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Psychology

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The Moderating Role Of Emotion Regulation In The Relationship Between Stress And Inflammatory Bowel Disease Severity Among Diagnosed Individuals, Sarah M. Ghose Jan 2018

The Moderating Role Of Emotion Regulation In The Relationship Between Stress And Inflammatory Bowel Disease Severity Among Diagnosed Individuals, Sarah M. Ghose

ETD Archive

This study examined whether both perceived and objectively rated chronic stress are contributing external factors to altered Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) disease severity among diagnosed individuals. This study further examined whether emotion regulation (ER) acts as an ameliorative factor within this relationship. Of additional interest to this investigation was whether objectively rated stress (acquired via the UCLA Life Stress Interview) provided a unique contribution to this relationship. Recent investigations suggest that higher levels of perceived stress may result in increased IBD severity. Further, ER deficits may be associated with increased IBD disease activity in response to both chronic and perceived …


Investigating The Electrophysiology Of Long-Term Priming In Spoken Word Recognition, Erin K. Bell Jan 2018

Investigating The Electrophysiology Of Long-Term Priming In Spoken Word Recognition, Erin K. Bell

ETD Archive

When participants are listening to the same words spoken by different talkers, two types of priming are possible: repetition priming and talker-specific priming. Repetition priming refers to the exposure of a stimulus improving responses to a subsequent exposure. Talker-specific priming refers to the exposure of words spoken by same talkers improving responses relative to those same words spoken by different talkers. There are conflicting theories regarding whether talker-specific priming should be observed. Abstract representational theories suggest that episodic details (e.g., talker identity) are not stored in the mental lexicon, while episodic theories of the lexicon posit that lexical representations include …


The Impact Of Traumatic Symptomology And Social Support On The Effective Management Of Death Anxiety, Emily Pauline Courtney Jan 2018

The Impact Of Traumatic Symptomology And Social Support On The Effective Management Of Death Anxiety, Emily Pauline Courtney

ETD Archive

Terror management theory (TMT) posits that people function effectively in the world, in part, by relying on social anxiety-buffer systems to protect against death awareness; however, a new extension called anxiety buffer disruption theory (ABDT), posits that traumatic experiences can overwhelm those buffers, leaving people vulnerable to death anxiety and at increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. To test these hypotheses, participants with low and high posttraumatic stress symptoms were identified and recruited using a general population pre-screen, prompted to engage in a relationship threat priming task (vs. control topic), and then asked to complete a standard measure …


Normative Data For The Poreh Naming Test, Grace Ozinga Jan 2018

Normative Data For The Poreh Naming Test, Grace Ozinga

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The present study describes the development of a novel confrontational naming test for the assessment of word finding and language abilities, and also serves as a tool for the assessment of effort. The test is comprised of two portions. The first portion consists of 40 colored drawings of day to day objects and is aimed at assessing verbal abilities, particularly word finding deficits. The second portion also involves the presentation of 40 colored drawings, each drawing comprised of the original object that was previously presented and two distractors, objects that were not previously presented. The present study aims to evaluate …


An Examination Of The Relationships Between Attributional Style, Reappraisal, And Depression Risk In Arab Americans, Khadeja Najjar Jan 2018

An Examination Of The Relationships Between Attributional Style, Reappraisal, And Depression Risk In Arab Americans, Khadeja Najjar

ETD Archive

While depression is a cross-cultural phenomenon, much of the literature that examines risk factors and mechanisms for its occurrence is examined from a Western perspective. As cultural background and level of acculturation to the host culture is known to shape the expression of depressive disorders, as well as their risk factors, this study examined whether cultural factors influence the relationship between two cognitive emotion regulation processes and depression symptoms. Specifically, this study examined whether the relationship between internal, stable, and global causal attributions for negative events (negative attributional style) and depression is mediated by one’s tendency to reframe the meaning …


Title Examination Of Somatic Symptomatology Using The Cleveland Adaptive Personality Inventory And The Dimensional Somatic Questionnaire, Elizabeth Kisela Jan 2017

Title Examination Of Somatic Symptomatology Using The Cleveland Adaptive Personality Inventory And The Dimensional Somatic Questionnaire, Elizabeth Kisela

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This study was designed to assess the reliability and validity of the Cleveland Adaptive Personality Inventory (CAPI) and the Dimensional Somatic Questionnaire (DSQ) on the chronic pain population, depression population, and healthy control population. A total of 178 chronic pain participants, 208 depression participants, and 220 healthy control participants were collected, though not all were used for analysis due to missing data. Each participant was administered an online version of the CAPI with the Dimensional Somatic Questionnaire. Both questionnaires were significantly shortened during or prior to analysis. The questionnaires were shortened to make them more practical for use in the …


He Repercussions Of Childhood Trauma On Posttraumatic Stress: The Mediating Effects Of Dissociation And Emotion Dysregulation, Jessica A. Ward Jan 2017

He Repercussions Of Childhood Trauma On Posttraumatic Stress: The Mediating Effects Of Dissociation And Emotion Dysregulation, Jessica A. Ward

ETD Archive

The present study explored the mediating effects of dissociation and emotion dysregulation on the relationship between different types of childhood trauma and symptoms of posttraumatic stress. Participants were 181 undergraduate students at Cleveland State University, who competed measures of childhood trauma (emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and general trauma), posttraumatic stress symptoms, dissociation, and emotion dysregulation. Multiple mediation analyses were conducted to examine the model proposed in this study. The results of this study revealed that all trauma types significantly predicted adulthood posttraumatic stress. The relationship between emotional abuse and posttraumatic stress was mediated through both dissociation and emotion …


How The Illness Experience Predicts Key Psychosocial Outcomes In Veterans With Brain Injury, Carmen M. Tyler Jan 2017

How The Illness Experience Predicts Key Psychosocial Outcomes In Veterans With Brain Injury, Carmen M. Tyler

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The object of this thesis was to examine the illness experience of veterans who have suffered either a stroke or traumatic brain injury. Predictors of key psychosocial outcomes were identified by looking at the illness experience through the veterans’ perspective via self-report measures. Results confirmed relationships between the stressors role captivity, low self-esteem, decreased socialization, and dyad relationship strain and the outcome of depression and between the stressors physical strain and emotional strain and the outcome social/recreational participation for this population. More importantly, role captivity, social/recreational strain, and self-esteem uniquely predicted depression, and both physical and emotional strain uniquely predicted …


Decline Of Nonverbal Executive Functions Across The Lifespan – Distinguishing Between Outcome And Process, Anna Krivenko Jan 2017

Decline Of Nonverbal Executive Functions Across The Lifespan – Distinguishing Between Outcome And Process, Anna Krivenko

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Numerous studies have attempted to validate nonverbal fluency tests but none have examined construct validity, particularly the correlation of measures and self-reported executive functioning deficits. The current study examined this issue by correlating the results of the Five-Point Test (5PT) and the Delis Kaplan Executive Functioning System (D-KEFS) Design Fluency Test with the Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale – Short Form (BDEFS-SF) in 306 English speaking adults. Participants were volunteers from undergraduate classes and those serving jury duty in a large urban city. The mean age was 36.89 ± 18.08 with an average of 14.65 ± 2.85 years of …


Testing The Impact Of Post-Traumatic Stress On Existential Motivation For Ideological Close- And Open-Mindedness, Lauren M. Kahle Jan 2017

Testing The Impact Of Post-Traumatic Stress On Existential Motivation For Ideological Close- And Open-Mindedness, Lauren M. Kahle

ETD Archive

The present thesis builds on terror management theory and anxiety buffer disruption theory to propose that although existential motivation normally leads people to become more certain of their worldviews, traumatic experiences can disrupt those belief systems and cause people to respond to death-awareness by making an open-minded search for alternative belief systems instead. To test that hypothesis, groups of participants with low and high levels of traumatic stress were reminded of death (vs. a control topic condition), followed by an assessment of closed- and open-mindedness. Thus, the present research explored the previously untested hypothesis that increased awareness of mortality will …


Testing Emotion Regulation And Parasympathetic Nervous System Deficits As A Mechanism For The Transmission Of Borderline Personality Disorder, Julia R. Richmond Jan 2017

Testing Emotion Regulation And Parasympathetic Nervous System Deficits As A Mechanism For The Transmission Of Borderline Personality Disorder, Julia R. Richmond

ETD Archive

The present study explored the role of parental physiological state and parental emotion regulation (ER) deficits on the relationship between parent borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms and child BPD symptoms. Participants were 110 adolescents aged 11-13 years and their legal guardians who completed measures of BPD symptom severity and emotion dysregulation before engaging in an interpersonal conflict discussion task while being monitored for peripheral psychophysiological signals (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA). Multiple mediation analyses were conducted to examine the model proposed in this study. The results revealed that parent BPD symptoms predicted lower parent baseline RSA at trend level, but …


Gender Role Prescriptions And Apologies, Molly Fuller Jan 2017

Gender Role Prescriptions And Apologies, Molly Fuller

ETD Archive

Malpractice litigations in the medical field are common occurrences. In fact, across specialties, 7.4% of physicians annually have a malpractice claim. Malpractice risk exists for all physicians regardless of their medical training, gender, specialization, or severity of damage caused to patients. Data from nearly 20 years of research revealed that male physicians face malpractice claims at a significantly higher rate than female physicians, but that female physicians pay more in malpractice settlements than their male counterparts. To date, we have found no research that investigates why this gender discrepancy among malpractice settlements occurs. This study examines Social Role Theory and …


Bilingualism Across The Adult Life-Span: Age And Language Usage Are Continuous Variables, Sara Incera Burkert Jan 2016

Bilingualism Across The Adult Life-Span: Age And Language Usage Are Continuous Variables, Sara Incera Burkert

ETD Archive

The purpose of this dissertation research was to analyze the effects of bilingualism and age on cognitive function. Specifically, I investigated the impact of bilingualism and age on two measures of executive control. The Stroop task is a measure of response inhibition, and the Flanker task is a measure of attention selection. Participants responded using a computer mouse. The mouse-tracking paradigm allowed me to examine the continuous dynamics of the responses as participants completed each trial. A better understanding of the impact of bilingualism and age on cognitive function has the potential to minimize cognitive decline in older age. The …