MacEwan Open Journals (MacEwan University)
Not a member yet
2252 research outputs found
Sort by
Do Incremental Theories of Well-Being and Other Well-Being Beliefs Predict Prosocial Spending?
No full textResearch has revealed that prosocial spending is associated with greater well-being than is personal spending. Given this link, well-being beliefs may predict the degree to which people endorse prosocial spending relative to personal spending. In Study 1, it was predicted that incremental mindsets toward well-being and eudaimonic well-being beliefs would be associated with prosocial spending and autonomous reasons for prosocial spending. Results showed that undergraduate students (N = 288) with greater eudaimonic and lower hedonic well-being beliefs demonstrated an increased preference for prosocial spending and autonomous reasons for prosocial spending, controlling for socially desirable responding. In Study 2, it was predicted that the cultivation of an incremental mindset and the delivery of knowledge regarding the benefits of prosocial spending would interact to enhance the intention to engage in prosocial spending. Undergraduate student participants were randomly assigned to a mindset intervention, a benefits-of-prosocial-spending intervention, both interventions, or neither intervention. Results revealed that undergraduate students (N = 84) assigned to the incremental mindset of well-being condition demonstrated a greater endorsement of prosocial spending. The implications of the current research will be discussed, including mechanisms by which well-being beliefs are or are not associated with prosocial spending.
Department: Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Andrew Howel
Do Mental Health Apps Influence Stress or Affect in University Students- And Does Personality Matter?
No full textBackground: Mental health apps (MHApps) have become increasingly popular in major mobile stores. While there are many anecdotal claims made about their effectiveness, there is still limited empirical support for their usability or practicality. Having access to instant mental health services can provide excitement and hope for many who are suffering and unable to receive treatment. However, more systematic research is needed to investigate their effectiveness for improving mental well-being.
Objective: The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the use of mental health apps, specifically What\u27s up! and Self-Help for Anxiety Management (SAM) and student stress and affect. The secondary purpose of this study is to examine if a relationship exists between personality factors and app use and effectiveness.
Methods: Student volunteers from MacEwan University were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Two experimental app groups and a third control group. All three groups were asked to complete an initial survey and a similar second survey approximately 2-weeks after the initial survey completion. The surveys included items from the Perceived Stress Scale, the Big Five Inventory-2, and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, as well as basic questions about the participants\u27 previous and current app use, and other relevant items.
Hypothesis: Participants in the experiment groups will experience more reduction in negative affect, anxiety, and stress than the control group. Also, participants who score higher in conscientiousness will experience more app use and negative symptom reduction than those with lower scores.
Department: Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Sean Roger
Empathy, Pet-Ownership and Self-Awareness
No full textEmpathy is defined as the ability to share feelings and emotions of another individual (Daly & Morton, 2009). A person’s level of empathy can be affected by many factors, such as exposure to childhood trauma (Greenberg et al., 2018), mindfulness training (Birnie et al., 2010), and childhood pet ownership (Daly & Morton, 2006; Vidović et al., 1999). It is the last of these items that is of interest to the present study. Specifically, it is unclear whether one’s change in empathy is due to pet ownership itself, or the result of changes in other personal factors that tend to coincide with pet ownership. The present study is therefore designed to expand on our understanding of why pet ownership is associated with empathy change, and will assess the relationship between empathy and one’s relationship with animals, the bond an individual has with their pet, and or one’s level of self-awareness (the ability to distinguish oneself and one’s values from others, Froming et al., 1998), among others.
Therefore, we predict that in general, owning a pet will be associated with higher levels of human-centered and animal-centered empathy. However, we also predict that the strength of the pet-owner bond, and personal factors such as one’s level of self-awareness, will be critical modulating factors for the relationship between pet-ownership and empathy. Specifically, we predict that individuals with a stronger bond with their animal, and higher levels of self-awareness, will have higher empathy scores than those who have weaker bonds with their animals, or lower levels of self-awareness.
Department: Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Eric Legg
Graphic Sapphics: How Identity Shapes the Stories We See on Screen
No full textThis infographic explores different patterns observed in on-screen representations of sapphic relationships and investigates whether an association exists between own-voice narratives and queer joy. To test this association, a sample of 20 sapphic movies and shows were rated using a Negative Trope Score Sheet, with the hypothesis that media developed from own-voice perspectives would score lower than narratives developed by outsider perspectives.
Department: Psychology
Faculty Mentors: Irfan Chaudhry and Dr. Kathryn Hollan
Can\u27t Stress This Enough: Can Biofeedback Increase the use of Stress Interventions?
No full textUndergraduate students experience many stressors throughout their education. An abundance of stress coping methods exist to help students cope; however, many of them require a significant time investment (e.g., exercise, meditation). Lack of time to accomplish all the demands of school and daily life is one of the highest reported stressors of university students. Some quick stress-coping methods (e.g., deep breathing, cognitive reappraisal) are effective for coping with in-the-moment stressful situations, but students rarely use these coping methods. It is unclear whether this lack of use is due to lack of knowledge, lack of belief that the strategy is useful, or other factors. Our study examined the first two ideas. We also compared the effectiveness of a physiological technique (deep breathing) to a cognitive technique (cognitive reappraisal).
Participants were divided into five groups: 1) control 2) deep breathing, 3) cognitive reappraisal, 4) deep breathing with biofeedback, and 5) cognitive reappraisal with biofeedback. Participants were either exposed to only informational videos about the stress-coping technique and were encouraged to use it during a stressful experimental task or were exposed to the videos plus biofeedback (heart rate measurements) before and after using the technique during the stressful task. Follow-up surveys were administered to determine how often students used each technique throughout the semester.
We hypothesize that participants in the biofeedback groups will use the coping technique more often throughout the semester and that deep breathing will be more effective than cognitive reappraisal.
Department: Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Michele Moscick
The Perception of Gender in Handwritten Words
No full textHandwriting is a complex visual pattern that is individualistic to the writer, much in the same way that faces are complex patterns that contain an identity. Due to the ubiquity of handwriting as a communication tool, we wanted to investigate sensitivity to handwriting using perceptual techniques. In this experiment, we investigated whether observers could reliably detect gender differences in handwriting samples and whether any sensitivity to gender was affected by stimulus inversion. We measured sensitivity in four stimulus presentation conditions: (1) uppercase words presented in an upright position, (2) lower case words presented in an upright position, (3) uppercase words presented in an inverted position, and (4) lower case words presented in an inverted position. Our results suggest that: (1) Participants are more confident in rating the gender of the authors for stimuli presented in the upright position than in the inverted position for both uppercase and lowercase handwritten samples. (2) Participants are accurate when rating the gender of the authors regardless of the handwritten samples are in uppercase or lowercase form and are more sensitive to changes in female handwriting samples. (3) Participants are more sensitive to the gender of the authors in the upright lowercase condition compared to the upright uppercase condition. These findings suggest that handwriting perception and identification rely on the global configuration of the stimulus, which suggests that handwriting perception relies on mechanisms that operate similar to those that support face processing.
Department: Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Nicole Anderson 
Microplastics pollution in sediments of stormwater retention ponds in Edmonton, AB
No full textMicroplastic is a ubiquitous pollutant in the environment. They are ingested by organisms due to their microscopic size. Recent studies have shown that freshwater environments are contaminated with microplastics. Urban stormwater runoff contributes to microplastic pollution during storm events. Stormwater ponds are a significant study area for understanding the pathway of microplastics to enter rivers and serve as a network for transporting MP from land to water environment. Assessing the impact of urban runoff can help determine the sources of microplastics in Edmonton, Alberta. The sediments of twenty-four stormwater ponds were studied. The samples were characterized based on their land-use type as either Industrial, Natural, Residential, Agriculture, Highway or Park. The microplastics were extracted from each sediment to test the hypothesis of which anthropogenic catchment type contributes to microplastic pollution the most. The extraction was achieved using density separation and organic digestion methods. The samples were stained with Nile Red for quantification using microscopy. Two morphologies, fibres and fragments, were found from the practice sample, Cy-Becker. 76.9% of the particles found were fibre. 54.8% of the particles were blue, followed by 23.1% transparent and 7.7% each green, red and pink. Assessing the impact of urban sources of microplastic helps understand the fate of microplastics in freshwater systems.
Department: Physical Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Matthew Ros
Mirrored Journey
No full textThe pandemic has brought many unforeseen challenges to our world and has given us the time to shape and grow ourselves into the beings we desire to become. The mirrored journey we take within ourselves to grow and adapt within this new world brings a lot of ups and downs. Being isolated with no one but ourselves, we become accustomed to our old unbreakable habits. Still, through it all, we grow and push ourselves to get out of our comfort zones to try new things and experiment with our creativity.I have been able to reflect a lot with myself over this pandemic, from bad days to good days; I have learned that in my mirrored journey, I should not be so hard on myself because I am constantly trying to grow and be the best person I can be and as long as I continue to do so, I should always be proud of who I am and my accomplishments in life. Everyone in the world is just trying to figure out their own mirrored journey; worrying about someone else’s mirror may just break your own
Stairwells of Allard Hall
No full textIn the image, a tone of solitude emanating an emotion of loneliness from social isolation is reflected. Solitude can be described as miserable and dark. This atmosphere is created by the monochromatic colour scheme present throughout the photo. The image includes a singular object highlighted as the subject to intensifying the mood of isolation. The shot with many angular directions created by the composition is intended to make sense of how individuals feel during the pandemic; There are so many vastly different paths to follow, but we are all alone in what we choose to follow.
The Images depict a large area with only a small subject as its focus. This represents how individuals feel in today’s world, alone in a place that should be full of people. The directional flow found throughout the image gives depth to the idea that humanity is lost in its modern world. After following a regular path known to all for so long, we have become lost. This sudden change in direction has led man to grasp that we cannot live by ourselves and solely with ourselves. The harsh light in the photo creates a stark contrast between different parts of the image, like a lonely music student wandering the stairwells of Allard Hall, all alone
Have You Eaten Yet?
No full textThe communal experience of eating food with friends and lovers has been sorely missed