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University of South Carolina

Theses/Dissertations

2015

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Articles 1 - 30 of 68

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Building Capacity Through The Use Of A Strategic Prevention Framework System In Communities, Duncan Meyers Dec 2015

Building Capacity Through The Use Of A Strategic Prevention Framework System In Communities, Duncan Meyers

Theses and Dissertations

The Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) is a planning and implementation model that mobilizes communities to collaborate on developing and implementing an evidence-based prevention system. This model follows a structured five-step process with two cross-cutting elements (cultural competence and sustainability) that emphasizes building capacity of coalitions to strategically plan, implement, and sustain evidence-based prevention services to reduce adolescent substance use. This study utilized a repeated cross-sectional design. Participating youth were in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12 and lived in one of 27 counties in a Southeastern state that was funded through the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention’s SPF State Incentive …

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Postmodernism And Budhism: A Postmodern Woman In A Modernizing Land, Ruthanne Joy Wenger Hughes Dec 2015

Postmodernism And Budhism: A Postmodern Woman In A Modernizing Land, Ruthanne Joy Wenger Hughes

Senior Theses

Religion and postmodernism are two paradigms that guide my experience of life. Although it is not necessarily intuitive, these two paradigms do intersect and inform each other, shaping the way I engage with the world. With this understanding, I spent the Spring 2015 semester in the Kingdom of Bhutan and examined my time through a postmodern lens, writing a travel blog at www.bhutanbricolage.weebly.com that mediates my experiences there and my thoughts about Buddhism and postmodernism.

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The Impact Of Sports Dropout On Adolescent Functioning, Brittany Skiles Cook Dec 2015

The Impact Of Sports Dropout On Adolescent Functioning, Brittany Skiles Cook

Theses and Dissertations

Sports is the most commonly participated in extracurricular activity during adolescence. Aligned with the Positive Youth Development theoretical framework, previous research has shown that sports participation offers youth a context rich in resources found to promote positive adjustment into adulthood. However, around one third of the youth participating in sports drop out each year, and little research has examined the impact of sports dropout on indicators of youth adjustment. This study examines the relation between sports dropout and academic achievement, self-esteem, depression, perceived school climate, perceived support from adults in school, and alcohol use. The moderating effect of sports engagement …

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Redneckaissance: Honey Boo Boo, Tumblr, And The Stereotype Of Poor White Trash, Ashley F. Miller Dec 2015

Redneckaissance: Honey Boo Boo, Tumblr, And The Stereotype Of Poor White Trash, Ashley F. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Tumblr is an understudied social media site with a young, progressive, and queer user base of content creators. This study examines Tumblr posts about Here Comes Honey Boo Boo to understand the nature of Tumblr and the way a convergent culture that includes non-viewers negotiates a television show dependent on stereotypes. Discourses around authenticity, LGBTQ issues, and body acceptance resist the negative white trash connotations of the show, but this resistance is embedded in stereotypes around race, class, gender, sexuality, and geography. The result is a continuum in which users negotiate what the show means in how they use that …

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Promoting Hpv Vaccination For Male Young Adults: Effects Of Social Influence, Wan Chi Leung Dec 2015

Promoting Hpv Vaccination For Male Young Adults: Effects Of Social Influence, Wan Chi Leung

Theses and Dissertations

HPV vaccination is an important public health issue, but past research has mostly been done on the HPV vaccination for females. This study explores promotions of the HPV vaccination for men, focusing on how social influence plays a role in influencing young male adults’ attitudes toward the HPV vaccine. An online survey was conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk, and responses from 656 males aged 18-26 in the United States were analyzed. Results indicated that exposure to messages were associated with perceived effects of the messages on others, which related to the perceived descriptive norm of vaccine uptake among other males. …

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Investigating Construct Validity Of The Cyber--Peer Experiences Questionnaire, Kendall Moore Dec 2015

Investigating Construct Validity Of The Cyber--Peer Experiences Questionnaire, Kendall Moore

Theses and Dissertations

With electronic technology becoming increasingly important in all aspects of modern life, traditional forms of relating with others have crossed into the cyber realm. Within that context, both positive and negative aspects of relational behavior have advanced in ways still largely underexplored in the research literature. One such area, termed “cyberaggression,” has recently gained momentum as a research focus. Given the numerous mental health sequelae from being involved in cyberaggression, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, there is a clear and compelling need for more research in this area. To date, however, there remains little consensus on the conceptualization …

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Beyond Ideals: Proslavery Reforms On A Nineteenth-Century Cotton Plantation, Kevin R. Fogle Dec 2015

Beyond Ideals: Proslavery Reforms On A Nineteenth-Century Cotton Plantation, Kevin R. Fogle

Theses and Dissertations

The last four decades of the antebellum period witnessed the rise of a proslavery plantation reform movement aimed at preserving slavery in the face of increasing abolitionist pressure. Reformers promoted the image of ideal enslaved households operating as part of efficient modern plantations ruled by reason, benevolent management techniques, and scientific agriculture. Where implemented, reforms resulted in numerous changes to plantation life both around the home and in the fields. Slaves who bore the brunt of these changes struggled to resist plantation reforms or grudgingly accepted them depending on the impact upon established daily routines and any potential benefits bondsmen …

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Do Discipline Style And Parenting Self-Efficacy Interact To Predict Observed Child Behavior? Outcomes From A Representative Sample Of Mothers With Young Chilren, Emily Noel Neger Dec 2015

Do Discipline Style And Parenting Self-Efficacy Interact To Predict Observed Child Behavior? Outcomes From A Representative Sample Of Mothers With Young Chilren, Emily Noel Neger

Theses and Dissertations

Both parenting style and parents’ sense of their own parenting self-efficacy (PSE) have been found to predict child behavior outcomes in young children. Parents who engage in lax or overreactive parenting practices or who lack confidence in their parenting abilities are more likely to have children who display disruptive and noncompliant behavior. Until now, very little research has examined whether an interaction exits between these two constructs in predicting child behavior outcomes. The current study looked to fill this gap and assess whether a significant moderation relationship exists between parents’ parenting style and PSE in predicting observed child behavior. A …

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General Strain Theory And Bullying Victimization: Do Parental Support And Control Alleviate The Negative Effects Of Bullying, Jonathon Thompson Dec 2015

General Strain Theory And Bullying Victimization: Do Parental Support And Control Alleviate The Negative Effects Of Bullying, Jonathon Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

With growing reports of bullying victimization ranging from 8 percent to 46 percent in many countries, bullying victimization has been declared an international problem often affecting youth in or near one’s school with poor parental supervision. While there has been a growing body of research concerning bullying victimization, few studies have examined the collateral consequences of bullying victimization and the mediating role of family processes through the theoretical lens of general strain theory. This thesis attempts to shed light on such a complex social phenomena and contribute to the bullying and stress literature. This study posits that bullying victimization is …

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Framing Death: Politics, Meaning, And The Strategic Communication Of Organ Donation Messages In South Carolina, Jeremy T. Vanderknyff Dec 2015

Framing Death: Politics, Meaning, And The Strategic Communication Of Organ Donation Messages In South Carolina, Jeremy T. Vanderknyff

Theses and Dissertations

This study applies framing theory within a critical-interpretive anthropological context to understand how organ procurement organizations (OPOs) design messages to promote organ donation registration and how cultural factors including notions of embodiment and structural inequalities influence audiences’ processing of those messages. The first part of the study employs content analysis to deductively identify OPO-produced message frames. The second part of the study uses focus groups across South Carolina to explore audience reactions to different message frames. Themes from donors and non-donors alike reflected a mistrust of the medical establishment, a keen awareness of structural inequality, and complex notions of embodiment …

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The Effects Of Mindfulness On Verbal Distress Disclosure, Sara Fleming Dec 2015

The Effects Of Mindfulness On Verbal Distress Disclosure, Sara Fleming

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a mindfulness induction on participants’ verbal distress disclosure (as measured by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count and State Disclosure Questionnaire). Participants were 86 undergraduate students enrolled in an Introduction to Psychology course and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a mindfulness condition or a control condition. Participants in the mindfulness condition engaged in a 15-minute mindfulness induction prior to disclosing about a stressful experience, while participants in the control condition listened to a neutrally valenced audio excerpt from a podcast about emotions before speaking about a …

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An Examination Of The Relationship Between Psychological Distress And Risky Sexual Behaviors Among A Treatment-Seeking Opioid-Dependent Population, Hayley M. Smith Dec 2015

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Psychological Distress And Risky Sexual Behaviors Among A Treatment-Seeking Opioid-Dependent Population, Hayley M. Smith

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Substance abusing populations are at an increased risk for disease transmission and have higher rates of psychological comorbidity compared to the general population (e.g., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2012a; Chaudhury & Singh, 2009; Des Jarlais, Semaan, & Arasteh, 2011; Goodwin & Stein, 2013). Numerous studies have implicated the interaction of psychological distress and risky sexual behaviors in the increased risk of disease transmission, however, several studies have not found this association. It has been suggested that there may be curvilinear relationship between psychological distress and risky sexual behaviors but this theory has yet to be tested. The …

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Grandiose And Vulnerable Narcissism: Where Do The Emotional Differences Lie?, Katherine E. Wolven Dec 2015

Grandiose And Vulnerable Narcissism: Where Do The Emotional Differences Lie?, Katherine E. Wolven

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Narcissism can be conceptualized as existing on a continuum between grandiose and vulnerable phenotypes (Pincus & Lukowitsky, 2010). Previous studies found differences between narcissistic phenotypes in terms of behavioral task performance (Wallace & Baumeister, 2002) and emotional reactions to threatening conditions (Besser & Priel, 2010; Zeigler-Hill, Clark, & Pickard, 2008); however, research on emotion dysregulation was lacking in narcissistic populations. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to explore the subjective and objective emotional differences between the grandiose and vulnerable phenotypes of narcissism. In a laboratory manipulation, participants (N=63) completed self-report questionnaires, read emotionally-evocative vignettes describing achievement failure and …

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Adult Attachment Styles And Psychopathic Traits: A Relationship Mediated By Empathy And Emotional Regulation?, Chelsea Heim Aug 2015

Adult Attachment Styles And Psychopathic Traits: A Relationship Mediated By Empathy And Emotional Regulation?, Chelsea Heim

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Psychopathic personality traits encompass an array of characteristics that emerge early in life and are influenced by insecure attachments between children and their parents. Disruptions in parent-child interactions also affect the development of empathy (Panfile & Laible, 2010) and emotion regulation (Waters, S. F., Virmani, E. A., Thompson, R. A., Meyer, S., Raikes, H. A. & Jochem, R., 2010), which contributes to lasting impairments in interpersonal working models about the self and others (Mack, Hackney & Pile, 2010). The interactions between psychopathy and insecure attachment, low levels of empathy, and the ability to regulate one’s emotions have been separately investigated …

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Hiv-1 And Cocaine: Motivation And Synaptic Function, Sarah J. Bertrand May 2015

Hiv-1 And Cocaine: Motivation And Synaptic Function, Sarah J. Bertrand

Theses and Dissertations

Molecular and behavioral assays were used to examine the effects of HIV-1 on synaptodendritic integrity, motivated behavior and the therapeutic potential of natural isoflavones in ameliorating both synaptodendritic injury in vitro and changes in motivation in vivo. The overarching hypothesis of the present dissertation is twofold: 1. HIV-1 causes a decrease in motivation for sucrose and cocaine and the change in motivational state is driven by compromised synaptic integrity as evaluated by F-actin and DAT function and, 2. Treatment with phytoestrogens will prevent synaptodendritic damage, normalize the internal motivational state of the HIV-1 Tg rat for sucrose and cocaine, and …

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The Impact Of Childhood Trauma As Moderated By Ptsd, Relationship With Caregiver, And Rumination, Aislyn M. Allen May 2015

The Impact Of Childhood Trauma As Moderated By Ptsd, Relationship With Caregiver, And Rumination, Aislyn M. Allen

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

The current study explored the relationship between childhood trauma and deliberate rumination, as well as PTSD symptomology, psychological and physiological functioning. Participants consisted of 55 undergraduate students, ages 18-23; who completed measures about a specific traumatic event, psychological functioning, parental attachment, PTSD symptoms, deliberate rumination, childhood maltreatment, and a demographics questionnaire. Reported childhood trauma was a specifically identified traumatic life event, child maltreatment, or having a parent with a substance abuse or mental disorder. Following completion of measures, participants were asked to answer questions while heart rate, heart rate variability, and electrodermal activity were monitored. Results indicated there was relation …

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The Effects Of Deficits In Emotional Self-Regulation On Relationship Satisfaction In Young Adults, Murphy Harrell May 2015

The Effects Of Deficits In Emotional Self-Regulation On Relationship Satisfaction In Young Adults, Murphy Harrell

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Effective emotional self-regulation is essential for evaluating a situation, giving meaning to the experience and to regulate emotions in order to achieve a desired goal. Emotional selfregulation is an essential feature of executive functioning, which affects a number of functional domains across the lifespan and is specifically important for sustaining healthy interpersonal relationships. Research to date shows that adults with ADHD and emotional dysregulation have poor social relationships, due to a variety of problems such as: not following social norms, missing nonverbal cues, interrupting conversations, not following through with promises, appearing inpatient or rude, and not thinking before speaking. Despite …

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Reacting To Microaggressions: Do Individual Identity Processing Styles Play A Role?, Suraj Patel May 2015

Reacting To Microaggressions: Do Individual Identity Processing Styles Play A Role?, Suraj Patel

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

The majority of literature on the impact of microaggressions focuses on ethnic minority stereotypes with little research on how microaggressions and negative stereotypes affect other types of minority groups, such as minorities based on social group. Additionally, within the literature on general group membership, it has been found that social disapproval results in the typical, global response of negative affect. However, the behaviors that are evoked by the negative affect differ considerably among individuals whether the response is to strengthen, maintain, or avoid interpersonal conflict (Richman & Leary, 2009). Moreover, there is no single model that can conceptualize the complexity …

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Does Self-Compassion Protect Against Emotional Dysregulation, Anxiety, And Other Negative Emotions?, Elizabeth Willits Jan 2015

Does Self-Compassion Protect Against Emotional Dysregulation, Anxiety, And Other Negative Emotions?, Elizabeth Willits

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Self-compassion is a multifaceted construct meant to allow individuals to treat themselves with kindness, have a balanced perspective on their experiences, and feel connected to others (Neff, 2003a). Emotion regulation is related to higher levels of self-compassion (Diedrich et al., 2013; Vettese et al., 2011), and Neff (2003a) proposes that self-compassion can be viewed as a superior emotion regulation strategy. Self-compassion is negatively correlated with many forms of psychopathology, including anxiety (Neff, 2003b; Neff et al., 2007; Neff & McGehee, 2010). Based on prior research, it appears that self-compassion may increase the ability to regulation emotions, therefore increasing an individual’s …

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Behavioral And Heart-Defined Attention In Infants At High Genetic Risk For Autism, Bridgette L. Tonnsen Jan 2015

Behavioral And Heart-Defined Attention In Infants At High Genetic Risk For Autism, Bridgette L. Tonnsen

Theses and Dissertations

Characterizing early predictors of autism facilitates earlier identification, diagnosis and treatment. Although aberrant visual attention is one of the earliest identified predictors of autism and may play an integral role in developmental cascades that contribute to associated impairments, the emergence of atypical attention in infancy is poorly understood. The present dissertation includes three related manuscripts examining early patterns of visual attention in two infant samples at elevated risk for autism: infant siblings of children with autism (ASIBs) and infants with fragile X syndrome (FXS). Together, these manuscripts identify patterns of abnormal heart defined attention among ASIBs (Study 1), investigate the …

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Relationships Between Law Enforcement Officer-Involved Vehicle Collisions And Other Police Behaviors, John Andrew Hansen Jan 2015

Relationships Between Law Enforcement Officer-Involved Vehicle Collisions And Other Police Behaviors, John Andrew Hansen

Theses and Dissertations

Specialization and versatility regarding officer negative outcomes have different implications for agency policies and practices. Versatility suggests interventions that address several problematic behaviors, while specialization may necessitate more targeted interventions. If officers who engage in one form of negative behavior are also more likely to be involved in other undesired outcomes than co-monitoring behaviors via early intervention systems or other mechanisms may be an effective means of identifying problematic officers. The threat posed by officer-involved motor vehicle collisions to the safety of police and the public has received increased attention from practitioners and researchers in the past decade or so. …

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Negotiating The Interconnections Of Sociality, Identity, Fan Activism And Connectivity Within The Twilight Community, Amy A. O’Brien Jan 2015

Negotiating The Interconnections Of Sociality, Identity, Fan Activism And Connectivity Within The Twilight Community, Amy A. O’Brien

Theses and Dissertations

In my dissertation, “Negotiating the Interconnections of Sociality, Identity, Fan Activism and Connectivity within the Twilight Community”, I examine the ways in which women employed a shared interest in a cultural text to establish meaningful social relationships with other fans. Rather than focusing solely on consumptive pleasure, these fans of the Twilight series utilized the intense popularity of the franchise to engage in charitable activities. Through these common threads of identity, community, virtual technologies, and charity, I contend that the Twilight fandom represents a new form of fan community, which is trending upward and creating an impact beyond the traditional …

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Authentic Relationship Management To Heighten Control Mutuality In Social Media, Diana Catherine Sisson Jan 2015

Authentic Relationship Management To Heighten Control Mutuality In Social Media, Diana Catherine Sisson

Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on literature from public relations, marketing, interpersonal communication, and organizational communication, this dissertation focused on the effects of authenticity on relationship management outcomes in nonprofit organizations’ social media efforts. There is significant need for relationship management rooted in authenticity with the rise in inauthentic communication online. This dissertation aims to contribute to relationship management theory by highlighting the role of control mutuality in analyses of authenticity in organization-public relationships in social media for nonprofit organizations like local animal welfare organizations. This dissertation proposes that control mutuality is an ethical outcome of authentic relationship management. This dissertation also proposes that …

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Women In Hypermasculine Environments: An Analysis Of Gender Dynamics In The Heavy Metal Subculture, Anna Sheree Rogers Jan 2015

Women In Hypermasculine Environments: An Analysis Of Gender Dynamics In The Heavy Metal Subculture, Anna Sheree Rogers

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes gender dynamics in the heavy metal subculture by means of interviews with fans of this musical genre. Based on research that shows that (male) homosocial environments, denoting non-romantic social bonds among people of the same (male) sex, lead to hegemonic masculinity and the possibility of violence against women, this study focused on the heavy metal subculture from the point of view of its members’ experiences related to gender. The theoretical framework of this thesis is based on feminist theories of gender difference and its relevance for the sociology of gender. Specifically, I rely on theories of othering, …

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Ammonium Concentrations Above A Louisiana Sugarcane Field, Wesley Robert Skeeter Jan 2015

Ammonium Concentrations Above A Louisiana Sugarcane Field, Wesley Robert Skeeter

Theses and Dissertations

High concentrations of ammonium (NH4+) aerosols can lead to acidification of soils, forest decline, and eutrophication of water ways (Aneja et al. 2003). NH4+ along with its precursor ammonia (NH3) forms a complicated gas aerosol system that is poorly understood and requires further research. Rotating annular denuder systems actively sampled NH4+ from the northern corner of a sugarcane field at 2.89 m and 5.18 m above the northern corner of a sugarcane field in St. Gabriel, Louisiana over 31 days and 31 nights between May 25th and July 27th of 2011. These data were used to calculate the average NH4+ …

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In The Eye Of The Beholder: Exploring The Dialogic Approach To Police Legitimacy, Justin Nix Jan 2015

In The Eye Of The Beholder: Exploring The Dialogic Approach To Police Legitimacy, Justin Nix

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, police legitimacy has generated a great deal of scholarly attention. Numerous studies carried out in a variety of settings have demonstrated that citizens are more likely to perceive the police as a legitimate authority when they interact with citizens in a procedurally fair way. In turn, citizens become more likely to accept police decisions, comply with the law, and cooperate with the police. Yet until very recently, scholars have only focused on citizen perceptions of legitimacy while neglecting the perspective of the police themselves. It may very well be that the police believe other ideals are more …

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Antecedents Of Adolescents' Hope: Personality, Parental Attachment, And Stressful Life Events, Kristin L. Otis Jan 2015

Antecedents Of Adolescents' Hope: Personality, Parental Attachment, And Stressful Life Events, Kristin L. Otis

Theses and Dissertations

In the past decade, psychology has concentrated on the importance of identifying psychological qualities in individuals that indicate positive mental health and flourishing. Hope has been proposed to be one of these qualities (Day, Hanson, Maltby, Proctor, & Wood, 2010; Marques, & Lopez, 2014). This study examined the relations among parental attachment, stressful life events, personality variables, and hope in a sample of 647 middle school students from one middle school in a Southeastern US state. The results showed statistically significant correlations between hope and all four predictor variables as well as students’ grade levels and socioeconomic status (SES). The …

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Vocational Readiness: The Effect Of Pre-Prison And Incarceration-Based Trauma On Cognitive Appraisals And Self-Perceptions Of Incarcerated Women, Joi Dykes Anderson Jan 2015

Vocational Readiness: The Effect Of Pre-Prison And Incarceration-Based Trauma On Cognitive Appraisals And Self-Perceptions Of Incarcerated Women, Joi Dykes Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

The number of women incarcerated in the United States has grown at an alarming rate. This research study presents a conceptual framework for examining pre-prison and incarceration-based trauma and its effects on cognitive appraisals and self-perceptions. Literature from psychology, feminist psychology and neuropsychiatry are integrated to discuss how pre-prison trauma creates pathways to crime for females, how incarceration serves as a form of traumatization (or retraumatization), how the social dynamics of the prison environment potentially exacerbates mental health issues (i.e., PTSD, anxiety, depression), how this negatively affects a female inmates vocational readiness—the ability to obtain and maintain employment once engaged …

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The Role Of Self-Efficacy In Mediating The Effect Of Physical Activity On Adolescent Depression, Nevelyn N. Trumpeter Jan 2015

The Role Of Self-Efficacy In Mediating The Effect Of Physical Activity On Adolescent Depression, Nevelyn N. Trumpeter

Theses and Dissertations

Depression is a common psychiatric problem experienced in adolescence with nearly a quarter of all adolescents experiencing a major depressive episode before adulthood. Previous evidence indicates that physical activity (PA) is a known protective factor for depressive symptoms and major depressive disorder in adolescents and that PA self-efficacy (i.e., self-confidence) improves self-esteem, which in turn reduces depressive symptoms. Furthermore, PA self-efficacy may be more protective against depression for individuals who value or consider PA to be highly important. The proposed study aimed to determine the cross-sectional and longitudinal PA-depressive symptoms relation in adolescents. The study was designed specifically to test …

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Representation Of Affect From Fmri Data As A Function Of Stimulus Modality And Judgment Task, Jongwan Kim Jan 2015

Representation Of Affect From Fmri Data As A Function Of Stimulus Modality And Judgment Task, Jongwan Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The theory of core affect posits that the neural system processes affective aspects of stimuli encountered by the organism quickly and automatically, resulting in a unified affective state described along the dimensions of valence and arousal. Core affect theory posits two functional subsystems that guide affective processing: a sensory integration and a visceramotor network. The proposed study investigates how the representation of affective dimensions depends on sensory modality, features of the task, and brain regions. A series of behavioral studies was run to develop an experimental stimulus set of silent videos and musical clips that met requirements of equating valence …

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