Augustana College

Culver-Stockton College

Eureka College

Knox College

Marrycrest International University

Monmouth College

Western Illinois University

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Previous research has shown various factors to be related with relationship satisfaction.  Whereas some studies support the theory that relationship satisfaction is associated with an idealistic perception of one's partner, other studies support the idea that relationship satisfaction is associated with a realistic perception of one's partner.  Positive illusions of one's relationship, which may stem from self enhancing illusions or relationship enhancing illusions, have been positively correlated with relationship satisfaction. This study of twenty-five Knox College couples assessed the relationship of personal optimism, positive illusions of one's self, positive illusions of one's partner, and idealization by one's partner with relationship satisfaction.  The results showed that personal optimism was correlated with satisfaction in one's relationship for the whole sample.  When the sample of women and men were examined independently, it appeared that men report greatest satisfaction when they have high levels of personal optimism, while women report greatest satisfaction when they have accurate perceptions of themselves.

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The effect of socioeconomic status on Phonological awareness of 53 middle and lower class 3-year old Honduran children was examined.  The hypothesis underlying this study is that low SES children will have lower phonological awareness than higher SES children.  A rhyme task and a sound identity task was administered to test the phonological awareness of children.  An ANOVA was used to test the effect of SES on scores.  The results indicate that the effect of SES on the number of correct responses was not significant for either the rhyme task or the sound identity task.

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Past research has shown that people's self conception is highly influenced by the high consumer orientation of contemporary society.  The current study hypothesized that high consumer orientation and high aspiration for money would be correlated with high objectification of others and lower well-being.  These hypotheses were supported by data collected from 148 college students in Denmark, India and U.S.A.  Further, as hypothesized, India was the highest in consumer orientation, followed by U.S.A. and lastly, Denmark.

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It has been shown that people from different cultural backgrounds react to human rights violations differently.  To measure cultural differences with regards to perceptions of human rights violations, 48 American and 42 Chinese University students responded to case studies depicting a variety of human rights violations (HRVs). Results showed that Chinese and American University students were equally emotionally aroused to specific HRVs. On the other hand, Chinese were less likely to use severe methods to stopping violations compared to American subjects.  These results showed that in Americans, compared to Chinese, the degree of action to stopping an HRV was found to be more positively correlated to the degree of emotional arousal depicted from an HRV.

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Transitional objects (TOs) were first theorized about by Winnicott (1953).  He described TOs as soft objects that served two specific functions:  soothing the infant and helping the infant in differentiating self from other.  The soothing aspect of TOs has been well examined and shows the positive impact TOs have on children who are attached to them.  Very little research has been done on TOs and self-other differentiation, however.  The few case studies done, which have examined special populations, support the TO's importance to the child's understanding of self-other distinctions.  Empathy and other prosocial behaviors are a sign of a developed self and were used as the dependent measures of self-other distinction.  It was hypothesized  that the type and amount of attachment children had to their TOs (assessed by a survey filled out by the mother) would affect their empathy skills (the greater the amount of TO attachment, the better the empathy skills) and that children who had their TP present during empathy tests would score higher.  30 randomly chosen 30-36 month-olds were randomly assigned to two conditions: one bringing their TO to testing and one leaving the TO at home.  Testing included a perspective taking test, a sharing task, a gift-giving task, and a comforting task.

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This study examined the effect of questioning techniques on foreign language learning for field dependent (FD) subjects. Past research showed that field independent (FI) teachers, who ask analytical questions, are more beneficial for FD students than FD teachers, who ask factual questions. Fifteen FD subjects prescreened using the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) were taught Spanish verb conjugations in the present tense. Five subjects were in each of three conditions: a control condition, a factual questioning condition, and an analytical questioning condition. Subjects in the analytical questioning condition did not do better, and there were no significant differences between any of the conditions. Trends in the data are discussed. Also, alternatives for why FI teachers seem to be better foreign language instructors for FD students in addition to limitations of the study are discussed.

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There are few rules to body language but it can be examined in many ways. Boredom is one of the most common emotions and is communicated in many different ways. Frustration and anger are also common emotions but are expressed in different ways. The present study looked at boredom and frustration to see if people suppressed boredom and frustration more when they had an audience present that when they were alone. There were 25 Caucasian subjects from a small Midwestern city that ranged in age from 18-43. The results of the experiment showed expression of boredom decreased in camera presence vs. Absence of camera whereas camera presence did not affect expressions of frustration.

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One reason for the lack of female participation in science could be do to cognitive differences between males and females.  The present study measured verbal and spatial working memory for 14 males and 41 females. Participants read texts that either presented the information in both the text and diagram, or in only one or the other.  Recall and question answering data found that males comprehended the material better than females.  It was also found that information from the text was remembered better than information from the diagram. The results were explained in terms of working memory span and comprehension.

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This study was designed to test if operationally defined breathing would change participants' emotional states.  Participants (N = 20) were undergraduates from Monmouth College. Participants listened to an audio tape of breathing constructed by college actors exhibiting the emotional states of angry, happy, and surprised.  Participants mimicked the breathing they heard and recorded their emotional state using a mood checklist.  Participants completed all three mood-breathing techniques with relaxation breathing in-between for a neutral condition.  It is predicted that when participants mimic the audio tape, they will report the emotional state that corresponds to that breathing technique. We can then  determine if breathing, with no other factors (physical or situational), can induce emotional states.

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Because jurors can sometimes hear inadmissible testimony during trials, it would be beneficial to determine when a juror can ignore inadmissible testimony.  Inhibitory control, a measure of a variety of behaviors such as compulsive shopping or stealing, could increase a juror's ability to ignore inadmissible testimony.  Subjects completed a personality test measuring inhibitory control, listened to a mock trial in which the evidence was either admissible or not, and then decided on the guilt of the defendant.  This experiment is a real world demonstration of the impact of inhibitory control on behavior.

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Buss, Larsen, Westen, and Semmelroth (1992) found that men were more threatened by partner sexual infidelity and women were more threatened by partner emotional infidelity.  They explained these sex differences by suggesting that men fear sexual infidelity because they fear being cuckolded and women fear emotional infidelity because they fear the loss of the partner and his resources to another woman.  However, later Buss, Larsen, and Westen (1996) argued that men have found that promiscuous sex is a good reproductive strategy and women have found that committed sex is a good reproductive strategy and that these strategy differences explain the sex differences in jealousy.  This research found support for the sex differences in promiscuous vs. committed sex explanation of sex differences in jealousy.

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The awareness of and negative stigma toward Western Illinois University's counseling services, Hotline, the Counseling Center, and the Psychology Clinic, were investigated, along with effectiveness and comfortability, by surveying 100 Western Illinois University students over the telephone. Participants were asked to rank the counseling services in the four areas (awareness, effectiveness, stigma, comfortability) to determine ways the counseling services can better provide for the students.  Participants were found to be most aware of Hotline.  Hotline was also found to be the least effective and the most comfortable service.  The Psychology Clinic was found to have the most negative stigma.

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The purpose of our study was to find out whether simultaneous or sequential lists of  associated words give different amounts of false recognition. Participants from various psychology courses were presented with either a simultaneous list of words or a sequential list of words taken from Roediger and McDermott (1995.)  Immediately afterwards, the participants were given a memory test in which they were asked to identify words as new or old and rate their confidence of their answer.  We used a t-test and found no significant difference between the two groups. Our hypothesis that simultaneous lists would produce less false recognition was not supported.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate whether positive or negative mood music could affect scores on a false recognition test.  Thirty-five subjects were recruited from a general psychology class at Western Illinois University.  Subjects were randomly assigned to groups and subjected to either a positive mood inducing classical piece of music or a negative mood inducing classical piece.   After list presentation, subjects filled out a recognition test.  An independent t-test indicated no significant difference in the scores of the two groups.  The results failed to support previous studies.  Previous research indicates that subjects who were positively induced had better scores on lists of positive words and negatively induced subjects had better scores on lists of negative words.

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A study by Robinson and Roediger (1997) found list length was directly related to false memory in a within-subjects study.  We ran 33 general psychology student volunteers in a partial replication of their study using a between-subjects design.  Each of our 3 groups saw either 2 word lists, 5 word lists, or 10 word lists, followed by a recognition test. There was a significant difference between the groups, and this supported Robinson and Roediger's finding that longer lists produced a higher rate of false recall.

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This experiment was conducted to test how the speed of list item presentation affects the false memory of words.  Thirty-eight subjects from a psychology 100 course at Western Illinois University saw lists of related words.  Words were presented to each group either for 20 ms, 2,000 ms, or with backward masking for 20 ms with a 2,000 ms inter-stimulus interval between words.  The results of an ANOVA showed significant differences between groups. Subjects in the 2,000 ms group falsely recognized significantly more words than the 20 ms group and the backward masking group. Our results did not support the finding of Seamon et al. (1998).

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In recent years the number of nontraditional students (25 years and older) in college has increased dramatically, and with this increase many questions arise that can be examined by psychologists. This study examines instructors' and students' evaluations of traditional and nontraditional students by asking the evaluator to rate a target individual based on a number of statements made by the target. Secondly, it was hypothesized that, upon matching targets to statements, subjects would be more likely to make within-group errors than between-group errors.  Results support Hypothesis 2. A discussion of the results is given, as well as suggested directions for further studies.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate how positive/negative feedback  influenced decision times (DT) and reaction times (RT). Thirty-six subjects made decisions about when to begin each section of the experiment, which was composed of several series of RT tasks.  ANOVAs indicated that positive/negative feedback resulted in significant differences in DTs, with positive feedback being related to faster DTs. Also of interest was how RT and DT correlated with two standard measures of procrastination:  the Decisional Procrastination Scale and the Adult Inventory of Procrastination.  The results were discussed in relation to previous research.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate a possible  false memory effect in same verses opposite imagery words.  Forty-five  subjects were presented with forty words and then given a test to measure  their  recognition to the words.  In the low imagery condition, subjects  falsely recognized significantly more imagery matches compared to  imagery  opposites.  These results suggest that there is a significant  false memory effect for low imagery words, but no significant effect was  found for high imagery words.

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Resident Assistants (RAs) are assigned to a residence hall floor to build cohesive communities of residents.  Past research has indicated that optimism may be related to positive job outcomes such as performance and satisfaction.  We hypothesized: (1) RAs who scored optimistically would exhibit greater satisfaction and performance, and  (2) RAs would display a negative change over the course of an academic year.  Partial support was found for the first hypothesis, in the form of a positive and significant correlation between optimism and job performance. Results were supportive of hypothesis two-- satisfaction decreased, while thoughts of quitting increased over time.

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The purpose of this study is to address the effect of adolescent autonomy level on faulty beliefs about parents and conflict with parents. Adolescents and their mothers completed the following questionnaires. Adolescent emotional autonomy was assessed using the Emotional Autonomy Scale.  Faulty beliefs were assessed using the Family Beliefs Inventory. Conflict was assessed using the Issues Checklist Scale.  Regression statistics revealed a significant correlation between mother's rating of their adolescent's autonomy with their reported intensity and frequency of conflict.  There was also a significant correlation between adolescent's rating of their autonomy and their reported intensity of conflict.  A significant correlation was found between adolescent's emotional autonomy and their faulty beliefs about their mothers.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that certain individual differences are either positively or negatively correlated with the extent to which an individual uses proactive coping. Self-esteem was hypothesized to be positively correlated with proactive coping.  Fifty-two introductory psychology students completed the Behavioral Assessment of Psychosocial Competence Scale, Beck's Depression Inventory, Rosenburg's Self-esteem Scale, and Rotter's IE Scale. These measures were analyzed using the Pearson's correlational coefficient. Externality was found to be negatively correlated with proactive coping. These result's confirmed Zea's et al. (1996) previous finding that an external locus of control is negatively correlated with proactive coping.