Clinical Psychology Commons^™

Testing A Comprehensive Model Of Body Image, Anxiety, And Eating Pathology Among College Men, Emily Katherine White

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Historically, researchers conceptualized eating disorders, subclinical eating pathology, and negative body image as issues that only affected women. However, more recent research suggests that men experience significant body image concerns that mirror current Western cultural ideals of appearance (i.e., desire to attain a lean, muscular physique with very little body fat). Theoretically, men with a strong desire to achieve this cultural ideal (i.e., drive for muscularity) may experience dissatisfaction with their appearance (i.e., muscle dysmorphia), unpleasant psychological states (e.g., social physique anxiety), and engage in potentially harmful behaviors related to eating pathology (e.g., body checking) that lead to clinical impairment …

Cognitive Restructuring For The Treatment Of Gambling Related Thoughts: A Systematic Review, Maxime Chrétien, Isabelle Giroux, Annie Goulet, Christian Jacques, Stéphane Bouchard

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Cognitive restructuring is the best practice for treating gambling related thoughts, but some therapists do not apply this technique due to a lack of training regarding its application. The increase of skill game players (e.g., poker) entering treatment adds a challenge for therapists because these gamblers present with different thoughts than those of other gamblers usually encountered in treatment (e.g., EGM). This systematic review aims to describe how cognitive restructuring is carried out with gamblers, particularly skill game players, based on the evidence available in empirical studies that include cognitive interventions for gambling. Of the 2607 studies collected, 41 were …

Indicators Of Clinically Significant Gambling Treatment Gains, Meredith K. Ginley, Walter R. Winfree, James P. Whelan, Rory A. Pfund, Andrew W. Meyers

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Treatments should be tailored to the individual in order to improve their effectiveness and efficiency. An assessment of treatment gains is essential to this goal, particularly the ability to identify when clinically significant change is achieved. This paper will examine the sensitivity and specificity of two constructs that moderate change for gambling-focused treatments: self-efficacy to control gambling and strength of gambling-related cognitive distortions.

Participants completed measures of gambling symptoms: the Gambling Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (GSEQ) to assess self-efficacy to control gambling, and the Gamblers’ Beliefs Questionnaire to assess cognitive distortions (GBQ). Included was a clinical sample of 312 treatment-seeking outpatient disordered …

Gambling Warning Messages: The Impact Of Winning And Losing On Message Reception Across A Gambling Episode, Rory A. Pfund, Meredith K. Ginley, Samuel C. Peter, James P. Whelan, Andrew W. Meyers

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Warning messages prevent and modify risk-taking behaviors. When controlling the outcome of each wager, studies suggest such messages can increase a player’s knowledge about gambling-specific risks, modify their gambling-related cognitive distortions, and even change play. The present study takes the next step by asking if the reception of the warning message is influenced by the player’s experience of winning or losing.

In a laboratory study, participants were randomly assigned to a winning or losing gambling experience where they either viewed periodic warning messages or not. Using a mixed model analysis, the influence of the warning messages was related to players’ …

Self-Help Treatment For At-Risk And Pathological Gamblers: Results From An Efficacy Study, Catherine Boudreault, Isabelle Giroux, Annie Goulet, Christian Jacques, Hélène Simoneau, Robert Ladouceur

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Available evidence suggests that self-help treatments may reduce problem gambling severity and gambling behaviour. However, decrease of gambling among control groups and rare assessment of key variables associated with improvement across studies leave the benefits of self-help treatments for problem gambling unclear. The current study assesses the efficacy of a self-help treatment program including three motivational telephone interviews spread over an 11-week period and a cognitive-behavioral self-help workbook. At-risk and pathological gamblers were randomly assigned to the treatment group (n = 31) or the waiting list (n = 31). Relative to the waiting list, the treatment group presented …

The Behavioral Analysis Of Gambling, Benjamin Witts, Anne Macaskill, Mack Costello

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

A behavioral analysis of gambling is unique among the psychologies. A behavioral analysis seeks answers to questions pertaining to the prediction and influence of gambling in terms of the individual gambler, and thus emphasis is placed on well-controlled small-n studies in which findings are generalized to other individuals. Further, the behavioral analysis of gambling is concerned with environmental and historical relations in accounting for current gambling behavior, and less of a reliance is placed on internal and hypothetical causal factors. This symposium explores two data-driven analyses of gambling behavior from a behavioral account of gambling while a third conceptual and …

Technology-Based Brief Interventions For At-Risk Young Adult Gamblers, Matthew P. Martens

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

The purpose of this presentation to discuss my work developing and evaluating the efficacy of brief interventions designed to reduce at-risk gambling and related negative consequences among young adults. Research has established that young adults, especially college students, are more likely to meet classification for “disordered” gambling than the general adult population (Blinn et al., 2007). Brief interventions that incorporate personalized feedback have been shown to be efficacious at motivating behavior change among young adults (Cronce & Larimer, 2011). The purpose of this presentation will be to discuss my efforts at extending this work to the area of at-risk gambling. …

Narcissism, Sensation Seeking, Depression, Anxiety, And Cognitive Distortions: Comparative Analysis Between Poker And Video Lottery Terminal Players, David Levesque B.A., Serge Sevigny Ph.D., Christian Jacques M.Ps., Isabelle Giroux Ph.D.

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

According to the psycho-structural interaction model, the interaction between structural characteristics of a gambling game and player’s characteristics could foster the development of gambling problems. Those interactions may vary according to the types of game played. This study aims to compare poker and video lottery terminals players (VLTs) on six psychological characteristics (narcissism, sensation seeking, depression, anxiety, cognitive distortions and problem gambling severity) and to examine cognitive distortions as a mediator between personality/mood disturbance and problem gambling severity. The sample consisted of 191 poker players and 81 VLT players. Standard assessments were completed online and by phone within a cross-sectional …

Concurrent Mental Health And Sport Performance Enhancement In An Athlete Initiating Behavioral Intervention With No Assessed Pathology: A Case Examination Supporting Optimization, Yulia Gavrilova

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Collegiate athletes are often exposed to unique environmental stressors that may negatively impact the way they think, behave, and feel in athletic, academic, and social domains, potentially compromising their performance and mental health when cognitive and behavioral skills are relatively underdeveloped. Behavioral interventions have been shown to enhance cognitive and behavioral skills in persons with assessed mental health deficits in the general population. However, little is known about the relative effects of psychologically-based programs in persons who do not evidence pathology. Along these lines, The Optimum Performance Program in Sports (TOPPS), based on Family Behavior Therapy, was recently developed with …

Investigating Inner Experience While Reading An Erotic Short Story, Leiszle Rae Lapping-Carr

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

An investigation of the phenomenological aspects of sexual response is needed for a more comprehensive understanding of human sexuality. To obtain high fidelity descriptions of inner experience during a sexually oriented task, the current study used Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) while seven participants read an erotic short story. Participants were trained in DES by sampling during everyday activities. After training, they were sampled while reading two classic short stories on a web-based program. Participants then sampled their experience while reading an erotic short story using the same web-based program. Some of the participants were willing to discuss their inner experience …

The Effects Of Psychopathic Traits On Social Support Networks, Stephanie Marie Molina

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Psychopathy is a personality disorder with distinctive behavioral, emotional and interpersonal features. The dual process model of psychopathy conceptualizes the construct via two distinct factors: fearless dominance (FD) and impulsive antisociality (IA). While individuals higher in psychopathic traits are less likely to cooperate with others, research examining the impact of psychopathy on individuals’ social networks is lacking. In the current study, 377 first year undergraduate students completed the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire, the Ten Item Personality Inventory, and ratings regarding their social networks via Qualtrics. Students were asked to list up to ten friends and rate their relationship via a newly …

Identifying Maltreated Youth At High Risk For Posttraumatic Symptom Clusters Using Nonparametric Modeling, Emma H. Ross

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Certain individual factors may heighten a youth’s risk for PTSD symptoms following maltreatment (Kearney et al., 2010). This study aimed to identify maltreated youth at highest risk for re-experiencing, avoidance, and hyperarousal symptoms of PTSD. This study evaluated interactions among several demographic, affective, and cognitive variables to determine which subgroups of maltreated youth are most likely to manifest diagnostic PTSD symptom presentations in the aforementioned clusters. Participants included 400 ethnically diverse youth aged 7-18 years from Department of Family Services (DFS)-related sites in Las Vegas. This study employed Binary Recursive Partitioning (BRP) methods to identify highest risk subgroups for each …