Counseling Psychology Commons^™

Health And Relationship Variables Impacting Psychological And Social Well-Being Among Predominantly White Middle Class Adults 65 And Older Who Receive Assistance With Their Care From Family Members, Alyssa C. Ford

Dissertations

The majority of care to persons 65 and older in the United States is provided by family members. Previous research among older adults who receive assistance with their care from family or friends, while sparse, has identified variables that appear to impact the well-being of such persons. These variables include reciprocity, dignity, self-perceived burden, mental health status, and physical health or disability status. However, these variables have not been studied together. The purpose of this dissertation research was to examine these variables individually and collectively as they relate to well-being.

A sample of 71 adults, ages 68 to 97, who …

Examining The Role Of Research Mentoring In Predicting Research Self-Efficacy Among Minority Professional Psychology Doctoral Students, Donald Edward Knight

Dissertations

The involvement of racial/ethnic minority doctoral students in the conduct of psychological research is of significance in meeting the mental health challenges of an increasingly diverse US population. However, scant empirical evidence exists regarding the mentored research experiences and resulting increases or decreases in confidence these students encounter in conducting research. The purpose of this study is to examine predictors [i.e., Research Mentoring Experiences (RME), perceptions of the Research Training Environment (RTE), and Interest in Research (IRQ)] of research self-efficacy among a sample of racial/ethnic minority PhD students in APA-accredited clinical and counseling psychology programs. The study is guided by …

An Exploration Of Therapists' Personal Experience Of Loss And Grief And Impact On Therapeutic Approach, Moonyeen P. O'Phelan

Dissertations

Themes of loss and grief resonate through life. That we sustain trauma and anguish and move through it at all becomes part of our life story, worthy of being acknowledged. Most often, it appears there is no clear-cut end or resolution to our loss. Moreover, there are too few trained individuals who are willing to “go the distance” in processing these weighty matters. The purpose of this study was to explore therapists’ personal experiences of loss and grief and how these events transformed their therapeutic approach in clinical practice. Using heuristic phenomenological methodology, qualitative research was conducted in which therapists …

The Organization Of Self-Knowledge And Race: Does Self-Concept Structure Impact The Responses Of Black Individuals To Stereotype Threat?, Aisha Denise Baker

Dissertations

Stereotype threat is defined as “the concern or worry that a person can feel when he or she is at risk of confirming or being seen to confirm a negative stereotype about his or her group” (Steele & Davies, 2003, p. 311). Stereotype threat has been examined in a variety of stereotyped groups, but the primary focus of this research has been Black individuals because they often encounter negative stereotypes about their race in the course of their daily lives. Some researchers have suggested that stereotype threat may partially explain the achievement gap between Black and White individuals (Steele & …

Regional Differences In Relational Aggression: The Role Of Culture, Katherine Amanda Czar

Dissertations

It is becoming increasingly clear that relational aggression has just as much potential to cause harm as overt verbal and physical aggression. Though the literature base on relational aggression is growing, far fewer studies have been conducted with late adolescents and adults as compared with children and early adolescents. Moreover, the role of culture in relational aggression has received limited attention. The current study aimed to examine the potential impact of one aspect of culture on relational aggression by focusing on North-South regional differences in the United States. Differing norms and expectations for social behavior between Northern and Southern U.S. …

The Relationship Between Suicide Ideation And Parasuicide: An Electrophysiological Investigation Using The Loudness Dependence Of Auditory Evoked Potential, Angelika Marsic

Dissertations

The loudness dependence of the auditory evoked potential (LDAEP) has been proposed as a promising valid and a non-invasive indicator of behaviorally relevant central 5-HT functioning. There is limited research on the utility of the LDAEP in discriminating individuals who engage in various degrees of suicidal behavior. The primary purpose of the present study was to examine if the LDAEP, as a measure of central serotonergic functioning, can be useful in distinguishing groups of individuals who: (a) solely experience suicidal ideation (SI group); (b) experience suicidal ideation and have engaged in deliberate self-harm acts (SH group); and (c) individuals with …

Does Psychopathy Predict Future Risky Sexual Behavior?, Jessica Jade Fulton

Dissertations

Risky sexual behavior (RSB), such as having sex with an unknown partner, is associated with a variety of negative consequences including sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy. Previous research (e.g., Fulton, Marcus, & Payne, 2010) suggests that psychopathic personality traits as assessed by the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996) are associated with RSB. Self-Centered Impulsivity (SCI), which is characterized by impulsivity, irresponsibility, and reckless behavior, was positively associated with RSB among men and women. In contrast, Fearless Dominance (FD), which is characterized by fearlessness, manipulativeness, and social dominance, was positively associated with RSB among men but not women. …

School Counselors' Activities In Predominantly African American Urban Schools, Lacretia T. Dye

Dissertations

Urban school reform has begun to penetrate the school counseling profession in both theory and practice. The American School Counseling Association’s National Model (ASCA, 2005), as well as the Transforming School Counseling Initiatives component of the Education Trust (2007) are initiatives within the school profession promoted, in part, as responses to urban school reform. In particular, the ASCA National model is a “call to action” for school counselors to promote student success by closing the existing achievement gap whenever found between students of color, poor students, or underachieving students and their more advantaged peers (ASCA, 2005). However, little information is …

What Psychotherapists Have To Teach Us About Childhood Developmental Trauma: The Roles Of Attachment Orientation And Coping Strategy, Rebecca Klott

Dissertations

Psychotherapists have been found to have higher rates of childhood developmental trauma when compared to non-clinicians, yet they do not report more distress. The current study added to the literature regarding the experiences of psychotherapists and explored a theoretical model integrating attachment and coping as mediators for the relationship between childhood developmental trauma and psychological distress among psychotherapists.

A total of 130 masters' level psychologists participated in this study. These participants were asked to complete the following measures: The Child Abuse and Trauma Scale (Sanders& Becker-Lausen, 1995), the Ways of Coping-Revised (Folkman & Lazarus, 1985; Folkman, Lazarus, Denkel-Schetter, DeLongis, & …

First-Generation, African American Students' Experiences Of Persisting At A Predominantly White Liberal Arts College, Candy S. Mccorkle

Dissertations

Generational status of students is one of the variables that colleges and universities are starting to track and study in order to gain a better understanding of its impact on retention and persistence of students. This phenomenological study provides narrative from five first-generation, African American students who attend a predominantly White liberal arts college in the Midwest; their stories provide a snapshot of how they experienced college, made meaning of those experiences and the impact of these experiences and meaning-making on their motivation to persist in college. These five students participated in individual audio-taped interviews that were analyzed and coded. …

Predictors Of Counselor Self-Efficacy Among Master's Level Counselor Trainees: Impact Of Cohort Versus Non-Cohort Educational Programs, Regina Lynn Meyer

Dissertations

Self-efficacy, a central component of Bandura's social cognitive theory (SCT), is an important construct in the realm of therapist development and has been associated with client outcome. Researchers have found that some of the strongest predictors of counselor self-efficacy are level of experience, level of training, state anxiety, and trait anxiety. Missing from this body of literature, however, is an understanding of how the educational format of training (i.e., cohort versus non-cohort) impacts counselor self-efficacy. Because cohort membership has been associated with professional confidence and self-esteem, it was hypothesized that educational format would contribute significant variance to counselor self-efficacy scores. …

Social Justice, White Racial Identity, And Multicultural Competency Among White Master Level Trainees In Counselor Education And Counseling Psychology, Sara Rebecca Streufert

Dissertations

In recent years, scholars have become more vocal regarding counselors and counseling psychologists’ responsibilities to advance efforts for social change (Goodman et al., 2004; Speight & Vera, 2004; Vera & Speight, 2004). As a result, empirical investigations have started to evaluate variables that may contribute to trainees and mental health professionals’ desire to participate in social justice advocacy (Beer, 2008; Caldwell, 2008; Landreman et al., 2007; Nilsson & Schmidt, 2005). However, most of these studies do not focus on trainees and mental health professionals who identify as White. The present study used quantitative analyses to explore nine hypotheses regarding the …

Home-School Collaboration: Concurrent Home And School Reading Interventions Within A Response To Intervention System, Qi Zhou

Dissertations

The current study investigated the effectiveness of reading interventions in the form of home-school collaboration on increasing oral reading fluency in elementary students exhibiting reading fluency deficits. Specifically, student participants were receiving Tier II reading interventions at their school. Additionally, parents were trained to implement an individualized intervention identified by brief experimental analysis with each student at home. Home-school notes were used to facilitate support and communication between the home and school. Results demonstrated that three of four students’ oral reading fluency improved. Furthermore, parents rated the interventions as acceptable. Parent treatment integrity was found to be adequate.

In Their Own Words: The Lived Experiences Of Unemployed African American Men, Kenlana R. Ferguson

Dissertations

Due to staggering unemployment rates, African American men's experience with work in the U.S. has historically received widespread attention in the media and social science literature. Terms such as black male unemployment crisis, puzzle, epidemic and catastrophe have been used to describe the unemployment woes of black. Attempts at explaining why African American men are experiencing such difficulty in the world of work has been undertaken across the disciplines, however much of this work has amounted to nothing more than acknowledgement that isolating independent factors as causes does not suffice and that a more interdisciplinary framework is needed if we …

A Qualitative Exploration Of The Influence Of Racism On Identity Development For African American Adolescent Males, John Corey Steele

Dissertations

The life circumstances facing African American adolescent males are reported with a fair amount of frequency by numerous media outlets in our society. Reports generally communicate negative circumstances facing African American adolescent males in the educational, economic, social, and political arenas. These sorts of life experiences have the potential to have a tremendous impact on the lives and development, particularly identity developmental process of young African American men; however, few research efforts have been devoted to specifically exploring the identity development process of African American adolescent males. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the meaning of being …

An Exploratory Evaluation Of A Culturally Specific Model Of Psychological Well-Being For An African American Population, Kyle J. Telander

Dissertations

Research related to eudaimonic or psychological well-being (PWB) has relied heavily upon the Scales of Psychological Well-Being (SPWB), a rationally developed multidimensional measure intended to assess the extent to which individuals are achieving their optimal potential over the lifespan. However, questions remain regarding the proposed dimensional structure of the SPWB, as well as the extent to which the measure is situated within a specific, Eurocentric cultural context. This study sought to explore the factor structure of the 42-item version of the SPWB when combined with items measuring constructs relevant to African Americans, including communalism, spirituality/religiosity, and critical consciousness. Utilizing a …

A Qualitative Exploration Of African American Men's Attitudes Toward Marriage, Rabiatu Barrie

Dissertations

The decline in the rate of marriage in the African American community has been documented in both the empirical literature and pop culture. Initially researchers postulated that the upward mobility of African American women had diminished their to marry, but studies found opposing evidence to that theory and so the focus switched to African American men. Early studies about African American men and marriage indicated that the sex-ratio imbalance, the educational disparity between African American men and women that leads to economic frailty was the major cause of the disparity in marriage (James et al 1999, Davis, Emerson, & Williams, …

Protective Factors Against Intergenerational Conflict In Chinese Immigrant Families: A Pilot Study, Xiaoyan Fan

Dissertations

This pilot study examined some potential protective factors which may mitigate the effects of the acculturation gap on intergenerational conflict in 23 Chinese immigrant families. Adolescents and one of their immigrant parents completed questionnaires assessing their acculturation. Adolescents also completed family conflict and parent attachment measures. Parents provided information on the use of social support and the communication on the cultural differences between American culture and Chinese culture in the family by completing related measures. It was expected that acculturation gap would predict parent-child conflicts in immigrant families, and the relationships between acculturation gap and parent-child conflict would be moderated …

Intimate Partner Violence As A Risk Factor For Ptsd In Female Survivors Of Domestic Violence: A Meta-Analysis, Selena Tramayne

Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to conduct two meta-analyses investigating the relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptomatology in female survivors of domestic violence. The first meta-analysis investigated the relationship between physical violence and PTSD symptomatology while the second meta-analysis investigated the relationship between psychological abuse and PTSD symptomatology. A moderator variable, recruitment setting, was investigated to see whether recruitment setting changed the relationship between physical violence and PTSD symptomatology and/or the relationship between psychological abuse and PTSD symptomatology. For both meta-analyses, a medium to large effect size was found. Recruitment setting was not …

Social Cognitive Predictors For Undergraduate College Student's Choice Goals In Math And Science: Understanding The Role Of Coping Efficacy, Matthew David Abrams

Dissertations

This study examined the utility of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) in the prediction of undergraduate college student's math and science interests and choice goals. Coping efficacy and self-efficacy beliefs were assessed separately in order to better understand the relationships between supports, barriers, coping efficacy, and math/science self-efficacy within the SCCT model. Two-hundred and forty-six undergraduate college students completed measures of math and science-related supports, barriers, coping efficacy, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, and choice goals. A model specifying that barriers, but not supports, were directly related to math and science choice goals provided the best …

Women's Cognitive Appraisals Of Their Birth Experience As Predictive And Maintaining Factors Of Postpartum Posttraumatic Stress Symptom Severity, Lauren Carr Spooner

Dissertations

Empirical support has accumulated for evidence of posttraumatic stress symptoms following approximately 30% of childbirth experiences (Olde, van der Hart, Kleber, & van Son, 2006). Researchers have suggested that there is a complex relationship among predisposing, precipitating, and maintaining factors that impact postpartum PTSD (Slade, 2006). Anxiety, perception of support, and negative cognitions are such factors that have been shown to significantly correlate with PTSD symptoms (Foa & Rothbaum, 1998; Olde et al., 2006; Soet, Brack, & Dilorio, 2003), but have not been studied together in relation to PTSD associated with traumatic birth. The current study controlled for trait anxiety …

The Effects Of Facial Expression On Out-Group Discrimination, Charles Brendan Clark

Dissertations

The current paper sought to test the hypothesis that the facial expression of smiling would mitigate the effects of out-group discrimination. Study 1 examined the influence of facial expression (smiling or frowning), gender (man or woman), and race (Black or White) on resource allocation decisions. Participants were shown arrays of facial photographs. The arrays all contained eight photographs and were counterbalanced to contain all combinations of the variables of interest (i.e., each group had a smiling man of each race, a smiling woman of each race, a frowning man of each race, and a frowning woman of each race). The …

Students Of Indian Heritage And United States Citizen Students' Adaptation Of College, Opinions About Mental Illness And Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Counseling Help, Margaret Omotola Ajayi-Nabors

Dissertations

The present study replicated Baysden's (2002) multi-component model and tested its generalizability on a homogeneous demographic group. This study compared international college students from India (n 0 244) and U.S. student participants (n 0 393) on their adaptation to college, their opinions about mental illness, and their attitudes regarding their professional psychological help-seeking behavior. A structural regression model was utilized to examine if student origin influenced opinions about mental illness, student adaptation to college, and attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help. /// The findings of this project supported Baysden's (2002) multi-component model to understanding international students' use of counseling. More …

Implementation Of The 2009 Cacrep Standards Addiction Competencies, Tiffany K. Lee

Dissertations

Addiction issues have been and continue to be significant problems affecting the United States. Over the past few decades, substantial scholarly attention has been paid to the lack of addictions training in the counseling profession. The purposes of this mixed-method study were to examine the current status of addiction training among institutions that offer counselor education programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) and determine how institutions plan to integrate the addiction-related competencies outlined in the 2009 CACREP standards.

The quantitative data were obtained from a 15-item online survey completed by 74 CACREP …

A Qualitative Study Of The Lived Experiences Of Adults With African American And Korean Heritages, Elizabeth Sue Bradshaw

Dissertations

Scholarship on biracial persons has been primarily focused on those of African American and White heritages. The dominance of research on this one segment of the biracial population has in turn led to the myth of a universal biracial experience. There is a critical need to hear the voices and experiences of those who are members of two or more communities of color. While many researchers have recommended that more studies be done with biracial participants from two or more communities of color, few studies have been conducted. The purpose of this study was to explore exclusively the lived experiences …

Evaluating The Impact Of Small-Group Discussion On Learning In Anorganizational Psychology Class Utilizing A Classroom Response System, Thorhallur Orn Flosason

Dissertations

A classroom response system is a technology that allows individual students to clickers favorably. The second study showed that clicker use during lecture was associated with higher exam scores, but that relationship can be interpreted in several different ways, some of which are not tied to active responding. The implications of these findings with respect to previous research are discussed. provide answers to questions posed by the instructor during lecture using hand held remotes (clickers) that transmit a signal to the instructor's computer via a receiver and computer software (Judson & Sawada, 2002). This instructional technology is widely used in …

The Influence Of A Personal Practice Of Meditation On One’S Therapeutic Practice, William W. Fitzgerald

Dissertations

The focus of this study was to examine counseling professionals’ personal experience with meditation and how it influences their clinical work, including the formation of a therapeutic relationship. Using phenomenological methods, data were gathered from 10 psychotherapists and then analyzed.

There has been a great deal of effort devoted to investigating what contributes to positive counseling outcome for clients. One constant in the therapeutic process is the person of the therapist. While the person of the therapist is frequently mentioned in the literature, much less attention has been given to the examination of personal development paths of the therapist. Little …

Factors Related To The Racial Socialization Of Asian American Children, Kimberly Langrehr

Dissertations

Within the last decade, research on racial awareness, ethnic identity, and racial socialization strategies among transracially adoptive parents' has increased, reflecting the unique racial, cultural, and family dynamics among American families. The purpose of this study is to expand upon this literature, exploring the racial makeup of adoptive parents' interpersonal relationships and how this relates to racial awareness and racial socialization practices of children adopted from Asian countries. Given that this study specifically focuses on parents' of children adopted from Asian countries, this study will also look at adoptive parents' knowledge concerning the racial reality faced by Asian Americans in …

Characteristics Of Advocates: An Exploration Of Skills And Skill Development Used In The Performance Of Advocacy Work In The Mental Health Profession, Lydia R. Wiede

Dissertations

This dissertation sought to explore the skills necessary to become an effective advocate in the mental health profession. Additionally, this study sought to discover how and where mental health professionals learned the necessary skills to be advocates. This qualitative study examined the factors identified by individuals actively engaged in advocacy work.

Comparing First Generation And Non-First Generation African-American Students At Predominately White Institutions, Leatrice Renee Brooks

Dissertations

The comparative experiences of first generation and non-first generation Black students at predominately White institutions were examined to gain information about the predictors and relationships between adjustment (including academic and personal-emotional) coping (4 styles), race-related stress, and racial identity development (6 levels). Results from a simultaneous multiple regression revealed a significant positive adjustment profile that included being non-first generation, low disengagement coping, problem-oriented coping, and low pre-encounter self-hatred racial identity development. The standardized coefficients for the first canonical analyses indicated significant relationships between pre-encounter self-hatred and low personal-emotional adjustment; and for the second, low disengagement coping and personal-emotional adjustment. For …