Psychiatry and Psychology Commons^™

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 …

Gender, Sexuality, And The Authoritarian Personality, Bill E. Peterson, Eileen L. Zurbriggen

Psychology: Faculty Publications

The political correlates of the authoritarian personality have been well established by researchers, but important linkages to other major constructs in psychology need fuller elaboration. We present new data and review old data from our laboratories that show the myriad ways in which authoritarianism is implicated in the important domain of gender roles. We show that women and men high in authoritarianism live in rigidly gendered worlds where male and female roles are narrowly defined, attractiveness is based on traditional conceptions of masculinity and femininity, and conventional sexual mores are prescribed. As a construct, authoritarianism is not just relevant for …

Iptakalim: A Potential Antipsychotic Drug With Novel Mechanisms?, Tao Sun, Changjiu Zhao, Gang Hu, Ming Li

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Iptakalim is a novel putative adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-sensitive potassium (K_ATP) channel opener. In the brain, iptakalim is thought to act on the neuronal and astrocytic plasma membrane and/or mitochondrial K_ATP channels. Because iptakalim demonstrates an action on the regulation of dopamine and glutamate release in the forebrain regions, we examined its potential antipsychotic efficacy in several preclinical tests. First, we show that iptakalim is effective in reducing amphetamine- and phencyclidine-induced hyperlocomotion as well as selectively disrupting conditioned avoidance responding. Next, we show that combined iptakalim and amphetamine treatment produces a reduction on prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle …

Aging And The Vulnerability Of Speech To Dual Task Demands, Susan Kemper, Ralynn Schmalzried, Lesa Hoffman, Ruth Herman

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Tracking a digital pursuit rotor task was used to measure dual task costs of language production by young and older adults. Tracking performance by both groups was affected by dual task demands: time on target declined and tracking error increased as dual task demands increased from the baseline condition to a moderately demanding dual task condition to a more demanding dual task condition. When dual task demands were moderate, older adults’ speech rate declined but their fluency, grammatical complexity, and content were unaffected. When the dual task was more demanding, older adults’ speech, like young adults’ speech, became highly fragmented, …

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 …

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 …

Introversion And Autism: A Conceptual Exploration Of The Placement Of Introversion On The Autism Spectrum, Jennifer Grimes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The conceptualization of the personality construct of introversion has been problematic since the term's inception due to the complexity and seemingly self-contradictory nature of the collection of attributes of which it is comprised. To advance the understanding of introversion, I propose that it is a continuous segment of the non-clinical part of the autism spectrum, and that it is not the same as the inverse of extraversion. When introversion and autism are placed on the same continuum, the nature of the relationship of the traits becomes more apparent, and new possibilities are available for exploration of both autism and introversion. …

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.

Fas Behavioral Survey Of Traits: Screening For Effects Of Prenatal Exposure To Alcohol, Glena Andrews, C. Joe Robins

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

The FAS BeST was developed by parents and educators of children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome rating behaviors characteristic of FASD including; easily influenced by others, difficulty learning from experience, appearing and declaring innocence even when confronted with evidence to the contrary, and experiencing difficulties in other domains. The FAS BeST differentiates between children with PEA, dysgenesis of the corpus callosum (DCC), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Porter & Andrews, 2004). The sample included 294 participants. Using the cutoff score suggested by Porter and Andrews (2004) the accuracy rates were 78% for FAS/E, 100% for controls, 85% for DCC, and …

Social Transmission Of Fear In Rats: The Role Of 22-Khz Ultrasonic Distress Vocalization, Eun Joo Kim, Earnest S. Kim, Ellen Covey, Jeansok J. Kim

Faculty Publications - Psychology Department

Background

Social alarm calls alert animals to potential danger and thereby promote group survival. Adult laboratory rats in distress emit 22-kHz ultrasonic vocalization (USV) calls, but the question of whether these USV calls directly elicit defensive behavior in conspecifics is unresolved.

Methodology/Principal Findings

The present study investigated, in pair-housed male rats, whether and how the conditioned fear-induced 22-kHz USVs emitted by the ‘sender’ animal affect the behavior of its partner, the ‘receiver’ animal, when both are placed together in a novel chamber. The sender rats’ conditioned fear responses evoked significant freezing (an overt evidence of fear) in receiver rats that …

Psychological Care For Persons Of Diverse Religions: A Collaborative Continuum, Glen Milstein, Anne Marie Yali

Publications and Research

The purpose of this paper is to describe to psychologists and other clinicians a continuum of mental health care for persons of diverse religions. The continuum delineates boundaries between clinical care provided by mental health professionals and religious care provided by clergy, as well as describes pathways of collaboration across these boundaries. A prevention science based model of Clergy Outreach and Professional Engagement (COPE) is offered to guide this collaboration. The model describes a continuum that moves from the care already present in religious communities, through professional clinical care provided in response to dysfunction and returns persons to their own …

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 …

Levels Of Acculturation And Resilience Among Southeast Asian Adolescents Who Have And Have Not Witnessed Domestic Violence, Skultip (Jill) Sirikantraporn

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The central purpose of this research study was to elucidate the relationship between the levels of acculturation and resilience among Southeast Asian adolescents in the U.S. who have and have not witnessed domestic violence. There is a voluminous amount of research on resilience, acculturation, and domestic violence and their impacts on adolescents. However, there is virtually no research that investigates the relationship among these three major social constructs. Previous research on acculturation, resilience, and coping abilities showed that immigrant children and adolescents who were bicultural were found to be highly adaptive in the midst of stress. No previous studies were …

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.