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Full-Text Articles in Psychology

Mindfulness: A Look Into The Effects On Performance In The Academic, Work, And Athletic Spaces, Danielle Beder Jan 2024

Mindfulness: A Look Into The Effects On Performance In The Academic, Work, And Athletic Spaces, Danielle Beder

CMC Senior Theses

Mindfulness and meditation offer many benefits to people in all aspects of life. This paper provides insight to how mindfulness and meditation can affect an individual’s performance. Mindfulness and mediation has emerged as a very popular tool in western therapies in the last 60 years. Through reviewing lots of prior research and literature, the results show that mindfulness can help increase performance. This is done through three mechanisms: emotional regulation, flow state, and cognitive functions. Mindfulness increases an individual's emotional regulation systems through reduced depression and anxiety, increased happiness, and development of emotional intelligence. Mindfulness also increases the frequency of …


Exploring The Factors That Influence Female Offending In The U.S. And Mexico, Dana Villasenor Jan 2024

Exploring The Factors That Influence Female Offending In The U.S. And Mexico, Dana Villasenor

CMC Senior Theses

Hollywood has painted a picture of the criminal woman as a sexy, sneaky, and often psychotic female fatale. This is because men run Hollywood. Much like movies, research on why women offend had historically focused on men as their stellar. However, towards the turn of the century and with the disproportionate rise in female incarceration, literature caught up to the fact that women and men do not experience the same socialization, standards, or reality and, therefore, have different reasons for and ways of offending. This research explores those reasons for women in the U.S. and Mexico and paints the picture …


Redefining Rehabilitation: Evaluating The Washtenaw County Pre-Plea Diversion Program, William Ellsworth Jan 2024

Redefining Rehabilitation: Evaluating The Washtenaw County Pre-Plea Diversion Program, William Ellsworth

CMC Senior Theses

The Washtenaw County (MI) Prosecutor’s Office’s Pre-Plea Diversion Program (PPDP) aims to divert eligible misdemeanor defendants from the criminal justice system, offering rehabilitative programming to reduce reoffending and minimize the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction with case dismissal. This research assessed whether PPDP participants were less likely to be re-arrested in the six months following program completion compared to a sample of defendants facing similar charges within the same court. It was hypothesized that the PPDP would effectively reduce re-arrest, with community service and mental health counseling proving particularly impactful. Employing a quasi-experimental design, data from 90 successfully diverted …


Analyzing The Mental Health Realities Among Daca Recipients Within The Mexican Community, Oscar Javier Gonzalez Jan 2024

Analyzing The Mental Health Realities Among Daca Recipients Within The Mexican Community, Oscar Javier Gonzalez

CMC Senior Theses

Immigration to the United States, particularly from Mexico, has resulted in a significant population of undocumented individuals residing in the nation. Among them are those who arrived in the U.S. as children, with some eligible for protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, offering temporary relief from deportation and government benefits. This thesis analyzes the historical context of immigration and the DACA program, focusing on the often-overlooked experiences and mental health realities encountered by Mexican DACA recipients. These experiences encompass the pursuit of the American Dream, deportation fears, family separation, challenges in accessing government services, navigating the …


The Standing Of Anger: Insights From The Debate(S) On Constructed Emotion, Andrew Holzer Jan 2024

The Standing Of Anger: Insights From The Debate(S) On Constructed Emotion, Andrew Holzer

CMC Senior Theses

In her book, Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice, Martha Nussbaum argues that anger is inherently flawed because it fundamentally contains the desire for payback. To support her argument, she posits specific metaphysical claims about the nature of emotions like anger. This thesis is an extended critique of her metaphysical foundation from the perspective of empirical research in the neuroscience of emotion. The first reason to dispute this picture is descriptive; this view of anger is based on an outdated version of cognitive appraisal theory, which sees emotions as triggered directly by static moments of cognitive appraisal. The second …


Gamblers And The Game Of Life: A Literary Examination Of The Professional And The Addict, Annika Ozizmir Jan 2023

Gamblers And The Game Of Life: A Literary Examination Of The Professional And The Addict, Annika Ozizmir

CMC Senior Theses

The gambler is a mysterious persona in life and in literature. Who is the gambler? While we can envision the gambler as many different kinds of people, this thesis seeks to answer this question by focusing on certain literary figures who gamble. Its author analyzes two archetypes in particular, that of the professional gambler and that of the addict. To illustrate these types, the author looks to four protagonists from a mix of four novels and short stories: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, “A Gentleman’s Game” by Jonathan Lethem, “Queen of Spades” by Alexander Pushkin, and The Gambler by Fyodor …


Why Don't I Look Like Her? The Impact Of Social Media On Female Body Image, Kendyl M. Klein Jan 2013

Why Don't I Look Like Her? The Impact Of Social Media On Female Body Image, Kendyl M. Klein

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of this paper is to understand and criticize the role of social media in the development and/or encouragement of eating disorders, disordered eating, and body dissatisfaction in college-aged women. College women are exceptionally vulnerable to the impact that social media can have on their body image as they develop an outlook on their bodies and accept the developmental changes that occurred during puberty. This paper provides evidence that there is a relationship between the recent surge in disordered eating and high consumption of social media. I examine the ways in which traditional advertising has portrayed women throughout history, …


Deinstitutionalization And Its Discontents: American Mental Health Policy Reform, Olga Loraine Kofman Jan 2012

Deinstitutionalization And Its Discontents: American Mental Health Policy Reform, Olga Loraine Kofman

CMC Senior Theses

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Mental Retardation and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act, establishing the beginnings of deinstitutionalization in the United States. By some counts, this Act was a stupendous policy success—by others, a dismal failure. 50 years later, no cohesive national mental health care policy has emerged to deal with increased rates of mental illness among the homeless and the incarcerated. However, California has made enormous strides to create a state policy which provides adequate services to the mildly, moderately, and severely mentally ill as well as adequate funding for those services through Proposition 63, …


Exploring The Flynn Effect: A Comprehensive Review Of The Causal Debate, Abby J. Trimble Jan 2011

Exploring The Flynn Effect: A Comprehensive Review Of The Causal Debate, Abby J. Trimble

CMC Senior Theses

Since its discovery in 1984, psychological investigators have continued to explore the Flynn Effect, the phenomenon of consistent and secular IQ gains within industrialized nations approximating 0.3 points per year. The most contentious debate within this field of research surrounds the purported cause of the Effect, and yet the research literature lacks a synthesis of the leading causal theories and the evidence supporting them. The principal hypothesized causal mechanisms – psychometric artifact, educational intervention, environmental changes, nutrition, genetics, gene-environment interaction model, medical improvements, and the multiplicity hypothesis – are reviewed and analyzed within the larger breadth of Flynn Effect scholarly …