Digital Commons Network^™

Helping Your Child Manage Anxiety: A Parent Education Workshop, Clarissa Aglaén Gallardo

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Anxiety has become one of the most common mental health disorders in young children, and it has been shown to have a significant impact on their development. Anxiety can make a child more susceptible to a number of negative effects, including a weakened immune system, developing “negative” habits such as nail biting, increased proneness to anger or crying, as well as difficulties in learning and retaining information. Conversely, when parents/caregivers can prevent or decrease anxiety in their children, children can better regulate their emotions, have more successful relationships, take more risks, and cope better with challenges. The purpose of this …

The Impact Of Infant-Toddler Screen Time On Self-Regulation And Behavior Challenges: The Role Of Parenting Style And Socio-Economic Status, Tara O'Malley

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

As young children are growing up in a digitally enmeshed world, there is growing concern about the developmental impacts of screen time. Given the importance of early rapid brain development, understanding the developmental outcomes of screen time in early childhood is critical. Current research suggests that excessive screen time may lead to delays in physical, cognitive, and language development. However, the impact of screen time on socio-emotional development among young children (0-5 years) is not well understood. Therefore, the present study examined the effects of screen time on social-emotional outcomes of 12-to-36-month-old children, specifically, the impact on self-regulation and behavior …

Behavioral Indicators Of Reflective Functioning In Mother-Child Dyadic Interactions, Rachel Clingensmith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Positive parenting practices and secure attachments are consistently linked to healthy child outcomes (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991; Waters et al., 2000). Research on cognitive processes that scaffold parental behaviors which contribute to secure attachment is an essential contribution to the literature, particularly given the potential for early intervention with at-risk families. Parental Reflective Functioning (PRF) is a construct of increasing interest which has been linked to secure attachments and positive child outcomes, with one commonly used self-report measure of PRF being the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ; Camoirano, 2017; Clingensmith, 2021; Luyten et al., 2017). As such, the purpose of …

Children’S Experiences Of Parental Death, “Lost But Still Remembered”, Nour Salem

Dissertations, 2020-current

Parental death is prevalent during childhood, and the emotional, social, and behavioral effects on children’s development are well-documented. Although there is extensive literature on grief in children, most studies on children’s grief have obtained data about children’s experiences though collateral interviews with parents or caregivers, from adults who lost a parent as a child, or through quantitative measures with children and caregivers. Few studies have implemented a qualitative exploration of parental death by asking bereaved children. The objective of the current study was to involve parentally bereaved children in responding to the research question, “what is it like to lose …

Predicting Suicide Attempt History: Self-Report And Objective Measures Of Pain, Boriana Lassiter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

The aim of this study was to replicate a factor analysis of the Painful and Provocative Events Scale (PPES), to test whether commonly used self-report measures associated with the Interpersonal Theory of (IPTS) would predict suicide attempt status and suicidal history, and to test whether physical pain sensitivity would differentiate suicide attempers, ideators, and those with no suicidal history (controls). Factor analysis of the PPES yielded a 5-factor solution consisting of Rare and Illegal Activities, Abuse Experience, Dangerous Sports, Medical Trauma, and Body Modification. Only Abuse Experience predicted suicide attempt status and overall suicidal history. Abuse Experience, the Psychache Scale, …

Adverse Childhood Experiences Effects On Hot And Cool Executive Functioning, Miriam Gabrielle Fenton

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Previous research has shown that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are related to executive functioning (EF). However, researchers have yet to explore the differences in hot and cool EF in participants who have experienced ACEs. This current study aims to measure ACEs' effects on EF while distinguishing between hot and cool EF. We did this by administering the WCST, Stroop task, and the Visual Digit Span (backward) to capture cool EF from an undergraduate sample. Additionally, we used the IGT, the emotional Stroop, and Go/No Go (EGNG) tasks to measure hot EF in the same participants. We predicted that participants who …

On The Topology Of The Noosphere, Julie A. Yusupova

Journal of Conscious Evolution

As a young child I had a certain set of dreams, the enigma of which remained mysteriously hovering in my memories to this day. In one of these earliest dreams of my life, I am playing hide-and-seek with my friends, but am observing myself from an external third-person perspective, just as all my dreams had regularly been until then. I remember that the next morning, my waking conscious mind had noticed this split between self and observer and judged it unusual, and so in the following night’s dream, I somehow willed my observer self to merge into the body of …

Identifying Clinical Profiles In A Community Sample Of Youth With Selective Mutism, Melanie Rede

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Selective mutism (SM) refers to a consistent failure to speak in social situations that have an expectation for speaking, despite fluent speech in other situations (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Recent researchers describe SM as a heterogeneous disorder not always characterized by anxiety (Driessen et al., 2020). Specifically, some have argued that SM may be better explained as a neurodevelopmental rather than an anxiety disorder (Kearney & Rede, 2021). The aim of the present study was to find unique classes for anxiety, oppositional, and communication difficulties among youth with SM. Participants included 129 caregivers of youth with SM aged 6–14 years …

Assessing Cocaine Motivational Value: Comparison Of Brain Reactivity Bias Toward Cocaine Cues And Cocaine Demand, Heather E Webber, Jin H Yoon, Constanza De Dios, Robert Suchting, Vincent Dang, Francesco Versace, Charles E Green, Margaret C Wardle, Scott D Lane, Joy M Schmitz

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The behavioral economic measure drug demand and the neural measure late positive potential (LPP) are two measures of motivational value that have been associated with drug relapse risk and treatment outcomes. Despite having overlapping themes, no studies have directly compared drug demand and LPP. Participants (N = 59) included treatment-seeking individuals with cocaine use disorder that had completed both a baseline cocaine demand task and an electroencephalogram (EEG) picture-viewing task of drug-related and pleasant picture cues. Associations between the LPP difference score amplitude (drug-pleasant) and five demand indices (Q₀, essential value [EV], Omax, Pmax, and …

Examining The Experience And Impact Of Teen-To-Teen Crisis Line Work For Youth Volunteers: A Pilot Study, Taylor Kalgren

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

For young people, suicide is a leading cause of death. In addition, suicidal thoughts and behaviors begin during adolescence, and rates are high during this developmental period. Crisis lines are one of the oldest suicide prevention strategies used today. Crisis line work is challenging, and therefore, examining the health and safety of these operators is critical. Teen-to-teen (t2t) crisis lines are a unique resource where adolescent volunteers help their similarity aged peers. The goal of this pilot study was to begin to evaluate the impact of t2t crisis lines for youth volunteers. Twenty youth crisis line volunteers (ages 15-20) were …

Cultural Mechanism Of Mothers' Perceptions Of Youth Psychopathology, Yen-Ling Chen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cross-cultural research systematically identifies variations in cultural practices, meanings, and responses across different cultural groups. For example, psychiatric symptoms vary in their salience and degree to which they are reported across cultures. Cultural differences in causal attributions likely lead to differences in an individual’s help-seeking intention. However, there are limitations in previous cross-cultural studies about perceptions of psychopathology, including not measuring impairment level and parental distress, as well as the problematic use of categorical variables as predictors. To overcome limitations in previous work, the current project examined the cultural mechanism of mothers’ perceptions of externalizing and internalizing psychopathology in youth. …

Examination Of Performance Validity And The Relationship To Cognition And Symptoms In Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders, Erick A. Rogers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Approximately one-in-five individuals with psychotic disorders (i.e., schizophrenia spectrum disorders [SSD]) fail performance validity indicators (PVIs) during neurocognitive testing. Ensuring the validity of neurocognitive test results is necessary if the test scores are to be of use for diagnostic consideration, intervention selection and planning, predicting outcomes, and following changes in cognition over time in response to intervention, spontaneous recovery, or disease progression. PVIs are designed to require only a minimum level of engagement with the evaluation, which means nearly everyone is expected to “pass,” even those with moderate to severe brain damage. Traditional interpretations of PVI failure suggest a noncredible …

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Discrimination, & Adulthood Health Outcomes: Impacts Of Protective And Compensatory Experiences In Childhood, Sallie A. Mack

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Adversity encompasses a wide range of stress-inducing experiences that are often prolonged and/or recurring in nature. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) capture adversity experienced before the age of 18, including abuse, neglect, and general household dysfunction. ACEs are widely linked to physical and mental health outcomes across the lifespan. Racial/ethnic discrimination, a form of adversity that can occur across the lifespan, has also been linked to many negative health outcomes. Protective and compensatory experiences in childhood (PACEs) are a relatively newer conceptualization of early-life resiliency factors. Early life resiliency is linked to positive health outcomes later in life. Our studies investigated …

The Longitudinal Effects Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Internalizing And Externalizing Problems: In Search Of Demographic Disparities, Cynthia M. Navarro Flores

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Children experience high rates of emotional problems (e.g., anxiety, depression) and behavioral problems (e.g., defiance, aggression) that can have long-lasting detrimental effects. Emotional/behavioral problems have been found to relate to exposure to adversity during childhood (i.e., adverse childhood experiences [ACEs]). Studies have found that rates of exposure to ACEs and emotional/behavioral problems may vary depending on one’s race/ethnicity, sex, and income. Research has not yet looked at how emotional/behavioral problems develop throughout childhood in conjunction to exposure to ACEs. The current two-paper dissertation focused on examining the individual and conjointly developing trajectories of ACEs, and emotional (i.e., internalizing problems) and …

App-Based Academic Interventions For Children With Autism, Cassity R. Haverkamp

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Technology, such as tablet/phone apps, robots, video games, and virtual reality, can be used to teach skills to autistic children. Research on technology supports for autistic youth often focus on social skills, a main part of an autism diagnosis. However, autistic children may also have academic challenges, and fewer studies have looked at how technology can teach academic skills to children with autism. We created three studies to look at how academic apps may benefit autistic children. In the first study, we reviewed studies that looked at how academic apps can increase the academic skills of children with autism. We …

The Effect Of Sleep Deprivation On The Ability To Reappraise Negative Situations, Rebecca Campbell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sleep and emotion regulation are important components of mental health and may function interdependently in the development and maintenance of mental health disorders. Unfortunately, there is limited experimental work on the impacts of sleep deprivation on reappraisal, a common emotion regulation strategy, in adults. Furthermore, increases in negative and decreases in positive affect are often associated with sleep loss. This study aimed to examine the relation between sleep deprivation and emotion regulation by asking adults to reappraise a series of vignettes before and after a randomly assigned night of sleep deprivation or normal sleep. Additionally, measures of self-reported emotion regulation …

Examination Of A Measure To Assess Clients’ Perceptions Of The Client-Provider Relationship In Home Visiting Services, Bethelhem Belachew

Dissertations

Home visiting services are prevention-or intervention-based programs provided to caregivers during the prenatal period through the first few years of a child’s development (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). Engagement in services is documented to improve caregivers’ knowledge of child development and parenting practices (e.g., home safety, nutrition; Ammerman et al., 2006). Despite these benefits, programs are challenged with high levels of attrition (Gomby, Culross, & Behrman, 1999). One reliable predictor of client engagement in services is the client-provider relationship. However, measures that have been developed to assess the clients’ perception of their relationship with their home visitor relationship are limited (Girvin …

The Impact Of Covid-19 Stressors, Racial Discrimination, And Racial Socialization On Family Functioning In Black Families, Regina L. Alexander

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Marginalized communities, specifically Black Americans, have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic which has resulted in more hospitalizations and deaths within this particular community. However, this disproportionate impact of COVID-19 is likely the result of ongoing health disparities related to a lack of access to adequate healthcare. In addition to health disparities specifically related to COVID-19, Black Americans have also experienced public displays of racial discrimination resulting from the systemic racism that has occurred for many years. It has been determined that stress spillover can impact relationship factors and this same spillover may be an important factor by which …

Designing Movement-Based Interventions To Promote Self-Regulation In Early Childhood, Gayatri Sardana

Dissertations, 2020-current

Self-regulation skills are an important predictor of academic achievement, mental health, and positive behavior in the classroom (Blair & Diamond, 2008; Cameron et al., 2016; Skibbe et al., 2019). In early childhood, self-regulation is intrinsically connected with motor development. The neuropsychological overlap between the brain regions involved in cognitive and motor development can be leveraged through interventions. In bridging research and practice, this study proposes that movement-based interventions are a developmentally appropriate pathway to strengthen self-regulation skills in early childhood. Derived from research on neurocognitive processes involved in self-regulation (i.e., response inhibition, executive attention, and working memory), guidelines to design …

Diabetes Related Distress And Co-Occurrence With Depressive Symptoms In Urban Low-Income African American And Hispanic/Latinx Adults With Type 2 Diabetes, Laurie Ruggiero, Sarah Williams Leng, Mary De Groot, Ben S. Gerber, Rosalba Hernandez, Lauretta Quinn

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Introduction. Burden of diabetes in the U.S. is greater in racial-ethnic minority populations than non-Hispanic Whites. Depression and diabetes-related distress (DRD) are recognized as relatively common and important psychosocial areas to address in people living with diabetes. Limited research in the U.S. has focused on DRD in racial-ethnic minority populations. The purpose of this study is to describe patterns of DRD and co-occurrence with depressive symptoms in urban low-income African American and Hispanic/Latinx adults with type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM).

Method. We examined the baseline data collected for a randomized clinical trial (RCT) studying the impact of a culturally tailored …

Avoiding Anthropomoralism, Julian Friedland

Between the Species

The Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation, which has been endorsed by hundreds of influential academic ethicists, calls for establishing a vegan economy by banning what it refers to as all unnecessary animal suffering, including fishing. It does so by appeal to the moral principle of equal consideration of comparable interests. I argue that this principle is misapplied by discounting morally relevant cognitive capacities of self-conscious and volitional personhood as distinguished from merely sentient non-personhood. I describe it as a kind of anthropomorphizing moralism which I call anthropomoralism, defined as the tendency to project morally relevant characteristics of personhood onto merely …

Personality As A Predictor Of Hitting And Pitching Performances Among Professional Baseball Players, Tess M. Palmateer, Trent A. Petrie, Whitney Moore

Journal of Athlete Development and Experience

Research regarding personality as predictors of objective physical performances has been limited and equivocal. We examined longitudinally whether personality predicted baseball pitchers’ (n = 119) or hitters’ (n = 115) performances after controlling for past performances. Through regression analyses, we determined that personality did not significantly predict the player’ performances during their first year in Minor League Baseball (MiLB). Our results indicate that, at least in the short-term, personality may be a poor predictor of such performances. Research is needed to determine if personality’s effects may occur over a longer period of time, such as through the development …

The Combined Effects Of Discrimination And Holding Multiple Intersecting Marginalized Identities On Substance Use Among Adolescents, Ashley Thomas

Theses and Graduate Projects

Individuals with multiple intersecting marginalized identities may be at greater risk for negative outcomes and exposure to discrimination during development. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of discrimination and having multiple marginalized identities on substance use among Minnesota youth. Using data gathered from the 2019 administration of the Minnesota Student Survey, a large statewide survey of 80,456 9th and 11th grade students, this study aimed to identify how holding multiple intersecting identities related to experiences of discrimination and substance use in Minnesota youth. Findings revealed that participants with more marginalized identity statuses experienced higher rates of …

Using Behavior Sequence Analysis To Study Teams During Long- Duration Isolation And Confinement, Andres Käosaar, Dr. Nathan Smith, Dr. David A. Keatley, Pranav Ambhorkar, Dr. Moritz Von Looz, Konstantinos Konstantinidis

Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments

With a renewed impetus and appetite for human space exploration, both government-funded agencies and private companies are focusing on longer and farther crewed missions into the solar system. Such space missions rely on highly interdependent teams living and working together in isolated, confined, and extreme (ICE) environments. Understanding the behavioral patterns of teams in ICE environments is, thus, paramount for the future success of such missions. Due to the complexity of studying ICE teams, several researchers have called for methodological innovations to advance knowledge in this area. In the current research, a proof-of-concept methodological approach is introduced that provides a …

Defeat, Entrapment, And Suicide Desire: Analyzing The Role Of Mindfulness Using Ecological Momentary Assessment., Emma H. Moscardini

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Extant literature has indicated that the experience of defeat confers risk for experiencing conceptions of entrapment, which in turns increases one’s risk of experiencing suicidal ideation. In addition, certain cognitive processes are hypothesized to increase or decrease the likelihood of feelings of entrapment emerging when one feels defeated. One such cognitive process is mindfulness, defined as present moment awareness with an orientation of openness and acceptance. Better understanding the interplay of defeat, entrapment, mindfulness, and suicidal thinking will contribute to intervention strategies aimed at reducing the severity of suicidal thinking; however, said research should be conducted with consideration that one’s …

Modeling Variability In Personality Development: Quantifying, Explaining, And Examining The Predictive Utility Of Person-Specific Variance Around Personality Trajectories, Amanda Jo Wright

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Decades’ worth of research has identified replicable, average patterns of normative personality development across the lifespan. Underlying these findings lie a few assumptions, however, and work seeking to provide incremental knowledge seems to have yet offered a clear path forward. This impasse in progress, in conjunction with studies highlighting the complexity of personality, would suggest these assumptions are perhaps untenable. The current study uses five longitudinal datasets (N = 128,345) to examine personality development using mixed effects location scale models. This permits there to be individual differences in within-person residual variability, or sigma, around trajectories – thereby testing if standard …

Women's Interracial Friendships: Cultivating Coalitional Possibilities Across Difference Through Dialogue, Akie Fukushige Wenk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In my dissertation, I thread through the macro-structure as well as micro-operations of hegemonic ideologies, namely white-supremacist capitalist cis-hetero patriarchy (hooks, 1995, Valdes, 1996), that has historically plagued the United States, eventually gaining a global reach over time. I center interracial friendship between Black and White cis-women, where I locate coalitional possibilities that begin at the grassroots level. I situate this interracial relationship within the socio-ecological system where the personal meets the social (including racialized backgrounds). I use a series of analogies to equate these ideologies as toxins in the air, water, and soil. Soil is where we can work …

Who Puts The "Support" In Supportive Housing? The Impact Of Housing Staff On Resident's Well-Being, And The Potential Moderating Role Of Self-Determination, Kenna Estell Dickard

Dissertations and Theses

The provision of residential and community-based services for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) has become increasingly important following the deinstitutionalization movement. Much of the existing research on supportive housing focuses on housing outcomes rather than exploring how the program helps its residents thrive in the broader community. This study draws upon data collected from 176 people with SMI residing in 16 supportive housing locations in Portland, Oregon. Analyses employed an ecological approach, exploring how housing staff support relates to residents' well-being at three levels of analysis: loneliness (interpersonal level), residential satisfaction (housing and neighborhood level), and sense of community …

Affect Variability And Physical Health: The Moderating Role Of Mean Affect, Brooke N. Jenkins, Lydia Q. Ong, Hee Youn (Helen) Lee, Anthony D. Ong, Julia K. Boehm

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Research has only begun to explore how affect variability relates to physical health and has typically not assessed long-term associations nor considered the moderating role of mean affect. Therefore, we used data from the Midlife in the United States Study waves 2 (N = 1512) and 3 (N = 1499) to test how affect variability predicted concurrent and long-term physical health while also testing the moderating role of mean affect. Results indicated that greater negative affect variability was associated concurrently with a greater number of chronic conditions (p = .03) and longitudinally with worse self-rated physical health (p …

Brain Structure Correlates Of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Traits, Allison Moreau

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) is the most common personality disorder, yet much remains unknown about its etiology. Although neural contributions to many other psychiatric disorders have been extensively studied, few existing studies have examined neural correlates of OCPD. Furthermore, all have had insufficient sample sizes to produce reliable results. Large samples are needed to reliably detect the expected small brain-behavior relationships. However, large neuroimaging studies often do not assess for personality disorders, although many assess for normative personality. The present study employed a Five-Factor Model of personality disorders, which conceptualizes personality disorders as maladaptive extremes of normative personality traits, to …