Psychiatry and Psychology Commons^™

The Adaptive Nature Of Impulsivity, Jeffrey R. Stevens, David W. Stephens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

An old joke circulates among animal behavior instructors. One can, the joke goes, divide the topics of animal behavior into four Fs: fighting, fleeing, feeding, and reproduction. This somewhat tired joke carries considerable truth. Animals behaving in nature surely must make decisions about conflicts, predator avoidance, feeding, and mating. Male crickets, for example, are notoriously combative. Studies have shown, however, that they escalate fights in some situations and retreat to fight another day in others (Beaugrand, 1997; Parker, 1974; Parker & Rubenstein, 1981). Squirrels, like many small animals, respond to the presence or absence of protective cover; for example, they …

Intertemporal Choice, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

A Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) flies to the top of a pine tree and selects one of the many cones. She twists and pecks at the stem until the cone breaks free from the branch and, with one foot, holds the cone in the crotch of a branch. She then repeatedly hammers her long bill in between the scales of the cone. After forcing out one of the seeds, she tips her head back a bit, clicks the seed in her bill a few times, and closes her bill. A few minutes later, the shredded cone drops to …

Rational Decision Making In Primates: The Bounded And The Ecological, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Primates constantly face decisions that influence their survival and reproduction. Continue foraging in this tree or move on to another? Expose oneself to a hidden predator by straying from the group or enjoy the safety of having other potential victims nearby? Defend one’s territory from invaders or abandon it and seek a new home? In all of these cases, primates must trade off the costs and benefits associated with uncertain and delayed decision outcomes. The outcomes of these choices influence survival and reproduction, and natural selection should favor those individuals whose choices lead to the propagation of their genes.

The …

Emotion Dysregulation And Risky Sexual Behavior In Revictimization, Terri L. Messman-Moore, Kate L. Walsh, David K. Dilillo

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Objective: The current study examined emotion dysregulation as a mechanism underlying risky sexual behavior and sexual revictimization among adult victims of child sexual abuse (CSA) and child physical abuse (CPA).

Methods: Participants were 752 college women. Victimization history, emotion dysregulation, and risky sexual behavior were assessed with anonymous, self-report surveys utilizing a cross-sectional design.

Results: Approximately 6.3% of participants reported CSA, 25.5% reported CPA, and 17.8% reported rape during adolescence or adulthood. CSA and CPA were associated with increased risk for adolescent/adult rape; 29.8% of CSA victims and 24.3% of CPA victims were revictimized. Path analytic models tested hypothesized relationships …

A Preliminary Study: Body Dysmorphic Disorder In Division I Women’S Collegiate Soccer Players, Tammy D. Jones

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The prevalence of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) among collegiate athletes has not been clearly determined. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder found in Division I women’s soccer players. The researcher hypothesized that there would be some symptoms found within the participants of sport and that there was a need to research this area further.

The study consisted of four participants who participated in semi-structured interviews. The subjects were asked a series of questions from the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale Modified for Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD-YBOCS) to determine if they indicated …

Using A Structured Decision Making Protocol To Stratify Caseloads In The Child Support Program, Steven J. Golightly

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Although structured decision making and risk assessment protocols have successfully been used in human service programs, little research has been done on their applicability in the child support program. In this study, problems identified with child support case management were examined, along with positive and negative attributes of various risk assessment tools utilized in other arenas. The overall research problem asserted that there are no structured decision making protocols in the child support program to support case assignment by enforcement difficulty. The primary research question asked whether or not a process stratified by risk and level of enforcement difficulty could …

A Phenomenological Inquiry Of Chronic Homeless Individuals' Challenges To Independence, Dewana Hall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Homelessness is a comprehensive social problem affecting approximately 744,000 people in the U.S. Despite consistent efforts from politicians, state and local leaders, and service providers, the number of homeless people continues to rise. Although there are some explanations in the literature to account for the increase of homelessness, the literature tends to not include the voices of the homeless themselves. The purpose of this phenomenological study, which used Maslow's hierarchy of needs as its conceptual framework, was to understand the life experiences of members of the homeless population, as perceived by four male residents of a mission in an eastern …

Illness Uncertainty, Ways Of Coping, And Psychological Adjustment Among 18--25-Year-Olds With Anaphylactic Food Allergy, Susan J. Cohen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The prevalence of food allergy is increasing, with adolescents and young adults being the group most likely to die from food-induced anaphylaxis. Behavioral and psychological factors contribute to this risk. This study investigated the relationship between illness uncertainty (as measured by the Mishel Uncertainty in Illness Scale Community Form) and emotion- and problem-focused coping (as measured by the Ways of Coping Scale), to see if they contributed to psychological adjustment (as measured by the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21) in this population. A cognitive diathesis-stress model was used to explain individual differences in adjustment. Multiple regression was used to test illness …

The Impact Of A Mental Health-Related Diagnosis On Readmission Rates For Heart Failure, Ronald S. Freudenberger Md, Carol A. Foltz Phd, Lou A. Lukas Md, Donna F. Petruccelli Crnp, Hannah D. Paxton Rn, Mph, Victoria Sabella Bsn

Department of Medicine

No abstract provided.

Functionality, Parsimony, Discovery, Avoiding Hamartia: How Evolutionary Perspectives Are Changing Psychology, Brooke N. Jenkins, Aaron T. Goetz

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Evolutionary psychology offers an important perspective to scientific psychology. Evolutionary psychology, in its short existence, has added an abundance of knowledge to the social sciences, let alone psychology. The study of human cognition and behavior remains incomplete without an evolutionary perspective. Here, we argue that evolutionary psychology uniquely provides a complete understanding of scientific psychology because it explains the functions of our psychological traits, provides us with the most parsimonious explanation of many psychological phenomena, predicts undocumented phenomena, and possibly allows us to avoid the downfalls of some of our contemptible evolved psychological mechanisms.

Effects Of Chlorpromazine On Feeding And Wheel Running On Rats With Acute Wheel Access, Graham Gregory Parfeniuk

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is characterized by a self-imposed starvation and is often accompanied by excessive exercise that results in severe malnutrition and sometimes death. Behavioural and pharmacological treatments of AN need to be improved. In rats, acute 3 h daytime wheel access suppresses ad lib feeding over the subsequent night relative to no wheel controls, a phenomenon that has been suggested as an animal model of AN. This acute wheel induced feeding suppression (WIFS), can be induced reliably when rats are given limited wheel access exposure during the light cycle (Lattanzio & Eikelboom, 2003). The acute WIFS is useful because …