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Intergroup Dialogue In Undergraduate Multicultural Psychology Education: Group Climate Development And Outcomes, Joel Timothy Muller

Masters Theses

We examined group climate and outcomes in 19 intergroup dialogues (IGD) focused on gender, race and ethnicity, religion and spirituality, sexual orientation, or social class at a large, public university in the Southeastern United States. Group members were undergraduate students enrolled in a course in multicultural psychology. Participants completed pre- and post-dialogue outcome measures of: attitudes toward diversity, colorblind attitudes, and ethnocultural empathy. Following each of the eight weekly sessions, participants completed a group climate measure assessing engagement, avoidance, and conflict. Across eight weeks, group members perceived significant increases in engagement and decreases in avoidance, but no significant changes in …

The Relationships Between Internalized Heterosexism, Spirituality, And Mental Health In Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Young Adults, Jon Raymond Bourn

Masters Theses

Minority stressors like internalized heterosexism have been found to be related to suicidality among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals (e.g., Savin-Williams & Ream, 2003). Additional research is needed, however, to better understand the factors that may serve as moderators (i.e., protective factors) in the relationships between minority stressors and negative mental health outcomes, such as depression and suicidality (e.g., Szymanski et al., 2008). The current study attempted to examine the relationships between internalized heterosexism and two negative mental health outcomes associated with suicide, psychache (defined as unbearable psychological pain) and depression, in a sample of LGB young adults. Given …

Predictors Of Children’S Understandings Of Death: Age, Cognitive Ability, Death Experience, And Maternal Competence., Sally Beville Hunter

Masters Theses

Several factors have been documented as major factors affecting children’s formation of a mature death concept. Among these factors are the child’s age, cognitive ability, and exposure to death in his or her environment. The effects of parent communication patterns on children’s understanding of death have been understudied. This has left a gap in our knowledge of parents’ influence on their children’s conception of death.

In addition to the investigation of individual child factors, the present study investigated the relationship between mothers’ styles of communication about death and their children’s understandings of the subconcepts of death (i.e., inevitability, universality, finality, …

The Relationship Of Religiosity With Self-Esteem And Personality, Melissa A. Shea

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to look for meaningful relationships between religiosity, defined as both past religious involvement and present religious involvement, and see if there are significant relationships with self-esteem and personality. Participants were from a denominational university and a secular university, to determine if the type of school one attends has any difference with their self-esteem and personality in terms of religiosity. Participants were administered the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Spiritual Transcendence Scale and Bi-Polar Adjective Ratings Scale. Results support only the initial hypotheses that personality has a significant relationship with religiosity and that school of attendance does …