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Racial Discrimination And Resting-State Functional Connectivity Of Salience Network Nodes In Trauma-Exposed Black Adults In The United States, E. Kate Webb, Claire Maria Bird, Terri A Deroon-Cassini, Carissa N. Weis, Ashley A. Huggins, Jacklynn M. Fitzgerald, Tara A. Miskovich, Kenneth P. Bennett, Jessica L. Krukowski, Lucas Torres, Christine L. Larson

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Importance For Black US residents, experiences of racial discrimination are still pervasive and frequent. Recent empirical work has amplified the lived experiences and narratives of Black people and further documented the detrimental effects of racial discrimination on both mental and physical health; however, there is still a need for further research to uncover the mechanisms connecting experiences of racial discrimination with adverse health outcomes.

Objective To examine neurobiological mechanisms that may offer novel insight into the association of racial discrimination with adverse health outcomes.

Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study included 102 Black adults who had recently experienced a …

The Rubber Hand Illusion: Top-Down Attention Modulates Embodiment, Rémi Thériault, Mathieu Landry, Amir Raz

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

The Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) creates distortions of body ownership through multimodal integration of somatosensory and visual inputs. This illusion largely rests on bottom-up (automatic multisensory and perceptual integration) mechanisms. However, the relative contribution from top-down factors, such as controlled processes involving attentional regulation, remains unclear. Following previous work that highlights the putative influence of higher-order cognition in the RHI, we aimed to further examine how modulations of working memory load and task instructions—two conditions engaging top-down cognitive processes—influence the experience of the RHI, as indexed by a number of psychometric dimensions. Relying on exploratory factor analysis for assessing this …

Developmental Functioning Of Infants And Toddlers With Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Megan Callahan

LSU Master's Theses

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), epilepsy, and cerebral palsy (CP) are some of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders among children with prevalence rates of 1.85% (Maenner et al., 2020), 1.2% (Zack & Kobau, 2017), and between 0.21 and 0.31% (Christensen et al., 2013), respectively. These neurodevelopmental disorders are highly comorbid with each other and with other disorders, such as intellectual disability (ID). While previous research has investigated developmental functioning in these neurodevelopmental disorders, it has primarily focused on only two at a time and in older children or adults. The current study aimed to investigate developmental functioning in these neurodevelopmental disorders …

Not So Different As Cats And Dogs: Companionship During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Shelly Volsche, Elizabeth Johnson

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

COVID- 19 lockdown provided a unique, in situ opportunity to probe caretaker experiences of living with companion animals during a stressful event. We launched an online survey in the United States that included standard demographic questions, questions related to household structures, and 25 Likert scale questions that probed perceptions of whether and how respondents’ relationships changed during social isolation. This paper uses a subset of that data specific to dog and cat guardians. A principal components analysis and Mann-Whitney U test returned no significant differences between cat and dog guardians on three scales (Scale 1: Psychological Well-being, Scale 2: …

Self-Conscious Emotions And The Right Fronto-Temporal And Right Temporal Parietal Junction, Adriana Lavarco, Nathira Ahmad, Qiana Archer, Matthew Pardillo, Ray Nunez Castaneda, Anthony Minervini, Julian Keenan

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

For more than two decades, research focusing on both clinical and non-clinical populations has suggested a key role for specific regions in the regulation of self-conscious emotions. It is speculated that both the expression and the interpretation of self-conscious emotions are critical in humans for action planning and response, communication, learning, parenting, and most social encounters. Empathy, Guilt, Jealousy, Shame, and Pride are all categorized as self-conscious emotions, all of which are crucial components to one’s sense of self. There has been an abundance of evidence pointing to the right Fronto-Temporal involvement in the integration of cognitive processes underlying the …

Optimism And Lipid Profiles In Midlife: A 15-Year Study Of Black And White Adults, Farah Qureshi, Jackie Soo, Ying Chen, Brita Roy, Donald Lloyd-Jones, Laura D. Kubzansky, Julia K. Boehm

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Introduction

Optimism is associated with better cardiovascular health, yet little is known about the underlying mechanisms and whether protective relationships are consistently observed across diverse groups. This study examines optimism's association with lipid profiles over time and separately among Black and White men and women.

Methods

Data were from 3,206 middle-aged adults in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study. Optimism was measured in 2000–2001 using the Revised Life Orientation Test. Triglyceride, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol measurements were obtained at 5-year intervals through 2015–2016. Linear mixed models evaluated relationships between optimism and …

Niche Diversity Predicts Personality Structure Across 115 Nations, Patrick K. Durkee, Aaron W. Lukaszewski, Christopher Von Rueden, Michael D. Gurven, David M. Buss, Elliot M. Tucker-Drob

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

The niche-diversity hypothesis proposes that personality structure arises from the affordances of unique trait combinations within a society. It predicts that personality traits will be both more variable and differentiated in populations with more distinct social and ecological niches. Prior tests of this hypothesis in 55 nations suffered from potential confounds associated with differences in the measurement properties of personality scales across groups. Using psychometric methods for the approximation of cross-national measurement invariance, we tested the niche-diversity hypothesis in a sample of 115 nations (N = 685,089). We found that an index of niche diversity was robustly associated with …

Encounters Between The Elderly And Law Enforcement

Contemporary Southern Psychology

The elderly population is growing dramatically throughout the world. Out of this growth comes an increase in the number of encounters between the aged and law enforcement. These encounters occur because of a variety of factors including mental illnesses and addictions. Furthermore, older adults may be victims as evidenced in different forms of abuse such as physical, emotional, or financial abuse. Sadly, some documentation exists that older adults are committing more crimes. Multiple reasons have been postulated for these crimes including poverty, jealousy, and boredom. All of these different situations with the aged have created an increase in the number …

Racial Discrimination In Life Insurance, William G. Gale, Kyle D. Logue, Nora Cahill, Rachel Gu, Swati Joshi

Law & Economics Working Papers

We examine the historical and statistical relationship between race and life insurance. Life insurance can play a central role in households’ financial security. Race has played an important and changing role in the provision of life insurance in the U.S. from slave insurance before the Civil War, to “Scientific Racism” continuing into the 20th century, to policies that do not explicitly mention race in recent decades. In empirical work using new data, we confirm earlier work showing that Black individuals have higher life insurance coverage rates than white individuals, controlling for observable characteristics. We find no difference in the likelihood …

“Part Of Something Larger Than Myself”: Lessons Learned From A Multidisciplinary, Multicultural, And Multilingual International Research Team Of Academic Women, Kristina S. Brown, Tricia M. Farwell, Sara Bender, Alpha A. Martinez-Suarez, Stefani Boutelier, Agata A. Lambrechts, Iwona Leonowicz-Bukała, Pipiet Larasatie

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Bringing our collective experiences of past collaborations through a virtual connection, we created an international research team of 16 multidiscipline, multicultural, and multilingual academic women called “COVID GAP” (Gendered Academic Productivity) to explore the ongoing challenges and effects of COVID-19. Identifying as insider researchers, we engaged in a two-phase, primarily qualitative research project to better understand the lived experiences of academics during the pandemic. Our past individual experiences with cooperative research informed our roles and responsibilities and how we organized and communicated. This article is a reflection of how COVID GAP has refined our collaborative process in response to an …

Hmong Parent Day/Hnub Txhawb Nqa Niam Txiv: Implementing Psychosociocultural Educational Programming To Honor Rau Siab, Pa Her, Alberta M. Gloria, Shee Yee Chang, Pahoua Thao

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This paper describes the interrelated conceptual activities that took a Psychosociocultural (PSC) approach to direct best practices, interactions, and processes to implement HMong Parent Days effectively. The purpose of HMong Parent Day/ Hnub Txhawb Nqa Niam Txiv, a culturally-centered community-focused intervention, was to bring HMong parents onto a midwestern predominantly White university campus for a day of college knowledge. The day honored HMong parents' support of their children into and through higher education via the cultural value of rau siab (hard work). Three levels of learning that emergent as new knowledge for HMong parents were highlighted and discussed relative to …

The Power Of Human Connection: Autism And The Suicide Risk, Rachel Barton

Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology

As researchers continue to understand autism spectrum disorder (ASD), one outstanding factor is causing concern within the psychological community: those with ASD are at a much higher risk of suicidal tendencies. These tendencies include suicidal ideation, attempting suicide, and death by suicide. Possible contributing factors to this increased risk include high levels of loneliness, pressure to conform to societal norms, as well as depression and anxiety. To decrease suicidality among the ASD population, further research is needed to fully understand why this behavior occurs at such a high percentage. Research is also needed to find appropriate and effective solutions to …

Reducing College Student Burnout: Predictive Factors, Harmful Effects, And Preventative Strategies, Eden Semu

Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology

Academic burnout is defined as experiencing emotional exhaustion, having cynical attitudes toward other people and one’s studies, and feeling unable to achieve one’s academic goals (Schaufeli et al., 2002b). Academic burnout has been observed among college student populations, and its prevalence is increasing as college students are more susceptible to psychological illness, are experiencing peak levels of life stress between ages 18 and 33, and are learning to handle novel demands associated with emerging adulthood (APA, 2012; NAMI , 2019). Internal factors, such as motivational style, attitude, and coping mechanisms, have been shown to mediate the relationship between demands and …

Infant Language Development: The Consequences Of Trauma, Janna Pickett

Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology

Infants between 0 and 36 months who experience physical and emotional trauma are at risk for severe social, emotional, cognitive, and physiological developmental deficits (Carpenter & Stacks, 2009; Jacobsen et al., 2013). As researchers search for protective factors against these deficits, productive language acquisition (the words an infant can verbally produce) has emerged as a potential predictor of resilience (Bellagamba et al., 2014; McCabe & Meller, 2004). This review proposes that infants who have acquired more advanced language, such as emotion descriptors, are able to define their experiences, learn how to respond to those experiences, and feel in control of …

The Double-Edged Sword: Unsuccessful Versus Successful Religious Parenting And Transmission, Avanlee Peterson

Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology

Religious participation can have many positive effects on children and adolescents, including improved health, academic, and social capabilities. Therefore, many parents are concerned by the decrease in religiosity in American society today. In response to this common concern, this literature review discusses how various types of religious parenting can improve parent-child religious transmission while maintaining good parent-child relationships and promoting healthy child development. Much of the research on parenting styles suggests that religious parenting is most successful when using an authoritative style of parenting (high structure, high warmth, high autonomy) rather than an authoritarian style (high structure, low warmth, low …

Posttraumatic Growth In Women With A Long-Standing Experience Of Involuntary Childlessness In The Czech Republic, Gabriela Ďurašková, Brennan Peterson

Marriage and Family Therapy Faculty Articles and Research

This qualitative research study aimed to examine aspects of posttraumatic growth (PTG) in women with a long-standing experience of involuntary childlessness. In-depth semi-structured interviews, lasting an average of 53 min, were conducted in the Czech Republic. Twenty-four women, averaging 38.8 years old with an average of 6.2 years of infertility experience, participated. They were asked how involuntary childlessness affected/changed their partnerships, sexual life, job, future plans, attitude to children/values/faith, and leisure time. Participants shared both positive and negative aspects of the infertility experience. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Five main themes of PTG were identified: strengthening of partnership, greater …

Inducing Cognitive Reflection And Its Impact On Contradictory Belief Holding, Meg Powers, Marci Decaro

Posters-at-the-Capitol

The idea that there are 2 distinct processing modes is seen throughout social and cognitive psychology research. One mode is generally fast, automatic, and relatively effortless, while the other is slow, systematic, and effortful. One mechanism of effortful processing is cognitive reflection which is one’s ability to reflect on their intuition. The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is a 3-item measure that quantifies a person’s ability to recognize an intuitive answer as incorrect and identify the correct response. Additionally, a yea-yeaing score was collected to measure how often a person agrees with a statement and its opposite (i.e., endorses contradictory beliefs). …

The Rise And Fall Of Dopamine: A Two-Stage Model Of The Development And Entrenchment Of Anorexia Nervosa, Jeff A. Beeler, Nesha S. Burghardt

Publications and Research

Dopamine has long been implicated as a critical neural substrate mediating anorexia nervosa (AN). Despite nearly 50 years of research, the putative direction of change in dopamine function remains unclear and no consensus on the mechanistic role of dopamine in AN has been achieved. We hypothesize two stages i n AN– corresponding to initial development and entrenchment– characterized by opposite changes in dopamine. First, caloric restriction, particularly when combined with exercise, triggers an escalating spiral of increasing dopamine that facilitates the behavioral plasticity necessary to establish and reinforce weight-loss behaviors. Second, chronic self-starvation reverses this escalation to reduce or impair …

Don’T You Know That They’Re Toxic: Parasocial Attachments And Fictional Relationships, Morgan Macke, Jana Hackathorn

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Problem or Major Purpose. Parasocial relationships are one-sided interactions individuals have with fictional characters or famous celebrities (Derrick et al., 2008). Parasocial relationships can be beneficial for the exploration and development of one’s own romantic emotions, sexuality, or ideal self (Derrick et al., 2008; Erikson & Dal Cin, 2018). Conversely, there may be drawbacks such as unrealistic expectations and dysfunctional beliefs (Spiranec, 2018). For example, the young adult genre often contains harmful tropes that expose the audience to dysfunctional relationship behaviors such as portraying abuse as romantic, normalizing slut shaming, and fetishizing virginity (Spiranec, 2018). The current study examines the …

Mapping Sex Therapy Across The United States: An Exploratory Study, Frances L. Mcclain, Dylan M. Amlin

Journal of Counseling Sexology & Sexual Wellness: Research, Practice, and Education

The primary purpose of this study was to determine what someone who was interested in obtaining a provider for sex therapy would find if they simply searched for sex therapy using the Google search engine. The goal was to ascertain how someone might access providers in each state, what types of information someone seeking treatment for sexuality issues might find on provider websites, who is providing the services, what types of services are being provided, and whose services might appeal to given the content of the website. Once all of the data was compiled, the resulting data would include a …

Cardiac Startle Response And Clinical Outcomes In Preschool Children With Fragile X Syndrome And Autism Spectrum Disorder, Jordan Ezell, Abigail L. Hogan Phd, Elizabeth A. Will Ph.D., Bcba, Kayla Smith, Jane E. Roberts

Faculty Publications

Objective: Poor physiological regulation in response to threat is linked to multiple negative developmental outcomes including anxiety, which is highly prevalent and impairing in young children with neurodevelopmental disabilities like fragile X syndrome (FXS) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study contrasted cardiac startle response in pre-school-aged children with FXS, with and without ASD, to children with non-syndromic ASD (nsASD) and neurotypical controls (NT). The relationship of cardiac startle to non-verbal mental age (NVMA), ASD severity, and parent-reported anxiety was also examined.

Method: Four age-matched groups of pre-school children participated including those with FXS without ASD (FXS-Only, n = …

Postseptic Cognitive Impairment And Expression Of Apoe In Peripheral Blood: The Cognition After Sepsis (Cass) Observational Pilot Study, Samuel M. Brown, Sarah J. Beesley, Chris Stubben, Emily L. Wilson, Angela P. Presson, Colin Grissom, Colin Maguire, Matthew T. Rondina, Ramona O. Hopkins

Faculty Publications

Background: Cognitive impairment after sepsis is an important clinical problem. Determinants of postseptic cognitive impairment are not well understood. We thus undertook a systems biology approach to exploring a possible role for apolipoprotein E (APOE) in postseptic cognitive impairment.

Design: Prospective, observational cohort. Setting: Intermountain Medical Center, a tertiary referral center in Utah.

Patients/Participants: Patients with sepsis admitted to study intensive care units. Interventions: None.

Methods: We obtained peripheral blood for deep sequencing of RNA and followed up survivors at 6 months with a battery of cognitive instruments. We defined cognitive impairment based on the 6-month Hayling test of executive …

A Life Worth Living: Evaluating And Assisting Army Chaplains In Suicide Prevention, John Simon Cochran

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Despite its efficiency and flexibility as a modern fighting force, the U.S. Army has experienced an alarming spike in the number of its soldiers committing suicide over the past decade – approximately a 20% increase. The goal of this project is to contribute to the lessening of future suicides by evaluating the current preparedness of U.S. Army chaplains to assist with suicide prevention and intervention efforts among U.S. Army soldiers. The study will provide actionable conclusions of how chaplains can more effectively identify, intervene, and influence U.S. Army soldiers away from the risk of suicide towards a life worth living.

Locating The Embodied Sense Of Self And Examining Its Relationship With Psychological Well-Being, Adam Hanley, Natalie Lecy, Robert Hanley

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Westerners tend to localize their sense of self in the head, and, to a lesser degree, in the chest. However, single-point, localization studies of the self omit direct exploration of the size and shape of the embodied self. This study explored a) beliefs about the location and spatial distribution of the embodied sense of self, and b) whether individual differences in how the embodied self was represented were associated with psychological and subjective well-being. Results from a sample of 206 American adults confirm extant reports, indicating that the embodied sense of self is most often located in the head and …

The Mushroom, The Frog, And The Rainbow Of Desire: A Participatory-Psychedelic Spiritual Emergence, Gregg Lahood

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This article will explore a spiritual emergency through a myth or fairy tale that emerged at the same time I had a frightening brush with death. Two days before the accident I had ingested psilocybin mushrooms. Michael Washburn, among other transpersonal theorists, will be used to interpret, amplify and re-frame this potential ‘psychotic episode’ with ‘borderline features’ into something more, perhaps, on the threshold of a shamanic initiation in a liminal state. The mythic sequence in my story anticipates the death-rebirth (perinatal pattern) and evolution of consciousness in the LSD research of Stanislav Grof; an evolution given epic participatory elucidation …

Meditation-Induced After Death Communication: A Contemporary Modality For Grief Therapy, Neda Wassie

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Meditation-induced after death communication (MI-ADC) was introduced as a potential modality for grief therapy. Traditional and contemporary approaches were compared in order to evaluate effective paradigms and theories of bereavement. The Continuing Bonds theory of attachment emerged as an adaptive framework for grief therapy, especially with attention to meaning-making and the strength of continued bonds. Considerations were implemented from research in psychomanteum, mediumship, and induced after death communication. Specifically, visual stimuli and timing of after death communications were emphasized. The discussion was encouraging for the conceptualization of MI-ADC as an effective construct and as an inquiry for empirical research.

There's A Duwende On My Shelf: The Parapsychological Studies Of Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao, Sj, Carl Lorenz Cervantes

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

In the Filipino transpersonal worldview, the mind is not contained within the brain, and is often projected onto the world as “spirits”. Studying these cultural metaphors may allow for a deeper understanding of the Filipino psyche. Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao, SJ, one of the founders of the Psychological Association of the Philippines, studied the projections of the Filipino psyche as they manifested in paranormal phenomena. Bulatao provides the metaphor of eggs frying in a pan as a framework to understand this: the egg whites fuse despite the yolks being far apart. It is in the dissolution of boundaries that transpersonal …

What Is Transpersonal Psychology? A Concise Definition Based On 20 Years Of Research, Glenn Hartelius

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Research on definitions of the field of psychology and themes in the literature of the field over a period of 20 years inform this description: Transpersonal psychology is a transformative psychology of the whole person embedded within a diverse, interconnected, and evolving world that pays particular attention to states of consciousness and developmental models reflecting expansion beyond conventional notions of self. Each element of this definition is examined, as well as the four phases of definitional development within the field from its founding in 1968 up to the present.

Brain Activity During Paired And Individual Mindfulness Meditation: A Controlled Eeg Study, Hessel Engelbregt, Hugo F. Alderse Baas, Sietske De Grauw, Jan Berend Deijen

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Objective: In this study, we evaluated brain electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in healthy participants during the performance of paired and individual mindfulness meditation (MM). We hypothesized that EEG activity is differentially affected by meditation in pairs compared to individual meditation.

Methods: A total of 20 healthy female university students (mean age 19.54 years, SD =1.53) with no prior experience in MM participated in this study. All participants had to perform a 5-minute MM task together and individually while the other participant was in rest or performing a concentration task (control condition). To exclude social interaction as main factor, participants were separated …

Tripping In The Moment: The Spiritual Journey Of Baba Ram Dass, Charles S. Hamilton

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Ram Dass, the iconic, countercultural, spiritual seeker, brought the wisdom of the East to those of us in the West through his many books and frequent, charismatic dharma talks. This view of his spiritual journey describes the transformation of Richard Alpert, clinical psychologist and product of the Western milieu’s often-shackling conventional expectations, into Ram Dass, the free, embodied soul who, through explication and example, and with witnessing attention, tries to guide us all to the always present abode of loving awareness. Ram Dass’s idea of self in existence was transformed: first, from a psychological object of clinical study, to a …