Psychology Commons^™

2 Years On: Loss And Grief Amidst The Covid-19 Pandemic, Eman H. Nabulsi

Psychology and Counseling Theses

This study sought to examine the variability and impact of different kinds of losses experienced during COVID-19 and how people reacted to and coped with those losses. The most common loss reported by individuals was the loss of social connection, while death-related losses were identified as the most impactful loss experienced. Results suggest that people responded in a myriad of ways, including increased cautiousness for health safety, refocusing their attention on important life matters, and finding alternative ways to connect with others. Furthermore, this study found that individual factors such as intolerance of uncertainty and perceived social support may play …

Coping Strategies And Self-Compassion As Protective Factors In The Infant And Early Childhood Mental Health Workforce, Megan Wolff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The mental health field experiences high levels of stress, resulting in a greater risk of poor professional quality of life, likely exacerbated by the additional stress associated with COVID-19. The present study examined the effect COVID-19 stress had on the professional quality of life of the infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) workforce and whether coping strategies and self-compassion acted as protective factors. Results indicated that higher COVID-19 stress was associated with higher burnout and secondary traumatic stress (STS) and lower compassion satisfaction (CS). The results also showed that the pathway from COVID-19 stress to burnout was moderated by …

Fertility Counseling For Couples, Brennan Peterson, Kristy Koser

Marriage and Family Therapy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

This chapter addresses the role, and importance, of individual counseling and psychotherapy in providing psychological assistance and support to patients who are struggling with infertility and loss. Depression and anxiety are the two most frequent emotional sequelae of the infertility experience. The chapter therefore speaks not only to what factors contribute to making fertility counselors effective in their work, but also addresses specific treatment approaches that can yield positive outcomes in working with this unique population. These approaches include psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive–behavioral therapy (including dialectical behavior therapy and trauma-focused therapy), and supportive counseling. A brief history and description of each …

Coping In The Time Of Covid-19: Mindsets And The Stories We Tell, Whitney Becker, Jeni L. Burnette, Crystal L. Hoyt

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Across two studies (N = 803), we explored how meaning-making systems (i.e., mindsets and narrative identity) are related to each other as well as to coping in the wake of challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Study 1, we find that struggle-is-enhancing, relative to struggle-is-debilitating, mindsets predicted stories defined by elements of personal control with opportunities for growth (agency) and an emphasis on the positive, rather than on the suffering (redemptive). Stronger enhancing mindsets and agentic as well as redemptive narratives predicted more adaptive coping, including less negative affect, less avoidance, and positive expectations for future success. In …

The Coping Strategies Of Older Adults With Age Related Vision Loss (Arvl) – A Narrative Account, Zakara J. Stampp

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The goal of this study was to share the stories of older adults with age-related vision loss (ARVL) and how they have coped to maintain meaningful occupational engagement. Grounded in a constructivist paradigm, data collection and analysis were guided by the narrative inquiry methodology. The participants consisted of six older adults aged 60 or older, diagnosed with one of the following ARVL conditions: macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and/or glaucoma. Participants were recruited from vision loss non-profit organizations such as the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) and the Alliance for Equity of Blind Canadians (AEBC). One older adult was …

Ableist Microaggressions And Well-Being: Investigating The Moderating Effect Of Coping Strategies, Whitney Morean

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

Purpose/Objective: In prior research, ableist microaggressions have previously correlated with higher depressive symptoms in samples of members of the disability community. Since well-being is more than merely the absence of distressing mental health symptoms; the present study examines the relationship between ableist microaggressions and well-being and whether different coping strategies moderate the relationship. Research Method/Design: Adults (N = 132) who self-identified as having a disability or chronic health condition that significantly impacts one or more major life activities, were recruited online to complete a survey. Measures of well-being, ableist microaggressions, coping, and depression symptoms were administered via an online …

The Role Of Confrontation Effectiveness For Women's Psychological Wellbeing After A Sexist Event, Shelby Helwig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes three experimental studies investigating how confronting sexism impacts college-aged women. In Studies 1 and 2, we investigated how confronting effectively versus ineffectively influenced women’s imagined (Study 1) and actual (Study 2) psychological wellbeing. In Study 3, we investigated how imagining the costs and benefits of confronting sexual harassment impacted women’s confrontational behavior and negative affect. All three studies supported the conclusion that an effective confrontation is a goal for most confronters (Study 3) and whether or not a confrontation is effective influences women’s imagined (Study 1) and actual (Study 2) psychological wellbeing. Beyond this, all three studies …

Lifetime Racism And John Henryism On Cognition And Cardiovascular Health In Black Men, Roy Mitchell

Dissertations

Lifetime racism is a type of chronic stress that is often accompanied by depression. Racism is the experience of many Black men because of several psychosocial stressors such as reduced resources and institutional barriers, to name a few. Active coping is typically utilized by Black men as a consistent means to reduce the negative outcomes linked to racism, however, this up-tempo coping style can contribute to poor cardiovascular health and cognitive impairment over time. The present study aimed to provide data to support the effects of lifetime racism and active coping on cardiovascular health and cognition. There were three hypotheses …

Successful Women Majoring In Stem Have Higher Optimism And Lower Stigma Consciousness, Bridget Muise, Bettina Casad

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. We had 607 women majoring in STEM complete an online questionnaire reporting levels of coping, rejection sensitivity, stigma consciousness, and optimism and grade point average (GPA) was collected from school records. Results showed that higher rejection sensitivity predicts lower GPA even with higher coping skills. This indicates that even with good coping skills, higher fear of rejection for one's gender had a stronger effect on the academic performance of women in STEM. Additionally, higher optimism predicts higher GPA, but only for women with lower gender stigma consciousness. Optimism seems …

“I Wonder If Being Broke Is Worth It For School”: An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Anxiety, Well-Being, And Coping Strategies Among Undergraduate Students During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Rebekah Woodburn

Bridges: An Undergraduate Journal of Contemporary Connections

This study investigated the relationship between stressors, coping strategies, and well-being among undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Undergraduate students were asked to complete a series of measures designed to assess their general health levels, financial anxiety, subjective well-being, and resilience. In addition, they were asked open-ended retrospective questions regarding the coping strategies they had used over the course of the school year and the perceived effectiveness of these strategies. It was hypothesized that stress would be prevalent among many undergraduate students who face moderate to high anxiety levels. They would use inadequate coping strategies to improve their emotional well-being. …

Coping With Climate Change, Andrea Yj Mah

Masters Theses

Climate change is a source of anxiety and stress. To be resilient to the changes that are occurring, individuals must cope with that stress. Because there are many ways that people might manage stress we examined variation in coping strategy use among Americans who reported some concern about climate change to understand generally how people cope with such stress, and whether it can be predicted from individual difference factors, namely degree of climate change concern and political ideology. We examined these variables specifically because in the study of responses to climate change, conservatives and liberals often report divergent beliefs, attitudes, …

An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of The Lived Experience Of Parental Caregivers For Children With Severe Epidermolysis Bullosa, Michael J. Valentine

Theses and Dissertations

Providing care to child with a chronic, rare diseases has been identified as a major life stressor with a myriad of negative physical and mental health consequences. These stresses have previously been found to create burden that may impair caregiving efforts and increase the risk of mortality for both the caregiver and affected child. Many rare diseases affect children. It is not known how caregiver burden and the source of stress varies by disease. Qualitative methods have been used to understand caregiver experience with the rare disease, epidermolysis bullosa (EB), but no such studies have occurred in the United States. …

Post-Traumatic Growth, Resilience, And Coping In Aya Cancer Survivors, Julia Piluk

Theses and Dissertations

Adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors experience psychosocial outcomes of cancer that may cause a positive or negative outlook. Qualitative data (N=26) was collected and analyzed for subthemes of post-traumatic growth, resilience, and coping methods. Results suggest that overall, AYA cancer survivors report a sense of hope for their future.

Demographic Disparities In College Students’ Psychological Adjustment During Covid-19, Anna Marston

Honors Theses

The goal of the present study was to explore psychological adjustment during the COVID-19 pandemic in undergraduate college students. Since March 2020, undergraduates have endured extended lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing efforts that may affect mental health, especially for historically marginalized groups such as women and people of color. Furthermore, research on coping styles suggests that those who cope with a stressor such as a pandemic in healthy, adaptive ways may be protected against psychological difficulty. In February/March 2021 (Time 1) and again in April/May 2021 (Time 2), college students (N = 277) from two residential liberal arts institutions were …

Moving On After Critical Incidents In Health Care: A Qualitative Study Of The Perspectives And Experiences Of Second Victims, Melanie Buhlmann, Beverley Ewens, Amineh Rashidi

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Aims To gain a deeper understanding of nurses and midwives' experiences following involvement in a critical incident in a non-critical care area and to explore how they have 'moved-on' from the event. Design An interpretive descriptive design guided inductive inquiry to interpret the meaning of moving-on. Methods Purposive sampling recruited 10 nurses and midwives. Data collection comprised semi-structured interviews, memos and field notes. Data were concurrently collected and analysed during 2016–2017 with NVivo 11. The thematic analysis enabled a coherent analytical framework evolving emerging themes and transformation of the data into credible interpretive description findings, adhering to the COREQ reporting …

Typologies Of Stress Appraisal And Problem-Focused Coping: Associations With Compliance With Public Health Recommendations During The Covid-19 Pandemic., Justin F. Landy, Aya Shigeto, Daniel J. Laxman, Lawrence M. Scheier

Faculty Articles

BACKGROUND: Given prior research finding that young adults are less likely to engage in recommended public health behaviors (PHBs) than older adults, understanding who is and is not likely to engage in PHBs among young adults is crucial to mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, this study examined how typologies of stress appraisal (SA) and problem-focused coping (PFC) among young adults were associated with compliance with public health recommendations during the pandemic.

METHODS: An online sample of young adults in the United States, ages 18-35, was recruited during the early …

The Role Of Companion Animals In The Lives Of University Students During The Coronavirus Pandemic, Cindy Ly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The coronavirus 2019 pandemic introduced a new array of daily stressors, known as daily hassles, to the lives of university students. This study used the Stress, Appraisal, and Coping theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) to understand how university students were affected by daily hassles and how they were coping with hassles-based stress, as well as how their companion animals provided social support during the stress and coping process. In this study, it was hypothesized that: (1) university students who experienced more daily hassles would experience higher perceived stress and lower overall life satisfaction; (2) university students who made effective use …

Individual Differences In Response To Hostile And Benevolent Sexism In A Stem Interview Context: The Moderating Role Of Behavioral Activation, Elizabeth Kiebel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Women continue to face sexism in workplace contexts, especially those that are male dominated, such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Yet, women often fail to confront the sexism they experience, despite confrontation being an effective way to cope with and prevent future harassment (Fitzgerald et al., 1995; Magley, 2002). To date, no one has assessed the potential moderating role of personality differences related to approach motivation on women’s confrontation of sexism. In this study, women were exposed to either a hostilely sexist or benevolently sexist question during a mock job interview that was purportedly being conducted as part …

Editorial: Creativity And Innovation In Times Of Crisis (Covid-19), Min Tang, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Zorana Ivcevic

Psychology Faculty Publications

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has brought the world society, economy and people's daily lives into a crisis. At the time we are writing the editorial, this crisis has been accompanying us for almost 2 years and will still have far-reaching consequences beyond the spread of the disease. The focus of the current Research Topic is the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on creativity and innovation and vice versa, as well as their relationship to resilience and coping.

We are pleased to have received many submissions from authors representing different disciplines and countries. Through rigorous reviews, …

Predicting Depression, Anxiety, And Burden: Self-Compassion, Self-Esteem, And Coping In Caregivers Of Individuals With Dementia, Claire Grant

ETD Archive

Caregivers of Individuals with Dementia (IWDs) face unique stressors as a result of their role as caregiver. While the negative outcomes associated with providing care for an IWD are well established, including increased levels of burden and increased symptoms of depression and anxiety, the predictors of these well-being outcomes are not. Based on previous research, in the proposed study, predictors include self-compassion, self-esteem, and coping techniques. It is currently unknown how these variables impact outcomes like depression, anxiety, and burden individually or how they fit together into a larger theoretical model of caregiving. This line of research has three main …

Personality And Coping In Response To Traumatic Experiences In Emerging Adult Women, Julia J. Beier

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

Intimate dating violence is a common occurrence, especially among women (CDC, 2019). Because this type of trauma is so prevalent, it is important to explore how experiences of it impact women and how they cope with its effects. This study explored how individual differences impact the ways in which young women cope with trauma, as well as whether the type of trauma moderate the link between individual differences and coping strategies. Participants were 304 college-age women from a large university in the southeastern United States. Trauma was select items from the Trauma History Questionnaire, while coping was measured using the …

Mediators Between Adversity And Well-Being Of College Students, Maria Kalpidou, Adam M. Volungis, Cassandra Bates

Psychology Department Faculty Works

Although the concurrent link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and both physical and mental health is established, little is known about the mechanisms that explain it. We investigated the relationship between ACEs and well-being and the mediating roles of coping, executive function (EF), and cognitive failure in a non-clinical sample of college students. Participants (N = 194) completed behavioral measures and self-reports. More than half of the sample had at least one ACE. Correlational and mediational analyses examined the relationships between ACEs, college adaptation, psychopathology, substance use, coping, and cognitive failure. ACEs did not correlate with indices of EF …

Racial Differences In Stranger Harassment Coping Strategies, Megan Quintiliano

Selected Full-Text Master Theses 2021-

Stranger harassment is a pervasive, recurrent and, potentially damaging problem that requires women to cope with harmful effects. Stranger harassment is also a field that lacks in satisfactory research. With the aim of helping female victims and due to previous studies primarily focused on how White women in particular cope the present work will examine the racial differences in stranger harassment coping strategies. Additionally, understanding whether ideologies like system justification are associated with why women cope through certain methods is equally as important and will also be examined in the present work. The present study used a questionnaire method at …

Examining The Impact Of Parental Racial Socialization And Critical Consciousness On Black Adolescents’ Coping With Racism-Related Stress, Chandler Alexandra Golden

Theses and Dissertations

In addition to universal stressors, Black adolescents also experience racism-related stressors. The physical and emotional consequences of racism-related stressors can be harmful to Black youth. To mitigate racism-related stress, Black youth may engage in various forms of coping. Critical consciousness and racial socialization are culturally relevant factors that have been protective against the negative impact of racism-related stress, with coping as one mechanism that undergirds this protection. Moreover, research has also begun to theorize critical action as a type of racialized coping. Past research has largely examined the impact of critical consciousness and racial socialization on coping separately and yielded …

The Lived Experience Of Individuals Thinking About Food And Coping With Stress, Tobi Martin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Stress results in many people altering their eating patterns, often consuming food high in sugar and fat. Such behavior is a factor in the growing obesity epidemic and can potentially cause the development of chronic diseases, resulting in employment problems and billions of extra dollars spent on national health care programs. Researchers have focused on the concept of “emotional eating” while overlooking the overarching research question of this study, which was about exploring the experience of individuals using eating behavior as a coping mechanism to deal with stress. All responses were viewed through the lens of social cognitive theory. Interviews …

The Role Of Rumination In Predicting Sleep Quality, Christina Harper

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown links between rumination and sleep quality, giving some evidence to coping mechanisms such as mindfulness and alcohol use that may affect rumination and sleep quality (Crain et al., 2017; Lydon et al., 2016). This study aimed to explore how rumination, mindfulness, alcohol use, and alcohol-related consequences contribute to sleep quality. Specifically, this study hypothesized that rumination, mindfulness, and alcohol use would predict sleep quality. Additionally, this study hypothesized that alcohol use, mindfulness, and alcohol related consequences would moderate the relationship between rumination and sleep quality. Participants completed the study online and were recruited from both a university …

Interpersonal Violence And Mental Health Outcomes: Mediation By Self-Efficacy And Coping, Eunice Magalhaes, John H. Grych, Celia Ferreira, Carla Antunes, Ana Prioste, Ines Jongenelen

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

There is a compelling need to explore the mechanisms linking violence to mental health. This study tested the mediating role of self-efficacy and coping in the association between victimization and mental health. Data were obtained from 422 adults (aged 18-77; M = 30.05; SD = 10.93). Self-efficacy and maladaptive coping strategies mediated the association between physical victimization and anxiety, and the association between psychological victimization and satisfaction with life anxiety and depression. Self-efficacy and adaptive coping also mediated the association between psychological victimization and satisfaction with life. This study provides important implications for research and practice.

Internal State Language And Coping In Narratives Of Covid-19: Relation To Psychological Well-Being, Divya Pradipkumar Patel

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The Covid-19 pandemic had global consequences for billions of individuals, including high rates of mortality and morbidity, lost income, and prolonged social isolation. In the short and long term, this crisis will have an impact on people's lives and mental health. The current correlational study looks at how internal state language, stress, and coping are used in college students' narratives concerning the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown experiences in relation to psychological well-being. A sample of 216 undergraduate students completed surveys that recorded their narrative experiences of COVID-19, psychological well-being, depression severity, and measure of how stressful occurrences in one’s life …

Does Attachment Predict Coping Strategies? An In-Depth Look At Millennials During Covid-19, Clinton Johnson

Art Therapy | Master's Theses

Individuals form attachments during the early stages of their lives, with the caregiver serving as their first attachment figure. An individual's attachment style may predict how an individual will react to challenges in life. Responses to challenges may be either adaptive (solution-focused) or maladaptive (solution-avoidant). The objective of this study was to examine how millennial adults demonstrate adaptive coping skills across attachment styles. This unique study explored the relationship between attachment style and coping strategies among five millennial adults. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling via social media and were included if they met the criteria of being a millennial …

Qualitative Exploration Of The Impact Of Bed Bug Infestation In Rural Settings, Dorota Anna Krotkiewicz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractBed bugs have been common household insects for centuries and are a challenge to eradicate, but the extent to which bed bug infestations psychologically impact individuals and families is largely uninvestigated. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate the lived experiences of families in rural areas in Nevada who had experienced bed bug infestations. The transactional model of stress and coping was used as a framework for this research. Participants were recruited using posters placed in public areas, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten participants to gather data. Major and minor themes and meanings were derived from …