Psychology Commons^™

Contextualizing The Guilty Plea Experiences Of Individuals Charged With Sex Crimes, Conor Hogan

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Little research has been done on the guilty plea experiences of individuals charged with sex crimes. Persons convicted of sex crimes face unique legal and extralegal consequences, and often experience social stigma. I interviewed 60 males charged with sex crimes who have accepted a guilty plea on their decision making. I report contextual data of their guilty plea experiences, as well as their rationales for pleading guilty, including whether concerns over stigma and collateral consequences influenced their decision making. For most participants, primary rationales for pleading guilty were reduced time or charges, consistent with the most common reasons given by …

Affirming Care: Lessons From Minority Stress Model To Bolster Mental Health Outcomes For Lgbtq+ Youth In Primary Care, Kyrie Lampert

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Individuals in positions of power influence youth wellbeing, self-perception, and overall mental health. According to the minority stress model, individuals who hold marginalized identities, such as LGBTQ+ youth, face unique, chronic, and socially based additive stressors. Research shows that these additive stressors contribute to LGBTQ+ youth experiencing disproportionate rates of mental health concerns. Queer youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their non-queer identifying peers. Additive stressors that LGBTQ+ youth face include prejudiced events, stigma, decisions of concealment or disclosure, and internalized homophobia and transphobia. This paper will review and integrate research, utilizing the minority …

Parental Misattunement And The Production Of Shame Of Existing: How To Address The Shame Of Existing Through An Intersubjective Systems Approach, Tal Ginsburg

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Shame is at the root of many commonly encountered psychopathologies. Its development has often been attributed to early childhood emotional misattunement. In severe cases, individuals can develop an extreme form of shame called the “shame-of-existing”. This paper primarily intends to contribute to the limited research about the shame-of-existing, which includes psychoanalytic perspectives from 1950-1990s, and theoretical analysis in 2014. The concept of shame of existence will be explored through an in-depth case study analysis of a 31-year-old, heterosexual, cisgender, white male who presented to psychotherapy with low-self-worth, and shame in acknowledging his own emotions and needs. This client was treated …

An Intersubjective Approach To The Role Of Anger In Differentiation And The Development Of A Cohesive Self: A Case Study, Hannah Schriber

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

The anger-turned-inward theory of depression has been extensively explored in psychodynamic literature. Still, little has been written about how modern relational approaches work with anger to aid patients in developing a healthy self-concept. This paper will first focus on a literature review of anger in Self Psychology and Intersubjective Systems Theory. These theories view anger as the manifestation of asserting one’s self after narcissistic injury. This paper will explore the relationship between anger and depression with an intersubjective lens utilizing the case study of Martha. Here I conceptualize depression as an introjective defense against misattuned early relational experiences. I explore …

Adapting Grief And Bereavement-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For Chinese-Identifying Individuals In America: A Cultural Analysis, Ian Tsang

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Anti-Asian hate as well as shifting circumstances brought on by current events all around the world highlight the increased need for mental health support and services in an ever-growing Chinese population in the United States, particularly in regard to grief work. Additionally, Chinese Americans demonstrate a disproportionate and lower utilization of mental health services, especially in comparison to the general population in the country. This paper discusses the various factors contributing to this phenomenon before presenting recommendations for culturally adapting evidence-based approaches to grieving individuals in the target population. More specifically, a cultural analysis consisting of topics such as Chinese …

Perinatal Through 5-Years-Old Referral List, And Full Referral Flow Process For The Professional Psychology Clinic And Associated Clinics, Lauren V. Cruz

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Referrals are an important and underacknowledged component of ethical clinical practice. While clinical care is understandably the core focus for most organizations, effective and efficient referrals can aide in improving client outcomes through successful connections to services, effective use of conjunctive services, and increased trust in mental health and healthcare systems/providers. In addition, improvements in the referral process can serve to decrease undue burden on providers and organizations. This document aims to review the literature on the need for and use of referrals, as well as elements of successful referrals, to inform the development of a referral self-assessment and flow …

Paternal Perinatal Psychopathology And Stigma Related To Nicu Admission, Hudson Holland Jones

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Stigma or the belief that mental health difficulties stem from a personal weakness, moral failing, or poor choices and will subject one to shame, embarrassment, scrutiny, victimization, oppression, and ostracization is a reason people choose to avoid, not to obtain or fully engage in mental health treatments despite their demonstrated effectiveness (Corrigan, 2004;Vogel et al., 2006). Gender differences have been found in experiences of stigma; for example, men were found to self-stigmatize to justify avoiding counseling to a greater degree than women (Judd et al., 2008). As such, stigma has been identified as a gender-salient variable that serves as a …

Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy: Equity Through Contextual Frameworks, Emanuel Hermosillo

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Psychedelic assisted psychotherapy (PAP) is a psychotherapeutic modality in which the non-ordinary states of consciousness that result from the consumption of psychedelic medicines are utilized to facilitate therapeutic healing. A wide range of cultures have used a variety of these psychotropic substances as medicines since ancient times, and there has been a resurgence of interest in their beneficial properties across many disciplines including psychology. Given that there are extra dimensions of vulnerability in using these medicines therapeutically, increased attention needs to be given to diversity, equity, and inclusion across psychedelic research and clinical practices. This paper focuses on how internal …

The Virtues Of Telehealth In Conducting Systematic Desensitization, Daniel Katz

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

This paper overviews the current options available via telehealth technology to administer online exposure therapy and discusses the ways in which providers must familiarize themselves with online technologies to remotely provide psychotherapy services. The response to the COVID-19 Pandemic has elucidated the need for and merit of telehealth-delivered psychotherapy. Given the growing need for online psychotherapy, providers need to acquire new skills and adapt their intervention methodologies. The paper also looks at a particular type of behavioral intervention, exposure therapy, and discusses the theoretical basis of the intervention, as well as ways in which online services can accommodate this intervention …

Cognitive Assessment Of Latinx/E Bilinguals In The United States: A Fictitious Case Study, Vanessa Magro

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Despite a growing body of literature and best-practice guidelines and considerations, assessment providers working with Latinx/e populations are left with numerous questions about how to translate these ideas into practice. This paper is meant to begin to answer some of these questions for Spanish-speaking providers administering cognitive tests to bilingual Latinx/e clients in the United States. The basis for these answers is a comprehensive literature review and my experience providing culturally-responsive assessment services to a bilingual Latinx/e population in the United States. A fictitious case study is included so that providers can get a concrete idea of how to bring …

A Qualitative Analysis Of Treatment Providers’ Understanding And Assessment Of Trauma And Autism, Leah Hanson

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are particularly vulnerable to traumatic experiences and further development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Underlying traumatic stress is commonly missed and remained untreated in the autism population. In a previous pilot study, Hanson and Richards (2021) gathered providers’ understandings on trauma and autism The current study is a further, systemic content analysis on archival data from Hanson and Richard’s pilot study. Results from the current content analysis of the responses to Question 1 (How do you assess for trauma in your patients?) revealed that providers assess patients’ trauma primarily by interviewing caregiver and patients, …

The Role Of Suspect Development Practices In Eyewitness Identification Accuracy And Racial Disparities In Wrongful Conviction, Margaret Bull Kovera

Publications and Research

This article reviews the three previously studied categories of variables that are related to eyewitness identification accuracy: estimator (characteristics of the witnessing conditions), system (characteristics of the identification procedure that are under the control of the criminal legal system), and reflector (variables that reflect the likely accuracy of a witness). Although eyewitness scholars frequently turn to these variables and models of memory to explain why eyewitnesses make mistakes, none of these variables provides a reasonable explanation for the large racial disparities in wrongful convictions based on mistaken identifications, yet problematic policing practices might. The policies and practices guiding police efforts …

Potential Causes Of Racial Disparities In Wrongful Convictions Based On Mistaken Identifications: Own-Race Bias And Differences In Evidence-Based Suspicion., Jacqueline Katzman, Margaret Bull Kovera

Publications and Research

Objective: We explored whether racial disparities in evidence-based suspicion (i.e., evidence of guilt prior to placement in a lineup) provide a better explanation of racial disparities in exonerations based on eyewitness misidentification than the own-race bias in eyewitness identifications. Hypotheses: We predicted that the own-race bias in identification accuracy would be insufficiently large to fully explain the racial disparities in wrongful convictions in cases with mistaken identification. We also predicted that possible racial disparities in the prior probability of suspect guilt before subjecting suspects to the risk of misidentification might better explain racial disparities in wrongful convictions. Method …

An Examination Of Transitioning Meso-Institutions And Markets In The Landscape Of American Politics, Devin Thomas Marconi

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper bridges the gap in the literature between sociological accounts of market actors provided by Mark Granovetter and Douglas North, meso-institutional examinations of polarization provided by Paul Pierson and Eric Schickler, and the psychological exploration into cross-cutting identities provided by Liliana Mason. I argue that the nationalization and concentration of markets, identities, and politics have led to a transition within the meso-institution of the market from maintaining self-regulating punishment mechanisms to replacing them with self-reinforcing mechanisms, exacerbating affective polarization. Previous works explore the transition within the meso-institutions of the media, interest groups, and political parties. I include the market …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of The Behavioral Symptoms Associated With Trauma, Hannah Hall

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

The Influences Of Bias-Based Bullying And Teacher-Student Relationships On School Belonging, Charlotte J. Moss

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

School belonging is an important factor to examine when considering the well-being of school-aged children. Factors that may influence a student’s sense of school belonging include bias-based victimization and the quality of teacher-student relationships. Many studies have examined these three variables independently or have analyzed the interaction of two of these variables. However, there are very few studies that have specifically looked at the effects of bias-based victimization and the quality of teacher-student relationships on school belonging. In order to fill these gaps in the research, this study sampled participants using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online crowdsourcing platform that …

Does Behavioral Synchrony Extend To Robots? Children’S Sharing, Mentalizing, And Social Attributions To Synchronous Others, Sarah E. Sweezy

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Behavioral synchrony, or the act of keeping rhythm with others, has many implications on children’s interactions with others, from prosocial behaviors to feelings of affiliation with synchronous people. However, little is known about how behavioral synchrony applies to non-human entities. From robots leading movement-based learning in classrooms or being engaged in cultural settings, a new series of questions arise for how children view synchronizing with non-human others. The current study aimed to investigate how broadly synchronization effects would extend in a child sample: Are behavioral synchrony effects limited to synchronizing with humans or do they extend to social agents (e.g., …

Positive And Negative Contact As Predictors Of Attitudes Toward Law Enforcement, Benjamin Jackson Anjewierden

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Using intergroup contact theory (ICT), which posits that contact experiences with members of outgroups relate to attitudes toward those outgroups as a whole, the current study examines how positive and negative experiences with members of law enforcement predict general attitudes toward law enforcement. It specifically examines how attitudes toward individual members of law enforcement from contact experiences generalize to law enforcement as a whole, and how this generalization process is more or less effective when members of law enforcement are seen as more or less representative of law enforcement as a group (i.e., when law enforcement group membership is salient). …

Indigenous Women In Active Drug Abuse Recovery: An Analysis Of Native And Non-Native Programs, Raquel J. Muñoz

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In general, much has been written on the experiences of prototypical women in drug recovery programs, however there is only a scarcity of research on the experiences of rural women of color in drug recovery programs. Very few Northern American cultures had experience with alcohol before the first wave of European settlers. Responses to intergenerational trauma faced by Native women include substance abuse, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, suicidal thinking, and more. Due to socioeconomic disadvantages drug and alcohol abuse tends to be a coping mechanism for many Native American women. Drawing on the narratives of ten Indigenous women who are …

Prototypicality Threat And Intergroup Threat Theory: Support For Blm Using Militant Or Peaceful Language, Jordan C. Mcdowell

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Black Lives Matter (BLM) symbolizes the need to recognize the humanity of Black lives and the systemic discrimination contributing to the murders of unarmed Black Americans at the hands of police. While there were some white Americans who participated in the demonstrations during the summer of 2020, there was also significant opposition (Astor, 2020). . The current work seeks to contribute to existing social identity literature by examining how subtle racist rhetoric in the media, combined with a threat to the white American identity (prototypicality threat) may impact support for BLM. To address these hypotheses, white participants will be recruited …

Individual Differences In The Coordinated Behavioral And Physiological Immune Response To Pathogenic Threat, Edwin Joel Rosales-Vijil

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Previous research has shown that simply viewing a pathogenic threat (e.g., a photo of someone sneezing) can trigger our immune systems to activate. Activation of the immune system can be measured through a variety of physiological markers, including inflammatory cells (i.e., cytokines) in the blood or saliva. The current study aims to replicate that finding that viewing pathogen-relevant images will trigger an immune response, and extend this work by investigating whether individual differences in perceived vulnerability to disease impacts the size of this immune response.

Psycho-Spiritual Counselling To Enhance Resiliency As Transformative Education: An Auto/Ethnographic Inquiry Of The Interface Between Spirituality And Positive Psychology, Dominic Savio

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis attempts to capture my lived experiences of psychospiritual counselling and to describe how my research journey has shaped me personally and professionally. As a priest engaged in psychospiritual counselling internationally for nearly three decades in diverse settings, I attempt to seek further clarity and make sense of my rich experiences in this research. Therefore, I endeavoured to investigate if and how building resiliency through psychospiritual counselling can be comprehended as transformative education.

Experientially speaking, as a priest and psychospiritual counsellor, I recognised that people leaned on their moral vulnerabilities and were blinded to spirituality as a source of …

Right Hemispheric White Matter Hyperintensities Improve The Prediction Of Spatial Neglect Severity In Acute Stroke, Lisa Rohrig, Christoph Sperber, Leonardo Bonilha, Chris Rorden, Hans-Otto Karnath

Faculty Publications

White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are frequently observed in brain scans of elderly people. They are asso-ciated with an increased risk of stroke, cognitive decline, and dementia. However, it is unknown yet if measures of WMH provide information that improve the understanding of poststroke outcome compared to only state-of-the-art stereotaxic structural lesion data.We implemented high-dimensional machine learning models, based on support vector regression, to predict the severity of spatial neglect in 103 acute right hemispheric stroke patients.We found that (1) the additional information of right hemispheric or bilateral voxel-based topographic WMH extent indeed yielded a significant improvement in predicting acute neglect …

Central Americans At A Crossroads: Asylum Seekers’ Testimonios Of Mental Health After Detention And Family Separation, Corie E. Schwabenland Garcia

Master's Theses

Though Central American asylum seekers are presently hypervisible in the U.S. consciousness, this population continues to be inadequately understood or cared for. Discussion of this population often presents them as a helpless and damaged population, in need of saving, fixing, or shelter -- beyond their trauma, they cease to exist. This qualitative study utilizes first-person testimonio methodology to understand the psychological experiences of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the United States, the stressors they face, and the mental health support that can and should be provided to them. Their stories speak to a space of sociopolitical precarity in the …

Foreign Language Anxiety: A Review On Theories, Causes, Consequences And Implications For Educators, Padideh Fattahi Marnani, Sophie Cuocci

Journal of English Learner Education

Anxiety has been considered one of the main obstacles in second language learning in instruction-based contexts. During the last few decades, many scholars have tried to shed light on different aspects of this phenomenon. This literature review clarifies previous scholarly works and covers some of the most significant empirical studies conducted in this field. The purpose of this literature review is to review various aspects of foreign language anxiety, its corresponding theoretical frameworks and models, causes, consequences, gender differences, class modalities (face-to-face and online) and lastly, implications for educators. Foreign language anxiety is a significant barrier that hinders the learning …

Global Engineering Ethics: What? Why? How? And When?, Rockwell F. Clancy Iii, Qin Zhu

Journal of International Engineering Education

Even though engineering programs, accreditation bodies, and multinational corporations have become increasingly interested in introducing global dimensions into professional engineering practice, little work in the existing literature provides an overview of questions fundamental to global engineering ethics, such as what global engineering ethics is, why it should be taught, how it should be taught, and when it should be introduced. This paper describes the what, why, how, and when of global engineering ethics – a form adopted from a 1996 article by Charles Harris, Michael Davis, Michael Pritchard, and Michael Rabins, which has influenced the development of engineering ethics for …

Evaluating Growth Rates Of The Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea Virginica) And Water Quality For Oyster Restoration Sites At City Island, Bronx, Ny, Cody L. Jernigan

Theses and Dissertations

Oyster growth and water quality were monitored at four sites at City Island, Bronx, NY, to determine suitability for oyster reef restoration. Significant growth occurred at two sites and water quality was not indicated as a contributing factor. Oyster growth at all sites indicate appropriate conditions for oyster reef restoration.

Community Approaches To Veterans And Active-Duty Service Member Suicide Prevention Through Public Health Outreach: A Commentary, Joe Bohn, Tommy Childers, Christopher Baglivo

Florida Public Health Review

We discuss insights on a West Central Florida community-based Veterans suicide prevention effort- a series of Veterans coffee socials. Noted as a public health crisis which has been well documented, the article provides an overview of the importance of public health approaches and academic public health engagement at a local level to addressing suicide prevention at community levels. An active-duty service member’s perspective is provided that points to common pain points that that extend to the Veterans community with reintegration challenges. A community-based participatory research methodology has been applied which stressed the importance of community partners (e.g., public, private and …

Successful Treatment Of Myofascial Pain Syndrome (Mps) With Surgical Cauterization Of Temporalis Muscle Trigger Points: A Case Report, Craig Pearl, Brendan Moxley, Andrew Perry, Nagi Demian

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

For patients suffering from myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) affecting muscles of mastication, traditional trigger point therapy treatment regimens can prove inconvenient, due to the short duration of pain relief after each injection and expense of repeated visits which are often not covered by insurance. We present a case of a patient treated using an alternative technique that could develop into an additional modality for treating MPS patients who are refractory to conservative treatment. This technique involves identifying and marking the patient's trigger points and surgically cauterizing each location using a Bovie electrosurgical unit. While traditional trigger point injection therapy for …

Occupational Depression In Italy: Associations With Health, Economic, And Work-Life Characteristics, Renzo Bianchi, Caterina Fiorilli, Giacomo Angelini, Nicoletta Dozio, Carlo Palazzi, Gloria Palazzi, Benedetto Vitiello, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

Background: The Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI) reflects a new approach to job-related distress centered on work-attributed depressive symptoms. The instrument was developed with reference to the characterization of major depression found in the DSM-5. The ODI has been validated in English, French, and Spanish. This study (a) investigated the psychometric and structural properties of the ODI’s Italian version and (b) inquired into the nomological network of occupational depression. Methods: A convenience sample of 963 employed individuals was recruited in Italy (69.9% female; mean age = 40.433). We notably relied on exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis, common-practice …