Red River Psychology Conference Schedule

Background: Verbal coercion is a form of sexual violence. Methods: Cognitive interviewing, a technique used to understand how people perceive items on questionnaires, was utilized to examine the content validity of a potentially ambiguous item, “my partner insisted on sex”, from the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales, a measure of intimate partner sexual violence. N = 39 participants. Results: Participants responses were qualitatively coded for themes: coercion (physical and verbal), consent, compliance, hesitancy to have sex, personal experiences, and perpetrator’s intent. Participants were asked to rate how consensual they considered the item to be. Three tactics were rated as clearly nonconsensual using p < .05: your partner insisted on sex, someone removed their clothing to arouse you, someone removed your clothing to arouse you. Conclusions: Participants viewed insistence as a verbally coercive tactic. Participants differentiated coercion from compliance which suggests validity of the item measuring coercion.

Past studies have indicated the connection between attachment style and sexist attitudes, but not many have covered how attachment style to one’s caregiver could impact the perception of sexism. The current study explored the influence of childhood attachment style on the formation of sexist attitudes among college students. 92 Minnesota State University Moorhead undergraduate students from psychology classes participated in this study. The Adult Scale of Parent Attachment - Short Form (ASPA-SF) and the Relationship Structures Questionnaire (ECR-RS) were used to determine participants' attachment styles towards their caregivers growing up. Participants also completed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory to predict their hostile and benevolent sexism beliefs. Results showed people who have an anxious attachment style for their caregiver during childhood are likely to hold both benevolent and hostile sexist attitudes. Furthermore, avoidant attachment style predicts endorsement of benevolent, but not hostile, sexism.

Head-up displays (HUDs) have been adopted by automotive manufacturers to decrease distraction and increase the safety of vehicle operation. This study investigated the impact of incorporating HUDs on crewed light tactical vehicles. The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) was selected as the research platform by the research sponsors: U.S. Army Ground Vehicle System Center. Using virtual reality simulators, three HUD layouts with multiple information display widgets were examined within a virtual HMMWV (n=18). Results suggest HUDs do not increase the subjective task load of drivers, they increase the safe operation of the vehicle, and they are seen as beneficial to experienced HMMWV drivers. The use of HUDs facilitated the operation of the HMMWV, the navigation around obstacles, and the communication of critical information to others. Future research should further develop the most utilized widgets and should replicate this study in a HMMWV or light tactical vehicle “live drive” environment.

Our study examined whether within-person shifts in secondary control predicted corresponding shifts in well-being and whether this relationship became pronounced during periods of financial hardship in a pandemic. We analyzed data from a representative sample of U.S. adults aged 18-80 (n=292). Preliminary multilevel models assessed how shifts in secondary control predicted corresponding shifts in mental health, hedonic wellbeing, and eudemonic well-being. Our main multilevel models examined whether these within-person relationships were moderated by shifts in an inability to pay for one’s needs while controlling for age, sex, education, income, and between-person secondary control and financial hardship. Within-person increases in secondary control predicted increased well-being across all outcome variables (bs=|0.11-0.23|, ps<0.01). Financial hardship moderated the relationship of secondary control on perceived stress and personal growth (bs=|0.14-0.24|, ps<0.05), such that increases in secondary control had pronounced benefits on occasions when individuals were unable to pay for their needs.

There are benefits from laboratory experiences, like increased student engagement (Ra’anon, 2005) and preparation for graduate school (McDonough, n.d.). Specifically, there are benefits from working in a live animal laboratory using operant chambers. It is not feasible for many universities to have live animal laboratories due to factors such as cost of animal care, maintenance, and ethical concerns, so many students have no laboratory experience. The current study sought to evaluate the CyberRat (Ray, 2019) software as an alternative to live rat laboratories. The variability of CyberRat was assessed via a Turing test, thus determining how realistic CyberRat is. To assess CyberRat’s variability three areas were analyzed: the latency to the first bar press, the total number of bar presses, and the cumulative records of the graphs. Results demonstrated multiple areas where variability is present. There are areas for further evaluation, but through analysis of the data output, CyberRat has passed another Turing test.