Psychology Commons^™

Ethnic-Racial Identity And Psychological Adjustment: An Examination Of Identity Coherence And Identity Confusion As Mediators, Cara Allen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The current dissertation project investigated relationships among ethnic-racial identity, identity coherence, identity confusion, and self-esteem in an ethnic minority sample. Consistent with previous research, ethnic-racial identity was related to identity coherence. Also consistent with previous research were the findings that identity coherence and identity confusion are differentially associated with self-esteem. Mediation analysis revealed that the relationship between one form of ethnic-racial identity, ethnic-racial identity commitment, and self-esteem was mediated by identity coherence. This mediated relationship was not moderated by gender, ethnicity, or immigration status. However, the relationship between identity coherence and self-esteem was moderated by college experience.

Thought-Action Fusion: Comparative Relationship With Symptoms Of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder And Eating Disorders, Samuel Cares

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

There are many similarities between the presentations of individuals with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and individuals with eating pathology. These include similar obsessive thoughts, repetitive actions, and shared personality characteristics, such as perfectionism. However, similarities may extend beyond that of DSM-based symptomatology to include an important cognitive process called thought-action fusion (TAF). Thought-action fusion is a construct derived from the OCD literature wherein individuals feel that there may be a connection between their thoughts and real-world outcomes. There has been considerable research illustrating the impact TAF has on individuals with OCD, both in terms of development and maintenance of obsessions and …

Investigating Achievement And Mental Health Through The Dual-Factor Model, Kelly Clark

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

School professionals are charged not only with advancing students’ content knowledge, but also with developing their social and emotional skills; however, adolescence is a period in which many individuals experience declines in academic performance and mental health. The current study investigated associations between grit, academic grit, and growth mindset with academic achievement, subjective well-being, and psychopathology. Second, this study examined the demographic makeup of mental health groups posited by the dual-factor model of mental health, as well as group-level differences in grit, academic grit, growth mindset, and academic achievement across mental health groups identified through latent profile analysis. Adolescents (N …

Harsh Parenting And Familism: Examining The Influence Of Cultural Schemata On Parental Reactions To Child Transgressions, America Lizbeth Davila

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Milner’s (1993, 2000) Social Information Processing (SIP) model of child physical abuse proposes that pre-existing schemata (e.g., belief structures, scripts) influence how parents process information during parent-child interactions, which in turn influences parental responses (e.g., corporal punishment). The purpose of the present study was to examine attitudinal familism (beliefs about unity and commitment/duty towards family) as a pre-existing schema that influences parents’ interpretations, attributions, affective, and behavioral responses to child transgressions. Parents (N = 106) were asked to read vignettes describing child transgressions and report their anticipated cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses. In addition, parents reported on their perceived social …

The Roles Of Rumination And Social Support In Victimization And Depression, Nicole Dorio

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Unfortunately, bullying is a common phenomenon many adolescent students experience during middle school (National Center for Education Statistics, 2015). Given the negative outcomes often associated with experiencing victimization, it is important to understand the underlying mechanisms involved in these associations as well as potential protective factors (Nakamoto & Schwartz, 2010). Using 89 students in grades 5 through 8, the current study focused on the negative outcome of depression and it explored rumination as a mediator in this association. Additionally, the roles of gender and social support (from parents, teachers, and close friends) were explored within this mediation model as moderators. …

A Comparison Of Bdsm Sadism And Everyday Sadism In Multiple Adult Populations, Jennifer Erickson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Research has begun to investigate subclinical levels of sadism including “everyday sadism:” an enjoyment of cruelty in normal, everyday situations. Thus far, subclinical sadism has been conceptualized as inherently antisocial, as with Internet trolls. I examined a potentially prosocial manifestation of sadism: self-identified sadists in the BDSM community who cause pain only to consenting partners. 532 BDSM practitioners and nonpractitioners completed measures of everyday sadism with consent explicit, nonconsent explicit, or consent ambiguous, and known correlates of everyday sadism (empathy, HEXACO traits, and Dark Triad traits). Consistent with hypotheses, the general adult sample demonstrated negative correlations between everyday sadism and …

The Emotions Of Science: Using Social Media To Gauge Public Emotions Toward Research Topics, Cole C. Freeman

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Online and in the real world, communities are bonded together by emotional consensus around core issues. Emotional responses to scientific findings often play a pivotal role in these core issues. When there is too much diversity of opinion on topics of science, emotions flare up and give rise to conflict. This conflict threatens positive outcomes for research. Emotions have the power to shape how people process new information. They can color the public's understanding of science, motivate policy positions, even change lives. And yet little work has been done to evaluate the public's emotional response to science using quantitative methods. …

In The Know Or Out Of The Loop: Examining The Impact Of (Not) Knowing High Potential Designation, Elizabeth A. Hanrahan

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The cultivation and development of high potential employees has been a main focus of most talent management sectors of organizations, regardless of field or context. While practitioners have been moving in this space for quite a while, academicians are only recently starting to conduct investigations on high potential employees. There are many critical aspects of best in class high potential programs – the accurate identification of high potential employees being one of the first pivotal steps.

High potential identification can be tricky for several reasons: the very definition of potential is oftentimes unclear, traditional selection decisions made for high potential …

Untwining Threads: Second Wave Hmong Parents’ Conceptualizations Of Ways To Support Their Adolescent Children’S Education, Mao Sea Lee

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This research identifies the support systems for adolescents’ education within the second wave Hmong refugee family setting. The study examines the parents’ perspectives on their own support systems for their adolescents’ education. The work focuses on studying both the instrumental support and psychological care these parents provide their teenage children and interprets why these parents choose to provide these resources. Studying these parents’ ways of supporting their adolescents provided a more in-depth understanding of why these recent refugee parents choose to invest of their resources to their adolescents’ education and, subsequently, what education means to them. The research also brought …

An Examination Of Quantity And Quality Of Maternal Consulting Predicting Adolescents' Socio-Emotional Outcomes, Natalie Low

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This observational investigation had two aims. The first aim examined the independent associations of the quantity and quality of maternal consulting and early adolescents’ socio-emotional outcomes. The second aim assessed the moderation effect of the quality of maternal consulting on the relationship between the quantity of maternal consulting and early adolescents’ outcomes. Seventy early adolescents (Mage=12.39 years old) and their mothers participated in the study. The sample was 51.4% girls and 48.6% boys. Mothers and their early adolescents were video recorded discussing typical hypothetical peer-related situations. Conversations were coded for the amount of consulting and four aspects of quality: feasibility, …

An Examination Of Reassurance-Seeking In Relation To Scrupulosity And Contamination Concerns, Katie H. Mangen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Reassurance-seeking is a safety-seeking behavior that has been observed across symptom dimensions of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), including in individuals with scrupulosity, or moral/religious-based OCD. The current study sought to build upon existing literature by providing an examination of reassurance-seeking in the context of scrupulosity as com- pared with contamination concerns, which represent a different symptom dimension of OCD. Participants (N = 63) completed a battery of questionnaires prior to and following an administration of the Sentence Task—a laboratory-based task intended to elicit distress relevant to an obsessive belief known as thought-action fusion. The study utilized the TRSS-PM, a newly adapted …

Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia, Behavioral Inhibition/Activation, And Behavioral Response To A Distressed Infant Simulator In Emerging Adults, Erin R. Mckay

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Caregiver sensitivity and intrusiveness during infancy are predictive of the development of self-regulation, joint-attention, and cognitive ability. However, few studies have examined predictors of caregiver responses to infant distress. Of particular note is vagal tone, specifically respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a physiological measure of top-down self-regulation. Previous work has identified a relationship between RSA, as well as other measures of caregiver self-regulation, with caregiver sensitivity and intrusiveness. The current study also examined additional predictors of caregiver responsiveness, behavioral inhibition and activation, which was conceptualized as a bottom-up system of self-regulation due to its influence on motivation and personality. It was …

The Impact Of Attributional Style On Adolescent Stress And Mental Health: Exploring Domain-Specific Stressors, Lauren Therese Mcneela

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The present study examined the relation between domain-specific stressors (i.e., interpersonal versus noninterpersonal) and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms among 118 high school students (Mage = 16.65 years old; 64% female; 79.8% Caucasian). Additionally, this study assessed the impact of negative attributional style on each of these associations, furthering the current literature on the Cognitive Diathesis-Stress model among adolescents. Using the lavaan package of RStudio (Rosseel, 2012), path analyses were run to examine the relationship between domain-specific stressor and adolescent outcomes. The present study found that interpersonal, but not noninterpersonal stressors were associated with internalizing symptoms, while neither interpersonal nor …

Investigating The Behavioral Effects Of Juvenile Stress In The Prairie Vole Model, Marigny C. Normann

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Early life stress during the juvenile period, such as emotional neglect, interpersonal difficulties, or other forms of non-violent maltreatment can have consequences into adulthood. Specifically, the negative effects include increased risk of psychiatric or physical illnesses, social deficits, and maladaptive behavioral responses to stress. Since these effects have far-reaching implications that can negatively alter later behavior and physiology, the present study assessed the effects of early life social stress on later social and affective behaviors in a social rodent species – the prairie vole. The prairie vole displays behavioral, cardiovascular, and neuroendocrine responses to social stress similar to those of …

An Online Randomized Controlled Trial Of Mindful Parenting Among Parents Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Emily Elizabeth Padgett

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience stress and other psychological symptoms associated with their role as a parent. Mindfulness, defined as purposefully paying attention and nonjudgmentally remaining in the present moment, and mindful parenting, the application of mindfulness to the parent-child relationship, have been found to improve psychological functioning for individuals more broadly and parents specifically. Additionally, experimental mindful parenting interventions have been found to improve multiple outcomes in parents, including mindfulness, mindful parenting, parenting stress, anxiety and depression, and self-compassion. However, experimental research to date has not yet examined an online, self-guided mindful parenting intervention, …

To Be (A Doctor) Or Not To Be – An Exploration Of The Abd Experience Of Female Minority Doctoral Students In Cacrep-Accredited Counselor Education Programs, Tracey Kim Snow

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This is a dissertation that focuses on the lived experiences of culturally diverse female counselor education candidates on their dissertation experience. Chapter 1 addressed the background of the issue and the need for such a study. It also addresses the research questions that drove the study. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive literature review of the main topics. Literature and research on six areas form this study’s conceptual framework: (a) “All but Dissertation” (ABD) status, (b) persistence, (c) the historical context of social justice within counselor education and supervision, (d) women’s development, (e) female doctoral students, and (f) culturally diverse doctoral …

The Relationship Between Emotional Symptoms And Bully Role Behavior Engagement Among Boys With Autism Spectrum Disorder And Their Typically Developing Peers, Dashae Rodriguez-Harris

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Research has shown that individuals with autism spectrum disorder may be at a heightened risk of being involved in bullying behaviors compared to their typically developing peers because of the nature of ASD, with their difficulties in social interactions playing a key role. Engagement in bully role behaviors has a variety of poor outcomes for individuals with ASD, such as self-injurious behaviors, anxiety, school refusal, and damaged self-esteem. This is why it is important to have a clear understanding of the prevalence rates of bullying involvement for individuals with ASD and how that involvement may impact them. The aim of …

Bully Participant Role Behavior And Social Support From Teachers And Classmates: A Longitudinal Conditional Process Analysis, Logan Riffle

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Youth are involved in a range of bullying-related behaviors. Unfortunately, engagement in such behavior is associated with a variety of poor outcomes and thus it is important to understand the mechanisms behind this phenomenon as well as associated variables such as perceived teacher support and classmate support, as both types of support have been associated with engagement in bullying situations. Using Bronfenbrenner’s Social Ecological Model (Bronfenbrenner, 1977) as a backdrop, the aim of the current study was to investigate the longitudinal associations between bullying participant role behavior and perceived support from teachers and classmates. Specifically, this study examined the mediating …

Maternal Parenting Behavior, Socioeconomic Risk, And Toddler Effortful Control: The Mediating Role Of Infant Attention, Leanna D. Rosinski

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Effortful control (EC), the regulatory component of temperament, has important implications for children’s emotional, behavioral, and physical health. Greater infant attention regulation, a skill which develops prior to the emergence of EC, predicts better EC later in childhood. In addition, higher socioeconomic status (e.g., greater education, higher income) predicts better infant attention regulation and child EC. Negative parenting, characterized by intrusive, insensitive interactions with expressions of negative affect, has been found to predict poorer infant attention and child EC. Given these findings, the current study examined infant attention as a mediator between socioeconomic status, negative parenting, and toddler EC. A …

Becoming Gatekeepers: A Constructivist Model Of Gatekeeper Development In Counselor Education, Natasha Joy Salier Schnell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The need for diligent gatekeeping practices in counselor education is well documented in professional literature, ethical guidelines, and standards of practice; although much has been written about gatekeeping, an extensive examination of the literature did not reveal any studies on how and where counselor educators are learning to be gatekeepers. Therefore, this study sought to ascertain what counselor educators identify as meaningful learning experiences and critical incidents that facilitated their sense of efficacy and preparedness as gatekeepers and to examine how counselor educators acquire and develop the competence to become proficient gatekeepers in the counseling profession. Phenomenological interviewing and analysis …

Examining Boundary Conditions To The Attitude Consistency Effect, Dylan Blaum

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Research on the impact of attitudes on argument processing has found that attitudes and beliefs can impact evaluation and processing, but has not deeply explored boundary conditions to this attitude consistency effect. This dissertation investigates three types of boundary conditions to this effect: whether the quality of the argument matters (argument quality), whether the individual’s strength of that attitude matters (attitude strength), and whether the evaluative nature of the task matters (task).

In Experiment 1, I found some support for argument quality as a boundary condition to the attitude consistency effect. Attitude consistent arguments were rated as higher quality/stronger than …

Adolescents’ Student Engagement As A Moderator Of The Association Between Bullying Role Behaviors And Internalizing Problems, Morgan Eldridge

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

School professionals are charged not only with advancing students’ knowledge, but also with developing their social and emotional skills; however, adolescence is a period in which many risk factors are present within a student’s environment and a critical goal for school reform is to identify features of the school environment that can be altered to improve student outcomes. The current study investigated associations between bullying participant role behaviors, broad internalizing problems, and student engagement in school. Adolescents (N = 429) completed the following self-report scales: Bullying Participant Behavior Questionnaire (BPBQ; Demaray & Summers, 2008), Student Engagement in School Questionnaire (SESQ; …

Feelings Of Incompleteness As Linking Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder And Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Examination Using A Computerized Approach-Avoidance Task, Sarah R. Lee

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the construct of incompleteness as it relates to both Obsessive-

Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Incompleteness is a

construct which was developed to describe symptoms of OCD which are not accounted for using

a traditional, harm-avoidance and fear-based conceptualization. Unlike harm-avoidance based

OCD, in which an individual engages in compulsions to prevent some feared outcome,

individuals with incompleteness-based OCD engage in compulsions to resolve an internal feeling

that their experience is uneven, asymmetrical, incomplete, or not-just-right.

Recently, researchers have begun to examine feelings of incompleteness in the context of

other disorders, such as ASD. …

Writing And Well-Being: Comparing Varied Expressive Writing Tasks On Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms And Life Satisfaction, Zena Dadouch

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Frontline treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been extensively researched, and there is significant support for their efficacy in decreasing PTSD symptomatology and improving life quality. However, the treatments seem to be burdensome, as a significant minority does not improve or drops out before the continuation of treatment. This pattern could be explained partially by the time commitment, cost of and access to treatment, and the resulting emotional overload. Therefore, it is useful to explore other avenues that could lead to improvements in symptomatology and well-being and that are more accessible and manageable. One possible direction is expressive writing …

Perceived Dissimilarity And Meeting Interpersonal Engagement: A Within-Person Investigation, Ruth Aniekan Imose

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

I tested a new model of perceived dissimilarity on meeting interpersonal engagement drawing from models of diversity and emotional labor and conceptualizations of interpersonal engagement in the literature. In doing so, this investigation merged the burgeoning meeting science field with more recent focuses and methods from the emotional labor literature to advance our understanding of how diversity impacts the individual experience of dissimilarity in the workplace. Furthering the notion of dynamism in diversity’s effects, the current study investigated meetings as a context that may affect shifts in one’s perception of dissimilarity due to variable attendee composition.

The perception of dissimilarity …

Shyness Mindset And Sexual Harassment Responses Among Female College Students, Jessica Rose Winder

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Sexual harassment is a common problem that has negative consequences on society as a whole and on individual well-being. Confronting sexual harassers has been shown to be an effective response. Victims of sexual harassment are also encouraged to report harassment. Sexual harassment has been associated with internalizing responses, such as depression and decreased self-esteem. These responses could negatively influence confronting and reporting behaviors. This study draws from previous mindset research. Results from this prior research showed evidence that shyness mindset affects responses to peer victimization among adolescents and college students. This study hypothesized that shyness mindset among female college students …

The Process Of Therapeutic Change In The Attention Training Technique, Benjamin J. Laman-Maharg

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Background: An unacceptably large proportion of individuals remain symptomatic after receiving first-line interventions. The attention training technique (ATT) is a potentially effective treatment augmentation and standalone treatment that may help improve the treatment of psychological disorders. The machanisms of therapuetic change of ATT remain understudied. This study is a randomized controlled trial of ATT compared to progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) that examined mindfulness and attentional control as potential mechisms of therapeutic change.

Method: A convenience sample of 64 participants (Mage = 20.13, SD = 3.65; 42.2% Male; 64.1% non-Hispanic White; 23.4% Black; 9.4% Hispanic/Latino; 3.1% Other) were randomly assigned to …

A Rasch Analysis Of The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale Adapted For Children, Daniel Strissel

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale Adapted for Children (MAAS-C; Lawlor et al., 2014) was developed using traditional psychometric methods to measure dispositional mindfulness. The MAAS-C is based on the MAAS, which is one of the most widely used mindfulness scales (Medvedev et al., 2016). Evidence from Rasch analyses conducted on the MAAS suggested local dependence of items (Goh et al., 2015) and the need for modifications, including a rescoring algorithm (Medvedev et al., 2016). The aim of this study was to examine how the MAAS-C performs when evaluated with Rasch analysis using a sample of 406 fifth- and sixth-grade children. …

Links Between Parenting Behaviors And Anxiety Among Early Adolescents, Jacqueline Marie Pabis

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study aimed to specify factors, particularly parenting behaviors and gender, that influence the development of anxiety symptoms during early adolescence. Past research tends to incorporate a large age range; thus, this study focused on early adolescence which involves a change in the dynamics of the parent-child relationship such that children become less dependent on their parents. The study collected data from 153 middle school students (Mage = 12.71 years; 54.2% female; 48% White) using an online data collection instrument during study hall periods in the school day. Partial correlations revealed that rejection among both parent figures is the greatest …

The Role Of Prediction Error In A Behavioral Memory Reconsolidation Intervention For The Treatment Of Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms: Original Proposal And Update Due To The Covid-19 Global Pandemic, Benjamin Darnell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

A failure to naturally resolve posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) following exposure to a traumatic event is associated with costly and debilitating consequences. Interventions for PTSS are successful for only 40%-70% of patients, and treatment drop-out and symptom relapse are common. Recent research targeting memory reconsolidation mechanisms to augment the memory may provide important information regarding possible paradigms for improving the efficacy of trauma-focused interventions. This research indicates that the use of prediction error during a memory activation cue may result in memory destabilization allowing for the destabilized memory to be updated. Considering that PTSS are inherently memory-dependent, an intervention targeting …