As is true for most majors at Bates, all psychology seniors must complete a senior thesis. This archive lists the name, title and a brief summary (abstract) of the projects of select seniors who graduated in 2019.

Please check out our complete Senior Thesis Archive.

Note: indicates an empirical thesis project and indicates a community-based learning thesis project.

Click a name to view that student’s abstract, or scroll down to view all students.

Emily Bowen
Caroline Carreras
Sarah Daehler
Ross Ehrlich
Anissa Garza
Claire Diana Knox Hammer
Sanah Hasan
Katie Hughes
Anna Kreitzer
Erika Amalia Lamere
Lisa Leland Lefeber
Doug Leon
Phoebe Long
Kudzaiishe Irene Mapfunde
Sophia Rose Marion
Amanda Mele
Rachel A Minkovitz
Emma Elise Patterson
Adam Poulin
Eleanor Ross
Gabe Siegel
Catie Spaulding
Emily Tan
Anjali Thomke
Sylvie Tuchman
Christian W. Welch
Hanchen Zhang

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Emily Bowen       

The Extent to Which There are Gender Differences in Levels of Satisfaction with Online and Offline Romantic Relationships in Young Adults

Abstract: In the 21st century, online dating is one of the most common ways of meeting people and creating meaningful interactions, and it is especially prevalent on college campuses. The purpose of this study is to examine the levels of satisfaction that men and women have with both online and offline interactions when finding a romantic partner, and to better understand what motivates young adults to date. These motivations and levels of satisfaction and are to be measured through questions asked on a Qualtrics survey utilizing two scales, the Online Dating Inventory (ODI) and the Online Dating Site Gratifications Measure (ODSGM). The ODI assesses the general online dating site usage of the participants, while the ODSGM asks participants to rate items that motivate them to date. The results from the survey will divide my sample into two groups: online daters and offline daters. Responses from college students from various schools, including Bates, will be utilized in the survey, however, onl y those who are actively searching for a romantic partner will have their answers considered. The levels of satisfaction and motivational reasons why people date between the two groups, online and offline will be conducted with various 2×2 ANOVA tests. I expect to find that women will have higher levels of satisfaction with offline interactions and lower satisfaction with online interactions compared to men. Keywords: intimacy, satisfaction, online interactions, offline interactions

Caroline Carreras       

Are There Long Terms Benefits of Montessori Education? The Relationship Between Montessori Schooling and Motivation, Mindfulness, and Purpose in Life

Abstract This study explored the long term outcomes of Montessori education, and more specifically, whether time spent in a Montessori school in childhood was a predictor of future motivation, mindfulness, and sense of purpose in life. Participants were 115 undergraduate students, ages 18+ who were asked to complete a brief survey where they indicated whether or not they attended a Montessori school. Gender as well as other demographics were also asked. The Academic Motivation Scale, Adolescent and Adult Mindfulness Scale, and Crumbaugh & Maholick’s (1964) Purpose in Life Test were used to measure motivation, mindfulness, and sense of purpose in life. SES was also measured using McArthur’s Scale of Subjective Social Status. Two open-ended questions assessed how meaningful their childhood education was to them. Three 2 x 2 factorial ANOVAs were conducted to compare the main effects of type of education and gender as well as the interaction of the type of education and gender on our three dependent measures. Given that the principles governing Montessori learning foster intrinsic motivation, mindfulness, and a greater sense of purpose in life, it was expected that individuals that attended a Montessori school in childhood had more intrinsic motivation, more mindfulness, and a greater sense of purpose in life than individuals that did not attend a Montessori school. Second, given that males have been struggling in traditional schools, it was expected that males would benefit more from Montessori schools and thus have higher levels of the dependent measures than females if they had attended a Montessori school in childhood as opposed to if they did not attend a Montessori school. Keywords: education, Montessori, motivation, mindfulness, sense of purpose in life

Sarah Daehler       

The Implications of Type of Pay and Use of Time for Staff Members at Bates College

Anthropologist David Graeber suggests that many jobs are not necessary and that the employees working in these positions report very low job satisfaction (Vedantam, 2018). It is important to acknowledge workplace experiences because job satisfaction and life satisfaction are closely related (Gonzalez-Mule & Cockburn, 2017). The present research aimed to study workplace experiences at Bates College to see which factors of work contributed to life satisfaction, meaning in work, job control, and job satisfaction. It was hypothesized that staff members receiving salary pay would report high life satisfaction, meaning in work, job control, and job satisfaction. This hypothesis was partially supported: salary pay participants reported greater life satisfaction and meaning in work than hourly pay participants. It was also hypothesized that staff members rep orting high job necessity and little unscheduled time at work would report greater satisfaction with life, meaning in work, job control, and job satisfaction than staff members reporting low job necessity and much unscheduled time at work. This hypothesis was also partially supported: employees reporting high job necessity reported greater meaning in work and greater job control than employees reporting low job necessity.

Ross Ehrlich       

Effect of Money Priming on Illusory Control

Money and its effect on the human mind is a massively important topic. Studies have shown that money causes people to have a greater sense of self-sufficiency and a lesser sense of altruism. In this study one group of participants was primed through readings designed to activate thoughts of an excess of money while another group was primed with thoughts of a dearth of money. The goal was to determine if those who had been primed with money demonstrated a greater sense of illusory control in a game of chance setting. Illusory control was expected to be raised in participants who had been primed with money relative to those primed with a lack of money. Participants’ mood was reported prior to completing a die rolling task. In order to determine whether or not illusory control was present, participants were asked if they preferred to roll the die themselves or have the experimenter roll the die for them. Results indicated that the die roll decision was not significantly higher for those who had been money primed, and that participants’ household income did not influence their die roll decision. The understanding of money’s impact on illusory control could help us understand the reason why people make life-altering decisions in situations where the outcome cannot be controlled.

Anissa Garza       

Self-Concept Clarity and Fluid Compensation

Borderline personality disorder is characterized by the instability of self-image: a symptom that presents itself in both clinical and non-clinical populations. This symptom can be measured using a construct called self-concept clarity, which serves as an important source of meaning in life. Serving as a source of meaning makes it susceptible to meaning threats, which can result in fluid compensation, or the reaffirmation of an alternate meaning framework. This study addresses whether individuals with low self-concept clarity are capable of engaging in fluid compensation when presented with a meaning threat, or the isolation from family and friends. This question was addressed by asking participants differing in self-concept clarity to complete a writing task designed to either threatened or bolstered their sense of meaning and read and respond to both a complimentary essay and a critical es say about their academic institution. There were no significant interactions found between self-concept clarity, essay polarization, which was used to measure fluid compensation, and condition. This suggested that the effect that condition had on essay polarization did not significantly differ as a result of self-concept clarity. Replicating this study in a more diverse sample and in a controlled laboratory setting may yield significant results. If done, this line of research could be used to better understand the effects of meaning threats in general and clinical populations. Keywords: identity disturbance, self-concept clarity, meaning in life, meaning threats, fluid compensation

Claire Diana Knox Hammer       

‘It’s Not Humility, It’s Humiliation’: The Impact of Weight Disparagement Humor on Humor Perceptions and Antifat Attitudes

Previous research has shown that the use of disparagement humor – humor that denigrates or belittles an individual or social group can impact the prejudice a person exposed to disparagement humor will exhibit towards the group being disparaged. The present study seeks to determine whether the weight of an individual telling a disparaging joke about weight (versus a neutral joke or a nonhumorous weight-disparaging remark) will affect participants’ perceptions of the target. Participants (N = 240) took a web-based survey via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in which they were randomly assigned to one of six conditions. Participants were asked to rate the humorousness of a statement and judge the character of the target. Analyses revealed that participants found disparaging jokes delivered by ov erweight targets significantly more humorous than disparaging jokes delivered by non-overweight targets, a finding supported by Benign Violations Theory (McGraw & Warren, 2010). Analyses also revealed that participants were significantly more likely to apply negative stereotypes to targets after they delivered disparagement jokes, regardless of target weight. Overall data trends reflect a shift in antifat attitudes throughout the United States over the past 20 years. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Sanah Hasan        

Effects of Ego-Depletion on Controlled Responses during the Shooter Bias Game

The purpose of this study was to examine how ego-depletion affected participants’ responses in the shooter bias video game using Muslim and non-Muslim targets. In the study, we adopted a component process theory approach to ego-depletion, so we distinguished between automatic and controlled processes (Jacoby, 1991). We had 59 participants take our study after eight were excluded. Participants were randomly assigned to an ego-depletion or a control condition and were asked to complete the ‘e’ cross task as the ego-depletion manipulation (Muraven, 2008). In the shooter bias game, participants were instructed to shoot armed targets and not shoot unarmed targets (Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002). We modified the targets from the original game so that they either wore Muslim attire (turban/thobe) or no Muslim attire. The shooter bias video game a ssessed participants’ religious biases, and we adopted the procedure from Payne (2001) to distinguish between controlled and automatic responses. The results from our study showed marginally significant trends that ego-depletion lessened participants’ control over their responses more compared to participants in the control condition. Additionally, we found that participants had significantly less control over their responses when shown a Muslim appearing target compared to a non-Muslim appearing target. We also found that ego-depletion did not affect participants’ automatic responses. Keywords: ego-depletion, prejudice, shooter bias, Islam

Katie Hughes       

Attitudes Towards and Responses to Temperament-Based Behaviors: Montessori Teachers versus Traditional Teachers

Temperament is the biological foundation for personality and explains the individual differences in how individuals respond to environmental stimuli (Thomas, Chess, & Birch, 1970; Deng et al., 2017). In the classroom, children are expected to meet many social and behavioral demands, and temperament plays a large role in how they respond to such demands. This study investigated whether Montessori teachers and public school teachers differ in their attitudes towards and pedagogical strategies used in response to different temperament-based behaviors in elementary classrooms. Elementary school teachers (N = 103; 46 Montessori school, 42 public school, 15 unreported) completed an anonymous online survey. Participants read three Child Behavior Vignettes, each of which depicted typical classroom behaviors of a shy child, an exuberant child, and an average child. They then responded to measures of teacher warmth, teacher self-efficacy, teacher perception of child academic skills, use of so cial-learning strategies, and use of high-power strategies. The results found that child temperament was more important than school type in predicting teacher attitudes towards classroom behaviors.

Anna Kreitzer       

Parental Influence on Students’ Academic Major Satisfaction

Research has shown that college provides young adults with an environment in which they can start to govern themselves separately from their parents (Cullaty, 2011). The present study sought to discover if the amount of parental influence on a student’s choice of an academic major and the amount of parental financial contribution to a student’s college tuition has any relationship with a student’s satisfaction with their major. A total of 147 students (102 single majors, 45 double majors) were recruited from Bates College to take an online survey that measured their major satisfaction, parental influence on their choice of a major, and parental financial contribution to their college tuition. It was hypothesized that students with parents who primarily pay for their college tuition and who tried to influence their choice of a major would be less satisfied with thei r major than students with parents who did not primarily pay for their college tuition and who did not try to influence their choice of a major. Quantitative findings indicated that students with parents that did not greatly influence their choice of a major were more satisfied with their major than students with parents who did greatly influence their choice of a major if the students’ parents were not the primary financial contributor to their tuition. If students�’parents were the primary financial contributor to their tuition, then the opposite was true. Additional quantitative results indicated that students who felt positively supported by their parents when choosing their major were more satisfied with their major than students who were negatively supported by their parents.

Erika Amalia Lamere       

Incriminating Information Eliminates the Ability to Judge Eyewitness Accuracy

This study investigated whether observers are influenced by contextual information when judging the accuracy of an eyewitness. Participants included 382 people recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. All analyses include only the 240 participants who correctly answered attention checks. Before watching three videos of either an inaccurate or accurate eyewitness making an identification, participants were given no information, incriminating information, or exonerating information about the person identified in the video. Participants were then asked about the accuracy of the eyewitness seen in the video. In the presence of no information or exonerating information, participants were able to accurately decipher between accurate and inaccurate witnesses. However, in the presence of incriminating information, participants were unable to accurately decipher between accurate and inaccurate witnesses. Courtrooms should manipulate the order of proceedings in order to eliminate this effect that incriminating information creates for perceivers.

Lisa Leland Lefeber       

Implementing a Student Recognition Program at Margaret Murphy Center for Children

This study sought to develop a student recognition program and curriculum for a middle/high school branch of Margaret Murphy Center for Children (MMCC), that specializes in working with students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other intellectual disorders. ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interactions and communication, and focused/repetitive interests and acts. The impaired social interactions are especially difficult in adolescence, and students with ASD often report feelings of loneliness and a lack of belonging at school. Positive education encourages the development of, and focus on, students’ positive skills, traits, and emotions. Research documents the many benefits of positive education, including an increase in feelings of school belonging and cohesiveness, and overall student well-being. Whi le most research on positive education focuses on typically developing children, there is great potential for positive education to impact the lives of students with ASD. A curriculum and student recognition program was designed by observing the students at MMCC, holding conversations with staff and teachers, and researching positive education and documented student recognition programs. The designed program focuses on kindness, encouraging the students to reflect on their own kindness to their peers, as well as the kindness their peers exhibit. While students did engage in acts of kindness and demonstrated the ability to understand what kindness and kind acts are, students had difficulty recognizing kind acts performed by others and kind acts performed by themselves. Recommendations for the program are discussed.

Doug Leon       

Resilience-Building in Restorative Practice: An Effectiveness Analysis of Juveniles involved in Restorative Justice

Restorative justice is a growing alternate to the traditional punitive system of criminal justice. This study looks at the success of restorative justice in building resilience within juvenile offenders. Offender data from pre/post restorative justice opening and closing surveys from 50 juvenile male cases, we performed paired sample t-tests to explore if the offenders showed significant differences from the initial survey prior to their opening circle and their post survey after their closing circle. We found significance in both internal and external measures of resilience. These findings suggest that restorative justice can be a key component in building resilience within the individual, and thu

Phoebe Long       

The Role of Heuristic Biases in the Decision Making of Financial Professionals Prior to the 2008 Financial Crisis: A Multi-Perspective Approach

Research has shown that most individuals are susceptible to the effects of irrational judgment and decision making, known as heuristic biases. Heuristic biases are unconscious mental processes that can affect anyone but are most commonly seen to affect the judgments and decisions of individuals in situations that are high-risk, situations where quick decisions need to be made, and situations where individuals are overconfident. All three of these situations are present within the financial sector, as the world of investment banking is a high-risk, constantly changing environment, where information can easily be misinterpreted. The current study will attempt to determine the role that heuristic biases played in the poor judgments and decisions made by financial professionals leading up to the Financial Crisis of 2008. This study will also attempt to compare the perspectives of higher ups (decision makers) to other financial professionals/ lower downs (non-decision makers and observer s of decision making). Participants were asked to what degree they believed the specific heuristics availability bias, the representativeness heuristic, anchoring, herding, overconfidence bias, confirmation bias, and hindsight bias, effected professional decision making in the financial sector prior to the Financial Crisis. It was hypothesized that participants may believe that some heuristics played a role in professional decision making more than other heuristics and that perspectives on the role of heuristics in decision making will differ between those in decision-making roles and those in non-decision-making roles. A significant effect of herding and overconfidence were found, in addition to an interaction between ‘role during Crisis’ and ‘current role’ for confirmation bias.

Kudzaiishe Irene Mapfunde       

Socioeconomic Status , Financial Stress and Depressive Symptoms in Bates College Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between financial stress and depressive symptoms in Bates College students. I hypothesized that financial stress would be correlated with depressive symptoms and that women would show greater levels of depressive symptoms than their male counter parts. Two hundred and eight Bates College students from all four classes participated in this study by completing a 7- 12 minute Qualtrics survey. The materials consisted of a demographic questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck et al., 1961), the Financial Stress Scale College Version (FSS-CV; Northern, O’Brien & Goetz, 2010), and MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status (SSS; Adler, Epel, Castellazzo & Ickovics, 2000). Results reveled that there was a positive correlation between financial stress and depres sive symptoms, however unlike expected there was no main effect of gender. Future research and suggestions for intervention are briefly discussed.

Sophia Rose Marion       

‘I Like You Just the Way You Are’: Implementing a Curriculum Fostering Belonging in a Special Needs and Strengths Classroom at Farwell Elementary in Lewiston, Maine

School belonging has been shown to support positive developmental outcomes in students. It is especially crucial for students with disabilities to feel a sense of school belonging since they may feel excluded in other domains of their lives. Increasing belonging in one domain of an individual’s life has shown to have positive impacts on different domains (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Chiu, Chow, McBride, & Mol, 2016; Stewart, 2008). The present research evaluated the effectiveness of an intervention fostering belonging in a Functional Life Skills classroom at Farwell Elementary School in Lewiston, Maine. The researcher implemented a week-long curriculum unit fostering belonging in different domains of the students’ life. The study measured students’ (n = 5) sense of school belonging before and after the intervention was conducted using the Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) Scale (Goodenow, 1993). The teachers (n = 5) in the classroom filled out a questionnaire evaluating the researcher’s ability to teach the lesson. The data did not show an increase in belonging. Before the curriculum, students reported feeling like they belonged in the classroom. After the curriculum, they still felt that way, showing a ceiling effect. The teachers in the classroom have strong relationships with the children, which positively impacts a sense of school belonging (Able, Sreckovic, Schultz, Garwood, & Sherman, 2015; Allen, Kern, Vella-Brodrick, Hattie, & Waters, 2018; Bouchard & Berg, 2017).

Amanda Mele       

Students with Learning Disabilities’ Academic Stress, Academic Anxiety and the Use of Accommodations

The present study investigates the relationship between gender and the use of academic accommodations on anxiety and academic stress for students with learning disabilities. The Perceived Stress Scale adapted for academic life will be used, along with an Academic Anxiety Scale (Sheu et al., 2014; Gogol et al., 2014). In addition, an adapted scale from Lapp (2015) will be used to understand the utilization of accommodations. The sample was 96 participants from Bates College undergraduate students diagnosed with a learning disability, Academic Year 2018-2019. An online survey was distributed to participants. Qualitative findings recognize that students with learning disabilities do not use their accommodations and suggest further research to understand why accommodations do not work well in a classroom. Future research could benefit und erstanding younger age groups and the general effectiveness of accommodations in classrooms. Keywords: learning disabilities, anxiety, stress, accommodations, gender

Rachel A Minkovitz       

Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf-Whistler? How Perpetrator and Victim Race Changes Believability of Sexual Assault Victims

People of color are often blamed for abuses they suffer at the hands of others, and when combined with the unfortunate fact that victims of sexual assault are often blamed for the assault, it may be that sexual assault victims of color receive more blame for sexual assault than other victims (George & Martinez, 2002, Dukes & Gaither, 2017). This study examined the effects of sexual assault perpetrator and victim race on perceived believability of victim and of perceived severity of the assault. These effects were studied by manipulating the implied race of both the perpetrator and victim of sexual assault via race-typical Black and White names in a fictional opinion editorial written from the perspective of the victim. Participants read the op-ed and rated how believable they found the victim, and they did the same to rate the severity of the sexual assault. Participants rated victims of Black abusers as significantly more believable than victims of White abusers, and the interact ion between victim and abuser race had a significant effect on assault severity. Future research should include victims and abusers of more races and also conduct the study among a non-college participant sample for a more representative sample of the general population.

Emma Elise Patterson        

Memory Load’s Effect on Precrastination and its Implications to the Pre-disposition of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Related Forms of Dementia

Abstract Precrastination is the tendency for many individuals to complete a task as soon as possible in order to ‘get it out of the way’ even though this may not be the most efficient way of behaving. Precrastination may result in a greater physical workload and it has been hypothesized that people may do this to relieve their cognitive load (since they no longer need to remember to do the task). This study examines this phenomenon in order to test the hypothesis that precrastination is related to memory load. Participants were sometimes given a memory load of five digits and the location of where this could be offloaded was manipulated (near, far, or no load). In addition, the amount of effort involved in precrastination was manipulated by changing the distance people needed to walk (near or far). These factors were crossed in a 3×2 repeated measures design. Results indicated that there was a main effect of memory load, but no main effect of distance and no interaction. People were more likely to precrastinate when doing so meant that they could unload the list of digits early and they were less likely to precrastinate when this meant they needed to hold the digits in memory for a longer period of time. Both were compared to the no load condition. These results indicate that precrastination is related to the amount of time someone holds a memory load. Additionally, this study looked at environmental factors such as age, grade, and amount of sleep because these factors may be related to an individual’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia later in life. None of these factors were correlated with precrastination.

Adam Poulin       

The Effects of Color on Consumer Buying Behaviors

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship that color has with consumer buying behaviors. These behaviors were studied by providing participants with photos of refrigerators and modifying the color of included fictitious logos. Refrigerators were chosen because most of the sample was likely to have little preference concerning them. Participants answered questions about their likeliness to buy the refrigerators and whether they find them pleasing to the eye or not. Answers were compared across different aspects of color including saturation and hue. Grayscale photos and logos were used in a comparison group, and the colored condition was also compared to itself. The color of the logos was manipulated throughout the survey while the colors of refrigerators remained neutral and buying preferences were recorded. This study extended previous research findings by investigati ng how consumers’ observations of and interactions with color leads them to make certain decisions when they buy. Results indicated that cooler colors and lower saturations increased the likelihood of someone buying a product over warm colors and high saturations. However, there was no difference in aesthetic pleasure derived from cool and warm colors. The results are analyzed more deeply in the discussion section of this paper.

Eleanor Ross       

Apologies: A Tool to Address Sexual Misconduct on College Campuses

This study examined what makes an apology acceptable to the receiver in cases of sexual misconduct on college campuses. A sample of 112 college student participants judged three apologies crafted for a single transgression: sexual fondling/groping without consent. One apology contained three self-focused elements of admission, regret, and restitution; one three self-other elements of acknowledgement, remorse, and reparation; and the third all six elements. On 7-point Likert scales, participants rated the sincerity of the apology, acceptance of the apology, the extent to which the harmdoer was thinking of the harmed party’s needs, and the experience of a sense of closure. They also ranked the three apologies from best (1) to worst (3). The apology that contained only the self-focus elements was rated the lowest on almost all measures, and the apology with al l six elements was rated the highest. There was no gender difference for any of the apology ratings or the ranking.

Gabe Siegel       

The Impact of Interpersonal Familiarity and Co-Witness Response time on the Rate of False Identifications of Suspects

Previous research has shown that eyewitnesses are more likely to make a false identification of a suspect when a co-witness completes the task before them and does so relatively quickly. The current study replicated this speed manipulation and added another independent variable familiarity between co-witnesses. We hypothesized that familiar co-witnesses would be more influenced by the decision of their co-witness, and thus be most likely to give a false identification in the fast condition and least likely to give a false identification in the slow condition. Participants consisted of 86 students at a small liberal-arts college in Maine. In pairs, participants watched a video of a crime and then, one at a time, were asked to identify the culprit from a target-absent photospread. Our results revealed no significant interaction between co-witness ID speed and familiarity on the rates of false identifications. Additional analyses found a significant interaction between co-witness ID speed and familiarity on participants’ judgments of their co-witnesses decision making abilities. In the friend condition, participants judged their co-witnesses as better decision makers when they made a slow identification; co-witnesses in the stranger condition were judged as better decision makers if they made a fast decision. These findings suggest that law enforcement agents should take steps to ensure that the procedures they use are not inadvertently informing witnesses about the identification task.

Catie Spaulding       

The Message Below Pictures: How Framing Instagram Posts Affects College Women’s Body Appreciation

Past research shows that Instagram affects women’s body image, however, most studies focus on the effects of Instagram images rather than captions. The current study examined the impact of Instagram posts on women’s body appreciation and investigated whether framing captions as body competent versus body aesthetic on posts was a mechanism causing body image to change. Women’s body image was assessed with The Body Appreciation Scale (BAS), along with assessments of how often participants observe their bodies and compare themselves to others on Instagram. One week later, participants viewed a fictitious Bates peer’s Instagram profile, according to which condition they were assigned. Participants viewed the female peer’s Instagram posts framed with body competence, body aesthetic, or neutral captions, and their body appreciation was measured for a second time. This study found that different captions did not significantly affect women’s body appreciation. However, trends si gnified that body competence framed messages may increase body appreciation and body aesthetic framed messages may decrease body appreciation. Although further research including additional participants is necessary to make trends that emerged significant, this research offers possible insight into the reason why Instagram affects women’s body appreciation.

Emily Tan       

The Relationship Between Religious Support and Satisfaction with Life in Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Raising a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can pose significant challenges for parents, oftentimes having a negative impact on their wellbeing and happiness. One way parents cope with this challenge is leaning on religion as a support system. The current study examined the relationship between Satisfaction with Life (SWL) and religious support/spirituality in parents of children with ASD. 11 parents, recruited from Margaret Murphy Centers, were used as participants for the study. Religious support, spirituality, ASD severity, and SWL were measured. Analyses did not find that parents high in religious support or spirituality had higher SWL than those low in religious support or spirituality. However, qualitative analyses revealed trends in the opportunities and challenges that parents experience, as well as other coping mechanisms that they use. The qualitative results add depth to researchers’ understanding of the experience of parenting a child with ASD.

Anjali Thomke       

Why Consumers Don’t Do What They Say: Understanding the Gap Between Expressed Preferences and True Choices

This thesis examines the discrepancy between people’s intentions and behavior: the saying-doing gap. The psychology literature has many different angles that identify and explain the gap, however, there has been limited research on how to address this phenomenon. The thesis is organized by three questions: does the gap exist and why it matters, where does the gap come from and how to address it. The presence of the saying-doing gap is relevant for businesses, academic researchers and pollsters. The origins of the gap are conveyed through psychological models such as the theory of planned behavior and the IBMMM (Intention-Behavior Mediation and Moderation Model). External and internal factors are important drivers and widen the saying-doing gap. This includes influential effects such as priming, and the Hawthorne effect or personality and culture. My results include finding strategies/attempts to close the gap and literature that supports suggestions for future research. Consumer p references are more likely to be addressed (closing the gap) when researchers are able to identify with a brand, understand the processes and formation of the human mind and gain insight on human happiness. Companies should include more inside sources instead of just consumers, academic researchers should conduct more studies on consumer neuroscience and pollsters should reconsider their methods for collecting data.

Sylvie Tuchman       

Exploring the Best Practices for Implementing Well-Being Programming at a Drop-In Center for Runaway and Homeless Youth in Lewiston, Maine

Research has indicated that there are significant therapeutic benefits of both exercise and meditation for individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Additionally, studies have shown that people of low socioeconomic status often face barriers to engaging in physical activity due to a lack of resources and time. The current study sought to determine the barriers that might exist in developing physical activity programs at a drop-in center for homeless youth in Lewiston, Maine, and to investigate the potential benefits of a meditation-based program with this same population. Research was conducted at the drop-in center, and predominately consisted of informal interviews with youth and drop-in staff. Results indicated that the meditation program seemed to contribute to both increased body and self-awareness among the youth who participated. In addition, a thematic analysis of field notes revealed that barriers to facilitating exercise programming include the complexitie s of the rhetoric surrounding exercise, a lack of resources, both of drop-in and of the youth, and the youth not seeing the physical space of drop-in as a desirable place for physical activity. Future research should incorporate longer term fieldwork, such that more trusting relationships with youth can be developed. Additionally, once physical activity programs are implemented, research should examine their impact on body and self-awareness.

Christian W. Welch       

The Disruptive Effect of Tongue Twisters on Working Memory and Serial Recall

When presented with a visual list of words, prior research has found that people have more difficultly recalling words that are phonologically similar compared to a control list of dissimilar words. This result, known as the phonological similarity effect, suggests that when participants are attempting to recall auditorily or visually presented stimuli, they subvocally rehearse the words in the phonological loop section of working memory, and similar phonemes significantly reduce memory recall. The current study examined the phonological similarity effect by testing the accuracy of memory recall on lists of phonologically similar non-rhyming words(tongue twister condition), phonologically similar rhyming words (phonologically similar condition), and phonologically different non-rhyming control words(control condition). Bates College students participat ed in a series of memory recall tests, in which they were required to report the serial position of each word after they heard an individual list. To keep the materials standardized, each set contained words with similar frequency of use, mean naming reaction time, and number of syllables across all three conditions. In this repeated measure design, participants received 27 different sets of six words, nine sets in each condition. Results from this experiment indicate that the tongue twister condition had significantly lower serial recall compared to both phonologically similar and control conditions. The phonological similarity effect was not replicated as the phonologically similar condition was not significantly different from the control.

Hanchen Zhang       

Testing the Spatial Constraint on the Interaction between Congruency and Alertness with Numeric Stimuli

Previous research has found that the flanker effect was enhanced when people are alerted in the Attention Network Test (ANT). Schneider (2018) showed that the interaction between alertness and congruency that is typically found with arrow stimuli did not generalize to Stroop color items. To test if there is a spatial constraint on the interaction, Experiment 1 used numbers as targets since the SNARC effect illustrates that numbers are associated with spatial directions. The participants were asked to identify the magnitude of numbers (less than or greater than 5) with spatial response, while the alerting condition and the congruency between distractor number and target number were manipulated. The result showed a significant interaction between congruency and alertness. This pattern replicates the pattern found with arrow stimuli. To eliminate the alternative explanation that color stimuli are somehow special, Experiment 2 used pictures of faces and mailboxes since these stimuli are not associated with spatial directions, and no significant interaction was found. Together these data fully support the proposal that the interaction between alerting and congruency requires pre-existing directional associations. This spatial constraint can be explained by the increased attention orienting effect of directional targets in the alerted condition that leads to the increased detection and influence of flankers.