Personality and Social Contexts Commons^™

Decidedly Uncertain, Sophia I. Varosy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My capstone project is meant to reflect the ideas I’ve been exposed to and the ways in which they have, as a consequence, influenced my life; the ways, I suppose, I can apply them. Over the course, or courses (literally), of my time spent at The CUNY Graduate Center, I felt (mostly) enthusiastic about the ideas and philosophies I was growing to at-least-marginally understand. However, as time passed I became increasingly more unsettled about my position as an “academic.” In other words, I found that I was moved and motivated to increase my understanding of things, but never did I …

Who Am I To You? Using Function Words As A Measure Of Transference, Jon William P. Lentz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a gap in our understanding of transference resolution as an aspect of therapeutic process and its relation to observable changes in language. My hypotheses can contribute to this area by identifying whether there are detectible changes in pronoun use in a psychoanalysis that are related to the resolution of transference. Data: The de-identified transcripts of a young agoraphobic housewife in a four time a week then two time a week psychoanalysis from the 1970s. Method: The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software will be used to measure structural changes in language that may reflect intrapsychic changes in the …

My Mother Needs Me! Is It Possible To Stay Connected While Being My Own Person? The Object Relations Of The Latina “Dutiful Daughter”, Juliana Martinez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Latinas are culturally expected to be “dutiful daughters” establishing strong attachments and adhering to the traditional values characterized by loyalty, cooperation, respect and interdependence within family members. Conventional Latina mother-daughter bonds, therefore, are expected to be exceptionally close. Healthy mother-daughter closeness can be a valuable source of support while closeness without differentiation from the mother may result in a lack of independence and poor interpersonal and personal growth. Mutuality of autonomy, a dimension of object relations (OR) theory, focuses on the progression of separation – individuation from developmentally normative fused representations in infancy to highly differentiated self-other representations as …

Cognitive And Affective Aspects Of Personality And Academic Procrastination: The Role Of Personal Agency, Flow, And Executive Function, Marc Graff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Academic procrastination is a prevalent issue that affects school-related and other experiences of many students, with some studies identifying as many as a third of college students sampled as‘severe’ procrastinators. This study investigated some of the factors previous studies have identified as potential contributors to procrastinating in the academic arena. In defining procrastination as a self-regulation issue, it is proposed that distinct executive function processes play a role in one’s efforts at academic task engagement and completion and resisting the tendency to procrastinate on these tasks. It is also proposed that the frequency with which one experiences ‘flow’, a state …

(Dis)Entangling Gender Expression And Race In Antigay Discrimination: An Intersectional Approach, Steph M. Anderson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Current psychological definitions and operationalizations of antigay discrimination conceptualize negative treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer (LGBQ) individuals as a response to their same-gender sexual orientations and not other factors. Because an individual’s sexual orientation is always understood through racialized hegemonic gender ideologies, however, attention to gender expression – how one “does” gender – and dynamics of race within antigay encounters is essential. Comprised of two mixed-method studies, this dissertation examines the role of gender expression and race in antigay discriminatory encounters from two perspectives: those who are targets of discrimination (i.e., cisgender and transgender LGBQ individuals) and those …

Boundaries And Belonging: Asian America, Psychology, And Psychoanalysis, Natalie C. Hung

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation addresses a vexing problem. In psychology and psychoanalysis, Asian Americans are more often understood as a collective Other than as individual Selves, more frequently an object of study than a subject. Through two overarching aims, my dissertation sheds light on neglected aspects of Asian American selves, the meanings of the invisibility surrounding them, and implications for clinical practice.

First, the project challenges extant psychological perspectives on Asian Americans, which often implicitly assume a wide gulf of difference between Asian American cultural values and the Western epistemologies of psychology and psychoanalysis. Through the examination of academic research, clinical literature, …

Beyond "Vectors Of Transmission" Through Commercial Sex: Exploring Models Of Sexual Risk Taking With Clients And Casual Partners Among Internet Based Male Sex Workers, David S. Bimbi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Male sex workers (MSWs) have often been portrayed as vectors of disease although most published studies have reported high rates of condom use with clients in this population. Regardless, social psychological models of sexual behavior that have been widely utilized to examine sexual risk taking in the gay and bisexual male community have not been applied to research with MSWs. Further, sexual behaviors with casual sex partners among MSWs has been absent in most reported research. More recently, the rise of barebacking (unprotected anal sex) in the gay male community has challenged assumptions that most gay and bisexual men want …