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College Of Psychology 2015-2016 Catalog, Nova Southeastern University

College of Psychological Services / College of Psychology Postgraduate Student and Course Catalogs

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Master's Program In General Psychology Policies And Procedures Handbook, Nova Southeastern University

College of Psychological Services / College of Psychology Postgraduate Student and Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

The Trouble With Truth-Telling: Preliminary Reflections On Truth And Justice In Post-War Liberia, Gabriel Twose Ph.D., Caitlin O. Mahoney Ph.D.

Peace and Conflict Studies

This study investigates perceptions of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), particularly focusing on understandings of, and the links between, truth, justice, and reconciliation. Forty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted at three research sites in Liberia. Findings indicate that although most Liberians agreed with the TRC in principle, most of those who followed its proceedings saw major problems in its implementation, harming perceptions of reconciliation. Participants expressed concerns that the Commission had failed to discover the full truth of wartime abuses, that the truth that was discovered was not told in the right way, and that there had been problems …

Resiliency Of Multiple-Placed Foster Youth Experiencing Emotional Competence: A Mixed-Methods Study, Audrey Murph-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to address the resilient processes of multiple placed foster youth to develop age-appropriate emotional competence. Adding texture to the study was the role played by race and culture. Inherent to the study were the voices of successful multiple-placed foster youth. The research attempted to respond to gaps in the literature regarding African American and Hispanic youth placed in foster placements that, if better understood, can positively impact the livelihoods of other multiple-placed foster youth. The minor participants, 10 to 17 years old, selected for this study were no longer wards of the state, having been …

Between Warrior And Helplessness In The Valley Of Azawa - The Struggle Of The Kel Tamashek In The War Of The Sahel, Patrick James Christian

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an Investigation into the Tuareg involvement in violent conflict in the Sahara and the Sahel of North Africa from a sociological psychological perspective of unmet human needs. The research begins by establishing the structure and texture of the sociological, psychological, and emotional life patterns of their existence when not involved in violent conflict. This is followed by an examination of the pathology of Tuareg social structures that are engaged in intra and inter communal violence as perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. The first part of the research establishes normal conditions of the sociological life cycle and highlights natural …

The Fake Bad Scale: Malingering Or Litigation Response Syndrome -- Which Is It?, David S. Nichols, Carlton S. Gass

Archives of Assessment Psychology

This report examines the similarity of items on the MMPI-2 and MMPI-2-RF versions of the Lees-Haley, et al. (1991) Symptom Validity (formerly Fake Bad) Scale (FBS; FBS-r) with emotional and somatic symptoms described in an earlier article by Lees-Haley as credible stress reactions to litigation involvement: the Litigation Response Syndrome (Lees-Haley, 1988). Substantial overlap was found between the FBS items and these earlier symptom descriptions, with a majority of the litigation-based stress items found on both the FBS and FBS-r. The probable impact of credible symptom reporting on FBS/FBS-r scores in personal injury litigation is discussed.

Development And Validation Of The Muscle Pictorial Measure, Meghan M. Gillen, Charlotte N. Markey

Archives of Assessment Psychology

Most pictorial measures of body perceptions vary by adiposity rather than muscularity. Measures examining muscularity have typically been created for men. We created pictorial measures that vary by muscularity and can be used by both genders. Two samples of racially/ethnically diverse undergraduates (N = 279 total) completed a survey including the new pictorial measure, weight-lifting behavior, and drive for muscularity. Weight and height were measured for one sample while self-reported for the second sample. Two weeks later, participants completed the pictorial measure online. Results indicate that this measure has satisfactory test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and cultural validity, and can be …

Development And Factor Structure Of The Adlerian Personality Priority Assessment, Dalena L. Dillman Taylor, Dee C. Ray, Robin K. Henson

Archives of Assessment Psychology

This study aimed to explore the existence of the theoretical constructs of Adlerian personality priorities, a component in conceptualizing clients’: (a) pleasing, (b) control, (c) comfort, and (d) superiority (Kefir, 1971). Researchers implemented a multi-step process for the development of the Adlerian Personality Priority Assessment (APPA), including a focus group, expert panel, pilot study, and an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). For the EFA with the APPA (N = 393) identified a four-factor structure, supporting the construct validity of the original four Adlerian personality priorities. Professional counselors have used personality priorities since their inception in 1971 as a means to conceptualize …

Phenomenological Study Of At-Risk Youth Attending An Alternative Education Residential Program, Valeria Meschelle Harris-Richard

Theses and Dissertations

At-risk youth are the population of students who cannot manage to conform to the traditional school expectations due to their behavior choices. However, their choices are reflections of both avoidable and unavoidable conditions and circumstances. The bottom line is that those conditions usually lead them to drop out of school. There are several factors that contribute to why youth drop out of school. While some factors are more obvious than others, the overall goal should be to minimize factors that are within the control of stakeholders and decision makers so that youth have opportunities to complete high school with a …

Serving Military Families: Perceptions Of Educational Counseling In A Virtual Environment, Taryn Stevenson

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The advances in communication technology over the past 20 years have significant implications for the delivery of psycho-educational therapeutic services to populations that have been historically underserved due to remote locations lacking trained providers. One such population is military families, who also suffer from a negative stigma of asking for outside help or education for personal growth. This population also faces increasing mental health needs due to military deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). These operations have increased the number of returning service members who have been physically and mentally injured. The effect that these …

Predictors Of Willingness To Participate In Hiv Vaccine Trials Among African Americans, Mindy Ma, Toni A. Young, Marcus Durham, Jeffrey L. Kibler, Zaneta Gaul, Sherri Pals, Madeline Y. Sutton

Faculty Articles

African Americans in the United States (U.S.) are disproportionately affected by HIV. Developing an HIV vaccine is an important part of the HIV prevention and treatment toolkit and may help contribute to ending the HIV epidemic. To date, HIV vaccine trials have not engaged representative numbers of African Americans. We evaluated the willingness of African Americans to participate in HIV vaccine trials and identified correlates of willingness to participate (WTP) by surveying African Americans at low- and high-risk of HIV infection in a multi-site, cross-sectional study. We enrolled 1,452 participants; 59% heterosexual women; 21% heterosexual men; 20% men who have …

Security Policies That Make Sense For Complex Systems: Comprehensible Formalism For The System Consumer, Rhonda R. Henning

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Information Systems today rarely are contained within a single user workstation, server, or networked environment. Data can be transparently accessed from any location, and maintained across various network infrastructures. Cloud computing paradigms commoditize the hardware and software environments and allow an enterprise to lease computing resources by the hour, minute, or number of instances required to complete a processing task. An access control policy mediates access requests between authorized users of an information system and the system's resources. Access control policies are defined at any given level of abstraction, such as the file, directory, system, or network, and can be …

Speaking Two Languages Enhances An Auditory But Not A Visual Neural Marker Of Cognitive Inhibition, Mercedes Fernandez, Juliana Acosta, Kevin Douglass, Nikita Doshi, Jaime L. Tartar

Faculty Articles

The purpose of the present study was to replicate and extend our original findings of enhanced neural inhibitory control in bilinguals. We compared English monolinguals to Spanish/English bilinguals on a non-linguistic, auditory Go/NoGo task while recording event-related brain potentials. New to this study was the visual Go/NoGo task, which we included to investigate whether enhanced neural inhibition in bilinguals extends from the auditory to the visual modality. Results confirmed our original findings and revealed greater inhibition in bilinguals compared to monolinguals. As predicted, compared to monolinguals, bilinguals showed increased N2 amplitude during the auditory NoGo trials, which required inhibitory control, …

Association Of Trauma Exposure With Proinflammatory Activity: A Transdiagnostic Meta-Analysis., M Tursich, R W J Neufeld, P A Frewen, S Harricharan, J L Kibler, S G Rhind, R A Lanius

Faculty Articles

Exposure to psychological trauma (for example, childhood/early life adversity, exposure to violence or assault, combat exposure, accidents or natural disasters) is known to increase one's risk of developing certain chronic medical conditions. Clinical and population studies provide evidence of systemic inflammatory activity in trauma survivors with various psychiatric and nonpsychiatric conditions. This transdiagnostic meta-analysis quantitatively integrates the literature on the relationship of inflammatory biomarkers to trauma exposure and related symptomatology. We conducted random effects meta-analyses relating trauma exposure to log-transformed inflammatory biomarker concentrations, using meta-regression models to test the effects of study quality and psychiatric symptomatology on the inflammatory outcomes. …

Are Good Reasoners More Incest-Friendly? Trait Cognitive Reflection Predicts Selective Moralization In A Sample Of American Adults, Edward B. Royzman, Justin F. Landy, Geoffrey P. Goodwin

Faculty Articles

Two studies examined the relationship between individual differences in cognitive reflection (CRT) and the tendency to accord genuinely moral (non-conventional) status to a range of counter-normative acts — that is, to treat such acts as wrong regardless of existing social opinion or norms. We contrasted social violations that are intrinsically harmful to others (e.g., fraud, thievery) with those that are not (e.g., wearing pajamas to work and engaging in consensual acts of sexual intimacy with an adult sibling). Our key hypothesis was that more reflective (higher CRT) individuals would tend to moralize selectively — treating only intrinsically harmful acts as …

The Effects Of Mental Illness On Trust Between Military Veterans, Kristina Marie Reihl

Theses and Dissertations

Service members have reported the perception that seeking treatment for, and/or having a mental illness will cause a loss of trust between a service member and his/her leaders and peers (Nash, Silva, and Litz, 2009; Hoge et al, 2004). This study aimed to determine if the presence of a mental illness affects the trust between service members and determine whether other variables moderated this relationship. Using social media and Mechanical Turk an internet participant-recruiting site operated by Amazon, data were collected from 220 military Veterans. Participants were assessed using a research developed Demographics Questionnaire, the Combat Exposure Scale, The Unit …

Assessing Clinical Competency: The Simulated Patient Assessment And Research Collaboration, Jessica Ketterer

Theses and Dissertations

The efficacy of using simulated patients (SPs) to train clinical interviewing skills in pre-practicum- and practicum-level mental health clinicians was evaluated compared to the use of traditional role-play with peers. Participants, regardless of group, engaged in a 15-minute videotaped simulated clinical session with an SP as a pre- and post-test measurement and completed five laboratory sessions, either utilizing role-play with peers or with an SP. Participants' counseling self-efficacy (CSE), measured by the Counseling Self-Estimate Inventory (COSE); state anxiety, measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Version Y-1 (STAI Y-1); and self-reflective anxiety, measured by the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale (FNE), …

Predictors Of Post Foster Care Functioning: Assessing Emotional Intelligence In Foster Alumni, Nicole Englebert

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined factors predictive of post foster care outcomes, with a particular focus on Emotional Intelligence (EI). EI was conceptualized using Bar-On's mixed model approach. Central study questions examined whether EI offered incremental prediction of several meaningful outcomes, over and above other contextual and individual variables. Outcomes included educational attainment, income level, various domains of Quality of Life (QOL), and mental health functioning. Twenty one foster alumni participated in the study. Correlational and hierarchical regression analyses were performed. Predictor variables were organized into four blocks and entered using a hierarchical method in the following order: contextual foster care factors, …

The Neuropsychological Application Of The Wais-Iv Over The Wais-Iii, Jessica Robbins

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the WAIS-IV and how the changes to the test may impact the measure's usefulness in neuropsychological evaluations. It was hypothesized that the WAIS-IV would be a significantly better predictor of performance on the neuropsychological measures of the Category Test, Finger Tapping Test, Trail Making Test, and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test over the WAIS-III. The mixed clinical sample came from an archival database of volunteer research participants and individuals clinically referred to a university outpatient facility. A total of 91 participants were administered the WAIS-III and WAIS-IV as part of a larger neuropsychological battery. The results of …

Do Parent And Teacher Ratings Of Behavior Measure What They Are Intended To Measure?, Phillip Martin

Theses and Dissertations

This study involves an examination of the neurocognitive correlates of subscales of the Conners' Rating Scale - Revised (CRS-R), an ADHD behavioral rating form, in both a child (n=72) and an adolescent (n=49) sample. While both behavioral rating forms and neuropsychological measures are commonly employed in pediatric clinical evaluations, these two forms of assessment do not generally converge as expected. The purpose of the current research was to examine and compare the abilities of intellectual, academic, attentional, and executive skills to account for variance in parent and teacher ratings of behavior across two pediatric age groups in a clinical setting. …

Attachment Style And Psychological Sense Of Community In The Context Of 12-Step Recovery, Amy Elizabeth Ellis

Theses and Dissertations

Approximately 10% of adults living in the United States meet criteria for a Substance Use Disorder. Although 12-step groups are considered evidence-based practices for substance use problems, an understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which they facilitate recovery practices remains in its infancy. The purpose of the current study was to explore whether attachment could be considered a possible mediator of the effects of recovery practices on positive psychosocial outcomes. Participants (N = 112) were self-identified NA members from 26 U.S. states who completed an online survey assessing attachment style, psychosocial sense of community, psychological well-being, and various other recovery …

Coming Out, Coming Together, Coming Around: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of Families' Experiences Adjusting To A Young Family Member's Disclosure Of Non-Heterosexuality, Denise M. Fournier Rodriguez

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Young people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) are disclosing their sexual identity--or coming out--at progressively younger ages, making it more important than ever for the general population to understand, tolerate, and accept diversity in sexual identity. This study was designed to fill the gap in the existing literature about how the coming out process affects LGB young people's families of origin. Three LGB young people participated in the study, along with a member of each of their families. The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with each of the participants, as well as a conjoint interview with each of …

Living With Uncertainty: The Impact On Breast Cancer Survivors And Their Intimate Partners, Kimberley Dockery

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

This study explored the lived experiences of breast cancer survivors and their intimate partners. The research was informed by a social constructionist framework and phenomenological method of inquiry. While the body of literature on the physical, psychological, and social health of breast cancer survivors is growing, only a few studies have focused solely on the lived experience of survivorship and the uncertainty of recurrence. This study sought to explore the construction of meaning in the couples' context and experiences of surviving breast cancer. The present study examined how breast cancer survivors make meaning of their survivorship in context of living …

Same-Sex Couples' Lived Experiences Of The Repeal Of The Defense Of Marriage Act's (Doma) Section Three, Alicia Anne Bosley

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Same-sex couples are affected by the social and political climates in which they live, as these create the difference between acceptance and legalization, and discrimination and prohibition, of their relationships. This contingence is made increasingly impactful by the privileges and protections afforded to married couples by the federal government; same-sex couples, along with other couples that choose not to, or cannot, marry, are excluded from these benefits. Following the June 26, 2013 ruling that Section Three of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, was unconstitutional, same-sex couples were given access …

Goal-Subgoal Conflict As The Core Feature Of Delay Of Gratification, Violet Cheung-Blunden, Jennifer L. Zahm

Archives of Assessment Psychology

While delay of gratification is a well-established individual difference, its assessment is limited by the original delay paradigm, which is only valid in the age range of four to 11 years. If delay of gratification were to be construed as a competence of resolving goal-subgoal conflicts, a specific type of puzzle games, with a feature called ambiguous subgoal ordering, can be used as an alternative assessment tool. While the child version of this type of puzzle, the Dog-Cat-Mouse task (DCM), is available; an adult version, the Dog-Cat-Mouse-Rabbit task (DCMR), had to be developed. Two studies were conducted to establish the …

Visuospatial, Visuoperceptual And Visuoconstructing Abilities In Traumatic Brain Injury: The Effects Of Injury Severity And Effort, Luis E. Aguerrevere, Kevin W. Greve, Kevin J. Bianchini, Jonathan S. Ord

Archives of Assessment Psychology

The study's objective was to determine the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) on visuospatial, visuoperceptual and visuoconstructing skills while controlling for effort. TBI cases were classified by injury severity as mild or moderate-severe, and by effort measured based on performance on four validity-indicators. TBI cases were also compared to demographically-matched healthy control subjects. Visuospatial, visuoperceptual and visuoconstructing abilities scores were obtained from the performance on five common neuropsychological tests: Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure, Benton Facial Test as well as Matrix Reasoning, Picture Completion and Block Design from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test-III. Patients classified as mild TBI good effort demonstrated …

The Factor Structure And Psychometric Properties Of The Greek Version Of Career Motivational Types (Cmt-Q): Cross-Cultural Comparison In Greece And Bulgaria, Vaitsa Giannouli, Stanislava Stoyanova

Archives of Assessment Psychology

The psychometric properties of a Career Motivational Types Questionnaire based on Moses (2003) typology of major career motivators were studied in a Greek sample of 123 subjects (workers and unemployed people) in 2013. The results were compared with those coming from a Bulgarian sample of 132 subjects (workers, unemployed people and students) studied in 2013. A cohort comparison was performed on major Bulgarian career motivational types between the years 2007 and 2013. The similarities in the major motivators in both countries concerned prevalence of Personal developers, Stability seekers and Authenticity seekers as career motivational types and more diverse career motivators …

The Integration Of Research And Practice In Clinical Psychology, Timothy Razza

Quadrivium: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship

One of the most significant debates in clinical psychology in the past decade has been focused on evidence-based practices (Berke, Rozell, Hogan, Norcross, & Karpiak, 2011). This debate occurs in clinic, research, academic, and administrative settings and currently represents a primary dimension of the training of future clinical psychologists. Melchert (2007) states that the intensity of this disagreement interferes with the recognition that scientific credibility has had on the overall success of professional psychology, as well as the recognition that the growth of psychology in general has been largely based on developments in professional psychology.

Relationship Between Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction And Immune Function In Cancer And Hiv/Aids, Rachel L. Zeichner, Jeffery L. Kibler, Simon B. Zeichner

Faculty Articles

Objective: Chronic stress is widespread, and is detrimental to immune functioning and to overall physical and emotional health. These effects may be potentiated in patients with chronic illness, as high levels of chronic stress are common in this population. Numerous studies support the efficacy of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in improving psychological functioning. If a strong relationship is found between MBSR and immune function, then MBSR may be implemented as a strategy to improve immune functioning and overall well-being.

Methods: In the present review paper, the relationship between MBSR and immune function is evaluated. Empirical studies measuring immune markers as …

An Examination Of Disgust, Its Measures, And Gender Differences In The Experience Of Disgust Sensitivity, Diane M. Kedzierski

Theses and Dissertations

The emotion of disgust is understudied. It has been implicated in various forms of psychopathology, but its overall influence remains unclear. New and improved methods and constructs are required if we are to better understand the relationship of disgust in attitude formation and psychological functioning. This study was an investigation of a measure referred to herein as the Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Evolutionary Scale (DPSES). A total of 655 participants were recruited from a private university in the southeastern United States to complete a pencil -and-paper version of the measure in exchange for course credit. Exploratory factor analysis revealed an …