessful, "helplessness" is induced. Low self-monitors, who are less concerned with exercising control over environmental events, evidence diminished attention to and utilization of external …
Date: August 1980
Creator: Rahaim, Sara
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Programmed Instruction as a Means of Enhancing Group Intelligence Test Performance of Externalizing Children (open access)

Programmed Instruction as a Means of Enhancing Group Intelligence Test Performance of Externalizing Children

This study focused on two major areas of investigation: (1) locus of control and (2) the influence on test performance of anxiety and motivation. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of programmed instruction dealing with motivation, anxiety, and test-wiseness as a means of enhancing group intelligence test performance of externalizing children. While earlier research demonstrated the viability of this technique x^ith a heterogeneous sample, no studies have utilized any kind of instruction to facilitate the performance of externalizers on standardized tests. It was hypothesized that intelligence test performance would be enhanced by programmed instruction. Furthermore, externalizers were expected to demonstrate greater gains than internalizers, which would thereby suggest that locus of control provides a source of variance in intellectual assessment.
Date: August 1980
Creator: Petty, Nancy Elizabeth
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Rule Utilization and Rule Shift: A Developmental Study (open access)

Rule Utilization and Rule Shift: A Developmental Study

Current rule-utilization research indicated that subjects successively tested multiple conceptual rules, available from natural preexperimental experience, to solve a sorting task. Prior results suggested that older subjects were more efficient in utilizing rules and shifting to unused rules, possibly due to the availability of more conceptual rules at higher age levels. The experimental groups consisted of third, fourth, sixth, ninth graders, and college students. Each of the five groups contained 16 subjects. The rule-utilization procedure was applied to each group. The procedure contained a multitrial, card sorting task. The feedback given at the end of each trial was limited to the correctness of the entire card sort and did not provide information on the correctness of the sorting for any individual card. All subjects in each group were run until they used both bidimensional rules (the conjunctive and the inclusive-disjunctive rule), or until a limit of 30 trials was reached.
Date: August 1980
Creator: Rakowitz, Lambert William
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Biofeedback Training During Stress Stimulation (open access)

Biofeedback Training During Stress Stimulation

The assumption that EMG biofeedback cultivates an antistress response was tested under stress conditions while investigating the comparative efficacy of low versus high arousal treatment strategies. Biofeedback-assisted, cue-controlled relaxation training was used as the low arousal treatment strategy for half of the 20 normal subjects used in the study. The other half received a high arousal treatment strategy which used the same training in combination with an avoidance conditioning procedure. In this procedure mild electric shock was used as contingent aversive stimulation designed to reinforce relaxation responses. Both groups received four in-lab training sessions with a 4-day interim of home practice of cuecontrolled relaxation prior to the last in-lab training session. Pretraining assessment consisted of four 10-minute periods of alternating no-stress and stress conditions. Mild electric shock and loud tones were used as stressors. Posttraining assessment was identical to pre training except subjects employed self-directed, cue-controlled relaxation rather than self-directed relaxation based on instructions without training. Frontal EMG, subjective mental and muscle tension ratings, and behavioral observations of relaxation behavior served as dependent measures during pre- and posttraining assessment. EMG readings were used during in-lab training and the two subjective rating scales were used during home practice.
Date: August 1981
Creator: Spurgin, Raymon David
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Holistic Stress Management Training: A Burnout Strategy for Mental Health Workers (open access)

Holistic Stress Management Training: A Burnout Strategy for Mental Health Workers

This study investigated the effects of an individually administered versus a group-administered stress management training program on various measures of stress, job satisfaction, and burnout among mental health workers. A total of 36 subjects, who were employed in Texas community mental health facilities, participated in the study. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups: an experimental group (N = 12) which received training on an individual basis, an experimental group (N = 12) which received training in small groups of four to six subjects, and a control group (N = 12) which did not receive training. Both didactic and experimental modes were utilized during the six-week training program. All experimental subjects practiced relaxation daily and were exposed to a broad range of coping skills for stress management.This study investigated the effects of an individually administered versus a group-administered stress management training program on various measures of stress, job satisfaction, and burnout among mental health workers. A total of 36 subjects, who were employed in Texas community mental health facilities, participated in the study. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups: an experimental group (N = 12) which received training on an individual basis, an …
Date: August 1981
Creator: Ray, Cathy Anne
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Assessment Center Ratings as a Function of Personality Factors, Sex and Rating System (open access)

Assessment Center Ratings as a Function of Personality Factors, Sex and Rating System

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences between the traditional global rating scale and a new behavioral rating scale in a university-based assessment center. It was hypothesized that personality factors, as measured by the 16PF and associated with the global ratings of performance would differ from those associated with the behavioral ratings of performance. It was further hypothesized that the associated personality factors would also differ for males and females. These hypotheses were ^confirmed. Pearson correlations were computed for ratings of males, females, and all subjects combined on both global and behavioral rating scales.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Brennan, Mary Maureen
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Cognitive Strategies for the Control of Experimentally Induced Pain: The Role of Pleasantness and Relevance of Content in Imagery (open access)

Cognitive Strategies for the Control of Experimentally Induced Pain: The Role of Pleasantness and Relevance of Content in Imagery

This study compared the relative efficacy of four imagery techniques in increasing tolerance to cold pressor pain. Relevant pleasant, relevant unpleasant, irrelevant pleasant, and irrelevant unpleasant imagery strategies were compared in a two-way factorial design. Prior research suggested that pleasantness and relevance both affect imagery potency. This study attempted to assess the relative contribution of these two variables to increases in pain tolerance. Also investigated were the roles of several hypothesized mediating variables; namely, contextual valence, self-efficacy, treatment credibility, and involvement in imagery. The subjects were 60 female undergraduates who were randomly assigned to the four imagery groups. Two-way analysis of covariance were performed on all dependent variables, using pain threshold as the covariate. Pearons r.'s were used to test correlational hypotheses.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Geary, Thomas Dennis
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Comparison of Biofeedback and Cognitive Therapy in the Control of Blood Pressure Under Stress and No-Stress Conditions (open access)

A Comparison of Biofeedback and Cognitive Therapy in the Control of Blood Pressure Under Stress and No-Stress Conditions

This study evaluated the efficacy of cognitive therapy and biofeedback training in lowering Dlood pressures of normotensives under no-stress and stress conditions. A cognitive therapy group was compared to biofeedback and habituation control groups with 32 normotensives. Subjects were taught to use the electronic sphygmomanometer that served as the device to measure blood pressure during pretreatment and posttreatment phases of the study. These measurement phases each consisted of three 19 minute periods. Trie first period consisted of no-stress, and then a stress period followed. Return-to-no-stress was the final period. Subjects in the cognitive therapy and biofeedbacK groups received five sessions of self-control training of 66 minutes each between the pre- and posttreatment phases. The cold pressor was the analogue stressor used to induce bxood pressure elevations,
Date: August 1982
Creator: Dafter, Roger E. (Roger Edwin)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Counseling Outcomes and Perceived Counselor Social Influence: Validity of the Counselor Rating Form Extended (open access)

Counseling Outcomes and Perceived Counselor Social Influence: Validity of the Counselor Rating Form Extended

This study investigated predictor variables of the Counselor Rating Form dimensions of expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness using the predicted variable of therapy outcome, measured by Goal Attainment Scaling and postcounseling scores on the Counselor Rating Form. One hundred-fifteen mental health center outpatients agreed to participate. Forty subjects (25 females and 15 males) met all criteria and were labeled "completors." An additional 30 subjects, labeled "dropouts," enrolled but did not meet criteria. These subjects' data were considered in a separate analysis for prediction of treatment continuation. All subjects rated their own need for therapy before their initial interview. After the initial and final interviews, both the subject and the counselor completed the Counselor Rating Form, rating their perceptions of the counselor1s behavior during that session. The Goal Attainment Scaling was used to generate both pre- and postcounseling outcome scores on each subject's individual, personalized goals.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Rucker, Iris Elaine Votaw
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Effects of Nondirective and Paradoxical Therapist Communication on Core Therapeutic Conditions and Perceived Client Influence (open access)

Effects of Nondirective and Paradoxical Therapist Communication on Core Therapeutic Conditions and Perceived Client Influence

The purpose of this study was first to determine whether or not paradoxical communication could be designed to contain therapeutic levels of the core therapeutic conditions, and, second, to determine how paradoxical counselor communication compared to nondirective communication on the social influence dimensions of attractiveness, expertness, and trustworthiness. For the first phase, four judges rated audiotapes on the level of the core therapeutic conditions on one of four counseling conditions (paradox high or low on core conditions, and nondirective high or low on core conditions). For the second phase, 133 undergraduate college students were asked to listen to the four counseling conditions on audiotapes and to rate the counselor on the social influence dimensions
Date: August 1982
Creator: Beard, Myron Joseph
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Expertness and Similarity as Factors of Influence in the Preferences of Deaf College Students for Therapists (open access)

Expertness and Similarity as Factors of Influence in the Preferences of Deaf College Students for Therapists

This study utilized Strong's (1963) theory of counseling as a social influence process to investigate the effect of therapist's training, experience, and similarity on hearingimpaired subjects' perceptions of the therapist's expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness and their willingness to see the therapist. Increasing levels of therapists' training and work experience was hypothesized to increase subjects' perception of expertness and their willingness to see the therapist. Increasing levels of therapists' similarity to the client was hypothesized to increase subjects' perceptions of expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness and their willingness to see the therapist. Subjects' ratings of the therapist were hypothesized to change when therapists with different levels of similarity were seen in different orders of presentation.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Thigpen, Sally Elizabeth
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Generalization of Problem Identification and Remedial Plan Skills in Client-Centered Case Consultation (open access)

The Generalization of Problem Identification and Remedial Plan Skills in Client-Centered Case Consultation

An analogue study examines the acquisition and generalization of problem identification and remedial plan skills following client-centered, school case consultation. Nine trained consultants interacted with 35 undergraduate female consultees in one of three intervention conditions. Conditions involved the consultants either viewing the same problem as consultees, not viewing the problem, or attention control. Consultees viewed ten minute video tapes of a problem student in a classroom, then provided written problem descriptions and remedial plans. They then received twenty minutes of consultation or control, and again wrote descriptions of the problem and remedial plans. The same procedure was repeated two day later. One week later, subjects viewed another video tape of a problem student, provided written problem descriptions and remedial plans, but received no interventions.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Eubanks, Ron R. (Ron Ray)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Haptic Visual Sensory Integration: A Comparison Between Normal, Schizophrenic, and Brain Damaged Groups (open access)

Haptic Visual Sensory Integration: A Comparison Between Normal, Schizophrenic, and Brain Damaged Groups

Neuropsychological tests have been used in differentially diagnosing schizophrenic and brain damaged populations. Research indicated some subgroups of schizophrenia exhibit certain symptoms of brain damage; and that schizophrenia involves difficulty in sensory integration. The Haptic Visual Discrimination Test (HVDT) designed to test tactilevisual integration, Bender Gestalt, and Information and Digit Symbol subtests of the WAIS were used to test performance abilities of forty schizophrenic subjects, forty subjects medically diagnosed as brain damaged (10 right hemisphere, 10 left hemisphere, and 20 diffuse), and normals as defined by the standardized age norm scores.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Wigodsky, Ann
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Interpersonal Versus Impersonal Problem Solving Skills in a Public and Private Context: An Examination of the Parameters of the Learned Helplessness Model with Clinically Depressed Males (open access)

Interpersonal Versus Impersonal Problem Solving Skills in a Public and Private Context: An Examination of the Parameters of the Learned Helplessness Model with Clinically Depressed Males

Forty volunteer patients from a Veteran's Administration Hospital served as subjects for this study. On the basis of Beck Depression Inventory scores, the subjects were divided into depressed (11 and above) and nondepressed (7 and below) groups. Subjects were assigned randomly to either public condition (experimenter present with the subject during experimental procedures) or a private condition (subject performed the procedures alone). Subjects in each condition were asked to perform three tasks which varied in the amount of interpersonal involvement each required ranging from low through medium to high. The low interpersonal involvement task consisted of an anagram-solving procedure. Both the medium and high interpersonal involvement tasks employed modification of the Means-Ends Problem-Solving Procedure (MEPDS) (a measure of interpersonal problem solving ability).
Date: August 1982
Creator: Logsdon, Steven Alan
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Multifaceted Treatment for Myofascial-Pain Dysfunction: A Comparison of Treatment Components (open access)

A Multifaceted Treatment for Myofascial-Pain Dysfunction: A Comparison of Treatment Components

This study compared the clinical effectiveness of cognitively oriented stress-coping training with and without biofeedback training to biofeedback training only in the treatment of myofascial pain dysfunction (MPDS). These groups were also compared to a fourth treatment consisting of pseudo-biofeedback plus stress-coping training. Subjects were 32 adults suffering from MPDS who had failed to previously profit from other treatments. Subjects averaged 33.5 years of age and 58.7 months of myofascial pain. Treatement consisted of 10 individual sessions over a five-week period. Stress-coping training was designed to teach subjects to monitor their congitive responses to stress-eliciting situations and to learn cognitive coping skills. Biofeedback training was designed to provide relaxation skills that would enable subjects to reduce masseter muscle tension (EMG). Subjects receiving pseudo-biofeedback training did not receive veridical feedback training.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Waid, Lewis R. (Lewis Randolph)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Muscle Tension and Locus Of Pain in Subjects With and Without Chronic Backpain (open access)

Muscle Tension and Locus Of Pain in Subjects With and Without Chronic Backpain

The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between the location of the initial onset of back pain as revealed by the subject's pain drawing and the site of maximum muscle tension at rest, while jaw-clenching and during a cold stressor, in men and women. Subjects were 30 males and 30 females divided into three groups of 10 males and 10 females each and designated according to back pain history as no back pain (NBP), upper back pain onset (UBP) and lower back pain onset (LBP). Six bipolar, bilateral electromyographic (EMG) recording sites were instrumented on each subject. EMG levels were recorded from the forehead, forearm, upper back, lower back, thighs and ankles under conditions of rest, jaw-clenching and a cold stressor. Seven hypotheses predicted that EMG levels would distinguish groups and gender of the subjects and that interactions would exist between site of pain onset and EMG elevations.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Montgomery, Penelope Sandra
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Neuropsychological Assessment of Brain Damage: A Validation Study of the McCarron-Dial System (open access)

Neuropsychological Assessment of Brain Damage: A Validation Study of the McCarron-Dial System

The present study investigates the effect of brain damage on verbal-spatial-cognitive (VSC) and sensorimotor (SM) measures included in the McCarron-Dial System (MDS). The subjects include 141 brain damaged adults and 42 psychiatric controls. The following research questions are addressed: (a) Does the brain damaged group differ significantly from controls? (b) Are there significant differences among left, right, anterior, posterior, and diffuse brain damaged groups? (c) Do early onset, late onset, acute, and chronic damaged groups differ significantly? and (d) Does a cerebral palsy group differ significantly from a non-CP brain damaged group?
Date: August 1982
Creator: Dial, Jack Grady
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Psychiatric Diagnosis: Rater Reliability and Prediction Using Psychological Rating Scale for Diagnostic Classification (open access)

Psychiatric Diagnosis: Rater Reliability and Prediction Using Psychological Rating Scale for Diagnostic Classification

This study was designed to assess the reliability of the "Psychological Rating Scale for Diagnostic classification as an instrument for determining diagnoses consistent with DSM-III criteria and nomenclature. Pairs of raters jointly interviewed a total of 50 hospital patients and then independently completed the 70-item rating scale to arrive at Axis I and Axis II diagnoses which were subsequently correlated with diagnoses obtained by standard psychometric methods, interrater agreement was 88 per cent for Axis I and 62 per cent for Axis II, with correlations of .94 and .79 respectively.
Date: August 1982
Creator: McDowell, DeLena Jean
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology Approach to the Classification of Separation-Individuation in the Adult (open access)

A Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology Approach to the Classification of Separation-Individuation in the Adult

A diagnostic classification of Borderline subgroups was developed for the purpose of reducing the current ambiguities existing in the range of pathologies between the psychoses and neuroses. This classification is a questionnaire of forty items and is intended to be used in treatment settings as a measure of object relations, i.e., of ego development and arrest. The criteria which define the Borderline subgroups were derived from the normative developmental data of Mahler, Pine, and Bergman (1975). In Experiment I, raters used the Mahler criteria as operational definitions of the developmental stages and sorted 180 items taken from Benjamin's structural Analysis Social Behavior (SASB) into the four Mahler substages. Those items which were reliably sorted eight out of nine times into the same Mahler stage or substage were retained as critical items to be administered in Experiment II to three groups of subjects. These groups consisted of nineteen schizophrenic inpatients, eighteen outpatients, and twenty nonpsychiatric volunteers. These subjects rated each item of the SASB questionnaire on a scale of 0 to 100; means for each type of psychiatric group according to sex were submitted to a repeated measures 2 (sex) X 3 (group) X 4 (Mahler substage) Analysis of Variance.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Little, Myrna M. (Myrna Marie)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Relationship of Self-Acutalization and Marital Models to Marital Adjustment (open access)

Relationship of Self-Acutalization and Marital Models to Marital Adjustment

The present study was an attempt to further investigate what factors contributed to whether married individuals defined their relationship as traditional or nontraditional. The project, moreover, explored what variables affected marital adjustment levels. The variables whose effects were assessed regarding whether married individuals defined their relationship as traditional or nontraditional included self-actualization and presence or absence of children. The factors examined thought to affect marital adjustment levels were self-actualization, subjective definition of the relationship as traditional or nontraditional, and presence or absence of children.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Caswell, Lucy
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Self-Disclosure: Structure and Measurement (open access)

Self-Disclosure: Structure and Measurement

An attempt was made to determine empirically the structure of self-disclosure. Based on the literature, a list of statements relating to the rating of self-disclosure was assembled. This list was condensed into dimensions by two evaluators, working independently. The dimensions were then used to score transcripts of male undergraduate students' verbal self-disclosures. Factor analyses of these scores produced four factors relating to self-focus, intimacy or depth, risk taking, and amount. A tentative fifth factor, intimacy value of disclosure topic, was also found. Regression analysis of dimensions on the Doster (1971) Disclosure Rating Scale produced three tentative scales for measuring self-disclosure. The first scale utilized stepwise regression of all dimensions, the second used stepwise regression of mechanical dimensions, and the third regression used composite scales representing the factors of the orthogonal factor analysis. For each scale, only three dimensions were included in the regression equation.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Perl, Moshe B. (Moshe Benzion)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Sex-Role and Self-Concept Among Prisoners (open access)

Sex-Role and Self-Concept Among Prisoners

This study was undertaken to examine possible relationships among sex-role types, self-concept, and length of incarceration in residents at a federal minimum security co-correctional prison. Twelve female and 53 male subjects completed the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale, StateTrait Anxiety Scale, Bern Sex-Role Inventory, Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, Self-Concept Scale, and a Reaction to Imprisonment Q-sort. MMPI scores and demographic data for each subject were obtained from institution records. Subjects were divided into three groups (New, N = 25; Three Month, N = 20; and One Year, N = 20) on the basis of the length of time they had been incarcerated. Those in the New group were retested with all instruments except the MMPI after they had been imprisoned approximately three months. Instruments were administered only once to the other groups. On the basis of scores on the Bern Sex-Role Inventory, subjects were classified by sex—role type (masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated). Discriminant function analyses were used as an initial screen to determine which of the dependent variables might contribute to the "simple effects" factors of the main multivariate analysis of variance procedure.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Roberts, Dan H. (Dan Haynes)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Test Anxiety and Exam-Taking Skills as Mediators of Information Processing in College Students (open access)

Test Anxiety and Exam-Taking Skills as Mediators of Information Processing in College Students

Cognitive-attentional test anxiety theory posits that test-anxious individuals direct attention internally, thus interfering with task-relevant information processing. Nevertheless, working-memory deficits are often obscured by compensatory exertion of increased effort by anxious subjects on cognitive tasks. Failure to identify anxietyspecific performance decrements has led some authors to replace the test anxiety construct with one emphasizing skill deficiencies. This investigation examined whether information-processing deficits are inherent sequelae of test anxiety or merely reflect lowered exam-taking ability in test-anxious persons.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Paulman, Ronald George
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library