Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Threat (Psychology) Cognitive psychology'

This thesis seeks to explore the association between ego threat and coping in terms of cognitive strategies and behavioral tendencies. Moreover, the current study is also intended to use attachment dimensions as an underlying mechanism to understand the impact of ego threat on coping. Within the internal working models of attachment theory, the current study seeks to examine two major questions: (1) what strategies individuals use to cope with ego threatening events: and (2) how attachment associates with coping strategies during various ego-threats conditions? The results had a significant impact when individuals were presented with ego threat scenarios suggest that individuals are most likely to use state coping of emotion focused disengagement followed closely by state coping disengagement while experiencing an ego-threat condition. However, all state coping strategies (e.g., state coping engagement, state coping disengagement, state coping problem focused engagement, state coping emotion focused engagement, state coping problem focused disengagement, and state coping emotion focused disengagement) had a significant impact when individuals were presented with ego-threat scenarios. The results of association between attachment dimensions and state coping strategies across ego-threat conditions were not significant. Further this study implies ego-threat conditions make it more likely for individuals to use dysfunctional coping strategies such as state coping disengagement and emotion focused disengagement. Overall, the study has implications for enhancing our understanding of internal working models of attachment and the tendency for ego-threat to impact coping strategies, emphasizes the potency of ego-threatening events as they impact self-view and efficacy of coping solutions.

The three studies that follow were designed to advance the field's knowledge of positive coping patterns in response to insidious, ongoing natural and human-generated disaster threat. They will address the following three aims: 1) to create a psychometrically sound measure of self-efficacy as it applies to human-generated and natural disaster events; 2) to test a theory-driven moderation model of emergency preparedness self-efficacy and its role in the relationship between perceived risk and psychological outcomes; and, 3) to examine how the role of emergency preparedness self-efficacy might vary in ethnically diverse populations. Although numerous assessments of disaster mental health functioning exist, the field has lacked continuity of measurement across disasters; a parsimonious, all-hazard measure is needed in order to identify important psychological risk and resilience factors across disasters. In Paper 1, the psychometric properties of the Emergency Preparedness Self-Efficacy (EPSE) scale are evaluated; this scale assesses an individual's perceived self-efficacy with respect to preparation for, and response to emergencies arising in natural and human-generated disasters. Results from undergraduate and community samples suggest reliability and validity of this emergency preparedness self-efficacy measure. Paper 2 examines the moderating roles of both general self-efficacy and domain-specific (emergency preparedness) self-efficacy on the relationship between the ongoing perceived risk of human-made disaster (terrorism) and mental health outcomes. As hypothesized, emergency preparedness self-efficacy (but not general self-efficacy) moderated the relationship between perception of risk and anxiety and perception of risk and general distress. Greater emergency preparedness self-efficacy reduced the impact of risk perception on both mental health outcomes, highlighting the protective function of the contextually specific belief in one's capacity to overcome hardship and exercise control. Paper 3 examines how the moderating effect of emergency preparedness self-efficacy might differ for the ethnic minority subgroup as compared to the Caucasian subgroup. Results revealed that the relationship between perceived risk and anxiety was stronger for individuals with lower levels of emergency preparedness self-efficacy, compared to those with higher levels of emergency preparedness self-efficacy, in the Caucasian subsample. However, the relationship between perceived risk and anxiety did not differ according to level of emergency preparedness self-efficacy in the ethnic minority subgroup. Although preliminary, findings reveal a differing role of self-efficacy in response to ongoing terrorism threat for Caucasian versus ethnic minority individuals. Limitations of these studies are noted and recommendations for future research are provided. However, in combination, these studies provide evidence to support the psychometric properties of a scale for self-efficacy for disasters, which is noticeably absent from the field; highlight intervention opportunities at the individual level; and, demonstrate the need to tailor interventions to differing protective mechanisms across cultural populations.

Pupil dilation measures provide a useful index of test-taking processes. Prior research has established a simple positive relationship between pupil dilation magnitude and (i) threat levels, (ii) task difficulty levels, and (iii) working memory capacity. Surprisingly few studies have investigated the interaction of these three pupil response drivers. Do they add in a linear fashion, like separate weights on a single scale (as the "load" metaphor suggests), or is their relationship more complicated? To test of this question, I used a 2 X (2 X 3) mixed experimental design with random assignment to working memory resource depletion and nondepletion groups. These groups completed two versions of the same task, where response inhibition is required repeatedly in the depleting but is not required in the nondepleting version. Next, all subjects completed a test (90 factor-multiple judgment items) that employed two levels of difficulty (easy and difficult) and three levels of threat (safe, partially cued threat, and fully cued threat). Test-taking pupil data were collected at 60 Hz using a Tobii eye-tracker. Results indicated that levels of threat and task difficulty independently contribute to pupil response magnitude and they do not moderate one another. Apparently, the effects of difficulty and threat are not moderated by resource depletion; however, this study lacked power to detect anything less than a strong depletion effect. Results indicate that test-taking pupil responses are sensitive to testing conditions (e.g., threat and difficulty), but it remains unclear whether these responses are also sensitive to priming conditions (e.g., resource depletion).

Musica Speculativa is a final project in two parts in which I explore, through both theory and practice, the role of metaphors in our understanding of reality with special attention given to the use of visual representation in multimedia concert works that employ electroacoustics. Part I, entitled, "Imaginary Cognition: Interpreting the Topoi of Intermedia Electroacoustic Concert Works," explores how metaphors play a core role in our musical experience and how aural metaphors can be enhanced by and ultimately interact with visual metaphors to create a contrapuntal intermedia experience. Part II, "Musica Speculativa: A Multimedia Concert in Five Movements and Three Intermezzi," for mezzo-soprano, flute, B-flat bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, a percussionist performing an array of lightning bottles, a dancer with a gesture-sensing wand, and a technologist operating interactive audio and video processing, focuses on the medieval philosophy of Musica Speculativa and how it relates to our current understanding of the world.

In part I explore the heightened experience of metaphorical exchange through the utilization of multimedia. The starting point is the expansion of visual enhancement in electroacoustic compositions due to the widespread availability of projection in concert halls and the multimedia expectations created through 21st-century Western culture. With the use of visual representation comes the potential to map musical ideas onto visual signs, creating another level of cognition. The subsequent unfolding of visual signifiers offers a direct visual complement and subsequent interaction to the unfolding of aural themes in electroacoustic compositions. The paper surveys the current research surrounding metaphorical thematic recognition in electroacoustic works whose transformational processes might be unfamiliar, and which in turn create fertile ground for the negotiation of meaning. The interaction of media and the differences created among the various signs within the music and the visual art create a heightened concert experience that is familiar to and in many ways expected by contemporary listeners.

Composers such as Jaroslaw Kapuscinski have sought to use multimedia as a means to enhance the concert experience, giving movement to the acousmatic presence in their electroacoustic works. In turn, these works create a concert experience that is more familiar to the 21st-century audience. Through examining Kapuscinski's recent work, Oli's Dream, in light of cognitive research by Zbikowski (1998 & 2002), topic theory by Agawu (1991 & 2009), and multimedia research by Cook (1998), I propose a theory for analyzing contrapuntal meaning in multimedia concert works.

The themes explored in Part I, regarding the use of metaphor to interpret both visual and aural stimuli, ultimately creating a metaphor for a reality never fully grasped due to the limits of human understanding, are further explored artistically in the multimedia concert work, Musica Speculativa. The medieval philosophy of Musica Speculativa suggests that music as it is understood today (musica instrumentalis) is the only tangible form of the metaphysical music ruling human interactions (musica humana) and ordering the cosmos (musica mundana). I found the concept of Musica Speculativa to be a fitting metaphor for how music and art allude to our own perception of reality and our place within that world. The project as a whole re-examines the concept of Musica Speculativa in light of our current technological landscape to gain a deeper understanding of how we interact with the world around us.

Willingness to expend effort has received increased attention over the past decade, and for good reason – effort is crucial to life's successes, and many of us wish we could harness and control it more optimally. In particular, cognitive effort is central to academic and vocational achievements. Though effort is important, it is also costly. If it were not, no projects would be left unfinished, and no treadmills would be abandoned early. Because it is costly, self-control is often required to exert and maintain effort. Reduced willingness to expend effort has also come into focus as a clinically relevant variable related to amotivation, most notably in schizophrenia. Additionally, both incentive motivation (immediate monetary reward availability) and effort have been linked with cognitive performance, suggesting that our measures of cognitive ability are inexorably linked to and to some degree confounded by cognitive effort.

In this dissertation, I present a novel paradigm developed for the assessment of perseverant cognitive effort in the absence of monetary incentive. The Cognitive Effort and DisEngagement (CEDE) task is a cognitive test that increases in difficulty and measures perseverant effort disengagement in a simple but novel way: participants are permitted to skip trials without penalty. The present work introduces the task, situates it within a framework of self-control divided into inhibitory and actuating mechanisms, and provides evidence of its association with stable traits, context, and psychosis.

The first set of studies (Chapter 1) tests the reliability and validity of the CEDE task in an undergraduate sample and a community sample. We find evidence of high internal consistency using a split-half method. We also find that skips on the CEDE show convergent validity in terms of correlation with self-reported perseverance and work ethic, as well as discriminant validity, showing lack of significant relationships with several theoretically distinct aspects of self-control. We also show evidence of tolerability of the paradigm and of face validity of skipping as an index of effort disengagement.

In Chapter 2, we test the effect of observation on perseverant effort on the CEDE task. We find that participants skip significantly more trials when they are observed by an experimenter with access to information about their performance via sound effects, compared with than when they have privacy (when the experimenter leaves the room, or when the participant wears headphones). We also find that self-reported internal motivational style predicts more perseverant effort when in private, whereas external motivational style predicts more effort when observed, suggesting that motivational styles exert influence differentially depending on features of the context. We also show that self-reported stress during the task negatively predicts performance, and that this relationship is fully mediated by skips. These results suggest that observation has a potent effect on cognitive task effort, affecting people differently according to motivational style, and that test anxiety also promotes effort disengagement.

In Chapter 3, we test for group differences in skips between individuals with first episode psychosis (FEP) and community controls, as schizophrenia is associated with both a cognitive and a motivational impairment. We show reduced perseverant cognitive effort on the CEDE in FEP. We find that this group difference specifically emerges during difficult trials, suggesting specifically a deficit in perseverance in reaction to difficulty rather than continuous attention throughout the test. We also show that reduction of effort in the form of skips is correlated with self-reported amotivation among patients. These results suggest clinical relevance of perseverant cognitive effort in schizophrenia as a component or reflection of motivational impairments.

Together, these findings provide novel insight into cognitive effort perseverance, its relationship to non-monetary motivations in terms of motivational style and observational context, and its reduction in psychosis. Our findings also highlight the relevance of cognitive effort perseverance to cognitive testing. Willingness to expend cognitive effort appears to be sensitive to numerous factors in the context of difficulty, when the demands on effort are higher, whereas it is relatively steadfast during easier tasks.

Two studies tested hypotheses regarding the idea that humor promotes cognitive flexibility. Two components of humor are argued to promote cognitive flexibility. First, the positive emotion associated with humor may enhance cognitive flexibility. Second, the processing of humor may exercise complex cognitive processing, thus making similar processing more efficient on subsequent tasks. Participants in Experiment 1 read humorous sentences or one of two types of non-humorous sentences. Participants in Experiment 2 viewed captioned images that varied in the presence of positivity and incongruity. Results of both studies do not support the idea that humor promotes cognitive flexibility, nor do they show evidence that humor promotes cognitive flexibility because of the positive emotion or incongruity associated with it. Explanations for the failure to find support for hypotheses focus on the stimuli used in non-humor conditions and the stimuli and method of measuring cognitive flexibility. Alternative methods of testing the hypotheses are also offered, such as investigating sense of humor as a personality trait, using different types of humor and a different method of measuring cognitive flexibility. This project hoped to provide elementary evidence for the notion that humor is beneficial for health, but did not do so. It is hoped that future research can elucidate the relationship between humor and health.

Given the increasing number of older adults in the population, the fact that about 1 in 10 people over the age of 65 will develop mild cognitive impairment, and the substantial individual, familial, and financial burden associated with such disorders, the need for innovative research examining cognitive impairment in older adults is evident. The present study used a microlongitudinal design to assess cognition and contextual factors that may affect cognition for 14 consecutive days using a daily diary method in older adults with varying degrees of cognitive function. This study design enables investigation of concurrent associations between variables, as well as providing unique information not gleaned from the traditional focus on mean values of cognition. The present study had two broad aims: 1) to compare variability in cognition in older adults with varying degrees of cognitive impairment and 2) to investigate relationships between daily cognitive performance, variability in cognitive performance, and contextual factors that may influence daily cognitive performance and variability in older adults with varying degrees of cognitive impairment. Results suggest there was sufficient intraindividual variability in daily cognition to warrant investigation of within-person associations. Furthermore, the contextual factors of pain, stress, and sleep were predictive of cognitive performance, but with significance and directionality of these associations depending on level of measurement (baseline, daily, or mean values). Finally, associations between contextual factors and cognition were frequently conditional upon baseline cognitive status. The findings highlight the need for continued examination of these associations to expand our understanding of cognition in older adults and to discover potential targets for interventions to attenuate cognitive decline.