Karen K Melton
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 194389 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Karen K Melton |
| NOMBRES | Karen K |
| APELLIDO | Melton |
| FIRMA | MELTON K K |
| AFILIACIONES | Baylor University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4044-8654 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 35 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 57 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 35 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2014 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Examining the Temporal Associations Between Religious Motivations and Meaning in Life
Metacognitive and Interpersonal Intellectual Humility Are Asymmetrically Associated with Well-Being
Intellectual humility, lauded as an important intellectual virtue, is theorized to encompass metacognitive tendencies (i.e., appreciation of the limits of one’s knowledge and intellectual abilities) and interpersonal ones (i.e., appreciation of others’ knowledge and intellectual abilities). Although prior research has investigated potential epistemic benefits, it remains unclear whether intellectual humility is personally beneficial—that is, cond…
The codevelopment of contingent self-worth and religious engagement in U.S. college students
Comparing general gratitude and gratitude to God and their associations with well-being over time
Attachment to mother, father, and God
Attachment to God and Contingencies of Self-Worth
How American college students identify and resolve their moral challenges
In moral education, scholars tend to focus on resolving moral dilemmas versus identifying and overcoming moral challenges. Yet, a major part of acquiring moral expertise also involves learning how to identify and overcome moral challenges—a less explored topic. Thus, our qualitative study examined the extent to which a nationally drawn sample of 179 undergraduates at eight different institutions could identify a moral challenge and the solutions …
Transcendent accountability amplifies the link between accountability to people and patience and courage in goal pursuit
Is Virtue Good for You
INTRODUCTION: Does virtue benefit its possessor, or is it beneficial for others but not the self? We tested two highly influential theories that offer contradictory answers. In particular, we focused on three "hard cases" for the theory that virtue promotes well-being-that is, three virtues that aren't obviously enjoyable (compassion, patience, and self-control). METHODS: Two preregistered studies (total N = 43,164 observations; N = 1218 particip…
Not as good as I would like to be
Self-sacrifice for others’ flourishing
Pursuing personal goals
Can an Algorithm Tell How Spiritual You Are? Using Generative Pretrained Transformers for Sophisticated Forms of Text Analysis
OBJECTIVE: Text analysis is a form of psychological assessment that involves converting qualitative information (text) into quantitative data. We tested whether automated text analysis using Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) can match the "gold standard" of manual text analysis, even when assessing a highly nuanced construct like spirituality. METHOD: In Study 1, N = 2199 US undergraduates wrote about their goals (N = 6597 texts) and com…
The challenge of finding noncontingent, universal worth for elite U.S. college students
Most sources from which college students derive their sense of worth are contingent and, therefore, often unstable, especially for students in high-performance educational contexts. Thus, this qualitative study sought to identify the extent to which 142 undergraduate students from eight elite colleges or universities derived their worth from noncontingent, universal sources and the degree to which students had internalized these sources. Only 40 …
Attachment to God, Contingent Self-Worth, and Mental Health Outcomes in U.S. Collegiate Athletes
Trait Courage, Attachment to God, and Mental Well-Being Among U.S. Collegiate Athletes
Gratitude to God and mental well-being in U.S. collegiate athletes
This study examines the potential salubrious role of religious gratitude as a protective factor for collegiate student-athlete mental health and the possible mediating role of perceived indebtedness to God and meaning in life. We draw on a sample of student-athletes from the United States (N = 415) who compete in NCAA Division 1 and 3 athletics. Our results suggest gratitude to God is associated with lower depressive and anxiety symptoms and less…
Sources of Self-Worth in U.S. College Students
In light of the mental health crisis facing American college students, it has become vital to determine how students derive their self-worth. This endeavor is particularly important because research has found that internal sources of worth correlate with better mental health than self-worth derived from externally contingent sources. Although past work has identified various sources, it did not set forth a comprehensive theory of college student …
Measuring Social Connectedness during Shared Leisure Activities Using Oxytocin
Leisure experiences are often associated with social connectedness. One measure of social connection underutilized in leisure studies is the neurohormone oxytocin. This methodological note considers issues researchers need to address when incorporating oxytocin in their study design. Noninvasive sources for sampling oxytocin include saliva and urine; however, the decision about which method to employ is not well documented. This study provides th…
Measuring in-situ engagement during structured experiences
Effective measurement of participant engagement is vital to the advancement of experience design research. This paper addresses the feasibility, validity, and reliability of one possible measure, Immersion Neuroscience Software (INS). INS uses wearable cardiac sensors and a proprietary algorithm to process heart rate data to provide a passive real-time score of in-situ engagement—i.e., a second-by-second neurophysiological score that is interpret…
An examination of the stability of the remembering self when measuring social connection derived from a shared leisure experience
Social connection has been identified as a public health priority, and is often positioned, in various forms, as an outcome of leisure experiences. In cases of assessing the hedonic quality of experiences, research has identified a relative permanence and stability in the remembering self; however, whether the same is true when measuring social connection is unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to determine whether recall of social connection aft…
Empirically testing the experience type framework
In 2018, Duerden et al. proposed an experience type framework (ETF) which articulated key characteristics of ordinary and extraordinary experiences. While conceptually helpful, the framework has yet to be empirically tested. Thus, the purpose of this study was to empirically test the proposed hierarchical structure of the ETF. To achieve this purpose, we first developed, refined, and validated an operationalized ETF measurement tool, the experien…
Religiosity Moderates Goal Courage and Self-Worth in Collegiate Christian Athletes
Research shows that the effects of athletics on virtue development are mixed. Religion provides people with a meaning-making system, community, and practices that can promote the cultivation of virtues and possibly enhance the impact of athletics on virtue development. Yet, little empirical research has assessed moral outcomes when religion and sport interact. The present study examines intrinsic religiosity as a moderator of the effect of athlet…
Home Environment Influence on Adolescent Health Literacy
Adolescent health disparities are influenced by individuals' health literacy. To date, the only known household factors to influence adolescent health literacy (AHL) are social capital factors of parental health literacy, parent education, and household income. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to expand the understanding of household factors that influence AHL for future interventions. A sample of 105 adolescents and their parents complet…
Challenges of ecological momentary assessments to study family leisure
Scholars have documented the research tradeoffs of using ecological momentary assessments (EMA) to study daily life. Less is known about participants’ perspectives. The aim of this research note was to delineate the challenges of participating in a 14-day EMA study of family leisure described by 41 individuals (mothers, fathers, and adolescents) from 14 families to inform future family leisure studies using EMA. Participants identified three pote…
Ecology of family experiences
All family leisure is not equal. Yet, little is known about the mechanisms linking different types of family leisure to different human development and family relations outcomes. The Ecology of Family Experiences (EFE) framework provides a sensitizing lens for the study of the conditions under which family leisure is beneficial to individuals and families. Specifically, the framework suggests three domains—Family, Activity, and Time—iteratively i…
Family Activity Model
This article proposes the Family Activity Model (FAM) that integrates the previous work of Orthner's theoretical constructs of joint and parallel activities with Zabriskie and McCormick's constructs of core and balance experiences. FAM includes two dimensions of family experiences: activity environment and family interaction. Activity environment refers to the degree of novelty in the environment, while family interaction refers to the degree of …
Examining Couple Recreation and Oxytocin via the Ecology of Family Experiences Framework
Objective: To evaluate the release of oxytocin as a biomarker of romantic-partner attachment during couple recreation.Background: To date, no studies have examined the impact of distinct types of recreation activities on the release of oxytocin. The Ecology for Family Experience framework, which highlights the divergent experience of family members, guided the experimental design.Method: A total of 20 cohabitating or married couples were randomly…
Assessing Alternative Techniques for Scaling the Family Leisure Activity Profile
Psychometric properties of the Family Leisure Activity Profile (FLAP) were evaluated using family leisure and family functioning ratings from 884 parents and children residing in the United Kingdom. Review and critique of the FLAP resulted in identification and evaluation of three alternative scaling techniques. Scaling Technique 1 was current practice, Technique 2 focused on family leisure environments rather than family leisure activities, and …
Real-time, passive measurement of communication during family leisure
Research on family communication in the leisure context has been limited to retrospective survey reconstructions of perceptions of communication patterns. This study examines the validity of sociometric badges for measuring family communication in real-time. Seven families (married, two-parent families with at least one child ages 4–17 years) wore sociometric badges during a 30-minute leisure activity in a lab setting. We compared mean badge esti…
Empirically testing the experience type framework
In 2018, Duerden et al. proposed an experience type framework (ETF) which articulated key characteristics of ordinary and extraordinary experiences. While conceptually helpful, the framework has yet to be empirically tested. Thus, the purpose of this study was to empirically test the proposed hierarchical structure of the ETF. To achieve this purpose, we first developed, refined, and validated an operationalized ETF measurement tool, the experien…
Measurement of Time Involvement in Family Activities
This research note describes an alternative scaling procedure for the Family Leisure Activity Profile (FLAP; Zabriskie & McCormick, 2001). The alternative scaling procedure preserves the ratio-level character of responses to FLAP questionnaire items, and it produces an estimate of prevalence of participation with interpretable units of time (hours). In contrast, the traditional FLAP scoring approach produces scores on an arbitrary scale, and thes…
The Creation of Military Family Leisure Experiences
This article provides a theoretical model that positions family leisure experiences as a mechanism for positive family outcomes and resilience in military families. The article integrates the Creation of Family Experiences (CFE) framework with literature on military families, family leisure, and structured experiences. The CFE framework is a conceptual model that provides a lens for examining the context of family activities in order to better id…
In the pursuit of happiness all family leisure is not equal
In the context of family leisure, individuals are more likely to achieve happiness when recreating with their families in predictable activities and in familiar environments. This hypothesis was tested by comparing three models predicting individual happiness. The three models were grounded in distinct frameworks of family leisure incongruity: (a) the null model – all family leisure is equal; (b) activity incongruity model – familiar versus unfam…
Challenges of ecological momentary assessments to study family leisure
Scholars have documented the research tradeoffs of using ecological momentary assessments (EMA) to study daily life. Less is known about participants’ perspectives. The aim of this research note was to delineate the challenges of participating in a 14-day EMA study of family leisure described by 41 individuals (mothers, fathers, and adolescents) from 14 families to inform future family leisure studies using EMA. Participants identified three pote…
An overview of the use of oxytocin measures in leisure studies
For family leisure scholars, the growing understanding of neurobiological mechanisms in human behavior, emotions, and relationships offer new avenues for understanding the impact of family activities on family relationships. Oxytocin (OT) is a key neurohormone associated with bonding, attachment, emotions, and social memory. In both men and women, OT strengthens bonds in parent-child and romantic relationships. This paper considers the value of a…
Measuring in-situ engagement during structured experiences
Effective measurement of participant engagement is vital to the advancement of experience design research. This paper addresses the feasibility, validity, and reliability of one possible measure, Immersion Neuroscience Software (INS). INS uses wearable cardiac sensors and a proprietary algorithm to process heart rate data to provide a passive real-time score of in-situ engagement—i.e., a second-by-second neurophysiological score that is interpret…
An examination of the stability of the remembering self when measuring social connection derived from a shared leisure experience
Social connection has been identified as a public health priority, and is often positioned, in various forms, as an outcome of leisure experiences. In cases of assessing the hedonic quality of experiences, research has identified a relative permanence and stability in the remembering self; however, whether the same is true when measuring social connection is unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to determine whether recall of social connection aft…
Promoting Youth Physical Activity in Rural Southern Communities
PURPOSE: Research on youth physical activity has focused on urban areas. Rural adolescents are more likely to be physically inactive than urban youth, contributing to higher risk of obesity and chronic diseases. Study objectives were to: (1) identify perceived opportunities and barriers to youth physical activity within a rural area and (2) identify rural community characteristics that facilitate or inhibit efforts to promote youth physical activ…
In the pursuit of happiness all family leisure is not equal
In the context of family leisure, individuals are more likely to achieve happiness when recreating with their families in predictable activities and in familiar environments. This hypothesis was tested by comparing three models predicting individual happiness. The three models were grounded in distinct frameworks of family leisure incongruity: (a) the null model – all family leisure is equal; (b) activity incongruity model – familiar versus unfam…
Assessing Alternative Techniques for Scaling the Family Leisure Activity Profile
Psychometric properties of the Family Leisure Activity Profile (FLAP) were evaluated using family leisure and family functioning ratings from 884 parents and children residing in the United Kingdom. Review and critique of the FLAP resulted in identification and evaluation of three alternative scaling techniques. Scaling Technique 1 was current practice, Technique 2 focused on family leisure environments rather than family leisure activities, and …
Family Activity Model
This article proposes the Family Activity Model (FAM) that integrates the previous work of Orthner's theoretical constructs of joint and parallel activities with Zabriskie and McCormick's constructs of core and balance experiences. FAM includes two dimensions of family experiences: activity environment and family interaction. Activity environment refers to the degree of novelty in the environment, while family interaction refers to the degree of …
The Creation of Military Family Leisure Experiences
This article provides a theoretical model that positions family leisure experiences as a mechanism for positive family outcomes and resilience in military families. The article integrates the Creation of Family Experiences (CFE) framework with literature on military families, family leisure, and structured experiences. The CFE framework is a conceptual model that provides a lens for examining the context of family activities in order to better id…
Measurement of Time Involvement in Family Activities
This research note describes an alternative scaling procedure for the Family Leisure Activity Profile (FLAP; Zabriskie & McCormick, 2001). The alternative scaling procedure preserves the ratio-level character of responses to FLAP questionnaire items, and it produces an estimate of prevalence of participation with interpretable units of time (hours). In contrast, the traditional FLAP scoring approach produces scores on an arbitrary scale, and thes…
An overview of the use of oxytocin measures in leisure studies
For family leisure scholars, the growing understanding of neurobiological mechanisms in human behavior, emotions, and relationships offer new avenues for understanding the impact of family activities on family relationships. Oxytocin (OT) is a key neurohormone associated with bonding, attachment, emotions, and social memory. In both men and women, OT strengthens bonds in parent-child and romantic relationships. This paper considers the value of a…
Examining Couple Recreation and Oxytocin via the Ecology of Family Experiences Framework
Objective: To evaluate the release of oxytocin as a biomarker of romantic-partner attachment during couple recreation.Background: To date, no studies have examined the impact of distinct types of recreation activities on the release of oxytocin. The Ecology for Family Experience framework, which highlights the divergent experience of family members, guided the experimental design.Method: A total of 20 cohabitating or married couples were randomly…
Ecology of family experiences
All family leisure is not equal. Yet, little is known about the mechanisms linking different types of family leisure to different human development and family relations outcomes. The Ecology of Family Experiences (EFE) framework provides a sensitizing lens for the study of the conditions under which family leisure is beneficial to individuals and families. Specifically, the framework suggests three domains—Family, Activity, and Time—iteratively i…
Real-time, passive measurement of communication during family leisure
Research on family communication in the leisure context has been limited to retrospective survey reconstructions of perceptions of communication patterns. This study examines the validity of sociometric badges for measuring family communication in real-time. Seven families (married, two-parent families with at least one child ages 4–17 years) wore sociometric badges during a 30-minute leisure activity in a lab setting. We compared mean badge esti…
Home Environment Influence on Adolescent Health Literacy
Adolescent health disparities are influenced by individuals' health literacy. To date, the only known household factors to influence adolescent health literacy (AHL) are social capital factors of parental health literacy, parent education, and household income. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to expand the understanding of household factors that influence AHL for future interventions. A sample of 105 adolescents and their parents complet…
Challenges of ecological momentary assessments to study family leisure
Scholars have documented the research tradeoffs of using ecological momentary assessments (EMA) to study daily life. Less is known about participants’ perspectives. The aim of this research note was to delineate the challenges of participating in a 14-day EMA study of family leisure described by 41 individuals (mothers, fathers, and adolescents) from 14 families to inform future family leisure studies using EMA. Participants identified three pote…
An examination of the stability of the remembering self when measuring social connection derived from a shared leisure experience
Social connection has been identified as a public health priority, and is often positioned, in various forms, as an outcome of leisure experiences. In cases of assessing the hedonic quality of experiences, research has identified a relative permanence and stability in the remembering self; however, whether the same is true when measuring social connection is unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to determine whether recall of social connection aft…
Empirically testing the experience type framework
In 2018, Duerden et al. proposed an experience type framework (ETF) which articulated key characteristics of ordinary and extraordinary experiences. While conceptually helpful, the framework has yet to be empirically tested. Thus, the purpose of this study was to empirically test the proposed hierarchical structure of the ETF. To achieve this purpose, we first developed, refined, and validated an operationalized ETF measurement tool, the experien…
Religiosity Moderates Goal Courage and Self-Worth in Collegiate Christian Athletes
Research shows that the effects of athletics on virtue development are mixed. Religion provides people with a meaning-making system, community, and practices that can promote the cultivation of virtues and possibly enhance the impact of athletics on virtue development. Yet, little empirical research has assessed moral outcomes when religion and sport interact. The present study examines intrinsic religiosity as a moderator of the effect of athlet…
The challenge of finding noncontingent, universal worth for elite U.S. college students
Most sources from which college students derive their sense of worth are contingent and, therefore, often unstable, especially for students in high-performance educational contexts. Thus, this qualitative study sought to identify the extent to which 142 undergraduate students from eight elite colleges or universities derived their worth from noncontingent, universal sources and the degree to which students had internalized these sources. Only 40 …
Attachment to God, Contingent Self-Worth, and Mental Health Outcomes in U.S. Collegiate Athletes
Trait Courage, Attachment to God, and Mental Well-Being Among U.S. Collegiate Athletes
Gratitude to God and mental well-being in U.S. collegiate athletes
This study examines the potential salubrious role of religious gratitude as a protective factor for collegiate student-athlete mental health and the possible mediating role of perceived indebtedness to God and meaning in life. We draw on a sample of student-athletes from the United States (N = 415) who compete in NCAA Division 1 and 3 athletics. Our results suggest gratitude to God is associated with lower depressive and anxiety symptoms and less…
Sources of Self-Worth in U.S. College Students
In light of the mental health crisis facing American college students, it has become vital to determine how students derive their self-worth. This endeavor is particularly important because research has found that internal sources of worth correlate with better mental health than self-worth derived from externally contingent sources. Although past work has identified various sources, it did not set forth a comprehensive theory of college student …
Measuring Social Connectedness during Shared Leisure Activities Using Oxytocin
Leisure experiences are often associated with social connectedness. One measure of social connection underutilized in leisure studies is the neurohormone oxytocin. This methodological note considers issues researchers need to address when incorporating oxytocin in their study design. Noninvasive sources for sampling oxytocin include saliva and urine; however, the decision about which method to employ is not well documented. This study provides th…
Measuring in-situ engagement during structured experiences
Effective measurement of participant engagement is vital to the advancement of experience design research. This paper addresses the feasibility, validity, and reliability of one possible measure, Immersion Neuroscience Software (INS). INS uses wearable cardiac sensors and a proprietary algorithm to process heart rate data to provide a passive real-time score of in-situ engagement—i.e., a second-by-second neurophysiological score that is interpret…
How American college students identify and resolve their moral challenges
In moral education, scholars tend to focus on resolving moral dilemmas versus identifying and overcoming moral challenges. Yet, a major part of acquiring moral expertise also involves learning how to identify and overcome moral challenges—a less explored topic. Thus, our qualitative study examined the extent to which a nationally drawn sample of 179 undergraduates at eight different institutions could identify a moral challenge and the solutions …
Transcendent accountability amplifies the link between accountability to people and patience and courage in goal pursuit
Is Virtue Good for You
INTRODUCTION: Does virtue benefit its possessor, or is it beneficial for others but not the self? We tested two highly influential theories that offer contradictory answers. In particular, we focused on three "hard cases" for the theory that virtue promotes well-being-that is, three virtues that aren't obviously enjoyable (compassion, patience, and self-control). METHODS: Two preregistered studies (total N = 43,164 observations; N = 1218 particip…
Psychology (25 obras) · Social Psychology (21 obras) · Social Psychology (13 obras) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (8 obras) · Computer Science (7 obras) · Medicine (7 obras) · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction (7 obras) · Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management (7 obras) · Developmental psychology (6 obras) · Political science (6 obras)