Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluation Of A Community-Based Socialization Program For Independently Living Older Adults, Patricia A. Shane, Anne T. Ferguson, Erin L. Woodhead

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Social isolation among older adults is a major public health concern because of the adverse impact it has on health and well-being. Reducing social isolation can improve health and decrease the use of costly healthcare services. However, there is little consensus on the critical ingredients of programming to reduce social isolation. Bay Area Older Adults® (BAO) is a nonprofit organization whose community-based Healthy Living Program (HLP) focuses on building and nourishing older adults’ social networks through transitions such as retirement, divorce and loss of loved ones. The current study was a program evaluation of the HLP using a survey to …

A Short Pragmatic Tool For Evaluating Community Engagement: Partnering For Health Improvement And Research Equity, John G. Oetzel, Blake Boursaw, Lenora Littledeer, Sarah Kastelic, Page Castro-Reyes, Juan M. Peña, Patricia Rodriguez Espinosa, Shannon Sanchez-Youngman, Lorenda Belone, Nina Wallerstein

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Background: As community-engaged research (CEnR), community-based participatory research (CBPR) and patient-engaged research (PEnR) have become increasingly recognized as valued research approaches in the last several decades, there is need for pragmatic and validated tools to assess effective partnering practices that contribute to health and health equity outcomes. This article reports on the co-creation of an actionable pragmatic survey, shortened from validated metrics of partnership practices and outcomes. Methods: We pursued a triple aim of preserving content validity, psychometric properties, and importance to stakeholders of items, scales, and constructs from a previously validated measure of CBRP/CEnR processes and outcomes. There were …

Contraceptive Use Among Transgender Men And Gender Diverse Individuals In The United States: Reasons For Use, Non-Use, And Methods Used For Pregnancy Prevention, Juno Obedin-Maliver, Ava Snow, Sachiko Ragosta, Laura Fix, Jen Hastings, Micah E. Lubensky, Matthew R. Capriotti, Zubin Dastur, Annesa Flentje, Mitchell R. Lunn, Heidi Moseson

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Objectives: To describe contraceptive use for pregnancy prevention among transgender men and gender diverse (TGD) individuals assigned female or intersex at birth (AFIAB) and explore whether contraceptive use differs by testosterone use. Study design: We analyzed data from a cross-sectional, online survey of N = 1694 TGD individuals AFIAB recruited in 2019 through a community-facing website and a national community-engaged cohort study of sexual and/or gender minority (SGM) adults in the US. Descriptive and regression analyses characterized the current and ever use of contraceptive methods for pregnancy prevention, stratified by testosterone use, and described reasons for contraceptive use/non-use. Results: Most …

Could Password Sharing Entitle You To Monitor Your Partner's Social Media Accounts?, Irum Saeed Abbasi, David Khabaz, Maryam Abbasi, Greg Feist

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Social media offers a plethora of strangers cum friends whose photo shopped images seem idealistic and more appealing than one's primary partner. Due to the physical absence and lack of non-verbal cues, online communications can quickly become aggressive and emotionally intimate. Emotional intimacy between online friends is considered a betrayal in a dyadic relationship. To protect mates from external relationship threats, romantic partners may request and/or coerce their significant other for social media account passwords. In a sample of 299 adults (women = 246) between18 and 72 years (M = 21.12, SD = 5.39), we explored the participants’ attitudes toward …

Bending But Not Breaking: An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Psychological Flexibility And Suicidality In Individuals With Chronic Pain, Adalyn Mcmurray

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Chronic pain is a burdensome condition that has been found to be associated with increased suicide risk, yet the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear (Domenichiello & Ramsden, 2019). The present study aimed to examine the role of pain interference and psychological inflexibility in predicting past two-week suicidal thoughts among individuals with chronic pain, with psychological inflexibility explored as a potential moderator. This study also sought to replicate and extend McCracken et al. (2018) and enhance the understanding of suicidality in chronic pain populations by using the Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory (Rolffs et al., 2018b), a more psychometrically sound measure …

Science Communication: Teen Vaping, Chloe Kwasiborski

Psychology Student Publications

What are the dangers of teenage vaping? Why do teens vape? This paper aims to explain scientific information in a clear and engaging manner for anyone to read and understand.

Brain Function Related To Love, Brooklyn Morris

Psychology Student Publications

My paper serves to analyze the findings of various researchers regarding how love affects areas of the brain. I discuss romantic and parental love as well as altruism for strangers, all types of love that stimulate different areas in the brain.

Maternal Adverse Childhood Experiences And Infant Visual-Limbic White Matter Development, Catherine H. Demers, Benjamin L. Hankin, Mercedes Hoeflich Haase, Erin Todd, M. Camille Hoffman, C. Neill Epperson, Martin A. Styner, Elysia Poggi Davis

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Background

Maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are robust predictors of mental health for both the exposed individual and the next generation; however, the pathway through which such intergenerational risk is conferred remains unknown. The current study evaluated the association between maternal ACEs and infant brain development, including an a priori focus on circuits implicated in emotional and sensory processing.

Methods

The sample included 101 mother-infant dyads from a longitudinal study. Maternal ACEs were assessed with the Adverse Childhood Questionnaire dichotomized into low (0 or 1) and high (≥2) groups. White matter microstructure, as indexed by fractional anisotropy (FA), was assessed …

Joseph Joachim And Bach's Chaconne, Robert Whitehouse Eshbach

Faculty Publications

And they will long to have heard Joachim's violin-playing as we long to have heard Bach at his organ: not from curiosity to verify an old record of technical prowess, but from the desire to recover the unrecorded manifestations of a creative mind.

Etherealbreathing: A Holographic Biofeedback Game To Support Relaxation In Autistic Children, Arturo Morales Téllez, Isabel López Hurtado, Franceli L. Cibrian, Monica Tentori

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Biofeedback training for box breathing is becoming increasingly accessible due to advancements in consumer-grade breathing sensors. However, there is limited research on their design and applications for specialized populations. This study evaluates a novel biofeedback holographic game, EtherealBreathing, designed to support autistic children. In EtherealBreathing, children practice box breathing to collect virtual elements to maintain the Earth's balance, using a wearable sensor to measure chest expansion for breath detection. A deployment study with 20 autistic children revealed that EtherealBreathing effectively promotes box breathing, leading to better health-related outcomes, such as lowering participants’ heart and respiratory rates than traditional practices. Biofeedback …

A Quantitative Study Exploring How Depression Symptom Severity Moderates The Relationship Between Emotional Suppression And Workplace Performance In A Sample Of American Office Worker, Laura A. Duffy

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a heterogeneous disorder consisting of several subtypes, and both subthreshold depression and acute phase depression are associated with functional, occupational, and social impairments, even after remission. Studies suggest that depression symptom severity negatively affects a person’s health, work performance, and social functioning due to a person’s limited cognitive resources. In Western cultures, employers expect employees who have depression to use emotional regulation in the workplace, but these employees find that this uses cognitive resources to the extent that they are unable to do their work optimally and also fulfill their social functions in the workplace. …

Shame, Loneliness, Regret: Analyzing Theeffectiveness Of Anti-Alcohol Marketing Campaigns On Consumers, Zakary Bradbury

Honors Projects in Marketing

The alcohol market has been growing exponentially worldwide over the past decade with no trends of stopping in the near future. With this growth comes an increase in marketing efforts from both pro-alcohol companies and anti-alcohol agencies. While pro-alcohol companies have not had any trouble regarding marketing, anti-alcohol agencies have lagged behind in terms of social and digital marketing efforts. The goal of this research was to uncover how various anti-alcohol stimuli affect consumer attitudes and beliefs. To conduct research, we ran a Qualtrics survey consisting of 279 college students. The results showed that 1) when participants viewed an anti-alcohol …

Sibling Relationships Through The Lens Of Culture And Inclusion Of Other In The Self, Laura Aguilar

Honors Thesis

Sibling relationships are formative for identity development and well-being. These relationships vary in closeness due to factors such as age, gender, family dynamics, parenting style and cultural context. Existing literature has shown that siblings from interdependent cultures have closer relationships than those from independent cultures. This thesis proposes that sibling relationships can be examined through the lens of the self-expansion model, focusing on the Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS) scale. It hypothesizes that those from interdependent cultures will have more inclusion of other in the self than those from independent cultures. Participants from Japan representing the interdependent culture …

A Mixed Methods Study Of Undergraduate Psychology Students At An Evangelical University: The Integration Of Psychology And Christianity, Claire Voshell

Senior Honors Theses

The integration of psychology and spirituality has gained attention in both religious and secular communities over the last decade, and there has been an increased emphasis on Christian integration in the last few years. Current literature is primarily focused on frameworks and theories for integration. This thesis examines the existing literature on current methods of teaching integration and its applications within social work, church ministry, counseling, and education. By completing the Psychology-Faith Integration scale and a brief semi-structured interview, participants detailed how they understood and experienced the integration of psychology and Christianity throughout their undergraduate psychology programs. Scores on the …

[Coming Soon: Exploring Diversity With Statistics: Step-By-Step Jamovi Guides], Ruth Walker

Open Textbooks

These resources were created to complement our undergraduate statistics lab manual, Applied Data Analysis in Psychology: Exploring Diversity with Statistics, published by Kendall Hunt publishing company. Like our lab manual, these Jamovi walk-through guides meaningfully and purposefully integrate and highlight diversity research to teach students how to analyze data in an open-source statistical program. The data sets utilized in these guides are from open-access databases (e.g., Pew Research Center, PLoS One, ICPSR, and more). Guides with step-by-step instructions, including annotated images and examples of how to report findings in APA format, are included for the following statistical tests: independent samples …

Nondisclosure Of Trans Group Status Among Transgender Individuals, Alexander Williams

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of the study was to investigate motivations for concealment of transgender group status beyond a qualitative scale. Additionally, the study aimed to identify the role one’s identity centrality, salience, and valence played in concealment behavior and attitudes. It was hypothesized that factors found in the extant literature (i.e., gender dysphoria, lack of connection, safety, stigma, and discrimination concerns) would apply presently. It was hypothesized that those individuals with low identity centrality, salience, and valence would be less likely to disclose their trans status. Results indicated that the previously named factors for concealment were present among participants with particularly …

Cultural Memory And The Search For Identity In Victorian Fantasy Fiction, Sadie Boggs

Honors College Theses

Fantasy literature's origins can be traced through myths and folktales, medieval romances, enlightenment fairy tale fantasy, and Romanticism, before finally taking firmer root in the Victorian period and blooming into its own genre in 20th century modern fantasy. Victorian thinkers reacted to the Enlightenment’s realism and technological innovation by “rediscovering” the Middle Ages as a time of beauty, simplicity, and moral virtue. Simultaneously, Psychology developed as a recognized field of study, and theories emerged about the psychological process of memory formation and retrieval, as well as its reliability and relation to identity.

Considering these psychological theories, Victorian fantasy's cultural memory …

Factor Structure And Psychometric Properties Of The Muscle Dysmorphic Disorder Inventory (Mddi) Among Transgender Women, Jason M. Nagata, Emilio J. Compte, F. Hunter Mcguire, Jason M. Lavender, Tiffany A. Brown, Matthew R. Capriotti, Annesa Flentje, Micah E. Lubensky, Juno Obedin-Maliver, Mitchell R. Lunn

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Muscle dysmorphia (MD) is characterized by extreme preoccupation with insufficient muscularity that prompts pathological behaviors and distress/impairment. The Muscle Dysmorphic Disorder Inventory (MDDI) — a widely used measure of MD symptoms — has yet to be validated among transgender women, despite emerging evidence suggesting risk for muscularity-oriented concerns in this population. We examined the MDDI factor structure as well as the reliability and validity of its subscales in a sample of 181 transgender women ages 19–73 years who participated in a national longitudinal cohort study of U.S. sexual and gender minority adults. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine model …

Navigating Crisis: The Intersection Of Politics, Culture, And Suicide In South Korea And Japan, Natasha A. Burke

Honors College Theses

Suicide is an important global issue, and there need to be measures put in place to help prevent such a problem. Existing literature finds that culture and politics do significantly impact suicide rates. I assess how the perceptions of suicide differ from culture to culture and how culture plays a role in the rates of suicide and reasons for it. I also examine at how socioeconomic status, unemployment, and economics affect people as well. In this study, I research how politics and culture affect suicide rates in Asia, specifically how politics and culture influence suicide rates in South Korea and …

Initial Reactions: Rethinking The Efficacy Of Current Contractual Practies For Consumer Protection, Sarah E. Wellard

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

To protect consumers from unfair contracts, legislatures have implemented measures requiring consumers to signal specific agreement to crucial clauses. One such common practice is requiring consumers to initial specific provisions within contracts. This dissertation investigates the efficacy of initialing and other secondary tasks in promoting consumer understanding and memory of contractual information. Through a series of three experimental studies, participants engaged in tasks involving initialing, semantic processing, or irrelevant letter-classification tasks while processing contract information. Contrary to predictions, the findings failed to show that initialing or other secondary tasks significantly improved consumer’s reported memory or understanding of contract terms, compared …

The Effect Of Exercise Type On Working Memory, Ariana Gonzalez, William R. Kochen

Journal for Sports Neuroscience

Martial arts encompass a wide range of sports and techniques that have been practiced for self-defense and combat for thousands of years. It has expanded to include various styles such as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Taekwondo, judo, and karate. It has also been practiced as a form of exercise and entertainment. Martial arts have been associated to discipline, integrity, improved stamina, and increased mental and problem-solving capabilities. Unlike other exercise methods, most martial arts require focus, skill, and technique, which have been hypothesized to improve memory. The purpose of the study was to determine if there was a significant improvement in the …

Knowledge, Attitudes, And Concerns About Psilocybin And Mdma As Novel Therapies Among Us Healthcare Professionals, Erin Wang, David S Mathai, Natalie Gukasyan, Sandeep Nayak, Albert Garcia-Romeu

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) with substances like psilocybin and MDMA has shown promise for conditions including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Psilocybin and MDMA may become approved medicines in the coming decade. This study assessed knowledge and attitudes regarding PAT among 879 U.S. healthcare professionals via anonymous online survey. Multivariable linear regression was used to identify predictors of openness to clinical use. Most participants (71.2%) were female and White (85.8%), with a mean (SD) age of 45.5 (12.7) years. Registered nurses (25.4%) and physicians (17.7%) comprised the largest professional groups. Respondents endorsed strong belief in therapeutic promise, and moderate openness to …

We All Have Jobs Here: Teaching And Learning With Multiple Intelligences In The Walking Dead, Lizabeth Gartley

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

With the rise of cultural studies, positivism and formalism fell out of favor. But in recent years, altered versions of these methodologies have been suggested as solutions to the deficiencies of the ideological approach dominating the field. Where the ideological approach looks at the content of texts to determine their meaning, the aesthetic approach adopted by media scholars in recent years returns to the close textual readings of formalism (while abandoning its assertion that meaning resides in the text alone). Similarly, where the ideological approach tends to use textual analysis devoid of sociological empiricism, the use of “big data” in …

Automatically Extracting Social Determinants Of Health For Suicide: A Narrative Literature Review, Annika M Schoene, Suzanne Garverich, Iman Ibrahim, Sia Shah, Benjamin Irving, Clifford C Dacso

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Suicide is a complex phenomenon that is often not preceded by a diagnosed mental health condition, therefore making it difficult to study and mitigate. Artificial Intelligence has increasingly been used to better understand Social Determinants of Health factors that influence suicide outcomes. In this review we find that many studies use limited SDoH information and minority groups are often underrepresented, thereby omitting important factors that could influence risk of suicide.

Psychologic Contribution To Non-Local Fatigue, Jack R. Bakker, Brock Sheehan, Parker R. Draney, Jackson J. Foukas, Nelson F. Brown, Anthony Ciccone

International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings

Non-local fatigue occurs when one muscle group causes the fatigue of a different muscle group within a training session. This phenomenon is commonly studied among exercise physiologists who have potentially overlooked the possibility of a psychological effect of knowingly participating in what is supposed to be a fatigue study. PURPOSE: Therefore, the purpose of the study is to determine what subjects think will happen to lower body performance when upper body exercises are added, and if that affects the actual non-local fatigue result. METHODS: One lower-body workout (LB) consisted of five sets of leg extension (quadriceps only exercise) …

The Roots Of Authoritarianism In Amc’S The Walking Dead, Adam M. Crowley

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

AMC’s The Walking Dead (2010- ) is a unique artifact in the twenty-first century’s expansive catalogue of undead-themed entertainments. To date, the show’s producers, commentators, and critics have noted the relevance of psychological trauma to the series. If the experience of realistic psychological trauma is relevant to The Walking Dead, then it should be possible for critics to articulate detailed assessments of the particular kinds of traumatic experiences that are foregrounded in the program. Trauma is, after all, an extremely nuanced and highly theorized facet of the human condition. This paper provides one such assessment and considers the significance …

The Impact Of Depression And Anxiety On Emotional Facial Recognition, Gracie J. Buck, Mckensey P. Malin, Emma Chacon, Abbey Fies

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

Anxiety and depression are widespread mental health disorders that elicit prolonged tension, uneasiness, and low moods (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2024; American Psychological Association). These mental health conditions have been known to influence cognitive and perceptual processes (Perin et al., 2022). Multiple studies have found evidence that depression and/or anxiety create a heightened issue of misinterpreting facial and emotional cues (Kang et al., 2019; Monferrer et al., 2023). Notably, People with anxiety have a higher rate of sensitivity and/or error when shown a face with an angry expression (Kang et al., 2019), while people with depression have …

Liderando Juntos Y Revueltos: A Collectivistic Leadership Approach To Address Latinx Immigrant Health And Psychological Needs, Oswaldo Moreno, Luz M. Garcini, Melanie M. Domenech Rodriguez, Alfonso Mercado, Amanda Venta, Thania Galvan, Michelle Silva, Oscar F. Rojas Perez, German Cadenas, Manuel Paris

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Psychologists are positioned to help address societal and public health crises in beneficial ways, including collectively working with public sectors to serve marginalized communities. This article highlights the relevance of helping to address societal and public health crises with collectivistic psychological leadership approaches and uses Latinx psychology leaders for addressing the current immigrant needs among Latinx communities. We draw attention to the domains needed for collectivistic psychological leadership that are culturally nuanced and equity, diversity, and inclusion-focused to advance the well-being of historically marginalized immigrant communities. Finally, the article highlights how our collectivistic approach operates in the public sector by …

Bridging The Protection Gap: Innovative Approaches To Shield Older Adults From Ai-Enhanced Scams, Ld Herrera, London Van Sickle, Ashley L. Podhradsky

Research & Publications

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly gaining popularity as individuals, groups, and organizations discover and apply its expanding capabilities. Generative AI creates or alters various content types including text, image, audio, and video that are realistic and challenging to identify as AI-generated constructs. However, guardrails preventing malicious use of AI are easily bypassed. Numerous indications suggest that scammers are already using AI to enhance already successful scams, improving scam effectiveness, speed and credibility, while reducing detectability of scams that target older adults, who are known to be slow to adopt new technologies. Through hypothetical cases analysis of two leading scams, the …

“Showing Up”: An Autoethnographic Exploration Of Black Women’S Teaching Mentorship Narrative In Counselor Education, Brean'a M. Parker, Shawntell Pace, Collette Chapman-Hilliard, Raven Cokley

Teaching and Supervision in Counseling

While Black women are entering academe at increasing rates, they still remain underrepresented in the counselor education academic workforce. Empirical literature suggests that lack of educational infrastructure, challenging sociocultural climates and fewer possibility models within academe are factors for low matriculation of Black women doctoral students into academic positions in counselor education. Utilizing collaborative autoethnography (CAE), we explore teaching mentorship relationships among Black women (N = 4) counseling faculty and doctoral students. We also examine how mentoring relationships shape Black women’s professionalization within academe in a manner that fosters the embodiment and practice of social justice andragogy. CAE narratives revealed …