Psychology Commons^™

Measuring Women's Empowerment In Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploratory And Confirmatory Factor Analyses Of The Demographic And Health Surveys, Ibitola O. Asaolu, Halimatou Alaofè, Jayleen K. L. Gunn, Akosua K. Adu, Amanda J. Monroy, John E. Ehiri, Mary H. Hayden, Kacey C. Ernst

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Background: Women's status and empowerment influence health, nutrition, and socioeconomic status of women and their children. Despite its benefits, however, research on women's empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is limited in scope and geography. Empowerment is variably defined and data for comparison across regions is often limited. The objective of the current study was to identify domains of empowerment from a widely available data source, Demographic and Health Surveys, across multiple regions in SSA.

Methods: Demographic and Health Surveys from nineteen countries representing four African regions were used for the analysis. A total of 26 indicators across different dimensions (economic, …

Behavior Change For Children Participating In Parent-Child Interaction Therapy: A Growth Curve Analysis, Kayla Larosa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Disruptive behavior disorders including Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Conduct Disorder (CD), and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), are listed among the most common reasons youth are referred for mental health services (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention [CDC], 2016b; Kazdin, Mazurick, Siegel, & 1994). Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is one intervention that has been found to reduce clinically significant levels of disruptive behavior. The purpose of the current study was to determine the form of change, typical change trajectory, and individual variation in change for disruptive behavior across the two phases of PCIT; the Child-Directed Interaction (CDI) and Parent-Directed Interaction (PDI) phases. …

Direct Current Stimulation Of Endothelial Monolayers Induces A Transient And Reversible Increase In Transport Due To The Electroosmotic Effect, Limary M. Cancel, Katherin Arias, Marom Bikson, John M. Tarbell

Publications and Research

We investigated the effects of direct current stimulation (DCS) on fluid and solute transport across endothelial cell (EC) monolayers in vitro. Our motivation was transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) that has been investigated for treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders, to enhance neurorehabilitation, and to change cognition in healthy subjects. The mechanisms underlying this diversity of applications remain under investigation. To address the possible role of blood-brain barrier (BBB) changes during tDCS, we applied direct current to cultured EC monolayers in a specially designed chamber that generated spatially uniform direct current. DCS induced fluid and solute movement across EC layers that persisted …

Differential Effects Of Mindful Breathing And Loving-Kindness Meditation Exercises On College Students' Mental Health, Sarah J. Bolognino

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Mindfulness and loving-kindness are two concepts with associated meditation exercises that have been evaluated as part of mindfulness-based treatment approaches (MBTAs) to improve mental health. A common MBTA, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) includes multiple component exercises including mindful breathing meditation (MBM), and loving-kindness meditation (LKM). The purpose of the present study was to examine differential effects of MBM and LKM on the proposed process variables of social connectedness, cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance, present moment awareness, affect, and compassion for self and others, as well as across outcomes measures of general anxiety, social anxiety, depression, and wellbeing. Additionally the …

Examining The Sex Ratio In Autism Spectrum Disorder, Maya N. Matheis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The higher prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among males compared to females is well documented but poorly understood. The ASD sex ratio may provide valuable insight into the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of the disorder. A review of studies examining the prevalence in ASD published in the last 5 years was conducted, revealing a mean male/female (M/F) ratio of 4. Literature examining the ASD sex ratio in relation to risk factors and associated features of ASD was also summarized. The study aimed to examine the ASD sex ratio and its association to various risk factors among an early intervention sample. …

Hypocrisy And Corruption: How Disparities In Power Shape The Evolution Of Social Control, Omar T. Eldakar, J. Oliver Kammeyer, Nikhil Nagabandi, Andrew C. Gallup

Biology Faculty Articles

Altruism presents an evolutionary paradox, as altruistic individuals are good for the group yet vulnerable to exploitation by selfish individuals. One mechanism that can effectively curtail selfishness within groups is punishment. Here, we show in an evolutionary game-theoretical model that punishment can effectively evolve and maintain high levels of altruism in the population, yet not all punishment strategies were equally virtuous. Unlike typical models of social evolution, we explicitly altered the extent to which individuals vary in their power over others, such that powerful individuals can more readily punish and escape the punishment of others. Two primary findings emerged. Under …

Dynamics Of Perception Of Affordances For Reaching For Self And Other, Alex Dayer

Theses and Dissertations

Perceivers are sensitive to the boundaries at which they must transition from one mode of performing a given behavior to another. As in other self-organizing systems, such transitions occur at a critical value of a parameter with continuous changes in that parameter. In general, behavioral transitions occur at larger values when that parameter increases than when it decreases (positive hysteresis), and perceptual transitions (for a behavior to be performed by one’s self) occur at larger values when that parameter decreases than when it increases (negative hysteresis). We investigated whether this pattern also occurs in perceptual transitions for a behavior to …

A Longitudinal Analysis Of The Effect Of The Starting Right, Now Program On Unaccompanied Homeless Adolescents' Well-Being, Emily E. Esposito

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

To date, few multicomponent interventions focused on meeting the complex needs of unaccompanied homeless youth (UHY) have been developed. One intervention, called Starting Right, Now (SRN), provides unaccompanied homeless adolescents with a broad range of home-, school-, and community-based services and supports to meet the unique needs of each individual. Previous qualitative research has supported the effectiveness of SRN on student outcomes; there has not yet been an examination of the program using quantitative methods. Thus, the current study investigated the impact of Starting Right, Now on students’ well-being through the examination of longitudinal data collected over a 12-month period. …

Winning The Disinformation War: Suturing The Soul, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

In a world of false facts and fake news, what is the crucial psychology underlying what people believe?

Acculturation And Cross-Cultural Adaptation Among Refugees: The Moderating Role Of Emotions, Ezdehar Z. Alsahow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As a result of venturing across language and culture boundaries, individuals may

be exposed to different ways of living and thinking in which may trigger changes in the

way they conceptualize themselves and others. However, such experiences are not

identical for everyone, and the circumstances facing the crisis of refugees would appear

to be exceptionally difficult.

This paper aimed to address refugees’ attempt to acculturate and integrate into a

new society by examining potential moderating factors of emotional processes. The study

focuses on anger, anxiety, pride, and guilt; emotions that refugees carried with them

when they arrived to the new …

Estimating Wasi Iq Scores To Assist In Identifying Elementary School Gifted Students, Debra Garrett Pregler

Dissertations

Identifying gifted students early is important so they may receive adaptations in their learning environment including admittance into gifted programs (Subotnik, Olszweski-Kubilius, & Worrell, 2012). An effective method to increase the likelihood of identifying gifted students is needed (Pfeiffer, 2003). Admission at the elementary level primarily uses the individually-administered intelligence test; yet, the test is only administered to students nominated to the gifted program. The purpose of this study was to determine if individually-administered IQ test scores were related to specific information available to the elementary school counselor to aid in the determination of unidentified gifted elementary school students who …

Emotional Overtones Of Professional Jargon As Experienced By English And Bilingual Speakers, Daisy Bueno

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has suggested that technical language is regularly used in the area of clinical practice called Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). However, the use of this technical language or jargon may elicit unpleasant emotional responses that could be expected to “turn off” clients or parents of child clients. To understand how emotional overtones of words may interfere with therapist-client communication, the current study utilized an online data collection tool to obtain word emotion ratings of jargon words and terms. The first study is a replication and extension of past research that used existing word emotion ratings for ABA jargon words …

Focality In Prospective Memory: A Thorough Examination Of Cue Specificity And Task-Appropriateness, Bethany Alice Lyon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Prospective memory (PM) refers to memory for future intentions (e.g. remembering to press a button when you see an animal word). Researchers classify PM intentions in the laboratory as focal or nonfocal primarily in two ways. One way, task-appropriateness, refers to how the processing for the intention relates to the processing required for an ongoing task; the PM intention and the ongoing task either match in processing (TAP; focal) or mismatch in processing (TIP; nonfocal). The second way researchers classify focality is based on cue specificity, with the PM task either being specific (focal) or general (nonfocal). Resolving this ambiguity …

Mind The Gap: Situated Spatial Language A Case-Study In Connecting Perception And Language, John D. Kelleher

Other

This abstract reviews the literature on computational models of spatial semantics and the potential of deep learning models as an useful approach to this challenge.

Purposeful Explorers: Adolescents Finding Their Purposes In A Catholic High School, Brandy P. Quinn

Journal of Catholic Education

Contemporary research about purpose suggests that adolescents benefit in multiple ways when they develop purpose, and at the same time, that many adolescents are not purposeful. Adolescents in Catholic high schools may receive a unique set of contextual supports that help them develop a sense of purpose and understand what that purpose is. This study was designed to understand the content and organization of purpose for young adolescents during their first year in a Catholic high school. The sample included 153 ninth grade students from a Catholic high school in the United States (M age at T1 = 14.02 …

Human Demonstration Does Not Facilitate The Performance Of Horses (Equus Caballus) In A Spatial Problem-Solving Task, Joan-Bryce Burla, Janina Siegwart, Christian Nawroth

Spatial Cognition Collection

Horses’ ability to adapt to new environments and to acquire new information plays an important role in handling and training. Social learning in particular would be very adaptive for horses as it enables them to flexibly adjust to new environments. In the context of horse handling, social learning from humans has been rarely investigated but could help to facilitate management practices. We assessed the impact of human demonstration on the spatial problem-solving abilities of horses during a detour task. In this task, a bucket with a food reward was placed behind a double-detour barrier and 16 horses were allocated to …

Personality Types And Learning Styles Of Collegiate Aviation Students, Stephanie Fussell, Andrew R. Dattel, Kadie Mullins

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The personality types and learning styles of students have been studied across education populations, yet the research analyzing aviation students is lacking. A replication study assessed the distribution of personality types and learning styles of students enrolled in the aeronautical science baccalaureate degree program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Form M and the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (KLSI) were used to analyze the personality types and learning styles, respectively. When compared to the personality type distribution of the traditional college student sample using a selection ratio type table, a significant overrepresentation of the personality type …

Clinician Bias In The Diagnosis Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: How Clinician Characteristics And Training May Relate To Diagnosis, Renee Boeck

Dissertations

As our understanding of PTSD has advanced, changing demographics in the United States over the past few decades have led to a growing awareness of the mental health needs of an increasingly diverse and multicultural population. Research on ethnoracial differences in PTSD has had mixed results and additional research exploring possible contributing factors is needed to better explain observed differences. This study explored the presence of and contributing factors to clinician bias in the diagnoses of PTSD based on race and context. It examined whether clinicians were more likely to diagnose PTSD in a Black or White man due to …

Wearable Assistive Technologies For Autism: Opportunities And Challenges, Emma Mansouri Benssassi, Juan-Carlos Gomez, Louanne E. Boyd, Gillian R. Hayes, Juan Ye

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Autism is a lifelong developmental condition that affects how people perceive the world and interact with others. Challenges with typical social engagement, common in the autism experience, can have a significant negative impact on the quality of life of individuals and families living with autism. Recent advances in sensing, intelligent, and interactive technologies can enable new forms of assistive and augmentative technologies to support social interactions. However, researchers have not yet demonstrated effectiveness of these technologies in long-term real-world use. This article presents an overview of the social and sensory challenges of autism, which offer great opportunities and challenges for …

What We Have Heard And Know, David Carscaddon, Laura Carscaddon

Journal of Counseling and Psychology

The following was the commencement address given at the May 12, 2018 afternoon graduation ceremony at Gardner-Webb University. Following a discussion on the essence of what a university is, the address focused on the purpose of obtaining a university education and its relationship to the university motto, Pro Deo et Humanitate.

Changes In Depression And Positive Mental Health Among Youth In A Healthy Relationships Program, Natalia Lapshina, Claire Crooks, Amanda Kerry

Journal Articles

Mental health promotion programming in schools and community settings is an important part of a comprehensive mental health strategy. The goal of this study was to identify and explore meaningful classes of youth based on their pre- and post-intervention depression symptoms scores with 722 youth involved in a 15-week healthy relationships and mental health promotion program. We utilized latent class growth analysis to identify depression class trajectories, controlling for group clustering effects. A three-class solution identified high decreasing, moderate stable, and low stable trajectories. Gender, age, and reported experience of bullying victimization predicted trajectory class membership. The low stable class …

Cross-Cutting Mechanisms That Contribute To Developing Anxiety-Related Alcohol Use Problems Among College Students, Vincenzo Roma

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Drinking behaviors among college students have become problematic as evidenced by 20% of students who endorse five or more problems associated with alcohol use. Alcohol use problems are associated with numerous anxiety problems and can begin as early as young adolescence. The period for risk of developing emotional problems peaks during the transition to college. Despite the relationship between anxiety and alcohol use problems, little is known about the cross-cutting mechanisms that explain their relationship and comorbidity. Researchers have proposed affective (i.e. anxiety sensitivity and distress tolerance) and alcohol-specific motivations (i.e. expectancies, valuations, peer influence, and drinking motives) as vulnerabilities …

Examining The Relationship Between Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms And Posttraumatic Growth: Pathways To Thriving In The Face Of Adversity, David Strasshofer

Dissertations

Research has largely focused on the negative physical and psychological consequences of trauma exposure. In contrast, posttraumatic growth is a relatively recent addition to our understanding of people’s response to life’s struggles. Posttraumatic growth (PTG) is conceptualized as positive changes in a person’s life following a cognitive struggle in the aftermath of trauma. However, PTG research is a relatively nascent line of empirical inquiry and there are several major unanswered questions about the construct and its utility. Part of this is due to conflicting findings related to the relationship between PTG and psychological distress and adaptive significance. The current study …

Development And Validation Of The Exercise Appearance Motivations Scale, Leah S. Boepple

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Exercise rooted in changing one’s appearance is associated with increased disordered eating and body image pathology. There are a limited number of scales assessing appearance-based exercise, and those that do are methodologically flawed. The aim of the current work was to develop a psychometrically sound measure of appearance-based exercise (Exercise Appearance Motivations Scale (EAMS)). Female undergraduate students (N = 650) completed an online survey designed to assess the EAMS’ psychometric properties. Factor analysis and hierarchical regressions were used for measure development and validation. Five factors of the EAMS were identified through factor analysis: muscularity, appearance, societal pressures, shape/weight, and avoidance/shame. …

Will The Trump-Kim Meeting Go Nuclear? The Role Of First Impressions, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

How might the upcoming meeting of U.S. President Donald Trump and D.R.N.K Kim Jong-un be affected by their first impressions of each other? This article describes some findings and implications of relevant psychological research.

Children With Adha Or Anxiety Disorders: Are Common Or Specific Variables Associated With Decreased Performance On Intelligence Indices?, Franziska Noacklesage

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Although overall psychopathology has been linked to lower intellectual functioning, research has yet to investigate whether one or multiple specific underlying symptom clusters significantly correlate with working memory (WM) and processing speed (PS) deficits. The current study investigated these relationships as they apply to Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and anxiety disorders. As such, one goal of this study was to investigate the extent to which common and specific symptom clusters would predict ADHD and anxiety diagnoses compared to a control group when PS and WM were partialled out. A further goal was to determine if one could differentially predict ADHD from …

Assessing The Experience Of Awe: Validating The Situational Awe Scale, William L. Krenzer

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Awe is an overwhelming feeling of admiration sometimes mixed with wonder or fear. Inspired by a cross-disciplinary review of perspectives on awe, we constructed a new measure that would reflect all of these perspectives. In this dissertation, I introduce the Situational Awe Scale (SAS) and report a set of studies designed to validate the measure. An exploratory factor analysis in Study 1 suggested a four-factor structure (i.e., liberation/connection, oppression/isolation, chills, and small-self/vast-world); the study also provided initial evidence of the measure’s convergent and criterion validity. Study 2 provided evidence for the structural validity of the SAS, by confirming the factor …

Toward Pay Equity: A Motivational Intervention To Reduce Gender Differences In Salary Negotiations, Mary Margaret Keegin

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

A persistent wage gap exists between women and men in the United States (Catalyst, 2015; Hegewisch, Ellis, & Hartmann, 2015). Although the reasons behind the wage gap are extremely complex, one of the methods through which pay equity may be reached could involve altering the way people approach their goals at the bargaining table, especially since women tend to underperform relative to men in salary negotiations (Mazei, Hüffmeier, Freund, Stuhlmacher, Bilke, & Hertel, 2015). Salary negotiations represent a critical piece of the pay equity puzzle, particularly when individuals are starting their careers. If equally qualified men and women begin their …

Police Officer Perspectives On Public Views Of Police, Current Events Involving Police, And The Impact On Police-Community Relationships, Donjae Catanzariti

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The media has presented current tensions between police officers and the communities they serve, particularly the Black community. These tensions have led to calls for reforms in law enforcement and the criminal justice system. However, there has been little focus on the police perspective. Thus, this study sought to address the gaps in the literature by shedding light on the perspective of police officers through the following research question: a) How do police officers perceive the public’s view of them? b) How do police officers’ think the public’s view of them impacts the relationship between police officers and the communities …

Impact Of Maternal Depression On Offspring, Fatima Sozzer

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Depression can go beyond influencing the livelihood of a woman, Mothers with depression often have difficulty paying attention to their children, and can fail to establish a bond with them (Delaney, 2017). The current study looked for a relation between children’s internalizing symptoms and their mothers’ depressive symptoms, and whether or not strength of the mother-child bond mediates that relation. Significant effects of maternal depression were found on child’s internalizing symptoms. Barron and Kenny’s four step method to establishing mediation was used (Barron & Kenny, 1983; Mackinnon et al., 2007). Based on Barron and Kenny’s criterion for establishing mediation, mediation …