Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Child Characteristics And Environmental Demands On Parenting Across Intact And Divorced Families: An Exploratory View, Jennifer L. Stevenson

Theses and Dissertations

Minimal attention has been directed toward learning how children may influence parenting practices and styles within a divorce setting, and - more significantly - how children may influence the co-parenting practices and behaviors of divorced parents. The roles of child temperament, parenting, and their reciprocal interaction werereviewed as they relate to the development of externalizing and internalizing problems in childhood. Literature regarding the impact of divorce on the parent-child relationship was also discussed. A cluster analytic approach was utilized in order to identify three groups of individuals with internalizing, externalizing, and adaptive characteristics. Parenting features were then evaluated across both …

The Effects Of Transdermal Nicotine On Tobacco/Nicotine Withdrawal And Concurrently Administered Cigarettes In Women And Men, Betha A. Kleykamp

Theses and Dissertations

Transdermal nicotine (TN) is a smoking cessation pharmacotherapy thought to work by suppressing tobacco/nicotine withdrawal and reducing the effect of a concurrently smoked tobacco cigarette. Clinical trials suggest that TN may be less efficacious for women. This study explored the possibility of gender differences in response to transdermal nicotine in 54 women and 70 men. Participants completed four within-subject, double-blind, randomized sessions corresponding to 0, 7, 14, and 21 mg TN and 4-hrs after TN application smoked an own-brand cigarette. Prior to session onset participants completed ≥ 8 hours of verified tobacco cigarette abstinence (i.e., expired air carbon monoxide levels …

Exploring The Cardiovascular Response To Anger Imagery And Speech In Vietnam Veterans With And Without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Jennifer Jane Runnals

Theses and Dissertations

Few studies directly compare the physiological consequences of anger under a variety of induction methods. The current study explored the patterns of cardiovascular responding associated with varying anger induction methods, specifically personal anger memory recall through verbalization versus imagery in a sample of Vietnam combat veterans with and without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Spoken anger produced greater elevations in blood pressure than anger that was recalled through imagery but not spoken. This was true even after controlling for the metabolic activity associated with speech. However, for veterans with PTSD, anger imagery was also sufficient to produce an elevated response in …

Intrapersonal Grief As A Clinical Entity Distinct From Depression: Does It Exist Among A Medically Ill Parkinson's Disease Population?, Rashelle Brown Hayes

Theses and Dissertations

There has been growing support for the idea that complicated grief symptoms following bereavement are independent of symptoms of depression and anxiety. However, the loss of a loved one is not the only or the most frequent type of loss to be encountered. The onset of an insidious medical illness may trigger a mourning process for the lost function or body part that is posited to also involve feelings of grief. While the risk of depression is high among a medical or rehabilitative population, the impact of grief over functional losses has never been empirically investigated as a contributing factor …

A Fugitive Sea, Marian Brunn Smith

Theses and Dissertations

I make images that are fragmented like ominous dreams. Described with sensuous marks of paint, they demand intimacy but reveal vulnerability as they threaten to break apart before the eyes. This thesis examines my journey over the past two years at VCU and describes my artistic beliefs and visions.

Binge Eating In Ethnically Diverse Obese Adolescents, Clarice K. Gerke

Theses and Dissertations

Rates of pediatric obesity in America are reaching epidemic proportions. Studies using both community and treatment-seeking samples of obese adolescents indicate that a subset engage in binge eating behaviors. This study investigated the prevalence and severity of binge eating behaviors among 86 primarily African American 11 to 17 year old adolescents seeking outpatient treatment for obesity. This study also examined the associations of stressful experiences (specifically, weight-related teasing, trauma, and daily hassles) with binge eating, as well as potential mediators and moderators of these relationships. Twenty-eight percent of the sample reported at least one episode of binge eating in the …

Relationship Between Facial Attractiveness And Occlusal Treatment Outcomes: A Retrospective Study, Chad Eric Fowler

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between pretreatment facial attractiveness and posttreatment occlusal outcome in orthodontic patients. A randomized sample of forty-seven patients (26 males, 21 females) was selected for inclusion in this study. Orthodontic evaluators rated pretreatment patient photographs (frontal smile, frontal, profile) using a 100 mm visual analog scale (VAS). Occlusal outomes were evaluated using percentage reduction in weighted Peer Assessment Rating (PAR) index scores and the American Board of Orthodontics objective grading system (ABO-OGS). Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated to assess the relationship between pretreatment VAS attractiveness ratings and posttreatment occlusal …

Merging Task-Centered Social Work And Motivational Interviewing In Outpatient Medication Assisted Substance Abuse Treatment: Model Development For Social Work Practice, Andreas Fassler

Theses and Dissertations

To advance social work practice and decrease the research practice gap, this dissertation followed a model development paradigm consisting of several phases. Based on the task-centered model of social work practice and motivational interviewing, a new combined model was construed. The two underlying models were analyzed and synthesized, using technical eclecticism as the integrative approach. The resulting combined model was described by guidelines and manualized. To test the combined model in an applied setting, a study was designed in collaboration with social workers at a substance abuse counseling center. There, the combined model intervention was implemented in an outpatient medication …

Intensive Co-Parenting Therapy: Piloting A Manualized Treatment For Divorced Families, Jill Allison Ferrante Gasper

Theses and Dissertations

Although resilience is the normative psychological outcome of divorce, parents and children of divorce are disproportionately represented in the mental health and legal systems. Due to the great financial and psychological costs of incessant divorce litigation, interventions that promote positive child adjustment while alleviating the costs of litigation are in high demand. Social policymakers and clinicians have responded to this demand via a number of intervention strategies; however, the implementation of many current interventions has predated supporting empirical evidence.The present study seeks to establish the efficacy of a child-focused, intensive co-parenting therapy (ICT) intervention for divorced parents. ICT is a …

Attention Style And Appreciation: The Differences Between Gratitude And Indebtedness, Maureen A. Mathews

Theses and Dissertations

Gratitude and indebtedness are construed as separate constructs in recent research.It is hypothesized by this thesis that self-focused attention affects feelings of gratitude and indebtedness. Focusing less attention on the self, thus turning attention resources outward, may allow for the experience of gratitude, whereas focusing inward may create feelings of indebtedness. Two studies examined how focusing one's attention inward may be related to indebtedness, whereas being focused outward may be related to gratitude. A correlational study showed that people who self-focus tend to feel more indebtedness and less gratitude. An experiment was designed to show that manipulating social anxiety, a …

Cognitive Mechanisms Of Memory Impairment Following Traumatic Brain Injury, Mark D. Whiting

Theses and Dissertations

Memory impairment is common following traumatic brain injury (TBI). In recent years, researchers have demonstrated that the processes underlying memory formation (working memory, encoding, consolidation, and retrieval) are interrelated but dissociable events.The following study was designed to determine how these processes contribute to memory impairment following experimental TBI in the rat. Experiment 1 indicated thatTBI induces severe working memory deficits in a delayed non-matching-to-place task.Although all animals displayed intact acquisition, only injured animals displayed poor performance as the delay between the sample and choice phases was increased.Experiment 2 was designed to determine if TBI produces a transient period of posttraumatic …

Cradle To Cage: Confronting The Premature Institutionalization Of The Children Of The Incarcerated, Jen Fell

Theses and Dissertations

American prisons are swollen and distended. Over 2 million Americans sit in jail or prison today. About 2/3 of the incarcerated are parents. They parent approximately 2 million children in America today who are separated from mom or dad because of incarceration. Their children suffer from poverty, inconsistency in caregivers, separation from siblings, reduced opportunity to health and education and increased risk for substance abuse, alcoholism and incarceration themselves. Children of the incarcerated are seven times more likely than their peers to become incarcerated as adults.Many of these children are unable to visit their parents. Over half the mothers in …

Beyond The Threshold: Allusions To The ÒrìsÀ In Ana Mendieta's Silueta Series, Latricia M. January

Theses and Dissertations

The Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) created the Silueta Series during the 1970s and ‘80s. It consists of earth-body works in situ featuring the silhouette of the artist's body fashioned from mud, plants, rocks, gunpowder and other materials. Underlying the creation of the Silueta Series is Mendieta's belief that the elements are sentient and powerful beings. This perception is particularly strong in the Afro-Cuban religion Santeria, a creolized form of the Òrìsà tradition of the Yoruba of West Africa introduced to the Americas during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. While scholars have noted Mendieta's incorporation of Santeria in her art, a …

Changes In Bmi Among First Semester College Students, Rachel L. Walker

Theses and Dissertations

The transition to college has been identified as a critical period for weight gain; however, only a limited number of studies have examined this phenomenon. The college setting may promote weight gain, thus the purpose of the present study was to quantify changes in BMI in first year students during their first semester of college and to understand factors associated with weight gain, such as eating behaviors, physical activity, and body shape ideals. Significant changes in weight were detected between Time 1 and 2 with a mean weight gain of 1.24 kg. The majority of participants (73.1 %) gained weight …

The Art Of Collaboration In The Classroom: Team Teaching Performance, Julie K. Phillips

Theses and Dissertations

The Art of Collaboration in the Classroom: Team Teaching Performance is a co-written masters thesis which records our research in the field of team teaching as it relates to theatre education at the university level. It is our intent that this text be used as a tool for helping universities and teachers decide if a collaborative teaching model is right for their courses. A portion of the text is research-based, examining the scholarly writings which have preceded our work. In Chapter 1, we compiled a set of definitions, in the hopes of codifying the language used within this document as …

Seeing It Straight, Heather Harvey

Theses and Dissertations

This Master of Fine Arts thesis is divided into four main sections:FAITH and DISBELIEF: In which I reckon with the implications of faith versus rationality as a secular nontheistic artist. IDEAS: The central locus of my work is a place of indeterminacy between what is known/familiar and what is just one step outside of that. This has nothing to do with mysticism, science fiction, or anything else unmoored from established fact. Section also touches on the particular vantage of a female artist with working class roots.THE WORK: Selection of work made during graduate school, and the the guiding thoughts behind …

Beyond Narrative, Jacob Adam Joseph Dodd

Theses and Dissertations

My graduate film at Virginia Commonwealth University, "Nunna Mia e la Barca," explores the traditions behind narrative and documentary film construction. With this project, my goal was to blend narrative story telling techniques - for example continuity editing - with that of documentary approaches in order to communicate the story of my Italian grandmother, Nunna, and her journey on the Andrea Doria in 1956. These documentary approaches focus more on the specific details of Nunna's American home as I have experienced them growing up. Everything in the motion picture frame has been lit, composed, rehearsed, and edited as in any …

Overweight And Obesity: A Comparative Study Of Black And White Non-Hispanic Women In The United States, Fai R. Howard

Theses and Dissertations

The population of the United States is increasingly gaining weight each year.Americans are heavier than they have ever been. African American women are at the forefront of this pandemic. This study addresses the higher prevalence of overweight and obesity among African American women in comparison to White women. Behavioral, psychological, and social known contributors to overweight and obesity using the National Health Interview Survey, 2001 dataset were examined in this study. The research concluded that even when controlling for vigorous exercise, education, income, depression, emotional support, smoking, health coverage, and age, race is the most important predictor of body mass …

Structure Of Aggression Among Urban Youth: Competing Factor Models Of Subtypes Of Physical And Relational Aggression, Sarah W. Helms

Theses and Dissertations

Aggression has been demonstrated to pose a serious threat to the adaptive development of youth, with decades of research demonstrating the negative associations between aggression and other problem behaviors, both concurrently and predictively. However, despite this body of research, the current psychological literature continues to suffer from a lack of an overarching organizational framework from which to structure the construct(s) of aggression. Furthermore, existing discrepancies across the literature, particularly in the definitions of and outcomes associated with non-physical forms of aggression (e.g., relational aggression, social aggression), exacerbate the complexities facing prevention and intervention specialists. Insofar as research can isolate the …

Life In An Occupied City: Women In Winchester, Virginia During The Civil War, Laura Jane Ping

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the homefront experience of middle class, white women living in Winchester, Virginia during the Civil War. The experience of women in Winchester was unique because of Winchester's proximity to both the Union and Confederate capitals. Although the majority of Winchester's women were Confederate supporters a significant minority of the population remained loyal to the Union. Winchester citizens' divided status was further complicated by numerous occupations of the town by both armies. This thesis argues that in order to cope with wartime hardships women's concepts of patriotism changed as homefront morale waned. While early in the war women's …

In Search Of The Ooey Gooey Good, Lauren Ashley Clay

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores ideas of everydayness, the mundane, and the repetitive emptiness of consumer culture. It looks at the malaise that plagues everyday life and examines several attempts throughout history to break from its grips which revolve around a search for a more ideal state. This research includes utopias of modernism, the transcendental, the communal living of Shakers and Early Christians, ascetic monks and The Desert Fathers. These ideas have shaped my studio practice as I construct installations based on worlds which allude to the eternal, the otherworldly, and the fragility of our physical world when compared to more eternal …

Residual Symptoms After Treatment Of Chronic Depression: A Comparison Across Treatment Modalities, Katherine L. Schaefer

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the development of several effective treatments for depression, symptoms often persist in a number of individuals. Unfortunately, these residual symptoms are associated with several negative outcomes, including persistence of depressive illness. Few studies have examined the exact nature of individual residual symptoms across specific treatment modalities, and studies have failed to distinguish between depression courses. The current study expands on previous findings by examining, among a chronically depressed population, differences in individual residual symptoms and clusters between treatment modality (medication, psychotherapy, combination) and treatment response (full response, partial response). Five hundred and nineteen chronically depressed participants completed the study. …

The Quantitative Genetics Of Neurodevelopment: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study Of Childhood And Adolescence, James Eric Schmitt

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the causes of individual differences in brain structure may give clues about the etiology of cognition, personality, and psychopathology, and also may identify endophenotypes for molecular genetic studies on brain development. We performed a comprehensive statistical genetic study of anatomic neuroimaging data from a large pediatric sample (N=600+) of twins and family members from the Child Psychiatry Branch at the NIMH. These analyses included variance decomposition of structural volumetric endophenotypes at several levels of resolution, voxel-level analysis of cortical thickness, assessment of gene by age interaction, several multivariate genetic analyses, and a search for genetically-mediated brain-behavioral relationships. These analyses …

Toward A New Kinship Constellation, Nellie Helen Frances Appleby

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis attempts to elaborate on my artwork during my graduate studies, while contextualizing it within the framework of the art world and the works of other artists. A main project during this time was to minimize the singular interpretation and framing of a fine art photographic print, while expanding its possibilities of meaning through the addition of important ephemera and objects such as plants, drawings, moving imagery, conversation and the unknown.

Posttraumatic Growth Among College Students At A Large Urban University: The Role Of Social Support And Unsupportive Social Interactions, Wendy E. Balliet

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to investigate the association between both social support and unsupportive interactions and psychological outcomes, in a sample of college students who recently had experienced a stressful event. The research design was cross-sectional, and data were collected from 142 college students. As hypothesized, a significant positive association was found between unsupportive interactions received by participants and depressive symptoms. Contrary to hypotheses, no significant associations were found between unsupportive interactions and positive emotion or posttraumatic growth. Additionally, no significant relationship was evident between received emotional support and the outcome variables. Exploratory analysis revealed that positive reappraisal …

Antecedents And Consequences Of Lifestyle Choice In Public Accounting, Ambrose Jones Iii

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the effects of healthy lifestyle of auditors in public accounting as a mitigating influence between role stress and job outcomes (performance, satisfaction, and turnover). Based on coping and self-determination theories, the study was designed to investigate the impact of healthy lifestyle as a coping measure that is within the control of the individual, regardless of firm policies or the firm's work environment.To address the research issues, a survey was conducted of professional auditors employed by a large national public accounting firm with offices located throughout the United States. The sample included 1,026 auditors from various regions of …

Maternal Caregivers' Organization Of And Reasoning Behind Coping Suggestions To Deal With Community Violence Exposure, Melinda B. Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Children and adolescents exposed to community violence can experience a plethora of negative outcomes including both internalizing symptoms and externalizing problems. Coping strategies can either buffer the effects of violence exposure or exacerbate negative outcomes following exposure. Given the diversity of strategies youth use to cope with violence, one unanswered question is how youth come to learn coping strategies to deal with community violence, and the roles that proximal others such as caregivers play in that process. The current study had several aims including understanding (a) how caregivers organize and conceptualize the suggestions they give to their children to cope …

Children With Special Needs Oral Health Quality Of Life Survey, Kristin Elizabeth Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to asses the oral health quality of life of children with special health care needs. This study examined the effects of oral health conditions on general well-being and family life of these children. A secondary aim of the study was to investigate correlations between specific health care conditions, gender, and age of these children and their global ratings of oral health and well-being.Methods: This study was a cross-sectional design with subjects who are members of the Virginia Care Connection for Children program, based at Virginia Commonwealth University. The oral health quality of life …

Victims' Perspectives On The Process Of Seeking A Protective Order: Predictors Of Perceived Empowerment, Sara-Beth Plummer

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined victims' perceived sense of empowerment during the process of seeking a Preliminary Protective Order. A cross sectional survey design with stratified sampling was used to gather information from women seeking Preliminary Protective Orders in Richmond City, Virginia. During a six month period 89 women agreed to participate, for a response rate of 83 percent. In general, the sample consisted of women who identified themselves as African-American, single, with either a high school/GED degree, and/or some college education.Overall, the women found the steps during the process of seeking an Order, either easy or very easy. In general, the …

Why Not A Miranda For Searches?, Gerard E. Lynch

Faculty Scholarship

I am delighted to be here today.

I am delighted to be at The Ohio State University, which has not only built a truly extraordinary criminal law and procedure faculty, including Professor Joshua Dressler, Alan Michaels, Sharon Davies, and Douglas Berman, but has also accumulated a large number of alumni of my home institution, Columbia Law School, including my former students, Professor Edward Foley and the aforesaid Professors Davies and Michaels, as well as Professor Deborah Jones Merritt, who is quite literally a daughter of Columbia, where her father is a distinguished emeritus member of the faculty, my esteemed senior …