School of Public Health
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1633
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
Note: Prior to July 1, 2007, the School of Public Health was named the College of Health & Human Performance.
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Item Preventing Drowsy Driving in Young Adults Through Messaging Strategies that Influence Perceptions of Control and Risk(2024) Lee, Clark Johnson; Butler III, James; Beck, Kenneth H; Public and Community Health; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Drowsy driving is a serious health and safety problem in the United States: thousands of car crashes on U.S. roadways each year are attributed to this risky driving behavior. Although young drivers under the age of 26 years are especially at risk for being involved in drowsy driving car crashes, few anti-drowsy driving interventions targeting such drivers have been developed. Furthermore, most existing educational materials and interventions against drowsy driving have focused primarily on providing factual information about the dangers of drowsy driving and countermeasures against these dangers rather than on influencing beliefs and motivations underlying drowsy driving behavior, which may explain their apparent ineffectiveness at preventing drowsy driving behavior and resultant car crashes. Recent research indicates that messages targeting perceptions of control may be effective intervention strategies against drowsy driving behavior for young adult drivers by influencing their drowsy driving-related perceptions of risk, intentions, and willingness. This dissertation continues this line of research by pursuing two lines of inquiry. In Study #1, the efficacy of anti-drowsy driving messaging strategies designed to influence perceptions of control and risk related to drowsy driving behavior in reducing drowsy driving intentions, willingness, and behavior in a sample of young adult U.S. drivers between 18 and 25 years of age was evaluated through a randomized controlled trial. Study #1 sought to test the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: Participants exposed to interventional messaging strategies primarily aimed at lowering perceptions of control or heightening perceptions of risk related to drowsy driving report significantly less perceived control, greater perceived risk, less intentions, less willingness, and less behavior related to drowsy driving at 30-day post-intervention follow-up compared to participants exposed to messaging strategies providing only factual information about the dangers of drowsy driving; and Hypothesis 2: Participants exposed to interventional messaging strategies aimed at both lowering perceptions of control and heightening perceptions of risk related to drowsy driving report significantly less perceived control, greater perceived risk, less intentions, less willingness, and less behavior related to drowsy driving at 30-day post-intervention follow-up compared to participants exposed to messaging strategies providing only factual information about the dangers of drowsy driving, messaging strategies primarily aimed at lowering perceptions of control related to drowsy driving, or messaging strategies primarily aimed at heightening perceptions of risk related to drowsy driving. In Study #2, the relationships between perceived behavioral control, risk perception, intentions, willingness, and drowsy driving behavior in a sample of young adult U.S. drivers between 18 and 25 years of age were examined. Study #2 sought to test the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 3: The impact of interventional messaging strategies targeting drowsy driving perception of control on drowsy driving intentions, willingness, and behavior is mediated by drowsy driving risk perception such that messages lowering drowsy driving perceptions of control also heighten drowsy driving risk perception, which in turn decreases drowsy driving intentions, willingness, and behavior; Hypothesis 4: Interventional messaging strategies targeting drowsy driving-related perceptions of control or risk have a greater impact on drowsy driving willingness than on drowsy driving intentions; and Hypothesis 5: Drowsy driving willingness is a stronger predictor of drowsy driving behavior than is drowsy driving intentions. Study #1 provided supporting evidence of short-term cognitive effects but not short-term behavioral effects after exposure to messaging interventions designed to influence perceptions of control and risk related to drowsy driving behavior. Perceptions of risk were especially influenced by the messaging strategies examined, including those that provided only factual, knowledge-based information about drowsy driving. Study #2 provided supporting evidence that perceived behavioral control influenced drowsy driving intentions and drowsy driving willingness indirectly through perceptions of risk. Furthermore, willingness to drive drowsy was a stronger predictor of actual drowsy driving behavior than intentions to drive drowsy. The findings from these two studies should inform future research aimed at developing more effective messaging strategies against drowsy driving behavior in young adults.Item Understanding and Retraining the Causal Attributions for Exercise Intenders(2019) Singpurwalla, Darius; Iso-Ahola, Seppo E; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Given that ~50% of all exercise intenders will fall into the intention-behavior gap (i.e., a situation where people fail to act on their intentions), it is necessary to identify the constructs and/or theories that can explain the discord between intention and behavior (i.e., the intention-behavior gap). For this purpose, the present research was conducted through two studies that were designed to test the efficacy of causal attributions as a means to reduce the intention-behavior discord. The first study collected information from 952 individuals on their exercise behavior and their associated causal attributions over a six-week period. The findings from this study included: (1) those individuals who fell into the intention-behavior gap made self-serving attributions for their exercise failure; (2) Weiner’s model accurately predicted several of the affective and cognitive responses to exercise behavior for the sample of exercise intenders; and (3) causal attributions were not found to be effective moderators of the intention-behavior relationship. The second study was an experiment that tested whether an attribution retraining intervention could improve exercise behavior for a sample of sedentary, exercise intenders (n=200). Results of this study were mixed as the intervention appeared to have been able to modify one of the targeted attributional dimensions (control), but the effect was not strong enough to change the exercise behavior of the participants in the experimental group. It is suggested that attributions may not be able to reduce the gap because they represent conscious deliberations of the behavior, while sustained exercise is based on nonconscious processing of relevant information to make exercise an automatic behavior.Item THE INFLUENCE OF CONSCIOUS CONTROL OF MOVEMENT ON BRAIN PROCESSES AND THE QUALITY OF COGNITIVE-MOTOR PERFORMANCE(2015) Lo, Li-Chuan; Hatfield, Bradley D.; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The impact of mental stress on fine motor performance is typically maladaptive. The current research was conducted to investigate the manner by which state anxiety affects performance using a cognitive neuroscience perspective. The basic proposition tested, derived from the Reinvestment Theory and the Psychomotor Efficiency Hypothesis, is that stress introduces neuromotor noise to motor planning processes that translate as excess recruitment of motor units and degrade performance. Electroencephalography (EEG) was employed in Study 1 to assess regional cortical activation and cortico-cortical communication between non-motor associative and motor planning regions during the preparatory period of a dart-throwing task. The task was performed during stress (i.e., social evaluation, monetary incentives, and threat of electrical shock) and a relatively relaxed control condition through a within-subjects design. Regional activation was estimated from bilateral EEG recordings in the frontal, central, temporal, parietal, and occipital regions via spectral analysis to assess low-alpha and high-alpha band power to determine generalized arousal and task-relevant attentional focus, respectively. Cortico-cortical communication was estimated between all bilateral regions and the frontal motor planning area with particular emphasis on the left temporal (T3) to midline frontal (Fz) coherence. Elevated state anxiety was induced and associated with heightened T3-Fz EEG connectivity and synchrony of high-alpha band in the right occipital region. Based on these findings, Study 2 was conducted to determine the psychological processes accounting for the observed elevation in T3-Fz EEG coherence and the quality of muscle action during the throwing task. Specifically, participants employed an internal and an external attentional focus to perform the throwing task while their EEG and electromyography (EMG) were monitored. The use of internal focus, which is consistent with explicit monitoring of movement mechanics, was predicted to result in elevated T3-Fz EEG connectivity. This prediction was supported and, furthermore, the magnitude of connectivity was positively associated with motor unit activity assessed via EMG of four major muscle groups (i.e., flexor carpi ulnaris, extensor carpi radialis, biceps brachii, and triceps brachii). The evidence provided supports the theoretical notion that explicit monitoring promotes inefficient muscle activity, which mediates to impact performance negatively.