Psychology

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The Association between Executive Functioning Skills and Spousal Attributions: An Investigation of Younger and Older Samples
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-24) Dawson, Jenna
Marriage in older age has been shown to provide important benefits such as increased emotional support, increased affective positivity and decreased health concerns (Stinnett et al., 1972; Erikson et al., 1986; Parron, 1982). While relationship satisfaction has been shown to increase in later years (Carstensen et al., 1996), there is variability in relationship satisfaction levels in the marriages of older individuals (Carstensen et al., 1995). In the current study, I focused on how individuals construe the meaning of their partner’s negative behaviour and investigated how such attributions, a key relationship process, change as a function of age. An attribution is the process by which individuals explain the causes of a behaviour or event. Individuals make attributions in order to create a more stable, predictable world (Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1972; Miller et al., 1978). To address my goal, I included a sample of younger individuals (ages 18-35 years, N=63) and a sample of older individuals (60 years and older, N=69). The second goal of the current study was to examine how declines in executive functioning skills, that occur as part of normative aging, influence the types of attributions that individuals make about their partner’s behaviours. I compared predictions offered by two important and influential theories of aging, Socioemotional Selectivity theory and the Frontal Aging hypothesis. Socioemotional Selectivity theory posits that as mortality becomes more salient, one’s motivation shifts to maximizing emotional well-being (Carstensen, 2006; Carstensen et al., 1999; Mather & Knight, 2006). As a result, older adults are able to employ cognitive strategies to improve emotion regulation because they are more focused on emotional goals. Paradoxically, the Frontal Aging hypothesis has established that executive functioning systems decline with age (Dempster, 1992). Research on executive functioning suggests declines should also be associated with less flexibility and more negative attributions (Gross & John, 1998). To test these theories, I ran multiple regression analyses to test the main effects of relationship satisfaction, executive functioning skills, and age on each of the attribution variables. In addition to the main effects models, I conducted a multiple moderation analyses for each outcome variable. Specifically, I included the two-way interaction between executive functioning and age, as well as the two-way interaction between executive functioning and relationship satisfaction. Overall, the study findings provided greater support for Socioemotional Selectivity theory, as older adults tended to provide less negative attributions for their partner’s undesirable behaviours. Further, the study findings showed that older individuals with weaker executive functioning skills tend to make more positive attributions for their partner’s behaviour when they have high levels of relationship satisfaction. Therefore, while I found that executive functioning does decline with age, in line with the Frontal Aging hypothesis, the consequences of those declines on relationship attributions are protected by other mechanisms that come ‘online’ when older individuals are satisfied within their relationships.
Helping or Harming? The Impact of Exploring Trauma Within a Men’s Residential Addiction Treatment Program
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-03) Tung, Simrat
Substance abuse and trauma experiences have a high comorbidity and are more likely to co-occur than not (Farley et al., 2004; Tripp et al., 2019; van Dam et al., 2012). The cooccurrence of trauma and substance use is associated with greater symptom severity for both issues, poorer treatment outcomes, and higher rates of drop out from treatment (V. B. Brown et al., 2013; Roberts et al., 2015; van Dam et al., 2012). Historically, substance abuse and trauma have been addressed separately in treatment through independent (both issues are addressed through independent programs that do not co ordinate care) or sequential (one issue is prioritized and addressed individually before addressing the other) treatment programs (Hermann et al., 2014). Some practitioners and treatment programs hold the belief that incorporating trauma care within substance abuse treatment can result in triggering relapse, jeopardizing a person’s sobriety or recovery, or exacerbating the individual’s trauma issues (V. B. Brown et al., 2013; Covington et al., 2008; Lortye et al., 2021) despite support for the effectiveness of integrated treatment wherein both issues are addressed together within a singular program (Blakey & Bowers, 2014; Dass-Brailsford & Myrick, 2010; Tripp et al., 2019; Vujanovic et al., 2018). It is well established within the literature that there are gender differences in experiences of substance abuse and trauma (Cosden et al., 2015), which supports the need for gender-responsive treatment. This research assesses a specific gender-responsive integrated group therapy treatment for men, implemented within a residential addiction treatment program that has not been previously assessed. It focuses on analyzing a specific two-week portion of the overall treatment that explores the role of trauma in a person’s substance abuse issues and how it impacts their goals of recovery to determine potential iatrogenic effects of exploring trauma (i.e., worsening symptoms, and increased drop out from treatment). Participants were recruited from Wayside House of Hamilton and completed a baseline assessment, an assessment before beginning the specific portion of treatment exploring the role of trauma in substance abuse, and an assessment after completing this trauma centred section of treatment. Participant attendance in group sessions throughout the program was also tracked. Paired sample t-tests revealed no significant changes across measures of hope, self-esteem, and sleep disturbance - indicating there was no worsening of symptoms – and a significant decrease in distress caused by trauma symptoms – indicating improvements in trauma symptomology. Analyzing drop outs from treatment revealed no significant differences between the sections of programming during which participants prematurely terminated treatment, indicating there is no evidence to suggest individuals experienced intense distress specific to the trauma module presenting as increased drop out. This research lends support for the use of the Exploring Trauma module for integrated treatment of substance abuse and trauma within a men’s residential program.
An Exploration of Attraction Stereotypes and Self-Reported Attraction Priorities across Diverse Groups
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-30) Quinn, Krista Allison
Psychologists have identified several characteristics that impact judgments of attraction, including physical appearance, personality, earning potential, and social status. Prior research has focused on evaluating self-report judgments of which factors people prioritize when selecting partners, but less work has investigated the attraction stereotypes that people hold, which we define as beliefs about specific groups’ priorities when evaluating a partner. Furthermore, past literature has focused on gender differences, yet lacks diversity and is influenced by a cisnormative, heteronormative bias. The present work ventures to examine how people’s perceptions of others’ partner priorities are affected by targets’ unique intersectional identities. University (N=214) and online (N=436) samples — featuring straight, bisexual, and gay men and women — provided stereotype ratings of ten traits for judging attractiveness for six gender-by-sexuality groups, as well as self-report ratings of these traits’ importance when choosing their own partners. We describe attraction stereotypes across gender-by-sexuality groups, examine how these patterns are moderated by type of rating (stereotype vs. self-report), and evaluate how discrepancies between these types of ratings differ according to perceiver identity.
Struggling to Let Go: The Role of Prior Investment in Goal Disengagement
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-30) Hubley, Candice
Prior research on goal disengagement has established that being able to let go of unattainable goals is positively related to well-being. While the benefits of goal disengagement have been well-established, relatively little is known about what influences the likelihood of disengagement from personal goals. I propose that prior investment directly reduces the likelihood of disengagement and can reduce responsiveness to signals that disengagement is adaptive. I report five studies (total N = 1217) that examined whether prior investment (previously invested resources) negatively relates to goal disengagement. Study 1 demonstrates that prior investment is negatively associated with disengagement from personal goals. Study 2 replicates Study 1 and also demonstrates that prior investment reduces the effect of unattainability on disengagement, suggesting that prior investment is associated with reduced responsiveness to unattainability. Studies 3 and 4 replicate Studies 1 and 2 in experimental contexts. In Study 3, participants were less responsive (i.e., disengaged less) from an unattainable lab task when perceived prior investment was manipulated to be higher (vs. lower). In Study 4, participants were less responsive to lower perceptions of goal attainability when perceived prior investment was manipulated to be higher (vs. lower) on a personal goal. Finally, Study 5 generally replicated these patterns in a longitudinal design: prior investment predicted greater goal commitment one month later and reduced the effect of attainability on goal commitment and goal disengagement one month later. I position these studies within a broader framework of “hooks” that can reduce the likelihood of goal disengagement. Implications for understanding goal disengagement discernment and the sunk costs fallacy are discussed.
Pathways to Authoritarianism: Metacognitive Influences on Extremist Attitudes and Behaviours
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-29) Wegenschimmel, Neil
This paper investigates the relationship between perceptions of societal extremism and the rise of authoritarian attitudes across the political spectrum. Across two studies, involving American adults, we examined how perceptions of increasing radicalism, media consumption, and existential nihilism contribute to both right-wing and left-wing authoritarian tendencies. Study 1 identified significant correlations between perceptions of societal extremism and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and its associations with conspiracy mentality and media use. Left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), on the other hand, was primarily predicted by existential nihilism. Study 2 made use of an experimental manipulation with historical data on political violence to assess the impact of accurate information about rates of political violence on authoritarian attitudes. Results revealed that presenting accurate historical data did not significantly alter perceptions of societal extremism; however, existential nihilism positively moderated the endorsement of authoritarian behaviors, particularly in the experimental condition. These findings suggest that authoritarian attitudes are influenced by complex interactions between individual psychological factors and broader informational environments, with parallel pathways leading to RWA and LWA. The implications for understanding the psychological underpinnings of political extremism are discussed.
Navigating the Balance Between Urgency and Importance: Exploring Task Prioritization Strategies Across Environments
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-28) Wu, Kristina
Task prioritization is essential for managing multiple tasks with competing goals, yet psychological research has been limited to basic observations in simplified environments. The current research aims to address this gap by examining how various environmental features influence task management using a novel incentive-compatible game across two experiments. In the game, participants sequenced tasks with different levels of urgency (represented by deadlines) and importance (represented by point values) over multiple rounds, aiming to maximize the number of points earned. In Experiment 1, we manipulated task schedulability (ability to plan task orders in advance) and urgency-importance correlation (degree to which urgent tasks and important tasks conflict). Results showed that planning task orders in advance helped participants better balance urgency and importance, leading to near-optimal performance. In contrast, those who did not plan ahead tended to overprioritize importance and performed worse as a result. In Experiment 2, we manipulated task segmentation (whether tasks were to be completed in segmented parts or as a whole), task comparability (uniform versus varied task lengths), and urgency-importance correlation. We found that task segmentation did not affect urgency or importance prioritization, however it decreased overall performance due to suboptimal task-switching. When task lengths varied, performance declined because participants overprioritized importance, while neglecting urgency and task length. Across both experiments, participants balanced urgency and importance more effectively when these factors conflicted the least, but they tended to prioritize importance over urgency more heavily as the conflict between urgency and importance increased. This research highlights the need for strategies that help individuals better balance importance relative to urgency, particularly in dynamic environments with variable task demands. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
Intersectional Invisibility: Whose Discrimination Experiences Are Recognized?
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-27) Denney, Grace
In two studies, diverse Canadian undergraduate samples evaluated vignettes depicting ambiguous anti-Black racism, sexism, or homophobia towards a target individual. Pre-Study participants (N = 226) rated how typical the vignette was of identity-specific discrimination. Study 1 (N = 867) tested whether attributions to identity-specific discrimination varied based on the number of marginalized identities held by the target (one, two, or three). Consistent with predictions derived from intersectional invisibility theory, "prototypical" targets with only a single marginalized identity were seen as more likely to be experiencing discrimination than targets who held multiple marginalized identities. Within discrimination domain, this effect remained significant only for homophobia evaluations, but had a comparable marginal effect for racism evaluations. Participants who held more (vs. fewer) marginalized identities or who had higher (vs. lower) intersectional awareness made stronger attributions to discrimination, both overall and within each domain. Notably, the focal target marginalization (or intersectional invisibility) effect was not moderated by participants' own marginalization, their intersectional awareness, or vignette typicality and harm (as rated during material validation). I discuss the implications of these findings for discrimination recognition, as well as limitations and future directions.
Beyond Algorithm Aversion: The Impact of Conventionality on Evaluation of Algorithmic and Human-Made Errors
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-23) Tariq, Hamza
Prior research has found that when an algorithm makes an error, people judge it more severely than when the same mistake is made by a human. This bias, known as algorithm aversion, was investigated across two studies (N = 1199). Specifically, we explored the effect of the status quo on people’s reactions to identical mistakes made by humans and algorithms. We found significant algorithm aversion when participants were informed that the decisions described in the scenarios are conventionally made by humans. However, when participants were told that the same decisions are conventionally made by algorithms, the bias diminishes, is eliminated, or even reverses direction. This effect of varying whether the algorithm or the human is described as the convention had a particularly strong influence on recommendations of which decision maker should be used in the future. These findings suggest that the existing status quo has a consequential influence on people’s judgments of mistakes. Implications for people’s evolving relationship with algorithms and technology are discussed.
Exploring Social Attention in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Dimensional Approach
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-23) Trossman, Rebecca
There is a well-established finding that individuals with ADHD experience social impairment in their daily lives. This likely arises from symptoms of the disorder coupled with deficits in cognitive factors important for effective social function. However, the exact nature of the social impairment remains poorly understood. That is, despite a substantial literature documenting the existence of social problems in daily life, it remains unclear which social cognitive processes may underlie these deficits. Because we lack a clear understanding of the mechanism behind social deficits in ADHD, extant social skills interventions have proven ineffective in ameliorating social functioning for individuals with ADHD. This is particularly notable given the detrimental effect of social impairment on overall wellbeing for those with ADHD. The complexity of social interactions places a high demand on attentional skills; thus, it is plausible that social attentional processes may subserve social impairment in ADHD. The current dissertation aims to elucidate the relationship between ADHD and two core social attentional constructs: self-referential processing and orienting to gaze cues. In line with the RDoC, this dissertation conceptualizes ADHD through a dimensional lens, measuring traits of ADHD along a continuum in three large undergraduate samples. Traits of Autism Spectrum Disorder were also included (and measured dimensionally) given commonalities between the disorders. In Study 1, I examined self-referential processing in a large sample of undergraduates (n=265) varying in ADHD traits. Self-referential processing was assessed online using the self-referential encoding task (SRET), a common implicit memory paradigm. Contrary to hypotheses, neither ADHD traits (nor ASD traits) influenced SRET performance. The self-reference effect also did not emerge when memory was assessed using the most robust metric from the SRET, recognition sensitivity (d’), despite adequate power and careful quality control of data. These findings question self-referential processing as a mechanism underlying social impairment in ADHD and, more broadly, highlight the need for further evaluation of the SRET. Building upon these findings, in Study 2 I adapted the SRET to explore self-referential processing in a socially evaluative context to determine whether prioritization of self-referential information was reduced in ADHD in situations of social threat. This study employed another large undergraduate sample (n=302) expressing a varying level of ADHD traits. Consistent with Study 1, traits of ADHD and ASD did not modulate the self-reference effect, providing further support that ADHD and ASD traits do not impair prioritization of self-relevant information. Additionally, an unexpected finding emerged whereby participants with higher levels of neurodevelopmental traits demonstrated better overall performance on the implicit memory task. Finally, Study 3 (n=169) focused on a different core social attentional process: orienting towards eye gaze cues. This study employed an online adaptation of the classic gaze cueing paradigm to investigate whether ADHD and ASD traits modulate orienting to both neutral and emotional eye gaze cues. Results did not support a modulation in gaze orienting by ADHD (nor ASD) traits; that is, participants demonstrated spontaneous orienting towards eye gaze cues across all levels of neurodevelopmental trait expression. Further, there was no indication of reduced emotional modulation of gaze orienting in ADHD or ASD. Overall, the studies presented in this dissertation suggest that ADHD traits do not modulate two core social attentional processes. However, across the three studies – and over 700 participants – results consistently demonstrate a correlation between ADHD and ASD traits and social impairment in daily life, as measured through a self-report questionnaire of everyday social problems (e.g., getting into arguments, difficulty maintaining friendships, etc.). Thus, although real-world social outcomes are negatively impacted by traits of both disorders, the two social attentional skills evaluated here do not appear to account for these deficits. Findings of this work address a gap in our understanding of the state of social cognitive abilities – specifically social attentional skills – in ADHD, with the ultimate aim of contributing to the literature seeking to develop successful interventions to remediate social impairment in this population.
Neural responses to facial expressions: A story of arousal and valence?
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-22) Durston, Amie Jeannette
Facial expressions of emotion provide important information about our social partner’s internal state. Historically facial expressions have been conceptualized as discrete categories (i.e., happy, angry), as well as along a continuum of arousal (activated to calm) and valence (positive to negative). Both behavioural and event-related potential (ERP) research attribute emotion category effects (i.e., happy vs angry) to arousal and valence, however, no study has directly linked these constructs. The aim of the present study was to understand if early ERP components involved in visually processing facial expressions are sensitive to these continuous factors (i.e., arousal and valence) at the stimulus level. ERPs were recorded while 80 participants viewed faces expressing fear, anger, happiness, and no emotion, and performed a gender discrimination task. Following the ERP task, participants then viewed each face again and rated them on arousal and valence using 1-9 Likert scales. Individual ratings from each face were linked back to ERP data, trial by trial. ERPs were analyzed in a data-driven way (all time points, all electrodes) using mass univariate statistics. Paired contrast between expressions were analyzed using three different hierarchical models: without (original) and with valence or arousal ratings. Results from models with ratings highly overlapped with the original model, although were more restricted. The N170 component was the most impacted by arousal and valence ratings, where most emotion contrasts revealed significant valence or arousal interactions at this peak. On the P2 emotion differences were driven by more negative amplitudes for angry than happy or neutral faces, but this was unrelated to any rating. On the Early posterior negativity (EPN) happy faces elicited more negative amplitudes than fearful and neutral faces, a difference related to both arousal and valence ratings. However, no other contrast was significant on the EPN. Overall, our analyses show that ERP emotion effects are related to the participants’ perceived arousal and valence of the stimuli, although these relationships highly depend on the specific contrast analyzed. We conclude that perceived arousal and valence of individual stimuli is a critical source of ERP variability, likely contributing to inconsistent findings in the field. Future research must consider the relationship between stimuli ratings and ERP amplitudes to fully unpack how and when our brain extracts emotional information from faces.
Children’s Performance and Social Behaviour during Competitive Games with (simulated) Peers
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-19) Gevaux, Nicole
Young children are exposed to competitive environments daily, yet relative to cooperative situations, less is known about the factors that influence children’s behaviour during competition. While there is debate in society whether encouraging children to behave competitively is beneficial or detrimental, this work supports the position that competition is an unavoidable context in our social world that children must learn to navigate in order to be successful. My doctoral dissertation examines which contextual and individual factors relate to children’s behaviour within a competitive environment. I seek to understand how children behave socially towards others and perform on the task, as well as how they explain their behaviours during the game as well as the outcome. To achieve my research objectives, an interactive competitive online game was created that allowed observation of different types of children’s behaviours within an experimentally controlled environment. Children (N = 143; ages 4 to 9) competed against virtual opponents wherein they had to click on target objects faster than their opponent, with the game outcome rigged. Following the games, children sent messages to their opponents and indicated the number of stickers that should be given to the opponent, as well as a neutral peer after the competition had ended. Children were also asked to give verbal explanations about why they thought they won or lost against each opponent, as well as explanations for the sticker distributions they gave. Chapter one provides a theoretical background and review of the literature relevant to children’s behaviour during competition, as well as an overview of the aims and hypotheses of this research. Chapter two explores how context (game outcome, opponent gender) and individual characteristics (gender, socio-cognitive skills) relate to children’s task performance and social behaviour towards competitors. Chapter three investigates children’s beliefs and attributions about the game outcome, as well as their reasons for their pre-and-post game resource distributions to others, exploring the insight or motivations behind their behaviours. Chapter 4 integrates the findings from chapters two and three, highlighting their importance and exploring themes within results, and implications arising from this work. The measured dependent variables in this study included task performance (measuring both speed and accuracy for clicking on target objects), prosociality of messages sent to opponents, number of stickers distributed to opponents and the neutral peer, nature of their attributions for winning versus losing, and whether the explanations for their sticker distributions were based on merit. Girls performed significantly better than boys, but only when they were winning. Children with better emotion regulation performed significantly better than children with low emotion regulation when winning. The prosociality of messages was not related to individual or contextual factors, but sticker distributions were predicted by children’s ToM (higher ToM related to fewer stickers) and gender (when winning, girls gave more stickers to their opponents than boys). Engaging in the competitive game did not influence children’s sticker distribution to an unknown peer. Children gave more internal attributions for winning (attributed success to personal factors) and more external attributions for losing (attributing failure to factors about their environment or opponents). Children most often made merit-based explanations for sticker distributions to opponents, and higher merit-based reasoning reflected higher sticker distribution in the losing condition. Findings highlight the importance of considering the interplay of individual and contextual factors when examining children’s behaviour during competition.
Examining the Influence of Caffeine on Attentional Engagement in Everyday Life and During an Auditory Attention Task
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-16) Kruger, Tyler
Caffeine is a popular psychoactive substance used by a large part of the population primarily to increase their cognitive abilities. In this dissertation I explore the links between caffeine consumption, motives to use caffeine, and attention-related experiences. After reviewing the relevant literature (Chapter 1), I report several studies (Chapter 2) exploring 1) how caffeine consumption relates to attention in everyday life using self-report measures that each target a different facet of attentional engagement, and 2) how different motivations for choosing to ingest caffeine may relate to the measures of everyday attention. Findings showed that amount of caffeine consumed in a typical day (estimated in milligrams) was not to related to attention-related experiences in everyday life. However, those who are more likely to ingest caffeine to potentially enhance their cognition, or to experience the reinforcing effects of caffeine, or to help relieve negative affect showed higher levels of inattention in everyday life. Next, I explored how caffeine (versus placebo) may influence performance and attentional engagement during a sustained auditory attention task, as well as the replicability of earlier findings regarding the effects of caffeine consumption on various attention-related experiences such as affect, arousal, boredom, sleepiness, and mental effort (Chapter 3). Participants completed two sessions of an attention task (once before consuming caffeine or placebo and once after) and intermittently responded to thought probes asking about their mind-wandering. Compared to placebo, findings showed that there was a performance and attentional benefit on the attention task following caffeine consumption. I also replicated earlier findings by showing that participants who consumed caffeine reported greater positive affect and arousal as well as less feelings of boredom, sleepiness, and mental effort compared to placebo. I also further explored the positive relation regarding the cognitive motives of caffeine consumption and the tendency to experience more inattention in everyday life. Prior to caffeine consumption, participants who had greater cognitive motives reported being less on task; following caffeination, this correlation became non-significant. In a follow-up study (Chapter 4), I sought to replicate the main findings from the attention task and further explored the relations between cognitive motives and proportion of on task responses in a larger sample. I replicated my earlier findings by showing there was a performance and attentional benefit on the attention task following caffeine consumption. I also replicated the findings regarding affect, arousal, boredom, sleepiness, and mental effort. Importantly, however, I failed to replicate the relations between the cognitive motives and proportion of on task responses suggesting that this relation may not be as robust as originally thought. Finally, I conclude (Chapter 5) by contextualizing the main findings from the studies presented, their limitations, and suggest future directions.
Examining the Relation between Oral Contraceptive Use and Attention-Related Traits and States
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-13) Smith, Alyssa
There is a rapidly growing body of work examining the association between the use of oral contraceptives (OCs) and cognition. This dissertation describes a series of studies examining the links between OC use and attention-related traits and states in large diverse samples (all OC Ns > 80). In Chapter 1, the literature on OC use and cognition—and in particular attention—are reviewed, highlighting the limitations of the extant work. Chapter 2 describes studies showing that OC users do not differ from non-OC users in terms of their self-reported traits tendencies to experience inattention (including spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering, attention related errors, and attention lapses). Chapter 3 discusses additional questionnaire-based studies showing that OC users tended to report less boredom proneness than non-users, but roughly equivalent levels of internal or external flow. In Chapter 4, the aforementioned attention-related (with the exception of boredom) were again examined as a function of OC use and OC formulation (in OC users), with results replicating outcomes of the prior studies and additionally showing that OC formulation is not associated with individual differences in attention-related traits. In Chapter 5 OC users and non-users completed a sustained attention task and reported their levels of mind wandering and media multitasking during the task; there were again no consistent differences between OC users and non-users on task performance, thought probe responses, or reports of media multitasking. Chapter 7 includes studies showing that OC users and non-users did not consistently differ on the self-overriding aspect of self-control or self-regulatory assessment, but that OC users consistently reported greater locomotion than non-users. Finally, in Chapter 7 includes a summary of the findings and discusses possible reasons for the inconsistent findings, the challenges of studying OC use and cognition, limitations of the present studies, and future directions.
An Examination of Whether and How a Peer's Display of Self-Compassion Can Affect College Students' Personal Self-Compassion: A Test of Social Cognitive Theory
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-12) Grove, Monica
Self-compassion is a kind, caring, and non-judgemental way of relating to personal suffering (Gilbert, 2014; Neff, 2003a), and is a robust predictor of wellbeing (e.g., MacBeth & Gumley, 2012; Zessin et al., 2015). Current interventions for cultivating self-compassion are effective but demanding, meaning there is merit in investigating more accessible approaches to learning self-compassion. The present studies used social cognitive theory, which argues that behaviours can be learned through observing them in others (Bandura, 1965; 1986), as a framework to investigate a novel approach to facilitating learning and performance of self-compassion. Based on this theory, we first hypothesized that observing a peer who describes distress and self-compassionate coping would lead to greater subsequent learning and performance of self-compassion than observing a peer who describes distress without self-compassionate coping. Second, we hypothesized that the subsequent benefit to learning and performance of self-compassion would be greater after observing a peer who describes distress and self-compassionate coping with rewarding outcomes, compared to observing a peer who describes distress and self-compassionate coping without outcomes. Our third hypothesis was that as predicted by social cognitive theory, observing rewarding outcomes of self-compassion would have an indirect effect on the observer’s subsequent performance of self-compassion, via increasing the observer’s positive outcome expectancies for self-compassion and motivation to be self-compassionate. To test these hypotheses, we conducted two studies, each with a sample of undergraduate women low in trait self-compassion recruited through a Canadian university’s psychology participant pool and through posters on the university campus. Study 1 had a sample of n = 370; Study 2 currently has a sample of n = 191 and recruitment is ongoing. Both studies used the same design, with Study 2 amended slightly to improve the precision and reliability of our measures, with the goal of clarifying the findings of Study 1. Each study was a two-part online study. In the first part of the study, participants were randomly assigned to listen to one of three audio clips in which they heard an ostensible peer describe either: distress with self-compassionate coping and rewarding outcomes; distress with self-compassionate coping and no specified outcomes; or distress only (as a control condition). Participants completed measures of outcome expectancies for self-compassion and motivation to be self-compassionate immediately after hearing the audio clip; 2-4 days later they completed measures of learning and performance of self-compassion. ANCOVAs revealed that contrary to our first two hypotheses, there were no effects of experimental condition on subsequent learning or performance of self-compassion in either study. Testing for the hypothesized indirect effect of observing rewarding outcomes of self-compassion on performance of self-compassion revealed that our third hypothesis was also not supported in either study. That said, the serial mediation model used to test this hypothesis revealed that in both studies, outcome expectancies for self-compassion immediately after the manipulation significantly predicted motivation to be self-compassionate at the same time point and performance of self-compassion 2-4 days later. Overall, findings of two studies indicate that observing self-compassion displayed by an unknown peer in the form of the brief audio clips used in this study did not lead to observational learning of self-compassion. However, the fact that outcome expectancies for self-compassion emerged as a significant predictor of motivation to be self-compassionate and subsequent performance of self-compassionate coping offers partial support for the applicability of social cognitive theory to self-compassion. Future research should explore whether self-compassion can be learned observationally with a more engaging demonstration of self-compassion using both experimental and naturalistic designs. Continuing to explore the role of outcome expectancies for self-compassion in predicting self-compassion motivation and performance would also be informative.
Investigating a Growth Frame for Delivering Effective Failure Feedback
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-09) Rubie, Candice
Effective feedback is vital for individuals to optimize goal pursuit, providing direction for where and how to invest limited resources. In particular, failure feedback can be critical for successful goal pursuit (Carver & Scheier, 1998; Vancouver et al., 2010). However, despite considerable evidence that failure feedback is useful, and despite people indicating that they desire such feedback (Abi-Esber et al., 2022; Zenger & Folkman, 2014), research also suggests that it can be incredibly difficult to receive. This thesis extends research suggesting that an individual’s mindset influences their response to failure (Dweck, 2006; Dweck & Master, 2008) to test a growth frame that can be incorporated into feedback messages to recontextualize failure as a valuable opportunity for growth. Three studies (N = 466) investigated whether participants experienced greater motivation, goal commitment, self-efficacy, and state growth mindset after receiving success and failure feedback with a growth frame versus without a frame (Studies 1 and 3) or with a general positive frame (Study 2). Overall, the results provide preliminary evidence that receiving feedback with a growth frame effectively reduces the emotional and motivational consequences of experiencing failure. By exploring the effectiveness of a growth frame for failure feedback, this research offers new insights into the foundations of effective failure feedback.
Intervening with State Self-Criticism: Comparing the Effects of Single-Session Cognitive Restructuring and Compassion-Focused Approaches as a Function of Individuals’ Trait Self-Criticism
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-09) Korlacka, Michelle
Self-criticism is a personality trait characterized by harsh self-judgement (Blatt, 1995) and a transdiagnostic risk factor for numerous psychological disorders (Werner et al., 2019). Individuals high in this trait experience varied, persistent, and harmful forms of psychological distress that are often resistant to improvement with commonly-used psychotherapeutic approaches like cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) (e.g., Bulmash et al., 2009; Loew et al., 2020; Rector et al., 2000). Cognitive restructuring, a key intervention within CBT, assumes that individuals experience distress when their thinking is negatively biased and so helps individuals develop more logical and balanced thoughts. Despite being able to generate more logical and balanced thoughts, Gilbert (2005) observed that self-critical individuals struggle to feel soothed by these thoughts and may in fact experience them in a hostile, impatient voice. He integrated this observation with research on evolutionary psychology and neuroaffective science, which suggest that in response to giving and receiving care, the parasympathetic system (i.e., the vagus nerve) gives rise to soothed physiological feelings which reduces the threatened physiological response underpinned by the sympathetic nervous system (Gilbert, 2014; Porges, 2007). Gilbert therefore argued that to become less distressed, highly self-critical individuals need to develop a more compassionate, warmer way of relating to themselves because affiliation, not logic, evolved to be a key facilitator of soothed affect and physiology which in turn reduces sensitivity to threats (Gilbert, 2009). Although Gilbert’s theory is compelling, and there is growing evidence for the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy, no studies have directly tested this theory by comparing the momentary effects of cognitive restructuring and compassion-focused interventions aimed at targeting self-criticism. The present study addressed this important clinical and theoretical gap in the literature in a pre-registered single-session randomized clinical trial. We hypothesized that in the face of heightened momentary shame and self-criticism, individuals higher in the trait of self-criticism would experience lower threat-based states (i.e., self-criticism, shame, negative affect, arousal) and higher affiliative-based states (i.e., soothing affect, state self-compassion, self-reassurance) following a compassion-based intervention involving directing warmth and care inward, than from a cognitive restructuring intervention involving developing more logical thinking about self. We also predicted that, in line with the theory behind compassion-focused therapy, these relative gains would be mediated by soothing affect, a positive affective state characterized by feelings of safeness and contentment (Gilbert et al., 2008). In addition to testing this overall theory, we sought to determine whether both compassion-based and cognitive restructuring interventions would outperform a distraction control condition at reducing threat-based states, and whether the compassion-based intervention would facilitate more affiliative-based states than a cognitive intervention. Participants were 577 undergraduate students (74.7% women) who participated in an audio-guided interactive virtual session during which they recalled a situation evoking self-criticism and shame. They were then randomly assigned to a virtually delivered compassion-based intervention, cognitive restructuring intervention, or distraction-based placebo control condition. Hierarchical regressions revealed partial support for our hypotheses. We found that the compassion intervention generally led to more soothing affect than the cognitive intervention at higher levels of trait self-criticism, whereas the cognitive intervention led to more soothing affect than the compassion condition at lower levels of trait self-criticism. While higher soothing affect after the intervention was generally associated with reduced threat-based states (i.e., state shame, state negative affect, and state self-criticism) and increased affiliative states (i.e., state self-compassion and state self-reassurance), compassion did not significantly mediate the relative effect of the compassion intervention on these outcomes among highly self-critical individuals. Other findings revealed that across the range of trait self-criticism scores in the sample, both the compassion and cognitive interventions had a more beneficial impact on outcomes than the distraction-based control condition; however, these active interventions did not differ from one another. Taken together, this research suggests that when college students are experiencing momentary shame and self-criticism, engaging in cognitive-restructuring or compassionate responding should be more beneficial than distraction, but that for highly self-critical individuals, compassionate responding might promote more soothed feelings. Although this latter finding is consistent with the theory behind compassion-focused therapy, future studies should build on this work in more diverse samples and by examining the relative effects of the cognitive restructuring and compassion-based intervention approaches among individuals with clinically high levels of trait self-criticism.
Identifying Analogue Samples of Individuals with Clinically Significant Social Anxiety: Updating and Combining Cutoff Scores on the Social Phobia Inventory and Sheehan Disability Scale
(University of Waterloo, 2024-07-26) Kudryk, Sophie
The use of analogue samples, as opposed to clinical groups, is common in mental health research, including research on social anxiety disorder (SAD). Recent observational and statistical evidence has raised doubts about the validity of current methods for establishing analogue samples of individuals with clinically significant social anxiety. Here, we used data from large community samples of clinical and non-clinical participants to determine new cutoff scores of 34 on the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN), a validated self-report measure of social anxiety symptoms, and a new cutoff score of 11 on the Sheehan Disability Scale (SDS), a validated self-report measure of social anxiety symptom-related impairment. We then examined whether using these newly determined cutoff scores alone or in combination improves the identification of individuals who have SAD from those who do not, revealing intriguing trade-offs in sensitivity and specificity and clear recommendations for the use of the new cutoff scores in combination with one another to facilitate future research. Finally, we compared the effects of our new cutoff scores with the original cutoff scores currently used in research on social anxiety by extracting analogue samples of participants with high social anxiety from historical data on seven large groups of undergraduate Psychology research participants from the University of Waterloo spanning the past five years (2018–2023). We observed that the new combined cutoff scores identified markedly fewer students as having high social anxiety, lending credibility to their validity and utility. We also observed a striking increase in levels of social anxiety symptoms in the undergraduate population from before to after the COVID-19 pandemic. Of note, most participants were under 30 and identified as Caucasian or Asian women, indicating that future research is needed to examine whether our findings generalize to diverse populations. Implications and future directions for social anxiety research are discussed.
Relatedness in memory and metamemory: Benefits, costs, and beliefs
(University of Waterloo, 2024-06-27) Lu, Xinyi
This dissertation examines the influence of semantic relatedness on both memory and metamemory. Related items tend to be better remembered than unrelated items in most memory tasks, and people are usually able to anticipate this in their memory predictions. In this dissertation, I report a novel case where inter-item relatedness produces a memory cost, specifically, in a location memory task. Despite this cost, participants predict that relatedness should be beneficial in this task, showing a misalignment between their beliefs and their performance. I then examine the mechanisms underlying the relatedness cost in location memory performance and what I refer to as the relatedness halo in metamemory. The latter phenomenon in particular is used to provide novel insights into the nature of metamemory beliefs and how they are updated in response to new information. I advance a theoretical framework for understanding beliefs as cue-dependent judgments that are constructed from multiple sources of retrieved information.
Intentional Forgetting: The Role of Retrieval in Encoding
(University of Waterloo, 2024-05-23) Tan, Pelin
Intentional remembering and intentional forgetting are adaptive processes that permit us to exert control over the contents of our memories. These abilities ensure that memory preserves the most goal-relevant information, and that goal-irrelevant information is discarded. Often studied in the literature using the item-method directed forgetting paradigm, research continues to debate the cognitive mechanisms that individuals use to intentionally remember and forget information. In this paradigm, during the study phase each presented item receives its own instructional cue—either to-be-forgotten (F) or to-be-remembered (R). The typical finding during the test phase is that memory is poorer for F items than for R items—the directed forgetting effect. In this dissertation, in Chapter 2, I tested the assumptions of a prominent and longstanding account of the directed forgetting effect: the selective rehearsal account. To do so, I manipulated the time available for rehearsal and time-based decay. Four experiments investigated the influence of instructional cue durations of 1, 5, and 10 seconds. Experiments 1a and 1b, with the order of cue durations randomized, showed no effect of cue duration on recognition of either R or F single words. Experiment 2, using unrelated word pairs, again showed no effect of cue duration, here on associative recognition. Experiments 3 and 4 blocked cue duration and showed enhanced recognition of both R and F single words and word pairs with increasing cue duration. To explain this set of findings, I suggested that better memory for R items than for F items across cue duration depends on (1) a rapid retrieval check engaged for R items only and (2) a rapid removal process implemented for F items only. Additionally, any post-cue rehearsal is carried out only when cue duration is predictable and is equally likely for F items and R items. In Chapter 3, I set out to test this rapid retrieval check mechanism by inducing an act of retrieval for F items. I predicted that if a rapid retrieval check of R items drives the directed forgetting effect, then inducing such a retrieval check mechanism for F items should reduce the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect. Experiment 5 demonstrated that simply repeating an F item in the encoding list did not force the retrieval of that item. However, in Experiment 6, incorporating a button press for the participant to indicate noticing the repetition of an item revealed that, for items where this repetition was noticed, the directed forgetting effect was eliminated. Experiment 7 induced an act of retrieval using an immediate recognition task following the R/F cue presentation. Results indicated that a retrieval check was successfully induced for F items where the target on the recognition task matched the preceding item, eliminating the directed forgetting effect and confirming the critical role of retrieval in item-method directed forgetting. Experiment 8 replicated these findings while also demonstrating that the removal of F items from working memory did not depend on an active inhibitory mechanism, framing the retrieval-based explanation as a non-inhibitory account of intentional forgetting at encoding. Ultimately, this dissertation provides a novel account of item-method directed forgetting in the form of a selective retrieval account. The account emphasizes the pivotal contribution of a rapid retrieval check mechanism applied only to R items during encoding being primarily responsible for the directed forgetting effect. This new theoretical perspective opens avenues for future research on intentional forgetting to explore the role of retrieval during encoding.
Cognitive homeostasis: Boredom as a drive for optimal engagement
(University of Waterloo, 2024-05-02) Trudel, Chantal
Boredom is the feeling of wanting but failing to engage the mind. The first part of this thesis proposes a theory that casts boredom as a signal of suboptimal utilization of cognitive resources. Homeostasis is used as an analogy that frames the in-the-moment feeling of boredom as a deviation from optimal engagement. It also offers an allostatic account for chronic boredom (i.e., trait boredom proneness) and briefly explores potential neural indicators of both boredom and cognitive engagement before considering related processes of meaning making. This model of boredom characterizes the experience as a dynamic response to both internal and external exigencies and leads to testable hypotheses for both the nature of the state and the trait disposition to experience the state frequently and intensely. Furthermore, it casts a more general hypothesis that humans strive to optimally engage with their environs, in order to maintain a kind of cognitive homeostatic set point. The second part of the thesis consists of a study, its replication, and an experiment derived from the theory. The study is resting on a prominent model of affective regulation suggesting that interoceptive signals are used to predict the affective outcomes of intended actions paired with recent neuroimaging work implicating the anterior insular cortex in boredom. Results showed strong relations with boredom proneness and attention to interoceptive signals. Data also showed that high boredom prone individuals tend to struggle to make sense of interoceptive signals. The experiment that followed made use of a heartbeat counting task to objectively test interoceptive accuracy as a function of boredom proneness. Heart rate variability was also measured while inducing moods of boredom and interest. While poor performance did not correlate with chronic boredom, induced state boredom triggered a higher stress response as indicated by cardiac vagal tone. These results characterize state boredom as a physiological stressor that fits well within the model proposed as a push to restore cognitive homeostasis by prompting the agent to find a more positively valenced endeavour.

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