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Examining East Asian American College Students' Mental Health Help-Seeking, Louis K. Chow

Psychology Dissertations

This study examined underutilization of mental health services by East Asian American (EAA) college students and the effectiveness of an intervention aimed at increasing mental health outcomes. The literature presents discrepant findings of whether behavioral or values based acculturation measures were more predictive of mental health outcomes. Previous researchers have also identified cultural and practical barriers that lead to underutilization of services. It was hypothesized that relative to behavioral acculturation, values acculturation would be more predictive of attitudes and intentions to seek counseling. Additionally, recent studies highlighting the importance of practical barriers, a brief education based video intervention was developed …

A Comparative Assessment Of How Rhesus Monkeys And 3- To 4-Year-Old Children Remember Self-Agency With Spatial, Temporal, And Contextual Features In Working Memory, Megan L. Hoffman

Psychology Dissertations

Comparative research on event memory has typically focused on the binding of spatial and temporal information in memory, but much less is known about how animals remember information about the source of their memories (i.e., whether the event is something they performed themselves or whether they observed it). The purpose of the present study was to examine how rhesus monkeys (n = 8) and 3- to 4- year-old children (n = 20) remember this information along with other relevant event features (object identity, spatial location, temporal properties and contextual features) in working memory. In Experiment 1, rhesus monkeys …

Gambling And Decision-Making Among Primates: The Primate Gambling Task, Darby Proctor

Psychology Dissertations

Humans have a tendency to engage in economically irrational behaviors such as gambling, which typically leads to long-term financial losses. While there has been much research on human gambling behavior, relatively little work has been done to explore the evolutionary origins of this behavior. To examine the adaptive pressures that may have led to this seemingly irrational behavior in humans, nonhuman primates were tested to explore their reactions to gambling type scenarios. Several experiments based on traditional human economic experiments were adapted for use with a wider variety of primate species including chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys. This allowed for testing …

Forming Bonds To Challenge Fears: Course Of The Working Alliance During Cognitive Behavioral Treatment For Social Anxiety Disorder, Irene Ngai

Psychology Dissertations

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is the 3^rd most common psychiatric diagnosis, and is associated with significant social, occupational, health, and educational impairment. Fortunately, both pharmacological and psychological treatments can reduce symptoms. Cognitive behavioral therapy is considered the gold standard treatment for SAD, and a robust literature supports its effectiveness. In contrast, process related factors, including the role of the working alliance, have received less attention in treatment of SAD.

The current study examined development of the working alliance for a SAD sample. The working alliance is characterized as the collaborative relationship between a client and therapist, and includes shared …

Development Of Activism: The Elders Of The Anti-Nuclear Movement, Emma Jf Ogley-Oliver

Psychology Dissertations

The US anti-nuclear movement formed in opposition to the development of nuclear weapons and energy. Anti-nuclear activists have rallied since the late 1970’s opposed to the construction of Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Georgia due to the social and environmental justice issues related to the nuclear industry. In 2010, the nuclear industry proposed a nuclear resurgence in the US, proposing to construct new reactors at Plant Vogtle. This represented the first time new nuclear reactors had been proposed since the moratorium on new reactors as a result of the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. The aim of the …

Visual Scanning Of Dynamic Affective Stimuli In Autism Spectrum Disorders, Susan M. Mcmanus

Psychology Dissertations

The accurate integration of audio-visual emotion cues is critical for social interactions and requires efficient processing of facial cues. Gaze behavior of typically developing (TD) individuals and individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) was measured via eye-tracking during the perception of dynamic audio-visual emotion (DAVE) stimuli. This study provides information about the regions of the face sampled during an emotion perception task that is relatively more complex than those used in previous studies, providing both bimodal (auditory and visual) and dynamic (biological motion) cues. Results indicated that the ASD group was less accurate at emotion detection and demonstrated less of …

Intimate Partner Violence And Depressive Symptoms: A Moderated Mediation Model Of Religious Coping And Spiritual Well-Being In African American Women, Dulamdary Enkhtor

Psychology Dissertations

Religious coping and spiritual well-being were found to be culturally important resilience factors for African American women suffering from abuse and depressive symptoms. This investigation aimed to investigate whether: (1) spiritual well-being and its two components of existential and religious well-being mediate the Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)-Depressive Symptoms (DS) link; (2) positive and negative religious coping moderate the IPV-DS association; and (3) the mediating effect of spiritual well-being in the IPV-DS link is moderated by level of religious coping (i.e., moderated mediation). The study utilized data from 208 low income, suicidal and abused African American women, ages 18-55. Only the …

Investigating Speech Perception In Evolutionary Perspective: Comparisons Of Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes) And Human Capabilities, Lisa A. Heimbauer

Psychology Dissertations

There has been much discussion regarding whether the capability to perceive speech is uniquely human. The “Speech is Special” (SiS) view proposes that humans possess a specialized cognitive module for speech perception (Mann & Liberman, 1983). In contrast, the “Auditory Hypothesis” (Kuhl, 1988) suggests spoken-language evolution took advantage of existing auditory-system capabilities. In support of the Auditory Hypothesis, there is evidence that Panzee, a language-trained chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), perceives speech in synthetic “sine-wave” and “noise-vocoded” forms (Heimbauer, Beran, & Owren, 2011). Human comprehension of these altered forms of speech has been cited as evidence for specialized cognitive capabilities …

The Impact Of Sickle Cell Disease On The Family: An Examination Of The Illness Intrusiveness Framework, Josie S. Welkom

Psychology Dissertations

Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a genetic disorder that affects approximately 1 out of every 600 African-American newborns (NHLBI, 2006). SCD and its associated symptoms can have widespread impact on both the psychological functioning of the individual diagnosed with the illness and their families. The purpose of this study was to apply the illness intrusiveness framework to better understand the relations among vaso-occlusive pain crises (VOC), child age, pediatric health related quality of life (QOL), and parental psychosocial adjustment. Participants included 103 parent-child dyads. Parents completed a background form, the Brief Symptom Inventory-18, and the Illness Intrusiveness Rating Scale. Children …

Developmental Trajectories Of Marriage, Coparenting, And Parenting Stress For Parents Of Adolescents And Young Adults With Intellectual Disability, Shana S. Richardson

Psychology Dissertations

This study assessed marital quality, coparenting, and parenting stress over time for parents of children with intellectual disability by creating developmental trajectories from longitudinal data. Both mothers and fathers (N = 152 couples), with children ages 6-18 at the first wave, evaluated their relationship and parenting stress on up to 4 occasions over a 14-year period. The study provided separate models of change over time for mothers and fathers which showed that marital quality, coparenting, and parenting stress are dynamic relationship constructs that changed during the child’s development. Overall, marital quality was found to follow a curvilinear pattern, with declines …

Creating An Opportunity For Self-Empowerment Of Immigrant Latina Survivors Of Domestic Violence: A Leadership Intervention, Josephine V. Serrata

Psychology Dissertations

Latina survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) experience IPV at similar rates as other ethnic groups. However, the intersection of multiple cultural factors, including acculturation, can greatly influence a woman’s experience of IPV. For example, research suggests that Latinas experience unique forms of control and unique barriers to service in addition to positive coping. Nevertheless, a scarcity of culturally relevant interventions plagues the IPV field. Moreover, evaluations of such programs are remarkably scarce in the research literature. The current study evaluates an innovative peer leadership intervention, the Líderes program, which is grounded in a self-empowerment framework. The Líderes program is …

Temperament As A Predictor Of Infant Immunization Distress And Response To Treatment, Naomi E. Joffe

Psychology Dissertations

There is a growing body of research on interventions to decrease infant distress during painful procedures, and distraction is a particularly practical option. However, the effectiveness data for distraction for infant pain relief are mixed. Inconsistencies in response to distraction might be explained by unique characteristics of the infant patient. Some researchers argue that temperament is the best predictor of differences observed between individuals and also the most sensitive to novel environmental factors such as exposure to pain. This study examined whether infants’ temperament is predictive of response to immunization injection pain and whether temperament moderates the relation between a …