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Can Obsessive Thoughts Predict Problematic Alcohol Use Through Thought Suppression?, Laura Pettigrew

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Alcohol misuse, which is a prevalent issue among college students, often coincides with psychiatric disorders or symptoms. Treatment of one facilitates treatment of the other. Some anecdotal evidence suggests that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), or just obsessive-compulsive symptoms, is connected to alcohol misuse.

This study adapts part of the cognitive control model of OCD, which states that intrusive thoughts will only lead to distress if the individual interprets them in a dysfunctional manner and tries to control them. When the thought control attempt fails, if the individual interprets the failure in a dysfunctional way as well, they will become distressed. If …

The Effects Of Body Posture On Vigilance Performance, Jeremiah Gabriel Ammons

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Drivers of vehicles that use a driving automation system were tasked with supervising the vehicle to ensure it was functioning properly. This task required drivers to stay vigilant of the roadway while being ready to intervene in the case of an unexpected hazard that the driving automation system may not have detected. This study investigated whether reclining a drivers’ seatback to more comfortable postures would affect their vigilance performance over time. Vigilance performance was measured by correct detections, false alarms, response sensitivity, response bias, and response time to hazardous events. Forty-five participants were recruited and randomly assigned to a postural …

An Electrophysiological Examination Of Attentional Biases To Emotional Faces In Depression And Social Anxiety, Nathan M. Hager

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Cognitive theories have proposed that major depressive disorder (MDD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) involve attentional biases toward and away from specific environmental stimuli. Research has often examined these biases in response to emotional facial expressions, but evidence of attentional biases is mixed. An event-related potential called the N2pc offers advantages over other measures of attentional bias and may clarify conflicting findings. Studies on the N2pc and social anxiety have found consistent results, but there is little work examining depression. Previous N2pc studies are limited by the types of emotional faces they use and by comparing attention for emotional faces …

Two Essays On The Role Of Empathy In Consumer Response To User-Generated Content, Mohammadali Koorank Beheshti

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Empathy is known to be the basis of all human interactions and an essential component of human psychology. Empathy includes a cognitive component (perspective-taking) and an affective component (e.g., emotional contagion). The two essays of my dissertation investigate how each of these components of empathy affect consumer responses to user-generated content.

Essay 1: Although both price and online review ratings are important cues in consumers’ product quality judgment, most previous studies have treated price and review ratings as separate inputs into consumer decision-making. The current research shows that the two cues are intertwined, such that consumers’ perception of the same …

Two Essays On The Effects Of Ceo Social Activism, Habib Islam

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The first essay theorizes and quantifies the effects of CEO activism on firms’ financial performance. We examine this relationship within the framework of screening theory. We find that CEO social activism generally leads to adverse investor reactions. This negative effect is most prominent when there is interdimensional incongruence in CEO social activism messages. In addition, we find that the negative effect of CEO social activism is moderated by organizational characteristics that resolve incongruence caused by disparate signals.

The second essay seeks to understand how a CEO’s social activism influences corporate social performance. We hypothesize that CEO social activism will have …

Emotion Detection Using An Ensemble Model Trained With Physiological Signals And Inferred Arousal-Valence States, Matthew Nathanael Gray

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Affective computing is an exciting and transformative field that is gaining in popularity among psychologists, statisticians, and computer scientists. The ability of a machine to infer human emotion and mood, i.e. affective states, has the potential to greatly improve human-machine interaction in our increasingly digital world. In this work, an ensemble model methodology for detecting human emotions across multiple subjects is outlined. The Continuously Annotated Signals of Emotion (CASE) dataset, which is a dataset of physiological signals labeled with discrete emotions from video stimuli as well as subject-reported continuous emotions, arousal and valence, from the circumplex model, is used for …

Reevaluating The Factor Structure Of The Family Resilience Assessment Scale For African American College Students, Quandrea Rachelle Harper

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to reevaluate the initial validation process of the Family Resilience Assessment Scale (FRAS) and to validate the measure for use with African Americans. Although the FRAS has been previously validated using a sample from the general population in the U.S. and has demonstrated cross-cultural utility, its applicability for use specifically with African Americans is inconclusive, as demonstrated by preliminary research findings. In the current study, data were collected from a sample of African American college students to conduct an exploratory factor analysis using all 66 items initially included in Sixbey’s validation study, and a …

A Comparison Of Sorority Women And Non-Sorority Women’S Alcohol Use: Perception, Rate Of Use, And Consequences, Betsy Zimmerman

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

While alcohol use and Greek Life on college campuses have often become synonymous, little is known about the rate of use or the consequences of use for sorority women specifically. Gender has been identified as a risk factor relating to substance use on college campuses; however, there is a gap in the literature concerning compounding factors that influence substance abuse, such as membership in a Greek-lettered organization. With approximately 300,000 college women involved in Greek-lettered organizations annually (NPC, 2019), little is known about the impact of alcohol use for sorority women on college adjustment. An exploration of the perception of …

Testing A Contextual Framework Of Intimate Partner Violence In Young Adults, Phoebe Tabb Hitson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Bell and Naugle (2008) proposed a comprehensive theoretical framework that includes multiple variables hypothesized to be involved in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration, including distal and proximal variables. The current study (1) assessed the extent to which childhood physical abuse victimization, interparental violence, insecure attachment, accepting beliefs about violence, sexism, stress, alcohol and marijuana use, relationship satisfaction, emotion regulation, and anger management were associated with physical IPV perpetration; (2) determined whether some of these variables influenced physical IPV perpetration more than others; (3) explored the mediation of distal variables by more proximal variables in predicting physical IPV perpetration; and (4) …

The Effects Of Flood Warning Information On Driver Decisions In A Driving Simulator Scenario, Katherine Rose Garcia

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Flood warnings are a type of risk communication that alerts the public of potential floods. Flood warnings can be communicated through mobile devices and should convey enough information to keep the user safe during a flood situation. However, the amount of detail included in the warning, such as the depth of the flood, may vary. The purpose of this study was to: (a) extend our prior research on flood warnings by recreating the written driving scenarios into the driving simulator; (b) deepen the understanding of human decision-making in risky situations; and (c) investigate how to best inform drivers of floods …

Patient-Targeted Googling: A Mixed-Methods Examination Of Psychologists’ Perceptions And Practices, Emily L. Putnam

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Patient-targeted Googling (PTG) refers to a healthcare professional searching their patient’s name or other identifying information on the Internet. Existing research is inconclusive regarding the prevalence and perceptions of PTG among psychologists, and the American Psychological Association (APA) Ethics Code lacks guidance on the topic. The present study used a mixed-methods approach with two arms of data collection (online survey, N = 94; and virtual focus groups, N = 36) to clarify PTG practices, explore PTG attitudes, and understand training and ethical guidance needs of psychologists and psychology trainees. Results revealed that 47.9% of psychologists and trainees reported having engaged …

Racial Differences In Tobacco Use And Risk Factors Among Young Adults: Roles Of Expectancies And Emotion Regulation, Laurel Brockenberry

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

African Americans experience higher mortality from lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases than Caucasian Americans (Kochanek et al., 2016) despite engaging in cigarette and e-cigarette use significantly less or at comparable rates to other racial groups (CDC, 2015; Schoeborn, 2013). During adolescence, smoking prevalence is lower among African Americans than Caucasian Americans, but there is a “cross-over effect” whereby smoking rates become similar later in adulthood (Belgrave et al, 2010). The mechanisms driving this effect are poorly understood. Thus, examining motivating factors for tobacco use, such as outcome expectancies and emotion regulation, may be especially illuminating for young adult African …

Contextual Factors Of Harsh Parenting: Investigating The Role Of Impulsivity And Parent Attribution Bias Under Conditions Of Household Chaos, Kelsey T. Ellis

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The use of harsh parenting strategies as a form of disciplining child misbehavior has been identified as an underlying factor for child abuse; thus, it is important to examine underlying causal factors for harsh parenting. While not originally formulated around harsh parenting, social information processing models of reactive aggression have highlighted internal attributions and impulsivity as key processes in social decision-making. Therefore, the current study integrated these theoretical models to explore how these processes are involved in harsh parenting behaviors and how these processes may interact in the context of environmental factors such as household chaos. Results revealed significant direct …

An Investigation Of Healthcare Professionals’ Perspectives On The Tasks Of Mental Health Counselors In Hospital Settings, Suelle Micallef Marmara

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

With the global mental health implications reported by the spread of COVID 19 (Javed et al., 2020) and the amplified mental health illnesses reported by the State of Mental Health in America (Reinert et al., 2021), there is an increased need to address psychological and emotional health along with physical health. Mental Health Counselors (MHCs) can be the next professional body to support the multidisciplinary teams within hospital settings to complement holistic care focusing on physical and emotional well-being. Researchers have demonstrated addressing the psychological needs of patients from their first admissions to the hospital has significant positive implications on …

What We Learn From Each Other: Vicarious Posttraumatic Growth Among Non-Helping Professionals Following Exposure To Peer Trauma Experiences, Tiphanie Gayle Sutton

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Trauma can result in adverse psychological outcomes from survivors and the helping professionals who support them. Vicarious (or secondary) traumatization is common among helping professionals and can lead to compassion fatigue and burnout. However, empathetic engagement with trauma survivors and their stories has been shown to lead to positive vicarious outcomes, including vicarious posttraumatic growth. Vicarious posttraumatic growth has been linked to personal and professional benefits for helping professionals. However, positive vicarious outcomes after engagement with peer trauma experiences had yet to be explored outside of helping relationships. The present study found that vicarious posttraumatic growth in non-helping professionals was …

The Association Of Objectification And Discrimination With Partner Gender And Disordered Eating Behaviors In Bisexual Women, Rachel A. Amerson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Sexual minority women are at increased risk of negative outcomes compared to heterosexual women. Bisexual women report disparities when compared to both heterosexual and lesbian women. The disparities experienced by bisexual women also appear to vary based on the gender of their partner, with those partnered with men reporting more negative health outcomes than those partnered with women. One area in which heterosexual and sexual minority women’s experiences differ is in the experience of objectification or being treated as a body rather than a person. While objectification has been linked to negative outcomes, such as body shame and disordered eating …

Human Resource Officer's Perspectives On Recruitment And Hiring Practices Of Diverse Candidates, Tara Kelton Mcdaniel

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

A wealth of research supports the positive impact minority teachers have on all students, but especially minority students. Benefits include an increase in academic achievement, an increase in educational engagement, and an overall sense of self-efficacy and autonomy. Unfortunately minority teachers and teachers of color are significantly underrepresented in the United States teaching workforce compared to their White counterparts. Challenges for diversifying the teaching workforce include historical factors of racism and suppression, the Whiteness of educator preparation programs as the prevailing ideology, and the presence of toxic work environment conditions during field placements and employment. While many historical and contemporary …

What Is The Meaning In This? Teachers' Propensity To Search For Meaning In Life During Covid-19 And The Role Of Meaningful Work, Seterra D. Burleson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The global COVID-19 pandemic has presented notable challenges in teachers’ career paths. In the present study, Super’s life-span, life-space theory was applied to examine the interplay between K-12 teachers’ propensity to search for meaning in life and meaningfulness attributed to their work role (i.e., meaningful work) in predicting career-relevant outcomes in the face of challenging circumstances over the course of a semester. A model was proposed in which propensity to search for meaning in life led to better work and career outcomes, an effect moderated by meaningful work. Longitudinal data from a sample of 617 teachers over eight outcome measurement …

Broaching Race And Race-Related Issues: Phenomenological Inquiry Of Doctoral Student Supervisors Of Counselor Trainees, Judith Wambui Preston

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Clinical supervision is a central building block in counseling that ensures client welfare, fosters supervisees’ professional development, and facilities the gatekeeping process of those entering the profession (Bernard & Goodyear, 2019). In addition to gatekeeping, the American Counseling Association (ACA; 2014) Code of Ethics mandates clinical supervisors to be aware of and address multiculturalism’s role in the supervisory relationship. Because of this mandate, doctoral student supervisors of counselor trainees in CACREP-accredited programs are responsible for integrating multicultural considerations through broaching to ensure racially and culturally responsive counseling to clients from diverse backgrounds (Bayne & Branco, 2018; Jones et al., 2019). …

Complex Thought For Complex Work: Preparing Cognitively Complex Counselors For Work In Diverse Settings, Alexandra C. Gantt

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Counselor education researchers have explored the need for high levels of cognitive complexity (CC) in mental health counselors due to its relationship with high quality counseling skills and counselor ways of being (e.g., Castillo, 2018; McAuliffe & Lovell, 2006; Ridley et al., 2011; Welfare & Borders, 2010b). In these studies, researchers have called for continued study of means of enhancing CC in counselors in training (CITs) through andragogical efforts (e.g., Castillo, 2018; Duys & Hedstrom, 2000; Welfare & Borders, 2010a). However, we do not have an understanding of minimally acceptable CC for graduating CITs. In this study, I explored counselor …

Guilty As Not (Re)Charged: Calling, Work-Recovery Guilt, And Their Effects On Recovery Experiences, Jeffrey Drake Terry

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Public and scholarly interest in the concept of work as a calling has grown considerably over the past few decades (Thompson & Bunderson, 2019). Much of this research has focused on the positive outcomes of calling, including increased work engagement (e.g., Dobrow Riza et al., 2019) and job performance (e.g., Park et al., 2016). However, a few studies have focused on the negative outcomes of calling, such as limited psychological detachment from work (Clinton et al., 2017). According to Work as Calling Theory (WCT; Duffy et al., 2018), psychological climate and individual differences may help to explain why some individuals …

Simultaneous Alcohol And Cannabis Use In College Students: Examining Context, Route Of Administration, Cognitive Factors, And Consequences Via Daily Diary, Jennifer Lynn Shipley

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Cannabis and alcohol use are pervasive among college students. Simultaneous alcohol and cannabis (commonly referred to as simultaneous alcohol and marijuana [SAM]) use (i.e., effects overlap) is more prevalent than concurrent alcohol and cannabis (commonly referred to as concurrent alcohol and marijuana [CAM]) use (i.e., effects do not overlap). Consequences of SAM use are often greater than CAM or single substance use. Research has explored cognitions (motives, expectancies) and contexts (environmental, social) as predictors of SAM use among adolescents, young adults, and adults; however, research is needed among college students specifically. Limited research has examined type of alcohol and route …

Effects Of Income Disparity On Relationships, B. Lynn Mcelyea

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Shifting social norms are leading to changes in family structures. More women are working, and more families are relying on dual income to provide for the household than ever before. These changes in family income are happening fairly quickly in our society and for that reason, as our society shifts towards a more egalitarian mindset, we should view these variables using primary and secondary earner as opposed to through the lens of a husband and a wife. The aim of this study was to examine relationship satisfaction and how that might be affected by differences in income or earner status …

Investigating Psychological Capital As A Moderator In The Relationship Between Incivility And Stem Students' Major Embeddedness, Kristen Denae Eggler

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Increasing the number of students who graduate from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors is a national priority in the United States as there is a need for more STEM employees in the labor force. However, less than half of students who initially declare a major in STEM graduate college with a STEM degree, in part because of the unwelcoming climate in STEM. The aim of the current study was to understand how incivility may undermine a student’s embeddedness within their undergraduate major and whether the individual difference of Psychological Capital could assuage the undermining effects. The presence of …

The Impact Of First-Person Perspective Text And Images On Drivers’ Comprehension, Learning Judgments, Attitudes, And Intentions Related To Safe Road-Sharing Behaviors, Alexandra Bryson Proaps

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Drivers and cyclists lack an alignment of road sharing knowledge, attitudes, and expectations, resulting in unnecessary fatalities. Educational countermeasures need to present information that captures drivers’ interest by being personally relevant, facilitate elaboration and synthesis of new information with existing knowledge, and change attitudes, intentions, and behavior. Well-documented health-related communication methods were employed to determine their effectiveness in a transportation domain. Health countermeasure designers use first-person perspective to improve narrative instruction outcomes, based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Exploring narrative perspective-taking as a design tool requires the integration of multiple disciplines.

Our design case stems …

Validation And Measurement Invariance Of A First-Generation College Student Identity Scale, Kelsie K. Allison

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

First-generation college students (FGCS) comprise approximately 56% of the U.S. post-secondary institution population, yet they face substantially more academic, financial, and additional unique issues than continuing-generation college students. Research on FGCS has been steadily growing in recent years, however, literature on identity for this population is sparse. To address these gaps in the literature, the aim of the current study was to adapt, validate, and establish full factorial measurement invariance across Black and White FGCS for a multidimensional quantitative measure of first-generation college student identity. The final sample included 425 current FGCS (81.2% female; M_age = 24.4 years, SD …

Negative Appraisals And Experiences Of Thriving And Burnout At Work And School During The Covid-19 Pandemic: The Moderating Effect Of Embeddedness, Kate Noel Warnock

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The current study examines the effects of negative appraisals of COVID-19 on thriving and burnout, and whether embeddedness moderates these effects. Specifically, I examined whether negative appraisals of COVID-19 at work and school are related to less thriving and more burnout in the respective domains, and whether the predicted effects of negative appraisals of COVID-19 on thriving and burnout were stronger among those who reported more embeddedness in their job or major compared to those who are less embedded. Additionally, I investigate potential spillover effects of negative COVID-19 appraisals in one domain into the thriving and burnout in the other …

A Phenomenological Investigation Of School Counselor Antiracist Social Justice Practices, Stephanie Deonca Smith-Durkin

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Decades after the landmark United States Supreme Court decision of Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, the push continues to make schools a safe and welcoming environment for Black and Brown students. Black students in particular are continuing to be oppressed and marginalized in PK-12 educational settings. Accounting for approximately 15% of public PK-12 students, Black students comprise 13.7% of all students who receive out-of-school suspensions in 2017, are 16% of the special education student population, and are more likely to attend a school with less resources (National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES], 2021; Ramsey, n.d.). …

Implementing An Online, Integrative, Multi-Component, Group-Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy (Cbt) For The Reduction Of Caregiver Burden In Primary Familial Caregivers Of Persons With Dementia: A Preliminary Test Of Feasibility, Daniel Robert Schaffer

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the preliminary feasibility of an online, manualized, group-based, multi-component, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) treatment approach for the reduction of caregiver burden among family caregivers of persons with dementia. This study had five primary hypotheses: (1) the recruitment plan, as outlined within this study, would yield the target number of participants within a 12-month period; (2) the proposed group therapy protocol would produce a positive therapeutic climate, as operationalized by increased levels of perceived social support, perceived group cohesion, positive therapeutic alliance, and positive engagement; (3) this study would maintain adequate participant retention, …

Sleeping With The Enemy: Examining The Relationship Between Sleep And Pain In Post-9/11 Veterans, John L. Schwartz Jr.

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

United States veterans are a diverse group of individuals, yet as a result of their service, they share a unique set of customs, traditions, and values. Post-9/11 veterans are more likely to experience elevated levels of pain and poor sleep quality compared to their civilian counterparts; however, little is known about how beliefs related to veterans’ pain impact their sleep and how levels of pain acceptance influence the sleep-pain association. This study examined relationships between sleep and pain in a sample of 102 post-9/11 veterans. Results support associations between pain and sleep identified in other populations. Positive correlations were found …