Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Attachment, Exploration, And Internalized Homonegativity, Gregory J. Gagnon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Internalized homonegativity (IH; a.k.a. internalized homophobia), has been implicated in health disparities between lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons (LGBs) and their heterosexual peers. Yet, little available research has explored factors that may increase or decrease IH.

Objective: This dissertation investigates relations between child and adult attachment and IH. It further examines the mediating and moderating roles of exploration and mentalization, respectively, in the attachment–IH relation.

Method: One hundred fifty cisgender LGB adults participated in two waves of an online survey. The first assessed recalled child–maternal and child–paternal attachment and current attachment to the romantic partner. The second, conducted two …

Object Relations, Identity Formation, And Transitional Space In Religious Conversion, Arielle Rubenstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Conversion between broad religious groups is a life transformation undertaken by 15% of Americans, yet it has seldom been studied closely from a psychodynamic perspective. The psychological study of conversion began with a Protestant paradigm of sudden and total transformation of the self, and over time came to characterize different manifestations of conversion to more diverse religious groups. Research on conversion has primarily sought to understand whether conversion is essentially a psychopathological phenomenon, and has led to a multiplicity of both positive and negative, at times contradictory, findings. Research has shown that conversion is associated with insecure attachment, neurotic personality …

Overcoming Challenges In The Assessment And Treatment Of Problem Behavior In Adults With Autism, Julia A. Iannaccone

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Problematic behaviors, such as self-injurious behavior or aggression, demonstrated by adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), create many significant life complications, some life-threatening. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is established as an evidence-based approach to treat problem behavior for children with ASD and shows promise as an effective treatment for adults, yet little research has been conducted within the adult population. Assessment and treatment of problem behavior with adults is often challenging due to funding limitations, increased severity and complexity of problem behavior, and underqualified staff. The purpose of the present study was to overcome these challenges by (1) identifying a …

The Impact Of A Single Session Of Mindfulness Meditation On The Attentional Blink In Non-Meditators, Arielle L. Klopsis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Attentional resources are limited therefore a stimulus can go undetected if it closely follows another target by 200-500ms. This phenomenon is known as the attentional blink. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to be beneficial in target detection and in decreasing the attentional blink. Since there is no standard for the type of meditation or duration of practice that leads to attention benefits, this study compares the two most popular types of meditation in a group of non-meditators: focused attention and open monitoring meditation. This study utilized an attentional blink paradigm to measure if a single session of mindfulness meditation can …