Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    Derivation of Gain in a Hierarchical Multiple-Goal Pursuit Model
    (2017) Samuelson, Hannah; Grand, James A; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The motivational sciences in organizational psychology have recently focused on goal pursuit as a dynamic process, using computational modeling as a methodological tool. This has resulted in a detailed specification of certain components of the goal-pursuit process, leaving others vague. The current research sheds light on one of these underspecified pieces, gain, through the development of the hierarchical multiple-goal pursuit model (HMGPM). The HMGPM proposes that gain, or a goal’s subjectively evaluated importance, is a function of the importance of higher-order goals to which it is connected in an individual’s goal network, and the strength of those connections. Through computational modeling and simulation, the HMGPM is shown to produce theoretically-plausible patterns of goal choice, replicate previous empirical findings, and advance new topics of future research. The usefulness of the HMGPM as a theory-building tool that integrates organizational and social psychological perspectives of motivation is discussed.
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    Tracking the Cost Heuristic: A Rule of Thumb in Choice of Counterfinal Means
    (2013) Klein, Kristen; Kruglanski, Arie W; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Domain-specific empirical evidence shows that people sometimes infer a correlation between the cost of an item or behavior (e.g., price, effort) and its quality or efficacy (e.g., Labroo & Kim, 2009; Shiv, Carmon, & Ariely. 2005). In the present research, I proposed and tested a general mechanism that may underlie these instantiations. I termed this mechanism the cost heuristic, whereby people may infer that if a means is costly or detrimental to alternative goal(s) (i.e., counterfinal), then it must be highly instrumental to whatever focal goal it serves. Three preliminary studies provided inconsistent support for the cost heuristic. However, two of these studies suggested that a reverse halo effect (Thorndike, 1920) might have interfered with the cost heuristic. In three additional studies, I controlled for this reverse halo effect and tested more nuanced hypotheses about conditions under which the cost heuristic might be particularly likely to emerge. In Study 1, after statistically controlling for reverse halo effects, I found marginal support for a general cost heuristic, but not for the proposed moderators of alternative goal magnitude and the perceived ecological validity of the cost heuristic. In Study 2, the alternative goal magnitude manipulation was only effective in one goal domain; however, in this domain the results fully supported the hypothesis. Those who perceived the cost heuristic as ecologically valid were more likely to exhibit it under high (vs. low) alternative goal magnitude, whereas for those who did not perceive it as ecologically valid, alternative goal magnitude did not make a difference. In Study 3, the results did not support my hypothesis, but rather suggested that the vignettes' length/complexity may have obscured the detrimentality cue on which the cost heuristic is based. Taken together, the evidence from these studies is suggestive but inconclusive with regard to a cost heuristic and the conditions under which it might manifest. Limitations and future directions are discussed.