Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Associations Of Discrimination With Drinking Behavior In Multiracial College Students: Protective Role Of Racial Socialization, Fatima Dobani

Theses - ALL

Despite the rapid growth of the Multiracial population in the United States, less is known about correlates of their health behaviors. Nascent findings demonstrate elevated rates of drinking behavior among Multiracial college students compared to their monoracial counterparts. Theoretical models posit that racial socialization by primary caregivers may change the magnitude of the relationship of discrimination with drinking behavior among Multiracial individuals. The role of racial socialization, however, has not been tested specifically among Multiracial college students. In this cross-sectional survey study, 193 undergraduate students (Mage = 20 years [SD = 1.33]; 30% male; 33% Greek affiliated) reporting lifetime alcohol …

The Importance Of Treatment Integrity: Examining The Effect Of Dosage On Intervention Outcomes, Samantha C. Maguire

Theses - ALL

Treatment integrity is a critical component to evaluating the impact of interventions (Collier-Meek et al., 2018). However, one frequently underreported and unacknowledged dimension of treatment integrity is intervention dosage. Determining the amount of treatment (i.e., dosage) necessary to produce desired changes is important to increasing our understanding of the impact of an intervention and the development of a more efficient and precise method of organizing and delivering treatments (Codding et al., 2016). Utilizing data (n = 391) from four individual randomized control trials and three clustered randomized control trials, the purpose of the present study was to descriptively examine the …

Cannabis Sleep Aid Use In Daily College Life: An Intensive Longitudinal Assessment Approach, Patricia A. Goodhines

Dissertations - ALL

Objective: Emerging evidence suggests that college cannabis sleep aid use may increase vulnerability to diurnal impairment, despite proximal sleep-related benefits. In contrast, relatively little is known about proximal precipitants of cannabis sleep aid use in daily college life. The identification of modifiable, situational intervention points preceding cannabis sleep aid use in daily college life is critical to accelerate the development of college harm reduction efforts. This 14-night mixed methods study tested temporal associations of THC-based cannabis sleep aid use with cognitive arousal-based precipitants (consistent with cognitive theory of insomnia) and sleep outcomes.

Method: Daily diary (pre-sleep and waking) and actigraphy …

How To Survive The Apocalypse: Using Film, Television, And Video Games As Gateways To Self-Analysis, Braeden Raymer

Theses - ALL

This thesis serves as an investigation on the use of film, television, and video games as access points for personal analysis in imagined scenarios. When creating a fictional world, characters' motivations and behaviors are often based on real-life experiences. In the apocalypse genre, understanding how a character might behave in such an extreme circumstance can be difficult to predict, considering few have lived through comparable conditions. To supplement personal experiences and observations, a creator might use other stories as gateways to self-examination. The investigation begins in film, exploring how stories provide a viewer with new experiences that they can then …

A Systematic Review Of The Effects Of The Body Scan On Stress And Psychopathology, Melissa Morton

Dissertations - ALL

Mindfulness-based practices (MBP) have risen in popularity in research especially as an applied practice to buffer against the deleterious effects of stress and reduce psychopathology (Brown et al., 2012; Khoury et al., 2015). There are significant health problems implicated with stress and psychopathology and as such interventions, such as MBP, are frequently the topic of research to reduce stress and improve health and well-being (Juster et al., 2010; Goldberg et al., 2018). The body scan is an intervention component of MBP that involves a systematic allocation of attention through the somatic sensations of different parts of the body. Body scans …

A Measure Of Expectancies For Alcohol Analgesia: Preliminary Factor Analysis, Reliability, And Validity, Lisa Renee Larowe

Dissertations - ALL

Rates of alcohol consumption are substantially higher among persons with pain, and recent research has focused on elucidating bidirectional pain-alcohol effects. Expectancies for alcohol analgesia could influence the degree to which alcohol confers acute pain-relieving effects, and may amplify the propensity to respond to pain with drinking behavior. However, no validated measures of expectancies for alcohol analgesia are available. The goal of this project was to examine psychometric properties of a measure of Expectancies for Alcohol Analgesia (EAA) across two samples (current alcohol users with and without chronic pain). Study 1 included 200 moderate-to-heavy drinkers with no current acute/chronic pain …

Different Pathways To Cognition: An Erp Investigation Of Enhanced Perceptual Functioning And Autistic Traits In School-Aged Children, Elizabeth Anne Kaplan-Kahn

Dissertations - ALL

Autistic individuals show enhanced perceptual functioning on a range of behavioral tasks. Neurophysiological evidence, from both fMRI and event related potential (ERP) studies, also supports the conclusion that autistic individuals utilize perceptual processes to a greater extent than neurotypical comparisons to support problem solving and reasoning. Despite substantial evidence supporting differential information processing streams in autism, the relationship between these processing streams and autistic traits is not well understood. One study has investigated the relationships between autistic traits, early perceptual ERPs, and subsequent cognitive ERPs in neurotypical adults; however, these relationships have yet to be explored in autistic and neurotypical …

Supporting Special Education Student's Academic Engagement Behavior With Mindfulness-Based Programming, Adam Clawson

Dissertations - ALL

Student engagement in the primary school classroom has major implications for academic achievement, school dropout rates, later adolescent delinquent behavior, and adult psychopathology and incarceration (Broidy et al., 2003; Greenwood et al., 2002; Fredricks et al., 2004; Schaeffer et al., 2003). Soles of the Feet (SOF; Felver & Singh, 2020) is a standardized mindfulness-based program that has demonstrated effectiveness in increasing general education and special education student rates of academic engagement while employing a multiple-baseline across subjects design. The present work was designed to extend previous research by exploring the efficaciousness and acceptability of the SOF program delivered as a …

Examining The Efficacy Of Providing Writing Prompt Choices And Performance Feedback: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Josh Circe

Theses - ALL

Research has indicated that the majority of students in the United States are not able to write at the proficient level (Persky et al., 2003). Prior research has demonstrated that performance feedback interventions successfully lead to students' gains in writing fluency (Hier & Eckert, 2014; Hier & Eckert, 2016; Truckenmiller et al., 2014), and that providing students with academic choices benefits their academic performance (Dickerson & Creedon, 1981; Steinman 2017). The goal of this study was to examine the combined and isolated effects of two academic interventions (i.e., providing writing prompt choices and performance feedback) on third-grade students' writing performance. …

The Influence Of Self-Compassion On Perceived Stress Reactivity, Emily C. Helminen

Theses - ALL

Contemplative psychological traits (e.g., mindfulness and self-compassion) have become a popular area of research in recent years, often in the context of their influence on stress (Creswell & Lindsay, 2014). One promising subset of contemplative science research demonstrates that higher levels of contemplative traits are associated with decreased physiological stress reactivity during psychosocial stress induction. This is important due to the negative health outcomes that are associated with persistently heightened stress reactivity. Research investigating self-compassion has demonstrated that higher levels of trait self-compassion are associated with lower levels of stress reactivity (Breines et al., 2015; Luo et al., 2018). Currently, …

Pluralistic Ignorance Of Attitudes Toward Mental Health Services Among College Students, Rikki Hope Sargent

Dissertations - ALL

Students underutilize mental health services on college campuses in the United States. More research is needed to fully understand barriers to service use among this at-risk population and interventions should be created to address these barriers. Current research and interventions do not address group-level social comparison processes that elevate lack of service use. Particularly, pluralistic ignorance has not been assessed—that is, the systematic misperception of others' cognitions and behaviors within a social group. It is possible that pluralistic ignorance contributes to the underutilization of services on college campuses. I began this assessment in three studies. In Study 1 (N = …

Reflections From The In-Between: Visualizing The Mental Thresholds Of Dissociation, Katherine Virag

Theses - ALL

I am fascinated by the state of being in-between; by the mental spaces that are somehow neither here nor there, but also somehow both here and there. At a young age, I began to experience depersonalization and derealization, and this dissociated state left me feeling trapped somewhere on the threshold of reality and non-reality. My artistic practice is concerned with the psychological antitheses of dissociation – comfort vs discomfort, safety vs danger, and reality vs non-reality, and the continuum of space between these polarities. Often through large-scale installations, I create a physical space for the viewer to enter. These spaces, …

Family History Of Alcohol Use Disorder As A Predictor Of Endogenous Pain Modulatory Function, Kyle Mackenzie White

Theses - ALL

Family history of alcohol use disorder (AUD) is frequently endorsed by chronic pain patients. Although individuals with a family history of AUD have demonstrated enhanced sensitivity to painful stimulation, we are not aware of any previous research that has examined clinically-relevant endogenous pain modulation (i.e., capacity to inhibit or facilitate pain) in this population. The goal of this study was to test family history of AUD as a predictor of conditioned pain modulation, offset analgesia, and temporal summation among a sample of moderate-to-heavy drinkers. Participants (N = 235; 58.3% male; Mage = 34.3, SD = 12.3) were evaluated for family …

Maternal Obesity And Incidence Of Depression, Caroline A. Habjan

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Obesity is a national epidemic in the United States, which both directly and indirectly affects the social productivity of individuals, the American macro economy and individuals’ personal health and well being. Depression often interferes with an individual’s ability to work, sleep, study, eat, and enjoy life. A maternal state of both obesity and depression may cause serious adverse medical conditions in the mother’s child. Taking steps to treat depression and obesity are critical in the construct of modern medicine. This project yields results that have the potential to make treatment options better tailored, more efficient, effective and economically-sound for the …

Detection Of Dementia Risk In Primary Care: Preliminary Investigation Of A Composite Dementia Risk Score In Veterans, Jonathan Deright

Dissertations - ALL

Dementia is becoming a significant public health concern as the United States population rapidly ages. Veterans, accounting for a substantial portion of the United States population, may be at even higher risk for developing dementia as they generally have more risk factors for dementia than the general population. The current study sought to develop a modifiable composite dementia risk score, based on routinely gathered data from the primary care setting, that would predict an individual's risk for developing dementia in 10 years. A composite risk score--based on age, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, current smoking, alcohol use disorder, and pulse pressure--was created using …

Health Consequences Of Sexual Hookups For First-Year College Women: A One-Year Prospective Investigation, Robyn Leanne Fielder

Psychology - Dissertations

"Hookups" are sexual encounters between partners who are not in a traditional committed romantic relationship. The majority of college students engage in hookup behavior, but little is known about the health consequences of hookups. This longitudinal study examined the effects of sexual hookups on mental health and risk for sexual victimization (SV) and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among first-year college women. It was hypothesized that sexual hookup behavior would negatively affect women's mental health and increase their likelihood of experiencing SV and STDs. Participants (N = 483) completed 13 monthly online surveys that assessed sexual behavior (performing oral sex, receiving …

Assessment Of Suny Upstate Medical University’S Child Telepsychiatry Consultation Program, Mary E. Lau

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Objectives: The project assesses the child telepsychiatry services provided by SUNY Upstate psychiatrists to several county mental health clinics in central New York State. Method: Data for forty-five patients was extracted from pre-consultation forms completed by the referring clinic and post-consultation summaries completed by the Upstate psychiatrists that occurred between July 13^th, 2009 and May 12^th, 2010. The study identified characteristics of patients for whom telepsychiatry consultations were sought, reviewed recommendations provided by the telepsychiatry consultant, and noted recommended changes in therapy and medication. Results: Analysis of the data showed that there was a large variation …