Psychology Commons^™

Mental Illness In Modern Media, Grace Smith

Honors Projects

This paper will focus on the way mental illness is portrayed in modern media, specifically psychological thriller movies, as many of them feature main characters with some sort of mental illness. The specific mental illnesses present in the movies discussed in this paper are as follows: borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Psychological thriller movies influence the way consumers view mental illness and those who suffer from mental illnesses. The potential effects of these portrayals will be explored through Stuart Hall’s theory of reception, as it was created based on television media, making it one of …

Creating Project Contrast: A Video Game Exploring Consciousness And Qualia, Pierce Papke

Honors Projects

Project Contrast is a video game that explores how the unique traits inherent to video games might engage reflective player responses to qualitative experience. Project Contrast does this through suspension of disbelief, avatar projection, presence, player agency in storytelling, visual perception, functional gameplay, and art. Considering the difficulty in researching qualitative experience due to its subjectivity and circular explanations, I created Project Contrast not to analyze qualia, though that was my original hope. I instead created Project Contrast as an avenue for player self-reflection and learning about qualitative experience. While video games might be just code and art on a …

A Comparison Of Older Adult Suicide And Adolescent Suicide Through Film Representations, Catherine Longmore-Micham

Honors Projects

Approximately, 47,173 people in the United States died by suicide in 2017, making it the 10th leading cause of death. Although middle-aged adults have the highest rate of suicide, 20.2 per 100,000, older adults (i.e., individuals 60 years and older) closely follow with a rate of 20.1. Adolescent age groups have much lower rates for suicide: a rate of 14.46 per 100,100 in 2017 (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 2017). The risk factors that affect adolescents and older adults are similar in some ways, but they differ in one major aspect: impulsivity. The issues that can be said to ‘cause’ …

Seeking Solace: Regret, Grief, Anxiety, Rebecca Schroeder

Honors Projects

Seeking Solace: Regret, Grief, Anxiety is a triptych video and artifact piece inspired by the abstract analysis of my dreams. It recognizes worries held within my subconscious and brings them to life through graphic design, photography, and video. The process of creating provides a new perspective of looking at both art and occupational therapy as methods of solving emotional distress.

I have recorded over 80 of my dreams in the past year. In these dreams, regret, grief, and anxiety are common themes. These themes are represented in three triptychs that cycle through past, present, and future problems. The cycling of …