Psychiatry and Psychology Commons^™

Investigating A Potential Relationship Between Sibling Gender Composition And Health Behavior Indicators In Young Adult And Adolescent Males, Taylor N. Goss

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The presence of siblings during childhood and adolescence has a significant impact on the behaviors and perceptions of adults later in life. Effects of mixed-gendered sibling dyads on delinquent behavior, gender typing, and romantic and sexual relationships are of interest. These behaviors can lead to notable health disparities, making it imperative to gain insight into factors associated with such behaviors in young adult and adolescent males. This project explored possible correlations between gender composition of siblings and health behavior indicators for violence, competition and risk, and sexual and romantic relationships. Analysis of these variables was performed using data from the …

Effects Of Music Therapy On Individuals With Dementia: An Intergrative Literature Review, Liani Sanchez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this integrative review was to examine the effects of music therapy, a complementary intervention, on individuals with dementia. Peer-reviewed journals were retrieved from MEDLINE, CINAHL, CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Music Index to evaluate their relevance to music therapy use in people diagnosed with dementia. English and Spanish-language research articles published from 2000-2017 were included for the review (n=15). The literature indicates the use of music therapy as an adjuvant therapy for the treatment of dementia in older adults may be beneficial in decreasing symptoms of aggression, anxiety, agitation and depression. …

The Mediation Of Perfectionism And Rumination On Mindfulness And Burnout In Collegiate Athletes, Nicholas S. Mcmillen

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Several positive and negative sport-related experiences can occur throughout an athlete’s career, which can affect the continuation or termination of said career. Although research has associated sport participation with positive outcomes (e.g., increases in motivation, autonomy), there are also negative sport-related outcomes such as burnout (Akhrem & Gazdowska, 2016; Garcia, 2015). Specifically, burnout has been identified as a multidimensional construct that includes three dimensions. Furthermore, mindfulness has been studied to minimize the risk of experiencing burnout (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). While several studies have examined mediators between mindfulness and burnout, there has been a dearth of research on perfectionism and rumination as …

The Relationship Between Resilience, Coping, And Social Media, Lillian N. Hurley

Masters Theses

This study was designed to explore relationships between measures of resilience, coping strategies, social media usage, and depression. Resilience refers to one's ability to endure and recover from adversity. Many theories about what contributes to the development resilience have been explored without a clear consensus. Taormina (2015) argued that adult personal resilience is comprised of four dimensions - determination, endurance, adapatability, and recuperability. Coping, a construct related to resilience, is the process of regulating emotions, cognition, behavior, physiological responses, and the environment in response to stressful events. Past research indicated those with poorer mental health have the tendency to use …

Molecular Brain Adaptations To Ethanol: Role Of Glycogen Synthase Kinase-3 Beta In The Transition To Excessive Consumption, Andrew D. Van Der Vaart

Theses and Dissertations

Alcoholism is a complex neuropsychiatric disease that is characterized by compulsive alcohol use and intensifying cravings and withdrawals, often culminating in physiologic dependency. Fundamental alterations in brain chemistry underlie the transition from initial ethanol exposure to repetitive excessive use. Key mediators of this adaptation include changes in gene expression and signal transduction. Here we investigated gene expression pathways in prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens following acute or chronic ethanol treatment, to identify genes with potentially conserved involvement in the long-term response of the corticolimbic system to repeated ethanol exposure. We investigated Gsk3b, which encodes glycogen synthase kinase 3-beta, as a …

Shared Genetic And Environmental Influences On Fear, Anxiety, Posttraumatic Stress, And Brain Morphometry, Chelsea Sawyers

Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety disorders (ADs) and stress-related disorders are some of the most common psychiatric disorders in the United States. Like other c0mplex psychiatric illness, genetics and neuroimaging research has focused on understanding their underlying neurobiology. Areas within the fear-network play important roles in threat perception, fear conditioning/learning, cognitive processing, and modulation of fear responses including contextual modulation and extinction and have been implicated in ADs as well as stress disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The primary gap in the current search for underlying biological mechanisms is in whether biomarkers associated with disorders share genetic influences with the disorders they …

A Comparison Of The Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning Test And The Wechsler Scales, Samantha Denhart

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The present study was designed to determine the correlation between a commonly used cognitive ability test (i.e., Wechsler) and a verbal memory test (i.e., Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning Test) by analyzing archival data from a clinical sample of adults. Many researchers have continued to establish the relationship between cognitive ability, or IQ, and learning and memory skills; however, there is little research regarding when differences between IQ and memory scores are statistically significant. Results of this study indicated 17 of 20 IQ index/memory correlations were statistically significant and a series of simple regressions generated standardized residuals. These residuals generated confidence bands …

The Unspoken Psychological Issues With Lesson Horses And How We Need To Address Them, Casey Clark

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Every day all over the world horses provide much needed therapy and treatment to people in need. They provide physical, emotional, and mental training and healing. Humans depend on them for so much and we have a moral and ethical obligation to be good stewards of our equine companions. This close proximity can take a toll on horses physically and psychologically even in the realm of experienced equine professionals. So many times though it is the small lesson facility that sees hundreds of people each year and makes a profound difference in people’s lives. This can be at a 4-H …

Machine Learning Based Classification Of Deep Brain Stimulation Outcomes In A Rat Model Of Binge Eating Using Ventral Striatal Oscillations, Wilder Doucette, Lucas Dwiel, Jared E. Boyce, Amanda A. Simon, Jibran Y. Khokhar, Alan I. Green

Dartmouth Scholarship

Neuromodulation-based interventions continue to be evaluated across an array of appetitive disorders but broader implementation of these approaches remains limited due to variable treatment outcomes. We hypothesize that individual variation in treatment outcomes may be linked to differences in the networks underlying these disorders. Here, Sprague-Dawley rats received deep brain stimulation separately within each nucleus accumbens (NAc) sub-region (core and shell) using a within-animal crossover design in a rat model of binge eating. Significant reductions in binge size were observed with stimulation of either target but with significant variation in effectiveness across individuals. When features of local field potentials (LFPs) …

Relationship Of Physical Health Risk Screenings In Seriously Mentally Ill With Self-Efficacy For Health, Perception Of Health Risk, And Intention To Follow-Up With Medical Care., Dawn (Vanruler) Bos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Morbidity and mortality occur at higher rates in those with serious mental illness (SMI) than those without SMI. These higher rates are worsening in degree, despite known preventative strategies, such as physical health risk screening (HRS). This study evaluates the relationship of physical HRS with self-efficacy for health prevention behaviors, perception of level of risk of health consequences, and intention to follow up with medical care for identified health risks. The study considers Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) factors related to HRS in individuals with SMI. A HRS tool was administered to 54 adult ambulatory clients from the Midwestern United States …

The Relationships Between Religiosity And Internalizing Symptoms In African American Parent-Adolescent Dyads, Alyssa L. Faro, Laura G. Mckee, Randi L. Garcia, Deborah J. Jones

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Objectives: African American (AA) adolescents face a greater risk of internalizing symptoms, including symptoms of both depression and anxiety, compared with other racial groups; yet, relatively less is known about the variables that contribute to internalizing symptoms. With the aim of advancing this work, this study examined factors that may buffer against such symptoms (maternal warmth, religiosity), as well as those that may confer additional risk (maternal psychopathology). Method: One hundred ninety-three AA single mothers and their adolescent youth reported on religiosity, maternal warmth and depressive symptoms, and youth internalizing symptoms. Dyadic structural equation modeling was used to examine the …

Psychometric Properties Of The Hoarding Rating Scale-Interview, David F. Tolin, Christina M. Gilliam, Elizabeth Davis, Kristen Springer, Hannah C. Levy, Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee, Michael C. Stevens

Psychology: Faculty Publications

The present study tested the psychometric properties of an expanded version of the Hoarding Rating Scale (HRS-I), a semistructured interview for hoarding disorder (HD). Eighty-seven adults with HD and 44 healthy control (HC) participants were assessed using the HRS-I and completed a battery of self-report measures of HD severity, negative affect, and functional impairment. All interviews were audio recorded. From the HD participants, 21 were randomly selected for inter-rater reliability (IRR) analysis and 11 for test-retest reliability (TRR) analysis. The HRS-I showed excellent internal consistency (α = 0.87). IRR and TRR in the HD sample were good (intra-class coefficients = …

“A Threat On The Ground”: The Consequences Of Witnessing Stereotype-Confirming Ingroup Members In Interracial Interactions, Valerie Jones Taylor, Randi L. Garcia, J. Nicole Shelton, Caitlyn Yantis

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Objectives: Three studies explored interpersonal consequences of engaging in interracial interactions after witnessing racial ingroup members’ stereotypical behavior.

Method: Study 1 used experience-sampling methodology to assess ethnic minority students’ (n = 119) intergroup anxiety, metastereotypes, and anticipatory behaviors following one of three types of interpersonal interactions: (a) a White person and a racial ingroup member who had behaved stereotypically, (b) a White person and a nonstereotypical ingroup member, or (c) neither. Studies 2 (n = 273) and 3 (n = 379) experimentally examined whether witnessing an ingroup member’s stereotypically negative behavior in interracial interactions, compared to stereotypically positive (Study 2) …

Occupational Health Psychology, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

Occupational health psychology (OHP) is a cross-disciplinary subspecialty within psychology. OHP derives from two disciplines within applied psychology, health psychology and industrial/organizational psychology. OHP is also linked to disciplines outside of psychology, such as occupational medicine and public health. The discipline has roots in eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century thinkers, including Adam Smith, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber. These thinkers were concerned with the impact of the organization of work and the business cycle on human life. Later research by Elton Mayo, Marie Jahoda, Walter B. Cannon, Hans Selye, and investigators at the University of Michigan’s …

The Impact Of Stroop Interference And The Simon Effect On Implicit Association Test Performance, Christopher Koch, Elizabeth Meaders

Faculty Publications - Psychology Department

The implicit association test (IAT) is a method used to examine associations individuals make between concepts and evaluations (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). The typical finding with the IAT is that RTs are faster when the concepts and evaluations share the same response key. While the IAT has been used to examine a variety of associations, factors influencing these associations are still under consideration. For instance, Klauer et al. (2010) examined aspects of cognitive control in the IAT. They included measures related to switching mental sets, inhibition of responses, and working memory capacity. They found that switching between mental sets was …

Differential Effects In Bimodal Directional Stroop Interference, Christopher Koch

Faculty Publications - Psychology Department

The directional Stroop task (e.g., Cannon, 1998) creates interference between a directional word and a directional cue, such as an arrow. This study was conducted to replicate directional Stroop interference using bimodal stimulus pairs and then to determine whether or not interference occurs when the word is replaced with a sound. In Experiment 1, an arrow, pointing up or down, was paired with a directional word (UP or DOWN). Subjects were faster responding to the direction of the arrow when the pairs were congruent compared to incongruent indicating interference. In Experiment 2, the visual word was replaced with a voice. …

Examining The Instability Of The Necker Cube, Christopher Koch

Faculty Publications - Psychology Department

Temporal processing is an important dimension influencing the rate at which bistable images change (Wemery et al., 2015; Atmanspacher and Filk, 2013). This study was conducted to determine if space is another contributing factor to the perception of bistable images. Subjects were shown three versions of the Necker cube including a cube and two prisms with the length of one side either 1.5 or 2 times the length of the cube. Results show that increasing the length of one side increases the stability of the image. A similar result was found with illusory images

Cognitive Differences From Preseason To End Of Season Among Youth And College Football Players, Christopher Koch, Sean Robertson

Faculty Publications - Psychology Department

Coronado et al. (2015) estimated that 329,290 children, aged 19 years and younger, were treated for sports and recreation injuries, including concussion, in emergency rooms during 2012. Further, they found that the number of concussions within this age group doubled since 2001. Many states now have laws regarding concussion education and testing for youth to high school level sports. While diagnosed concussions are important to evaluate, contact below the level necessary for concussion seems to accumulate over the course of a season (e.g., Abbas et al., 2015). This study examined sub-concussive hits and changes in neurocognitive assessment within a single …

Resilience Concepts In Psychiatry Demonstrated With Bipolar Disorder, David G. Angeler, Craig R. Allen, Maj-Liz Persson

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Background: The term resilience describes stress–response patterns of subjects across scientific disciplines. In ecology, advances have been made to clearly distinguish resilience definitions based on underlying mechanistic assumptions. Engineering resilience (rebound) is used for describing the ability of subjects to recover from adverse conditions (disturbances), and is the rate of recovery. In contrast, the ecological resilience definition considers a systemic change: when complex systems (including humans) respond to disturbances by reorganizing into a new regime (stable state) where structural and functional aspects have fundamentally changed relative to the prior regime. In this context, resilience is an emergent property of complex …

Explaining Homegrown Western Jihadists: The Importance Of Western Foreign Policy, Clark R. Mccauley

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

In both the United States and Europe, explanations of homegrown radicalization emphasize the power of Salafi-jihadist ideology and Muslim experiences of discrimination and socioeconomic deprivation in Western countries. Polls of U.S. and European Muslims, and case histories of jihadist plots for attacks in the United States, indicate that another source of homegrown radicalization is Western foreign policy, especially Western interventions in predominantly Muslim countries. Poll results support a two-factor model in which seeing the war on terrorism as a war on Islam is predicted by both perceived discrimination and grievance related to Western foreign policy. Consistent with this model, UK …