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Patients Presenting For Psychiatric Emergency Services : Clinical Characteristics, Psychosocial Stressors And Disposition, Kristen Maura Cirelli

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of 600 individuals who presented to two Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) located in one county of southern New Jersey. A retrospective chart analysis investigated demographic, clinical, and psychosocial variables that describe the PES presenter. It also examined how these variables differ between the urban and suburban sites, and how they affected the disposition decision. Because there is a paucity of information investigating the role that psychosocial stressors play, there was specific focus on psychosocial stressors as defined by Axis IV of the multiaxial system outlined in the American Psychiatric Association's …

Gender Differences Of College Students And Pathological Gambling, Richard Clyde Vantreece

Theses

Gender differences among college students and pathological gambling have been studied in the past by various researchers. The purpose of this study was to investigate which gender was more likely to be at risk for a pathological gambling disorder. This population is interesting for the purpose of this study because the majority of pathological gamblers report beginning this habit in adolescence. Fifty college students were selected from the Human Subject Research Pool Department. Students completed a demographic sheet and the South Oaks Gambling Screen. T-tests were done to compare the differences among the genders. The results showed no significant difference …

Management Of Agitation In Individuals With Dementia: An Animal-Assisted Therapy Approach, Karen L. Tanner

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Dementia is not a natural and normal part of aging, but rather a symptom of a disease process. Most individuals with dementia experience emotional distress or behavioral problems best summed up by the term agitation. Approximately 90% of individuals with dementing illnesses demonstrate problem behaviors ranging from repetitive verbalizations and wandering to verbal and physical aggression toward self or others. Each evening thousands of older adults in the community and in institutions become agitated, restless, and confused and begin to wander about or scream. This phenomenon is referred to as sundown syndrome, since it occurs in the evening hours after …

Scientific Empathy, American Buddhism, And The Ethnography Of Religion, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

The expansion of the use of ethnography in the study of religion has led to substantial methodological confusion. The reflexive ethnographic efforts which exist commonly appeal to the need for ethnographer empathy for field subjects, although the nature and ethical ramifications of this empathy remain poorly explored. This essay offers a model of ethnographic empathy in terms of the methodological observations of Weber, Homans, and Kohut. Using a model of empathy in terms of a reflexive “evenly hovering attention” for data collection, possible gains in the field from this model are explored. These gains include overcoming obstacles to data collection …

Center For Psychological Studies 2003-2004 Catalog, Nova Southeastern University

College of Psychological Services / College of Psychology Postgraduate Student and Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Center For Psychological Studies 2003-2004 Catalog, Nova Sounteastern University

College of Psychological Services / College of Psychology Postgraduate Student and Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Parents' Implementation Of A Structured Parent Reading Program On Their Children's Reading Fluency, Jennifer Luella Resetar

LSU Master's Theses

This study investigated the effectiveness of a method of parent training and parent reading tutoring that built on past research. Parents of five first grade children, who were reading below grade level, participated. Parents were trained to implement a three-week tutoring procedure that included modeling, practice, phonics, fluency, accuracy, comprehension, and reinforcement components. According to permanent product examination, parent intervention implementation never fell below 82% integrity. A multiple baseline across participants design was used to analyze results. According to visual analysis, four of the five children showed significant gains in words correct per minute on tutored reading passages. There was …

"You Just Give Them What They Want And Pray They Don’T Kill You”: Street-Level Sex Workers’ Reports Of Victimization, Personal Resources And Coping Strategies, Rochelle L. Dalla Dr., Yan Xia, Heather Kennedy

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Using both qualitative (in-depth, personal interviews) and quantitative (self-report survey indices) techniques, data were collected from 43 women involved in streetwalking prostitution. The purpose of the investigation was to examine exposure to violence and victimization among a particularly vulnerable female population across the life span. A secondary goal was to apply stress theory as an organizing frameworkfor examining personal resources (e.g., social support, locus of control) and coping behavior. Results from both data collection strategies are presented, and implications for intervention are described.

Recovery From Substance Abuse: The Role Of Unsupportive Social Interactions, Michelle Marie Schmitt

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACTRECOVERY FROM SUBSTANCE ABUSE: THE ROLE OF UNSUPPORTIVE SOCIAL INTERATIONSBy Michelle M. Schmitt, M.A., M.S. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University.Virginia Commonwealth University, 2003Major Director: Kathleen M. Ingram, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology It has been estimated that over 20 million individuals struggle with substance abuse and/or dependence each year. Theories of addiction and recovery have long incorporated the notion of social support and helping relationships to facilitate adjustment. However, the literature investigating the role of social support is fraught with contradictions. In addition, in …

Mediators Of Weight Loss In An Internet-Based Intervention For African American Adolescent Girls, Marney A. White

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary aim of this study was to assess the process variables involved in a weight loss program for African-American adolescent girls. This internet-based intervention compared a behavioral treatment program to an educational treatment program; it was hypothesized that participants randomized to the behavioral condition would lose more weight at 6 months than those in the educational condition. Several process variables have been identified as affecting success in in vivo weight loss programs for adults and children, including program adherence, self-efficacy, and social support. The current study sought to broaden the understanding of these process variables as they pertain to …

The Effects Of Signals On Responding During Delayed Reinforcement, Michael E. Kelley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Functional communication training (FCT) is a commonly used intervention for severe behavior disorders (e.g., Carr & Durand, 1985; Wacker et al., 1990). This treatment is designed to provide individuals with developmental disabilities with a repertoire of responses to attain reinforcement. However, caregivers may be unable or unwilling to provide immediate reinforcement when the treatment is implemented in the natural environment. Recent applied research on responding during delayed reinforcement suggests that responding may not persist when delays exceed 30 s (e.g., Fisher, Thompson, Hagopian, Bowman, & Krug, 2000; Hanley, Iwata, & Thompson, 2001). In contrast, results of basic research suggest that …

Young Children’S Responses To Conflictual Adult Conversation, Jessica A. Cartozian

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study evaluated relationships among children's cognitions following exposure to scripted conflictual interactions between adults. Thirty- five mother-child dyads were assessed using self-report measures, and continuous measures of behavioral and physiological distress (cardiac function, skin conductance). Four hypotheses were investigated: Exposure to conflict would be related to greater distress following the conflictual script; attributional errors would be related to greater distress; child distress would be positively correlated with parental conflict at home; maternal psychopathology would be positively related with distress responses to the stimulus. All hypotheses were found to be non-significant. Explanations for non-significance include the normative sample, the …

Psychosocial Predictors Of Dietary Fat Reduction: The Role Of Stress And The Transtheroetical Model In A Dietary Intervention, Jennifer L. Francis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Dietary fat is related to cardiovascular disease and numerous intensive, controlled clinical trials have successfully reduced dietary fat in symptomatic populations. However, there has been less success in large, community-based studies with healthy or mildly at-risk populations. Little is known about predictors associated with actual change in dietary fat intake and this is an important omission because dietary interventions are more likely to be successful if they are based on factors known to influence behavior. The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychosocial predictors of dietary fat and dietary fat reduction through the framework of the transtheoretical model …

The Retention And Persistence Support (Raps) Project: A Transition Initiative, Dawn Darlaston-Jones, Lynne Cohen, Suena Haunold, Lisbeth Pike, Alison Young, Neil Drew

Research outputs pre 2011

The transition to university is often associated with stress, anxiety, and tension and in many cases can lead to students failing or withdrawing from university. Transition problems result in high social and economic costs to families and the community. The past decade has seen a proliferation of transition strategies across universities. Results from evaluations of these transition programmes suggest student retention rates are significantly higher among those students involved in these programmes. The emphasis now though is to develop school or department based programmes as these are more readily adapted to meet the specific needs of students than university wide …

Are They Being Served? Student Expectations Of Higher Education, Dawn Darlaston-Jones, Lisbeth Pike, Lynne Cohen, Alison Young, Suena Haunold, Neil Drew

Research outputs pre 2011

The current climate in tertiary education places students as primary consumers. As such, students are becoming more conscious of their customer rights and of gaps between their expectations of service delivery and the reality of that service. Not only does this service gap present a quality assurance challenge for universities, it is also likely to contribute to student withdrawal. In week one of the first semester 2001, a sample of 56 first year psychology students volunteered to complete the SERVQUAL questionnaire (Riddings, Sidhu, & Pokarier, 2000) to assess their expectations of university in terms of academic and Administrative staff. The …

Teaching And Learning Online For The First Time: Student And Coordinator Perspectives, Lauren Breen, Lynne Cohen, Paul Chang

Research outputs pre 2011

In recent years the higher education sector has moved towards the flexible delivery of individual units and entire courses. As a result, online delivery methods are becoming increasingly common. In this paper we describe students’ and unit-coordinators’ views concerning teaching and learning online for the first time in an introductory psychology unit. Using an action learning approach, views were ascertained through a focus group, messages posted on the online discussion boards, a survey, and coordinator reflections. The results indicate that the current online design of the unit does little to actively engage students in the learning process. We argue that …

Using A Student Centred Approach In A Large Class Context, Dawn Darlaston-Jones, Lynne Cohen

Research outputs pre 2011

Teaching large classes has become a reality for most courses in Australian universities. While many academics recognise the benefits to students and themselves of using alternative teaching methodologies, many resort to the traditional formal lecture approach when it comes to teaching large classes. This paper examines the tension between providing a meaningful learning experience for university students and the constraints of increased class sizes. Presented as a case study, it challenges the assumptions of staff and students in terms of what constitutes an appropriate learning environment and identifies strategies that could usefully be transferred from a small class to a …

Using Multimedia Elements To Change Student Mental Models Of Colour Vision Deficiency, Romana Pospisil, Susan Stoney

Research outputs pre 2011

The online environment offers many opportunities for students to interact with each other, with unit materials and resources, and for lecturers to inform students of issues regarding their main course of study. One of the weaknesses of teaching and learning in the online mode, however, is that lecturers have difficulty in identifying misconceptions and imperfect mental models in their students. This paper reports on a study being conducted by at Edith Cowan University in the use of small e-learning modules developed in Quicktime video to change or strengthen students' mental models - in this case their mental model of Colour …

Self-Esteem, Sex Differences, And Self-Disclosure: A Study Of The Closeness Of Relationships, Christien Marie Seamon

All Volumes (2001-2008)

It was hypothesized that self-esteem, sex, and relationship closeness would affect self-disclosure. Participants imagined either a best friend or a casual acquaintance while completing a modified version of the Marital Self-Disclosure Questionnaire (MSDQ; Waring, Holden, & Wesley, 1998). The MSDQ measured four facets of self-disclosure: relationship, sex, money, and imbalance. Self-esteem was assessed using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (1965). In general, self-disclosure was greater for females than for males and in close relationships than in distant relationships. There were no differences in self-disclosure between high and low self-esteem individuals. In close relationships, females disclosed more than did males; in distant …

Normative Study Of The Mahan And Ditomasso Anger Scale, Roger Oliver Beardmore

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The present study proposed to advance the treatment of anger disorders by exploring the psychometric properties of the MAD-AS scale, an anger assessment tool. Research sought to build on prior investigation of the reliability, validity, and factor structure of the MAD-AS in an inpatient setting by examining this measure using outpatient subjects. Several important findings were obtained in this study. Research results suggest that the MAD-AS represents a significant improvement over some existing anger measures in terms of its brevity, its ease of administration, and its standardization of scoring. The MAD-AS appears to possess sound psychometric properties in terms of …

Community Integration And Normalization, Janice Eileen Cunningham

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Utilizing archived data for 650 individuals, psychosocial variables were examined to elucidate the effect of deinstitutionalization on success of community integration. Deinstitutionalization has been blamed for a host of societal ills including the burgeoning homeless population and for overcrowding in prisons. Many claim that deinstitutionalization has failed and that the chronically severely mentally ill have not become part of their communities. Utilizing extant data on consumers released from Pennsylvania state hospitals as part of a unique initiative, the psychosocial variables of age, race, gender, length of institutionalization, placement following hospitalization and diagnosis were correlated with homelessness, incarceration, or whereabouts known …

Retrospective Investigation Of One-Time Presenters Versus Repeat Presenters To Urban And Suburban Psychiatric Emergency Services : Cross-Sectional And Clinical Characteristics, April J. Hansen

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

This study retrospectively reviewed 765 patients who presented within a one-year period at either a suburban, urban, or both suburban and urban psychiatric emergency services (PES). Demographic and clinical characteristics were examined. Particular focus included characteristics of children/adolescents and older adults, as well as the relationship between substance misuse and PES presenters. Adults presenting to PES more than three times were more likely to have a chronic mental illness, personality disorder, history of psychiatric treatment, and a history of noncompliance with treatment than those who presented three times or less. Significant differences were found between urban and suburban PESs, in …

Predictors Of Large Women's Satisfaction With Health Care, Virginia M. Koutsouros

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

This cross-sectional observational study identifies specific predictors of large women's satisfaction with health care and participation in preventive care as measured by pelvic screening examinations. A total of 87 large adult women completed a survey, including measures of self-objectification, affective experience, satisfaction with health care, and health care locus of control. Multiple regression analysis was employed to analyze results. The hypotheses of this study were as follows: (1) BMI, self-objectification, negative affect and locus of control will predict satisfaction with medical care; (2) pelvic screening examinations and patient satisfaction with medical care will be positively related (3) self-objectification and negative …

Different Forms Of Abuse In The Eating Disorders: Impact On Schema-Level Cognitions, Christine C. Ganis

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Cognitive theory suggests that traumatic experiences impact on psychopathology via the development of unconditional negative cognitions (core beliefs or schema). This study examined the links between types of childhood trauma and core beliefs in an eating-disordered population. Chart reviews were conducted for 91 eating-disordered women in treatment. Each woman was asked about a history of 4 types of trauma, and completed a standardized measure of core beliefs. This study failed to find links between those women who reported childhood trauma and their core beliefs. Regression analysis predicted 4 schema (Emotional Deprivation, Mistrust/Abuse, Vulnerability to Harm and Subjugation) that were associated …

A Study On Various Factors And Their Relationship To Burnout Among Seventh-Day Adventist Clergy, W. Don Edwards

Dissertations

Problem. Few studies have addressed burnout among Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) clergy. Many SDA ministers report experiencing high stress in their ministries and they find it difficult to function optimally under these circumstances. Others experience serious complications that lead them to terminate their work as ministers.

Method. A quantitative research design was used for an ex post facto study of 130 pastors from the Pacific Union Conference. They completed two questionnaires: the Pastoral Services Demographic Data Sheet (PSDDS) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI).

Results. This study examined 12 variables and found that 10 variables had a significant …

Toward Validation Of The Sports Behavior Checklist: A Comparison Of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder And Control Group Children In A Sports Environment, Aaron Clendenin

LSU Master's Theses

Data from participants (N = 124) was entered into a principal components analysis to test the factor structure of the Sports Behavior Checklist ([SBC] Johnson & Rosen, 2000). The subscales of the SBC were correlated with relevant subscales of the Conners'- Revised Parent Form ( Conners, 1997) and Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliott, 1990). Both of these analyses were conducted to determine the construct validity of the instrument. Additionally, a subsample (N = 92) of low socioeconomic status individuals was used to compare groups of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (n = 49) and non-clinical (n = 43) children on the …

Dynamical Evolutionary Psychology: Individual Decision Rules And Emergent Social Norms, Douglas T. Kenrick, Norman P. Li, Jonathan Butner

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A new theory integrating evolutionary and dynamical approaches is proposed. Following evolutionary models, psychological mechanisms are conceived as conditional decision rules designed to address fundamental problems confronted by human ancestors, with qualitatively different decision rules serving different problem domains and individual differences in decision rules as a function of adaptive and random variation. Following dynamical models, decision mechanisms within individuals are assumed to unfold in dynamic interplay with decision mechanisms of others in social networks. Decision mechanisms in different domains have different dynamic outcomes and lead to different sociospatial geometries. Three series of simulations examining trade-offs in cooperation and mating …

Corpus Callosum Abnormalities In Psychopathic Antisocial Individuals, Joseph B. Hellige

Psychological Science Faculty Works

Context: Psychopathic antisocial individuals have previously been characterized by abnormal interhemispheric processing and callosal functioning, but there have been no studies on the structural characteristics of the corpus callosum in this group. Objectives: To assess whether (1) psychopathic individuals with antisocial personality disorder show structural and functional impairments in the corpus callosum, (2) group differences are mirrored by correlations between dimensional measures of callosal structure and psychopathy, (3) callosal abnormalities are associated with affective deficits, and (4) callosal abnormalities are independent of psychosocial deficits. Design: Case-control study. Setting: Community sample. Participants: Fifteen men with antisocial personality disorder and high psychopathy …

Sequelae Of Political Torture: Narratives Of Trauma And Resilience By Iranian Torture Survivors, Nouriman Ghahary

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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The Role Of Alexithymia In Ethnic Groups On Eating-Related Attitudes And Behaviors, Lisa M. Newman

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Alexithymia, a term referring to deficits in ability to describe and differentiate emotions, has been studied in a variety of Caucasian medical and psychiatric populations, including patients with eating disorders. Research suggests that alexithymia is more prevalent among the Caucasian eating disordered population than the general population. However, there is little research on the prevalence of alexithymia or its relationship to problematic eating-related attitudes and behaviors in African Americans. This study investigated and compared the occurrence of alexithymia and its effects on eating-related attitudes and behaviors in Caucasian and African American college women using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 and the …