Digital Commons Network^™

Sharing My Story Through Public Speaking: Young People And Mental Health, Alexandra Isabella Bush

Honors Theses

Recent years have shown a worsening mental health crisis in America. Between the high prevalence of mental illness, lack of treatment, high rates of suicide and overdoses, and increasing rates of substance use, the United States has an abundance of problems, all of which relate to mental health. One contributing factor is the insufficient education about mental health topics, also known as mental health literacy. Therefore, American citizens lack necessary knowledge, such as the signs and risk factors of mental illness, treatment options, and ways to improve mental health, to name a few. One impact of low mental health literacy …

Inflammation And Reward-Related Neural And Behavioral Phenotypes, Erin Bondy

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Anhedonia transcends psychiatric diagnostic boundaries (e.g., depression, schizophrenia, PTSD) and is a marker of severe dysfunction and treatment resistance. Convergent evidence from non-human animal models and initial human studies suggests that elevated inflammatory signaling may induce anhedonia. However, the mechanisms underlying this association and the specific forms of reward processing that may be affected remain largely unknown. Here, two studies were conducted examining whether variability in reward-related brain measures and behavior may plausibly contribute to inflammation-related differences in reward processing. In the first study, data from children of European American ancestry of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study of …

Comparison Of Self- And Informant-Reported Change In Memory, Attention, And Spatial Navigation In Predicting Preclinical Alzheimer Disease, Taylor Fama Levine

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Preclinical Alzheimer disease (AD) is characterized as the point at which a person is clinically normal but exhibits AD-related neuropathological change and is associated with developing AD-related dementia in the future (Jack et al., 2018). As such, there has been a focus on identifying procedures sensitive to the preclinical stage. However, the current methods used to detect biomarker abnormalities associated with preclinical AD (e.g., lumbar puncture, PET scan, and MRI) are invasive and/or expensive, which limits feasibility for widescale screening. This leaves the need to develop a non-invasive, time-efficient, and cost-effective screening measure to identify those who are at greater …

Discrimination And Health Disparities: Sense Of Purpose As A Mitigating Factor, Megan Elizabeth Wilson

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Racial health disparities exist in the United States, and exist in part due to negative effects of experiencing discrimination on health. Thus, the current work uses subjective and objective health outcomes to document the ill effects of discrimination on aspects of physical and mental health. In addition, as sense of purpose in life has been shown to have a positive impact on one’s health, the current work examines the effect of sense of purpose on the same health outcomes, and assesses the extent to which sense of purpose may help to mitigate some of the harmful effects of discrimination on …

Sleep Duration Is Associated With Caudate Volume And Executive Function, Nicole Jones

Honors Theses

The ineligible role of the caudate nucleus in sleep has been implicated throughout multiple scientific studies. Previous literature has shown that greater caudate volume is associated with longer habitual sleep duration in older adults- ranging from 55 years of age and up. However, the association between sleep duration and caudate volume remains unknown in the younger population. In this study, we examined the caudate volume in youth to older adults (10 to 85 years old) with a greater sample size (N=464) to increase statistical power. The volumetric size of the caudate nucleus showed significantly positive association with habitual sleep duration, …

Associations Between Tiktok Use, Mental Health, And Body Image Among College Students, Alexz Carpenter

Honors Theses

Background. Social media use continues to increase globally, and there is a large field of research examining the relationships between social media use with anxiety, depression, and body image. College-aged students are particularly vulnerable to these associations because they are at a unique developmental point of their life. College-aged students also use social media more frequently than almost any other age group, which may put them at increased risk for negative mental health and body image outcomes related to their social media use. TikTok is a relatively new social media app that has exponentially risen in popularity, especially among younger …

Analyzing The Unique Role Of Repetitive Negative Thinking On Insomnia In College Students, Lara Fair

Honors Theses

Repetitive negative thinking is a transdiagnostic construct that conceptually covers worry and rumination, which are strongly associated with anxiety and depression. Worry is typically future oriented, whereas rumination is past oriented. RNT has been posited as a causal and maintaining factor for multiple disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and insomnia. The current study aimed to further understand the contribution of RNT in insomnia symptoms, after controlling for anxiety and depression. A self-report battery measuring anxiety, depression, RNT and insomnia was administered to 101 college students. In this sample, 52% of participants endorsed clinical levels of insomnia. Bivariate correlations found …

Key Barriers To University-Enrolled Student Parents Enhanced By The Covid-19 Pandemic, Khadeejah Franklin, Alexa Saval

Honors Theses

Student parents, both undergraduate and graduate, already face the difficult task of balancing their studies and raising children. The COVID-19 pandemic enhanced already present issues student parents face, such as virtual-schooling, daycare costs and closings, staying home with sick children, and potentially not having a local support system, among others. Further, students who are performing laboratory research to fulfill their STEM educational requirements had their
research progress come to a halt when the country locked down. This study aims to identify the struggles student parents faced prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, what issues the pandemic exacerbated, and what new problems …

The Effects Of Acute Exercise Intensity On Memory: State-Dependent Learning, Lauren E. Fuglaar, Rylie S. Mangold, Sierra N. Petty

Honors Theses

The Encoding-Specificity Paradigm states that memory recall will be enhanced when contextual factors are congruent between memory encoding and memory retrieval (i.e., state-dependent learning). However, minimal research has evaluated this paradigm in the exercise domain. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of acute exercise intensity on memory while considering these potential state-dependent effects. Forty-eight university students completed a within-subject experiment involving seven laboratory visits, during which they encoded a list of 15 words and were subsequently asked to free-recall as many of these words as possible. The encoding and retrieval phases were matched or mismatched by …

Homogeneous Or Diverse: Examining The Inclusiveness Of Behavior-Analytic Services For The Black Population, April Jefferson

Capstone Projects

Black and African Americans are the second largest minority group in the United States. Studies show that the prevalence of autism in children are similar by race and ethnicity, making Black and African Americans the second largest minority group with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. For behavior analyst servicing this population, there is an obligation to address the needs of these individuals and acknowledge their backgrounds and diversities. This study highlights areas that affect the quality of services provided to the Black and African American community and evaluate the inclusiveness of these areas.

The Effects Of Color On Flavor, Tiffany S. Yoo

Honors Capstones

Color and its relation to flavor, is a complex cognitive phenomenon that researchers today are still trying to decipher. The present literature review is an examination of the history of color, process of color perception, the effects of additional factors such as saturation, the exploration of senses that may potentially contribute to perception itself, and the different modern theories suggested. The purpose of this project was to review, revise, and narrow down which theories can be deemed as accurate in terms of the amount of support addressed by modern literature. While a clear-cut answer was not concluded, three potential theories …

Investigating The Relationship Between Ses And Fear Of Covid-19 In A Sample Of Adults With And Without Asthma, Margot Salsman

Psychology Theses and Dissertations

While health challenges introduced by the coronavirus-19 disease (COVID-19) pandemic impacted the general population, individuals living with both asthma and low socioeconomic status (SES) may have been particularly vulnerable to health-related stress. For example, the CDC announced that a diagnosis of asthma increased one's risk of severe COVID- 19, emergency room closures restricted access to reliable disease management resources, and many lost health insurance after losing employment. Further, many essential or blue-collar workers could not protect themselves from disease by isolating themselves or quarantining at home. For these individuals, the pandemic may have introduced or exacerbated feelings of being "out …

Eco-Interoception: What Plants, Fungi And Protista Have Taught My Body, Sara Riley Dotterer

Art Theses and Dissertations

To me, ecology is the relational, full-body awareness that I am made up of and deeply connected to everything around me; and for better or worse, this is reciprocal. I form ecotones, an ecological transitional zone between two ecosystems, with the world around me. I use this ecotonal lens to blur binaries and dissolve boundaries between me and the world “outside my body.” During my Masters of Fine Arts at Southern Methodist University, I have continuously explored and represented the lives of various more-than-human species outside of my body, including plants, fungi and protista through an ecotonal lens. Although these …

Directed Forgetting, Anna Case

Honors Theses

Directed forgetting (DF) is an adaptive process in which individuals engage in strategies to intentionally forget information. The prevailing strategy for DF is to engage in an effective mental context change after receiving the instructions to forget. We utilized a list-method DF manipulation under both experiments conducted and analyzed the ratio of words impaired from List 1 and enhanced from List 2. The two experiments conducted aimed to first confirm that an ineffective context change will not induce a DF effect, and secondly confirm an effective mental context change will induce a DF effect. Experiment one utilized thirty-nine university students …

An Overview Of Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Searching For Balance Between The Positive And Negative Effects, Courtney K. Fusting

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) is the behavior of taking on extra roles in the workplace outside of one’s explicit duties. There are many reasons why one may be motivated to aid his/her organization in this way. Motivation may come through one’s personal values towards volunteerism, desire to build social capital, increase in self-esteem and flow, or even due to the commonality of organizational citizenship behavior among the workplace culture. Contributing to one’s workplace through OCB has the potential to positively impact an individual. However, taking on too many extra roles in the workplace can become detrimental. Role overload, stress, and …

Local Field Potentials In The Male Rat Nucleus Accumbens During Effort-Based Behavior, Celine Aliko, John Salamone, Alev Ecevitoglu

Honors Scholar Theses

Major depression is a devastating disorder that consists of multiple symptoms such as low mood and motivational dysfunction. It has been shown that motivational dysfunction can be studied in animal models by using effort-based choice paradigms, which vary in their response requirements. It has been reported that dopamine depletion in the nucleus accumbens decreases ratio-scheduled lever-pressing in a manner related to the size of the ratio requirement. One dopamine depleting agent is tetrabenazine (TBZ), which has been shown to decrease lever-pressing and induce low-effort bias. The current study aims to investigate behavioral and electrophysiological changes that occur with animals performing …

Climate Change Message Framing, Death Anxiety, And Conspiracy Beliefs Impact On Individual Emotions, Cognitions, And Future Behavioral Intentions, Shanna E. Castellucci

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Prospect theory highlighted that individuals are more sensitive to loss frames than gain frames. However, previous literature involving message framing, emotion, and behaviors found that gain frames have more of an impact on whether an individual will engage in desired behaviors. The purpose of this experiment was to analyze the relationships between message framing, death anxiety, conspiracy beliefs, and future behavioral intentions. Participants were randomly assigned to the framing condition: either in the loss frame group or in the gain frame group. There were three hypotheses tested in this study. The first predicted that individuals receiving the loss frame would …

Loneliness And Pain In Individuals With Migraine, Marie-Josée Hymel

Honors Theses

Introduction. Loneliness has been found to affect individuals’ physical and mental health, but there is limited research exploring the effect loneliness has on pain. Some studies suggest that social exclusion numbs pain, and others indicate it can lead to hypersensitivity. This study used a sample of individuals with migraine to investigate the relationship of loneliness to pain and psychological variables. We hypothesized that loneliness would predict lower pain tolerance and pain threshold and that it would be positively correlated with disability and negative emotions.

Methods. Sixty-eight undergraduate females recruited for a larger study manipulating social exclusion among individuals …

​​Evaluating The Utility Of Trial-Based Functional Analyses Of Inappropriate Mealtime Behavior: A Comparison Of Identified Functions Across Functional Analysis Methods, Meredith Huff Staggers

Theses and Dissertations

A critical first step in addressing problem behavior is to identify the function of the problem, or reason for engaging in the problem behavior, using systematic assessment procedures known as a functional analysis (FA). The literature consistently demonstrates the effectiveness of FAs, and variations of FAs (e.g., trial-based functional analysis [TBFA]) for assessing a variety of topographies of problem behaviors across populations, age groups, and settings; however, the use of TBFAs for assessing the function of inappropriate mealtime behavior (IMB) has been documented in the literature only once. The purpose of the current study was to contribute to the research …

Exploratory Analysis Of The Attachment-Caregiving Scale And Its Association With Child Attachment Patterns, Robert Whelan

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

The assessment of child and caregiving attachment patterns produce data that can inform relational and family interventions. Currently, the supported and widely used methods of assessing these attachment patterns (observational and interview procedures) require extensive training and testing to use, making them less accessible to providers. Valid and reliable caregiver self-report questionnaires for attachment assessment, which generally require less training to interpret, have proven difficult to design in the past. The Attachment Caregiving Scale (ACS) is a caregiver self-report questionnaire that looks at caregiver attributions (i.e., to what do caregivers attribute their child’s behaviors and emotions). This exploratory study seeks …

Global Perceptions Of Space: The Interior Designer's Role, Ansley C. Elliott

Honors College Theses

Interior designers need to show and share awareness of cultural inclusivity in design solutions to create a positive experience for all end users. In order to do this, interior designers need to gain an understanding of how people from various geographical locations perceive space and, as a result, behave and connect in public environments. This study explored existing literature on human factors in design, such as proxemics, territoriality, anthropometrics, cultural dimensions in business practices, and inclusivity in design. The research methodology included a Qualtrics survey on cultural background and demographic data; three-dimensional renderings of a public restaurant and a workplace; …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Para-Athletes: A Case Study On Motivation And Psychological Training For The 2020 Paralympic Games, Irina Perfilova

Masters Theses, 2020-current

In the 61-year history of the Paralympic Games, the Games have never been canceled for any public health reasons. In order to participate in the Paralympic Games, the preparation process for professional athletes is planned at least four years in advance. Interruptions to this schedule can present significant challenges for elite athletes. Such was the case in 2020 with widespread cancellations of many athletic events due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of in-home isolation can potentially cause athletes to experience different psychological conditions, including depression and anxiety as well as losing motivation. The purpose of this study was to …

Analysis Of Predictive Factors For Aggression Within Inpatient Psychiatric Hospitalization, Autumn N. Wild

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Aggression is a concern within inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. Previous research has turned to various methods of assessing aggression risk, including comprehensive psychometric risk assessment tools and analysis of specific dynamic and static factors. This literature has focused on predicting whether aggression will occur or not during a patient’s admission. The goal of the current study was to determine if various patient and hospital variables cited in the literature to be predictive of the occurrence of aggression would maintain predictive utility in assessing whether a patient would be aggressive once (Dependent Variable = 0; N = 158) or more than once …

Temporal Relevance Of Parent Qualities And Behaviors For Predicting Young Adults’ Emotion Regulation And Romantic Relationships, Saleena Wilson

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The present study sought to compare the utility of adolescents’ parental relationship qualities and behaviors for predicting young adult emotion regulation as well as the mediating role of emotion regulation in the intergenerational transmission of relationship qualities and behaviors. Early adolescence is characterized by the emergence of new emotions, responsibilities, and budding romantic relationships. Parental relationships with positive qualities may provide a safe environment for teens to explore these unfamiliar experiences. In late adolescence, teens depend less on this secure base but benefit from the utilization of specific relationship behaviors, modeled to them by their parents, in increasingly important …

A Deeper Understanding Of Noise Effects On Cetaceans, Jason N. Bruck

Faculty Publications

Recent research with cetaceans under human care is illuminating just how dolphins are affected by human-made noise both in terms of their ability to cooperate as well as their ability to habituate to such noise. This research is providing granular detail to regulators assessing the problems associated with anthropogenic effects and is highlighting a role for behavior/cognition research in conservation.

Du Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, And Creative Works, Caitlyn Aldersea, Justin Bravo, Sam Allen, Anna Block, Connor Block, Emma Buechler, Maria De Los Angeles Bustillos, Arianna Carlson, William Christensen, Olivia Kachulis, Noah Craver, Kate Dillon, Muskan Fatima, Angel Fernandes, Emma Finch, Colleen Cassidy, Amy Fishman, Andrea Francis, Stacia Fritz, Simran Gill, Emma Gries, Rylie Hansen, Shannon Powers, Jacqueline Martinez, Zachary Harker, Ashley Hasty, Mykaela Tanino-Springsteen, Kathleen Hopps, Adelaide Kerenick, Colin Kleckner, Ci Koehring, Elijah Kruger, Braden Krumholz, Maddie Leake, Lyneé Alves, Seraphina Loukas, Yatzari Lozano Vazquez, Haley Maki, Emily Martinez, Sierra Mckinney, Audrey Mitchell, Kipling Newman, Audrey Ng, Megan Lucyshyn, Andrew Nguyen, Stevie Ostman, Casandra Pearson, Alexandra Penney, Julia Gielczynski, Tyler Ball, Anna Rini, Christina Rorres, Simon Ruland, Helayna Schafer, Emma Sellers, Sarah Schuller, Claire Shaver, Kevin Summers, Isabella Shaw, Madison Sinar, Claudia Pena, Apshara Siwakoti, Carter Sorensen, Madi Sousa, Anna Sparling, Alexandra Revier, Brandon Thierry, Dylan Tyree, Maggie Williams, Lauren Wols

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

DU Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Works

Prescription Drug Misuse Among Graduate Students: Prevalence And Links To Mental Health And Academic Burnout, Madison De Gruiter

Honors Theses

The aims of this study are to examine the prevalence of prescription drug misuse (PDM) among doctoral students and assess associations between PDM and anxiety and burnout in this population. Additional analyses analyzed differential associations by doctoral degree type (i.e., research versus professional programs). A sample of doctoral students (n=131) affiliated with the University of Mississippi participated in an anonymous survey to assess research aims.

The Association Between Sleep And Relationship Quality Among Undergraduate Students, Catherine Smith

Honors Theses

This study sought out to examine the association between sleep and relationship quality in undergraduate student populations. Attending university is a novel experience for emerging adults but is subsequently associated with increased sleep difficulties and increased exposure to various social relationships. Indeed, the literature suggests social relationships can influence sleep in all populations, but few have explored relationship quality in the context of conflict and support in undergraduates. The quality of different social relationships (romantic, family, and friend), the severity of insomnia symptoms, and length of sleep duration were investigated. The current study collected data from a sample of ten …

The Relationship Between Coping Behaviors And Misophonia Symptom Severity And Impairment, Ruth Emmon Tyson

Honors Theses

Misophonia is a complex disorder that is characterized by an extreme disliking of sounds. Individuals with misophonia may engage in anxiety-driven coping behaviors that constitute avoidance and safety behaviors. Current literature shows that while coping behavior may offer temporary relief of anxiety and distress, they can lead to persisting anxiety and avoidance of experiences. Given preliminary evidence demonstrating a link between coping behaviors and maintained or worsening symptoms, additional research is warranted to further understand the role of coping behaviors in misophonia. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between coping behaviors and maintenance or worsening of misophonia symptom severity …

Ambivalent Images, Beloved Objects: Building Bridges Between Picture Books And The Tangible World, Danielle Ridolfi

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

"Ambivalent Images, Beloved Objects" examines how pedagogical theories prioritizing objects and direct sensory experiences in early childhood can be applied to the creation of picture book illustrations. In doing so, it positions picture books as educational tools, and advocates for the importance of using them not to recreate nature, but to connect readers with the tangible world of natural and human-made objects that our digital-driven culture eclipses. It strives towards a unifying pedagogical and aesthetic philosophy that accomplishes what illustrator Eric Carle characterizes as a bridge between the tactile world of objects and the world represented in illustrations.

This exploration …