Psychology Commons^™

Different Levels Of Negative Emotions And Their Impact On Prosocial Behavior, Tsamchoe Dolma

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

In this fast and competitive world, people are becoming less likely to help others. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2014), the volunteerism rate reached the lowest point in 2013 since 2002. This decrease in prosocial behavior makes the study of prosocial behavior important, especially with the increasing numbers of charitable organizations and their competition to attract more donors and volunteers. Public service advertisements (PSA) are used as a common medium to garner help and support, and many of them use emotional appeals to enhance persuasion. The literature on persuasion shows that emotions have persuasive power to change people's …

Proceedings Of The 2nd Annual Cuny Games Festival, Robert O. Duncan, Joe Bisz, Francesco Crocco, Carlos Hernandez, Kathleen Offenholley, Maura A. Smale, Deborah Sturm, Cuny Games Network

Publications and Research

Proceedings of the CUNY Games Conference, held from January 16-17, 2015, at the CUNY Graduate Center and Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Health Games - Language and Composition - Design: Classroom Considerations - Games in the Physical Environment - Games and Behavioral Science - Play, Politics & Economics - Gaming Curricula, Disciplines & Programs - Gaming and History - Institutional Programming with Games - Philosophy and Roleplaying - Ed. Game Design: Strategy & Tactics - Repurposing Game Genres - Narrative, Storytelling & Games - Community & Social Justice - Extemporaneity - Personal & Social Transformation - Cognition, Design & Play …

Unequally Distributed Psychological Assets: Are There Social Disparities In Optimism, Life Satisfaction, And Positive Affect?, Julia K. Boehm, Ying Chen, David R. Williams, Carol Ryff, Laura D. Kubzansky

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Socioeconomic status is associated with health disparities, but underlying psychosocial mechanisms have not been fully identified. Dispositional optimism may be a psychosocial process linking socioeconomic status with health. We hypothesized that lower optimism would be associated with greater social disadvantage and poorer social mobility. We also investigated whether life satisfaction and positive affect showed similar patterns. Participants from the Midlife in the United States study self-reported their optimism, satisfaction, positive affect, and socioeconomic status (gender, race/ethnicity, education, occupational class and prestige, income). Social disparities in optimism were evident. Optimistic individuals tended to be white and highly educated, had an educated …

The Prospective Association Between Positive Psychological Well-Being And Diabetes, Julia K. Boehm, Claudia Trudel-Fitzgerald, Mika Kivimaki, Laura D. Kubzansky

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective: Positive psychological well-being has protective associations with cardiovascular outcomes, but no studies have considered its association with diabetes. This study investigated links between well-being and incident diabetes.

Methods: At study baseline (1991-1994), 7,800 middle-aged British men and women without diabetes indicated their life satisfaction, emotional vitality, and optimism. Diabetes status was determined by self-reported physician diagnosis and oral glucose tolerance test (screen detection) at baseline and through 2002-2004. Incident diabetes was defined by physician-diagnosed and screen-detected cases combined and separately. Logistic regression estimated the odds of developing diabetes controlling for relevant covariates (e.g., demographics, depressive symptoms). Models …

Life Balance – A Mindfulness-Based Mental Health Promotion Program: Conceptualization, Implementation, Compliance And User Satisfaction In A Field Setting, Lisa Lyssenko, Gerhard Müller, Nikolaus Kleindienst, Christian Schmal, Mathias Berger, Georg Eifert, Alexander Kölle, Siegmar Nesch, Jutta Ommer-Hohl, Michael Wenner, Martin Bohus

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Background

Mental health disorders account for a large percentage of the total burden of illness and constitute a major economic challenge in industrialized countries. Several prevention programs targeted at high-risk or sub-clinical populations have been shown to decrease risk, to increase quality of life, and to be cost-efficient. However, there is a paucity of primary preventive programs aimed at the general adult population. “Life Balance” is a program that employs strategies borrowed from well-established psychotherapeutic approaches, and has been made available to the public in one federal German state by a large health care insurance company. The data presented here …

Association Between Toxocariasis And Cognitive Function In Young To Middle-Aged Adults, Bruce L. Brown, Lance D. Erickson, Shawn D. Gale, Andrew Berrett, Dawson W. Hedges

Faculty Publications

The ascarid nematodes Toxocara canis (Werner, 1782) and Toxocara cati (Schrank, 1788) may infect humans resulting in toxocariasis. A prior study associated species of Toxocara Stiles, 1905 with cognitive deficits in children. To determine if a similar association between toxocariasis and cognition exists in adults, we analysed a large dataset from the United States’ Center for Disease Control’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We used linear-regression and multivariate models to examine the association between toxocariasis as assessed by the presence of anti-Toxocara IgG antibodies and three measures of cognitive function – simple reaction time (SRT), symbol-digit substitution (SDS) and …

Personalized Contact Strategies And Predictors Of Time To Survey Completion: Analysis Of Two Sequential Randomized Trials, Victor D. Dinglas, Minxuan Huang, Kristin A. Sepulveda, Mariela Pinedo, Ramona O. Hopkins, Elizabeth Colantuoni, Dale M. Needham

Faculty Publications

Background

Effective strategies for contacting and recruiting study participants are critical in conducting clinical research. In this study, we conducted two sequential randomized controlled trials of mail- and telephone-based strategies for contacting and recruiting participants, and evaluated participant-related variables’ association with time to survey completion and survey completion rates. Subjects eligible for this study were survivors of acute lung injury who had been previously enrolled in a 12-month observational follow-up study evaluating their physical, cognitive and mental health outcomes, with their last study visit completed at a median of 34 months previously.

Methods

Eligible subjects were contacted to complete a …

Behavioral Health Among Asian American And Pacific Islanders: The Impact Of Acculturation And Receipt Of Behavioral Health Services On Depression And Anxiety, Mari E. Yamamoto

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

Behavioral health models improve access to mental health care by integrating psychology and medicine. While integrated care is supported among the general population, less research focuses on the model with Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs). AAPIs are low treatment-seeking due to various barriers (e.g., limited English proficiency, stigma, insurance) and acculturation stressors. Using hierarchical linear modeling, this study examined longitudinal depression (PHQ-9) and anxiety (GAD-7) growth trajectories among AAPIs within a behavioral health model and the moderating impact of acculturation and frequency of behavioral health visits. The best fitting model was from a sample who (N = 354; …

Adaptive Functioning Deficits And Internalizing Problems In Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Hayley A. Dauterman

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

The current study assessed whether deficits in adaptive functioning skills mediated the association between diagnostic status and internalizing symptoms in young children with and without an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis. Participants included 70 children, 26 with ASD and 44 who were typically developing (TD), between the ages of 3:0 and 6:11 years. Parent reports of children’s adaptive functioning skills were collected for the following constructs: functional communication, social skills, self-help skills, and independence. Additionally, parent and teacher reports of children’s internalizing symptoms were obtained. Results indicated that diagnostic status significantly predicted parent reported internalizing symptoms such that the ASD …

Is The Reception Better On A Different Channel? Interpersonal Communication Satisfaction Of Introverts And Extraverts During Face-To-Face Versus Instant Messenger Conversations, Christina S. Whalen

Scripps Senior Theses

Satisfying communication is sometimes hard to come by. Due to differences in social expression and reception, individuals tend to express and receive communication in dissimilar ways, especially within different social contexts. In the present study, the effects of personality and channel of communication on individual and mutual satisfaction after a conversation will be tested. Participants will take a personality test to determine introversion or extraversion. They will then be randomly assigned to conversation pairs which will communicate either through an instant messaging (IM) program or face-to-face (FtF). Satisfaction will be determined using a modified version of the Interpersonal Communication Satisfaction …

The Impact Of Jury Instruction Formatting And Insanity Defense Consistency On Juror Knowledge And Decision-Making, Elaine Tsao

Scripps Senior Theses

Past literature has indicated that jury instructions are not written in ways that result in optimal juror comprehension, and can be improved through various ways of simplification. Prototypes of the insanity defense have also been found to influence juror decision-making. Additionally, individual factors such as attitudes toward and myth endorsement of the insanity defense can influence verdict. The following study explored these effects of jury instruction format, insanity defense consistency, and participant factors on jury understanding and decision-making. Three hundred and eighty jury eligible community members were recruited online for this study. Participants were first asked questions pertaining to attitudes …

Cognitive Enrichment Intervention For Captive Orcas, Eve Copeland

Senior Projects Spring 2015

The goal of the present proposal was to design a cognitive enrichment program to reduce stereotypy and physiological signs of stress in captive orcas (Orcinus orca). This intervention consists of an object discrimination and retrieval task, and was designed to simulate orcas’ behavioral need of hunting. Seaworld’s three parks were used as locations for each of the group conditions: the Intervention Group, the Increased Training Group, and the Control Group. The hypothesized results demonstrate that the Intervention Group will show the smallest amount of stereotypic behavior at each interval of the experiment and that stereotypic behavior has a …

Sociality Of Gaze Following In Black And White Ruffed Lemurs: Following A Live Person Versus A Photograph, Hannah Sterling Mason

Senior Projects Spring 2015

One measure that is commonly used to assess a species’ mental complexity is its gesture-following ability, or the ability to follow a human gesture (such as a gaze or a point) to choose between potential food sources. Animals that have demonstrated this ability include dogs and primates. The high-level explanation of gesture following is that it signifies an animal’s ability to understand the human’s knowledge of where the food is and his intent to communicate that knowledge. However, gesture following could also be explained as being a low-level mechanism relying on directional bias. Looking at the eyes of another individual …

Beneath The Human Capital Investment: Modelling Student Debt Awareness And A Critical Examination Of Financial Aid Materials Using Construal-Level Theory, Sophia Alecia Sutcliffe

Senior Projects Spring 2015

As student loans are increasingly utilized to invest in higher education, it is important to consider how students perceive and understand their loan commitments. Study 1 surveyed a sample of 147 Bard students on their attitudes towards debt and how much they knew about their loan commitments. Over half of the students sampled could not report how much they currently owed in student loans (N=76, 51.4%), 23.8% (N=35) could not identify the types of loans they held, 25.2% of participants could not provide an estimate of how much debt they expect to graduate with within a range of $5,000- $10,000, …

Game And Train: A Targeted Game-Based Mobile Intervention For The Treatment Of Incarcerated Psychopathic Offenders, Sydney Lauren Abualy

Senior Projects Spring 2015

The treatment of psychopathic offenders has been a neglected topic in the clinical field. Most interventions available have failed to address core psychopathic traits and instead, use generalized treatments that solely target criminal risk reduction. These current treatments have been shown to yield unsuccessful results related to behavior change and lead to recidivism. The proposed intervention, Game and Train, acts as a response to the inadequate treatments currently available. Two hundred male incarcerated psychopathic offenders will be recruited and asked to participate in an intensive 6-week intervention, Game and Train, that will be accessed via a smart mobile device. The …

Commentary: Applying Positive Development Principles To Group Interventions For The Promotion Of Family Resilience In Pediatric Psychology, Jessica C. Kichler, Astrida S. Kaugars

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

As described in the call for this special issue, resilience is often defined as “achieving one or more positive outcomes despite exposure to significant risk or adversity” (Hilliard, Harris, & Weissberg-Benchell, 2012, p. 739). Resilience is particularly relevant to pediatric psychology, as youth and their families are tasked with overcoming risk factors simply by the nature of a child’s diagnosis of a disease/chronic illness and subsequent medical management demands. In addition to identifying key resilience factors within this population, it is critical to develop empirically supported clinical interventions to promote healthy biological, psychological, and social development; reduce youth psychopathology; and …

Discrepancy Between Parents And Children In Reporting Of Distress And Impairment: Association With Critical Symptoms, Laura Bein, Megan Lynn Petrik, Stephen M. Saunders, James V. Wojcik

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background: We examined discrepant parent–child reports of subjective distress and psychosocial impairment.

Method: Parent–child pairs (N = 112 pairs) completed the Health Dynamics Inventory at intake for outpatient therapy.

Results: Average parent scores were significantly higher than average child scores on distress, impairment, and externalizing symptoms, but not internalizing symptoms. There were significant associations between parent–child discrepancy (i.e. children who reported greater distress or impairment than parents or vice versa) and child endorsement of several notable symptoms (rapid mood swings, panic, nightmares, and suicidal ideation).

Conclusion: Parents tended to report more externalizing symptoms, distress, and impairment than children reported; …

When Auditory And Visual Signal Processing Conflict: Cross-Modal Interference In Extended Work Periods, Stephen J. Guastello, Katherine Reiter, Matthew Malon, Anton Shircel

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Auditory and visual stimuli presented at intervals of about 300 m sec often produce miss errors in one or the other channel, which result from a bottleneck in a neural circuit associated with executive memory. The present study examined the possibility that cross-modal interference could carry over to performance units that transpire over 3 min or longer. An N-back task performed by 113 undergraduates with simultaneous auditory and visual stimuli was organised into 1-min blocks of 20 trials in 2-back and 3-back conditions. Results showed that impairment of visual processing was more frequent than impairment of auditory processing under …

How Do Grateful People Cope?: Exploring The Mechanism Of Positive Reappraisal, Debra Elise Hutchison

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

"After one has experienced a trauma, an important aspect of recovery is posttraumatic growth. Posttraumatic growth helps people move past negative life events with good mental health. Research has indicated a relationship between post-traumatic growth and gratitude. However, there has been little investigation into the links between gratitude and post-traumatic growth. The current study asked participants to write about three different types of negative life events. These writing samples were then coded for the use of positive reappraisal. In addition to the writing samples, participants were asked to complete questionnaires assessing their gratitude, coping style and satisfaction with life. Results …

A New Measure Of Math Shame And A Synthesized Theory Of Math Anxiety, Leah M. Parker

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

"Research on math anxiety has historically explored cognitive and emotional factors independently. This study attempted to connect these areas of research through the lens of math shame. While discussing a more integrated approach to understanding mathematics anxiety, this research explored math anxiety through a formal validation of the newly developed Math Shame Scale (MSS). Data were collected from 489 volunteers at a regional university in the inland northwestern United States. Online questionnaires completed by the participants were used to assess the validity and reliability of the MSS. The results supported the reliability and validity of two separate scales ofthe MSS, …

Effects Of Early Intervention On Pragmatic Language In Children With Autism, Charlotte L. Tomevi

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

"Autism appears in the first three years of a child's life, involving impairments in social and verbal and nonverbal communication. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder with core deficits in social and communication, struggle to effectively accomplish social interactive goals through pragmatic language. Early intervention programs may strengthen expressive communication and increase functional communication by some children with autism. The current study examined if participation in an intensive early intervention program increases functional communication in social situations with children with autism. I hypothesized that participation in an early learning program would increase functional communication in social situations for children with autism. …

A State-Level Analysis Of Deinstitutionalization And The Impact Of Chlorpromazine, Joni Maria Lee Pow

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

US state mental hospitals were rapidly depopulated in the decades following 1955. This was a demographic phenomenon of major proportion. The introduction of antipsychotics in 1954 has often been considered instrumental in this population movement. To date, studies of the role of antipsychotics in deinstitutionalization have been state specific, methodologically weak, inconsistent in their findings and fail to consider inter-state differences which could reveal previously unknown causal variables. This study used US Census data and pooled cross sectional time-series analysis to estimate the impact of chlorpromazine and policy changes on mental hospital population movement. To that end, the population movement …

Evaluation Of Behavioral Distress Tolerance Task Stability Across Settings, Cassie Overstreet

Theses and Dissertations

Distress tolerance (DT) is considered to be a trait-like factor encompassing an individual’s behavioral and/or perceived ability to withstand negative affective states. Behavioral measures of DT are being increasingly utilized, however, these tasks have been implemented in studies prior to thoroughly establishing the psychometric properties. The present study aimed to evaluate the reliability of two DT behavioral tasks (Breath-Holding Task [BHT], computer-based Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task [PASAT-C]) in different settings (laboratory, online) among a sample of college students. Participants completed the tasks during two sessions, approximately one week apart. 52 participants were in the laboratory condition, and 65 were …

Looking “Upstream”: The Role Of Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction In Service Members’ Future Orientation, Bradley J. Antonides

Theses and Dissertations

OBJECTIVE: This study explores psychological experiences that may influence service members’ self-concepts and future orientations. As stable, optimistic, future orientations have been associated with resilience to psychological distress and suicidality (Johnson, et al., 2011), it is worthwhile to explore how service members’ attitudes toward the future might be shaped in the context of intrapersonal and interpersonal experiences. METHOD: Data were collected from service members of the Virginia National Guard (N = 192) and included a Transportation unit, an Engineer unit, an Infantry unit and a group with no specific unit affiliation or substantive military experience. The study is a …

Stakeholder Views On Behavioral Health Care In The Pediatric Primary Care Setting: A Qualitative Approach Towards Integration Of Care, Alexis Quinoy

Theses and Dissertations

The pediatric primary care setting has been discussed as playing a central role for the identification and treatment of behavioral and mental health disorders in youth. Although this setting is in a unique position to provide these services, there are many barriers to the integration of mental health care and pediatric primary care. The aim of this study is to examine perspectives of multiple stakeholders (i.e., patient, parent, nurse, resident, faculty, clinic director) in a pediatric primary care setting to explore barriers, behavioral and mental health needs, and facilitators to the integration and provision of mental health care for children …

An Examination Of Weight, Weight Bias, And Health Care Utilization And Attitudes Among Emerging Adults, Jessica M. Mccauley

Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with overweight/obesity have been found to exhibit more negative attitudes toward health care and disproportionate rates of health care delay and avoidance, compared to their healthy weight peers. The present study sought to examine potential mechanisms through which weight status influences health care utilization and attitudes. Six hundred and thirty-three students completed a questionnaire measuring weight status, perceived weight bias, patient-provider relationship, and health care utilization and attitudes. Although the majority of the paths in the proposed theoretical mediation model were supported by the present findings, there was no support for the anticipated link between perceived weight bias and …

Nourish-C: Implementing A Family Based Weight Loss Intervention In A Church Community, Jacqueline Woods

Theses and Dissertations

Increasing rates of obesity across all race, ethnic, gender, and age groups over the past thirty years have generated significant public health concern. Black children face disproportionately higher risk for overweight and obesity compared with their White peers. Substantial evidence suggests that parent involvement improves pediatric obesity treatment outcomes. Moreover, churches are feasible and culturally congruent places to host health promotion interventions within the Black community. The current study examined the feasibility of disseminating an existing pediatric obesity intervention, NOURISH, in Black church communities. Twenty-five families participated in baseline assessment of the NOURISH-C. Five churches hosted the intervention and eight …

The Influence Of Executive Functions And Emotion Regulation On Teacher-Rated Social Behaviors In Middle Childhood, Tennisha N. Riley

Theses and Dissertations

Early social interactions are important to developing and maintaining positive social relationships in childhood. It is well understood that the social development is dependent on a number of developmental changes in both cognition and emotion. While most research has focused on cognitive and emotional models of social behaviors separately, a consideration for research investigating social behaviors is to examine cognitive processing and emotional processing concurrently. The current work focuses on the relationship between the executive processes involved in cognition and emotion regulation, and the influence on adaptive (social skills) and maladaptive (aggressive behavior) social behaviors. Specifically, the reformulated social behavioral …

Heterosexism, Mental Health, And Suicide: Investigating The Moderating Role Of Coping In Sexual Minority Men, Michael A. Trujillo

Theses and Dissertations

This cross-sectional study examined if heterosexist experiences (harassment/rejection, workplace/school discrimination, other) were associated with suicidality (suicidal ideation, suicide attempts) and symptoms of anxiety/depression, and if symptoms of anxiety/depression were associated with suicidality in a national sample of sexual minority men (SMM; N = 89). The study also examined if depression mediated the relationship between heterosexist events and suicidal ideation and whether active and disengaged coping styles moderated this relationship. All associations were significant and positive, with harassment/rejection and symptoms of depression generally independently associated with outcome variables. Symptoms of depression were a significant mediator of the harassment/rejection-suicidal ideation relationship; however, …

The Role Of Psychology In Integrated Primary Care For Complex Patients: Effects On Mental Health, Utilization Of Medical Services, And Physiological Markers Of Health, Danielle C. Worthington

Theses and Dissertations

This study served as an initial evaluation of integrated psychology services within a clinic designed to serve uninsured patients with complex medical concerns and high utilization histories at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia. The current study evaluates patient outcomes, and more specifically, it further quantifies and describes the role that psychologists play in the primary care setting and their impact on utilization of medical care and in improved health outcomes. Additionally, the study evaluates psychologists’ success at treating mental and behavioral health conditions within the primary care model. The present study demonstrates that patients with complex medical …