Digital Commons Network^™

Longitudinal Effects Of School Climate On Middle-School Students' Academic, Social-Emotional And Behavioral Outcomes, Jennifer Lynn Engelland-Schultz

Theses and Dissertations

Millions of youth are at risk for low academic achievement, school dropout, risky behavior, bullying, and mental health concerns, especially those living in rural areas. Protective factors can reduce the likelihood of children and adolescents experiencing these negative outcomes. Research shows that positive school climate is a powerful protective factor for youth. The present study investigated the longitudinal relations between middle school students' school climate perceptions and their academic, social-emotional, and behavioral development over two years. Specifically, 510 students in grades 5-9 from six rural schools rated their support and influence at school as well as their internalizing problems, personal …

The Effect Of Second Language Reading On Eye Movement On Second Language Learners, Kyle Nelson, Dr. Steven Luke

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Due to the difficulty of finding valid and reliable testing material for our subjects to read, this current study has been significantly delayed. Finding reading passages that can be rated for difficulty for a non native speaker to read has been difficult and only in recent weeks have we found, through the generous help researchers in the linguistics department at BYU, materials that we finally feel can be used in such a study as the one we have proposed to carry out. Finally having reading passages that have been previously rated and used in research provides reliable passages with which …

Does Our Fear Of Death Stem From Threatened Belongingness?, Stan Treger

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine the relative contribution to worldview defense (i.e., upholding one’s cultural worldviews) provided by the thoughts of one’s death and perceptions of curbed close relationships.

The need to belong, to form meaningful and strong ties with others, is what many social psychologists believe to be one of the most fundamental and strongest motivations that humans possess (Baumeister, 2012; Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg, & Schaller, 2010; Tomasello, 2014). The human brain is “hard-wired” to be around others (Beckes & Coan, 2011). In fact, large social group sizes of humans’ evolutionary past may have contributed …

Providers' Socioecological Perspectives On The Supports For And Challenges To Engagement In Care For Latino Youth Living With Hiv: A Qualitative Study, Diana Lemos

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

INTRODUCTION: Among youth, marginalized groups, such as Latino YLWH (LYLWH), may face multiple social stigmas, including such concerns as limited English-language proficiency, sexual-minority status, and immigration status that impact engagement across the continuum of HIV care (van Servellen, Chang, & Lombardi, 2002). One necessary step toward increasing understanding of the facilitators and barriers to this group’s engagement in HIV care is to examine engagement in care through a socioecological framework to better understand each of the multiple factors impacting Latino youth’s engagement in HIV care (Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Hosek, Harper, Lemos et al., 2005; Mugavero, Norton & Saag, 2011). Through the …

The Mission As A Master Signifier: Documentary Film, Social Change And Discourse Analysis, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

This field note explores the ways in which the documentary MIND ZONE: Therapists Behind the Front Lines (2014), directed by Dr. Jan Haaken, moves viewers into innovative and critical stances towards the U.S. military mental health program. Using a discourse analysis of the film and transcripts of interviews conducted by Haaken, I trace the deployment of the term “the mission” to show how the film teases apart problematic military discursive practices. Jacques Lacan’s theory of the four discourses is used to analyze how MIND ZONE’s content challenges audiences to produce their own critically informed opinions.

Collectivistic Coping Strategies For Distress Among Polynesian Americans, G. E. Kawika Allen, Timothy B. Smith

Faculty Publications

Previous research has shown that psychological services designed to assist clients in coping with stressful or traumatic events are more effective when aligned with clients’ cultural values, practices, and worldviews. However, limited research is available regarding the preferred coping strategies of Polynesian Americans. In examining collectivistic coping styles and their association with previous distress among 94 Polynesian Americans, we found that participants were highly likely to use family support and religion/spirituality to buffer the initial and residual effects of impairment attributable to distressing events, and private emotional outlets, such as psychotherapy, very infrequently. The use of private emotional outlets was …

The Divergent Effects Of Fear And Disgust On Inhibitory Control: An Erp Study., Mengsi Xu, Zhiai Li, Cody Ding, Junhua Zhang, Lingxia Fan, Liuting Diao, Dong Yang

Education Sciences and Professional Programs Faculty Works

Negative emotional stimuli have been shown to attract attention and impair executive control. However, two different types of unpleasant stimuli, fearful and disgusting, are often inappropriately treated as a single category in the literature on inhibitory control. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the divergent effects of fearful and disgusting distracters on inhibitory control (both conscious and unconscious inhibition). Specifically, participants were engaged in a masked Go/No-Go task superimposed on fearful, disgusting, or neutral emotional contexts, while event-related potentials were measured concurrently. The results showed that for both conscious and unconscious conditions, disgusting stimuli elicited a larger P2 than …

Reading And Phonological Skills In Boys With Fragile X Syndrome, Jessica Klusek, Anna W. Hunt, Penny L. Mirrett, Deborah D. Hatton, Stephen R. Hooper, Jane E. Roberts, Donald B. Bailey

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Extending Training In Multicultural Competencies To Include Individuals Identifying As Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual: Key Choice Points For Clinical Psychology Training Programs, Debra A. Hope, Chandra L. Chappell

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Traditional models of multicultural training for professional psychology have focused primarily on racial and ethnic minorities and have not included competencies focused on individuals identifying as lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB), despite documented evidence of health disparities for sexual minorities. Ways to adapt models based on Sue’s (1992) 3 × 3 competencies (attitudes and beliefs, knowledge, and skills across the dimensions of awareness of one’s own cultural influences and biases, understanding the client perspective, and appropriate interventions for an individual client) for LGB health are described. This includes the addition of an action/advocacy dimension. Six key choice points for clinical …

Tongues Untied Truth Revealed: Body Image, Social Media, Identity Development, And Meaning-Making In Overweight And Obese Black Gay Msm, Amari Ja-Lynn Enam

Dissertations

This phenomenological study explored the meanings attributed to internalized messages about body image within the context of identity development from the perspectives of overweight/obese men of African descent (OMAD) among a group of 6 men who have sex with men (MSM). I was interested in those messages that have been incorporated, adopted, or integrated into OMAD-MSM’s sense of self. Informants shared body image-related experiences from interactions with family, friends, dating/sex partners, and the media/social media.

Academic literature has explained identity development processes among African Americans through various lenses but research has not adequately explored the convergence of multiply oppressed social …

Effect Of Latinos In Action Peer Tutoring On Elementary Student Oral Reading Fluency Scores, Darren M. Hansen

Theses and Dissertations

The Latino population is the largest minority group in the United States, making up 16.3% of the total population. As the Latino population of the US grows, the Latino student population within schools across the nation is also growing, accounting for 10.5% of the student population. While the Latino student population continues to grow, there is evidence that this group is not achieving academically at the same rate as other groups. Latino statistics in Utah showed a similar situation within public schools. Fifty-one percent of Latino fourth graders were reading below the expected levels, compared to 22% for Caucasian students. …

Diagnoses, Intervention Strategies, And Rates Of Functional Improvement In Integrated Behavioral Health Care Patients, Ana J. Bridges, Samantha J. Gregus, Juventino Hernandez Rodriguez, Arthur R. Andrews Iii, Bianca T. Villalobos, Freddie A. Pastrana, Timothy A. Cavell

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Objective—Compared with more traditional mental health care, integrated behavioral health care (IBHC) offers greater access to services and earlier identification and intervention of behavioral and mental health difficulties. The current study examined demographic, diagnostic, and intervention factors that predict positive changes for IBHC patients.

Method—Participants were 1,150 consecutive patients (mean age = 30.10 years, 66.6% female, 60.1% Hispanic, 47.9% uninsured) seen for IBHC services at 2 primary care clinics over a 34-month period. Patients presented with depressive (23.2%), anxiety (18.6%), adjustment (11.3%), and childhood externalizing (7.6%) disorders, with 25.7% of patients receiving no diagnosis.

Results—The most commonly …

Generalized Event Representation In Pre-School Children With Mild- To High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd) And Children With Cognitive And Linguistic Delays (Cld), Tashana S. Samuel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently establish rigid routines and have difficulties flexibly applying what they have learned. Three experiments were conducted to examine generalized event representation in 34 pre-school children. In Experiment 1, children diagnosed with varying kinds of cognitive and language delays (CLD: n = 14) were tested with the generalized imitation paradigm, a reliable measure of representational capacity. Two sets of perceptually dissimilar objects with similar functions were used to perform the same task: one set consisted of modeling props and the other set was the generalization props. At the generalization assessment, children observed actions modeled …

Maturation Of Speech Discrimination And Attentional Requirements In Late Childhood, Judith Ann Iannotta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The ability to perceive speech sounds and contrasts continues to be refined throughout the course of development. While emerging models suggest that development is characterized by shifts from an attentionally demanding mode of processing speech sounds to one that occurs relatively automatically, the specific developmental time-course of these changes remains unclear. The present work reports the findings of two experiments that aimed to provide insights into the time-course by which neural processes underlying speech discrimination in children and adolescents becomes automatic. The experiments used event-related potentials (ERP) measures, with a particular focus on mismatch negativity (MMN) - a developmentally-sensitive index …

Do Cultural And Perceptual Factor Matter?: An Investigation Of Factors Impacting Intelligence Test Scores Of Latinos/Hispanics In The United States, Mary E. Ignagni

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper examined societal and cultural explanations regarding the score differences seen between Latinos/Hispanics and Whites on intelligence tests through focusing specifically on possible explanations for the scores obtained by Latino/Hispanic test-takers. In this paper, it was argued that additional unique factors may impact the test scores of Latino/Hispanic test-takers. Specifically, racial and ethnic self-identification, ethnic centrality, acculturation, cultural distance, test perceptions, and ethnicity were explored as possible unique factors. In addition, an attempt was made to explain within group differences. A non-experimental study was utilized in which a final sample of 194 participants completed an intelligence test and measures …

Black Like Me? A Narrative Study Of Non-Anglophone Black U.S. Immigrant Selves In The Making, Yvanne Joseph

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished discriminatory national origin quotas that favored European immigrants. The U.S. has since experienced steady flows of immigrants of color. These diverse groups have brought their racial, social, cultural and historical experiences, which adds greater complexity to the existing Black/White and ingroup/outgroup models that shape group relations, and psychological theorizing about identity. This dissertation focuses specifically on the smaller, less visible, yet growing segments of these immigrant populations. It presents a study of the lives of ten individual immigrants of African descent originating from a non-Anglophone country within Africa, Latin America …

Object Categorization In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd), Jaime Vitrano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate hierarchical object categorization in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), examining three levels of category inclusiveness (superordinate, basic, subordinate) across three tasks (sequential touching task, generalized imitation task, sorting task) in three domains (animals, tools, kitchen utensils) in the same group of children with ASD. Previous research on the categorization abilities of children with ASD has shown mixed results. This study was designed to clarify past discrepancies in the literature.

Ten children with ASD participated in this study (mean CA = 4 years, 10 months; range 3 to 6 years; mean VMA …

Task-Switching In Bilinguals: Further Investigation Of The Bilingual Advantage, Jennifer M. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Recent research has suggested that speaking more than one language may lead to benefits across a variety of different cognitive tasks (Bialystok, Craik, Green, & Gollan, 2009). This effect has been dubbed the Bilingual Advantage. It has been suggested that this advantage relates to more the development of greater efficiency with processes involved in task-switching. The current study used a task-switching task to investigate three of these processes: reconfiguration, monitoring, and inhibitory control processes.

Monolingual and bilingual participants were presented blocks of trials in which they had to either categorize words as either abstract or concrete, or pictures as human-made …

Smartphones: A Game Changer For Psychological Research, Wei Wang, Jibo He

Publications and Research

As technology continues to advance and smartphones continue to grow in popularity, we argue that smartphones have rapidly evolved as a suitable tool for psychological research. In this editorial, we will first briefly introduce the technological and social features possessed by smartphones that are ideal for psychology research. Then we distinguish two approaches to use smartphones for research, highlighting the external and internal validity of each approach. We further discuss computer skills and analysis methods needed for research with smartphones.

Deception Detection In Clinical Interview, Olivia Preston, Melissa Lewis

Student Research Symposium

The objective of Forensic Assessment of Client Truthfulness (FACT) measure is to detect deception in forensic psychology consultations. A statistically significant tool using verbal content analysis was created, based a synthesis of previous research in the field. This presentation reviews the research project and highlights one phase of the study where ratings true and deceptive statements in cases of accused sex offenders or insanity defense claimants were compared. Multiple ANOVAs, t-tests, and factor analyses were conducted. When FACT scores were dichotomized, 86% of the ratings characterized the true statements as true, and 81% of the ratings categorized the false statements …

The Effects Of Tylenol On Non-Social Emotional Memory, Renato Puga

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The present study proposes utilizing a slide-show presentation analogous to the one employed in Puga, Spelman, and Bohannon (2014). However, a new series of precritical, critical, and post-critical slides will be utilized, counterbalancing perceptuallycentral/peripheral items across all ofthem as well as counterbalancing the pre-critical and post-critical slides. The ultimate goal of this manipulation is twofold: To provide a strong methodological scenario in which (1) the "preceding information effect" found in Puga, Atkinson, and Bohannon (2012) as well as (2) the acetaminophen-post critical effect found in Puga, Spelman and Bohannon (2014) can both be re-tested and solidified.

Teacher Child Interaction Training As A Universal Prevention Program In Preschool And Kindergarten Classrooms, Jessica Rossi

Dissertations, 2014-2019

The current study assessed the effectiveness of Teacher Child Interaction Training (TCIT), an adaptation of Eyberg’s Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), on teacher and child behaviors in preschool and kindergarten classrooms. The sample included four classrooms in urban, socioeconomically disadvantaged and culturally diverse settings. Two preschool classrooms were included in the first study and one preschool and one kindergarten classroom were included in the second study. Both studies used a concurrent multiple baseline design to evaluate the effects of training and coaching on teacher and child behaviors in the classroom. The intervention focused on the development of a friendly attachment …

The Evaluation Of A Dual Language Reading Club For English Language Learner Students, Sandra M. Gonzalez

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Reading is a crucial skill in our society that is needed in personal growth and academic achievement; it is a prominent area of concern in our schools and students. Schools in the U.S. are experiencing a substantial increase of students whose first language is not English and/or do not speak fluent English and are known as English Language Learners (ELLs). These students are typically at risk for having problems with reading if they do not receive the proper or adequate support and intervention. Many ELL students struggle in their ability to read at a proficient level, which has multiple negative …

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Within Refugee Populations And Its Effects On Acculturation Into The United States, Brittany Burk

Celebration of Learning

The focus of this Honors Capstone research was to better understand the process through which a refugee acculturates into U.S. society. To do this, the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, cultural differences, United States citizens’ perceptions of refugees, and other challenges were addressed. A survey was conducted involving citizens’ perceptions of refugees, and revealed that individuals’ perceptions were determined by refugee status, PTSD and/or situational differences, depending on the scenario being described. This research seeks to address the problems faced by refugees entering the United States and proposes some solutions to provide a better transition into the U.S. culture by …

Expanding Openness: The Effect Of Actor Emotional Expression On Audience Openness To Experience, Amalia Golomb-Leavitt

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Commonly regarded as one of the Big Five domains of personality, openness to experience has the social potential to deepen group connection, increase team growth and performance, and strengthen diverse relationships. In the current study I hypothesize that emotional expression on the part of an actor has the potential to increase the levels of openness to experience of the audience. To test this hypothesis, I administered the Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) to assess baseline levels of openness to experience, randomly assigned participants to view either three videos high in levels of emotional expressivity or three videos low in emotional expressivity, …

Connectionist Perspectives On Language Learning, Representation And Processing., Marc F Joanisse, James L Mcclelland

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The field of formal linguistics was founded on the premise that language is mentally represented as a deterministic symbolic grammar. While this approach has captured many important characteristics of the world's languages, it has also led to a tendency to focus theoretical questions on the correct formalization of grammatical rules while also de-emphasizing the role of learning and statistics in language development and processing. In this review we present a different approach to language research that has emerged from the parallel distributed processing or 'connectionist' enterprise. In the connectionist framework, mental operations are studied by simulating learning and processing within …

Proficiency In Native And Nonnative English Speakers: The Effects Of Individual Difference Variables On Performance, Haley E. Barlow

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Deficits In Emotional Self-Regulation On Relationship Satisfaction In Young Adults, Murphy Harrell

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Effective emotional self-regulation is essential for evaluating a situation, giving meaning to the experience and to regulate emotions in order to achieve a desired goal. Emotional selfregulation is an essential feature of executive functioning, which affects a number of functional domains across the lifespan and is specifically important for sustaining healthy interpersonal relationships. Research to date shows that adults with ADHD and emotional dysregulation have poor social relationships, due to a variety of problems such as: not following social norms, missing nonverbal cues, interrupting conversations, not following through with promises, appearing inpatient or rude, and not thinking before speaking. Despite …

Effect Of The Physical Environment On Teacher Satisfaction With Indoor Environmental Quality In Early Learning Schools, Stuart Shell

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

While the quantity and quality of teacher-child interactions plays a key role in emotional and cognitive development for children, there is scant evidence regarding the contribution of physical environment to child outcomes. This study seeks to understand better the relative importance of variables within the physical environment for occupants. The research design targets teachers’ satisfaction with the physical environment as the outcome variable, based on the assumption that teachers who are more satisfied with their classroom provide higher-quality interactions with children. Teachers from two early learning schools with a total of 31 classrooms completed a written survey that asked about …

Narrative Identity Development For Novice Psychotherapists In Clinical Training, Dana Michelle Satterlee

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Abstract Narrative identity is “the internalized, evolving story of the self that each person crafts to provide his or her life with a sense of purpose and unity” (Adler, 2012, p. 367). This identity is distinct from the broad dispositional traits and the characteristic adaptations for contextualized behaviors. It provides the self with a sense of purpose, meaning, and unity across time and situations (McAdams & Olson, 2010). Researchers have developed ways of measuring innovative moments (IMs), or shifts in narrative identity that occur in psychotherapy. Researchers have also explored narrative identity processing as it seems to occur across the …