Browsing by Author "Foss, Donald J."
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Item A SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY PERSPECTIVE ON ADJUSTMENT TO COLLEGE(2014-08) Bryan, Jennifer L.; Knee, C. Raymond; Lu, Qian; Foss, Donald J.; Amspoker, Amber B.Emerging adulthood, ages 18-25, is filled with transition and has been described as the most changing times of one’s life. This is also when two-thirds of the American population enters college, however, many dropout before completion of their desired degree. There is little evidence as to the existence of possible differences in adjustment trajectories or determinants of and influences on such trajectories. Thus, there is a gap in our theoretical understanding of the adjustment to college process. This study applied self-determination theory to provide theoretical insight to the adjustment to college process specifically paying attention to how and why maladjustment may occur. It was hypothesized that intrinsically motivated, authentic students and those with high basic need satisfaction at baseline would have better adjustment to college and less alcohol related problems at the one month follow-up. Further, those who are more likely to suppress their emotions and self-conceal would have worse adjustment to college and more alcohol related problems at the one month follow-up. Participants were recruited in diverse departments at the University of Houston. Three-hundred and fifty eight (Mean age = 21.82, SD = 5.520, 72.3% female) participants completed the baseline questionnaire and the follow-up one month later. All hypotheses were analyzed using multiple regression with the baseline SDT, concealment/suppression and baseline outcome variables entered as predictors of the time two outcome variables. Results revealed that baseline motivation and general needs satisfaction were positively associated with adjustment to college, while self-concealment was negatively associated with adjustment to college at time 2. However, only self-concealment remains a significant predictor when controlling for baseline adjustment to college. Alcohol related problems at time 2 were negatively associated with baseline motivation, authenticity, as well as positively associated with self-concealment. When controlling for baseline alcohol related problems results remained, however, self-concealment was no longer a significant predictor. The proposed research sheds light on our theoretical understanding of the adjustment to college process. These findings have practical utility and may inform development and implementation of interventions and programs targeting adjustment to college and alcohol related problems among college students.Item Anxiety Sensitivity Across Four Ethnoracial Groups(2013-08) Talkovsky, Alexander M.; Norton, Peter J.; Zvolensky, Michael J.; Foss, Donald J.Anxiety sensitivity is an individual difference that represents the fear of fearful and/or anxious cognitive and physiological experiences. It is associated with several Axis I disorders, but it appears to be most specific to panic disorder and, to a lesser extent, posttraumatic stress disorder. Research has shown that anxiety sensitivity is multidimensional and these dimensions incrementally add to the prediction of relationships with anxiety-related phenomenology. There is mostly agreement about the content of the dimensions although it is not universal. There is less agreement about the factor structure of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index, a widely used measure of anxiety sensitivity, across cultural groups. There is also variation in the epidemiology and phenomenology of anxiety, as well as physiological health problems with similar symptoms to anxiety disorders, across ethnoracial groups. There are theories suggesting that these differences may be due to environmental factors and learning. This investigation seeks to add clarity to the cross-cultural research in the psychometric properties of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index across four cultural groups in both clinical and analog samples. The results from the clinical sample support a three-factor hierarchical model. Although the extracted factor structures observed in the analog sample are not as clear, results from a confirmatory factor analysis support invariance across groups. Clinical implications are discussed.Item Changes in Activation During Production of Syllables from a Second Language(2013-05) Wagner, Victoria E. 1987-; Hernandez, Arturo E.; Foss, Donald J.; Bunta, FerencThe current study sought to understand brain plasticity in adults associated with acquiring novel speech sounds. The Speech Learning Model suggests that the perception and the perceived similarity between L1 and L2 sounds will affect the acquisition of these L2 sounds (Flege, 1995). Productions of vowels from L2 that were perceived as being from an L1 category were less fully acquired by participants compared L2 vowels that were not perceived as part of an L1 category (Flege, 1987). The current study asked English monolinguals to undergo a covert repetition training session for native and novel bi-syllabic non-words of varying perceived familiarity while undergoing fMRI. The fMRI training was preceded and followed by overt production sessions of the native and novel sounds that were recorded. Participants’ recordings were rated for accuracy. Behavioral results showed improvement for novel sounds after the short training session with significant improvement for less familiar sounds as predicted by the Speech Learning Model. fMRI results were analyzed using region of interest analyses which showed an interaction between time and familiarity of the novel sounds with less familiar sounds eliciting greater activation in the left superior cerebellum and right caudate (p<.05 FWE) for the final training phase. The results support recent speech production studies that showed activation of the cerebellum and caudate play a role in the production of more complex or novel stimuli. The behavioral and fMRI results combine to suggest that the familiarity of novel sounds affects the areas of brain activation recruited across training supporting the Speech Learning Model.Item Customer Service Orientation and Service Behavior(2016-12) Joiner, Laura C.; Witt, L. Alan; Campion, James E.; Foss, Donald J.; Callison, KoriOrganizations that demonstrate concern for customers and are effective in meeting their needs promote greater loyalty from both internal and external constituents. I proposed and tested a psychological process in which perceptions of organizational support (POS) affects employee extra-role behavior through perceptions of the organization’s customer centricity. I also assessed goal alignment (i.e., goal priority congruence) as a boundary condition of this model, where the proposed effects were expected to mostly hold among employees experiencing low goal congruence with members of their work units (i.e., peers and supervisors). Testing a conditional mediation model, my hypotheses were mostly supported. POS predicted perceived customer service orientation, which in turn predicted extra-role behavior. While the effect of POS on extra-role behavior was expected to be both direct and indirect, study results indicated that the relationship only occurred through perceived customer service orientation. Goal congruence moderated all of the significant direct and indirect effects, such that they were stronger and in some cases only significant when employee goals were less aligned with the goals of work unit colleagues and supervisors. These results highlight how an organization’s position regarding internal and external customers can play a significant role in promoting employee effectiveness, particularly for employees experiencing low goal congruence with their work units.Item DIFFERENCES IN FOREIGN VOCABULARY LEARNING OUTCOMES BETWEEN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT IMMERSION-BASED, TEXT-BASED, AND PICTURE-BASED LEARNING(2016-12) Munson, Brandin A.; Hernandez, Arturo E.; Cirino, Paul T.; Foss, Donald J.The main focus of the present study was to compare foreign vocabulary learning outcomes between immersion-based, text-based, and picture-based training within a virtual environment. Researchers have yet to quantitatively compare outcomes of foreign vocabulary learning between students who use virtual environments as immersive tools and more traditional text-based and picture-based training methods. The present study explored differences across time between groups assigned to one of these training methods on quizzes testing generalization of foreign vocabulary to real-world pictures. A 3D virtual foreign vocabulary learning environment created by ESLI, a language learning company, was utilized. All three groups learned material within the game in order to minimize computer-based group differences, but only the immersion group was able to explore the world and see the physical objects, while the other two were limited to learning Spanish phonology from either 1) English text translations or 2) picture presentations, both within a classroom area. Each group completed all 3 sections of material on 4 separate occasions, and took quizzes on vocabulary knowledge and generalization after every section. Analyses were conducted on a final sample of 32 participants. T-tests revealed no differences between individual times, and immersion-based learning to have lower overall accuracy than either text-based or picture-based learning, with no significant differences between text-based or picture based learning. A 3x4 mixed-measures ANCOVA was conducted, comparing participants of different foreign vocabulary learning methods (either immersion, text, or picture) on quiz accuracy over a time period of 4 learning and testing sessions, while controlling for prior foreign (Spanish) vocabulary knowledge. While Spanish vocabulary and time each significantly predicted accuracy (p’s < 0.05), neither the main effect of condition nor the interaction of condition and time significantly predicted accuracy (p’s > 0.1). Implications and potential future directions are explored.Item Equal Opportunity Climate Strength: Antecedents and Influence on Work Unit Effectiveness(2018-12) Kirkland, Jordan E.; Campion, James E.; Witt, L. Alan; Foss, Donald J.; Madera, Juan M.Researchers noted that the 1990s hosted a “sexual harassment explosion” (Wiener & Hurt, 2000, p. 75) that brought “gender politics center stage” (Hirsh, 2009, p. 268). About twenty years later, these comments are, unfortunately, perhaps truer than in their original context. And sexual harassment is just one example among many types of discrimination and harassment. As the spotlight brightens on organizations responding to these public and emotional topics, research suggests the most effective strategy is to address not only individual incidents, but also the underlying climate that bred them. Researchers evaluate climate on two main dimensions – quality (i.e., climate level) and consistency (i.e., climate strength). Prior studies have made the distinction between the level and strength of a few types of climate (e.g., justice climate, safety climate), but this study extends it to equal opportunity (EO) climate, which specifically focuses on perceptions of discrimination and harassment. Results offered limited support concerning the usefulness of studying EO climate strength: although EO climate level positively predicted team effectiveness, climate strength did not influence this relationship. In other words, teams with better EO climates were also more effective, regardless of whether the team’s climate was weak or strong. Findings also suggest that team characteristics (i.e., diversity, size, member deployment) helped determine the level and strength of some measures of EO climate. Although climate level clearly remains the more important dimension of organizational climate, this study does make a few potentially meaningful distinctions between EO climate level and strength, and it provides insights for organizations wishing to promote climates that value and prioritize equal opportunities.Item Frequency, Attention, and Phonetic Characteristics that Influence the Right-Ear Advantage for Speech Perception(2011-12) McCulloch, Katie; Hiscock, Merrill; Foss, Donald J.; Jansen, Ben H.The right-ear advantage (REA) for linguistic stimuli (Kimura, 1961, 1967) is thought to represent an asymmetry of speech perception favoring the left hemisphere. This study seeks to clarify how the REA is altered by: attention instructions, filtering of stimuli, background noise, and phonetic properties of stimuli, viz., voice onset time (VOT) and place of articulation (POA). Participants heard monosyllabic rhyming words from the Halwes (1990) Fused Dichotic Word Test and were instructed to attend to the left or right ear, or to divide attention equally. Stimuli in Experiment 1 were unfiltered, high-pass filtered, or low-pass filtered, and stimuli in Experiment 2 were presented with no noise, white noise, high-pass filtered noise, or low-pass filtered noise. The initial consonants of each dichotic pair were categorized according to POA (bilabial, alveolar, or velar) and VOT (voiced or unvoiced). Repeated-measures ANOVAs performed on laterality ratios showed statistically significant main effects for attention, background noise, VOT, and POA. Right-ear attention, the absence of background noise, and bilateral bilabial presentation enhanced the right-ear advantage. Furthermore, attention interacted with background noise, POA, and VOT.Item Managing Role Boundaries with Low Value Congruence: An Examination of Work-to-Family Conflict, Conscientiousness, and Unethical Work Behavior Intentions(2016-12) Rhodes, Dena; Witt, L. Alan; Penney, Lisa M.; Campion, James E.; Foss, Donald J.This study investigated the impact of segmentation/integration value congruence on work interference with family (WIF) and how WIF may influence employees’ intentions to engage in unethical work behavior (UWB). The scarcity hypothesis and the conflict perspective were used to explain why low segmentation/integration value congruence may diminish employees’ resources, hinder employees from fulfilling family responsibilities, and potentially contribute to WIF. Organizational support theory, social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity offered insight regarding why WIF may increase the likelihood that employees will engage in UWB. Finally, this study explored how conscientiousness may impact various relationships between segmentation/integration value congruence, WIF, and UWB intentions. Findings did not offer enough evidence supporting WIF as a mediator between segmentation/integration value congruence and UWB intentions. However, partial support was found for the hypothesized model, as conscientiousness significantly interacted with both segmentation/integration value congruence and WIF (respectively) to predict UWB intentions.Item Spaced Versus Massed Testing in a College Class: An Explanatory Item Response Model(2016-05) Pirozzolo, Joseph W.; Francis, David J.; Foss, Donald J.; Steinberg, Lynne; Tolar, TammyMany studies have shown that distributed study is more effective than massed study. In the present study we were interested in the effects of frequent testing, student ability, practice quizzing, and item form (multiple choice or short-answer) at the pre-tests and the post-test. Two sections of an undergraduate psychological methods class were taught by the same professor at similar times of day. In the frequent testing class, 8 midterm exams were spaced about 1 exam every 2 weeks. In the standard class, 2 midterm exams were spaced about 1 every 8 weeks. All exams, including the final exam, consisted of both multiple choice (MC) and short answer (SA) questions. The form of questions (MC or SA) during the midterm exams was called the pre-test method and the form on the final was called the post-test method. Both classes took the same comprehensive final exam. Only final exam data was analyzed in this study. An explanatory item response model (EIRM) was used to estimate the effects of the person predictors: student ability, testing frequency, and quiz assignment, and the item predictors: pre-test and post-test method on final exam performance. Not surprisingly, student ability and post-test method explained the most variance in item responses of any of the predictors in the model. Testing frequency also significantly influenced item responses. A marginally significant interaction between testing frequency and post-test method was also observed. We conclude that frequent testing (spacing) improves performance relative to massing, however, the largest benefits are expected to be seen on recall memory tasks. We also argue that the benefits of frequent testing generalize across populations and conditions.Item The bilingual advantage in switching: Are two better than one?(2015-12) Greene, Maya R.; Hernandez, Arturo E.; Mehta, Paras D.; Foss, Donald J.; Dannemiller, JamesMost previous studies of the bilingual advantage analyzed speed and accuracy results from the same task separately. Using this method, some found advantages in switching tasks that favor bilinguals while others have not, and there is ongoing controversy regarding the existence of the bilingual advantage. The present study sought to examine the bilingual advantage in non-verbal switching using a novel multilevel structural equations modeling (ML-SEM) framework that incorporated both reaction time and accuracy in order to assess the trial level and person level relationship between these variables. In addition, the roles of parental education level (PED) and language proficiency were examined. The results of this model did not indicate the existence of a bilingual advantage, and there were no significant correlations between reaction time and accuracy at the person level or at the trial level. The lack of significant correlation may be due to high overall accuracy in the task. English proficiency was a significant predictor of reaction time in both bilinguals and monolinguals, such that higher proficiency was related to faster responses. In the monolinguals, higher English proficiency was also related to more accurate performance, a relationship that was non-existent in the bilinguals. In the bilinguals, Spanish proficiency was a significant predictor of reaction time, such that higher proficiency was associated with slower responses. This finding, along with the significance of English proficiency as a predictor of performance in both groups, calls into question the non-verbal nature of this task. No significant effect of PED was found. This study showcases a novel methodology that may encourage future researchers to examine both reaction time and accuracy together, suggests that bilingualism may serve to specifically tune accuracy, and highlights the importance of considering language background variables even when using tasks that are not explicitly verbal in nature.Item The Joint Effects of Avoidance: Coping and Personality on Burnout(2018-12) Cone, Rissa S.; Witt, L. Alan; Campion, James E.; Foss, Donald J.There are many different coping styles, some healthier than others. I examined how an avoidant coping style, which is generally considered unhealthy, can be beneficial for some people. Among individuals low in neuroticism and low in extraversion, such coping styles as denial and disengagement might actually help reduce burnout. Those low in extraversion and high in neuroticism may also benefit from avoidance coping. However, individuals high in extraversion and low in neuroticism (and high in both) might have the opposite reaction to avoidance coping. With this study, I intended to examine how personality interacts with avoidance coping to affect burnout. Results revealed problems with the scales, main effects consistent with expectation, and mixed results with the form of the three-way interaction.Item THE RELATIONSHIP AMONG GRAY MATTER CORTICAL THICKNESS, ACTIVITY, AND BILINGUAL BACKGROUND VARIABLES(2015-12) Ramos Nuñez, Aurora I.; Hernandez, Arturo E.; Yoshida, Hanako; Foss, Donald J.; Schnur, Tatiana T.A bilingual person’s brain has to manage two languages. According to psycholinguistic models, lexical representations of the two languages are always active and to select the correct language, the other has to be inhibited (Green, 1998). This includes cognitive control processes (e.g. language planning, response inhibition, maintenance of representation) that might require additional brain networks beyond those classically involved in language processing. Regions such as prefrontal, anterior cingulate cortices, inferior parietal lobule, and caudate have been found to be involved in cognitive control processes (Abutalebi & Green, 2007). The present study examined whether or not bilingual experience shapes the structure and function of the brain by examining relationships among language proficiency, second language age of acquisition, and structural and functional correlates. Participants were 49 Spanish-English bilinguals who learned English between the ages of 0 and 17 years. Cortical thickness measures as well as functional activity during a picture-naming task requiring switching between the two languages on a trial-by-trial basis were acquired using a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner. The results indicate that age of acquisition of the second language but not proficiency is related to gray matter structure in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a cognitive control region and that gray matter cortical thickness is related to functional activity during a condition that requires switching in naming pictures between two languages. These results carry implications for the understanding of how language experience shapes the functional and neural correlates of the bilingual brain.Item The Testing Effect, Individual Differences, and Transfer: An Investigation of Learning Strategies Using Educational Materials(2019-05) Pirozzolo, Joseph W.; Foss, Donald J.; Francis, David J.; Grigorenko, Elena L.; Hernandez, Arturo E.; Hein, Sascha D.The positive effect of testing memory has been well demonstrated in laboratory settings and there is now a growing body of supporting evidence in real educational environments. However, whether and under what conditions testing facilitates transfer of learning is still somewhat unclear. Individual differences in learning from tests have also not been extensively studied. The aim of the current study is to further investigate the limits of transfer of learning via testing and explore the role of key cognitive abilities (i.e., reading comprehension, reasoning ability, and working memory). To accomplish this goal, we use an instance in the subject of Biology where we believe that background knowledge (i.e., the components of nucleic acids) is necessary for understanding of a subsequent related concept (i.e., DNA transcription). In a within-subjects experimental design with data from 153 undergraduate students, we examined the effect of testing over background knowledge on performance on subsequent related information. Our study provides evidence of the positive effect of testing on not only exactly repeated test items (d= 1.01), but conceptually related questions (near transfer; d = .60) and questions about a subsequent related passage (far transfer; d = .21). We also report that testing influences pre-test score predictions, such that repeated testing is associated with increased pre-test confidence, while varied testing is not. Finally, we report that individual differences in cognitive ability do not interact with testing effects, but transfer performance is correlated with reasoning ability. Overall, we conclude that retrieval practice with cued recall questions is a highly effective strategy for learning complex educational materials.Item Transactional effects of depression in transdiagnostic group cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety(2016-05) Talkovsky, Alexander M.; Norton, Peter J.; Walker, Rheeda L.; Foss, Donald J.; Wanner, Jill L.Anxiety and depressive disorders co-occur at high rates, and their comorbidity typically creates a more severe clinical presentation than when either occurs alone. Depression shares risk factors with anxiety disorders such as negative affectivity (NA), or the predisposition to experience negative emotions. NA is a higher-order factor that subsumes many cognitive vulnerabilities, and may underlie this comorbidity. Secondary depression affects the treatment of anxiety and is associated with poorer treatment outcomes compared to an anxiety diagnosis alone. Transdiagnostic treatments present a promising option to improve both anxiety and depression by targeting shared risks. Research using transdiagnostic protocols suggests that comorbid and simple cases improve at comparable rates, and that secondary diagnoses significantly improve following treatment. This study aimed to examine the reciprocal effects of secondary depression in transdiagnostic group cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety. This study also aimed to analyze the role of NA as a transdiagnostic mediator in the treatment of both anxiety and depression. Depressed individuals scored more severely on measures of anxiety, depression, and negative affect, as well as clinician-rated severity of primary anxiety disorder and overall clinical presentation at pre-treatment. However, only the differences in self-reported depression symptoms and NA remained significant at post-treatment. When change in self-reported anxiety was modeled over treatment, the best-fitting model was such that depressed individuals began treatment scoring more severely, improved at a greater rate, and reached a similar outcome to those without a depressive disorder. Analyses of variance revealed that all individuals improved on every measure; depression only had an effect on one self-report measure of anxiety, and the time x depression interaction did not have any effect. All individuals improved in self-reported depression, but there was a main effect of depression and the time x depression interaction was not significant. Among depressed individuals, the clinician-rated severity of the depression diagnoses improved significantly and, on average, dropped from a mild to moderate score to one that is no longer clinically significant based on scoring conventions. The time x depression interactions was not significant in any analyses. Mediation analyses showed that NA fully mediated improvements in anxiety, but only partially mediated improvements in depression.