Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Validity And Diagnostic Accuracy Of Broad Symptom Measures And Adhd Symptom Ratings For Identifying Individuals With Adhd Combined And Adhd Inattentive, Stacy Jean Graves

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Neuropsychological assessments conducted with children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often includes broad measures of behavioral disturbances, as well as specific measures of ADHD symptomatology. However, it is unclear the extent to which these two types of measures share substantial common variance or are useful in improving diagnostic accuracy. In efforts to increase efficiency, the current study examined these matters to provide clinicians with information that might help improve the selection of behavioral ratings for evaluation purposes.

Participants included in this study were evaluated for clinical purposes at a community based private practice. Participants included 253 of these children …

Understanding Stress Reactivity In Schizophrenia, Mary Vertinski

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The role of stress has long been recognized in schizophrenia; several theories have identified the role of stress as an important factor in the etiology of schizophrenia. A handful of studies have used laboratory psychosocial stressors to examine cortisol stress response in schizophrenia; the results obtained have consistently suggested that the stress response is attenuated in people with schizophrenia. Present study set out to examine stress responsivity in schizophrenia relative to healthy controls. A laboratory stress test was used to investigate cortisol response, heart rate and task appraisal in a sample of 17 healthy controls and 16 men diagnosed with …

Development And Validation Of A Brief Assessment Of Social Cognitive Abilities, Ryanna Zenisek

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

It has been consistently found that individuals with schizophrenia exhibit impairments across various social cognitive domains, including emotion processing, social perception, and theory of mind. These deficits have been found across illness stages and cannot be accounted for by clinical symptomatology or neurocognitive skills. Further, while it has been well established that there is a link between cognition and functional outcome, social cognition has been found to be uniquely related to functional impairment in the disorder. Despite this evidence, the field is currently lacking efficient ways to identify and characterize these deficits in clinical settings. The Brief Test of Social …

Coping Among Advocates With And Without Lived Experience Of Sexual Assault, Martina Mihelicova

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Volunteer sexual assault survivor advocates are vital to the provision of services by rape crisis centers. Volunteer advocates are exposed to trauma by witnessing the emotional and psychological impact of sexual assault on survivors. Trauma exposure places providers at risk for experiencing negative outcomes, such as vicarious trauma or secondary traumatic stress. Additionally, advocates who are survivors of sexual assault may be at higher risk for these negative outcomes. However, trauma exposure can also be a source of positive outcomes, such as posttraumatic growth. Focusing on advocate strengths, such as coping and self-care strategies that help advocates overcome distress during …

Polynomial Regression Analyses Of Parental Desirable Responding, Megan Elizabeth Lilly

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Child assessments have consistently yielded poor agreement between parent-child self-report measures and considerable research has failed to isolate the underlying source of the discrepancies. Validity testing has successfully been used to differentiate credible from non-credible performance, recognize feigned symptoms, and detect underestimates of ability in adults for decades (Sherman, 2015). Despite these potential benefits, attention to the importance of validity testing in the child assessment literature has been largely neglected. Many psychologists believe children are not capable of feigning or exaggerating their symptoms and lack the underlying motivations and incentives for deception found in adult assessments. Whereas, more research is …

Psychopathic Traits, Gender, And Sexual Motivations: Paths To Sexual Coercion, Amy M. Hoffmann

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although evidence suggests that both men and women perpetrate sexual coercion, the majority of work has traditionally focused on men as perpetrators and women as victims. Psy-chological factors, including psychopathic traits and sexual motivations, have been proposed to characterize sexually coercive men. However, the sparse existing research using female samples suggests that these models may not adequately characterize female sexual coercers. In particular, although there is evidence that sexual motivations may mediate the relationship between psycho-pathic traits and coercion perpetration, there is a dearth of information regarding gender as a po-tential moderator of these mediating paths. To improve our understanding …

Mediators And Moderators Of Childhood Family Adversity And Adult Cortisol Response: The Role Of Marital Conflict Behavior, Jeffrey P. Winer

Doctoral Dissertations

Childhood family adversity influences behavioral and physiological response processes to acute interpersonal stress. Additionally, conflict behaviors in marriage are primary determinants of stress response and related psychological problems in adulthood. As little research has examined these two important literatures simultaneously, further work is warranted to clarify the role of marital conflict behavior in the relation between childhood family adversity and adult cortisol response to conflict. The current study examined relations between childhood family adversity, observed marital conflict behaviors, and salivary cortisol in response to acute marital conflict among 228 different-sex newlywed couples. We examined intrapersonal “actor” effects as candidate mediators …

Intraracial And Intraethnic Microaggressions Experienced By Korean American Internationally And Transracially Adopted Persons, Karin J. Garber

Doctoral Dissertations

This research examined the microaggressions that Korean American internationally and transracially adopted persons (ITAPs) reported based on intraracial/intraethnic interpersonal exchanges. This research tested a conceptual model that: 1) determined the themes of intraracial/intraethnic microaggressions reported by Korean American ITAPs; 2) investigated how psychological symptoms and emotion outcomes were predicted from these microaggressions; and 3) tested specific moderators (i.e., age, engagement coping, disengagement coping, ethnic identity, stigma consciousness, parental racial, ethnic, and cultural socialization, and level of interaction with other Asians) that could change the relationship between these microaggressions and negative psychological symptoms and emotion outcomes. Two studies with different samples …

Examining The Relation Between Family Functioning And Child Hyperactivity: Simultaneously Testing Four Proposed Mechanisms, Rosanna P. Breaux

Doctoral Dissertations

The present study examined the bidirectional relation between multiple measures of family functioning and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms across the preschool years. Additionally, it examined if these relations held when comorbid child ODD symptoms and parental ADHD symptoms were taken into account. Participants included 258 (138 boys) 3-year-old children (M = 44.13 months, SD = 3.39) with and without behavior problems and their parents who took part in a 3-year longitudinal study. Evidence was found for both parent and child effects, depending on the measure of family functioning. Specifically, maternal depressive symptoms, overreactive parenting, and stressful life events were …

Testing A Skills Training Course For Use In A Peer-Delivered Mental Health Intervention, Samantha L. Bernecker

Doctoral Dissertations

Millions of people who could benefit from mental health services do not receive treatment. If non-professional peers could learn to administer basic psychotherapeutic interventions to each other, taking turns as care provider and care recipient, this unmet need for mental health care could be partially filled. This study sought to test whether non-professionals could learn supportive psychotherapy skills from a massively scalable, free online course. Thirty pairs of individuals who were experiencing psychological distress or who wished to increase their mental well-being were enrolled in the study, and 19 pairs completed the prototype online course. Objective raters assessed participants’ skills …

The Experiences Of African American Pastors Treating Mental Health Issues Among Parishioners In The State Of Texas, Rosalind S. Smith

Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to learn the practices, attitudes, and self-described competency of a sample of 12 African American pastors, with churches located in Texas, as they counsel their parishioners with mental health issues. Pastoral counseling formed the theoretical framework for the study. The researcher asked each pastor eight open-ended questions, inquiring about the pastor's experiences, practices, attitudes, and training in regard to dealing with their parishioners' mental health issues. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and qualitative methods were used to analyze the responses to determine themes in the pastors' responses.

A total of 10 themes …

Validity Of Adhd Symptoms In Toddlers, Hallie Brown

Masters Theses

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common child neurodevelopmental disorders. The disorder is typically diagnosed in elementary school, but there is growing evidence for the validity of ADHD in preschoolers, and symptoms likely emerge even earlier than preschool years. Research suggests that ADHD symptoms can be evident in toddlers beyond developmentally appropriate behavior, and symptoms in toddlers are predictive of later impairment. However, few studies have examined the validity of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) ADHD symptoms in this younger population. The present study examined the 18 DSM ADHD symptoms in a community sample …

Assessing The Impact Of White Noise On Cognition In Individuals With And Without Adhd, Scott Roye

LSU Master's Theses

Although originally viewed only as a childhood disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is now recognized to persist into adulthood in many individuals. Adults with ADHD often demonstrate academic, cognitive, and general functioning deficits as a result of their symptoms. Theorists have suggested that features typically associated with ADHD, such as distractibility, excessive motor activity, and executive dysfunction, may stem from being under stimulated at a physiological level. This lack of arousal potentially causes individuals to seek out stimulation, making them more susceptible to background noise and other environmental stimuli. However, previous research primarily focuses on children and adolescents with …

A Psychometric Evaluation Of The Compensatory Eating And Behaviors In Response To Alcohol Consumption Scale (Cebracs), Emily M. Choquette

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drunkorexia refers to a set of disordered eating behaviors that occur in the context of a drinking episode for the purpose of 1) off setting caloric intake of the alcohol or 2) increasing the effects of alcohol. The Compensatory Eating and Behaviors in Response to Alcohol Consumption Scale (CEBRACS) was developed with the purpose of measuring drunkorexia behaviors at three time points: before, during, and after a drinking episode. The purpose of this study was to further validate the measure for use in men and women by examining measurement invariance, reliability, and validity. First, single group confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) …

Reported Child Sexual Abuse: Impact Of Adaptive Skills And Association With Psychological Adjustment, Seandra Jean Walker

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The impact of sexual abuse on children’s psychological well-being is well recognized. Considerable research has evaluated the deleterious effects and various protective and risk factors to victimization. Research has shown intense and pervasive psychological symptoms preceding child sexual abuse; however, many studies solely report long-term effects of sexual abuse, or rely on retrospective accounts. Additionally, there is a lack of research on the relationship between psychological adjustment and adaptive skills shortly after child sexual abuse. This study investigated the relationship between psychological problems (i.e. posttraumatic symptomology, internalizing, and externalizing problems) and adaptive skills (i.e. adaptability, social skills, leadership, activities of …

Depression And Choice Of Emotional Stimuli, Sunkyung Yoon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent research argued that people with major depressive disorder (MDD) tend to prefer sad stimuli because they want to upregulate their sad feelings. This paper aims to examine investigate the choice of emotional stimuli among those who have MDD, compared to individuals without MDD (healthy controls, HC), and explore the reasons for their choice. Seventy six female university students (38 per group) completed three tasks: 1) In the replication music task, participants listened to happy, neutral, and sad music excerpts, chose the one they wanted to listen most, and reported the reasons of their choice. 2) The Emotional Stimuli Selection …

Sleep, Internalizing Symptoms, Executive Functioning, And Diabetes Outcomes In Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus, Ashley Charlene Moss

Dissertations (1934 -)

Insufficient sleep is a nearly universal problem during adolescence and is likely associated with various biopsychosocial and contextual factors present with this developmental period. Youth with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) may experience greater sleep difficulties, poorer sleep quality, and greater daytime sleepiness/fatigue compared to healthy youth. Also, sleep difficulties are associated with poorer diabetes outcomes (e.g., treatment adherence). Understanding how sleep may impact illness management during adolescence is critical given increasing rates of non-adherence during this developmental period. Although research suggests poor sleep is associated with decreased neurocognitive functioning and increased internalizing behavior among healthy youth, limited research has …

The Clinical Utility Of Recaptured Baselines After Return-To-Play, Alicia Miran Kissinger-Knox

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: The present study was designed to investigate the clinical utility of recaptured baselines or “rebaselines” in collegiate athletes after return-to-play. Several concussion management teams endorse the use of baseline neurocognitive assessments at the beginning of an athlete’s sports season to use as a measure of comparison in the instance of concussion or head injury. Once physical and cognitive symptoms are resolved, an athlete is requested to reestablish their baseline for the rest of the season. It has been questioned whether this “rebaselining” is necessary and warranted. Method: Forty-one Division II collegiate athletes at Florida Institute of Technology who sustained …

Examining Body-Focused Self-Improvement And Self-Evaluation Social Comparisons On Exercise In Young Adult Women Using Ecological Momentary Assessment, Rachel I. Macintyre

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Exercise is highly recommended by health professionals due to its numerous health benefits, yet little is known about the social factors that influence people’s motivation to exercise each day. Studies on social comparisons reveal that college women frequently evaluate their weight and shape compared to those around them through upward body-focused comparisons (i.e., comparing themselves to someone they perceive to be thinner or in better physical shape). Research suggests these comparisons can be driven by two different motivations, self-evaluation and self-improvement. However, the occurrence of these two different types of motivations in everyday life and how they may be associated …

Affective Factors Explaining The Association Between Depressive Functioning And Alcohol Outcomes, Peter D. Preonas

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Depressive symptoms and alcohol use frequently coexist. In college students, the rates of depression and alcohol use are higher than in the general population, making this population at particular risk for co-occurrence of depressive symptoms and drinking. Though research has shown that depressive symptoms precede alcohol use and problems in non-clinical populations, it is unclear what mechanisms contribute to this relationship. Further exploration into how this relationship occurs could inform and improve intervention of depression and alcohol abuse on college campuses. This study sought to (1) assess three potential mediators (i.e., need for affect, distress tolerance, emotion regulation) to the …

Women’S Sexual Fantasies In Context: The Emotional Content Of Sexual Fantasies, Psychological And Interpersonal Distress, And Satisfaction In Romantic Relationships, Sarah Constantine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Psychoanalytic thinkers propose that aspects of an individual’s sexual fantasies are related to her psychological and interpersonal functioning. The present study aims to elucidate the significance of sexual fantasies with respect to women’s emotional and interpersonal lives. The study evaluated a model, which hypothesized that internal representations of self and others (e.g. attachment security, maturity of object relations) along with psychological and interpersonal factors would predict both the emotional content (guilt, fear, affection) of written sexual fantasy narratives, and overall romantic satisfaction in heterosexual women. Methods: Five hundred and thirty four women completed self-report questionnaires online. Subsequently, the sexual …

The Effects Of Childhood Irritability On Adolescent Outcomes And Treatment Response In Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Estrella Heber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Childhood irritability has received considerable attention in recent research due in part to the highly impairing consequences of severe irritability and its association with poor long-term outcomes (Leibenluft, Cohen, Gorrindo, Brook, & Pine, 2006; Stringaris, Cohen, Pine, & Leibenluft, 2009; Stringaris & Goodman, 2009a). While the frequency and severity of irritability typically declines with age, there are individuals who continue to display irritability at stable or increasing levels (Wiggins, Mitchell, Stringaris, & Leibenluft, 2014). Regardless of whether it persists or remits, the effects of childhood irritability resonate for many years and it remains a potent predictor of poor outcomes across …

The Relationships Among Different Traits Of Masculinity And Intimate Partner Violence, Jennifer E. Loveland

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research has shown that distinct yet overlapping concepts of dominance, hostility towards women, and sexism—all indices of masculinity—influence the occurrence of intimate partner violence (IPV), although the mechanisms are unclear. This paper seeks to explore the relationship between these individual-level trait measures of masculinity and two aspects of IPV, physical violence and coercive control. With inconsistent findings and the limited study of clinical populations, further examination of these concepts may provide increased understanding of the mechanisms behind IPV perpetration. Results will provide a greater understanding of the complexity of this violence in order to better assist individuals experiencing IPV.

Mental Illness Stigma And Community Integration: Linking Perceived Experiences With Reported Behavior, Lauren L. Gonzales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines the relationship between individual and neighborhood characteristics, stigmatizing experiences, and measures of community integration among individuals with mental illness. Surveys were administered to two samples: 608 community member participants and 343 participants with mental health diagnoses. Participants in both samples were recruited from 3 community sites in the New York City metropolitan area: East/Central Harlem in Manhattan, Crown Heights/East Flatbush in Brooklyn, and Yonkers and Mt. Vernon in Southern Westchester. Negative symptoms and perceived level of community microaggressions were strong predictors of community integration for participants with mental illness. Prior contact with mental illness predicted less stigmatizing …

An Examination Of Therapeutic Alliance During Prolonged Exposure In The Treatment Of A Comorbid Ptsd And Sud Population, Annelisa Pedersen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Prolonged exposure has emerged as a highly effective method of treating PTSD (Foa, Hembree, & Rothbaum, 2007; Ruzek et al., 2014), yet for some individuals it has proven to be anxiety-arousing to the point of being contraindicated (Morris, 2015). As a treatment, prolonged exposure can be a challenging procedure to implement given the high levels of avoidance, fear, and resistance that often accompany a diagnosis of PTSD (Arntz, Tiesema, & Kindt, 2007; Hoffart et al., 2013; McLaughlin et al., 2014). When it is used to treat individuals who carry an additional diagnosis of SUD, further complications may arise with respect …

Minding The Baby®: Maternal Adverse Childhood Experiences And Treatment Outcomes In A Mother-Infant Home Visiting Program, Jessica G. Albertson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in a sample of women participating in Minding the Baby® (MTB), a mother-infant home-visiting intervention known to have positive effects on mother-infant attachment. In addition to documenting maternal childhood trauma exposure within the sample, this study explored whether such exposure affected the intervention outcome or service delivery. We looked specifically at whether maternal childhood trauma exposure affected mother-child attachment or frequency of contact with home-visitors. We also examined the relationship between maternal early childhood trauma exposure and reflective functioning capacity (RF), a potential resiliency-promoting factor.

Methods: The study’s participants were 29 first-time …

The Transgenerational Transmission Of Emotion Regulation: The Effect Of Maternal Coping On Child Executive Functioning, Devon J. Harrison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a recognized link between maternal trauma history and adverse child outcomes, however the mechanisms underlying this intergenerational relationship are less clearly understood. Maternal emotion regulation, as measured by coping style, may help explain this cross-generational transmission, implicating the role of a mother’s coping in her child’s capacity to plan, attend, and self-inhibit. Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine the association between maternal coping style and child executive functioning (EF) in a sample of 188 urban mothers and their pre-adolescent and adolescent children. Data was analyzed from a larger cross-sectional and cross-generational study of maternal difficulties …

Cortical Thickness Abnormalities Within The Salience And Reward Networks In Older Depressed Adults With Apathy, Monique A. Pimontel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background and Significance: Apathy is a common comorbidity in late-life depression. Among older depressed adults, apathy is associated with a number of adverse outcomes, including increased disability, comorbid illness, and mortality. The etiological substrates of apathy in late-life depression nonetheless remain poorly understood, and little is known about its optimal treatment. To this end, the aim of the current study was to examine cortical abnormalities within the salience (SN) and reward networks (RN), two brain systems involved in the processing of incentive salience that may underlie the syndrome of apathy in older depressed adults.

Methods: We examined the association between …

Preventing Sexual Violence Where It Most Often Occurs: An Investigation Of The Situational And Structural Components Of Child Sexual Abuse In Residential Settings, Nicole Colombino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Given that sex offenders tend to perpetrate crimes against people they know (e.g., Greenfield, 1997) and first encounter victims in residential locations (Colombino, Mercado, Levenson, & Jeglic, 2011), it is important that research examine the circumstances of sexual offenses within residential settings. Although previous research has examined the perpetration patterns of sexual offenses against children, especially related to grooming tactics (e.g., Conte, Wolf, & Smith, 1989) and situational factors (e.g., Wortley & Smallbone, 2006), there are few studies that specifically examine the correlates of child sexual abuse within residential settings. This type of data would allow for the development of …

Physiological Correlates Of Affective Decision-Making In Anxiety And Depression, Louisa I. Thompson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Improving our understanding of cognitive and physiological profiles in anxiety and depression has the potential to reveal novel ways to target and improve treatments for these prevalent mental health conditions. The present study examined the impact of self-reported anxiety and depression symptoms on three established decision-making measures, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994), Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART; Lejuez et al., 2002), and Game of Dice Task (GDT; Brand et al., 2005), in a diverse sample of 100 college students (age 18 to 35). Physiological measures of tonic heart rate variability and galvanic skin response …