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Development Of Optimal Cut Scores For Within-Normal-Limits Mmpi-2-Rf Profiles Of Sex Offenders, Ilona Iikhtman

Theses and Dissertations

Alleged and convicted sex offenders are generally required to undergo forensic evaluations that frequently include a psychological assessment to answer a wide range of psycho-legal questions. A critical component of the psychological assessment of sex offenders is the evaluation of personality and psychopathology. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and its subsequent editions have been the most widely used personality assessment measures in forensic evaluations, including sex offender evaluations, and in research conducted with sex offenders. The previous literature demonstrates that a subgroup of sex offenders often produce test scores reflective of the general population, which is referred to as …

A Comparison Of Defensiveness In Mmpi-2-Rf Profiles Of Male Sex Offenders And Child Custody Litigants, Kyla M. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Clinical evaluations have had a long-standing role in criminal and civil legal proceedings due to the intersection between various legal criteria and aspects of psychological functioning. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) and its subsequent versions have been among the most commonly utilized and empirically supported measures of personality and psychopathology in assessing forensic populations. One application for which MMPI instruments have been particularly useful is in the evaluation of sex offenders. This is in part due to the tests’ built-in validity scales, as MMPI underreporting scales are found to be effective in assessing sex offenders’ …

The Relationship Between Parental Trauma History And Perceptions Regarding Their Child’S Healthcare And Utilization Of Healthcare Services, Krishna Patel

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

TITLE: The Relationship Between Parental Trauma History and Perceptions Regarding Their Child’s Healthcare and Utilization of Healthcare Services

Adverse child events (ACEs) have been associated with a number of physical and mental health problems and have also been linked to increased health care utilization. While parents who have an ACE history may tend to seek healthcare services for themselves, limited studies have examined the impact of their trauma history on seeking healthcare services for their child. Healthcare utilization may also depend on the parents’ level of health anxiety, as well as their anxiety about their child’s health status. This …

An Examination Of Mmpi-3 Score Patterns Of Sex-Trafficked Women, Edleen De Jesus-Sanchez

Theses and Dissertations

Sex trafficking is a hidden crime that affects many vulnerable groups such as women and children. Prior research has demonstrated that individuals currently or formerly engaged in sex trafficking experience heightened levels of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other mental health concerns. Most of these studies relied on structured interviews and, to date, no empirical studies have evaluated the psychological difficulties of sex trafficking victims with an empirically valid measure. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-3 (MMPI-3; Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2020a) is a personality assessment measure widely used to assess sexual abuse survivors, substance abusers, and various inpatient and …

Development And Validation Of The Contemporary Sexual Violence Scale, Corey Frederick Doremus

Theses and Dissertations

College students face an increased risk of sexual violence victimization and perpetration compared to the general population. Although sexual violence experiences within this population have received substantial attention by researchers, studies typically focus on male perpetrators and female victims. Although a number of measures have been developed to assess male sexual violence perpetration, comparatively few have been developed to measure other types of SV such as female perpetration. The current project aimed to develop an empirically supported measure of sexual violence perpetration which assesses the frequency and severity of engagement in discrete sexual violence behaviors and tactics among individuals of …

Equity Among Equity Workers: Public Service Motivation In An Educational Nonprofit Organization, Russell C. West Jr

Theses and Dissertations

What opportunities and challenges arise when an equity-focused educational organization aims to support employee’s individual equity practices while simultaneously developing the organization’s equity practice? In this study, employees of a non-profit educational organization were asked what rationales and expectations played a role in their decision to volunteer in an equity working group. Their responses were used to understand whether Perry’s (2000) process theory of Public Service Motivation helped describe their decision. In a second round of interviews, employees were asked what outcomes they perceived came from their participation. These responses were used to understand whether the outcomes aligned with those …

The Effect Of Non-Offending Caregiver Substance Use On Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms In Survivors Of Child Sexual Abuse, Katelynn Robison Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Prevalence rates for child sexual abuse and substance use have often been difficult to determine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2022) estimated that one in four girls and one in thirteen boys experience childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in the United States. Similarly, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2021) estimated that 58.7% of individuals over the age of 12 have used a substance in the last month. Despite the identification of both of these experiences as relatively common societal concerns, the impact of parental substance use on children and families has primarily been evaluated in a …

User Engagement With Apps For Depression, Danielle Rae Schweitzer

Theses and Dissertations

Depression is a debilitating and prevalent psychiatric condition, however, few individuals with depression seek mental health treatment. Mental health apps (MHapps) represent one treatment delivery option that may reduce gaps in mental health care. Current evidence suggests that MHapps are efficacious for reducing depressive symptoms, yet little is known about how MHapps are effective. Thus, the aims of the present study were 1) to examine whether two MHapps were effective for reducing depressive symptoms and 2) to determine whether variables such as user engagement, guidance, outcome expectancies, preferences, and coping skill development were associated with effectiveness. A community sample (N=20) …

Tailoring Digital Physical Activity Support Messages For Women In Midlife With Elevated Risk For Cardiovascular Disease: A Multicomponent Study, Kiri Baga

Theses and Dissertations

Women in midlife (ages 40-60) are at heightened risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Although physical activity (PA) engagement can reduce CVD risk, few women engage in sufficient PA to receive this benefit. They cite lack of social support as a key barrier, but existing interventions that employ social support show limited effectiveness. Digital PA support messages (i.e., brief, text-based messages delivered via smartphone or other device) may be a powerful method to meet social support needs in daily life. However, women’s preferences for and responses to distinct types of messages are not well understood. The aim of this study was …

Is A Test The Best?, Giulia Ronnette Mcdonald

Theses and Dissertations

The test effect (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006) demonstrates that performance on a final test is better when an immediate test is taken after reading a passage rather than rereading. Although transfer appropriate processing has been suggested as a theoretical explanation, the results could be due to elaborative retrieval processes during the immediate test that are not available during restudy. We compared testing to three other strategies using elaborative retrieval—Generating Questions, Read-Recite-Review, Teaching—to determine whether they would be as beneficial as testing. Results showed that each of the alternative strategies produced final test performance equal to that of testing, suggesting not …

Signings Of Graphs And Sign-Symmetric Signed Graphs, Ahmad Asiri

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we investigate various aspects of signed graphs, with a particular focus on signings and sign-symmetric signed graphs. We begin by examining the complete graph on six vertices with one edge deleted ($K_6$\textbackslash e) and explore the different ways of signing this graph up to switching isomorphism. We determine the frustration index (number) of these signings and investigate the existence of sign-symmetric signed graphs. We then extend our study to the $K_6$\textbackslash 2e graph and the McGee graph with exactly two negative edges. We investigate the distinct ways of signing these graphs up to switching isomorphism and demonstrate …

Awareness, Acceptance, And Equanimity: Relationships Between Trait Mindfulness, Stress, And Blood Pressure, Gabrielle Renee Chin

Theses and Dissertations

Hypertension (HTN) is associated with stress and unhealthy emotion regulation. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are said to help address stress-related diseases like cardiovascular disease by impacting stress and emotion regulation, yet studies of MBIs on cardiovascular health show inconsistent findings. Limited research has examined the basic links between trait mindfulness and cardiovascular health, leaving the active components of MBIs in this context unclear. Therefore, the current study examined the relationship between trait mindfulness and blood pressure (BP) in individuals with pre-hypertension (pre-HTN). Latent variables representing two conceptualizations of trait mindfulness -Monitor and Accept Theory (MAT) and Equanimity- were calculated using facets …

Black College Students Perceptions Of The Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate, Rickae Rodney

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored Black college students’ perceptions of COVID-19 related mandates. Black college students with higher perceptions of racism, stronger ethnic identity, and greater distrust in science were expected to have more negative attitudes about COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates. Results varied when relationships were tested.

The Contribution Of Syntactic Awareness To Vocabulary Learning, Harry M. Steves

Theses and Dissertations

We explore the relationship between syntactic awareness and vocabulary learning, targeting parts of speech, punctuation, and relative clauses. Performance on a syntactic awareness questionnaire correlated with performance on low-difficulty vocabulary learning involving nonsense words. Base vocabulary had a significant effect on the contribution of syntactic awareness to vocabulary learning.

Using Motivation To Assess Affective States Of Captive Red Kangaroos (Macropus Rufus) In Response To Visitor Presence And Crowd Size In A Walk-Through Zoo Exhibit, Julia King

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how visitor presence influences affective states of captive red kangaroos housed in a walk-through zoo exhibit by using motivation to consume a food reward in desired vs undesired locations and with/without an additional challenge feeder as a proxy for affective state, while considering individual variation and personality.

Masculinity-The Next Generation: Millennials, The Mrni, And Measurement Invariance, Charlotte Maria Shanaver

Theses and Dissertations

Socialization is, “the process of learning to behave in a way that is acceptable to society” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). It is inescapable and pervasive. One of the most socialized constructs is gender. Gender roles, norms, expectations, shape how male and female identified folx move through the world and expect others to move through the world. However, this can become problematic when such norms become rigid and insurmountable. Adherence to traditional or hegemonic masculine norms, has been correlated with worse mental health outcomes (Gerdes & Levant, 2018). For decades, psychologists have utilized the Male Role Norms Inventory (Levant et al., 1992; Levant …

The Temporal Association Between Simultaneous Alcohol And Cannabis Use And High-Risk Sexual Behaviors, Haley Kolp

Theses and Dissertations

High-risk sexual behaviors (HRSBs; e.g., having sex without protection against pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections) are a public health problem. HRSBs disproportionally impact college students and are associated with numerous negative outcomes, such as unwanted pregnancies. Alcohol use has been strongly linked to HRSBs in college students, but the research is less clear when investigating the relationship between cannabis use and HRSBs. Additionally, there is a lack of research examining the relationship between simultaneous alcohol and cannabis (i.e., marijuana or SAM) use (i.e., using alcohol and cannabis at the same time so that the effects overlap) and HRSBs in college …

Medical Interpreters' Experience Working With Distressed Families In Pediatric Settings, Paulina Lim

Theses and Dissertations

Effective communication between families and pediatric clinicians is essential for mitigating family stress and improving quality of care. Families who speak a primary language other than English must contend with the added stress of language barriers during stressful encounters, which could impact the quality of patient care and health outcomes. Trained medical interpreters facilitate communication, including distress expressions, during interpreted medical encounters (IME). Little is known about how interpreters identify distress and what factors impact distress identification during IME. This project describes how interpreters identify distress of families during IME, and how they identify cultural nuances in distress expression and …

Psychophysiological Impacts Associated With Social Media Use, Lindsey Hieber

Theses and Dissertations

Social media has become increasingly relevant to everyday life since its inception, with new social media applications being created regularly. There has been some research regarding social media use and mental health; with studies finding both negative and positive mental health effects possible. TikTok, one of the newest and fastest growing social media applications has not been studied thoroughly to investigate potential mental health effects. The psychophysiological impacts of social media use have not been explored at all. An initial survey was done to investigate personality and mental health effects of social media use as well as if the reasonings …

Behavioral And Eye-Movement Correlates Of Item-Specific And Relational Memory In Autism, Greta Nicole Minor

Theses and Dissertations

Recent work has challenged past findings that documented relational memory impairments in autism. Previous studies have often relied solely on explicit behavioral responses to assess relational memory integrity, but successful performance on behavioral tasks may rely on other cognitive abilities (e.g., executive functioning) that are impaired in some autistic individuals. Eye-tracking tasks do not require explicit behavioral responses, and, further, eye movements provide an indirect measure of memory. The current study examined whether memory-specific viewing patterns toward scenes differ between autistic and non-autistic individuals. Using a long-term memory paradigm that equated for complexity between item and relational memory tasks, participants …

Latino Career Choice And Prestige: Examining Prestige, Cultural Values And Family Influence In Predicting Career Choice, Edwin Ramos

Theses and Dissertations

Career choice continues to be a principal area for career development research, as finding ways to determine what contributes to career choices, and how those choices impact individuals’ micro and macro systems, informs best practices in vocational psychology. The field of vocational psychology can benefit from exploring myriad variables that may have an impact on career choice, career congruency, and persistence in the world of work; and highlighting the unique experiences and needs of diverse populations can produce new insight about different groups and people that the field should endeavor to improve. To this end, this study sought to uniquely …

Latino Men’S Barriers And Obstacles Towards Treatment Seeking Attitudes, Rebecca Gonzalez

Theses and Dissertations

There is a drastic difference in the number of Latino men utilizing mental healthcare as only 24 percent of Latino men with a severe mental illness ever receive treatment. Previous research has revealed stigma and attitudes are important factors in the help seeking process, but with limited Latino participants. The current study gathered survey data from Latino male university students about their levels of stigma, attitudes towards both tele – health and in person counseling, perceived barriers and benefits, treatment history, and current levels of depression. It was revealed that in contrast to previous studies, Latino men’s social stigma is …

Pinpointing The Cognitive Structure Of The Cpt-3: A Case For Distribution Appropriate Statistical Methods, Chandler J. Zolliecoffer

Theses and Dissertations

The present study used the CPT-3 as a model to illustrate the complementary use of distribution-appropriate statistical methods to analyze non-normally distributed empirical datasets. Study results reaffirmed that while group-level analysis (e.g., via traditional parametric group-level analysis or distribution-appropriate group-level analysis procedures) offers insights into performance of the group in aggregate, it is oftentimes inappropriate to presume that patterns reflected by the group are, necessarily, applicable to a smaller subset of respondents. Thus, understanding how subgroups within the population navigate and approach a given task can have direct implications for more personalized/individualized assessment and treatment, especially in clinical and research …

Using Music To Modify Step-Rate And Running Biomechanics In Healthy Runners, Erin Marie Lally

Theses and Dissertations

Context: Running-related injury (RRI) is a significant public health issue that may be caused by injurious running biomechanics. Increasing step-rate (SR) using gait retraining may prevent and treat RRI. The Optimizing Performance Through Intrinsic Motivation and Attention for Learning (OPTIMAL) theory indicates enhanced expectancies, autonomy, and external focus of attention will optimize motor learning. Music has been shown to create enhanced expectancies, can provide incidental choices (autonomy), directs attention externally, and may increase compliance. No studies have investigated if music can be used to alter SR and running biomechanics or strategies that may improve compliance to gait retraining. Objective: The …

The Role Of Childhood Trauma History In Relation To Decent Work, Matthew Reiland

Theses and Dissertations

This study used structural equation modeling to examine the impact of childhood trauma on decent work. Childhood trauma was added as an exogenous variable in the Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) model and hypothesized to have direct and indirect effects on decent work. An online sample of 643 working adults completed PWT measures and a measure on childhood trauma. Additionally, participants completed a single Likert-type item measure assessing negative impact of COVID-19 on work so that model invariance could examined among two high and low impact groups. Group invariance was satisfied at the configural, metric, and scalar levels, and the …

Exploring Levels Of Autism Symptom Support After Eligibility Determinations, Zachary Bella

Theses and Dissertations

The identification of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) occurs in educational and health settings. Many children with autism will only receive a classification of autism in the educational setting (Esler et al., 2022, Pettygrove et al., 2013, Wiggins et al., 2020). There is significant overlap between the early intervention offered to children with autism in health settings and what is provided through Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) (National Autism Center, 2009; Morset et al., 2010). However, there is an increasing trend of children with autism being classified with significant developmental delay (SDD) instead of autism initially in schools and the impact of …

The Biological Bases Of Political Attachment: Neurobiological Correlates Of Ideology And Partisanship, Carisa Bergner

Theses and Dissertations

To fully understand the foundations of political attachments in an increasingly polarized environment, political scientists must reconcile traditional theories of political attitudes and behavior with insight gained from neurobiological approaches. The purpose of this research is to investigate the neurobiological correlates of strength of political ideology and partisanship, as well as the neurobiological correlates of ideological and partisan orientation. To do so, both structural and functional neuroimaging analyses were conducted on a diverse sample of patients at a Level 1 Trauma Center. Results indicate that strong ideological attachment is significantly associated with decreased volume in the left insula, though partisan …

Impact Of Childhood Maltreatment And Endocannabinoid Function On Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms In Traumatically-Injured Adults, Elizabeth Parisi

Theses and Dissertations

The ECSS plays a crucial role in regulation of the stress response, is modulated by exposure to acute and chronic stressors, and shows potential as a biomarker for PTSD. Changes in ECSS function are apparent in adults with a history of childhood maltreatment. Further, childhood maltreatment is a well-established pre-trauma risk factor for development of PTSD following a traumatic event in adulthood. No study to date has examined the contribution of ECSS function to the relationship between childhood maltreatment and PTSD following a subsequent trauma in adulthood. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between exposure to threat and …

Working In The Us For Recent Highly Educated Asian Immigrants And How Social Class Shift Impacted Their Experiences, Yixing Song

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation utilized the Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) method to understand the work experiences of recently arrived, highly educated Asian immigrants, specifically from Chinese and Taiwanese backgrounds, in the United States. Grounded in the Psychology of Working Theory, the study places a particular emphasis on the role of social class in shaping how immigrants conceptualize decent work and meaningful work as well as how they adapt in order to achieve their desired work experience after immigration. Through CQR analysis, nine distinct domains emerged, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of their professional journeys and the challenges and opportunities Asian immigrants …

Establishing Validity And Preliminary Clinical Utility Of A Behavioral Economic Measure Of Social Risk Discounting For Health Behaviors, Connor A. Burrows

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the most profound public health emergency of the past several decades and the United States has faced numerous challenges with the timely adoption of mitigating health behaviors. Sustained ambivalence surrounding perceptions of public health recommendations of social distancing, mask wearing, and timely vaccination remain a barrier to slowing the spread of the virus years after its initial onset. Behavior analysis and behavioral economics offer compelling theoretical and quantitative models for framing the relationship between behaviors that are aversive in the short term but beneficial for individual and public good in the long term. The present …