Psychology Commons^™

Impacts Of Diabetes Stigma On Acute Healthcare Engagement Among Adults With Type 2 Diabetes, Kate Camillo

Honors Theses

Introduction: Individuals frequently experience public and self-stigma stemming from type 2 diabetes. Prior studies have linked stigma with higher levels of poorer diabetes outcomes such as greater disease-related distress and worse glycemic control. However, few if any studies have examined the association between diabetes-related stigma and healthcare utilization. This gap in the literature is critically important given the importance of proactive disease management and preventive care as well the high costs of acute service use in this population. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between type 2 diabetes stigma, patient activation, and acute medical …

The Relationship Between The Contrast Avoidance Model And Dysfunctions Of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Whitney S. Shepherd

Honors Theses

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) features excessive worry, with additional symptoms including sleep disturbances, muscle tension, concentration issues, fatigue, and irritability (APA, 2013). The Contrast Avoidance Model (CAM) posits that those with GAD maintain worry to avoid emotional shifts by engaging in contrast avoidance (CA) tendencies (Newman & Llera, 2011). Additionally, chronic worry is associated with dysfunctional outcomes of GAD such as sleep difficulties and quality of life (QoL; Henning et al., 2007; Smith et al., 2000). Although both CA tendencies and these dysfunctional outcomes of GAD have shown to be related to worry, CA tendencies have yet to be explored …

Supporting Teachers With Psychologically Diverse Populations, Morgan Wilkie

Honors Theses

While the issue of mental health management in education settings has been a focus for research for decades now, much of what is missing from these examinations is direct accounts from educators themselves on how they may be better supported as they navigate teaching psychologically diverse populations. In this study, 20 public-school teachers across the Oxford-Lafayette school district were surveyed through the use of semi-structured interviews in order to understand how they may be better equipped to manage psychological disorders in their classrooms. Each participant was asked the same prompt, and after the interviews were administered, their answers were then …

Stability And Flexibility In Psychotherapy Process Predict Outcome, Giulio De Felice, Alessandro Giuliani, David Pincus, Andrea Scozzari, Vincent Berardi, Leonhard Kratzer, Wolfgang Aichhorn, Helmut J. Schöller, Kathrin Viol, Günter Schiepek

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Ten good outcome and ten poor outcome psychotherapy cases were compared to investigate whether or not the temporal stability and flexibility of their process variables can predict their outcomes. Each participant was monitored daily using the Therapy Process Questionnaire (TPQ), which has 43 items and seven sub-scales, and responses over time were analyzed in terms of correlation robustness and correlation variability across the TPQ sub-scales. “Correlation robustness” and “correlation variability” are two basic characteristics of any correlation matrix: the first is calculated as the sum of the absolute values of Pearson correlation coefficients, the second as the standard deviation of …

Anxiety At The Beginning Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: Associations Between Health Anxiety, Covid-19 Anxiety, And Preventative Behaviors, Lauren Elmore

Honors Theses

Following the emergence of COVID-19, there was a significant increase in mental health issues (Shahyad & Mohammadi, 2020). Anxiety was of note (Salari et al., 2020), and preventative behaviors typical of health anxiety were prevalent. Health anxiety is the phenomenon of interpreting benign bodily sensations as symptoms of a more serious disease and is often accompanied with disproportionate thoughts of anxiety. Little work has examined the association between COVID-19 anxiety and health anxiety. The aims of this study were to: 1) characterize COVID-related anxiety symptoms, and 2) examine the bivariate associations of COVID-19 anxiety, health anxiety, and COVID-19 preventative behaviors …

Effects Of Music Exposure On Autobiographical Memory In Alzheimer's Patients: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Gregory Vance

Honors Theses

The progression of Alzheimer’s disease is primarily characterized by a loss of memory concerning past events, as well as a lack in ability to create new memories. While this spans across many subsets of memory, such as recognition, recall, and autobiographical memory, there seems to be a lesser impact on musical memory in those with Alzheimer’s. Multiple studies have suggested that exposure to music and introduction of music therapy can even improve other aspects of memory in Alzheimer’s patients. This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to examine the relationship between music exposure and autobiographical memory specifically. A pool of electronic …

Establishing A Generalized Qualifying Autoclitic Repertoire In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Todd M. Owen

Theses & Dissertations

Autoclitics are secondary verbal operants that are controlled by a feature of the conditions that evoke a primary verbal operant (e.g., tact, mand). Among the types described by Skinner, qualifying autoclitics extend, negate, or assert a speaker’s primary verbal response and modify the intensity or direction of the listener’s behavior. In the only study to date on teaching qualifying autoclitics, Howard and Rice (1988) established generalized autoclitics that indicated weak stimulus control (e.g., “like a [primary tact]”) with four typically developing preschool children. However, generalization to newly acquired tacts was limited. In Experiment 1, we extended Howard and Rice to …

Investigating The Effect Of Meaningful Relationships On Team Chemistry, Isabel N. Fairbanks

Honors Thesis

Team chemistry in sports is one of the more vital factors that potentially impacts the overall success of a team. There is increasing growth in the school of thought surrounding the use of team building in sports to develop the best teams built for success. Many programs exist in athletics and other environments that strive to promote strong team culture. This literature review examines the influence sports psychology has on the success of a sports team and current programs that exist in both the business environment and athletics, intending to improve team culture. Furthermore, the book containing the experiment on …

Psychological Trauma Alters T-Lymphocyte Inflammation And Redox Through Sympathetic Mechanisms, Safwan K. Elkhatib

Theses & Dissertations

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a devastating psychiatric disorder characterized by distinctive symptom clusters, including intrusive memories (i.e., flashbacks), avoidance of related stimuli, affective changes, and hyperarousal. Strikingly, patients with PTSD face a significantly increased risk for a number of inflammation-driven pathologies, ranging from cardiovascular to autoimmune disease. Yet, the exact etiology of this increased risk remains unknown. The immune system is known to be strongly influenced by the sympathetic nervous system, and sympathetic overactivity is a hallmark of PTSD. Lymphoid organs, such as the spleen, are richly innervated by sympathetic nerve fibers which terminate near adaptive immune …

Effect Of Instruction Language On English-Spanish Bilinguals' Speech Perception, Alexa Andrade

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Throughout the years, researchers have investigated the various advantages that may exist of being bilingual; however, it is unknown how switching between languages affects a person’s basic perception of speech sounds. The goal of this thesis was to determine whether Spanish-English bilinguals respond to auditory stimuli differently based on the language in which they receive task instructions. Participants were randomly assigned to receive instructions and complete the study entirely in English or Spanish, thus thinking in the language that they were assigned. In the study, participants listened to three different sets of recordings, which could be perceived as a word …

Jlootbox: An Agent-Based Model Of Social Influence And Gambling In Online Video Games, Lila Zayed

Honors Capstones

Loot boxes are digital treasure chests that players spend real money to purchase, wherein the contents are randomly generated. Since players spend money on the pretense they might receive something valuable, many comparisons have been drawn to gambling behavior as the reward is up to chance. To explore this phenomenon, agent-based modeling will be used to simulate this behavior. Agent-based modeling allows us to create heterogenous agents who follow simple rules so that we may observe emergent behavior in a population. An agent-based model was created using Repast Simphony for this end.

Parameters included the player’s internal decision strategy around …

A Meta-Analysis And Investigation Of Attention Bias For Facial Expressions Of Emotion, Joshua W. Maxwell

Psychology ETDs

The progression of affective science in the last few decades has brought with it a sub-field concerned with whether task-irrelevant facial expressions of emotion guide selective attention against our will. Such attentional bias is intuitively plausible, yet numerous recent studies were unable to observe it, motivating a meta-analysis (Chapter 2). Although the overall effect of 2.4 ms from 152 cases (g = .0823) was significantly greater than zero, its small size indicates a barely detectable phenomenon with no practical significance. A plausible explanation for this lack of attentional bias for emotional faces was tested in Chapter 3; even infrequently …

Effects Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Health Behaviors And Mental Health During Pregnancy: A Systematic Review, Kara C. Middleton

Honors College Theses

The Coronavirus pandemic had many negative impacts on healthcare. During the COVID-19 pandemic, specialist care providers closed their offices to reduce transmission. Maternal healthcare was severely impacted. Mothers were unable to receive the prenatal and perinatal care they needed. Other specialist care, such as mental healthcare was severely impacted as well. There was also a lack of prenatal care occurring due to offices being closed. There is an established link between anxiety, depression, emotional eating, and Gestational weight gain. Gestational Weight Gain is associated with a higher prevalence of behavioral health conditions that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Relationship Between Alexithymia, Callous Affect, Aggression, And Emerging Adulthood, Grace Sutz

Honors Theses

Emerging adulthood is a term used to define a time of development for college-aged (i.e. aged 18-29 years) individuals experiencing a period of identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling ‘in-between’, and a time of possibilities and optimism (Arnett, 2014). During emerging adulthood, it is common for young adults to experience elevated levels of psychopathic traits (Smits, et al. 2011). Psychopathic traits such as callous affect, impulsivity, and narcissism have been known to be a risk factor for aggressive behaviors (Marsee, et al. 2005). It was expected that higher levels of callous affect and Borderline Personality traits would be associated with higher …

Birth Order, College Major, And Social Behavior, Gianna D'Aconti

Honors Theses

There are many risk factors for antisocial behaviors. For example, birth order has been linked to personality traits, such as aggression and stubbornness (Fagan & Najman, 2003), and these personality traits have been identified as risk factors for antisocial behaviors, such as callousness (lack of empathy and emotionality) and psychopathy (personality traits associated with being a psychopath; e.g., Frick & White, 2008). These traits can be found in sibling interactions and are correlated with birth order (Odudu et. al, 2020), as well as with college majors when including Machiavellianism (Tang & Chen, 2008). Using Paul Frick’s work on studying callous …

The Association Between Parental Relationships And The Marital Views, Attitudes, And Relationships Of College Students, Emma Oswald

Honors Theses

Divorce is a prevalent issue in the United States, even though research suggests that a healthy marriage is beneficial to children’s development and well-being (Ribar, 2015). Children having divorced parents (Potter, 2010) and parents in unhappy marriages are associated with more difficulties with the psychological well-being of children (Bannon, et al. 2018). The goal of the present study was to determine whether parental divorce and relationship quality are associated with the marital views, attitudes, and relationships of college students. Participants were asked to complete a series of online survey scales measuring parental relationship status, age of parental divorce (if divorced), …

Investigation Into The Comorbidities Of Disordered Eating And Social Anxiety Disorder In College Students, Alice Mccraney

Honors Theses

In recent years, psychiatrists have reported a trend that individuals with social anxiety disorders are more likely to also have disordered eating and vice versa. Research into this connection has suggested that risk factors, such as stress reactivity, negative self- esteem, perfectionism and fear of negative evaluation are potential links. This is important because understanding the correlation between the two disorders could help develop better treatments plans for people who suffer from these disorders. This study investigates the relationship between the two. A total of 257 college students between ages 18-22 completed a questionnaire using the Disordered Eating Attitude Scale …

Attributions About Peer Victimization In Us And Korean Adolescents And Associations With Internalizing Problems, Joo Young Yang, Kristina L. Mcdonald, Sunmi Seo

Psychology Faculty Publications

Although there is cultural variability in how individuals make attributions for their own and others’ behaviors, cultural variation in youth’s attributions about peer victimization and their relation with internalizing problems has gone unexamined. To address this issue, adolescents from the U.S. (n = 292, 60% female, 79.5% White, Mage = 13.6, SD = 0.65) and Korea (n = 462, 50.2% female, Mage = 13.7, SD = 0.58) reported on their peer victimization, depressive symptoms, social anxiety, self-worth, and rated their attributions to vignettes about peer victimization. Multigroup confirmatory analyses found that Korean and American youth conceptualized …

Reflective Journaling Intervention To Impact Self-Awareness, Professional Health, And Overall Well-Being In Nurses, Brittany M. Langan, Katherine Keppen

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects: College of Nursing

Background. Burnout among nurses has been on the rise and was exacerbated with the pandemic. Reflective journaling after work may be a strategy to decrease feelings of burnout. Reflective journaling, as an intervention, has been shown to improve self-awareness, compassion fatigue, and burnout among nurses. The purpose of this study was to pilot a 4-week reflective journaling intervention in hospital-based nurses and describe participant professional quality of life, self-awareness, and overall well-being.

Theoretical Framework. The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) was chosen as the theoretical framework because it identifies the belief that performing a particular behavior will lead to a …

The Feasibility Of Remote Brief Mindfulness Training And Impact On Anxiety-Related Attention Bias, Hanna Culang

Theses and Dissertations

Brief mindfulness training (BMT) improves anxiety and the allocation of attentional resources. Whether BMT can remediate disruptions in attention associated with anxiety, such as anxiety-related attention bias (AB), remains unclear. This experimental study revealed that BMT significantly improved subjective state mindfulness and state anxiety, but did not influence AB.

Post-Traumatic Growth, Resilience, And Coping In Aya Cancer Survivors, Julia Piluk

Theses and Dissertations

Adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors experience psychosocial outcomes of cancer that may cause a positive or negative outlook. Qualitative data (N=26) was collected and analyzed for subthemes of post-traumatic growth, resilience, and coping methods. Results suggest that overall, AYA cancer survivors report a sense of hope for their future.

Patterns Of Diet And Physical Activity In Adolescent Cancer Survivors, Madison Fertig

Theses and Dissertations

Diet and physical activity have been shown to reduce the risk of obesity and related diseases in cancer survivors. Adolescents are at a unique developmental stage where they have more control over their own health behaviors, indicating an important time to develop and maintain healthy behaviors.

Long Live The Queer: Demystifying Noncitizenship In Uncle Frank And Pain And Glory, Andrew D. Manker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the ways in which a nation infantilizes its citizens, and how family dynamics internalize this infantilization. Queer family members and citizens are treated as threats to the family and by extension the nation because to live into queerness is to refuse the nations infantilization. Additionally, this thesis shows how queer people can cultivate a hopeful future for themselves and the family-as-extension-of-nation by radically redefining what citizenship looks like in a family and nation.

The Impact Of Fluorescent Light On Shelter Dog Behavior (Canis Lupus Familiaris), Kristiina J. Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

Fluorescent lighting is used in a wide variety of applications, however, the flicker that accompanies fluorescent light can be aversive. This thesis examines the impact of fluorescent lighting on the behavior of shelter dogs at New York City’s Animal Care and Control Centers.

Physical Activity As A Means Of Improving Quality Of Life In Individuals With Chronic Pain, Tracy Tauro

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Pharmacologic management of chronic pain has variable results, sometimes resorting to ineffective and dangerous opioids that can potentiate substance abuse in a vulnerable population.

Exercise is unique in its ability to positively impact both the molecular and psychological aspects of chronic pain. Its role in decreasing inflammation as well as improving mental health make it an excellent option for improving quality of life.

Physicians should work with their patients to develop a patient-centered exercise plan to manage chronic pain.

Sociopolitical Determinants Of Health In The Proposed Rezoning Of Richmond Hill/Ozone Park, Ny, Khemraj J. Persaud

Publications and Research

The community of Richmond Hill/Ozone Park, Queens, NY has been split into multiple zones and has needed rezoning for decades. The area consists of a range of people from different ethnic backgrounds, including Indo-Caribbean, South Asian, and Afro-Caribbean. Racial health disparities persist in this district, such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. I conducted research about how ongoing political issues in this community has been affecting the overall health of its residents and what is being done about it.

Our Stories, Katelyn S. Lopez

Publications and Research

This semester, we participated in the “Our Stories” qualitative research project that involves learning more about students' first year, and first-semester experiences at City Tech during pandemic times. As we organized and read students’ posts, we journaled and practiced reflexivity, a qualitative research process that helps us examine how we are interpreting the data that we are engaging with. T Reflexivity is a process in qualitative research involving frequent examination of one’s position in the project. These positions include one’s assumptions, feelings, and so forth. An essential question for qualitative researchers, according to Leavy (2011), is “Has the researcher engaged …

Online Dating During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Is It The New Norm?, Sara Henry, Emily Foster, Alexandra Kraft, Amanda N. Gesselman

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

For many who were single during the COVID-19 pandemic, this public health crisis may have led to issues with dating or finding a romantic partner. To understand the impact of the pandemic on dating life, in the present study, we examined single people’s dating app usage collected as part of The Kinsey Institute’s annual Singles in America project. Using a nationally representative sample of people who were currently single in the U.S. (N = 4,877 with an average age of 45.92), we found that the vast majority of single people (96%) were using dating apps (e.g., Tinder, Bumble, Match) during …

Understanding Work And Sleep Through A Machine Learning Approach, Jennifer Saucedo, Josh J. Prasad, Tori L. Crain

Student Research Symposium

The present study will utilize machine learning methods to find the individual factors (e.g, demographic, lifestyle, contextual, work-related) best predict sleep. I will examine (1) whether machine learning techniques better predict sleep over linear prediction methods and (2) what factors are most important when predicting sleep. Using government-funded data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a variety of prediction methods will be utilized to evaluate and compare predictive performance across 2018, 2019, and 2020. Results found will have a variety of theoretical and practical implications for scientists and practitioners.

Third-Wave, Mindfulness-Based Therapies As Treatments For Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Xander Kahle, Avery Waklatsi, Amy Pytlovany

Student Research Symposium

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a severe, difficult-to-treat neuropsychiatric condition that affects millions of people throughout the world. The current first-line psychotherapy for OCD is exposure and response prevention (ERP). ERP is effective but flawed, and researchers seek alternative OCD treatments. We examined two third-wave, mindfulness-based therapies (1) acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and (2) mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) as treatments for OCD. We expected ACT/MBCT to have (1a) significantly higher OCD symptom reduction rates, (1b) higher treatment response rates, and (1c) lower dropout rates than a control (progressive relaxation training/PRT), as well as (2a) equal/higher OCD symptom reduction rates, (2b) …