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Psychology

Theses/Dissertations

Stress

2016

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Reactivity And Recovery Among Oif/Oef/Ond Combat Veterans: Do Those With Subthreshold Ptsd Differ From Veterans With And Without Ptsd?, Paula Castro-Chapman Aug 2016

Reactivity And Recovery Among Oif/Oef/Ond Combat Veterans: Do Those With Subthreshold Ptsd Differ From Veterans With And Without Ptsd?, Paula Castro-Chapman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study expanded the current literature by assessing PTSD in relation to reactivity and recovery from negative emotional arousal among OEF/OIF/OND Veterans. Cardiac impedance was employed during a speech task and a trauma imagery procedure. Those in the PTSD-S group displayed lower SBP and higher TPR reactivity relative to the PTSD- and PTSD+ groups; lower CO reactivity relative to the PTSD+ group; and more CO recovery than those in the PTSD+ group to the trauma task. For speech task, Veterans in the PTSD-S group exhibited lower HR reactivity for both speech preparation and delivery than those in the PTSD- group. …

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Ohm … Pardon The Interruption! An Exploration Of Mindfulness As A Buffer Against The Effects Of Intrusions, Keaton Allen Fletcher Jun 2016

Ohm … Pardon The Interruption! An Exploration Of Mindfulness As A Buffer Against The Effects Of Intrusions, Keaton Allen Fletcher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has provided a helpful, albeit narrow, understanding of task interruptions as related to outcomes such as wellness and performance (e.g., Eyrolle & Cellier, 2000). Building on this foundation by viewing interruptions through the broader theoretical context of the theory of mental workload, this study sought to explain the cognitive processes underlying the negative performance effects often associated with interruptions and to apply an intervention aimed at mitigating these effects. Specifically, mindfulness has emerged as a promising method for reducing the cognitive burden of interruptions. This study examined the effects of intrusions (a type of interruption) on psychological strain …

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What About The Wizard?: Stress Effects Of Being A Mentor, Daniel Ryland Hawthorne May 2016

What About The Wizard?: Stress Effects Of Being A Mentor, Daniel Ryland Hawthorne

Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to examine the influence of negative mentoring, trust and protégé learning on mentor job stress. Surveys were submitted to protégés who identified mentors, who then received mentor-specific surveys. Matched data from mentor- protégé surveys were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results support previous research regarding the importance of trust in mentoring relationships and suggest the significance of protégé-perceived personal learning on mentor stress. Further, results suggest that mentor and protégé experiences could be assessed with a single dyadic measure. Additionally, a new measurement instrument to assess mentoring stressors was developed through qualitative …

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Working Memory Impairments In Chromosome 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome: The Roles Of Anxiety And Stress Physiology, Ashley F. P. Sanders May 2016

Working Memory Impairments In Chromosome 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome: The Roles Of Anxiety And Stress Physiology, Ashley F. P. Sanders

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Stress and anxiety negatively impact the working memory system by competing for executive resources. Broad memory deficits have been reported in individuals with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS). We investigated anxiety and physiological stress reactivity in relation to visuospatial working memory impairments in 20 children with 22q11.2DS and 32 typically developing children (M = 11.10 years, SD = 2.95). Results indicate reduced post-stress RSA recovery and overall increased levels of cortisol in children with 22q11.2DS. Additionally, anxiety mediated the relationship between 22q11.2DS and visuospatial working memory impairment. However, there was no indication that stress response physiology mediated this association. …

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The Nerve: Associations Between Perceived Parenting Style And Coping With Stress, Lauren Mcgrew May 2016

The Nerve: Associations Between Perceived Parenting Style And Coping With Stress, Lauren Mcgrew

Undergraduate Theses

Throughout a lifetime, women are twice as likely as men to develop an anxiety disorder. Several factors – biological, psychological, and social/environmental – are involved in the mechanisms of anxiety. The present study was designed with particular interest in the association between parents’ parenting styles and daughter anxiety, specifically paternal influences in correlation with how daughters cope with stress. Previous studies suggest that anxious tendencies in parents can be transferred to their children (Ballash, Leyfer, Buckley, & Woodruff-Borden, 2006). Studies have also identified three main parenting styles – authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive – which may also play a role in …

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An Analysis Of The Factors Influencing Bored And Emotional Eating: Should Bored Eating Exist As A Separate Construct?, Erin Elizabeth Stuck May 2016

An Analysis Of The Factors Influencing Bored And Emotional Eating: Should Bored Eating Exist As A Separate Construct?, Erin Elizabeth Stuck

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Emotional eating pertains to eating in response to negative emotional experiences, and can occur for a variety of reasons. Individuals may emotionally eat as a means of submerging themselves into positive reinforcing states, as a way of coping, or as a distraction from their negative emotional experience (Cialdini, 1973; Kemp, Bui, & Grier, 2013; and Spoor et al., 2006). Historically, emotional eating has included boredom. Recent research has suggested that bored eating may be a separate construct from emotional eating (Koball et al., 2012). Thus, the present study investigated the variables associated with both emotional eating and bored eating with …

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Acute Stress Exposure And Expression Of Instrumentally Conditioned Financial Preferences: An Fmri Study, William Travis Mccuddy Apr 2016

Acute Stress Exposure And Expression Of Instrumentally Conditioned Financial Preferences: An Fmri Study, William Travis Mccuddy

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Recent research suggests acute stress exposure is associated with increased habit-based over goal-oriented decision making (e.g., Schwabe & Wolf, 2011). The current study examined whether acute stress promotes the expression of simple financial preferences “overtrained” to the point of habit in the face of a changing environment where said preferences were later rendered non-optimal. Over three days participants (N = 28) learned to discriminate between visual stimuli probabilistically associated with monetary gains or losses and made decisions between stimuli with real financial outcomes. On the fourth day after exposure to either an acute stressor or control procedure participants performed the …

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The Effects Of Self-Care Meditation Behaviour On Undergraduate Students’ Reported Stress, Anna Smallwood Jan 2016

The Effects Of Self-Care Meditation Behaviour On Undergraduate Students’ Reported Stress, Anna Smallwood

Undergraduate Honours Theses

The goal of this research study was to provide undergraduate post-secondary students with a self-care behaviour that: a) was self-help based; b) could become a routine part of their schedules; and c) was effective in lowering their stress responses. One group of participants was asked to rate their stress on a 7-point scale, twice a day, for 10 business days. A second group of participants was also asked to rate their stress following the same instructions however they were also asked to perform a 5-minute mindfulness-based meditation twice a day, immediately following the stress ratings. A 2 (Week 1 vs. …

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An Interpretive Phenomenological Investigation Of The Meaning Of Job Satisfaction Among Veteran Special Educators, Raeann Barnes Jan 2016

An Interpretive Phenomenological Investigation Of The Meaning Of Job Satisfaction Among Veteran Special Educators, Raeann Barnes

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The attrition rate among special education teachers is ranked among the highest in the education profession. Retaining teachers early in their careers continues to be a concern due to increased job responsibilities, larger caseloads, challenging student behaviors, minimal support from colleagues, increased paperwork, and diminishing resources. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the meaning of satisfaction special education teachers made of their careers. The transactional model developed by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) can help to explain how the occurrence of stressful events can impact an individual. A purposive sample of 9 tenured, certified special education teachers currently …

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Toward A Model Of 12-Step Engagement: Predicting Recovery Involvement In Narcotics Anonymous, Hillary L. Howrey Jan 2016

Toward A Model Of 12-Step Engagement: Predicting Recovery Involvement In Narcotics Anonymous, Hillary L. Howrey

Theses and Dissertations

Substance use disorders (SUDs) affect a significant portion of the population and are noteworthy public health concerns. Mutual help organizations (MHOs) such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are considered evidence-based practices for SUDs. Despite a growing body of research examining mechanisms of change in MHOs, relatively few investigations of 12-step organizations have been theory-driven. Theory-based models of recovery provide a more comprehensive view of the range of individual factors affecting individuals in recovery and how and why they might engage in recovery-related behaviors. Stress and coping theory fills a gap in explaining how improvements occur as a result of …

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What Works For Successful In-Home Family Therapists Working At Community-Based Agencies, Aleyah R. Yasin Jan 2016

What Works For Successful In-Home Family Therapists Working At Community-Based Agencies, Aleyah R. Yasin

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Resiliency is an important characteristic of successful therapists (Aponte, 1991; Aponte & Carlsen, 2009; Aponte & Winter, 2000; Clark, 2009; Hamel & Laraway, 2004; Kuiper, 2012; Protinsky & Coward, 2001; Rosenburg & Pace, 2006; Wolgien & Coady, 1997), especially those in entry-level positions that tend to involve high stress and turnover (Acker, 2004; Clark, 2009; Davis, 2013; Greenson, Guo, Barth, Harley, & Sission, 2009; Grosch & Olsen, 1994; Gupta, Peterson, Lysaght, & Zweck, 2012; Horan, 2002; Maslach & Leiter, 1997; Negash & Sahin, 2011; Rosenburg &Pace, 2006; Skovolt &Trotter Mathison, 2011). This study explored the perspectives of six therapists providing …

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Analgesia Followed By Long-Term Hyperalgesia Generated By Disinhibition Of The Basolateral Amygdala, Derek Atchley Jan 2016

Analgesia Followed By Long-Term Hyperalgesia Generated By Disinhibition Of The Basolateral Amygdala, Derek Atchley

Wayne State University Theses

Stress produces bimodal effects on pain peception. During exposure to a stressor pain responses are inibited (i.e. stress-induced analgesia). However, following long-term exposure to a stressor increases in responsiveness to painful stimuli may develop (i.e. stress-induced hyperalgesia). Here I evaluated how a key component of the subcortical defense circuit and target of stress hormones contributes to the development of both stress-induced analgesia and hyperalgesia. Bicuculline methiodide, a GABAA antagonist, injected into the basolateral amygdala was used to mimic the neural effects of a stressor or threat exposure. Immediately following injection pain responsiveness was decreased as measured by vocalizations after discharge …

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The Impact Of Stress On Risk Perceptions And Risk Behaviors, Gabriel Andrew Frietze Jan 2016

The Impact Of Stress On Risk Perceptions And Risk Behaviors, Gabriel Andrew Frietze

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

As the national conversation regarding the legalization of marijuana in the United States continues to emerge as a pressing issue, the rates of simultaneous marijuana and alcohol consumption prior to driving are likely to rise. Research suggests that alcohol and marijuana consumed independently at low levels results in minimal impairment on driving performance. Conversely, driving performance is dramatically impaired when small amounts of marijuana and alcohol are simultaneously consumed. The current study investigated the impact of social stress on the perceived risk of Driving Under the Influence of Small Amounts of Marijuana and Alcohol (DUI-SAMA). In addition, the current study …

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An Interpersonal Model Of Depression: A Psychophysiological Perspective, Kelsey J. Pritchard Jan 2016

An Interpersonal Model Of Depression: A Psychophysiological Perspective, Kelsey J. Pritchard

ETD Archive

This study examined whether parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity predicts depression risk through excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) which subsequently erodes social support and generates stress. Recent theories suggest that the PNS evolved to regulate social interaction and that the PNS is associated with depression and interpersonal deficits. Therefore, PNS deficits may be associated to ERS, given its interpersonal function. Participants (N= 65) completed measures of ERS, interpersonal stressors, social support quality, depression symptoms, and a protocol that measured indices of the PNS (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) at rest and during a paced breathing task. Multiple mediator models …

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The Relationship Between Self-Compassion, Sleep Quality, And Perceived Stress Among Undergraduate And Graduate Students, Michael Unger Jan 2016

The Relationship Between Self-Compassion, Sleep Quality, And Perceived Stress Among Undergraduate And Graduate Students, Michael Unger

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Research has indicated that sleep problems are prevalent in college students. Current studies show that over half of college students report that they are poor-quality sleepers. The consequences of poor sleep quality include increased stress, substance use, and mental health issues. Poor sleep hygiene is one of the many factors that contribute to poor sleep quality in college students. Although research has identified contributing factors and consequences of sleep problems in college students, less attention has been given to factors that may serve as a buffer against the effects of poor sleep quality. This study introduces and discusses self-compassion as …

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Urban Stressors And Child Asthma: An Examination Of Child And Caregiver Models, Gillian G. Leibach Jan 2016

Urban Stressors And Child Asthma: An Examination Of Child And Caregiver Models, Gillian G. Leibach

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to examine how low-income, racial and ethnic minority, urban families experience and manage their child’s asthma. The rationale for this study stems from existing literature on asthma disparities and documented predictors of increased asthma morbidity and mortality. In particular, this study considered how specific types of stress may disproportionately impact low-income, racial and ethnic minority, urban families that have a child with asthma. This study aimed to determine associations between urban stressors (stressful life events, perceived discrimination, subjective socioeconomic status) and child asthma outcomes (emergency department visits, school days missed, asthma control), and …

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Understanding Mental Toughness And Stress: The Role Of Cortisol, Alexis K. Satterwhite Ms. Jan 2016

Understanding Mental Toughness And Stress: The Role Of Cortisol, Alexis K. Satterwhite Ms.

Honors Program Theses

Mental toughness research aims to understand how two people of the same skill level, experience, and background react to pressure and stress, with one succumbing to the pressure while another succeeds (Clough & Strycharczyk, 2012). This study used Clough, Earle, and Sewell’s (2002) four C’s of mental toughness (commitment, challenge, control, and confidence) as a theoretical framework. The current study aims to explore physiological aspects of mental toughness through cortisol, a stress hormone that is released as an internal reaction to some type of threat occurring externally to the body (Kottler & Chen, 2011). The relationships between mental toughness and …

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Therapeutic Effectiveness, Stress, And Burnout In Mental Health Professionals, Christina Pimble Jan 2016

Therapeutic Effectiveness, Stress, And Burnout In Mental Health Professionals, Christina Pimble

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Therapists face a great deal of stress in their day-to-day work, which arises from issues regarding psychotherapy effectiveness, therapist gender, client population, and job dissatisfaction. These stressors make therapists susceptible to personal mental health issues, which can lead to burnout. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between therapist perception of therapeutic effectiveness, perceived stress, and burnout experienced by the therapist as influenced by, but not limited to, therapist gender, client population, the type of setting in which the therapist works, and length of time in the field. Findings from this study may provide insight into stressors …

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Examining Maternal Psychological Recollections Of Children Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Christine Desiree Shoop Jan 2016

Examining Maternal Psychological Recollections Of Children Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Christine Desiree Shoop

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mothers of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and despair stemming from the challenges of raising offspring with behavioral, communicative, and socioemotional impairments. Researchers have shown that children diagnosed with ASDs exhibit symptoms within the first year of life (early-onset), while some exhibit normal development until the second year (regressive-onset), and some exhibit normal development until the second year but display abnormalities in the first year (mixed-onset). Despite the wealth of research on ASDs, there are few examinations of ASD symptom onset groups and the impact of those onset groups on parental psychological …

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Predictors Of Stress Among Caribbean Community College Students, Jean Merle Da Silva Jan 2016

Predictors Of Stress Among Caribbean Community College Students, Jean Merle Da Silva

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research on North American and European students have reported moderate to severe levels of stress in more than 90% of students, which has been linked to negative health outcomes. However, there is a paucity of data on the stress of Caribbean students. Higher education in the Caribbean has undergone a transformation with wider access and higher enrollment; thus, it is important that the effects and characteristics of this transformation are researched and documented. Accordingly, the purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the experience of students in 2 year community colleges in the Caribbean. Using the theoretical foundation of …

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Role Of Coping Self-Efficacy In Working Mothers' Management Of Daily Hassles And Health Outcomes, Sonya Kali Broadnax Jan 2016

Role Of Coping Self-Efficacy In Working Mothers' Management Of Daily Hassles And Health Outcomes, Sonya Kali Broadnax

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

U.S. working mothers experience frequent daily hassles, yet little is known about how working mothers have disproportionate abilities to handle stress. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to determine the extent to which coping self-efficacy mediated the effect that cumulative daily hassles had on working mothers' health outcomes (i.e., physical functioning, role-physical, bodily pain, general health, vitality, social functioning, role-emotional, and mental health). The transactional model of stress and coping, social cognitive theory, and self-efficacy theory provided the theoretical foundations for this study. Daily hassles were used for this study as an additional theoretical approach for measuring stress. A …

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The Effect Of Stress Coping Techniques In Sports, Lestter Yeh Jan 2016

The Effect Of Stress Coping Techniques In Sports, Lestter Yeh

CMC Senior Theses

The first part of this literature review goes over the biological and psychological aspects of stress. The cause of stress can be linked back to a primitive instinct known as “fight or flight.” The “fight or flight” instinct is triggered by several chemical reactions in the body starting from a signal from the amygdala to the sympathetic nervous system. Stress can also be categorized into internal and external stress. Further research links stress to sports. Many studies show that stress coping techniques such as meditation, self-talk, rituals, etc. are beneficial to athletes during competition. Suggested avenues of further research are …

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The Associations Between Values, Committed Action, And Cardiovascular Reactivity, Bianca Marie Crudup Jan 2016

The Associations Between Values, Committed Action, And Cardiovascular Reactivity, Bianca Marie Crudup

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

High stress levels can have profound physical and emotional effects. Several coping mechanisms have been shown to decrease levels of stress. Values, a form of coping, have been implicated in reducing psychological and physiological indicators of stress. The behavioral component, committed action has also demonstrated treatment efficacy in ACT treatments of depression, anxiety, and chronic pain. However, few studies have examined the effects of values and committed action on acute responses (e.g., cardiovascular reactivity) to stress. The purpose of the present study was to examine the association between values, committed action, and physiological responses to stress. Participants were 107 students …

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Perceived Behavioral Control, Stress, Body Image, And Exercise Intentions In Overweight African American Women, Heidi L. Paruch Jan 2016

Perceived Behavioral Control, Stress, Body Image, And Exercise Intentions In Overweight African American Women, Heidi L. Paruch

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A disproportionate number of African American women are at risk for illness and mortality due to obesity. The aim of this study was to explore perceived behavioral control (PBC), stress, body image, and exercise intentions (EI) using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as the primary theoretical framework. The TPB is a leading model in health research to predict behavioral intentions, yet its application to the general female African American population is lacking. Seventy-nine African American women were sampled utilizing a cross-sectional, online survey method. A series of bivariate correlations tested the relationships among PBC, stress, body image, age, and …

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Stress And Somatic Symptoms: Rumination And Negative Affect As Moderators, Melissa Joy Garner Jan 2016

Stress And Somatic Symptoms: Rumination And Negative Affect As Moderators, Melissa Joy Garner

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

This study examined the relationships between stress, negative affect, rumination, and somatic symptoms among older adolescents. The following hypotheses were investigated: 1) greater number of life stressors would predict greater somatic symptoms, 2) rumination would moderate the relationship between stressors and somatic symptoms, 3) negative affect would also moderate the relationship between stressors and somatic symptoms, and 4) a three-way interaction between stress, rumination and negative affect would significantly predict somatic symptoms. Participants were 363 (71.1% female) university students with a mean age of 19.06 years (SD=2.06 years) who completed eight weekly online questionnaires, assessing levels of rumination …

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Effect Of Mindfulness Training On Interpretation Exam Performance In Graduate Students In Interpreting, Julie E. Johnson Jan 2016

Effect Of Mindfulness Training On Interpretation Exam Performance In Graduate Students In Interpreting, Julie E. Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations

Many graduate interpreting students struggle because the real-time, interactive nature of interpreting dictates that they be able to regulate their attention across different parallel cognitive activities and manage the inherent stress and unpredictability of the task. Within the framework of Cognitive Load Theory, this mixed-methods study explored the effect of short-term mindfulness training on consecutive interpreting exam performance using a quasi-experimental repeated-measures design. It also examined the relationships among mindfulness, stress, aspects of attention, and interpreting exam performance. The sample included 67 students (age M = 26.9 years; 82% female) across seven language programs (Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, …

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How Do Students Appraise And Cope With Episodic Stressors : A Four-Wave Study, Jingyi Huang Jan 2016

How Do Students Appraise And Cope With Episodic Stressors : A Four-Wave Study, Jingyi Huang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Stress is a dynamic process. For episodic task-related stressors, four stages – the anticipatory stage, the confronting stage, the waiting stage, and the outcome stage – can be defined. Using a student sample, in this study I employed a longitudinal design to examine how exam-related coping unfolds across these stages, how perceived control predicts the use of coping strategies, and how personality moderates the relations between perceived control and the selection of coping strategies. The results show that across time behavioral disengagement and substance use had a convex trajectory, and that seeking of emotional social support and positive reinterpretation had …

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Control, Care, And Stress: Parenting's Effect On Child Internalizing Symptoms, Maysa Kaskas Jan 2016

Control, Care, And Stress: Parenting's Effect On Child Internalizing Symptoms, Maysa Kaskas

LSU Master's Theses

Theoretical models of childhood psychopathology suggest that the parent-child relationship serves an influential role in the development and maintenance of internalizing disorders such as anxiety and depression. However, there is a great deal of inconsistency in the research literature on the predictive power of parenting variables such as parental control and parental care. Furthermore, these parenting variables are often poorly defined and inconsistently operationalized across studies, hampering interpretation of results and limiting conclusions on the strength of the effect. Additionally, few studies have examined the role of parenting with careful attention to moderators. In order to investigate these problems, 189 …

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The Relationship Between Self-Regulation And Stress, Sleep, And Behavioral Health, Clayton I. Brock Jan 2016

The Relationship Between Self-Regulation And Stress, Sleep, And Behavioral Health, Clayton I. Brock

CMC Senior Theses

The goal of this research was to investigate multiple aspects of self-regulation and their relationship to stress, sleep, and behavioral health. Participants (N=89, 55 females, 29 males, and 5 did not list their sex) were recruited from a high-risk Midwest high school. Participants reported their own self-regulatory ability, sleep, stress, and behavioral problems. Nail samples were also collected from a subset of the participants to assay for cortisol and DHEA. Several measures of self-regulation were found to correlate with sleep quality, behavioral problems, and perceived stress. The natural log of the ratio of cortisol to DHEA was positively correlated with …

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