Digital Commons Network^™

The Blessed Assembly: Irreplaceable Physical Co-Presence In Worship And Healthy Hybridity Reimagined After The Pandemic In The Digital Age, Yvette, Ying Wai Lau

Doctor of Pastoral Music Projects and Theses

Because of the unprecedented and unexpected force of the pandemic since 2020, most churches around the world have experienced some online worship during the lockdown of their cities or the mandated closure of the church buildings. For many people, online worship seems to be an equivalent, if not better, alternative for gathering together—a physical co-presence in worship—even after the pandemic has ended. As necessary and vital as online worship experiences have been for Christians during the pandemic, the witness of the church from Pentecost throughout Christian history indicates that gathered worship in physical spaces is irreplaceable for faith formation and …

Therapeutic Potentials Of The Gut-Brain-Microbiota Axis For Prevention And Treatment Of Motivational Deficits In Ecohiv Infected Rats, Mason T. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

People living with HIV begin to experience gastrointestinal disturbances as early as 6 months after initial infection. Regardless of adherence to combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), the gut microbiome of people living with HIV maintains a state of dysbiosis throughout the rest of their lives, providing potential for a novel target for improving the lives of those living with HIV. The present study investigated the impact EcoHIV and cocaine have on the gut microbiome of F344/N rats. Fecal samples were collected from 20 female and 20 male animals at baseline, following self-administration of cocaine, and following inoculation with EcoHIV or Saline. …

Neurocognitive Processes As Longitudinal Predictors Of Reading Fluency, Jody Samuels

Theses and Dissertations

Reading fluency involves a complex interaction of different cognitive skills and abilities that develop with instruction and practice and relies on the automaticity of many distinct reading skills (e.g., pacing, word recognition, expression, phonological awareness). Fluent reading frees cognitive resources, such as working memory, for more advanced components of reading including comprehension and synthesis (Kim & Wagner, 2015; Samuels, 2006). Though early identification of students with fluency challenges is critical for providing evidence-based intervention, most screeners assess skills that are dependent upon instruction (e.g., letter identification, sound-symbol correspondence), delaying opportunities for identification. The current study examines the utility for including …

Cultural Selection Of Ethical Self-Control Toward Sustainability, Michael Jonathan Passage

Theses and Dissertations

This study consisted of three experiments to improve our understanding of the conditions that foster cooperation related to sustainability. In Experiment 1, participants completed a demographic questionnaire and an environmental and social discounting task. Results (a) support the utility of the environmental discounting task; (b) suggest responding to the discounting task is dissimilar; and (c) show that responding to hypothetical consequences on the social discounting task correlates to actual responding. Experiment 2 evaluated whether interlocking behavioral contingencies (by microculture members) associated with sustainable and non-sustainable aggregate products (Condition A & B) could be selected by cultural consequences (i.e., 20¢ toward …

The Impact Of Emotional Impulsivity On Emotion Regulation And Internalizing Disorders: Competing Latent Path Models, Alicia L. Milam

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Emotion regulation has been identified as a transdiagnostic risk factor in internalizing disorders. Previous literature has attempted to classify regulatory strategies by their temporal and functional characteristics to determine how to best implement emotion regulation interventions. However, these frameworks occasionally conflict, particularly in the presence of factors impacting regulatory strategy selection such as emotional impulsivity. This project examined competing theoretical models of emotion regulation strategy classification as related to internalizing psychopathology as well as explore the association between emotional impulsivity, regulatory classification and internalizing psychopathology. A community sample of 783 adults recruited through Amazon MTurk completed online questionnaires related to …

Gender Measurement Invariance Of The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - Adolescent - Restructured Form (Mmpi-A-Rf) Internalizing And Externalizing Specific Problem Scales, Thomas Jay Augustin

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Due to social, psychological, biological, and cultural differences in adolescent development, it is important to evaluate measurement invariance in psychological measures. Although the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) assessments have a plethora of research to evaluate their utility in clinical practice, few published studies have examined the measurement invariance between males and females for any of the scales in the adolescent versions (MMPI-A/MMPI-A-RF). The present study examined the measurement invariance of the MMPI-A-RF Internalizing and Externalizing Specific Problem Scales between male and female adolescents. Data were obtained from an outpatient sample and from Pearson’s mail-in service resulting in 1,622 valid …

Cash, Crowds, And Cooperation: The Effects Of Population Density And Resource Scarcity On Cooperation In The Dictator Game, Tan Kai Lin, Lynn, Norman P. Li, Kenneth Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The adaptive benefits of cooperation among humans have been widely studied. However, is being cooperative always adaptive across various combinations of ecological conditions? Existing work has focused on cultural, inter-, and intra-individual predictors of cooperation yet there is a lack of research on how an individual's ecology may come into play. In this work, we focus on the interaction of two ecological factors—population density and resource scarcity—on cooperation. Population density is often accompanied by social competition for limited resources. We hypothesise that in response to cues of high (versus low) population density, people facing resource-scarcity would adaptively lower their cooperativeness, …

Structural Integrity, Flexibility, And Timing: Introduction To A Special Issue On Resilience, David Pincus, Adam W. Kiefer, Stephen J. Guastello

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

This introduction to a special issue of Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology and Life Sciences on the topic of resilience discusses the contributing articles in terms of their flexibility in methods, models, scale, and contexts combined with their integrity in shared theoretical understanding and generative knowledge. The ubiquity of resilience is discussed, a feature of potentially any living or non-living system and substance. This breadth calls for a flexible set of models and methods, along with the quest for integrative theory to make resilience science more resilient. Since resilience involves the ability of a substance or system to persist, to repair or …

Investigating The Mediating Effect Of Social Support In Team Sport Participation On Adolescent Mental Health Outcomes, Olivia Schmitke

Theses and Dissertations

Peer and non-familial adult supportive relationships are a critical part of healthy adolescent development, positively influencing psychological, behavioral, and social domains (e.g., Panza et. al., 2020). Extracurricular sports activities are a source of peer (e.g., teammates) and adult (e.g., coaches) relationships and are associated with favorable impacts on mental health which may be an impactful protective factor given the rise of mental health crisis in youth today. The present study aimed to clarify the relationship mechanisms underlying the benefits of sports participation by examining and effecting social support has on mental health outcomes in adolescents engaged in sports. In doing …

Altered Sensory Processing And Pain In Youth With Sickle Cell Disease: Risk Factors And Moderators, Julia Johnston

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Youth with sickle cell disease (SCD) experience recurrent pain and increased risk for chronic pain. Neuropathic pain, characterized by alterations to the central and/or peripheral nervous systems, is not well understood among youth with SCD. Based on our current understanding of pain systems and existing literature on pain in SCD, this study aimed to elucidate psychosocial correlates of altered sensory processing (ASP) and neuropathic pain, determine biomedical risk factors contributing to the development of ASP among youth with SCD, and identify how sensory processing and biopsychosocial factors collectively influence pain experiences by assessing two plausible models. Methods: Thirty-five youth …

Using Youth Participatory Action Research To Scale Up Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (Prep) In The Southern United States, Mariajose Jhamira Paton

Theses and Dissertations

The recently launched initiative, Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE), provides a targeted plan to end HIV in the United States (US) by 2030, and prioritizes key demographic groups and geographic areas that are disproportionately burdened by HIV. Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth, especially Black and Latiné youth (SGMBLY), are a key population for EHE as they have experienced the largest increase in new HIV rates in recent decades. States identified by EHE are disproportionately located in the Southern US, where increasing the uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV has been a challenge. Though proven effective, youth participatory action …

Understanding Stressors, Coping Strategies, And Physical Activity Among African American Women Using Ecological Momentary Assessment, Asia Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Psychological stress is a normal part of the human experience and can be adaptive in certain contexts. However, chronic, cumulative, or uncontrollable stressors, such as those associated with living in poverty or being a member of a marginalized group, contribute to pervasive inequities among African American women including lower rates of physical activity. Given the social and political forces that continue to shape inequities, and which have exacerbated Covid-19’s impact on African Americans, it is important to gain a better understanding of how this population is experiencing and coping with current stressors, many of which are embedded within the social …

Understanding Foster Parents' Experiences Of Secondary Traumatic Stress, Sarah Marie Boeding

Dissertations (1934 -)

Secondary traumatic stress, which has been studied across many helping professions, refers to symptoms similar to posttraumatic stress disorder which an individual may develop as a result of indirect exposure to another individual’s trauma (Sprang et al., 2019). Foster parents may be particularly susceptible to developing secondary traumatic stress due to their exposure to their foster child’s trauma history and trauma symptoms, which has been confirmed in recent studies (Bridger et al., 2020; Whitt-Woosley et al., 2020). Importantly, foster parents’ experiences of secondary traumatic stress may differ from those of other helping professionals given their unique role. The purpose of …

Curbing The Campus Mental Health Crisis: The Role Of Extracurricular Activity Participation, Rosanne Villemaire-Krajden, Erin Barker

Journal of Youth Development

Rates of distress on post-secondary campuses are alarmingly high, calling for a shift towards learning environments that better address emerging adults’ holistic needs. This cross-sectional, mixed-method study examines the role that extracurricular activity participation can play in such approaches. Online survey data was collected from 302 undergraduate students (M_age = 21.3) to assess extracurricular activity participation prior to and during their university attendance, across quantitative indicators (i.e., type and number of activities). Students’ qualitative accounts of the influence of their extracurricular activity participation on their development and wellbeing was examined using thematic analysis. Results indicate that rates of …

Impact Of Organized Activity Participation On Emotional Distress For Adolescents With Disabilities, Adam Langenfeld, Rebekah Hudock, Rebecca J. Dosch Brown, Marla Eisenberg

Journal of Youth Development

Adolescents who have been diagnosed with disabilities constitute a significant portion of the school population in the United States. For example, the National Survey of Children’s Health identified one in four children ages 12 to 17 as having special healthcare needs in 2019 (Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health, n.d.). These adolescents are often diagnosed with a wide range of conditions, ranging from specific learning difficulties to more global delays across developmental domains. In the school setting, adolescents with disabilities often have an individualized educational program (IEP). Mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA) of 2004, …

Childhood Maltreatment And Amygdala-Mediated Anxiety And Posttraumatic Stress Following Adult Trauma, Farah Harb, Michael T. Liuzzi, Ashley A. Huggins, E. Kate Webb, Jacklynn M. Fitzgerald, Jessica L. Krukowski, Terri A. Deroon-Cassini, Christine L. Larson

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Childhood abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual) is associated with aberrant connectivity of the amygdala, a key threat-processing region. Heightened amygdala activity also predicts adult anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, as do experiences of childhood abuse. The current study explored whether amygdala resting-state functional connectivity may explain the relationship between childhood abuse and anxiety and PTSD symptoms following trauma exposure in adults.

Methods

Two weeks posttrauma, adult trauma survivors (n = 152, mean age [SD] = 32.61 [10.35] years; women = 57.2%) completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. PTSD and anxiety …

A Mixed-Methods Study To Examine Protective Behavioral Strategies For Simultaneous Alcohol And Cannabis Use In College Students, Jennifer Lynn Shipley

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

State-level cannabis legalization is becoming more common in the United States. With the rise of cannabis legalization, cannabis use among college students has increased and young adults’ perceptions of the harms associated with cannabis use have decreased. Moreover, simultaneous use of alcohol and cannabis (so that their effects overlap; SAM) is prominent in the college student population. Negative consequences related to SAM use are greater than those for alcohol or cannabis single-substance use. Protective behavioral strategies (PBS) are robust predictors of reduced harm, and critical components for efficacious interventions for reducing alcohol and cannabis use and their related harms. PBS …

Cultural Tightness-Looseness And Optimal Distinctiveness: Examining The Influence Of Culture On The Need To Belong And The Need To Be Different, Hairong Jiang

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the influence of cultural tightness-looseness on optimal distinctiveness motives and group identification, examining the moderating roles of self-construal, global orientation, and tightness/looseness match. Participants (N=465) from the United States and China were randomly assigned to tight or loose conditions and numerically majority or minority group conditions. Experimental manipulation of tightness-looseness did not significantly affect optimal distinctiveness needs. Cultural match, operationalized as alignment of tightness/looseness between participants' own culture and experimental condition, significantly moderated the relationship between culture conditions and need to belong. Individuals with high cultural match showed higher need to belong in tight conditions, while those …

Verbal Learning And Memory Deficits Across Neurological And Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Insights From An Enigma Mega Analysis, Eamonn Kennedy, Spencer W Liebel, Hannah M Lindsey, Shashank Vadlamani, Pui-Wa Lei, Maheen M Adamson, Martin Alda, Silvia Alonso-Lana, Tim J Anderson, Celso Arango, Robert F Asarnow, Mihai Avram, Rosa Ayesa-Arriola, Talin Babikian, Nerisa Banaj, Laura J Bird, Stefan Borgwardt, Amy Brodtmann, Katharina Brosch, Karen Caeyenberghs, Vince D Calhoun, Nancy D Chiaravalloti, David X Cifu, Benedicto Crespo-Facorro, John C Dalrymple-Alford, Kristen Dams-O'Connor, Udo Dannlowski, David Darby, Nicholas Davenport, John Deluca, Covadonga M Diaz-Caneja, Seth G Disner, Ekaterina Dobryakova, Stefan Ehrlich, Carrie Esopenko, Fabio Ferrarelli, Lea E Frank, Carol E Franz, Paola Fuentes-Claramonte, Helen Genova, Christopher C Giza, Janik Goltermann, Dominik Grotegerd, Marius Gruber, Alfonso Gutierrez-Zotes, Minji Ha, Jan Haavik, Charles Hinkin, Kristen R Hoskinson, Daniela Hubl, Andrei Irimia, Andreas Jansen, Michael Kaess, Xiaojian Kang, Kimbra Kenney, Barbora Keřková, Mohamed Salah Khlif, Minah Kim, Jochen Kindler, Tilo Kircher, Karolina Knížková, Knut K Kolskår, Denise Krch, William S Kremen, Taylor Kuhn, Veena Kumari, Junsoo Kwon, Roberto Langella, Sarah Laskowitz, Jungha Lee, Jean Lengenfelder, Victoria Liou-Johnson, Sara M Lippa, Marianne Løvstad, Astri J Lundervold, Cassandra Marotta, Craig A Marquardt, Paulo Mattos, Ahmad Mayeli, Carrie R Mcdonald, Susanne Meinert, Tracy R Melzer, Jessica Merchán-Naranjo, Chantal Michel, Rajendra A Morey, Benson Mwangi, Daniel J Myall, Igor Nenadić, Mary R Newsome, Abraham Nunes, Terence O'Brien, Viola Oertel, John Ollinger, Alexander Olsen, Victor Ortiz García De La Foz, Mustafa Ozmen, Heath Pardoe, Marise Parent, Fabrizio Piras, Federica Piras, Edith Pomarol-Clotet, Jonathan Repple, Geneviève Richard, Jonathan Rodriguez, Mabel Rodriguez, Kelly Rootes-Murdy, Jared Rowland, Nicholas P Ryan, Raymond Salvador, Anne-Marthe Sanders, Andre Schmidt, Jair C Soares, Gianfranco Spalleta, Filip Španiel, Scott R Sponheim, Alena Stasenko, Frederike Stein, Benjamin Straube, April Thames, Florian Thomas-Odenthal, Sophia I Thomopoulos, Erin B Tone, Ivan Torres, Maya Troyanskaya, Jessica A Turner, Kristine M Ulrichsen, Guillermo Umpierrez, Daniela Vecchio, Elisabet Vilella, Lucy Vivash, William C Walker, Emilio Werden, Lars T Westlye, Krista Wild, Adrian Wroblewski, Mon-Ju Wu, Glenn R Wylie, Lakshmi N Yatham, Giovana B Zunta-Soares, Paul M Thompson, Mary Jo Pugh, David F Tate, Frank G Hillary, Elisabeth A Wilde, Emily L Dennis

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Deficits in memory performance have been linked to a wide range of neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions. While many studies have assessed the memory impacts of individual conditions, this study considers a broader perspective by evaluating how memory recall is differentially associated with nine common neuropsychiatric conditions using data drawn from 55 international studies, aggregating 15,883 unique participants aged 15–90. The effects of dementia, mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson’s disease, traumatic brain injury, stroke, depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder on immediate, short-, and long-delay verbal learning and memory (VLM) scores were estimated relative to matched healthy individuals. Random forest …

The Never Ending Pursuit Of Satisfaction: How The Brain Modulates Pleasure Seeking Behavior, Amelia Williams

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Humans are addicted to pursuing pleasure but are still unsatisfied. Dopamine modulates this activity. Mindfulness can help us do better as a society.

Poland Syndrome And The Sensorimotor Cortex: An Untapped Possibility For Research, Ace Laikind

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Poland syndrome is a rare disorder that unilaterally affects the chest, arms, and hands. Despite being a limb disorder, there has not been research done on how Poland syndrome interacts with the sensorimotor cortex. Other limb disorders have documented connections to the sensorimotor cortex, and can be used to infer how Poland syndrome affects the sensorimotor cortex. Limb disorders with extensive research on the sensorimotor cortex are phantom limb syndrome, focal hand dystonia, and congenital one-handedness. Additionally, to accommodate for the confound created by the differences between congenital and acquired conditions, blindness and its effects on plasticity can be examined. …

Predictive Processing And Chronic Pain, Lydia Hurst

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Chronic pain is a common condition in which sufferers experience pain for over 3 months. The causes of chronic pain are often difficult to discern, as many cases are not associated with physical damage. A predictive processing (PP) perspective proposes that chronic pain results from the brain’s erroneous predictions derived from strong emotional and/or fearful reactions to pain. Individuals with anxiety disorders are more likely to react with fear to general stimuli, and therefore may be more likely to develop chronic pain under this model. The current healthcare model for this condition, which focuses on treating symptoms with pain-killers, displays …

Integrity, Flexibility, And Balance: How Change Works In Psychotherapy, David Pincus

Psychology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Psychotherapy may be the most tested form of health intervention and also one of the most mysterious. Clinical trials, and meta-analyses of these trials, have repeatedly demonstrated the effectiveness of psychotherapy, while also failing to uncover any clear-cut and consistent understanding of how psychotherapy works. This lack of understanding has driven the field to develop 500 supposedly distinct, yet equivalently effective “theories.” The field suffers from barriers to scientific discovery, barriers to therapist training, and barriers to people seeking help for their psychosocial problems. This chapter tackles the mystery of how therapy works by examining the shortcomings of modern medical …

Nonlinear Biopsychosocial Resilience: Self-Organization As The Basis For A Common Framework, Adam W. Kiefer, David Pincus

Psychology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Recently, calls have been made for a common framework to understand human resilience through the lens of dynamical systems theory. This chapter provides a comprehensive introduction to the concepts and tools necessary for such an approach. It builds on an existing theoretical framework of biopsychosocial resilience grounded in self-organization theory. This theoretical framework is applied to the formalization of four types of resilience – robustness, resilience, antifragility and grit. Next, important features of stability, structural integrity, and flexibility are discussed as empirically measurable characteristics of a systems-based approach to resilience, which provide a foundation for further applications, including metastability and, …

Benefits Of Acceptance And Commitment Therapy (Act) For Chronic Pain, Maria Kleinstaeuber, Ashley Yaugher, Emily Roundy, Michael Levin

All Current Publications

Chronic pain is a common experience for people and can be difficult to manage. However, there are many evidence-based and effective psychological treatments for chronic pain to help people improve their lives. One of these is acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT. ACT teaches how to accept pain and live a life full of meaning and quality, with pain. It helps individuals increase their quality of life through mindfulness-based methods, experiential processing, and a focus on values, goals, and actions. ACT has been shown to be effective in reducing pain and improving pain management and personal well-being. Consult the resources …

Emotional Reactivity And Recognition Deficits In Individuals With Callous-Unemotional (Cu) Traits: A Multilevel Meta-Analysis, Emily C. Kemp

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Youth and adults with antisocial behavior present a significant mental health concern. Elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits, characterized by deficient empathy and remorse, distinguish clinically important subgroups of antisocial individuals who present with more severe behavior and distinct cognitive-affective characteristics that may help to explain the underlying causes of their antisocial behavior and inform more effective treatments. Specifically, two mechanisms theorized to underlie the development of elevated CU traits by way of atypical empathy development are deficient reactivity to and recognition of others’ emotions. Though a substantive literature base reports associations between CU traits and emotional processing deficits, significant inconsistencies remain. …

Factors Associated With Functioning In Older Black Adults, Katrail D. Davis

LSU Master's Theses

Activities of daily living can be simple tasks such as bathing, showering, toileting or as complex as managing finances, driving, and preparing meals. Independence in everyday functioning has been associated with successful aging and declines in functioning may be indicative of pathological cognitive decline. Social determinants of health, like economic status and access to health care, also play a role in everyday functioning. Understanding these factors are of particular importance for older Black adults who have had long-standing disparate access to care, education, and treatments. The current study aimed to evaluate social determinants of health, more specifically social engagement, as …

Make It Funny! Developing A Novel Humor-Based Digital Positive Psychology Intervention To Investigate The Influence Of Duchenne Laughter And Mirth On Psychological Distress In Daily Life, Joshua Semko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The aim of the present research was to develop a novel digital humor-based PPI (Make it Funny!) to investigate the influence of Duchenne laughter and mirth on psychological distress in daily life. Participants (N = 159; Age_­median­ = 39 years; 47.77% biologically female; 68.15% White) were tasked with completing Make it Funny! or a placebo activity every day for 7 days. Duchenne laughter frequency had a small negative cross-sectional moderation effect on the relationship between the occurrence of stressful events psychological distress (t(79.71) = -2.33, b = -10.89, p = .022). Within participants, Duchenne laughter …

Individual Differences In The Cognitive-Behavioral Model Of Chronic Back Pain In Patients Receiving Spine Surgery: Towards Precision Phenotypes, Madelyn Frumkin

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Chronic back pain impacts over 20 million adults in the United States and represents the costliest condition in our healthcare system. Treatments for chronic back pain range from cognitive-behavioral therapy to opioid pain medications and spine surgery. At present, it is extremely difficult to determine which treatments are likely to maximize benefit and minimize risk for a given patient. As such, the goal of this study was to examine whether individual differences in the cognitive-behavioral model of chronic back pain were associated with baseline characteristics or surgical outcomes. Patients (N = 95) with chronic back pain who were receiving spine …

Modeling The Development Of Borderline Personality Disorder: A Formal Theory Approach, Alexandria M. Choate

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a complex disorder characterized by instabilities in emotion regulation, impulse control, and interpersonal relationships. BPD affects adolescent and adult populations at similar rates, with traits often detectable in late childhood or early adolescence. Despite some progress in the understanding of BPD and its development, contemporary theories have yet to address several important questions in the literature. The present study suggests that many limitations associated with current theoretical models of BPD may be attributable to an overdependence on verbally specified, or weak theories. In most cases, weak theories are constructed using vague or imprecisely defined hypotheses …