Michael Cunningham

University of Louisville | UL · Department of Communication

Objective In this research, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) tested the efficacy of two teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) curricula, Reducing the Risk and Love Notes, compared with a group of adolescents in a control condition, on primary pregnancy prevention among youth at high-risk for teen pregnancy. A secondary purpose was to examine two poten...

Direct support professionals (DSPs) are essential in the continuum of care for individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. DSPs provide a wide range of support including services to ensure the safety and welfare of individuals, support in the development of independent living skills and support in community integration. Existin...

Three studies were conducted to explore the psychological determinants of COVID-deterrent behaviors. In Study 1, using data collected and analyzed both before and after the release of COVID-19 vaccines, mask-wearing, other preventative behaviors like social distancing, and vaccination intentions were positively related to assessments of the Coronav...

Few studies have examined romantic relationship attitudes and behaviors among ethnic or racial minority youth. The purpose of this study was to compare African American (AA) and mostly African refugee adolescents living in a U.S. city on romantic relationship attitudes and behaviors. A baseline questionnaire was given to 1448 adolescents between th...

Introduction This paper describes implementation results as part of a larger three-arm, cluster randomized controlled trial that compared two curriculum interventions to prevent teen pregnancy with a control condition. The intervention of focus is an enhanced version of Reducing the Risk to Prevent Pregnancy, STD and HIV (Kirby et al., 1991, Langle...

The COVID-19 Behavioral Health Mindset inventory (CVBHM) was designed to protect consumers and workers by assessing biosafety risk through acceptance of responsibility for the protection of oneself and others, social distancing, and adhering to prevention measures. The 30-item inventory was evaluated in two surveys of 1,455 (Time 1) and 431 respond...

Objective: To understand how family members view the ways EMS and other first responders interact with distressed family members during an intervention involving a recent or impending pediatric death. Methods: In depth interviews with 11 grieving parents of young children and survey results from four additional grieving parents of adult children we...

The purpose of the study is to examine the impact of a statewide intervention (BSW level Title IV-E Program) on both the workers’ intent to leave the job and their actual exit from a state administered public child welfare agency. Employees completed an extensive survey including scales assessing individual, team, and organizational variables that...

Advances in digital technology have led to new forms of employee crime and organizational risk. Employee collusion with external criminals engaged in theft is increasing in the digital age. Digital storage of company and customer information puts both at risk of hacking, which may be aided, or accidentally facilitated, by insiders. Both negligent a...

Previous studies have documented links between sub-clinical narcissism and the active pursuit of short-term mating strategies (e.g., unrestricted sociosexuality, marital infidelity, mate poaching). Nearly all of these investigations have relied solely on samples from Western cultures. In the current study, responses from a cross-cultural survey of...

The limited resource model states that self-control is governed by a relatively finite set of inner resources on which people draw when exerting willpower. Once self-control resources have been used up or depleted, they are less available for other self-control tasks, leading to a decrement in subsequent self-control success. The depletion effect h...

Objectives: To test the efficacy of Reducing the Risk (RTR) and Love Notes (LN) on reducing risky sexual behavior among youths yet to experience or cause a pregnancy. Methods: The four dependent variables were ever had sex, condom use, birth control use, and number of sexual partners at 3- and 6-month follow-up in a 3-arm cluster randomized cont...

Objective: To understand effective ways for EMS providers to interact with distressed family members during a field intervention involving a recent or impending out-of-hospital (OOH) pediatric death. Methods: Eight focus groups with 98 EMS providers were conducted in urban and rural settings between November 2013 and March 2014. Sixty-eight prov...

To understand the ways that EMS providers cope with pediatric death in an out-of-hospital setting, eight focus groups were conducted with 98 urban, rural and suburban EMS providers. Sixty-eight of the participants also completed a short questionnaire about a specific event. In both the focus groups and questionnaire, participants were asked how the...

To ensure that Reducing the Risk, a successful teen pregnancy prevention education curriculum, remains relevant for today's youth, covers all information youth need to know in order to make better choices, and is delivered in a standardized way, adaptations were made and enhancements were added. This article describes results of a pilot execution o...

While a number of studies have shown the efficacy of the solution-based casework (SBC) practice model for child welfare (e.g., Antle, Christensen, van Zyl, & Barbee, 20128. Antle, B. F., Christensen, D. N., van Zyl, M. A. & Barbee, A. P. (2012). The impact of the Solution Based Casework (SBC) practice model on federal outcomes in public child welfa...

La teoría Sociobiológica puede servir como un heurístico util para analizar la conducta prosocial humana. El presente artículo revisa investigaciones recientes, que sugieren la existencia en humanos de disposiciones altruistas basadas en el mecanismo de Selección Natural por parentesco o cooperación diferencial hacia los parientes. Se tratan tambié...

Two studies explored the relation between ethnicity, attitudes toward body weight, dating behavior, and female body satisfaction. Study 1 found that White men expressed a lighter female ideal weight, more resentment about their girlfriend's weight, and more pressure for their partner's thinness than did Black men. Study 2 found that regardless of t...

Van Iddekinge, Roth, Raymark, and Odle-Dusseau's (2012) meta-analysis of pre-employment integrity test results confirmed that such tests are meaningfully related to counterproductive work behavior. The article also offered some cautionary conclusions, which appear to stem from the limited scope of the authors' focus and the specific research proced...

Purpose Since hand and facial tissue transplantation are new treatments, risk data must be derived from early reports of the few cases done to date combined with extrapolations from other procedures with similar risks. This manuscript summarizes data from both sources including eight separate studies that measure the real and perceived risks associ...

This report examines issues associated with the selection of a Chief of Police. A review of the literature indicates minimal progress in specifying appropriate objective selection procedures for the Police Chief. This is attributable to a research focus on broad leadership styles, rather than specific competencies, and an inattention to the unique...

Based on a model of interactive coping activation, we review the impact of gender in the giving and receiving of emotion- and problem-focused social support. The research suggests that the female role (emphasizing nurturance and emotional expressiveness) makes it easier for women to activate social support from close relations as well as to provide...

The human face and facial transplantation have long captured the interest and imagination of scientists, the media and the lay public. The face is central to our identity, and our communication with the outside world. It is this great importance we attach to our face that makes facial disfigurement such a devastating condition. Facial transplantati...

In Western societies in the first decade of the 21st century, a majority of adults spend nearly half of their waking hours working as paid employees in private or public organizations. From the moment that an individual applies for a job to the moment that the person moves on to another opportunity, is terminated from the position, or retires, ther...

Meeting patients' expectations is essential for successful outcomes in reconstructive surgery. In the case of new procedures like facial transplantation that carry with them many unknowns and real, or potential, risk of toxic side effects this becomes especially important. In this study we assessed patient expectations in facial transplantation by...

A great deal of ethical debate has accompanied the introduction of facial tissue allotransplantation into the clinical arena. Critics contend that the risks of lifelong immunosuppression do not justify the benefits of this new non-life-saving reconstructive procedure, whereas proponents argue that they do. Absent from this debate are the opinions o...

Human facial tissue allotransplantation is now a clinical reality. Proponents of this new treatment contend that the benefits outweigh the risks, while the critics argue they do not. This debate has been presented in great detail in the bioethics literature but has not been brought to the attention of the plastic surgery community. The purpose of t...

On December 23, 1954, a team of doctors in Boston led by Dr. Joseph Murray, a plastic surgeon, transplanted a kidney into a dying, 23-year-old man in the first successful long-term transplant of a human organ. At the time, some hailed this revolutionary medical advancement as “a miracle of medicine” while others accused Dr. Murray and his team of “...

This study examined the comorbidity of child neglect and domestic violence (DV) in a sample of public child welfare cases. All cases investigated for child neglect in 1999 (N = 2,350 families) from a single county in Kentucky were included in the analysis. Findings indicate that DV was comorbid in approximately 29% of the cases and, although cases...

Human face transplantation is now a clinical reality. The surgical techniques necessary to perform these procedures have been used routinely in reconstructive microsurgery for many years. From an immunological standpoint since face and hand contain mostly the same tissues it is reasonable to assume that the same immunosuppressive regimen found to b...

Although the first face transplants have been attempted, the social and psychological debates concerning the ethics and desirability of the procedure continue. Critics contend that these issues have not yet been sufficiently addressed. With this in mind, the present article seeks to elaborate on key psychological and social factors that will be cen...

For a study of marital togetherness and apartness, the partners in 136 couples completed questionnaires. The role of disrespect, a factor that might serve as an abrasive in marriage, was investigated. Couples above average on disrespect spent more time apart on days when there had been a big fight, considerable annoyance, or anger; couples below av...

Facial transplantation has long captured the interest and imagination of scientists, the media, and the lay public. Facial transplantation could provide an excellent alternative to current treatments for facial disfigurement caused by burns, trauma, cancer extirpation, or congenital birth defects. This article discusses the major technical, immunol...

The Big Five Inventory (BFI) is a self-report measure designed to assess the high-order personality traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, the BFI was translated from English into 28 languages and administered to 17,837 individuals from 56 nati...

Each year an estimated 7-million people in the USA need composite tissue reconstruction because of surgical excision of tumors, accidents and congenital malformations. Limb amputees alone comprise over 1.2 million of these. This figure is more than double the number of solid organs needed for transplantation. Composite tissue allotransplantation in...

Advancements in the fields of head and neck surgery and immunology have paved the way for new quality of life-improving procedures such as larynx transplantation. To quantitatively assess the risks versus benefits in larynx transplantation, we used a questionnaire-based survey (Louisville Instrument For Transplantation [LIFT]) to measure the degree...

The surgical techniques necessary to transplant a human face are well established, and the early success of human hand transplants suggests that the immunological hurdles of transplanting human facial tissues have largely been overcome. Therefore, it is the ethical barriers that pose the greatest challenge to performing facial transplantation. At t...

Twenty-four hands have been transplanted in 18 individuals and clinicians continue to debate whether the risks justify the benefits in these procedures. To assess quantitatively the risks versus benefits in hand transplantation we used a validated instrument (Louisville Instrument for Transplantation) to measure the degree of risk individuals are w...

Composite-tissue allotransplantation (CTA) is a new therapeutic modality to reconstruct major tissue defects of the face, larynx, and extremities. Unlike most life-saving organ-transplantation procedures, CTA is considered to improve quality of life. Therefore, the question arises, do the risks posed by the immunosuppression drugs that patients mus...

Composite-tissue allotransplantation (CTA) is a new therapeutic modality to reconstruct major tissue defects of the face, larynx, and extremities. Unlike most life-saving organ-transplantation procedures, CTA is considered to improve qualiy of life. Therefore, the question arises, do the risks posed by the immunosuppression drugs that patients must...

A social allergy is a reaction of hypersensitive annoyance or disgust to a repeated behavior. Two studies were conducted on the social allergen categories of uncouth habits, inconsiderate acts, intrusive behaviors, and norm violations. Study 1 focused on hypothetical male and female partner behaviors at 2 and 12 months in a dating relationship. Stu...

This study examined the effects of expressions of humor and physical attractiveness on desire for future interaction in various types of heterosexual relationships. Humor was manipulated using interview transcripts containing humorous self-deprecating responses: physical attractiveness was manipulated using photographs. Men were found to emphasize...

Main Response Topics • Introduction • Open display and public evaluation • Publicity versus patient privacy • Facial tissue donation • Validity of Louisville Instrument for Risk Acceptance • Patients' understanding of risk • Face versus hand transplantation • Rejection rates/risks • Patient compliance • Exit strategy • Functional recovery • Societi...

As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, a total of 17,804 participants from 62 cultural regions completedthe RelationshipQuestionnaire(RQ), a self-reportmeasure of adult romanticattachment. Correlational analyses within each culture suggested that the Model of Self and the Model of Other scales of the RQ were psychometrically va...

As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, 16,954 participants from 53 nations were administered an anonymous survey about experiences with romantic attraction. Mate poaching--romantically attracting someone who is already in a relationship--was most common in Southern Europe, South America, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe and w...

Composite tissue allotransplantation (CTA) has recently emerged as a new therapeutic modality to reconstruct major tissue defects of the face, larynx, and extremities. However, because the risk-versus-benefit ratio for CTA procedures has not yet been defined, the decision as to whether or not to perform these new reconstructive techniques is based...

Transplantation continues to push the frontiers of medicine into domains that summon forth troublesome ethical questions. Looming on the frontier today is human facial transplantation. We develop criteria that, we maintain, must be satisfied in order to ethically undertake this as-yet-untried transplant procedure. We draw on the criteria advanced b...

Gender differences in the dismissing form of adult romantic attachment were investigated as part of the International Sexuality Description Project-a survey study of 17,804 people from 62 cultural regions. Contrary to research findings previously reported in Western cultures, we found that men were not significantly more dismissing than women acros...

Evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that men and women possess both long-term and short-term mating strategies, with men's short-term strategy differentially rooted in the desire for sexual variety. In this article, findings from a cross-cultural survey of 16,288 people across 10 major world regions (including North America, South America,...

The multiple fitness model (Cunningham, 1986) suggests that attractive adult faces combine youthful neonate features with indications of sexual maturity. But a question can be raised whether the multiple fitness model applies to child molesters. In contrast to prior studies that examined child molesters’ attraction to children, we examined child mo...

Discussion of the nature of personal aesthetics, or physical attractiveness, seems to alternate between two positions, which we term Natural Classicism and Cultural Constructivism. These two positions are illustrated in fashion historian Julian Robinson’s (1998) account of a conversation that he had with art historian Sir Kenneth Clark: “Sir Kennet...

Performance on the Abbreviated Reid Report, a pre-employment integrity attitude scale designed to predict counterproductivity, was examined in three countries. Some 889 job applicants and current employees in Argentina, Mexico and South Africa completed the scale, with appropriate language translations. Supervisors provided performance evaluations...

Describes an integrative, multidimensional model of physical attractiveness within the context of past and present approaches to appearance. First, the authors examine the origins of prejudice against the measurement of facial qualities. Next, they outline the Multiple Fitness model of physical attractiveness, which suggests that perception of high...

The expansion of human evolutionary theory into the domain of personal and environmental determinants of mating strategies is applauded. Questions are raised about the relation between fluctuating asymmetry (FA), testosterone, and body size and their effects on male behavior and outcomes. Low FA males' short-term mating pattern is considered in the...

This research explored the extent to which people use decep- tion to initiate a date with opposite-sex prospects who varied in facial physical attractiveness. Participants reviewed profiles of prospective dates varying in facial attractiveness, described their own personal characteristics to the prospective dates (study 1), and rated their willingn...

Two studies examined whether some people use more deceptive self-presentation to initiate a dating relationship. Participants reviewed information depicting prospective dates and constructed profiles to be used by the prospects to select a date. In this context, high self-monitoring men and women engaged in more deceptive self-presentation to the p...

This chapter will examine the role of emotion before, during, and after a supportive interaction takes place. Both the perspective of the support seeker and the support giver will be considered. Previous work focused on reasons for not seeking social support, most of which stemmed from negative emotional outcomes. We will build on this previous wor...

the face is a potent stimulus for social attraction and mating behavior / several levels of trade-offs are involved in physical appearance / at the 1st level, trade-offs are evident in physical form and in the amount of space that each of the various physical organs can occupy on . . . the face / the 2nd type of trade-off exists because a single fa...

Much of the research in our laboratory has focused on the positive aspects of human interaction, such as attraction (Cunningham, Roberts, Barbee, & Druen, 1995), partner selection strategies (Druen, 1995), helpfulness (Cunningham, Shaffer, Barbee, Wolfe, & Kelley, 1990), honesty (Cunningham, Wong, & Barbee, 1994), and socially supportive cheering-u...

Both male facial hair and male pattern baldness are genetically based, suggesting that they contributed to fitness. The multiple fitness model provides an evolutionary interpretation of the social perception of male pattern baldness and beardedness in terms of the multidimensional meaning of physical maturational stages. Male facial beardedness is...

This chapter examines the role of emotion before, during, and after a supportive interaction takes place. The chapter also examines the role that emotions play in a potential supporter's willingness and ability to give effective support, and in their response to their partner's reaction to their supportive attempts. A distressed person's tactics fo...

The authors suggest that the concept of loss may serve as an organizing principle to clarify many of the dynamics of close relationships. Prior to the ultimate loss of the relationship, there may be intermediate losses that undermine relationship stability. Research on social allergies, or extreme responses to minor annoyances, suggests that relati...

This masterful book (see record 1994-97284-000 ) conclusively documents the strong role of genetic factors in personality, psychopathology, and intellectual performance, and the relatively weak effects of child rearing practices and home environment on such outcomes. The Limits of Family Influence is a powerful attack on what the author calls "soci...

Sensitive Interaction Systems Theory suggests that complex problems, including adverse medical diagnoses, can create tension in the social support process. In this experiment one member of a romantic couple received medical feedback that either threatened gender roles or was irrelevant. The couple's interaction was covertly recorded for the support...

The consistency of physical attractiveness ratings across cultural groups was examined. In Study 1, recently arrived native Asian and Hispanic students and White Americans rated the attractiveness of Asian, Hispanic, Black, and White photographed women. The mean correlation between groups in attractiveness ratings was r = .93. Asians, Hispanics, an...

This review covers four major topics. First, the authors discuss previous studies on social support that document the content of supportive communications. Next, the discussion turns to the development and validation of the Interactive Coping Behavior Coding System and its converse, the Support Activation Behavior Coding System. A third focus is re...

Three experiments examined impression-management responses to the Reid Report Integrity Attitude Inventory. Subjects encouraged to score high on the honesty test attained higher scores than a control group, but no higher than a group of job applicants. Study 2 offered money for high scores, and provided information to use concerning the first, seco...

Three experiments examined impression-management responses to the Reid Report Integrity Attitude Inventory. Subjects encouraged to score high on the honesty test attained higher scores than a control group, but no higher than a group of job applicants. Study 2 offered money for high scores, and provided information to use concernign the first, seco...

Rushton and Bogaert's (1987, 1988) differential K selection interpretation of racial differences in sexual development, morphology, behavior, and fertility was contrasted with an ecological interpretation. The reliability of racial differences on some variables was questioned in light of methodological limitations in the original research, and cros...

This paper introduces a new model of interactive support seeking and describes a study derived from it. Task vs relationship type of problem and gender of support seeker were examined for their effect on the selection of same-sex vs opposite-sex friends to provide social support. Male and female undergraduates were asked to vividly imagine each of...

The multiple motive hypothesis of physical attractiveness suggests that women are attracted to men whose appearances elicit their nurturant feelings, who appear to possess sexual maturity and dominance characteristics, who seem sociable, approacheable, and of high social status. Those multiple motives may cause people to be attracted to individuals...

The Separate Process analysis suggests that individuals in an elated mood are most affected by social concerns associated with a helping request, whereas individuals in a depressed mood are most influenced by the personal hedonic considerations involved with the request. In Experiment 1, subjects received either an elating, neutral, or depressing m...

This paper discusses issues pertaining to the recruitment and hiring of dual-career academic couples by universities and psychology departments. Studies have shown that both husbands and wives in dual psychologist couples are more productive in number of publications, paper presentations, and grants awarded than their single counterparts, yet many...

This study examined the test-taking motivation and attitudinal set of employment applicants who completed the Reid Report measure of on-the-job integrity. Applicants who were subsequently found to have received low scores on the Reid Report, decreasing the likelihood that they would be recommended for hiring, were more likely than those who receive...

Gender-related responses to opening conversational gambits were examined in two field and one laboratory experiment. In Experiment 1, a male approached female singles bar patrons, using one of six opening lines, classified as direct, innocuous, or cute-flippant. The cute-flippant lines were found to elicit significantly more negative responses than...

The effects of induced moods on interest in performing a wide spectrum of behaviors were examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, subjects who received the Velten Mood Induction elation manipulation indicated significantly greater interest than neutral subjects in social, prosocial, strenuous, leisure, and general activities on a shortened ver...

The separate process model of mood and behavior suggested that positive mood is associated with a social, expansive, approach motivation, while negative mood is associated with an avoidant, egocentric motivation. The present experiment examined the differential impact of positive and negative mood stimuli that were self-relevant or non-self-relevan...