Clinical Psychology Commons^™

Emotion Regulation Flexibility: Investigating Perseverative Thinking As A Novel Context, Beatris Garcia

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emotion regulation (ER) flexibility is a rapidly evolving field within affective science. Current advances have identified context sensitivity as a leading method for measuring ER flexibility, largely focusing on affectivity and situational control as markers of context. In this study, we propose an innovative approach to expand the list of contextual features tied to ER flexibility by using a framework based on Perseverative Thinking (PT). We examined seven PT dimensions, including pleasantness, repetitiveness, self-focus, other-focus, certainty, controllability, and temporal orientation, along with six ER strategies: reappraisal, acceptance, problem solving, expressive suppression, distraction, and cognitive avoidance. Once a day over the …

Social Anxiety And Romantic Conflict: Examining Prospective Interpersonal Dynamics, Julia Levitan

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is associated with impairment in close relationship functioning, including romantic relationships. Although interpersonal theories point to dimensions of dominance and warmth as relevant factors, the momentary interpersonal dynamics that may be contributing to relationship problems remain poorly understood. In the present study, I aimed to examine contemporaneous and prospective associations between dominance and warmth in individuals with (n = 30) and without (n = 29) SAD and their romantic partners during a 10-minute conflict task. Using the Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics (CAID) system and multilevel dynamic structural equation modeling (ML-DSEM), I found that …

Brain Structure Correlates Of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Traits, Allison Moreau

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) is the most common personality disorder, yet much remains unknown about its etiology. Although neural contributions to many other psychiatric disorders have been extensively studied, few existing studies have examined neural correlates of OCPD. Furthermore, all have had insufficient sample sizes to produce reliable results. Large samples are needed to reliably detect the expected small brain-behavior relationships. However, large neuroimaging studies often do not assess for personality disorders, although many assess for normative personality. The present study employed a Five-Factor Model of personality disorders, which conceptualizes personality disorders as maladaptive extremes of normative personality traits, to …

Transdiagnostic Predictors Of Everyday Functioning: Examining The Relationships Of Depression And Reinforcement Learning, Nada Dalloul

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background and Hypothesis. Identifying the factors contributing to functional deficits in psychotic disorders is essential to developing effective interventions. To address gaps in the literature, the current study had several goals: examine whether there are differential relationships across domains of neurocognition and function, assess whether reinforcement learning is related to function, identify how and if predictors of function are transdiagnostic, determine whether depression and positive symptoms contribute to function, and to further explore whether the modality of assessing function impacts the observed relationships.

Study Design. We examined the neurocognitive and symptomatic predictors of individual functional domains across three measures …

Adapting Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (Ro-Dbt) For Adolescents: Preliminary Testing Of Mechanisms Of Change, Molly Fennig

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Overcontrol is a phenotype characterized by inflexibility, perfectionism, and a need for control or structure, which increases risk for disorders such as anorexia nervosa, social anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Given high comorbidity and limited efficacy of current treatments for these disorders, Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy for adolescents (RO DBT-A) attempts to improve outcomes by targeting overcontrol as a transdiagnostic mechanism. This study aimed to test preliminary efficacy of telehealth-delivered RO DBT-A in targeting overcontrol as a mechanism of psychopathology in a heterogeneous clinical sample.

Method: Participants were female adolescents (ages 13-21; 83% white; 80% non-Hispanic/Latino) who presented with …