Digital Commons Network^™

Paths To Healing: An Examination Of Psychoneuroimmunology And Its Implications For Collaborative Medine, Erin Urbashich

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

The advent of recent research in the field of psychoneuroimmunology has brought about a revival of interest in the mind/body connection. Because recent research has shown that mental state may affect health, many physicians and the lay public alike are considering methods of therapy that may improve mental health, as well as physical health. When methods such as medication, psychotherapy, and traditional Chinese medicine are practiced as an adjunct to conventional Western medicine, the results have been quite successful. This collaborative medical approach has the potential to improve the potency of Western medicine by creating a system of medicine that …

Depression In College Students: The Influence Of Coping Strategies, Optimism, And Daily Hassles, Kristin Vickers

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

College students (n=250) were given a survey packet containing reliable instruments for the measure of depression, coping strategies, optimism, and daily hassles. Depression in college students was hypothesized to be positively correlated with avoidance and frequent daily hassles; whereas problem-solving, social support coping, and optimism were hypothesized to be negatively correlated with a depressed effect. Hierarchical multiple regression produced empirical support that frequent daily hassles and avoidant coping strategies exacerbates depression in a college population. Data analysis assessed a significant relationship between optimism and decreased depression. The coping strategies of problem-solving and social support did not enter into …

A Cross-Sectional Experimental Study On Mindfulness And Divergent Thinking: The Effects Of Novelness And Conditionality, John Laskowski

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

A cross-sectional experiment was performed to determine if the novelness of a stimulus and the conditionality of its presentation would have any effect on the subjects¹ mindfulness and divergent thinking. Age and gender differences were also considered. Seventy-two high school and seventy-two college students were randomly assigned to one of six conditions. Each subject was given either a novel or familiar stimulus which was designed by the experimenter either unconditionally, conditionally, or not at all, and each was asked to produce a list of possible uses for the object. The length of each list and the variety of responses were …

Eyewitness Testimonies For Spousal Abuse As A Function Of Gender Roles And Person Variables, Cynthia L. Barker

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In order to uncover how personality characteristics interact with the suggestibility and recall of events, subject's recollection and interpretation of domestic violence was tested. College students were shonn a film which a husband and wife began arguing; the argument ended in the husband hitting his wife. Encoding was manipulated by giving negative or neutral suggestions about the woman before subjects witnessed the film, and storage was manipulated by giving such suggestions after the .film creating a 2 X 2 experimental design. Attitude and personality questionnaires were also administered to the subjects. In addition to demonstrating the significance of the encoding …

Selected Demographic Variables As Predictors Of Behavior Change Among Adolescents In A Residential Treatment Center, Paul Stoltzfus

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

Research has demonstrated that theories of coping resources can be clarified by delineating risk factors and protective factors. These factors modulate the impact of traumatic events and which predict treatment outcome. This research project selected variables, conceptualized as risk and protective factors, to predict behavioral changes of adolescents at Chehalem House, a residential treatment center. The predictor variables were gender, age, diagnoses, level of intellectual functioning, the occurrence of sexual abuse, and severity of sexual abuse . The behaviors selected as criterion variables were non-compliance, negative attention seeking, and passivity/depression. Statistically significant regression equations were derived : a positive correlation …

Reply To Brokaw, Nancy S. Thurston

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

No abstract provided.

Family-Expressed Emotion, Childhood-Onset Depression, And Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: Is Expressed Emotion A Nonspecific Correlate Of Child Psychopathology Or A Specific Risk Factor For Depression?, Joan Asarnow, Martha Tompson, Elizabeth Burney Hamilton, Michael J. Goldstein, Donald Guthrie

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

Expressed emotion (EE) was examined, using the brief Five Minute Speech Sample measure, in families of (1) children with depressive disorders, (2) children with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and (3) normal controls screened for the absence of psychiatric disorder. Consistent with the hypothesis of some specificity in the association between EE and the form of child disorder, rates of EE were significantly higher among families of depressed children compared to families of normal controls and families of children with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Within the depressed group, the presence of a comorbid disruptive behavior disorder was associated with high levels of critical …

Assessing Recognition Of Sexist Language: Development And Use Of The Gender-Specific Language Scale, Mark R. Mcminn, Paul E. Williams, Lisa Graham Mcminn

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

Teaching effective writing in the social sciences includes teaching recognition of sexist language. The development and teaching uses of the Gender-Specific Language Scale (GSLS), an instrument designed to assess recognition of sexist language, are described. Three experiments with predominantly European-American male and female students provide support for the reliability and validity of the GSLS, and suggest that it measures a different construct than an essay questionnaire used in previous studies of sexist language. Implications for teaching are discussed.

The Child's Understanding Of Functional Relations In The Domain Of Liquid Quantity, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

Four liquid comparison tasks were designed to assess children's knowledge of functional relations, one-directional compositions of functional relations (greater + greater yield greater) and countervailing compositions (greater + lesser yield ?) in 4- to 7-year-olds. On one task, in which height indexed quantity, children of every age group performed well. Success on the other comparison tasks was related to operative level, as mdexed by conservation performance, and age. More advanced pre-operational children evidenced a degree of success on the one-directional composition task. Consistent with Schonfeld (1990), the results suggested that at more advanced operative levels: (1) the understanding of increasingly …

Ethics In Psychotherapy: The Practice Of Nonsexual Dual Roles, Kerry G. Aikman

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Risk-Taking Predispositions Among Mormon Women: Improving Communication About Health And Environmental Risks, Shelly Nicholls

Theses and Dissertations

This study measures risk-taking predisposition among a conservative religious population of women, in this instance Mormon women. Risk taking is defined as a recognition of some probability of negative consequences to an action, which can include the loss of a potential reward as well as a punishment. A risk-taking predisposition results when individuals are not risk aversive but, in fact, enjoy risk taking.

Survey research collected at two conferences in Utah reveal the likelihood of moderate levels of rebellious and adventurous risk-taking predisposition among the over 500 Mormon women respondents. It is suggested that religious affiliation or economic and educational …

Other-Centeredness And Depression In A Sample Of Mormon Women, Janice G. Nielson

Theses and Dissertations

Other-centeredness and depression were examined to see if a relationship existed between the two. One scale measuring other-centeredness and another measuring depression were given to a sample of married Mormon women who did not work outside the home. Other-centeredness and depression were significantly negatively correlated. The women scoring in the top one-third of the range of other-centeredness scores suffered no depression on the depression scale. The factor most predictive for depression was the relationship the women had with her husband, and other-centeredness was found to overlap with this variable to some extent. The factors of health, income, and education were …

Towards A Postmodern And Post-Western Psychology, Kenneth J. Gergen

Psychology Faculty Works

Psychological inquiry must necessarily proceed on the basis of assumptions for which there are no foundations. Such assumptions frame both the problems to be solved and the means by which they are to be approached. For the most part, 20th century psychology has been based on the presumptions of individual rationality, a rationally ordered cosmos, and language as a vehicle for reflecting this cosmos. However, a broad array of recent scholarship has challenged this, the modernist conception of the field. Postmodern arguments shift the center of rationality from the individual to relationships, see the cosmos as a socially constructed, and …

Spiritual Autobiographies: Sacred And Secular Explorations Of The Self, Ellen Delacey-Hathaway

Whittier Scholars Program

This project explains the contextual history of conversion and self discovery within literary and spiritual components. This research focuses on the exploration of the relationship of spiritual autobiography to secular autobiography and highlights any of the obvious or subtle differences between the two sub-genres. This study examines ideas presented in William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience and applying questions raised by James and other studies to demonstrate the essential similarities between secular and spirituality autobiography by showing threads of commonality between Henry Adams’ The Education of Henry Adams, Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain, and Saint Augustine’s Confessions.

The Effectiveness Of Group Counseling On Adolescents, Jennifer Deitch-Pepperell

Whittier Scholars Program

This project consists of a literature review, a study of group counseling effects on adolescents aged 12-18, and personal observations. This literature review will discuss the effectiveness of group counseling on adolescents while discussing the different typesof group counseling and their effects. This study also examines a key theory developed by James Garland ultimately concluding that group counseling is beneficial to adolescents at any level of development.

Exemplary Approach To Operationalizing Psychoanalytic Theory And Religion: Commentary On “The Relationship Of God Image To Level Of Object Relations Development”, Nancy S. Thurston

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

No abstract provided.

The Reliability And Validity Of An Object Assembly Task, Dane'l A. Koonce

Masters Theses

A computerized object assembly task (COA) was constructed and compared to the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) object assembly subtest (OA). The two tasks, the COA and the OA, were administered to seventy-one college undergraduates. The correlation between the WAIS-R OA subtest and the two COA conditions, Preview and NoPreview, combined was moderate and statistically significant. The findings support the feasibility of constructing a computerized version of the OA task.

Comparison Of High School Adolescents And Court Ordered Adolescents On Perception Of Parental Unconditional Love: A Short Pilot Study, Wanda Sandy Reid

Masters Theses

This project was conducted to determine if a difference exists in the perception of parental unconditional love between a group of high school students and a similar group of court ordered adolescents.

The subjects were fifty high school age students and fifty court ordered individuals ranging in age from eleven to eighteen.

The subjects were asked to complete a ten-question instrument with a response scale of one to seven. When the data was analyzed, the scale was reduced from seven to three in order to make the data more meaningful.

The results show that there was not a significant difference …

Burnout And Job Dissatisfaction Among Practicing Illinois School Psychologists, Kathryn M. Niebrugge

Masters Theses

Survey materials including a Maslach Burnout Inventory, a School Psychologists Stress Inventory, and specially designed demographic and job satisfaction questionnaires were completed by a random sample of members of the Illinois School Psychologists Association (N=139). Results suggested that symptoms of burnout frequently occur among this group of professionals. Although job related stressors (e.g. lack of resources, time management) were related to burnout, demographic factors (e.g. satisfaction with supervision, case discrepancy index) were found to be the best predictors of burnout. Results suggest that supervising psychologists are considered to be primary figures in resistance to burnout. Further research could aid in …

An Evaluation Of Pre-Intake Attention On Kept Intake Appointments In An Outpatient Setting, Lauren Roberts

Masters Theses

The present study attempted to reduce the no-show rate for scheduled intake appointments at a local CMHC through the use of two interventions. Thirty-seven subjects who called for an intake appointment were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups: an Orientation and Standard Intake Procedure or an Orientation and Modified Intake Procedure. Both treatment groups were compared to a Base Group consisting of intake appointments scheduled during the same time period the previous year. Individuals assigned to OMIP revealed a reduction in the no-show rate from 51% during baseline to 36%. Individuals assigned to OSIP did not reveal similar …

Perceived Differences In Family Characteristics Among Women Exhibiting Varying Levels Of Eating Disorders, Emily K. Altemus

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Selective Antinociceptive Effect Of Excitatory Amino Acid Antagonists In Intact And Acute Spinal Rats, Darla M. Rutherford

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Types Of Stress Associated With The Onset Of Panic Disorder And Social Phobia, Diana L. Johnson '94

Honors Projects

The present study examined the association of different types of stress with the onset of both panic disorder and social phobia. Twenty-three subjects who met the DSM-III-R criteria for panic disorder and twenty-three subjects who met the DSM-III-R criteria for social phobia were matched on the variables of sex, race, level of education, and time of retrospection. Data related to circumstances surrounding onset were. collected from semi-structured initial diagnostic interviews. Descriptions of the circumstances were then rated and classified by blind independent raters into categories of no stress/stress, conditional stressor/background stress, and evaluation related stress/not evaluation related stress. Results indicated …

Developmental Factors In Visual Search: The Inhibition Deficit Hypothesis In A Feature-Integration Task, Stacy M. Forbes '94

Honors Projects

One of the most robust findings in cognitive functioning is that the elderly are more easily distracted by irrelevant information. This inhibition-deficit hypothesis may be useful in explaining older adults' deficits in visual search tasks. Treisman's Feature Integration Theory suggests that there are two ways to visually process information: parallel processing, an automatic process that does not require directed attention, and serial processing, which does. This study provides evidence for the role of inhibitory processes (and therefore frontal lobe involvement) in serial, but not parallel search. Six and ten year old children, undergraduate students, and elderly subjects participated in the …

The Implications Of Cognitive Change In The Treatment Of Panic Disorder With Agoraphobia, Lisa M. Nowak '94

Honors Projects

This study was an extension of a previous study done by Spiegel, Bruce, Falkin-Gregg, and Nuzzarello (in press), the latter of which tested whether cognitive behavior therapy assisted alprazolam discontinuation in panic disorder patients. The focus of cognitive behavior therapy in relation to benzodiazepine discontinuation placed great emphasis on changing cognitive biases during th~ treatment process. The present study investigated whether groups differed on cognitive factors associated with panic disorder (e,g. catastrophic misinterpretations, sensitivity to bodily sensations, and a feeling of lack of control over emotions and situations) and whether that change predicted discontinuation. The results showed the alprazolam plus …

A Pilot Study On The Use Of Alprazolam-Assisted Exposure And Response Prevention In Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Julie A. Reinlasoder '94

Honors Projects

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a behavior disorder characterized by recurrent, intense thoughts and repetitive ritualistic acts. Treatments for obsessive compulsive disorder typically consist of either exposure and response prevention or pharmacotherapy. particularly benzodiazepines. Combinations of these two types of treatment could lead to three possible outcomes. First, the combination of exposure and response prevention and benzodiazepines may show no better results than exposure and response prevention alone. Second, combination therapy may result in a better effect than exposure and response prevention alone--the drug will decrease anxiety during exposure without increasing the relapse rate after treatment. Third, combination therapy could have worse …

The Inhibition-Deficit Hypothesis: A Possible Neurological Mechanism For Age-Related Changes In The Formation Of Problem-Solving Set, Elizabeth J. Meinz '94

Honors Projects

In the process of problem-solving, a limiting of possible solutions often occurs which causes subjects to prematurely narrow their problem-solving options. This tendency is called problem-solving set. It is possible that there is an underlying neurological mechanism which regulates this process. It has been shown that the frontal lobes play a role in the inhibition of irrelevant information, suggesting that they may be involved in the formation of set. Because the frontal lobes are suspected to degenerate somewhat with age, the elderly may have less of a tendency towards problem-solving set than young adults. In the current study, set was …

The Effect Of Premium Offers And Consumer Buying Decisions, Amy R. Parker '94

Honors Projects

Premiums programs are common promotional tools, but have received very little empirical study. The purpose of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of a premium program done by Beer Nuts, Inc. A mail survey was sent to the first 250 respondents to the premium offer. Results indicate that most of the respondents were previous Beer Nuts consumers, would switch brands to receive a premium, would pay more for a product to obtain a premium, will continue to purchase the product after receiving the premium, and will use cents-off coupons. Additionally, results show that the average premium consumer is …

Behavior And Thought Change After A Self-Improvement Program: Studying The Effects Of Environmental And Other Factors On The Transfer Of Training, Jennifer Bernstein '94

Honors Projects

This study tested the attitude-behavior relationship and transfer of training on a specific training program -The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It is a self-improvement program designed to improve. such things as: interpersonal relationships, time management skills, and concentrating only on what one can change. The subjects were 84 BroMenn Healthcare employees signed up to take the training program. Both groups were given a pre-and post-test consisting of four parts: one's behaviors and thoughts (including questions on locus of control), countertraining, and two parts of the Personal Strain Questionnaire. It was found that a low pre-test countertraining score did …

Burnout, Social Support, And Coping In Crisisline Volunteers, Lisa Beal '94

Honors Projects

This study examined the relationship among burnout, social support, and coping in volunteers. In this study, 30 volunteers from Rape Crisis Center of Bloomington, Illinois, anonymously completed four questionnaires: the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the UCLA Social Support Inventory, a coping survey, and a demographic survey. The Maslach Burnout Inventory contains three subscales, Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment. A question is asked on the demographic questionnaire regarding the respondent's perception of the turnover rate among the volunteers of the group. This response was correlated with the three subscales of the burnout measure in order to establish if perception of turnover …