Personality and Social Contexts Commons^™

Self-Care Techniques To Decrease Special Education Teacher Burnout, Carrie Frost

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The focal topic of my capstone project is special education teacher burnout and how self-care techniques can reduce the likelihood of chronic stress and burnout. The challenges of being a special education teacher include but are not limited to, various disabilities and behaviors, lack of classroom and administration support, and overall management. Research conducted by Emery and Vandenberg (2010) stated that special education teachers often experience burnout, which commonly leads to employee attrition. Burnout and the personal stress that comes with it are the biggest contributors to the shortage of qualified special educators throughout the United States. Their challenges involve …

Impact Of Emotional Intelligence On Client Satisfaction In Project Management, Mousami Berawala

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

This study investigates the correlation between emotional intelligence (EI) and client satisfaction in project management. It is guided by the central research question: Is emotional intelligence linked to client satisfaction? To explore this, the research is structured around Practice of EI on Leadership and Junior level and impact on client satisfaction, the impact of varying work environments, including remote, hybrid, office-based, and site-based settings, on project outcomes post-pandemic; differences in EI practices across countries and the effect of diverse work cultures; the comparison of EI application across different fields, with a focus on work-life balance and industry-specific practices in banking, …

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

Is It Good To Be Bad? The Potential Buffering Role Of Callous-Unemotional Traits On The Relationship Between Trauma And Juvenile Offending, Kathryn Anne Mcgill

<strong> Theses and Dissertations </strong>

Juvenile offending is prevalent, costly, and often difficult to intervene in. Although there are a multitude of factors previously studied that contribute to offending, researchers are still unable to pinpoint all possible variables contributing to juvenile offending. More so, of explored and accepted factors leading to juvenile offending, predictive ability of any specific factor leading to offending is still weak. Thus, study of specific predisposing factors leading to juvenile offending, as well as mediational or moderational variables, is needed. This study explores two previously studied variables in the pathway to juvenile offending: trauma and callous-unemotional traits. Novel study of the …

Perceiving The Poster: How Suspicion Of Motives May Impact Perceptions Of Potential Allies Engaging In Online Activism, Kathrina Z. Durante

Honors Theses

Social media posts signaling support for various social and racial justice movements have emerged as an important aspect of social media use. However, little research has investigated how these posts and the social media users behind them are perceived by members of disadvantaged groups﹘those the messages are presumably intended to “help.” Though the post’s content and poster’s identity are likely important, the primary aim of this study is to investigate an individual difference variable in the perceiver, specifically disadvantaged group members’ Suspicion of Motives Index (SOMI) scores, which measure a general tendency to perceive White individuals’ attempts at non-prejudice to …

The Big Five And Dark Triad: The Role Of Personality In The Development Of Passion, Hannah Behar

Honors Theses

The present work explored the connection between personality and the Dualistic Model of Passion (DMP) and weather psychological safety moderated this relationship. The first study comprised 109 Introduction to Psychology students at the University of Richmond, and the second study measured 128 MTurk participants. The web-based survey administered to both samples consisted of measures assessing Harmonious Passion (HP), Obsessive Passion (OP), the Big Five traits, the Dark Triad traits, and Psychological Safety (PS). Due to reliability concerns, only OP and the Dark Triad traits could be used to assess the MTurk sample. Results from regression analysis showed that among MTurk …

Why Diversity Is Not Enough: Perceptions Of University Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Initiatives Predict Institutional Belonging, Mckennah Lauber

Honors Theses

Belonging, including feelings of being valued in a larger institutional space, is important to student overall well-being. For students of color attending Primarily White Institutions (PWIs) (and other historically marginalized group members), institutional belonging maybe partially dependent on how they perceive diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. This study aims to assess individual differences in how DEI initiatives are experienced by students at PWIs in order to better understand how experiences of DEI initiatives on campuses may differentially impact students of color compared to White students. Belonging for students of color was found to be contingent on their perceptions of …

Justifying Antipathy?: Examining Racialized Perceptions Of Incarceration And Support For Mental Healthcare In Prisons, Jared Brassil

Honors Theses

The current U.S. criminal justice system has a disproportionate number of people suffering from mental illness. Additionally, many of these prisons not only lack the ability to properly treat these individuals, but in some cases may even worsen the problem. Public support, and importantly whom the public thinks the prototypical prisoner is, is important to know when advocating for reform. This research aims to investigate whether or not racialized perceptions of the U.S. criminal justice system impact support for mental healthcare reform in prisons. Given the exploratory nature of this work, potentially relevant individual difference variables are also investigated. An …

Enhancing The Quality Of Life For Senior Citizens: A Facilitator’S Guidebook For Mindful Music And Movement, Shannon Sexton

Mindfulness Studies Theses

Music appreciation and enjoyment enhance well-being throughout the lifespan. The challenges and constraints that people experience as they age can lead to lack of access to music, decreased physical activity, and fewer avenues for creative expression. Group music and movement interventions created for older populations offer opportunities for social connection and improved quality of life. Mindful practices add further benefit when combined with these interventions. Current available programs are scarce and most often do not encompass mixed modalities. In addition, the benefits of these programs do not show long-term sustainability. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the effects …

Do Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion (Dei) Initiatives Cause More Harm Than Good?: Extending Research To The Domain Of Lgbtq+ Discrimination, Lindsay Everhart

Honors Theses

Workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have been shown to delegitimize discrimination claims made by members of low-status groups, namely women and people of color (Dover et al., 2020; Kaiser et al., 2013). Previous research attributes this effect to the fact that DEI initiatives send signals of organizational fairness, thus causing individuals to overestimate the fairness of the organization and overlook discrimination claims. Given the fact that up to 40% of LGBTQ+ employees in one survey reported some form of workplace harassment due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, it is imperative that this line of research is …

Improving Stress Management For Female College Students, Kelsey Acosta

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Although many college students report feeling stress, women may have a unique perspective and experience regarding stress. Gilligan's theory states that women consider their relationships when considering decisions. This decision-making process can create an added layer of the already existing academic stressors that women face. Stress management techniques that acknowledge the unique stressors that women face are essential to improve mental health and provide an optimal college experience.

The Art Of Breaking Up: Ending Romantic Relationships, Emma Salzwedel

Honors Thesis

This thesis reviews research on the most difficult aspect of dating: the breakup. The process of ending a romantic relationship follows a particular pattern which begins when problems begin to arise in the partnership and ends when both individuals have accepted the breakup and received closure. Using various peer-reviewed studies, the literature review deliberates the common predictors of a breakup, common methods of breaking up (and how each is perceived by the other person), common reactions to the breakup based on gender, and finally, the aftermath of the breakup. It is determined that personal and individual relationship factors ultimately decide …

Colombian Women’S Experiences Of Cosmetic Surgery And Its Relationship To Body Image, Austin Gonzalez-Randolph

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand women’s experiences of cosmetic surgery and its effects on body image on women from the Colombian cities of Bogotá and Pereira. The participants of this study were women of Colombian descent, who reside in Colombia. This was done with the hopes of better understanding how culture impacts views on cosmetic surgery. Colombia appears to have a culture that is very enmeshed with cosmetic surgery. This study provides an initial exploratory and qualitative investigation into the perception of body image as it relates to cosmetic surgery among six young women living in Colombia; …

Fostering Attachment In Romantic Relationships Through Creative Art Therapies, Mary Hachey

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Attachment theory examines the infant/caregiver’s relationship by the attachment style they develop in the first years of life. Over time, these same attachment styles affect adult romantic relationships. Bowlby defines four infant/children attachment styles as securely attached, anxious-ambivalent-insecurely attached, avoidant-insecurely attached, and disorganized-disoriented-insecurely attached. These four styles transferred into three main types for adults: secure, anxious-ambivalent, and avoidant. A couple’s relationship can become affected by personal values, behaviors, environmental situations, attachment styles, and beyond. This literature review discusses how couples behave, relate, and interact with one another based on their attachment styles and it also gives critical details on how …

Reiki For Recovery: Incorporating Japanese Health Practices To Increase Contemporary Resiliency In American Health, Leif Peterson

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Japanese health practice of Reiki attempts to maximize the latent ability of the human system to heal itself. The Reiki system, established over a century ago, combines multiple Asian health traditions, experimenting with practices that maximize the natural processes of the body to perform its own repairs. Reiki encourages healthy behaviors that balance the mind and body, return the human system to a lowered stress level, and allow for an optimal recovery state for the patient. This paper illustrates how this Japanese health-affirming method can be integrated and utilized within existing health and medical practices. An area that is …

It’S Not All Aces: The Role Of Negative Parental Influences And Criminal Thinking In Juvenile Offending Behaviors, Branna Humphrey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and criminal thinking in causing criminal behavior has been explored extensively in criminal justice research. Based on the concepts of ACEs and the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Scale, the negative parental influences and criminal thinking styles of 1,354 juvenile offenders were examined to establish that negative parental influences and criminal thinking are separately associated with juvenile problem and offending behavior, and that criminal thinking mediates the relationship between negative parental influences and juvenile problem and offending behavior. Analyses showed support for criminal thinking as a pathway from negative parental influences to juvenile …

Effects Of Sleep On Intrusive Symptoms And Emotional Reactivity In A Laboratory-Based Film Analog Study, Anna Marie Thi Thanh Nguyen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by four symptom clusters. Recently, research highlights the need to focus on the impact of intrusive symptoms as a possible risk factor for the development and maintenance of PTSD. Cognitive and sleep models contribute to further understanding of intrusive symptoms. Recent work also highlights disgust as an emotion closely associated with the emergence of posttraumatic stress symptomology following traumatic events. This study used a film eliciting disgust in order to examine the effects of sleep on the intensity of intrusion symptoms and emotion reactivity. The sample consisted of 49 college students randomly assigned to …

Quehacer Del Trabajo Social En El Campo De Salud Mental En Bogotá, Angie Paola Vargas Gualdron, Valentina Cabrera Pérez, Alejandra Valentina Velandia Diaz

Trabajo Social

La presente investigación tiene como objetivo caracterizar el quehacer del trabajo social en el campo de la salud mental en la ciudad de Bogotá, desde allí, aportar a la construcción de conocimiento. Lo anterior comprendiendo que este es un campo poco documentado en el que cada vez hay mayor participación de la profesión - disciplina. Es importante mencionar que el país ha tenido avances significativos en la comprensión y abordaje de la salud mental, lo que se da a partir de la Ley 1616 de 2013 y la reciente Política Nacional de Salud Mental.

Teniendo en cuenta lo anterior, se …

You Are Resilient: Trauma-Informed, Strengths-Based Treatment For Low-Ses, Urban Youth, Courtney Molina

Dissertations

The focus in this review was to explore the benefits and optimal use of trauma-informed, strengths-based care for the therapeutic treatment of low-socioeconomic status (SES), urban youth. Specific focus was given to evidence-based research on the treatment of emotional and behavioral dysregulation among low-SES, urban youth. The review was guided by the following research questions: How can emotional and behavioral dysregulation be symptoms of trauma among low-SES, urban youth; What makes trauma-informed and strengths-based care optimal for the treatment of low-SES, urban youth with dysregulation; and What are clear guidelines for providing trauma-informed, strengths-based care to low-SES, urban youth with …

Relationships Among Specific Types Of Trait Mindfulness, Need For Cognitive Closure, And Affect, Kelly Parker

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Mindfulness has a multitude of benefits including, but not limited to, increasing one’s positive affect, decreasing stress, lowering blood pressure, protecting against depression and reducing chronic pain. The pre-existing literature on mindfulness unanimously suggests that mindfulness relies on self-regulating functions to improve overall well-being but lacks information regarding which specific emotion-regulating characteristics may play a role in determining mindfulness tendencies. The present research investigated whether or not an individual’s trait mindfulness is correlated with one’s need for cognitive closure (NFC) and how these measures relate to positive and negative affect. A total of 328 participants, recruited from the University of …

The Impacts Of Migration On Myanmar Women’S Identity And Connectedness To The Land And Food, Allison Joseph

Scripps Senior Theses

In the 21st century, Myanmar has become the largest migration source country in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (Kusakabe & Pearson, 2010). To achieve its economic goals, the government has prioritized the confiscation and reallocation of communal lands, which has resulted in a growing class of landless and dispossessed citizens (Franco, Twomey, Ju, Vervest, & Kramer, 2015). This has resulted in the wide-scale process of Myanmar’s rural women’s disinheritance from the land and food, as they are expropriated from the home of their ancestors and forced to migrate to urban centers to earn a livelihood. The proposed study will examine and …

Religion And Spirituality In Clinical Practice: An Exploration Of Reluctance Among Practitioners., David Drew, Jessica Banks

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Across the United States, an overwhelming majority of the population claim that religion and spirituality beliefs shape their worldview and assist in coping with life stressors. Yet, the literature has shown that mental health practitioners reported discomfort integrating religion and spiritually in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to explore whether license-holding mental health professionals in Southern California develop reluctance toward addressing religion/spirituality with their clients. Through snowball sampling, 52 clinicians composed of social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists, nurses, psychologists, and psychiatrists were recruited across Southern California (N =52). The participants were measured descriptively based on …

Empowering The Plus Size Body Using Dance As Therapy, Ashley Sampson

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

In Western society, having the “ideal” body image and size is a societal issue. It is advertised throughout media outlets that the “ideal” body is what should be desired, and any other body type is “abnormal”. This capstone thesis focused on the effectiveness of dance as therapy and changing the perspectives of all body types, to support and empower all bodies including plus-sized bodies. The use of individual interviews, in an open dialogue model, with a select few members (3) of Soul thru Sole, including the CEO of the dance company; which focuses on empowering women no matter their age, …

Painting Intimacy: Art-Based Research Of Intimacy, Michal Lev

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This art-based research explores whether — and, if so, how — the process of painting, together with witnessing and reflection on the process and imagery, further an understanding of intimacy. The research also examines the conditions that favor intimacy, the obstacles to intimacy, and the particular features of artistic media, processes and reflection, through the editing of video footage, that can further the intimate experience. The participants in the study were five adults (including the researcher) between the ages of thirty and eighty who were familiar with the creation of visual art. Among them were three women and two men …

The Art Of Caring: Increasing Empathy Through Conversation, Joy Harlynking

Honors Program Theses

In our every day lives we use empathy more than we would assume, however a current empathy deficit has led us to wonder how we can increase our empathy. The present study aimed to find a way to increase one’s empathy, specifically through an emotional conversation with another individual. There were 61 participants who were separated into either an emotional or factual conversation group. They first took surveys including the IRI, closeness questions, and the pre Revised Eyes Test and then engaged in conversation with another participant. They then took a post Revised Eyes Test after their conversation. The results …

Transformative Reminiscence Training For Older Adults: Increasing Self-Positive Reminiscence During Self-Directed Life Reviews, Deena Gayle Hitzke

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

For this dissertation, I tested whether Transformative Reminiscence Training is a viable alternative to facilitated life reviews for older adults. Facilitated life reviews involve structured reminiscence, which is designed to enhance the self-positive functions of identity consolidation, problem solving, and meaning-making death preparation (Korte, 2012). Transformative Reminiscence Training combines life review methods with consciousness raising. It is based on Paulo Freire’s critical theory (2000) and includes psychosocial, perspective transformation, and narrative identity life review education. Using a pre-posttest, randomized experimental design, I explored whether Transformative Reminiscence Training would result in (a) the completion of a self-directed life review, (b) increased …

The Effect Of Religious Dress On Perceived Attractiveness And Trustworthiness, Courtney Swank

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The hijab, a symbol of modesty and privacy in the Islamic faith, negatively affects ratings of perceived attractiveness. Although postcolonial feminism strives to portray women as not one universal group, but as an incorporation of different races, ethnicities, social classes, and other cultures, the Western world may not be where it endeavors to be. In this study the impact of the hijab on people’s perceptions of attractiveness was examined. Participants rated four target photos of the same woman with and without a hijab, and with or without cosmetics. Attractiveness and trustworthiness was then assessed in each condition, between genders, in …

Love Attitudes: A Developmental Process In First Time Fathers, Dennis Klenowski

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Thirty-four first time expectant fathers age 20 to 38 were individually administered a set of behavior and attitude assessments during the first, second, and third trimesters of their wives pregnancy. This particular study focused on the Love Attitudes Scale. Research indicates that fathers are expected to go through behavior and attitude changes during their wives pregnancy due to several possible reasons like stress, an unhappy marriage, or love development. The main objective of this study was to measure whether or not first time expectant fathers experienced any significant attitude changes during the pregnancy. A second objective was examining if certain …

The Effect Of Residence Type On Adjustment To College, Matthew J. Facemire

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study examined the difference in adjustment to college between Commuters (students who lived at home with their parents) and Boarders (students who lived on campus in residence halls). The study was conducted at a rural teachers college in West Virginia. The Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) was administered to 86 students from four English 102 classes. The results include 48 students who met the requirements of the study. The results of the SACQ were input into a SPSS computer program to produce a 2x2 design ANOVA. The Test of Between-Subject Effects showed three areas of significant difference between …

Gender And Parenting Stress Using Abidin's Parenting Stress Index, K. Penny Nicholls

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The effect of gender on parenting stress was studied on a sample of 56 parents at the time of custody disputes. Each pair of parents completed the Parenting Stress Index or the Parenting Stress Index/Short Form. Results were not significant when gender was matched to the total parent stress scores, indicating parent child stress was not associated with parent gender as was found in previous research.