Psychology Commons^™

Effects Of Peritraumatic Alcohol Intoxication On Intrusive Memories Following Exposure To An Analog Trauma, Anna E. Jaffe

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Intrusive memories and associated symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) represent a significant public health problem, often leading to persistent physical and psychological difficulties experienced by victims long after the traumatic event, contributing to healthcare costs and loss of productivity. Research examining etiological factors that contribute to PTSD is needed in order to expand basic knowledge and to inform the development of prevention and intervention strategies. Although acute alcohol intoxication has the potential to impact established risk factors for the development of intrusive memories (e.g., via stress response, cognitive processing), and trauma—particularly sexual assault—often occurs under the influence of alcohol, …

Subjective Expected Utility And Sexual Coercive Behaviors: Examining The Role Of Decision Processes, Alcohol Consumption, And Rape-Supportive Attitudes Among College Males, Antover P. Tuliao

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Prior studies have established the role of rape-supportive attitudes and alcohol consumption in sexual coercive behaviors among college students. However, less research has examined the role of more proximal variables such as decision processes. Utilizing the subjective expected utility (SEU) model of decision making, this study aimed to examine how decisions are made in a date-rape scenario utilizing a vignette methodology. The SEU model posits that decisions to engage in a behavior are contingent on perceived utility of the action, perceived probability of the utility occurring, perceived cost of the behavior, and the perceived probability of the cost occurring. Higher …

Early Head Start Home Visitor's Identification Of Risk For Maltreatment, Alayna Schreier

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Infants and toddlers enrolled in Early Head Start are at increased risk for child maltreatment due to the presence of numerous factors across a developmental-ecological framework, such as poverty, parental mental health problems, and developmental disability (e.g., Belsky, 1993; Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Within Early Head Start, home visitors are in a unique position to identify the families most likely to experience maltreatment. However, research has demonstrated that home visitors are often ill-equipped to identify and address risk factors such as parental mental health concerns, substance abuse, and domestic violence (Azzi-Lessing, 2011; Tandon, Mercer, Saylor, & Duggan, 2008). Further, little is known …

Just Here For Moral Support: A Path Analysis Of Depression And Social Support Networks, Jordan E. Marshall

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Social support has been shown to be associated with lower depression scores in a variety of populations. Using a series of questionnaires, Leahy-Warren, McCarthy, and Corcoran (2011) found significant negative relationships between functional social support and postnatal depression as well as between informal social support and postnatal depression. Grav et. al, (2011) conducted a similar study on the general population, and found that perceived support was significantly correlated to depression. Research suggests that there are gender differences in the relationship between social support and depression. Utilizing data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam, Sonnenberg et. al, (2013) found a lack …

Just Here For Moral Support: A Path Analysis Of Depression And Social Support Networks, Jordan E. Marshall

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Social support has been shown to be associated with lower depression scores in a variety of populations. Using a series of questionnaires, Leahy-Warren, McCarthy, and Corcoran (2011) found significant negative relationships between functional social support and postnatal depression as well as between informal social support and postnatal depression. Grav et. al, (2011) conducted a similar study on the general population, and found that perceived support was significantly correlated to depression. Research suggests that there are gender differences in the relationship between social support and depression. Utilizing data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam, Sonnenberg et. al, (2013) found a lack …

Defining Dimensions In Schizotypy: Factor Structure Replication And External Validation Of The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire – Brief Revised Updated (Spq-Bru)., Elaina Montague

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Background: Schizotypy is a construct that captures quantitative dimensions of the psychosis continuum from clinical to non-clinical expressions. The purpose of this study was to determine the factor structure and criterion validity of a newly revised self-report measure, the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire–Brief Revised Updated (SPQ-BRU; Davidson, Hoffman, & Spaulding, 2016) for predicting later cognitive-perceptual experiences in college undergraduates.

Method: The data analytic sample was comprised of 2,474 undergraduate students (female = 71.9%) attending a university in the Midwest. First, we aimed to identify a model of best fit by comparing latent measurement models of schizotypy using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). …

Sleep, Executive Control, And Psychopathology In Children: A Longitudinal Study And An Examination Of Brief Sleep Treatment, Katherine M. Kidwell

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Researchers have acknowledged that poor sleep is not merely a symptom of psychopathology but also a contributing factor to the development of psychopathology in children (Walker & Harvey, 2010). However, more research is needed to explicate the associations among sleep, executive control (EC), and psychopathology. Specifically, there are few studies using longitudinal designs and limited research on how treating sleep can improve mental health symptoms. This dissertation provides a conceptual framework for the associations among sleep, EC, and psychopathology. The conceptual framework is bolstered by two studies. Study 1 is an examination of early sleep problems and preschool EC as …

Global/Local Processing In Incidental Perception Of Hierarchical Structure, Mark S. Mills

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The goal of the current thesis is to provide a framework for investigating and understanding visual processing of hierarchical structure (i.e., local parts nested in global wholes, such as trees nested in forests) under incidental processing conditions—that is, where processing of information at global and local levels is both uninformative (cannot aid task performance) and task-irrelevant (need not be processed to perform the task). To do so, a novel method combining two widely-used paradigms (spatial cueing and compound stimulus paradigms) is used for implicitly probing observers’ perceptual representations over the course of processing. This compound arrow cueing paradigm was used …

Predicting Sexual Revictimization In Childhood And Adolescence: A Prospective Examination Using Ecological Systems Theory, Samantha L. Pittenger

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Child sexual abuse is a prevalent problem in the United States and is associated with revictimization: a victimization episode perpetrated by a different individual and occurring subsequent to initial abuse experiences (Barnes, Noll, Putnam, & Trickett, 2009). While evidence shows that 20-39% of sexual abuse victims report revictimization within childhood or adolescence, much of the research to date has focused on its occurrence in adulthood. Thus, there is a limited understanding of the pathways to revictimization and its associated outcomes for youth. The present study examined predictors of sexual revictimization within childhood and adolescence using ecological theory, which includes individual, …

Examination Of Methamphetamine Reinstatement In Female And Male Rats: A Pre-Clinical Model Of Relapse, Steven T. Pittenger

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Methamphetamine (meth) dependence is often characterized by persistent and chronic relapse (i.e., return to drug use). There is growing pre-clinical and human evidence suggesting females are at greater risk to relapse. The set of studies presented in this dissertation extended this limited evidence by identifying sex-dependent neural substrates correlated with meth-triggered reinstatement (Experiment 1) and by examining sex-differences in reinstatement triggered by drugs of abuse that are commonly co-abused with meth (Experiment 2). Female and male rats were trained to self-administer meth, received subsequent extinction sessions, and then tested for reinstatement. In Experiment 1, rats were perfused following reinstatement testing …

Decision Making Theories Of Retaliation, Katlyn S. Farnum

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In 2013, the Supreme Court decided, in University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v Nassar, that Title VII retaliation claims should be interpreted under the stricter but-for causality instructions. This requires claims of retaliation to show that the plaintiff’s discrimination complaint (or involvement in a discrimination claim) is the direct cause of the adverse action, as compared to a motivating factor that is required under the less strict motivating factor causal instructions. The current research examines the role of regulatory focus (promotion v. prevention), causal instructions, employment action (promotion v. dismissal), and number of claims considered on both juror …

Tired, Hungry, And Grumpy: Understanding The Direct And Indirect Relationships Among Child Temperament, Sleep Problems, Feeding Styles, And Weight Outcomes, Alyssa Lundahl

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Research indicates that temperament is related to later obesity risk in both childhood and adulthood (e.g., Anzman-Frasca et al., 2012; Darlington & Wright, 2006), but less research has examined the mechanisms underlying this relationship. It is likely that temperament influences factors that increase one’s risk for obesity, such as parental feeding practices and child sleep problems. As such, the primary aim of the present study was to provide rigorous concurrent and longitudinal examinations of temperament, feeding practices, sleep problems, and child zBMI in a sample of healthy preschool children. In addition, the moderating role of SES was examined. A secondary …

The Contribution Of A Polygenic Risk Score To Individual Differences In Aggressive Behavior: The Moderating And Mediating Roles Of Stressful Events, Christa C. Christ

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Although aggression can be beneficial in certain situations (e.g. playing sports, self-defense), excessive and inappropriate aggression can lead to adverse physical and psychological health outcomes in both perpetrators and victims. Genetic susceptibility to negative environments can increase the likelihood of aggressive behavior in the context of situational risk factors. Low efficiency of serotonin neurotransmission and exposure to stress appear to play a prominent role in the etiology of aggressive behavior. A set of three studies assessed the contribution of polygenic risk (TPH2 rs4570625, SLC6A4 5-HTTLPR+rs25531, HTR1B rs13212041, MAOA uVNTR) to aggressive behavior, including alcohol-related aggression, in university students at varying …

Sexual Minority Stigma And System Justification Theory: How Changing The Status Quo Impacts Marriage And Housing Equality, Jordan A. Blenner

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Sexual minorities (i.e. lesbians and gay men) experience systemic discrimination throughout the United States. Prior to the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), in many states, same-sex couples could not marry and sexual minorities were not protected from sexual orientation housing discrimination (Human Rights Campaign, 2015). The current, two-experiment study applied Jost and Banaji’s (1994) System Justification Theory to marriage and housing discrimination. When sexual minorities question dissimilar treatment, thereby threatening the status quo, members of the heterosexual majority rationalize sexual minority discrimination to maintain their dominant status (Alexander, 2001; Brescoll, Uhlmann, & Newman, 2013; Citizens for Equal …

Construction Of An Anti-Mexican American Bias Scale And Its Validation, Leslie N. Martinez

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of the dissertation is to develop a meaningful measure of Anti-Mexican American attitudes and to test that measure for its utility in predicting biased attributions for Mexican Americans. Attention has mainly focused on bias against Blacks, and this has produced important gaps in the understanding of race/ethnic bias that must be addressed. For the past few decades, the number of racial minorities, especially the number of Latinos/Hispanics, has been on the rise. The psychometric properties and validation of the new Anti-Mexican American Attitude Scale (AMAAS) were investigated through study 1 and study 2. The principal components analysis pulled …

Exposure And Responses To Pre-Incident Behavior In A College Student Sample, Brandon A. Hollister

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Campus threat assessment has included gathering, assessing, and intervening in situations with pre-incident behavior. However, with limited general population examination, concerns regarding the prevalence, assault correspondence, and reporting of pre-incident behavior exist. With an undergraduate student sample (n = 1,063), this dissertation utilized a survey regarding exposure and response to campus safety concerns. In comparison to students not witnessing concerns, students seeing problematic behavior had higher self-reported antisocial history and campus connectedness. Students witnessing physical assault were more likely to see multiple pre-incident behaviors, multiple incidents of pre-incident behavior, threatening statements, and threatening gestures from the perpetrator than students witnessing …

Escalating Risk And The Moderating Effect Of Resistance To Peer Influence On The P200 And Feedback-Related Negativity, John Kiat, Elizabeth Straley, Jacob Cheadle

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Young people frequently socialize together in contexts that encourage risky decision making, pointing to a need for research into how susceptibility to peer influence is related to individual differences in the neural processing of decisions during sequentially escalating risk. We applied a novel analytic approach to analyze EEG activity from college-going students while they completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), a well-established risk-taking propensity assessment. By modeling outcome-processing-related changes in the P200 and feedback-related negativity (FRN) sequentially within each BART trial as a function of pump order as an index of increasing risk, our results suggest that analyzing the …

A Comparison Between Telehealth And Face-To-Face Brief Alcohol Interventions For College Students, Sarah Christine King

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Problematic alcohol use is a common occurrence among college students. While empirically supported interventions exist, their access is typically limited to those who attend large universities. In the health care field there has been an expansion of services provided via telehealth to increase client access to treatment. However, the evidence is mixed regarding the effectiveness of face-to-face versus telehealth interventions and there is a gap in the literature regarding the use of telehealth interventions for brief alcohol interventions in college students. As such, the purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a well-validated brief alcohol screening and …

Avoidance As An Explanatory Mechanism For Poor Outcomes In Treatment For Substance Use Disorders, Andrew Oakland

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Substance use disorders (SUDs) are prevalent and lead to significant impairments in people's lives in a variety of ways. One area which has gained attention is that of SUDs and their high comorbidity with mood and anxiety disorders. Many theories exist as to why these conditions often occur together, and the self-medication hypothesis is one that has perhaps the most research and general support behind it. The self-medication hypothesis states that individuals use substances to reduce negative affect which creates a feedback loop of negative reinforcement. Individuals then develop problematic substance use in addition to emotional dysregulation. One recent theory …

Mixed-Effects Location-Scale Models For Conditionally Normally Distributed Repeated-Measures Data, Ryan Walters

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Hypotheses about psychological processes are most frequently dedicated to individual mean differences, but individual differences in variability are likely to be important as well. The mixed-effects location-scale model estimates individual differences in both mean level and variability in a single model, and represents an important advance in testing variability-related hypotheses. However, the mixed-effects location-scale model remains relatively novel to empirical scientists as statistical software is often handicapped by more complex models and a paucity of methodological studies exist examining the statistical properties of this model.

This dissertation investigates the mixed-effects location-scale model through the development of open-source software for its …

Self-Protective Behaviors And Campus Threat Assessment, Sarah Hoff

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Extreme acts of targeted violence on postsecondary campuses have prompted many institutions to commit more resources to increasing safety while maintaining an open and creative environment. Investigations after incidents of targeted violence on campuses have identified pre-incident behaviors, or “red flags,” that were observed before the perpetrator engaged in violence. Threat assessment is a proactive approach to preventing acts of targeted violence that was initially developed by members of the United States Secret Service (USSS), and has since expanded into the context of postsecondary campuses. Research has shown some individuals may engage in self-protective behaviors in order to reduce their …

Who’S To Blame? Blame Attributions And Obesity-Related Law And Policy, Lindsey E. Wylie

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Obesity is a foremost public health concern that has received considerable attention. Because of this so-named “epidemic,” law-makers are challenged with implementing effective policies that the public supports. Little is known, however, about the antecedents and consequences of these policies—especially attributions of blameworthiness. Study 1 developed the Obesity Blame Attribution Scale (OBAS). Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that controllability, responsibility and dispositional blame were separate constructs and were part of a higher-order dispositional blame factor. Situational blame was a separate higher-order factor, not correlated with dispositional blame, consisting of blame toward the food industry and towards government policy. Using the OBAS, …

Premature Termination Of Outpatient Psychotherapy: Predictors, Reasons, And Outcomes, Kristin N. Anderson

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Premature termination is a pervasive barrier to effective implementation of outpatient psychotherapy that frequently results in decreased treatment gains for clients and lowered morale for therapists. Unfortunately, despite its high prevalence and cost, premature termination remains poorly understood. The current study addressed some gaps in the literature using a national online survey design that permitted investigation of a broader range of potential predictors, exploration of more specific reasons for premature termination, and examination of longer term treatment outcomes than has been possible in most previous research. Participants were 278 workers from Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk, an online labor market regularly used …

Double Dissociation Of The Anterior And Posterior Dorsomedial Caudate-Putamen In The Acquisition And Expression Of Associative Learning With The Nicotine Stimulus, Sergios Charntikov

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable deaths worldwide. This habit is not only debilitating to individual users but also to those around them (second-hand smoking). Nicotine is the main addictive component of tobacco products and is a moderate stimulant and a mild reinforcer. Importantly, besides its unconditional effects, nicotine also has conditioned stimulus effects that may contribute to the tenacity of the smoking habit. Because the neurobiological substrates underlying these processes are virtually unexplored, the present study investigated functional involvement of dorsomedial caudate putamen (dmCPu) in the conditioning processes with nicotine as a conditioned stimulus. Rats were trained …

Stress And Eyewitness Memory: Timing Of Stressor And Association With Cortisol Stress Responding, Timothy Ryan Robicheaux

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Witnesses to and victims of criminal events can face significant stress during such encounters. Stress responding consists of a multitude of responses (e.g., anxiety, cardiovascular changes, cortisol responding). In the current study, I utilized a physiological stressor (i.e., the cold-pressor test) and a facial recognition paradigm to examine the relationship between cortisol change following stress exposure and memory accuracy. More specifically, I examined whether cortisol levels at specific memory stages (i.e., acquisition and retrieval) predicted stress responding differently.

Findings suggested that individual differences in cortisol stress responding to the cold-pressor test predicted facial recognition when peak cortisol was at a …

Parenting Young Children In Contemporary Chinese Society: A Mixed Methods Study, Lixin Ren

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine contemporary Chinese parents’ childrearing expectations, goals, and practices for their preschool-aged children. Participants included 154 parents with preschool-aged children (children’s mean age was 52.48 months with a standard deviation of 6.84) and 27 teachers recruited from seven preschools located in three small cities in northeastern China. In the quantitative phase, parents completed questionnaires measuring parental expectations (social-emotional and academic expectations), parenting styles, child social competence, and child pre-academic performance. The head teacher of each target child reported the child’s social competence and pre-academic performance. It was hypothesized that parental expectations …

A Quantitative Analysis Of The Value-Enhancing Effects Of Nicotine, Bupropion, And Varenicline In Male And Female Rats, Scott Barrett

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Smoking and tobacco dependence are serious health concerns in the United States and globally. Reward via the pharmacological effects of nicotine are believed to be the principal motivating factor that drive tobacco dependence. Research reveals differences in sensitivity between males and females to the motivational effects of nicotine in tobacco use. Enhancement of reinforcement value of non-nicotine rewards contributes to overall nicotine reward. Similar value-enhancing effects have been observed by the two most commonly prescribed smoking cessation aids, bupropion and varenicline. The present dissertation investigated the value-enhancing effects of nicotine, bupropion and varenicline in both male and female rats using …

The Effect Of Yoga Lessons On Young Children's Executive Functioning, Heidi L. Beattie

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Individual differences in preschool and school-aged children’s attention, inhibition and spatial working memory were examined after exposure to a yoga intervention. Previous research has found that exposure to yoga has improved attention in both adults and children. Previous research, however, is limited in regards to examining this relationship in a preschool-aged population. The purpose of the current study is to examine and compare the relationship between preschool-aged as well as school-aged children’s attention, inhibition, and spatial working memory abilities for children who participated in a yoga intervention and children who do not participate in a yoga intervention. Twenty-six 4 to …

Executive Control In Hispanic Children: Considering Linguistic And Sociocultural Factors, Miriam M. Martinez

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Executive control represents a collection of high-order cognitive processes that are associated with important child outcomes, including academic achievement and social competencies. Despite the burgeoning interest in examining the development of executive control, less is known about the development of these skills among ethnic minority children. Hispanic children are currently the largest ethnic minority group in the United States and their diverse sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds provide an excellent context to study the influence of linguistic and sociocultural factors on the development of child executive control. The purpose of the three complementary studies reported in this dissertation is to contribute …

Effects Of Alcohol Intoxication And Neurocognitive Processing On Intimate Partner Aggression, Rosalita C. Maldonado

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Intimate partner aggression (IPA) is a serious public health concern that occurs with alarming frequency, results in both physical and psychological harm to victims, and costs billions of dollars per year due to healthcare costs and loss of productivity. These adverse consequences highlight the need to understand risk factors of IPA perpetration. Attempts to identify these risk factors have focused mostly on broad factors that may predispose someone to perpetrate aggression, including individual demographic and dispositional characteristics (e.g., low socioeconomic status, psychopathy). Although valuable, this knowledge cannot reveal the specific circumstances that may prompt an individual to perpetrate aggression against …