Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Public Health

Introduction: Lifelong treatment for HIV-infected women offers profound benefits in terms of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) and disease management, though poor adherence to antiretroviral drugs (ARV) and disengagement from PMTCT care can jeopardize these benefits. Insights from the field of behavioral economics reveal that high temporal discounting can lead to risky health behaviors, and these findings have informed the development of interventions, such conditional cash transfers (CCT), to mitigate these effects. Few studies, however, have directly assessed the effects of temporal discounting on behaviors relating to HIV prevention and treatment, and none have evaluated these effects among pregnant and breastfeeding women. Further, few studies have assessed the role of temporal discounting on the effect CCT or other similar interventions providing conditional economic incentives to improve behaviors relating to HIV treatment and prevention. Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of data from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) conducted in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, which assessed the effect of a CCT intervention on retention in PMTCT care, adherence to ARV and viral suppression among newly-diagnosed HIV-infected pregnant women. We identified correlates of temporal discounting from health and demographic information collected at baseline. We then assessed the association between temporal discounting and retention in care at 6 weeks postpartum, uptake of available PMTCT services, and viral suppression at 6 weeks postpartum using log-binomial models to calculate unadjusted and adjusted RRs for high vs. low discounting for each outcome. We also evaluated possible interaction between temporal discounting and CCT for each outcome (retention, uptake of available PMTCT services and viral suppression). Results: High temporal discounting was associated with incomplete uptake of PMTCT services, and this effect was mitiga (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Abigail Norris Turner PhD (Advisor); Maria Gallo PhD (Committee Member); Abigail Shoben PhD (Committee Member); Marcel Yotebieng PhD, MD (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics; Epidemiology; Psychology; Public Health

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2018, Experimental Psychology (Arts and Sciences)

Religiosity is positively related to self-regulation, though more research is needed to understand the nature of this relationship. For example, relatively few studies have examined the link between religiosity and delay-of-gratification (i.e., resisting immediate temptation in favor of some objectively larger, delayed reward). Most of the limited research on this topic has conceptualized and operationalized religiosity as though it were a unidimensional construct. We review literature that, instead, suggests religiosity be treated as a two-dimensional construct – consisting of organizational (i.e., religious practice/community) and personal religiosity (i.e., religious belief) dimensions. Personal religiosity elements are more strongly associated with asceticism than are organizational religiosity elements. Therefore, we hypothesized that personal religiosity would lead to greater delay-of-gratification than would organizational religiosity. Furthermore, we hypothesized that cognitive construal level, rational-experiential processing, and/or deontological thinking would mediate this effect. Consistent with the former hypothesis, experimental results indicated that activating personal, but not organizational, religiosity concepts increased delay-of-gratification. We did not find support for the latter hypothesis. We discuss the implications of these findings and future research directions.

Committee: Kimberly Rios PhD (Advisor); Ronaldo Vigo PhD (Advisor); Keith Markman PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Psychology; Religion; Social Psychology; Social Research

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2017, Arts and Sciences: Psychology

Individuals are prone to making decisions that appear to be suboptimal or biased. The present study focused on two decision paradigms individuals have shown decision biases under specific conditions: omission neglect and temporal discounting. Omission neglect refers to insensitivity to information that is not presented overtly in the moment of decision-making. Temporal discounting is the observation that the subjective value of a reinforcer decreases with delays in the delivery of that reinforce. The present study was designed to assess the extent to which specific cognitive processes (such as executive function, working and long-term memory, and decision styles) modulate performance on these decision-making paradigms, and to evaluate if engaging in episodic simulation, a process where individuals are asked to imagine in concrete details the scenario under their consideration, is effective in de-biasing individuals. Participants attended one two-hour session and were administered omission neglect scenarios, temporal discounting trials, neuropsychological measures, and decision style questionnaires. For omission neglect, participants rated how important they consider various attributes to be with respect to a decision, both in the absence (Time1) and presence (Time2) of certain important additional attribute(s). Participants demonstrated omission neglect when they overrated the importance of core attributes when additional important attributes were not presented yet. In temporal discounting, participants were asked to provide a present value (e.g., $85 now) that they thought was roughly equal to the subjective value of a delayed reward (e.g., $100 available in a month). Omission neglect and temporal discounting were tested both in conditions of episodic simulation and without simulation. All participants showed omission neglect when data were averaged across all scenarios; 63% showed omission neglect in each of the four scenarios tested. A larger omission neglect (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Chung-Yiu Peter Chiu Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Quintino Mano Ph.D. (Committee Member); Paula Shear Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Physical Activity and Educational Services

Impulsivity has been identified as a core deficit of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) that underlies the academic underachievement as well as the behavioral and social difficulties correlated with the disorder. Part 1 of this two-part investigation involved a functional asessment of impulsivity, defined as choices that produce more immediate but smaller or less preferred reinforcers relative to a concurrently available response alternative that produces delayed but larger or more preferred reinforcers. Arithmetic problem choices associated with competing reinforcer dimensions (i.e., immediacy in relation to quality and rate of reinforcement and response effort) were presented under two delay conditions – delay to point delivery and delay to exchange of points for the terminal reinforcer. The results of Part 1 indicated that the majority of participants with and without ADHD allocated responding and time to the response alternative that resulted in immediate but smaller or less preferred reinforcers during the delay to exchange of points experimental condition. Additionally, the majority of participants with and without ADHD allocated responding and time to the response alternative that resulted in delayed but larger or more preferred reinforcers during the delay to point delivery experimental condition. Thus, the findings suggest that reinforcer immediacy was an influential dimension for participants with and without ADHD and that their choices were influenced more by the delay to the delivery of the terminal reinforcer than the delay to the delivery of the conditioned reinforcer. Part 2 addressed (a) the need for assessment-based interventions that focus on increasing academic productivity and accuracy and decreasing off-task behavior in a classroom setting and (b) the effects of an assessment-based intervention in conjunction with a commitment strategy on decreasing impulsive choice making to the terminal reinforcer in a classroom setting. Results o (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Nancy Neef (Advisor) Subjects: