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The Frequency And Severity Of Problem Behaviors Among Individuals With Autism, Traumatic Brain Injury, And Mental Retardation From The Utah Dspd Dataset, Melanie Kay Arp

Theses and Dissertations

The study reports on analyses of data collected from the Inventory for Client and Agency Planning (ICAP) for 5,859 children with Autism (n = 511), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI, n = 522), or Mental Retardation (MR, n = 4826) whose legal guardians applied for support services through the Utah Department of Services for People with Disabilities (DSPD). Results indicate that the least to most frequent problem behaviors were (a) destructive to property, (b) hurtful to self, (c) hurtful to others, (d) socially offensive, (e) unusual habits, (f) withdrawal, (g) uncooperative, and (h) disruptive behaviors. The degree of severity varied from …

Perceived Competence Of Aging Pilots, Laura M. Stelmach

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

This study investigated the relationship between age and the perception of competence of pilots by the traveling public. Scenarios were utilized that depicted an airline captain successfully landing an airplane amidst adverse conditions. Scenarios varied only by the age of the Captain: Young, Old, or Unspecified Age and that the Young and Old scenarios included a photo of the captain. Perceived effectiveness, competence, avoidance, blame, and attribution as depicted by the Captain's performance in the scenario were assessed by 180 participants in three age groups (18-34, 35-55, and 56

Using Scenario-Based Training To Teach Single Pilot Resource Management Related To The Use Of The Brs Parachute, Shayna Danielle Strally

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The Ballistic Recovery System is an emergency parachute for single engine aircraft which, when released, lowers the aircraft to the ground to prevent terrain collision. This study sought to examine the effects of scenario-based training on pilot’s use of the BRS. Of particular interest was the point at which the pilot decides to deploy the BRS. Single pilot resource management was included as a training objective, as it encompasses relevant cognitive skills such as decision making and situational awareness. The results showed participants in the scenario-based training condition performed significantly better than participants in a traditional training condition on several …

Emotional Fluency And The Discrepancy-Attribution Hypothesis, Carissa Zimmerman

Psychology Honors Theses

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate emotional fluency within the framework of the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis. A mismatch between expected and actual fluency results in a feeling of surprisingly good fit, which can lead people to misattribute fluency gained from stimulus manipulations to pastness. Experiment 1 replicated Whittlesea s (2002) finding that words completing high constraint sentence stems were judged to have been studied in a previous phase more often than words completing low constraint sentence stems, regardless of whether the words were actually studied or not. Experiment 1 also provided support for the emotional-fluency hypothesis; participants judged emotional …

Behavioral, Evaluative, And Affective Consequences Of Forgiveness, Amanda Snook

Psychology Honors Theses

This experiment manipulated the expression of forgiveness after an offense in order to investigate participants' responses to being forgiven. After informing participants that they "lost" a critical document, the experimenter forgave, did not forgive, or did not communicate an offense to the participants. This manipulation did not directly affect participants' willingness to help the experimenter. It did, however, significantly interact with participants' agreeableness when self-esteem and tendency to forgive were covaried, such that high-agreeable people helped most in the no-offense condition and less when unforgiven. Low-agreeable participants demonstrated the opposite trend, with more helping in the unforgiven condition than no-offense. …

The Impact Of The Chip Program On Depression And Well-Being: A Pilot Study, Carmen Diehl Thieszen

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Reliable studies have demonstrated that intensive and comprehensive lifestyle changes can reduce coronary risk, which, in turn, can prevent, postpone, and reverse coronary heart disease (CHD) and affect its underlying atherosclerotic lesions. These well-established studies have focused their interventions on moderating biophysical risk factors. In the past 10 years, however, burgeoning research is supporting the idea that psychological factors, such as depression and well-being, are also important CHD risk factors. Little research has addressed, in a non-subjective way, how an intervention program focused on modifying biophysical risk factors may influence psychological factors. Using the Beck Depression Inventory-Short Form, the Dartmouth …

Validation Of A Serotonin Depletion Checklist In Parkinson’S Disease, Kelly Diane Darby Holder

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The distinctive pathological marker of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is the progressive death of neurons that produce dopamine; however, there are also major alterations in the production of quantities of other neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine and serotonin that contribute to the signs, symptoms, neuropsychological manifestations of the diseases. PD patients can be divided into classes based on the manifestation of motor symptoms, type A, classified as tremor dominant, and type B PD, classified as akinetic. Type B PD patients, often manifest symptoms in which serotonin deficiency plays an important role, such as frontal cognitive impairments, which often includes a history of …

Mr Spectroscopy And Swi: Neuropsyehological Outcome After Pediatric Brain Injury, Talin Babikian

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Truamatic brain injury (TBI) is among the most frequent pediatric neurological disorders and a significant contributor to childhood morbidity/mortality in the US. Although clinical indicators have been helpful in predicting long term outcomes, more effective prognostic tools are being sought. This study assessed the efficacies of acute single and multi-voxel Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) and Susceptibility Weighted Imaging (SWI) when predicting long-term neurocognitive functioning in pediatric TBI patients. Twenty children/adolescents (mean age 13.3 years, 5.8 SD) treated at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital for a head injury were administered measures of intellectual and neuropsychological functioning 1-4 years post injury. Without …

Exploration Of Ideal Body Image Among African-American Women, Shannon Denise Nickens

Dissertations

Body image dissatisfaction is a pervasive problem, most notably among women, that is neither well understood nor well defined. Inconsistent and overly narrow definitions of body image make it difficult to draw conclusions regarding the degree and type of dissatisfaction across cultural and/or various ethnic groups. Thus far, research has largely focused on size, shape, and weight concerns, ignoring physical features that may be salient to women belonging to non-Caucasian ethnic groups. This study explored African-American (AA) preferences for weight, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and salient physical appearance attributes, as well as their identification with the ¿thin¿ ideal, racial identity salience, …

Gender Differences In Working Memory In Humans Tested On A Virtual Morris Water Maze., Ivy A. Click

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A computerized virtual version of the Morris water maze (vMWM) was used to assess human gender differences in spatial working memory. In Experiment 1, the release point and platform location was changed on every other trial for 20 trials. Men had significantly reduced acquisition latencies and more accurate heading errors on the first daily trial compared to women. In Experiment 2, the release point and platform location was changed every fourth trial for 20 trials. Men had significantly shorter acquisition latencies and path lengths than women. Experiment 3 was identical to Experiment 2, except that environmental cues were changed throughout …

Aggression: Relationships With Sex, Gender Role Identity, And Gender Role Stress., Robin L. Leonard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sex, gender-role identity, and gender-role stress were assessed in terms of their relationship to observed gender differences in self-reported aggression. Physical and verbal aggression were explored, as well as the affective component of anger and cognitive component of hostility. The role of emotional intelligence in these relationships was also evaluated, as a possible correlate to the gender-related variables. The results indicated that both gender-role stress and gender-role identification were significantly associated with all components of aggression; however, only physical aggression was related to sex. Emotional intelligence was linked to sex and gender-role identity but not with gender-role stress. The results …

The Role Of Eye Movements In The Relationship Between Rapid Automatized Naming And Reading Ability, Rebecca Eisenberg Doyle

Psychology Theses

The Rapid Automatized Naming test (RAN) has been shown to be a strong predictor of reading ability (Bowers and Wolf, 1993), however, the nature of this relationship remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the visual scanning and sequential components of the continuous RAN format are similar to those same visual scanning processes required in reading, and whether these processes partially account for the relationship. The sample consisted of 57 undergraduate students (63.2% female). The majority of the sample was either Caucasian (33.3%) or African American (29.8%). The eye movement measures consisted of three short stories …

The Mediating Role Of Receptive Language In The Relationship Between Verbal Memory And Language Production In Preschool Children, Anjali Vandrie

Psychology Theses

Research has demonstrated a close relationship between verbal short-term (STM) and working memory (WM) and receptive language in children (Baddeley, Gathercole, & Papagno, 1998; Ellis & Sinclair, 1996). Few studies have examined the relationship between memory and language production, and these studies focus on STM only. Though correlations have been found between verbal STM and production, the nature of the correlations are unclear. The current study examined the possibility that receptive language mediates the relationship between memory and language production. Children between 3;0 and 5;11 were administered tests assessing receptive vocabulary, receptive grammar, expressive vocabulary, verbal STM, and verbal WM. …

The Effect Of Parental Congruence On Preadolescent Problem Behavior In African American Families, Alana K. Miller

Psychology Theses

The current study examined the effects of parenting congruence on child outcome behaviors. Participants were 144 African American families with a child between 9 and 12 years old. Mothers and fathers provided self report on their behavior regarding monitoring, positive parenting, and parental beliefs. Children provided self report regarding child problem behavior, and sexual intentions. Results revealed the more congruent parents were on positive parenting behaviors the more boys thought about sex; however, results for girls were not significant. Additionally, moderation trends suggested when both parents are high on monitoring behaviors girls have thought about sex less, whereas boys think …

The Effects Of Prenatal Cocaine Exposure On The Mutual Regulation Of Attention In Mother-Infant Dyads, Traci Golbach

Psychology Dissertations

Mutual regulation of attention was investigated in a group of prenatally cocaine-exposed and non-exposed mother-infant dyads during a 5-minute videotaped free play session. Mutual regulation was measured using a state-based coding scheme designed to categorize dyadic interactions into three mutually exclusive and exhaustive states: maternal bid, mutual engagement, and non-involved. Results revealed no significant differences between cocaine-exposed and non-exposed dyads in overall amount of mutual engagement displayed. Cocaine-exposed dyads exhibited significantly longer mutual engagement episodes. Mothers in the two groups did not differ in the number or quality of bids for mutual engagement, and infants in both groups were equally …

The Process And Meaning Of Sexual Assault Disclosure, Sharon G. Smith

Psychology Dissertations

Disclosure of sexual assault is a complicated process which depends upon a host of factors, such as assault characteristics, the victim’s interpretation, and the level of distress she experiences. Comprehensive theories of adult sexual assault disclosure have not been proposed. Most studies concentrate on a particular aspect of disclosure, such as outcomes of disclosure and reasons for disclosing versus not disclosing. A number of gaps exist in the current literature on adult sexual assault disclosure. These include the conceptualization of disclosure as a discrete or continuous variable; how it may evolve during stages of recovery; the progression of disclosure (e.g., …

Longitudinal Effects Of Family Variables And Illness Severity On Cognitive Functioning In Children With Hiv Infection, Heather Jordon Clark

Psychology Dissertations

Although HIV/AIDS is the 9th leading cause of death in African-American children, 80% of HIV-infected children in the U.S. live into school-age years. This study focuses on associations between HIV illness severity, family factors, and long-term cognitive functioning of these children. Participants included 42 perinatally HIV-infected children (mean age = 72.4 months), 93% of whom were African-American. Mean intellectual functioning was more than one standard deviation below the normative mean; whereas, overall language and attention functioning were generally not different from the normative sample. First, this study described changes in functioning over time and/or between genders. Analyses of variance were …

The Effect Of The Death Of A Child On Midlife Mental And Physical Health: An Exploration Of Risk And Resilience Factors, Catherine Hilary Rogers

Psychology Dissertations

The study examined the long-term effects of a death of a child on a variety of parental psychological and physical outcomes, incorporating several methodological and conceptual innovations over previous research. Prior bereavement research typically has focused on functioning within a short time period after the death and often has utilized self-selected samples of grieving parents; thus current models of grief may be inadequate. In contrast, this study broadened the timeframe in which bereavement is studied (average time since death= 20 years), and examined a sample of bereaved parents who were not self-selected. Participants were members of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study …

A Comparison Of Consumer-Controlled And Traditional Hiv Counseling And Testing: Implications For Screening And Outreach Among Injection Drug Users, Bradford Noyes Bartholow

Psychology Dissertations

Recent advances in HIV antiretroviral therapy and the availability of prophylaxis for opportunistic infections, combined with the opportunity to prevent perinatal HIV infection, underscores the value of early diagnosis of HIV infection. HIV antibody home test kits offer individuals the opportunity to collect a blood sample, send it anonymously to a laboratory, and receive counseling and referral over the phone. Home HIV testing may reduce barriers to testing that have precluded individuals from learning their HIV serostatus, and if seropositive, from taking advantage of efficacious therapeutic and preventive regimens. This study employed a randomized-controlled prospective field trial design to determine …

Longitudinal Prediction Of Parenting Alliance Strength: The Roles Of Marital Satisfaction And Depression, Farrah Moore Hughes

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated associations among parenting alliance, marital satisfaction, and depressive symptoms over time. Participants were 84 married couples recruited from the community. They completed self-report measures of parenting alliance, marital satisfaction, and depressive symptoms at two points in time over a span of 16 months. Regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses separately for husbands and wives. Results suggested that initial marital quality alone can be an important predictor of improvements of decrements in husbands’ parenting alliance over time. Wives’ perceptions of the parenting alliance over time appeared to be primarily influenced by the present context of the …

The Self Cohesion Scale: A Measure Of The Kohutian Concept Of Self Cohesion, Debra K. Gleason

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is about the development of a measure of self cohesion a concept introduced by Heinz Kohut in his works about self psychology. A literature search revealed few assessment instruments grounded in self psychological theory. Silverstein (1999) has developed self psychological projective techniques. Robbins and Patton (1985) have developed the most widely used instruments, the Goal Instability and Superiority Scales (GIS and SS). Other means of measuring self psychological instruments were developed by Connor (1981), Hahn (1994), and Kowal (2000).

The items for the Self Cohesion Scale (SCS) were developed from the works of Kohut (1971; 1977; 1984) and …

Quality Of Life For Cancer Survivor Spouses, Meta Gustafson

Doctoral Dissertations

In spite of increased consideration for cancer patients and their quality of life (QOL}, very little attention has been given to their spouses. The intent of this study was to gain a greater understanding of what QOL means to spouses of cancer survivors. Within this framework, this study explored QOL domains and how QOL had changed since the cancer diagnosis.

A qualitative method using the grounded theory approach was used for this study. Five spouses were interviewed face-to-face about their QOL. Interviews were taped and transcribed verbatim. Responses were then analyzed by three psychology professionals using constant comparative analysis.

Results …

The Relationship Between Personality Traits, Vocational Interest Themes, And College Major Satisfaction, Christen Tomlinson Logue

Doctoral Dissertations

Utilizing a sample of college students who completed the Personal Style Inventory for College Students (Lounsbury & Gibson, 2004), the Strong Interest Inventory (Harmon, Hansen, Borgen, & Hammer, 1994), and a Quality of Life Scale, specific relations between Five Factor Model personality traits, a set of work based narrow personality traits, and Holland’s (1997) RIASEC model of vocational interest themes were hypothesized and examined. All but one of the hypothesized correlations were found to be significant at the .05 level. This study also investigated whether personality traits, vocational interest themes, or a combination of the two models were better predictors …

An Investigation Of The Construct Validity Of The Big Five Construct Of Emotional Stability In Relation To Job Performance, Job Satisfaction, And Career Satisfaction, Vivian D. Cook

Doctoral Dissertations

The present study examined the Big Five dimension of Emotional Stability and explored its relationship to work outcomes. Six archival data sets were used. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated between the Big Five dimensions of personality and job performance, job satisfaction, and career satisfaction. Results demonstrated that all Big Five personality dimensions were significantly, positively related to job performance, job satisfaction, and career satisfaction. Additionally, part correlations between Emotional Stability and job performance, job satisfaction, and career satisfaction were calculated controlling for the other Big Five dimensions of Extraversion, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness. Emotional Stability demonstrated unique variance, continuing to …

Women’S Experiences And Expectations Of The Physician-Patient Relationship, Jill Denise Compton

Doctoral Dissertations

Past research on gender and the medical encounter has tended to focus on gender differences in behavior of both patients and physicians. Less effort has been expended in assessing how gender shapes and structures the experience of the medical encounter. The present study aimed to provide insight into aspects of the medical encounter from the perspectives of women patients themselves and to offer insight into the ways gender emerges and is enacted in the medical encounter.

Seventeen women recruited from a population of undergraduate and graduate students participated in a semi-structured interview involving questions about their experiences with and expectations …

Implicit And Explicit Personality: An Integrative Approach To Predicting Aggressive Behavior In A Field Setting, Brian Christopher Frost

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous studies of aggressive personality and counterproductive behavior have typically employed only one type of personality measurement, the traditional self-report method, and have rarely attempted to predict naturally occurring behavioral indicators of aggression. This study intended to address both of those issues. Researchers, using multiple measures of other personality domains, have recently shown that explicit and implicit elements of personality interact to predict different forms of theoretically related criteria. This field study explored one of those interactive approaches, an integrative model of personality assessment for aggressive personality. Explicit elements of aggressive personality as assessed by traditional, self-report measures were combined …

Cross-Cultural Studies Of Implicit Theories Of Creativity: A Comparative Analysis Between The United States And The Main Ethnic Groups In Singapore, Suzanna J. Ramos

Creative Studies Graduate Student Master's Theses

This thesis explored the extent of influence of culture on implicit theories of creativity among laypeople from the United States and Singapore, as well as the ethnic groups in Singapore - the Chinese, the Malays, and the Indians, in regard to adaptive and innovative styles of creativity as well as their own conceptions of creativity. A total of 523 participants were involved in this study. They comprised 139 participants from the United States and 199 participants from Singapore, 84 Chinese, 54 Malays, and 47 Indians. The participants completed the first part of a questionnaire that consisted of a ten-point scale …

Self-Esteem And The Underdog : Why Stability Of Self-Esteem Matters In Social Situations, Kelly Dyjak

Master's Theses

Differences related to self-esteem and their possible influences on perceptions of underdogs were investigated. Global self-esteem and stability of self-esteem were evaluated using The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Participants' self-esteem was threatened by using the false feedback technique. Finally, perceptions of a competition between an underdog and a top dog were evaluated. The results demonstrated that although participants with stable and unstable self-esteem favor the underdog, participants with unstable self-esteem favor the underdog even more than the participants with stable self-esteem. The findings reinforce the robustness of the underdog effect and highlight a consequence of having unstable self-esteem.

A Cognitive Intervention To Increase The Salience Of Intrinsic Thoughts Associated With Exercise, Katie S. Moran

Master's Theses

A four-week cognitive intervention was created to increase the salience of intrinsic thoughts associated with exercise in moderately extrinsic exercisers. Participants were assigned to either an intervention or control condition. Those in the intervention condition were asked to respond to questions concerning the pleasure, enjoyment and/or satisfaction experienced during or after their exercise regimen each week. Results showed a marginally significant two-way interaction (p = .059) between the control and intervention condition over time. Those in the intervention condition showed a greater increase in intrinsic motivation than those in the control condition. These results. while only marginally significant, were in …

Analysis Of Group Differences And Predictors Of Hooper Visual Organization Test Scores, Michael R. Devries

Dissertations

The Hooper Visual Organization Test (VOT) is described in the manual as a screening instrument that measures the ability to organize visual stimuli (Hooper, 1983). The VOT is identified as being particularly sensitive to neurological impairment. Studies to determine the criterion and construct validity of the VOT have examined its usefulness in distinguishing between individuals with neurological impairment from those with other disorders. Few studies have included samples from normal, psychiatrically impaired, and neurologically impaired populations in determining the VOT's usefulness in identifying neurologically impaired individuals. Furthermore, as neuropsychology has moved away from the understanding of neurological impairment as a …