Health Psychology Commons^™

Music As A Coping Mechanism: Clinical Implications Of How College Students Utilize Music To Cope With Anxiety, Depression, And Daily Stressors, Karly Pikel

Senior Theses

Many college students face stress, anxiety, and/or depression in their daily lives which they cope with in their own ways. Listening to music or playing an instrument are particularly powerful forms of coping that can have a plethora of positive effects on an individual. The purpose of this study was to conduct a survey amongst the University of South Carolina student body to determine how they utilize music to cope in their daily lives. Of 847 respondents, almost all of them reported experiencing some extent of anxiety and/or stress and listening to music to help them cope. Respondents agreed that …

Identifying Youth Appeals In Alcohol Alternative Social Media Content Through Framing, Melina Oneal

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Proposed regulations for alcohol advertising prevent beverage companies from targeting people under the legal drinking age. However, similar regulations for alcohol alternative beverages are less explored, which could allow alcohol alternative products to create awareness for alcoholic beverages among youth. Alcohol alternatives beverages, including no-alcohol and low-alcohol products, are increasing in popularity and can function as compliments to alcoholic products to decrease the total alcohol volume consumed or as substitutes for alcoholic products. Framing theory can be operationalized through the Content Appealing to Youth Index, an index of content elements found in research literature to be appealing to youth, to …

Justifying Antipathy?: Examining Racialized Perceptions Of Incarceration And Support For Mental Healthcare In Prisons, Jared Brassil

Honors Theses

The current U.S. criminal justice system has a disproportionate number of people suffering from mental illness. Additionally, many of these prisons not only lack the ability to properly treat these individuals, but in some cases may even worsen the problem. Public support, and importantly whom the public thinks the prototypical prisoner is, is important to know when advocating for reform. This research aims to investigate whether or not racialized perceptions of the U.S. criminal justice system impact support for mental healthcare reform in prisons. Given the exploratory nature of this work, potentially relevant individual difference variables are also investigated. An …

On The Importance Of Perceived Interpersonal Safety: Antecedents And Consequences Of Living A Subjectively Safe Life, Stylianos Syropoulos

Doctoral Dissertations

The need to be and feel safe is a fundamental human need. Despite extensive theoretical arguments on the subject, and research on relevant concepts, empirical work on what it means to feel interpersonally safe (i.e., in the presence of others or in social environments in general) is scarce. This dissertation presents four investigations that seek to address this gap. It also seeks to highlight the consequences of feeling interpersonally safe for our mental and physical health, and to what degree healthy and high-quality close relationships influence how safe we feel. Chapter 1 is a literature review summarizing theories underlying these …

Enhancing The Quality Of Life For Senior Citizens: A Facilitator’S Guidebook For Mindful Music And Movement, Shannon Sexton

Mindfulness Studies Theses

Music appreciation and enjoyment enhance well-being throughout the lifespan. The challenges and constraints that people experience as they age can lead to lack of access to music, decreased physical activity, and fewer avenues for creative expression. Group music and movement interventions created for older populations offer opportunities for social connection and improved quality of life. Mindful practices add further benefit when combined with these interventions. Current available programs are scarce and most often do not encompass mixed modalities. In addition, the benefits of these programs do not show long-term sustainability. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the effects …

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 …

Taking Health-Risks As A Short-Term Mating Strategy, Alvin Jun Jie Wong

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Diseases pose a recurring, and often indiscriminate threat to the health of individuals. However, there exists a wide range of behavioral responses between individuals when it comes to taking health precautions or undertaking risks in response to this perennial threat, with some responses seeming maladaptive to an individual’s survival. The present study adopts the lens of evolutionary psychology and suggests that taking health risks represent a short-term mating strategy in men, which potentially trades survival for reproductive fitness. Taking health risks is hypothesized to be an honest signal of both good genes and a strong physiological immune system, both of …

Testing Barriers To Non-Suicidal Self-Injury With College Students: Narcissistic Traits As Moderators, Philip Stoner

Dissertations

Research on non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) has produced mixed findings, resulting in a lack of clarity regarding these behaviors (Klonsky & Meuhlenkamp, 2007). To address this, Hooley and Franklin (2018) developed the Benefits and Barriers Model (BBM) to provide a comprehensive understanding of NSSI, in which they identified the barriers that commonly prevent people from engaging in these behaviors (e.g., self-esteem, shame, and peer-bonding motivations/social norms). They also identified adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) as a distal predictor of NSSI, which aids people in overcoming the barriers to engaging in these behaviors. Recent NSSI literature has shown that college women in the …

The Impacts Of Learning 2 Breathe On Rumination, Adessa Flack

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

The present study examined the impact of Learning2Breathe (L2B), a mindfulness-based stress reduction program developed for use with adolescents on rumination. The program was applied to rumination in college-age men and women. Our experiment utilized a quasi-experimental design. The sample consisted of 50 undergraduate students that were placed in either the experimental or control group. Data was collected pretest and posttest through a variety of measures including the Rumination Reflection Questionnaire (RRQ) which consisted of a rumination and reflection subscale, and the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS). A two-way mixed ANOVA design was used to analyze data. There was no …

Rock, Rap, And Rage: Which Genre Elicits Negative Emotional Contagion, Sarah Vinson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Previous studies have analyzed the effects of the heavy metal and rap music genres, both together and separately, to study the music’s influence on aggressive behavior. A lack of studies analyzing the effect of one group against the other are available to assess which group it is that elicits higher negative emotional contagion. The current study is a follow-up to a pilot study conducted to assess whether it was heavy metal or rap music that elicited higher negative emotional contagion. Personality type using the 10-Item Big Five Inventory and the Trait Anger Scale allowed the researcher to compare several personality …

Exploring The Role(S) Of Trait Emotional Intelligence & Personality In Help-Seeking Behaviour Among Undergraduate Students, Nikola Cuvalo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Trait emotional intelligence (EI) and the Big Five personality factors represent promising constructs in the individual differences literature that have been investigated in relation to help-seeking behaviour. This quantitative work explores the relationship between individual differences in trait EI, personality, and attitudes toward – as well as future intentions to engage in – help-seeking behaviour among undergraduate students at Western University. Stepwise regression modelling was used to determine which dimensions of personality and trait EI best predicted help-seeking outcomes and whether attitudes toward help-seeking predicted intentions to seek help from university-provided mental health sources. Resultsindicated that several individual facets of …

Reiki For Recovery: Incorporating Japanese Health Practices To Increase Contemporary Resiliency In American Health, Leif Peterson

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Japanese health practice of Reiki attempts to maximize the latent ability of the human system to heal itself. The Reiki system, established over a century ago, combines multiple Asian health traditions, experimenting with practices that maximize the natural processes of the body to perform its own repairs. Reiki encourages healthy behaviors that balance the mind and body, return the human system to a lowered stress level, and allow for an optimal recovery state for the patient. This paper illustrates how this Japanese health-affirming method can be integrated and utilized within existing health and medical practices. An area that is …

Effects Of Sleep On Intrusive Symptoms And Emotional Reactivity In A Laboratory-Based Film Analog Study, Anna Marie Thi Thanh Nguyen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by four symptom clusters. Recently, research highlights the need to focus on the impact of intrusive symptoms as a possible risk factor for the development and maintenance of PTSD. Cognitive and sleep models contribute to further understanding of intrusive symptoms. Recent work also highlights disgust as an emotion closely associated with the emergence of posttraumatic stress symptomology following traumatic events. This study used a film eliciting disgust in order to examine the effects of sleep on the intensity of intrusion symptoms and emotion reactivity. The sample consisted of 49 college students randomly assigned to …

The Mediating Role Of Self-Blame In The Relationship Between Alcohol Intoxication, Bystander Intervention And Ptsd Symptoms Following A Sexual Assault, Hannah Sawyer

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Introduction: Sexual assault (SA) incidents are common. One in five women will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime (NSVRC, 2015); some will experience Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because of SA experiences (Resnick et al., 1993). Further, approximately two-thirds of all cases of sexual assault involve consumption of alcohol by the victim, perpetrator, or both (Testa & Livingston, 2009). Previous research has been dedicated to delineating cognitive and situational factors surrounding SA occurrences that contribute to risk for developing PTSD (Jaffe et al., 2013; Peter-Hagene & Ullman, 2018). Peter-Hagene and Ullman (2018) found that SA survivors that engage in more self-blame …

Message Reframing & Covid-19 Safety Precautions, Elise Coberly

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Past research found that the personality aspect Orderliness was more strongly associated with conservatism, while Compassion was more strongly associated with liberalism. The present research aimed to examine whether framing COVID-19 safety precautions (about mask wearing, social distancing, and vaccination) with an Orderliness or Compassion focus would make the message more receptive to liberals and conservatives. We hypothesized that reframing the messages to match with the participants’ personality and ideological leanings would lead to greater support for the message. In our study (N = 679), participants read a COVID-19 safety precaution message with either an Orderliness or Compassion frame …

The Experiences Of Iraqi Refugees In Canada: A Life History Study Of War And Resilience In The Aftermath Of Migration, Nada Nessan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis reports on a life history narrative on the experiences of Iraqi refugees who resettled in Canada after living through war. The aim of this study is to help change the narrow perspectives on the mental health of war affected populations to a broader perception shaped by cultural and social aspects and to inform the development of meaningful and cultural relevant programs and policies with a particular attention to the concept of resilience.

The first part of the study presents the chronological narratives, or profiles. of eight participants. The second part of the study is a thematic discussion of …

Quehacer Del Trabajo Social En El Campo De Salud Mental En Bogotá, Angie Paola Vargas Gualdron, Valentina Cabrera Pérez, Alejandra Valentina Velandia Diaz

Trabajo Social

La presente investigación tiene como objetivo caracterizar el quehacer del trabajo social en el campo de la salud mental en la ciudad de Bogotá, desde allí, aportar a la construcción de conocimiento. Lo anterior comprendiendo que este es un campo poco documentado en el que cada vez hay mayor participación de la profesión - disciplina. Es importante mencionar que el país ha tenido avances significativos en la comprensión y abordaje de la salud mental, lo que se da a partir de la Ley 1616 de 2013 y la reciente Política Nacional de Salud Mental.

Teniendo en cuenta lo anterior, se …

Empowering Nurses Of Minority In The Face Of Incivility And Bullying: Through The Lens Of Phenomenology, Corrine Floyd

Dissertations

Abstract

Up to 85% of nurses have reported exposure to incivility in the workplace (Hunt & Marini, 2012). The often-subtle nature of incivility toward nurses in a minority population may partially explain why it remains a problem. Healthcare organizations realize the need for civility to counter the high turnover rate, staff shortages, and low job satisfaction reported by nurses, but lack understanding of how nurses of a minority population perceive incivility and bullying. This study aimed to answer the research question how do nurses with minority representation experience incivility and bullying versus empowerment in the workplace? A descriptive phenomenological design …

Student Beliefs About What Factors Influence Their Gpa, Emma R. Denelsbeck

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

There are many different factors that contribute to grade point averages (GPAs) in college. Students may attribute their academic performance and GPAs to any number of different variables such as stress levels, sleep quality and alcohol use. The current study investigated what students believed had an effect on their GPA, and if these differed based on concussion history. This study examined if students thought that concussions affected their GPA. Participants were University students who completed an online survey consisting of the Texas Evaluation of Concussion History (TECH), and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). The results of a Mann-Whitney …

Art And The Pursuit Of Happiness: How Artists Use Art To Promote Their Emotional Well-Being, August Namuth, Bruce Chase

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Artists have used art’s positive mental and physical health effects for as long as art has been around. Art is known to have many therapeutic and mood benefiting effects, from reduced anxiety and stress levels, to increased confidence and a sense of purpose. Many different clinical studies have found art to be beneficial to people who have suffered from PTSD, bipolar disorder, strokes, and cancer pain. Despite the clearly beneficial effects of creativity associated with art, artists suffer from disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia at a much higher rate than the general population. This study sought to …

Maladaptive Personality Traits And Health Behaviors, Health Perceptions, And Inflammatory Biomarkers In Older Adults, Joshua R. Oltmanns

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Traits from dimensional models of normal-range personality have been shown to predict physical health outcomes including health behaviors, health perceptions, disease, and mortality. Maladaptive traits of personality disorders may predict even more variance in physical health indicators. Dimensional models of maladaptive personality traits are replacing categorical models of personality disorder, and the five-factor model of personality disorder (FFMPD) has been shown to be a useful dimensional model of maladaptive traits. However, there has been little work investigating the criterion validity of the FFMPD for predicting physical health indicators. The present study examines FFMPD scales in the prediction of health behaviors, …

The Relationship Between Social Media Engagement And Psychological Well-Being In College Students At The University Of New Hampshire, Emily G. D'Antonio

Honors Theses and Capstones

Social media use has increased substantially in recent years, and for the college-aged population, social media is often the leading method of communication. Research indicates this reliance on digital connection could have a negative impact on the health of young adults (Bagroy et al., 2017). The college years are a time of personal growth and defining actions, yet can also be burdened by mental health issues related to stress, anxiety, and depression (Hunt & Eisenberg, 2010). Acknowledging these trends, the current study explores how college students’ specific frequency and intentionality while interacting on social media relates to their psychological well-being. …

Differential Identification Of Hyperacusis And Misophonia: Implications Of Discrete Decreased Sound Tolerance (Dst) Condition Subtypes, Rachel E. Wallace

Theses and Dissertations

Hyperacusis and misophonia are two conditions of decreased sound tolerance (DST) studied in the psychological literature due to their association with psychological symptoms and mechanisms. DSTs are differentiated from normal sound sensitivity due to the reported impairment and distress individuals experience. Researchers suggest that DSTs are differentiated by types of sounds and emotional reactions elicited, such that hyperacusis is a fear and pain response to ordinary environmental sounds perceived as uncomfortably loud, and misophonia is an anger and disgust response to human-made sounds, but these distinctions, and associated characteristics, have not been empirically demonstrated. Undergraduate students (N = 1572) …

Empowering The Plus Size Body Using Dance As Therapy, Ashley Sampson

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

In Western society, having the “ideal” body image and size is a societal issue. It is advertised throughout media outlets that the “ideal” body is what should be desired, and any other body type is “abnormal”. This capstone thesis focused on the effectiveness of dance as therapy and changing the perspectives of all body types, to support and empower all bodies including plus-sized bodies. The use of individual interviews, in an open dialogue model, with a select few members (3) of Soul thru Sole, including the CEO of the dance company; which focuses on empowering women no matter their age, …

An Initial Development Of A Hardiness Scale For Elementary School Students, Stephen Ferrara

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

There are limited studies that have investigated levels of hardiness in children. There is even less information on finding hardiness scales that have been normed on children in elementary school. The purpose of this study was to test the validity and reliability of the Hardiness Scale for Children (HSC), which assesses the three subscales of hardiness: Challenge, Control, and Commitment. 121 elementary school students (2^nd-5^th grade) were selected to complete the HSC. Their parents were also asked to complete a three-item scale to measure their child’s hardiness. The results indicated that older children tended to give themselves …

Painting Intimacy: Art-Based Research Of Intimacy, Michal Lev

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This art-based research explores whether — and, if so, how — the process of painting, together with witnessing and reflection on the process and imagery, further an understanding of intimacy. The research also examines the conditions that favor intimacy, the obstacles to intimacy, and the particular features of artistic media, processes and reflection, through the editing of video footage, that can further the intimate experience. The participants in the study were five adults (including the researcher) between the ages of thirty and eighty who were familiar with the creation of visual art. Among them were three women and two men …

Masculine Norms, Psychological Symptom Severity, And Intentions To Seek Formal Help In Male College Students, Zahra S. Shine

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Research has consistently found men to be less likely than women to seek help for mental health symptoms. Additionally, greater symptom severity is related to higher levels of help seeking, although this relationship is less clear among men. Greater conformity to masculine norms may help to explain the relationship between symptom severity and help seeking among men. The present study aimed to further research on men’s help-seeking by examining whether conformity to masculine norms would moderate the relationship between symptom severity and help-seeking intentions in male college students (N = 89). A multiple regression analysis was conducted with all …

Hardiness, Perseverative Cognition, Anxiety, And Health-Related Outcomes: A Case For And Against Psychological Hardiness, Christopher M. Kowalski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The present study investigates the utility of psychological hardiness as well as the differences between rumination and worry. Undergraduate students completed questionnaires assessing hardiness, worry, rumination, mindfulness, neuroticism, anxiety, somatization, coping, and health. Correlations and partial correlations controlling for neuroticism were examined. Hardiness was negatively correlated with neuroticism, rumination, worry, and anxiety and positively correlated with mindfulness, coping, and health. When neuroticism was statistically controlled, the relationships between hardiness and rumination, health, and coping became nonsignificant, and the relationships between hardiness and worry, mindfulness, and anxiety although attenuated, remained significant. Rumination and worry positively correlated, but when neuroticism was statistically …

Understanding Burnout In Undergraduate Students: The Role Of Social Media, Paige Walker

Brescia Psychology Undergraduate Honours Theses

This study investigated different factors relating to undergraduate burnout and whether social media could act as a protective factor. The study group was comprised of 66 female undergraduate psychology students at Brescia University College. Participants completed one questionnaire with seven subscales which measured the following variables: subjective well-being, student subjective well-being, personality traits, social support, stress, online support, and burnout. The participants were divided into three groups based on their burnout scores. The results of the ANOVA indicated that there were significant differences between the three burnout groups on: subjective well-being, student subjective well-being, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness, social support, and …

Schizotypy And Health Promotion: The Mediating Role Of Depressive Symptoms, Michael Rice

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: In general populations, schizotypy and depressive symptoms may be present at sub-clinical levels. Previous research has shown that schizotypy may negatively associate with underlying factors of health promotion. Furthermore, depressive symptoms have also been shown to negatively correlate with underlying factors of health promotion. Method: Undergraduate students and Mturk users were asked to complete an online questionnaire consisting of surveys measuring schizotypy, depressive symptoms and health promotion. Results: A meditation model showed a significant negative indirect effect of schizotypy through depressive symptoms on health promotion. Additionally, schizotypy positively predicted health promotion when depressive symptoms were controlled. …