Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Interaction Of Adhd Severity And Neighborhood-Level Ses On Preschoolers’ Risk For Obesity At School-Age, Ramya V. Jayanthi

Dissertations and Theses

Background: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) oftentimes emerges during the preschool years. School-age children with ADHD are at an increased risk for obesity as compared to their non-ADHD peers, but it is unknown if this risk is observed in younger children. Socioeconomic status (SES) is negatively related to both ADHD and obesity, but how SES interacts with ADHD to affect later obesity is unknown. This study aimed to examine if preschool ADHD diagnosis and severity interacted with neighborhood-level SES to increase risk for overweight/obesity and greater growth in BMI at school-age. We hypothesized that ADHD severity/diagnosis would be associated with greater growth …

The Makings Of Creativity And Empathy: Maps Of Maternal Representations, Anielle M. Fredman

Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT

The Makings of Creativity and Empathy: Maps of Maternal Representations

by

Anielle M. Fredman

Advisor: Sasha Rudenstine, Ph.D.

The present study investigates the relationship between maternal fantasy of the child and their relationship, and children’s unconscious processes. In addition, the study aims to ascertain the link between maternal representations and aspects of the child’s intrapsychic world, including ego functioning, object relations, and processes of separation-individuation.

Maternal fantasy was measured in an original way with a tripartite typology of Positive, Mixed-Complex, and Contradictory Representations, applied to the Parent Development Interview-Revised Short (Slade et al., 2004), adapted from the Working Model …

Compassion-Based Resilience Training (Cbrt) For Frontline Healthcare Workers In Contact With Covid-19 Patients, Michael Perez Sosa

Dissertations and Theses

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has had deleterious consequences for the mental health of frontline healthcare workers worldwide. One systemic review of the literature found high prevalence rates of anxiety (67.55%), depression (58.89%), and stress (62.99%) reported by this population (Vizheh et al., 2020). Additionally, high rates of burnout and symptoms associated with trauma have also been ubiquitous during the pandemic for frontline healthcare workers. The purpose of this study is to investigate Compassion-Based Resilience Training (CBRT) as a remotely delivered intervention for frontline healthcare workers in contact with COVID-19 patients to reduce symptoms associated with stress, depression, anxiety, burnout, and …

Unity Against Adversity: Examining The Moderating Effect Of A Sense Of Community Between Discrimination And Discrimination-Related Distress Among Racial And Ethnic Minoritized Adults, Kimberly Velazquez

Dissertations and Theses

Background: Racial and ethnic minoritized populations are significantly more likely to develop mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder, than White populations. Some of the predominant causes are rooted in the impact of discrimination, and other social determinants of health (SDOH), including adverse experiences. Studies found that discrimination can lead to a distinct form of anxiety described as discrimination-related distress, which has a higher negative association with poor mental health symptoms. It has been suggested that having a strong sense of community (SOC) –a collective sentiment shared by community members regarding their membership, feelings of belonging, …

The Impact Of Perceived Social Support On Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Elizabeth Eng

Dissertations and Theses

Individuals who have experienced repeated and interpersonal trauma often develop symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), along with additional features relating to disturbances in self-organization (DSO), which is now known as Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). CPTSD has been seen to be associated with adverse outcomes such as somatic symptoms, attachment insecurity, and overall lower life satisfaction (Karatzias et al., 2018; Kuhar & Zager Kocjan 2022; Maercker et al, 2022). Due to these additional features relating to DSO, CPTSD has been identified as distinct from PTSD, and so it has been important to investigate these unique symptoms. One such symptom …

How Adults Use Reddit To Cope With Being Children Of Divorce, Tamera A. Joseph

Dissertations and Theses

How do adults on social media describe their experiences as a child of divorce? The purpose of this study was to explore how posts on the social media platform Reddit are used by people to reflect on their parents’ divorce when they were younger. Reddit is a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. The platform allows users to post content such as links, posts, images, and discussion boards. Posts on the website are organized by subjects called “subreddits”. In these subreddits, users discuss topics from news, philosophy, entertainment, and life experiences. Existing public data of archived and …

Paradoxical Insomnia, A Chronic Insomnia Subtype In Patients With Temporomandibular Disorder, Christy Chan

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this secondary data analysis study is to determine: 1) if individuals with Temporomandibular Disorder (TMD) present subjective-objective discrepancies in sleep parameters derived from the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) to their respective polysomnography (PSG) counterparts for the presence of sleep misperception and 2) to examine specific PSQI-sleep measures that showed significantly higher rates of disturbance in TMD participants in relation to subjective daytime dysfunction and objectively short sleep. The first hypothesis is that there will be an absence of subjective-objective correspondence on specific sleep measures only in TMD participants, while in control participants, it is expected that …

Internalized Gender Role Stereotypes Within Young Women And The Presentation Of Somatic Symptomatology Of Major Depressive Disorder, Michelle Miselevich

Dissertations and Theses

Evidence suggests that two distinct disorders are currently being diagnosed as depression. One, somatic depression, involves depression plus several somatic symptoms while the other, pure depression, involves depression without as much somatic symptomatology. Somatic depression has been hypothesized to afflict women who view themselves non traditionally and thus do not agree with traditional stereotypes of women. Measures of agreement with negative stereotypes of members of their own group have been found in several groups to be positively related to depression. This may apply among women to pure depression. Thus, women who exhibit pure depression are hypothesized to exhibit agreement with …

Immigrant Therapists’ Perceptions Of Transference, Countertransference, And Racial Experiences In The United States, Lian Malki-Schubert

Dissertations and Theses

There has been a steady increase in the percentage of immigrant therapists in the US. In psychology doctoral programs, the number of foreign-born students has doubled between 1997 and 2016. The present study aimed to examine the perceived impact of therapists’ immigrant identity when working with US-born and foreign-born clients, as little research has been dedicated to this topic. Another central theme this study sought to explore was immigrant therapists’ perspective shifts on racial identity upon arriving in the US. Given that race is a social construct that is culturally bound, the study investigated immigrant therapists’ perceptions of racial identity …

An Exploration Of The Relation Between Psychological Functioning And Reactions To Global Climate Change For Late Adolescents In New York City, Emma Routhier

Dissertations and Theses

Climate change poses a potentially unique generational crisis, as it threatens the viability of the very world that the current adolescent generation stands to inherit. While some studies have begun to appreciate the specific experience of adolescents as it pertains to climate change, they attend to young people’s behavior or self-reported feelings. The present study aims to employ psychoanalytic constructs, with attention to the unconscious determinants of psychic life and behavior, in an empirical examination of this topic, and to introduce a level of sensitivity to the vicissitudes of the adolescent period that have not previously been addressed in the …

Immigrant Risk, Self-Discontinuity, And The Role Of Nostalgia, Leila Talhouk

Dissertations and Theses

Background: There are conflicting theories and data about immigrants’ health in the host country (e.g., immigrant risk vs. paradox), which have encouraged researchers to examine more nuanced factors related to immigration to clarify these inconsistencies. This two-part study aimed to shed light on these discrepancies by investigating psychoanalytic concepts that have not yet been empirically tested. The study focuses on immigrant self-discontinuity, a migration- induced disruption in one’s sense of self-sameness and unconscious sense of going-on-being, manifesting in moments of disorientation, disorganization, or dissociative-like experiences. There is no adequate instrument to measure this construct; as such, Part 1 of the …

Early Adversity, Emotion Regulation, Object Relational Functioning, And The Moderating Effect Of Gender Identity: A Community Sample Study, Victoria Schilder

Dissertations and Theses

Introduction: Clinical and social psychological literature have long demonstrated group status, culture, and social support as equally integral and influential factors which contribute directly both to the quality of one’s lived experience, and to the development and experience of one’s sense of identity or selfness. For example, acceptable norms regarding behavior, dress, and emotional experience – particularly when an individual does not live up to societal standards – have been demonstrated to contribute to deleterious internalizations surrounding self-confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem. More specifically, the social and cultural implications of being identified as “female” versus “male” have been found to be …

The Moderating Roles Of Racial Discrimination And Covid-19 Stress On The Association Between College Students’ Cannabis Use And Psychosocial Functioning, Shannique Richards

Dissertations and Theses

Abstract

The Moderating Roles of Racial Discrimination and COVID-19 Stress on the Association between College Students’ Cannabis Use and Psychosocial Functioning

By

Shannique Richards, MA

Advisor: Sarah O’Neill, PhD

Greater use of cannabis is linked to poorer psychosocial outcomes. Rates of cannabis use are particularly high in racial/ethnic minoritized (REM) and socioeconomically disadvantaged college students. Cannabis use has been correlated with exposure to trauma. REM and socioeconomically disadvantaged college students report higher rates of trauma exposure, including discrimination and health and social disparities than their White peers. This study examined exposure to two types of potentially traumatic events (racial discrimination …