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Relational Spirituality, Part 1 Paradise Unbound: Cosmic Hybridity And Spiritual Narcissism In The “One Truth” Of New Age Transpersonalism, Gregg Lahood

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Cosmological hybridization, a process in which spiritual paradises are bound together, is

highly active in American religious culture. Beginning with an early Christianized version of

the Buddha, this religious Creolization gathered speed after WWII and peaked during the

Vietnam War, leading to a complex spiritual revolution in which transcendence became an

all important orientation. This revolution set the scene for the emergence of a non-relational

transpersonal psychology in which Americanized nondualism gained ascendency. It is argued

here that popular New Age transpersonalism traps the spirit, breeding a self-serving, Selfas-

everything form of spiritual narcissism. Given that some are calling the …

Transpersonal And Other Models Of Spiritual Development, Harris Friedman, Stanley Krippner, Linda Riebel, Chad Johnson

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This chapter focuses on exploring various models of spiritual development. It first addresses

philosophical dilemmas underpinning the concept of spiritual development by questioning

whether these can be addressed without metaphysical assumptions embedded in religious

worldviews and thus understood in any consensual way across different historical and

cultural contexts. Traditional models of spiritual development are then reviewed, drawing

from indigenous, Eastern, and Western cultures. Integrative-philosophical and scientific

models, including those from the psychology of religion, transpersonal psychology, and

neurobiology, are then presented. The chapter concludes by noting the complexities involved

in understanding spiritual development accompanied by suggestions on future directions

for …

The Self And The Great Chain Of Being: Interview With Robert Bolton, Samuel B. Sotillos

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

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The Gift Of Life: Death As Teacher In The Aghori Sect, Rochelle Suri, Daniel B. Pitchford

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This article utilizes the example of the Aghori, with their radical and unique perspective on death,

as a challenge to the Western world to live an authentic, present life by maintaining awareness of

mortality. Specifically, three main themes are explored: first, a theoretical engagement of the concept

of death based on the (Western) philosophy of existentialism, second, a review of the historical

origins and philosophy of the Aghori sect, and third, a depiction of the Aghoris as a living example

of vigorously accepting death as an inevitability of life. On this basis a brief comparison of Western

and Eastern attitudes …

Consequences Of Early Methylphenidate Exposure On Opioid System Functioning In Adult Rats, Matthew Scott Herbert

Theses Digitization Project

Methylphenidate is the preferred treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in preschool-aged children, even though few human studies have assessed the long-term consequences of early methyphenidate use. In rats, exposure to methylphenidate during a developmental period that approximates early childhood increases morphine-induced antinociception in adulthood. However, because morphine activates three distinct opioid receptors it is unknown which receptor is resonsible for this methylphenidate effect. The purpose of the present study was to assess the long-term effects of early methylphenidate exposure on DAMGO- and U50, 488-induced antinociception, a mu-opioid and kappa-opioid selective agonist.

Front Matter

Modern Psychological Studies

No abstract provided.

African American Relationship Schema Scale: Development And Validation, Syreeta Scott

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In an effort to explain the markedly high HIV infection rate for African American women, several theories have been posited. One theory suggests that expectations about relationships (i.e., relationship schemas and scripts) may be useful in explaining this phenomenon. Qualitative research has identified several relevant relationship scripts for this population that seem to be associated with safer sex behaviors; however, limited quantitative research has been conducted to confirm and validate these findings. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a psychometrically sound self-report measure of relationship schemas in African American women (N=441). After initial item generation, pilot testing …

A Gestalt Oriented Phenomenological And Participatory Study Of The Transformative Process Of Adolescent Participants Following Wilderness Centered Rites Of Rassage, Adam Harold Roth

ETD Archive

This dissertation, addresses intervention and phenomenological and participatory research methodology, through a lens of Gestalt Therapy Theory. The intervention, a wilderness-centered rites of passage, included experiential components of: (1) emersion in nature, (2) nature-based activities and challenges, (3) alone time in wilderness, (4) exposure to nature-based archetypes, elementals, and folklore, and (5) participation in community that supports connection through in ritual, ceremony, dialogue, and reflection. The participants included three early adolescent males and one adult male, a parent-participant. Data collection methods included participant observation, journal entries, photo documentation, photo elicited interviews, processing groups, and field notes. A multiple case narrative …

The Future Of Natural Selection Knowledge Measurement: A Reply To Anderson Et Al. (2010), Ross Nehm, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

The development of rich, reliable, and robust measures of the composition, structure, and stability of student thinking about core scientific ideas (such as natural selection) remains a complex challenge facing science educators. In their recent article (Nehm & Schonfeld 2008), the authors explored the strengths, weaknesses, and insights provided by a detailed exploration of three commonly used measures of student thinking about natural selection in a large sample of underrepresented minority students. One of their core findings was that all of the tools they studied--including the CINS--have strengths and weaknesses that must be carefully taken into consideration by those …

Trajectories Of Emotion Regulation Into Middle Childhood: An Investigation Of Attachment, Temperament, And Language, Julie Elizabeth Braciszewski

Wayne State University Dissertations

The development of emotion regulation continues to be considered a cornerstone to adaptive child development. However, studies have yet to integrate early relationship, child-centered factors, and socio-demographic factors, from infancy through middle childhood, in an attempt to look at emotional regulation development over time. By utilizing latent growth curve modeling, the current study aimed to extend understanding of how child-centered factors (temperament and language skill) and socio-demographic factors (gender, ethnicity, and family resources) affect the development of emotion regulation from 3rd to 6th grades, within the context of early attachment relationships. Stability in emotion regulation in the general sample, as …

The Effect Of Word Sociality On Word Recognition, Sean Seaman

Wayne State University Dissertations

While research into the role of semantic structure in the recognition of written and spoken words has grown, it has not looked specifically at the role of conversational context on the recognition of isolated words. This study was a corpus-based and behavioral exploration of a new semantic variable - sociality - and used on-line behavioral testing to obtain new word recognition data using the visual and auditory lexical decision tasks. The results consistently demonstrated that sociality is one of the most robust predictors of lexical decision performance. Overall, it appears that the visual lexical decision task is quite sensitive to …

The Influence Of Affiliative Relations On Copulatory Behaviors Of Tibetan Macaques (Macaca Thibetana), Laura P. Ginn

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The genus Macaca is the largest and most widely distributed primate genus, but M. thibetana remains understudied. Field research on this species has focused on dominance style, post-conflict behaviors, and the effects of eco-tourism, with limited research on sexual selection. As a sexually dimorphic species with linear hierarchies, rank is expected to play a role in mate choice; however, recent data suggest that male rank is not correlated with mating. This study examined affiliative behaviors of male-female dyads in a free-living group of Tibetan macaques at Mt. Huangshan, China to assess whether affiliative interactions influenced copulation patterns. The proportion of …

Computer-Based Brief Motivational Intervention For Medication Adherence In Schizophrenia, Robert Kender

Wayne State University Dissertations

Despite the documented efficacy of medication treatments for individuals suffering from schizophrenia, many individuals suffering from this disorder are unable or unwilling to adhere to their medication regimen. This may be due to the inability of providers to differentially address the individual motivation levels of their patients. The few interventions that have shown promise are both costly and difficult to disseminate. The current study is a randomized controlled trial which utilizes motivational interviewing, delivered with an interactive computer based delivery system to address attitudes about adherence. Feasibility, acceptability and efficacy were examined as outcomes. While both feasibility and efficacy were …

Comparison Of Affective Analgesia And Conditioned Place Preference Following Cholinergic Activation Of, Elena Schifirnet

Wayne State University Dissertations

Activation of the dopaminergic mesolimbic reward circuitry that originates in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) is postulated to preferentially suppress affective reactions to noxious stimuli (affective analgesia, AA). VTA dopamine neurons are activated via cholinergic inputs, and we have observed that microinjections of the acetylcholine agonist carbachol suppressed vocalizations of rats that occur following administration of brief (1 sec) tail-shocks (vocalization afterdischarges = VAD). VADs are a validated rodent model of pain affect. In addition, the capacity of carbachol to support reinforcement appears to be regionally dependent within VTA. Ikemoto and Wise (2002) reported that carbachol was self-administered in the …

Africentrism And Africentric Rituals: Their Role In Jamaican Male Motivation To Pursue Higher Education, Totlyn A. Oliver

Contemporary Issues in Juvenile Justice

This academic research presents the case for Africentrism and its attendant rituals for the African Diaspora to aid in the motivation and inspiration factor in the male's choice to pursue higher education in Jamaica. The paper discussed Africentric rites of passage against the background of pre-emancipation and post-emancipation education in Jamaica. It also analyzed the current educational system for male nationals along with the implications for applying Africentrism to theories and practice of education for male stu-dents. The major concern precipitating this study was the low levels of male enrolment in institutions of higher learning, as the female population far …

National Survey On Equine Assisted Therapy: An Exploratory Study Of Current Practitioners And Programs, Patricia J. Mcconnell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Equine facilitated psychotherapy (EFP), a new field in psychology, is an alternative method of therapy that uses horses to facilitate therapeutic outcomes. There is minimal peer reviewed literature and few published studies examining efficacy. The conceptual lens of this study was grounded theory, as there is insufficient evidence of theoretical frame-works guiding equine assisted therapy. The purpose of this exploratory concurrent mixed methods study was to examine the theoretical foundation of practitioners; program make up; client populations; efficacy of program; and why the horse serves as the therapeutic catalyst of this model. A 43-item survey was sent to 800 programs, …

The Impact Of Symptom Severity On Parent-Child Interaction And Relationships Among Children With Autism, Nicole M. Beurkens

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Recent estimates indicate that 1 in 100 children in the United States is diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Although research has demonstrated the bidirectional nature of parentchild relations, the effect of child autism symptom severity on parent-child interaction and overall relationships has not yet been explored. This study examined the impact of child symptom severity in children ages 4-15 years, as measured by the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), on parent-child interaction, as measured by the Dyadic Coding Scale (DCS), and parent-child relationships, as measured by the Parent Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI). The bidirectional model of socialization informs the study, …

Attachment To God: Its Impact On The Psychological Wellbeing Of Persons With Religious Vocation, Innocent F. Okozi

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Components Of Religious Beliefs, Religious Maturity, And Religious History As Predictors Of Proscribed And Non-Proscribed Explicit And Implicit Prejudices, Luke Fiedorowicz

Dissertations

Many theorists propose a link between religiosity and prejudice; however, many studies show contradictory results. Recently, there has also been a growing interest in the differences between implicit and explicit prejudices. Current literature suggests that explicit and implicit attitudes are linked and one can influence the other. However, it is possible there are different sets of predictors of each attitude type. African-Americans have historically been the most openly targeted minority in America. Recently, gay men and lesbians have also faced increased prejudice. The purpose of this project was to examine several aspects of religiosity (involvement, intrinsic/extrinsic, fundamentalism, quest, history, and …

A Conceptual Guide To Natural History Museum Visitors’ Understanding Of Evolution, E. Margaret Evans, Amy N. Spiegel, Wendy Gram, Brandy N. Frazier, Medha Tare, Sarah Thompson, Judy Diamond

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Museum visitors are an ideal population for assessing the persistence of the conceptual barriers that make it difficult to grasp Darwinian evolutionary theory. In comparison with other members of the public, they are more likely to be interested in natural history, have higher education levels, and be exposed to the relevant content. If museum visitors do not grasp evolutionary principles, it seems unlikely that other members of the general public would do so. In the current study, 32 systematically selected visitors to three Midwest museums of natural history provided detailed open-ended explanations of biological change in seven diverse organisms. They …

Neural Recruitment During Self-Control Of Smoking: A Pilot Fmri Study, John Robert Monterosso , '92, T. Mann, Andrew Ward, G. Ainslie, J. Bramen, A. Brody, E. D. London

Psychology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Consciousness And Society: Societal Aspects And Implications Of Transpersonal Psychology, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Although transpersonal psychologies of self realization emphasize individual

development, earlier shamanic traditions also showed a central societal aspect and group based

consciousness. Indeed, many have understood the transpersonal movement as developing

towards an abstract globalized neo-shamanism. That altered states of consciousness, whether

as integrative realizations of the numinous or as dissociative “hypnoid” states, could be felt

and shared collectively was a familiar concept to the first generation of sociologists, who saw

all consciousness as social and dialogic in form. Durkheim, in particular, foresaw a globalized

spirituality of the future, his “cult of man,” in which modern individuation would progress

to …

Epigenetics: Blurring The Line Between Nature And Nurture, Elizabeth H. Rose

CMC Senior Theses

This long-standing nature versus nurture debate is cited in behavioral and physical expressions of disease dysfunctions, resiliencies, and recovery. Their purposes are noted both in scientific pursuits as well as literature. This discourse has been particularly intense in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and biology where there is a long history of scientists’ attempts to disprove or discredit others’ intellectual and professional measures. Interestingly, recent advances in the neurosciences and genetic technologies have brought these fields closer together with a new focus – the interactional relationship between nature and nurture – epigenetics.

Therapeutic Discourse And The American Public Philosophy: On American Liberalism's Troubled Relationship With Psychology, Clifford D. Vickrey

Honors Theses

I explore the main currents of postwar American liberalism. One, sociological, emerged in response to the danger of mass movements. Articulated primarily by political sociologists and psychologists and ascendant from the mid-fifties till the mid-seventies, it heralded the "end of ideology." It emphasized stability, elitism, positive science and pluralism; it recast normatively sound politics as logrolling and hard bargaining. I argue that these normative features, attractive when considered in isolation, taken together led to a vicious ad hominem style in accounting for views outside the postwar consensus. It used pseudo-scientific literature in labeling populists, Progressives, Taft conservatives, Goldwaterites, the New …

The Best Predictors Of Self-Reported Depressed Mood In Adolescents, Melissa H. Wineberg

Masters Theses

The present study examined multiple predictors of depression simultaneously in order to determine which variables best predict self-reported depressed mood in adolescents. Although the current literature has identified several individual variables and their relationship to depression in adolescents, few studies have investigated multiple variables at the same time in relation to depression. Participants included 4,693 high school students from a Midwestern state. Of these students, 4 7% were girls, 4 7% were boys, and 6% did not indicate their gender. These students attended various high schools across seven counties and were recruited for a health prevention program called I Sing …

Affect Comprehension In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Visual Field Isolation Intervention, Erica L. Schmidt

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

Children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) tend to show under-activation of the right fusiform face area of the ventral temporal cortex when viewing emotional faces, which may explain their affect comprehension deficits. This left hemisphere dominance, indicative of a piecemeal processing strategy, has been shown a less effective method of understanding true emotion. The present study aimed to condition the left-visual-field-to right-FFA pathway by allowing children with ASD to work through an emotion-matching computer program. One group completed the experiment with both eyes uncovered, while the other worked with only their left visual field open. Though no significant differences …

Gloria E. Anzaldúa’S Decolonizing Ritual De Conocimiento, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s work makes up one of the many Chican@ works that contribute another history, a history repressed by the national discourses on both sides of the border. Influenced by antecedents of U.S. Hispanic Literature who superposed “official” history with another history, Chicano activists had already enacted a retrieval of pre-conquest histories to revive their people’s historical consciousness. As Saldívar-Hull states in “Mestiza Consciousness and Politics: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/ La frontera,” the publication of Borderlands/ La Frontera distinguished itself from the Chicano movement’s as it unveiled the curtain that hid the Aztec goddesses and kept aspects of pre-conquest history …

The Contribution Of Nmda Receptors Within The Central Nucleus Of The Amygdala To The Suppression Of Pain Affect, Catherine Ann Spuz

Wayne State University Dissertations

The amygdala processes stimuli that threaten an individual and organizes the execution of affective behaviors designed to cope with the threat. The prototypical threat to an individual is exposure to a noxious stimulus. The central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) receives nociceptive afferents and exhibits neuronal activation in response to noxious peripheral stimulation. NMDA receptors within CeA mediate this noxious-evoked neural excitation, and previous studies in the laboratory have shown that blockade of CeA NMDA receptors via the antagonist APV elevates the threshold for noxious tail-shock-induced vocalization afterdischarges (VADs), a validated measure of pain affect in the rat. The present …

Effects Of Early Developmental Stress On Adult Physiology And Behavior, Michael James Frederick

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Events during early development can have long-term effects on physiology and behavior. While extreme developmental stress is known to be associated with a variety of behavioral problems, it is less well understood how milder stress may affect behavior, personality, and reproductive success. This research project assessed a variety of behavioral dimensions in a college age sample, while assessing early development using size at birth, fluctuating asymmetry, and retrospective surveys. Maternal stress during pregnancy was found to reduce adolescent growth spurts and adult handgrip strength in the offspring. In males, lower birth weights were associated with higher scores of impulsivity and …

Biological And Behavioral Correlates Among Young Adults Exposed To Harsh Parenting Practices, Christy Lyn Olezeski

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Whereas the subject of harsh parenting has been a source of debate for many years, research has shown that harsh parenting practices are associated with an increase in behavioral problems, including aggression toward others. However, not all youth who have been subjected to harsh parenting develop problems. Researchers have begun examining moderators of the effects of harsh parenting and other psychosocial stressors, specifically whether functioning in physiological stress response systems buffers or exacerbates the effects of harsh parenting on later functioning. Research also suggests that exposure to stressful situations (including harsh parenting) may affect the biological stress system. In particular, …