Psychology Commons^™

Beauty Is Beneficial: An Examination Of Candidate Facial Attractiveness, Gender, Qualification, And Customer Visibility On Online Recruitment Intentions, Breanna R. Wexler

Dissertations

The present study examined the effects of information included in candidates’ online networking profiles on recruiters’ perceptions and ratings of their likelihood of inviting the candidate for a job interview. Specifically, this study used a status generalization theory perspective to examine the weighting of information related to candidate physical attractiveness, gender, and qualification to predict perceived expectations for intellectual competence, likability, and social skills. These expectations then predicted whether the candidate should be recommended for a job interview. While participants relied almost exclusively on qualification information when making judgments of intellectual competence, candidates placed increased weight on attractiveness when rating …

Repercussive Discrimination: Racial Discrimination As An Explanation Of Prevalent Homophobia Among Racial Minorities, Timothy E. Lewis

Dissertations

Generally, attitudes in the United States towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons have become more favorable in recent years. Obviously, examining the politics of LGBTI persons and attitudes towards them is important considering that this demographic may account for 10% of the U.S. population; but a more inconspicuous reason it that examinations provide insight into the political landscape of how political minorities address various issues and interests. However, in studying public opinion towards gays and lesbians it is discovered that racial minorities, particularly African-Americans, generally possess negative attitudes to LGBTI persons and possess higher percentages of homophobic …

The Influence Of Culture On The Use Of Healthcare Services By Refugees In Southcentral Kentucky: A Mixed Study, Chika N. Ejike

Dissertations

The world as a global village has become a ubiquitous trope in the popular discourse, and Bowling Green, Kentucky, with its substantial immigrant population, may be considered an exemplar of this idealized community. It has become an ideal location for research regarding the challenges faced by immigrants. Due to the diverse cultural identities of the refugee/immigrant population, it is particularly well suited for studies into complex culturally dependent healthcare utilization patterns.

The central research question for the study was as follows: What are the healthcare-seeking behavioral patterns (as influenced by culture) among refugees at their nearest healthcare facilities? This mixed …

The Goal-Driven, Resilient, And Influential Teens Program In Kentucky High Schools: The Impact On Social And Emotional Learning And Influencing Factors, Brant Von Goble

Dissertations

In order to assess the effects of the Goal-driven, Resilient, and Influential Teens (GRIT) program on social and emotional learning and academic performance in high schools throughout Kentucky, data from several sources were compiled and analyzed. These sources included results from the Student Engagement and Performance (STEP) survey, an instrument developed by the Rock Solid Evaluation Team at Western Kentucky University and administered yearly to high school students and teachers, and school-level academic and socioeconomic data from the Kentucky Department of Education. Additional data on fidelity of GRIT program implementation were obtained from FranklinCovey, the GRIT program’s developer and publisher. …

Total Wellness Of Turkish International Students In The U.S. : Perceptions And Inherent Growth Tendencies, Mehmet Avci

Dissertations

The international student population in the United States has increased exponentially over the past decade. Students are coming from many countries including Turkey who often face stressors proper of migration such as cultural uprooting, family disruption and identity challenges that might influence their wellness while in America. The total impact that this academic adventure has on Turkish’s international students is not well known as there is a dearth of scientific data addressing their total wellness and specially their psychological wellbeing from a holistic perspective. This research study examined the perceived total wellness of Turkish students living in the USA. Survey …

Disenfranchised Grief And The Substance Abuse Counselor: A Heuristic Inquiry, Melissa Pettit

Dissertations

Grief and loss are a part of the substance abuse counselor experience. The purpose of this study was to generate a heuristic inquiry on how substance abuse counselors experience and manage disenfranchised grief in their work with the substance abuse population. A review of the literature indicated health care professionals experience disenfranchised grief. The experiences of disenfranchised grief was noted in relation to substance abuse counselors, who experience ongoing, client-related losses in the workplace. The researcher interviewed 10 Substance Abuse Counselors and asked the research questions, "How do you experience loss in your work as a substance abuse counselor?" and …

Insights From Survivors And Latino Professional Counselors Providing Interventions To Latino Children Affected By Domestic Violence: Implications For Culturally Responsive Interventions And Professional Training, Estela Melgoza

Dissertations

There is a growing need for intervention models for Latino families experiencing psycho-social issues resulting from domestic violence, given the growth of this population and their experience with this issue. The model needs to be inclusive of culturally attuned interventions, culturally proficiency training for professional counselors, and organizational protocols that will ensure implementation. This investigation included Study I which examined the effectiveness of a culturally responsive therapeutic intervention on a sample of Latino children ages 5-12, “Caritas de Esperanza”. As was hypothesized, children in the experimental group increased their resiliency self-efficacy, self-esteem, and decreased conduct problems and negative emotional symptoms …

The Influence Of Training Procedures On Generalization Performance In Scent-Detection Rats, Erin Watkins

Dissertations

The global illicit trade in tobacco products leads to an overall increase in the availability of tobacco, and this increase in tobacco availability and consumption undermines effective health, safety, and taxation policies in place to protect current and future populations. Dogs working at ports and customs have been trained to detect tobacco products and research has shown rats can detect tobacco-soaked filters (Mahoney et al., 2014). Cigarette smoking is the most common form of tobacco use, and cigarettes are the most commonly trafficked product in the illicit tobacco trade. In the current study, rats were trained to respond to filter …

Assessing A Punching Bag Feedback Performance Device, Neil Deochand

Dissertations

Physical exercise has been integrated into treatment efforts in reversing the number of overweight and obese individuals. Furthermore, exercise extends mortality, enhances general quality of life, and it is a protective health factor for preventing the progression some mental health disorders. Electronic athletic training equipment easily allows monitoring of real-time physical activity, and enables tracking of progress made toward individualized performance goals. There are limitations to only using visual feedback (e.g., visual depictions of heart rate, speed, distance traveled, or calories burned etc.) to track and improve exercise and athletic performance, especially for some sports, such as boxing. This issue …

Exploring Whites' Recognition Of Racial Microaggressions Through An Existential Lens, Ashley Gold Parker

Dissertations

Substantive evidence demonstrates that targets of racial discrimination (i.e., people of color) are acutely aware of racial microaggressions when they occur. Far less research has explored the interpretive experiences of perpetrators and bystanders of race-related prejudice and discrimination, individuals who are typically White. The current study sought to identify personal and situational factors that affect Whites’ recognition of racial microaggressions. The sample consisted of self-identified exclusively White/Caucasian adults (N=210) who completed questionnaires exploring Belief in a Just World (BJW), Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), and three facets of Ethnocultural Empathy (Awareness, Perspective-Taking, and Empathic Action). Participants were randomly assigned …

Community, Purpose, And Empowerment: Developing A Support Program With Student Veterans, Cari Stevenson

Dissertations

Abstract

This set of mixed-method studies evaluated factors impacting student veterans at a Midwestern community college, particularly their sense of community and how their perceptions and experiences relate to academic success. Research on student veterans indicates that many face challenges beyond physical and psychological injury, including difficulties in acclimating to an academic culture and navigating bureaucratic processes. The quantitative and qualitative studies also examined the impact of the academic setting, social climate, supportive services that relate to student veteran perceptions of their sense of community and other academic processes. In the quantitative study, relationships were found between sense of community, …

Factors Affecting Mental Health Seeking Behaviors Of Law Enforcement Officers, Vincent M. Haecker

Dissertations

The intent of this study was to elicit perspectives from law enforcement counselors, clinicians, chaplains, and peer group leaders for factors affecting law enforcement officer’s (LEOs) seeking mental health assistance. The law enforcement and mental health communities have gone to great lengths to ensure assistance is available to LEOs in an effort to counter the stress and trauma associated with the policing profession. Past studies attempted to elicit LEOs attitudes on mental health services, generating mixed results and were unable to establish why available services were underutilized. This study employed a qualitative methodology to elicit perspectives on this phenomena from …

Exploring The Impostor Phenomenon's Behavioral Characteristics: How Do Gay Male Leaders And Impostors Cope?, Donald B. Scott

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this mixed-methods case study was to explore and describe the coping skills used to overcome 9 behavioral characteristics by gay men serving in civic or nonprofit leadership roles who are identified as experiencing the impostor phenomenon (IP) by the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS; Clance, 1985).

Methodology: This study used a mixed-methods, descriptive case study approach to collect both quantitative and qualitative data about 14 study participants. Each completed the 20-question CIPS that represented the quantitative strand of the study prior to an interview that included 10 semistructured interview questions designed to collect rich, descriptive data. …

Healthcare Use Self-Efficacy In Adults Who Are Homeless, Jared Ian Israel

Dissertations

The physical and mental health care needs of homeless adults are extensive. However, these needs regularly go unmet. Healthcare use behavior is complex and involves a range of obstacles. As such, self-efficacy, an individual’s belief in his or her ability to perform a given behavior, appears to be a relevant factor in healthcare use. While current theory supports this notion and research has confirmed the role of self-efficacy in health behavior generally, a validated measure of healthcare use self-efficacy has not previously existed. The aim of this study was to develop and validate the Healthcare Use Self-Efficacy List (HUSEL) in …

Development And Application Of Self-Awareness In Project Leadership: A Multiple Case Study Of Department Of Defense Project Managers, Jeffrey Brian Hart

Dissertations

Problem

This study explored how Project Managers (PMs) in the Department of Defense (DoD) come to understand, develop, and apply self-awareness in leading their projects. The DoD invests heavily in developing their project leaders by providing training, experiences, developmental assignments, and other tools such as self-assessments presumably to help them lead more authentically and become more self-aware as a way to improve project management. Despite this investment, it is unclear how self-awareness is actually developed in PMs and integrated into their leadership practice. In view of the importance of self-awareness in leadership, more understanding is needed on how self-awareness is …

The Effects Of Chinese Calligraphy On Reducing Anxiety And Comorbid Depression Levels Among Breast Cancer Patients In Hong Kong, Anna Liu

Dissertations

Problem

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide. Anxiety is a prevalent psychological concern in breast cancer patients and has negative impact on the course of their disease, treatment and recovery. This study was to investigate the effects of Chinese calligraphy on reducing the anxiety and comorbid depression levels among Hong Kong breast cancer patients with an intention to support the needs of breast cancer patients by providing alternative therapy that is culturally receptive. The primary objective of the study was to examine to what extent Chinese calligraphy intervention can reduce the anxiety and comorbid depression levels …

Applying A Cognitive-Behavioral Model To Conceptualize Burnout And Coping For Teachers In Urban Schools, Daniel Camacho

Dissertations

Teachers in urban schools, facing a myriad of daily stressors and oftentimes without sufficient knowledge and skills to manage the social and emotional needs of their students and themselves, experience stress and burnout at levels that cause them to leave the teaching profession at alarming rates. Research pertaining to teaching stress, burnout, and coping has largely been devoted to enumerating the stressors that teachers experience, the impact of burnout on teachers and their students, and relating type of coping strategies that teachers employ. This body of literature falls short of illuminating what makes the teaching profession so inherently stressful, the …

Social Support And Well-Being Among Foster Care Youth: Self-Concept As A Mediator, Anne Kathleen Fuller

Dissertations

Youth in the child welfare system frequently undergo a variety of adverse experiences, including maltreatment, living in poverty, placement changes, school changes, and relationship disruptions. As a group, these youth exhibit poorer psychosocial functioning (e.g., elevated rates of mental health difficulties, poorer social and academic competence) than their peers, yet there is also evidence that a number of youth in foster care are functioning relatively well and can be perceived as demonstrating resilience. The present study examined self-concept as a mediator of hypothesized associations between social support and four domains of psychosocial functioning: internalizing problems, externalizing problems, social competence, and …

Sleep-Wake Disturbances In Adolescents With Spina Bifida: Prevalence And Associations With Bio-Neuropsychosocial Functioning, Caitlin Beth Murray

Dissertations

Sleep is a critical component of healthy development during adolescence, and when disrupted, has been linked to difficulties with physical status, psychological health, family functioning, neuropsychological symptoms, and academic performance. The overarching goal of this project was to examine sleep-wake disturbances in association with bio-neuropsychosocial functioning in a vulnerable pediatric population of adolescents with spina bifida (SB). Specifically, this study aimed to 1) examine sleep-wake patterns in adolescents with SB using a multimodal sleep assessment, 2) identify daily temporal associations between sleep and pain as well as sleep and mood, and 3) identify the relationship between sleep-wake disturbances and bio-neuropsychosocial …

Friendship Selection Patterns Among Low Income Minority Girls/Adolescents: Links To Obesity Risk, Kimberly Anne Rosania

Dissertations

Research suggests interventions for pediatric obesity fail because they do not consider the broader social context in which adolescents spend their time: the adolescent friendship network. A critical step to address friendship network barriers to reducing child obesity is understanding contexts that promote friendship network patterns that promote healthy weight (i.e., social inclusion of overweight youth, friendship clusters that are diverse in weight status). This study sought to understand whether community-based summertime programming could facilitate healthier selection patterns for a demographic disproportionately at risk for obesity: low-income girls of color. Participants were 42 African American and Latina adolescent females (M …

The Lived Experience Of Intersectionality Among African American Women With Breast Cancer, Teri D. Armour Burton

Dissertations

African American women (AAW) continue to have breast cancer mortality rates that are 42% higher than White women (De Santis et al., 2015). Researchers suggest that an epistemological approach that integrates the biomedical and feminist models would be more effective in addressing health disparities. The concept of intersectionality, which grew out of the Black feminist movement, provides a lens in which to view the lived experiences of AAW with breast cancer. The intersectionality paradigm attempts to address the marginalized, oppressive, intersecting social existence of AAW through the examination of identity, social class, and power.

This qualitative study applied a descriptive …

Divorce After Long-Term Marriage : A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study, Melanie M. Somerville

Dissertations

Divorce is an enduring feature of American culture. As much as Americans value marriage, they also assert the right to divorce. The literature makes clear that modern couples expect their spouses to meet their individual personal goals of self-fulfillment and growth. Furthermore, divorce recovery is often portrayed as an individualistic endeavor. Changing attitudes about marriage and divorce have contributed to the current rate of divorce among midlife individuals, who have the highest divorce rates of any age group. Many individuals who divorce at midlife have been married for 20 or more years. Divorce is most often experienced as a disruption …

Comparisons Of Artifact Correction Procedures For Meta-Analysis: An Empirical Examination On Correcting Reliabilities, Lei Zhao

Dissertations

This study reviewed some challenges and issues in artifact correction meta-analysis, particularly around using reliability estimates to correct for measurement error. Two individual correction procedures—the Hunter-Schmidt procedure and the procedure developed by Raju, Burke, Normand, and Langlois (the RBNL procedure)—are addressed in this research. The purpose of this study is to use real-world data to examine the differences between meta-analytic estimations produced by the two artifact correction procedures and those by the traditional bare-bones meta-analysis procedures, under the condition of inter-dependent reliabilities. The impact of this inter-correlation on meta-analysis results needs investigation when artifact indicators, such as reliability of predictor …

The Internalization Of The Model Minority Stereotype, Acculturative Stress, And Ethnic Identity On Academic Stress, Academic Performance, And Mental Health Among Asian American College Students, Hanna Yun-Han Chang

Dissertations

Previous studies in Asian American psychology literature on cultural factors of acculturation and ethnic identity have yielded mixed findings in its relation to psychological outcomes. Furthermore, there is a gap in the knowledge base regarding the internalization of the model minority stereotype and its impact on Asian Americans. Due to Asian Americans' tendency to value academic excellence as a result of socialization by cultural values and family upbringings, this study examined the effects acculturative stress, ethnic identity, and the internalization of model minority on academic stress, academic performance, and mental health.

Results of this study indicated that acculturative stress significantly …

Self-Serving Cognitive Distortions, Externalizing Behaviors, And School Exclusion Among Adolescents With Emotional Disturbance, Claudia Hernandez

Dissertations

Students of color and students with disabilities, especially those with Emotional Disturbance (ED), are at increased risk for exclusionary discipline and juvenile justice involvement (Skiba, Arredondo & Williams, 2014). Within exclusionary discipline research, students' behaviors and discipline referrals are examined, but students' maladaptive thinking patterns or cognitive distortions remain largely unexplored. Within juvenile justice research, however, the cognitive distortions of incarcerated youth have been widely studied. The overarching hypothesis for the current study was that students' self-serving cognitive distortions would be related to their externalizing behaviors, as measured by office discipline referrals (ODRs), and these ODRs would be related to …

Disordered Eating Treatment Programs For Adolescents And Emerging Adults: A Meta-Analytic Review Of Treatment Effectiveness And Moderators Of Treatment Success, Alexandra Kirsch

Dissertations

This meta-analysis systematically reviewed interventions for disordered eating in the adolescent and young adult population. A systematic search identified 30 interventions that could be compared to controls and 88 specific interventions that could be compared to other specific interventions. An in-depth analysis of the current state of the literature is provided. Results indicated that eating disorder interventions were effective overall when compared to control for both eating disorder and non-eating disorder outcomes, with differential effects across diagnoses, outcome categories, and outcome source, as well as some maintenance of effects at follow-up. Additionally, multiple moderators of treatment effectiveness for eating disorder …

Questioning The Questioner: The Effect Of Applicant Questions On Interview Outcomes, Heather Grace Heimbaugh

Dissertations

There is a great deal of advice available from authors of interviewing guidebooks regarding the types of questions applicants should ask during the job interview, if any. Yet, there has been limited research investigating the impact of applicant questions to the interviewer on interview outcomes to support the varied opinions disseminated. This paper focuses on how whether applicants ask questions during employment interviews affects the attributions and hiring ratings interviewers make of applicants. The variables examined (applicant résumé qualifications, applicant interview performance before questions are asked, whether the questions can or cannot be answered on the company website, and whether …

The Public Consequences Of A Personal Choice: The Impact Of The Decision To Be Childfree In Family-Friendly America, Emily Ingalls

Dissertations

The topic of diversity and inclusion has garnered increased interest over the past decade, with 78% of executives listing the topics as critical initiatives (Forbes, 2011). One group that has received little attention but continues to be stigmatized is the childfree population, or those individuals who deliberately choose not to have children. Previous research has examined opinions of this group generally and in the workplace, specifically, but this research frequently considers childfree and childless people under the same umbrella. This study examined ratings of the childfree in the workplace compared to childless adults as well as to parents. The potential …

Doctrinal Dialogues: Factors Influencing Client Willingness To Discuss Religious Beliefs, Katherine A. Judd

Dissertations

Religious beliefs are an important part of daily life for many individuals; however, these beliefs are often not discussed in therapy settings. As a result, clients and clinicians may encounter barriers to treatment and be unable to harness potentially beneficial aspects of the religious belief system. The current study investigated factors influencing client willingness to discuss religious beliefs with a therapist, with the factors of interest being perceived clinician cultural humility (PCH), religious outlier status (ROS), and religious commitment (RC). Participants in the current study (N = 535) completed measures assessing RC and ROS and viewed a five-minute clip depicting …

I Matter, As Does The World: Critical Consciousness In Higher Education, Myra Dutko

Dissertations

This dissertation describes how graduate students in a community organizing class move along the critical consciousness pathway. Critical consciousness in the academic arena is critical to the development of democratic participation and agency in students. Critical consciousness is the ability to see, judge and act on issues of injustice in order to create social change. In addition, this research examines what barriers arise in that process. Research participants from an urban, private university in the Midwest narrate the creation of a learning environment and the process of moving towards critical consciousness awakening through journaling and focus group discussions. The data, …