Community Psychology Commons^™

Healing Historical-Intergenerational Trauma And Colonial Soul Wounds With Ancestral Healing Practices And Psychosocial Limpias: An Ofrenda For The Salvadoran Community, Joanna D. Beltrán Girón

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1992, the United States-backed Salvadoran military and the leftist guerrillas signed the Chapultepec Peace Accords, which put an end to a 12-year war in El Salvador that resulted in 75,000 deaths, 12,000 forced disappearances, and half a million internal displacements. Around 85% of the reports made by survivors of the war attributed the violence to state agents, paramilitary groups, and death squads.While taking into account this history of state violence, this dissertation is interested in the psychosocial aftermath of the war and in how survivors integrate healing practices in their lives in response to the painful memories their bodies …

Reimagining Safety And Justice: Experiences Of And Resistance To Police Sexual Violence In New York City, Priscilla Bustamante

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the era following both Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, police sexual violence (PSV) currently constitutes the second most commonly reported police complaint after excessive force. Police across the U.S. are caught for some form of sexual misconduct once every five days, with on-duty officers found to commit sexual assaults at more than double the rate of the general population. The gendered and racialized perpetration of sexual violence extends far beyond policing; however, it has been intensified within the masculine, militarized carceral structures designed to legally control and punish.

Accordingly, this dissertation utilizes an interdisciplinary, multi-method approach to offer what …

Relational Spirituality And Maternal Coping In Carceral Contexts: A Participatory Action Study Of Meaning-Making And Mental Health Among Formerly Incarcerated Mothers, Jessica Peters

Dissertations and Theses

Maternal incarceration carries significant psychological, familial, and community consequences, yet limited research centers the mental health experiences of mothers themselves. This study explored how religious and spiritual engagement shape mental health and coping among formerly incarcerated mothers using a participatory action research framework. Guided by this, small groups and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 mothers in collaboration with a community-based organization. This approach prioritized lived experience and aimed to reduce barriers to participation among a population often mistrustful of research institutions. Data were analyzed thematically to identify patterns in psychological distress, coping strategies, and meaning-making. Findings revealed pervasive and …

Receptions Of Mental Health Emergency Services In New York City, Daniel R. Samost

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mental health emergency response has become a highly scrutinized topic following the Black Lives Matter movement and several notable incidents of mental health emergency service users being killed by police responders. Qualitative interviews were conducted with mental health emergency service users to better understand the experience of using mental health emergency services, garner critical feedback of the service, and explore recommendations to improve future response. A total of 23 participants conducted interviews and detailed 40 incidents of mental health emergency service utilization. These interviews were then coded and analyzed. There were a few major findings from the data. Just over …

Psy 321 The Psychology Of Immigration And Acculturation Syllabus, Marjorine Henriquez-Castillo

Open Educational Resources

This course is all about understanding how immigration (moving to a new country) and acculturation (adapting to a different culture) shape who we are. Together, we’ll explore the history, theories, policies, and research surrounding these processes, focusing on how they influence the physical and mental development of individuals and communities in the U.S. By the end of the course, you’ll have a deeper understanding of how these experiences impact both you and the world around you.

Beauty Comes With A Price: But How Much Is It Worth It, Fabliha Afia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The global skincare market, valued at 104.24 billion dollars in the year 2022, is very heterogeneous, ranging from prestige brands to more drugstore types. Even when the same key ingredients are present, the latter often sells for much higher due to branding and packaging and the aura of prestige created. This capstone project entitled "Beauty comes with a price: but how much is it worth?" investigates if such higher costs are justified due to superior quality or are driven by non-functional factors. It systematically compared the high-end versus drugstore skincare products in categories like sunscreens, serums, and exfoliants with respect …

Predictors Of Mental Health Clinic Staff Self-Efficacy In Recognizing And Responding To Suicide Risk, Hannah Ritz

Theses and Dissertations

Staff self-efficacy is critical to suicide prevention, yet its predictors within Zero Suicide initiatives are not well understood. Among 1,038 CCBHC staff, perceived organizational support, response-focused training, and lower suicide myth endorsement most strongly predicted self-efficacy. Clinical role and prior experiences contributed modestly, highlighting multilevel influences on workforce readiness.

Ai And Positionality:A Guide For Learning Communities, Emese Ilyés

Open Educational Resources

This practical guide helps educators thoughtfully integrate AI tools while preserving what matters most—student voice and agency. Drawing on research with students navigating AI in higher education, it offers concrete activities and frameworks that position technology as an assistant rather than a replacement for authentic expression. Through adaptable classroom strategies and qualitative approaches, educators across disciplines will discover how to create learning environments where students recognize the value of their unique perspectives in an age of artificial intelligence.

Identifying Intangible And Biocultural Heritage Elements Toward Environmental Understanding: Engaging Stakeholders Through Art, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Grounded in a case study in Barbuda in the Caribbean, this research examines sustainability from the perspective of what arts and heritage can contribute to community engagement and local and broader understandings about the environment. This article documents a growing body of literature recognizing the role of arts and culture, including local knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), in climate change endeavors. Art and TEK present expansive world views. Contextual information situates research done on the island of Barbuda pre- and post-Hurricane Irma. Visual arts workshops engaged community members in mixed methods research. Results documented cultural elements, particularly intangible and …

Measurement Invariance Of The Pandemic Anxiety Inventory In Different Demographic Groups, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Tasmyn Prytherch, Mark Cropley, Jay Verkuilen, Renzo Bianchi

Publications and Research

Background The Pandemic Anxiety Inventory (PAI) was developed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its content allows it to assess anxiety in connection to any pandemic. Previous research has demonstrated the instrument’s reliability and validity. An important question for clinicians and researchers, however, remains open: Does the PAI have similar meaning for members of different demographic groups? The finding of measurement invariance would allow clinicians and researchers to comparatively assess pandemic-related anxiety across demographic groups, including favored and disfavored groups.

Methods We conducted a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis to assess the measurement invariance of the PAI using data obtained …

Teacher Beliefs And Experiences Addressing Healthy Racial And Ethnic Identity Instructionally Through Social Emotional Learning, Juliana Gutierrez

Theses and Dissertations

Children and youth develop within an ecological context that includes family, peers, and broader social environments including school. Children’s understanding of their ethnic or racial group and the meaning they attribute to belonging in that group is also shaped by interactions in their school environment. Most research on school-based social-emotional learning (SEL) programs has focused on student behavioral and academic outcomes. However, as SEL spreads across U.S. K-12 schools, questions have emerged surrounding how children from diverse racial and cultural groups and unequal opportunity can benefit from universal SEL programs. Using a mixed-methods design, this study explores teachers’ understanding and …

Differentially Unwell: On Mimi Khúc's "Dear Elia", Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

[...] Inviting readers to reclaim the stigma of unwellness and collectively to "tend to our unwellness, together," Khúc approaches unwellness as a crucial resource for subverting the "wellness and unwellness" dichotomy entirely. After all, the opposite of "wellness" is not "unwellness"; the opposite of "wellness" does not exist. The opposition itself is an artificial framework, one that reductively harms more than it dialogically helps. We need to move away from these simplistic dualisms, Khúc suggests, and towards more generous, trauma-informed epistemologies. [...]

A Validation Study Of The Occupational Depression Inventory In Poland And Ukraine, Krystyna Golonka, Karine O. Malysheva, Dominika Fortuna, Bożena Gulla, Serhii Lytvyn, Leon T. De Beer, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Renzo Bianchi

Publications and Research

This study examined the psychometric and structural properties of the Polish and Ukrainian versions of the Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI). We relied on two samples of Polish employees (NSample1 = 526, 47% female; NSample2 = 164, 64% female) and one sample of Ukrainian employees (NSample3 = 372, 73% female). In all samples, the ODI exhibited essential unidimensionality and high total-score reliability (e.g., McDonald’s omegas > 0.90). The homogeneity of the scale was strong (e.g., 0.59 ≤ scale-level Hs ≤ 0.68). The ODI’s total scores thus accurately ranked individuals on a latent occupational depression continuum. We found evidence of complete measurement invariance …

Artists, Activists, And Therapists Making Meaning Of Collective Violence In Lebanon: A Community-Engaged Participatory Research Study, Nawal Muradwij

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study collaborated with community-engaged artists, activists, and mental health workers living in Lebanon to explore the community narratives that exist around collective violence in Lebanon. With the support of a community advisory board, in-depth interviews, and focus groups were utilized to understand the associations that participants had with the construct of collective violence as it pertains to communities in Lebanon and their understanding of its impact on collective mental health. The sample of artists, activists, and mental health workers framed collective violence in Lebanon as intergenerational, perpetual, and institutionally and politically entrenched. Cultural concepts that described the impact of …

The Antagonistic Anatomy Of Anti-Shippers: A Thematic Analysis, Adrian A. Stone

Student Theses

Within the transformative fandom community is an ideologically-affiliated group known as anti-shippers, whose rhetoric contends that fictional interests are an indication of those held in reality. Anti-shippers focus solely on fictional material perceived to be sexual in nature and make frequent references to pedophilia. This rhetoric is used to justify harassment against individuals who do not share in their beliefs. As this population primarily operates on social media, this study was designed to conduct an exploratory investigation into themes gleaned from posts authored by anti-shippers on Twitter. Utilizing latent content analysis, a total of 187 posts from 222 unique users …

Permanent Shelter In The Empire City: Youth Experiencing Family Homelessness And Navigating The Homeless Industrial Complex With A Narrative Inquiry Approach, Henry O. Love

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many studies have examined unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness; however, a relative silence persists about the lives of youth and young adults (YYA) while in family homeless shelters. This study aims to fill the gap in the literature about the lives of youth residing in family shelters and to learn about successful transitions from adolescence to young adulthood while experiencing family homelessness. This transition interacts with various social collectives (family, peers, community), political institutions (municipal, state, and federal), and an overwhelming economic system (global racial capitalism). These complex perspectives are considered with a narrative activity-meaning system research design to understand the …

Tied Together, Eiko Nishida

Theses and Dissertations

The paper is about a site-specific installation that questions a viewer’s norms and perspectives, through the use of multilingual newspapers as a sculptural material.

Public Perceptions And Punishment Of Sex Offenders, Emily R. Ives

Student Theses

Previous research has examined negative public perceptions and attitudes towards sex offenders and, in turn, how sex offenders are punished. The present study aims to build on previous research by examining whether perceptions of sex offenders are impacted by the offender’s relationship to the victim, and how victim perpetrator relationship may impact sentencing. Survey data from n=119 participants was examined. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three relationship conditions (i.e., stranger, acquaintance, or spouse) which was manipulated within a mock article vignette describing a rape incident. Subsequently, participants completed questionaries regarding sentencing of the described perpetrator, as well …

Toward A New Approach To Job-Related Distress: A Three-Sample Study Of The Occupational Depression Inventory, Renzo Bianchi, James Sowden, Jay Verkuilen, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

The Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI) was recently developed to assess depressive symptoms that individuals specifically attribute to their work. One purpose of the ODI is to respond to limitations of current assessments of job-related distress, most notably, assessments relying on the burnout construct. In this study, we conducted a thorough examination of the psychometric and structural properties of the ODI using exploratory structural equation modelling bifactor analysis and Mokken scale analysis. The study involved three samples of employed individuals, recruited in France (N = 3454), Switzerland (N = 1971), and Australia (N = 1485). Results were consistent across the three …

Distress In The Workplace: Characterizing The Relationship Of Burnout Measures To The Occupational Depression Inventory, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Renzo Bianchi

Publications and Research

Burnout has been found to problematically overlap with depression. However, the generalizability of this finding remains disputed. This study examined burnout–depression overlap using the recently developed Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI) and two burnout measures, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI). The study involved two teacher samples employed in France (N = 1,450) and New Zealand (N = 492). We found the correlations of the ODI with (a) the MBI’s emotional exhaustion (EE) subscale and (b) the CBI to reach .80. An explanation of these high correlations based on content overlap in fatigue-related items was ruled …

The Intersection Of Religion And Mental Health Help-Seeking: Themes Within Youth Experiencing Early Psychosis, Breanna Nichols

Student Theses

Little research has examined the intersection of religion and mental health among predominantly conservative communities – where religion tends to weigh heavily. It is known from the literature that religion and spirituality play a role in influencing treatment pathways and views towards mental health. The primary aim of the present study was to explore via secondary thematic analysis, the intersection of religion and mental health within a conservative Midwestern community of youth who are receiving treatment for early psychosis, with a secondary look at family dynamics. Seven participant transcripts were analyzed from the Narrative Enhancement and Cognitive Therapy-Young Adult (NECT-YA) …

Psychology Of Addiction: Discussion & Essay Questions, Brent Maximin

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Burned-Out With Burnout? Insights From Historical Analysis, Renzo Bianchi, Katarzyna Wac, James Francis Sowden, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

Fierce debates surround the conceptualization and measurement of job-related distress in occupational health science. The use of burnout as an index of job-related distress, though commonplace, has increasingly been called into question. In this paper, we first highlight foundational problems that undermine the burnout construct and its legacy measure, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Next, we report on advances in research on job-related distress that depart from the use of the burnout construct. Tracing the genesis of the burnout construct, we observe that (a) burnout’s definition was preestablished rather than derived from a rigorous research process and (b) the MBI …

Investigating The Covid-19 Pandemic In Your Community, Tanzina Ahmed

Open Educational Resources

In this writing assignment, students will conduct research on statistics about COVID-19 in New York City and their embedded communities using free online databases from the New York City Department of Health (NYC DOH). For questions 1, 2, 3, and 4, students will conduct research on COVID-19 statistics within NYC and their specific neighborhood/community in New York City. In questions 5 and 6, students will analyze the data you have gathered while using your own knowledge of your community. A full set of instructions for accessing NYC DOH databases and a complete rubric for grading the assignment is included.

The Significance Of Sonic Branding To Strategically Stimulate Consumer Behavior: Content Analysis Of Four Interviews From Jeanna Isham’S “Sound In Marketing” Podcast, Ina Beilina

Student Theses and Dissertations

Purpose:
Sonic branding is not just about composing jingles like McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It.” Sonic branding is an industry that strategically designs a cohesive auditory component of a brand’s corporate identity. This paper examines the psychological impact of music and sound on consumer behavior reviewing studies from the past 40 years and investigates the significance of stimulating auditory perception by infusing sound in consumer experience in the modern 2020s.

Design/methodology/approach:
Qualitative content analysis of audio media was used to test two hypotheses. Four archival oral interview recordings from Jeanna Isham’s podcast “Sound in Marketing” featuring the sonic branding experts …

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 …

Occupational Depression In A Spanish-Speaking Sample: Associations With Cognitive Performance And Work-Life Characteristics, Bianchi Renzo, Guadalupe Manzano García, Maria Pilar Montanes, Emily A. Schonfeld, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

This 386-participant study investigated the structural and psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI). Exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis revealed that the ODI meets the requirements for essential unidimensionality. Measurement invariance held across our sample and the English- and French-speaking samples used in the ODI’s initial validation study. Mokken scale analysis indicated that (a) the scalability of the instrument was strong, (b) no violations of monotonicity or local independence were present, and (c) invariant item ordering was sufficiently accurate. The ODI’s reliability was optimal. The ODI exhibited both convergent validity and discriminant validity vis-à-vis …

Individual Factors Influencing Mental Illness Stigma In The New York City Metropolitan Area, Rachel M. Terrill

Student Theses

The study of individual factors influencing mental illness stigma among communities is not widely present in current mental health research. This study examined demographic variables that influence mental illness stigma. It also utilized the Attitudes Towards Mental Illness Scale, the Reported and Intended Behavior Scale, and the Mental Illness Microaggressions Scale – Perpetrator Version to determine the presence of mental illness stigma among individuals in various areas throughout the city of New York. Analysis found that higher levels of education predict fewer stigmatizing characteristics. Older respondents were found to have higher levels of stigma than younger respondents across all measures. …

From Burnout To Occupational Depression: Recent Developments In Research On Job-Related Distress And Occupational Health, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Renzo Bianchi

Publications and Research

Job-related distress has been a focal concern in occupational health science. Job-related distress has a well-documented health-damaging and life-threatening character, not to mention its economic cost. In this article, we review recent developments in research on job-related distress and examine ongoing changes in how job-related distress is conceptualized and assessed. By adopting an approach that is theoretically, empirically, and clinically informed, we demonstrate how the construct of burnout and its measures, long favored in research on job-related distress, have proved to be problematic. We underline a new recommendation for addressing job-related distress within the long-established framework of depression research. In …

Young People’S Perception Of Opportunities To Participate In Democratic Governance, Jennifer Nga Yu Tang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations General Assembly, 1989) accords all young people the right to be heard and make decisions on matters affecting them. Despite the fact the United States remains the only country in the world not to have ratified this document, a number of American cities have nevertheless begun to engage young people in community decision-making (e.g., in neighborhood associations or community boards). However, as of yet there are few actual opportunities for youth to participate fully in the governance of their cities. This study examined the perspectives of young people …