Psychology Commons^™

Mobile Cognitive Training For The Cognitive Symptoms Of Depression In Young Adults: A Double-Blind, Randomized Pilot Study With Active Control, Alice Grinberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Depression is associated with a broad range of cognitive symptoms, including reduced attention, verbal learning and memory, executive functioning (EF), and processing speed (PS). Computerized cognitive training (CCT) has been shown to ameliorate the cognitive symptoms of depression. Younger adults, in particular, are understood to benefit more from CCT than older adults due to their greater capacity for neuroplasticity. However, several issues remain unclear about the effectiveness of CCT: (1) whether the benefits of CCT are driven by the specific content or by non-specific factors, such as engagement, motivation, novelty, and expectancy, which have been inadequately controlled in prior …

Stalking And Attachment Theory: Causes And Management, Zoe Turner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Stalking is an issue that has drawn increasing attention over the past four decades. Approximately 6 million Americans report being the victims of stalking each year. The psychological and physical effects of stalking can be severe, ranging from anxiety and depression to physical harm and even death. With the rise of technology and social media, cyberstalking has become an additional problem in recent years. It is vital to understand the root causes of stalking behavior from a psychological perspective in order to create appropriate management and treatment plans. The current research investigates the role of attachment theory in stalking. Within …

The Cognitive Thalamus: Source Analysis Of Scene Working Memory Delay Activity, Bernard A. Gomes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Working Memory represents a limited-capacity store for maintaining information and manipulating the store's contents over a short period for the guidance of goal-directed behavior. Working Memory is an essential component of executive functions that are intricately associated with the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The PFC has been implicated in maintaining task-related information online for brief periods in the absence of relevant information. This active maintenance phase is called the delay period that occurs between encoding and retrieval of the stimulus. Previous studies have attempted to understand the relationship between working memory and the PFC, especially during the delay or maintenance phase …

Attachment, Exploration, And Internalized Homonegativity, Gregory J. Gagnon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Internalized homonegativity (IH; a.k.a. internalized homophobia), has been implicated in health disparities between lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons (LGBs) and their heterosexual peers. Yet, little available research has explored factors that may increase or decrease IH.

Objective: This dissertation investigates relations between child and adult attachment and IH. It further examines the mediating and moderating roles of exploration and mentalization, respectively, in the attachment–IH relation.

Method: One hundred fifty cisgender LGB adults participated in two waves of an online survey. The first assessed recalled child–maternal and child–paternal attachment and current attachment to the romantic partner. The second, conducted two …

A Comparison Of Strain, Social Learning, Control, And Trauma Theories Of Crime, Nicole Trauffer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The field of criminology has been dominated by Strain, Control and Social Learning Theories, among others. More recently, research and theory has focused on the role of trauma as a predictor of criminal behavior, especially for women. However, little research has empirically compared these theories to one another. The current study examined these four major theories to determine which best explains non-violent and violent criminal behaviors. Race and sex differences were examined. The data is from a large prospective cohort design study of individuals with documented histories of physical and sexual abuse and neglect and a control group of children …

Exploring Psychological Mechanisms Underlying Plea Bargain Decisions, Melanie Close

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

According to an economic model of plea bargaining, defendants’ plea decisions are based on their estimated trial prospects (i.e. likelihood of conviction and severity of sentence). However, information communicated during interrogations may provide defendants with misinformation about trial prospects, thus biasing their subsequent plea decisions. Furthermore, the model fails to address why innocent individuals plead guilty less often than guilty individuals even when trial prospects are identical. I investigated whether Reid-style interrogation techniques increase the likelihood of a guilty plea by inflating suspects’ estimates of the severity of the outcomes should they go to trial. I also examined whether anxiety …

Structural And Functional Brain Markers Of Trauma-Related Symptoms, Glenn Blessington

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The neurocircuitry model of posttraumatic stress disorder suggests an association between trauma-related symptoms and abnormalities in the structure and function of limbic and prefrontal brain regions. Evidence also suggests that these structural and functional abnormalities are related. We tested the relation between whole brain white matter integrity, resting-state functional connectivity of a fronto-limbic network, and trauma-related symptoms in 22 trauma-exposed women. We hypothesized that components of whole brain white matter would correlate with components of resting connectivity within a fronto-limbic network. We used parallel independent component analysis (pICA) to test the associations between whole brain fractional anisotropy (FA) maps and …

The Temporal Dynamics Of Ensemble Perception, Michael L. Epstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The striking disparity between the subjective richness of experience and the considerable limitations of perceptual processing has emerged as an essential, enduring question in both vision science and philosophy of mind. A potential solution to this issue is ensemble perception: the ability for the visual system to compute the statistical summaries of object groups, effectively compressing an otherwise overwhelming amount of information. Previous work has supported that ensemble statistics can be perceived quickly and accurately for a wide range of object features. This has motivated models of ensemble perception as an early process in vision, providing an initial sense of …

Wrongful Conviction Documentaries: Influences Of Crime Media Exposure On Mock Juror Decision-Making, Patricia Y. Sanchez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychology and law researchers have urged colleagues to collaborate with the makers of popular media, such as documentary filmmakers, in efforts to educate the general public about wrongful convictions (Kassin, 2017; Wells et al., 2000). Recently, programs depicting wrongful convictions, such as Making a Murderer (Demos & Ricciardi, 2015) and When They See Us (DuVernay, 2019) have garnered substantial viewership. Research on general and case-specific pretrial publicity (Daftary-Kapur et al., 2014; Kovera, 2002) and the effects of crime media (Baskin & Sommers, 2010; Schweitzer & Saks, 2007) demonstrate that although consuming crime-related media and being exposed to information about a …

Rehabilitative Movement Approaches And Dance Interventions In Parkinson’S Disease, Cecilia Fontanesi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The scope of this work is to address the functional deficits and symptoms experienced by those living with Parkinson’s Disease through movement interventions.

Chapter 1 offers a brief overview of current pharmacotherapy and rehabilitation approaches in Parkinson’s, focusing on dance in particular as a movement intervention that may be particularly suited to this population.

Chapter 2 focuses on brain plasticity and motor learning in PD, reporting the effects of rTMS applied after the acquisition of a motor skill. In this study, adaptation tested in patients with PD was comparable in the sham and TMS sessions, while retention indices tested on …

Working Memory Training: Cognitive And Linguistic Implications In Adult English Language Learners, Deepti Wadhera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study used a cognitive training paradigm to explore whether the same mechanisms of working memory underly conflict resolution in non-verbal and verbal domains in adult English language learners.The association between an individual’s Working Memory (WM) performance and their success in skills such as interference control, decision-making and language processing has been repeatedly highlighted by researchers in cognitive psychology and linguistic fields. Particularly, acquisition and use of a second language is one life experience in which WM ability seems valuable. However, when this association is put to the test in studies that train participants’ WM and measure transfer of these …

The Racial Position Model As A Framework To Understand Friendship Formation Between Latinx Americans And Other Racial Minorities, Darren Agboh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Three experiments utilized the Racial Position Model (RPM, Zou & Cheryan, 2017) in intraminority relations context to examine how Latinx Americans form friendships with a Black or Asian American interaction partner based on their shared or separate axes of subordination on the RPM. Latinx Americans may have contrasting interaction expectations with Black Americans and Asian Americans, as they share inferiority with Black Americans and foreignness with Asian Americans but are inferior compared to Asian Americans and foreign compared to Black Americans (Zou & Cheryan, 2017). Results showed that Latinx Americans feel more similar in terms of inferiority to Black Americans …

Grassroots Tales: Journeys Of Inward Healing And Outward Movement Building – “A Story Of Youth Development And Healing”, Andrew Cory Greene

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Rooted in Liberation Psychology epistemology, this dissertation was engaged to liberate myself as well as psychology. Positing Healing Justice and Sociopolitical Development as theoretical guides, this dissertation explored a community specific approach of radical healing to develop urban youth’s abilities to sustain (build) spirit and collective hope for grassroot movement building. This dissertation asks, what are the possibilities of bringing urban youth (n=9) together who shared similar realities, dared to dream together (i.e., think tank), and turn those dreams into a Grassroot Movement Building?

The methodological praxis of this dissertation project was politically and theoretically situated to study learnings at …

Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms Of Adverse Trauma Outcomes In Emerging Adulthood, Olena Kleshchova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Exposure to traumatic stress and adversity during the formative years of development can have adverse effects on mental health, neuroendocrine stress system function, and the brain, that persist into adulthood. One candidate mechanism that might confer vulnerability to enduring adverse outcomes of early life trauma is disruption of normal brain maturation. As the brain matures, functional interactions among brain regions change until the functional brain architecture (i.e., the functional connectome) reaches a mature state in adulthood. Given that different neural circuits have distinct developmental trajectories and sensitive periods, traumatic stress at a given point in development might have …

The Role Of Mentalized Affectivity In Romantic Love And Relationship Satisfaction, Camilla P. Hegsted

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Introduction: The role that mentalized affectivity plays in the relationship between romance love and relationship satisfaction was investigated. Methods: 504 participants completed three measures: Mentalized Affectivity Scale, Adapted Triangular Love Scale, and the Relationship Assessment Scale. Results: A number of relationships among the variables was found. However, the processing variable of mentalized affectivity did not moderate the relationship between the intimacy and relationship satisfaction variables. Conclusion: Possible reasons for this finding are discussed. Results show the importance of modulating ability on romantic relationships: being better skilled at modulating one’s affects and emotions predicts greater intimacy levels in relationships as well …

The Contribution Of Trait Emotional Intelligence To The Relationship Between Childhood Adversity And Pscyhiatric Symptoms In Adulthood, Aura-Maria Morales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Trait emotional intelligence (TEI) has been found to be an important predictor of and protective factor against psychopathology, including psychopathology in the context of trauma (Hofman et al., 2016; Rudenstine & Espinosa, 2018). The long-established empirical investigation of the relationship between trauma and psychopathology has brought attention to the significance of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Similarly, recent literature has honed in on how important aspects of a person’s development such as their attachment style and the culture within which their development is embedded, can mutually inform their development of TEI. This dissertation is an attempt to derive a greater understanding …

Affect, Behavior And (Dys)Regulation: Integrating Youth's Projective Tests And Self-Reports, Laurel Wright

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Past and current research indicates that unconscious processes (e.g., outside the realm of conscious awareness) contribute to aspects of adaptation and development, such as emotion regulation, adaptability, interpersonal flexibility and overall identity formation. Further, unconscious processes including: Defense Mechanisms (DMs), Affect Maturity (AM) and Object Relations (OR), can be operationalized and scored using valid and reliable psychodynamic instruments (e.g., Rorschach Inkblot Method), with theoretical and empirical links to underlying emotion regulation processes. Currently however, emotional dysregulation and its sequelae (e.g.,depression and ADHD symptoms) are most often assessed based on one’s conscious awareness, using standardized self-report measures or structured clinical interviews. …

Using Brief Session Duration During Functional Analysis To Inform The Treatment Of Problem Behavior In 13 Consecutive Cases, Theresa Fiani

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Functional analyses allow a clinician to identify causal relations between environmental stimuli and problem behavior. Recent developments in functional analysis methodology have been devoted to creating practical procedures that can be conducted in a brief period of time. However, the extent to which improvements in analytic efficiency affect treatment outcomes have yet to be fully explored. We conducted a consecutive case series with 13 individuals who exhibited problem behavior. The participants experienced a comprehensive assessment and treatment program beginning with a functional analysis using 3-min sessions and ending with functional communication training and delay/denial tolerance training. Results demonstrated near elimination …

Bilingual Reading Fluency And Prediction: Heritage Language Versus Second Language, Olga Parshina

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The thesis presents the first comparative investigation of reading fluency and factors that affect it by examining eye movements in reading by Heritage Speakers (HSs) and L2 learners of Russian. The eye movements of bilingual participants are compared to two control groups, monolingual adults and monolingual children. Following the introductory Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 we present the study that establishes basic eye-movement characteristics in reading for Heritage Speakers and L2 learners in connection to proficiency and linguistics factors of word length and frequency. Contrary to our predictions, we found that all eye-movement characteristics of high-proficiency HSs are different from …

Gender Differences In Personality: An Item-Level Analysis, Casey C. Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Personality is a social and organizational construct with a substantial history and discourse. One particular area in personality that is of interest is gender differences in personality. Gender differences have been found on scales measuring various aspects of personality, such as narcissism (Grijalva et al., 2014). While there are differences present in personality data, there hasn’t been a consistent explanation for why this occurs. This research looked specifically at the construction of personality items to begin to understand the differences in personality by gender. While social roles and social context are mostly referenced to inform the response patterns of men …

#Fired: Survivor Reactions To Facebook Firing In Organizations, Rachel Omansky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Facebook firing (i.e. employee termination due to social media activity) is a novel type of termination that has developed in recent decades. Though Facebook firing is becoming increasingly common, almost no research has been conducted on this practice. Using a multi-step, multi-method approach, this dissertation attempted to better define the construct and examine its implications for inciting negative reactions from surviving employees, or those employed with the terminated employee at the time of termination, who knew or knew of the employee but were uninvolved in the incident. Study 1 details an effort to identify Facebook firing’s characteristics through a case …

Spheres Of Identity: Theorizing Social Categorization And The Legitimacy Of Criminal Justice Officials, Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Identity is of central importance in the subjective experience of justice and assessments of legitimacy. In this study, the researcher explores whether perceptions of legitimacy are constructed differently across social group identity, particularly where social groups differ in relation to government (e.g., outgroup or ingroup). The analyses are conducted using data from a procedural justice study conducted in two U. S. cities. The findings suggest evidence of a generally similar construction of legitimacy though with important dissimilarities based on social group. Additionally, certain respondents’ narratives follow common narrative scripts in describing interactions with police, suggestive of a shared master narrative …

The Role Of Attentional Processes In The Associations Between Syndemics And Hiv Risk, Raymond L. Moody

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sexual minority men (SMM) remain the group most affected by HIV in the United States. The term “syndemic” has been used to describe high levels of comorbidity and additive effects that some factors—childhood sexual abuse, intimate partner violence, sexual compulsivity, substance use, and depression—have on HIV transmission risk behavior (TRB). Previous research provides support for an HIV syndemic among SMM, but mechanisms linking syndemic factors and driving the association between the factors and TRB are less understood. Some research suggests that executive attention and emotion dysregulation are linked with several syndemic factors. As such, the aims of this dissertation were …

Misuse Of Social Behavior In Down Syndrome: Caregiver Conducted Functional Analysis, Sally M. Izquierdo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Young children with Down syndrome often engage in charming non-contextual social behaviors. The developmental literature suggests that non-contextual social behaviors may function to escape from difficult activities to preferred social interactions. Caregivers may reinforce the behavior, perceiving it as evidence of the child’s social strength, when in fact, the pattern of behavior may also contribute to missed learning opportunities and a developmental gap between children with Down syndrome and their typically developing peers. We investigated the pattern by subjecting it for the first time to functional analyses. We identified non-contextual social behavior, confirmed function(s) of escape to attention, and compared …

Development And Validation Of A Multidimensional Scale For Measuring Public Confidence In The Criminal Justice System, Jimin Pyo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Two studies were conducted with an aim of developing multidimensional measures of public confidence that are conceptually integrated, psychometrically sound, and useful in predicting individuals’ law related behaviors. Study 1 involves two-phased construction of scale in which a preliminary inventory was generated (Phase 1) and then finalized after evaluating psychometric properties based on 304 US adults recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (Phase 2). As a result, six multidimensional scales were constructed respectively for measuring efficiency-, finality-, fairness-, strictness-, accuracy-, and transparency-oriented confidence. Despite more complexity of factor structures than originally expected, results of psychometric evaluation six scales of confidence …

Taking It To Heart: Trauma And Cardiovascular Risk In Court-Involved People Of Color, Tanya Erazo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research supports that racial disparities in health persist in the United States, with cardiovascular risk and cardiovascular disease remaining particularly high in low-income, communities of color (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013; Winkleby, Jatulis, Frank, & Fortmann, 1992). Public health literature often focuses on sociodemographic variables when assessing for health disparities without considering trauma or forensic populations. This dissertation provides an overview of literature that examines cardiovascular disease and its relationship to trauma, particularly in low-income, communities of color, and forensic populations. Although the dissertation culminates in providing results for an investigation …

Intra-Familial Microaggressions, Object Relations, And Racial Identity Formation In Multiracial Individuals, Ashley Danies

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The concept of the self in relation to others is referred to in psychoanalytic theory as one’s ‘object-relations’ (Kernberg, 1984). One of the earliest object-relationships is between baby and caretaker(s), through which the baby develops a sense of their own identity (Mahler, 1967; Sandler & Sandler, 1978). Multiracial individuals, or those whose families fall in two or more different racial/ethnic groups, report racial microaggressions from within their own families (Nadal, Sriken, Davidoff, Wong, & McLean, 2013). Notably, Multiracial individuals who have one White parent and one non-White parent face a greater possibility of rejection from one or both sides of …

Object Relations, Identity Formation, And Transitional Space In Religious Conversion, Arielle Rubenstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Conversion between broad religious groups is a life transformation undertaken by 15% of Americans, yet it has seldom been studied closely from a psychodynamic perspective. The psychological study of conversion began with a Protestant paradigm of sudden and total transformation of the self, and over time came to characterize different manifestations of conversion to more diverse religious groups. Research on conversion has primarily sought to understand whether conversion is essentially a psychopathological phenomenon, and has led to a multiplicity of both positive and negative, at times contradictory, findings. Research has shown that conversion is associated with insecure attachment, neurotic personality …

The Dynamic Linkages Between Structural Interdependencies, Computer-Mediated Communication, And Emergence In Newly Formed Virtual Groups, Erik Pesner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Virtual groups and teams are increasingly common in today’s organizations, particularly since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis. However, little is known about how specific design features predict communicative team processes and emergent phenomena in the days immediately following virtual team formation. This dissertation examined the effects of task interdependence (i.e., shared resources) and outcome interdependence (i.e., shared goals and feedback) on task-oriented and relationship-oriented electronic communication between group members and emergent group perceptions over a 5-day experimental simulation. Results showed that while the majority of hypotheses were not supported, three key findings were culled from the analysis. First, virtual …

Prep Use And Barriers To Use Among Adult And Young Sexual Minority Men In The United States, Thomas Whitfield

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) was approved for all individuals 13 years of age and older in May 2018. However, research pertaining to uptake has mostly focused on adult sexual minority men (SMM), leaving out many barriers and facilitators that may exist for those under 18 years of age. Two of the most important precursors leading to PrEP uptake identified in prior research are the perception of self as a PrEP candidate and having intentions to begin PrEP. Developmental and dual processing theories suggest that individuals who are younger make behavioral decisions differently from those who are older. Developmental theories suggest that, …