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open access

Affective Forecasting: the Effects of Immune Neglect and Surrogation

Description: Studies of affective forecasting examine people’s ability to predict (forecast) their emotional (affective) responses to future events. Affective forecasts underlie nearly all decisions people make and the actions they take. However, people engage in systematic cognitive errors when making affective forecasts and most often overestimate the intensity and duration of their emotional responses. Understanding the mechanisms that lead to affective forecasting errors (e.g., immune neglect) and exami… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Burkman, Summer Dae
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Altruism and Depression: Exploring This Relationship and the Mechanisms Behind It

Description: The impact of environmental influences on depression has been well established by research. In particular, it is known that receiving/perceiving adequate social support has a protective influence on depression. Less is known about the protective benefits of providing support to others, namely in the form of altruistic, empathetic, or prosocial behavior. While research has shown that having altruistic attitudes and engaging in altruistic behaviors has a positive impact on physical health and … more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Wright, Brittney, C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch? The Importance of Object Relations in Modern Assessment

Description: The Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale—Global (SCORS-G) is a relatively new scoring system for the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) that provides information about an individual's functioning in a variety of domains, including intrapsychic and interpersonal. Participants in this archival study had been administered a variety of measures as part of a routine clinical assessment, including the TAT, Rorschach, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2, and the Wechsler Adult Intellige… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Weber, Katherine Mary
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Assessment of Cognitive Performance in Mixed Martial Arts Athletes

Description: Incidents and awareness of sports-related concussion have grown in recent years, attracting attention in both the academic and popular press. These concussions can lead to the rapid onset of neurological dysfunctions, as well as a variety of subjective symptoms. Although concussive sequelae are typically considered transient, debate remains about the persistent effects of repeated traumatic contact during sport participation. Although research has examined the complications of head trauma found… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Heath, Christopher J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Assessment of Competencies among Doctoral Trainees in Psychology

Description: The recent shift to a culture of competence has permeated several areas of professional psychology, including competency identification, competency-based education training, and competency assessment. A competency framework has also been applied to various programs and specialty areas within psychology, such as clinical, counseling, clinical health, school, cultural diversity, neuro-, gero-, child, and pediatric psychology. Despite the spread of competency focus throughout psychology, few stand… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Price, Samantha
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Assessment of Feigning with the Trauma Symptom Inventory: Development and Validation of new Validity Scales with Severely Traumatized Patients

Description: Currently, only the TSI assesses complex traumatic reactions and patient response styles. However, its feigning scale, ATR, uses a flawed detection strategy and is potentially confounded by experiences of complex PTSD. As a consequence, clinicians using the TSI to evaluate severely traumatized patients have no useful method for discriminating genuine and feigned responding. Several detection strategies have demonstrated utility within evaluations of feigned trauma including the assessment of ra… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Payne, Joshua W.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Attachment Insecurity, Emotion Regulation Difficulties, and Mindfulness Deficits in Personality Pathology

Description: A growing body of research has documented associations between personality disorders (PDs) and attachment disturbance, and yet, attachment disturbance does not necessarily guarantee the development of PD pathology. Thus, understanding the mechanisms mediating the relationship between attachment disturbance and PD pathology remains an open area of research. One area with sound theoretical and empirical evidence has shown that attachment disturbances are associated with emotion regulation diffi… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Lewis, Jonathan James
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Attachment Theory Within Clinical Supervision: Application of the Conceptual to the Empirical

Description: Attachment theory has established itself as applicable to many types of relationships, encompassing caregiver-child, romantic, interpersonal, and psychotherapeutic interactions. This project sought to investigate the application of attachment theory to clinical supervision. Using suggestions put forth in previous work by Watkins and Riggs, this study examined the dyadic interactions inherent in both supervision and attachment. Using the working alliance as determination of the quality of superv… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Wrape, Elizabeth R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Attention and Metacognition in the Elaborated Intrusion Theory of Desire

Description: The elaborated intrusion (EI) theory of desire is a cognitive model that describes the processes involved in craving as intrusive thoughts that are elaborated upon leading to dissonance when desires are not met. While the theory is based on a wide body of research, certain theoretical predictions have not been fully examined. Specifically, EI theory argues that mental imagery has a central role in craving, and predicts that attempts to suppress substance-related intrusive thoughts and mental im… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Yates, Robert D., III
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Attitudes about Caregiving: An Ethnicity by Generation Approach

Description: The goal of this project was to understand ethnic and generational differences in attitudes towards caregiving and expected burden while taking into consideration factors such as gender, generation, familism, and acculturation. One hundred and sixteen young adults (ages 18-25) and 93 middle-age adults (ages 38-62) were enrolled in the study. Participants included European Americans, African Americans, and Hispanics. Using moderation analysis, two hypotheses were investigated: 1) Ethnicity relat… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Caballero, Daniela M
Partner: UNT Libraries

Bipolar Spectrum Traits in Day-to-Day Life: Ecological Momentary Assessment of Reward Sensitivity, Circadian Timing, and Experience of Reward in the Environment

Description: The current study examined 236 undergraduate students in a week long twice-per-day ecological momentary assessment exploring the influence of baseline reward sensitivity and interactions between circadian variables (i.e., total sleep time, sleep quality) and daily measures of reward. Though primary study findings did not support reward sensitivity related moderation of sleep-reward pathways, a number of notable findings emerged. We found evidence of specific domains of reward sensitivity (antic… more
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Date: August 2019
Creator: Smith, Patrick M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Co-Occurrence of Rape Myth Acceptance and Intolerant Attitudes in a Military Sample

Description: Sexual trauma within the military is a widespread issue, and rape myth acceptance has been shown to contribute to its prevalence. Given that the military culture has been shown to lend itself to hypermasculinity and traditional gender role adherence, both of which facilitate aggression toward women, this effect warrants investigation within a military sample. The present study replicated and expanded upon Aosved and Long's (2006) study examining 85 veteran and active duty military members' resp… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Holtz, Pamela M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Comparison of Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms: Memory Specificity Training (MeST) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

Description: The effectiveness of memory specificity training (MeST) was compared with standard cognitive processing therapy (CPT) in treatment of individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder. Eighteen adults aged 18-36 were randomly assigned to the MeST intervention (n = 9) or to the active control group (n = 9) of CPT. Both treatments were administered in group format across 6 weeks. MeST consisted of 6 weekly sessions, while CPT consisted of 12 biweekly sessions. The trial was undertaken in the Psychol… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Maxwell, Kendal Lynn
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Complex PTSD As a Less Pejorative Label: Is the Proposed Diagnosis Less Stigmatizing Than BPD?

Description: Clinicians’ attitudes and behaviors toward patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are affected by the label’s stigma. Complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) was proposed as a comprehensive and less stigmatizing diagnostic category for clients with BPD and a history of complex trauma. Given considerable similarities across both disorders’ diagnostic criteria, the CPTSD framework holds promise as a means to improve therapists’ attitudes towards clients with BPD and a history … more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Miller, Susannah Catherine
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Conceptualizing Quality of College Life

Description: The objectives of this study were to mathematically model the quality of college life (QCL) concept and to study the associations between attachment style, emotion regulation abilities, psychological needs fulfillment and QCL via structural equation modeling. Data was collected from 507 undergraduate students (men = 178, women = 329; age M = 21.78 years, SD = 4.37). This data was used to provide evidence for the validity of the College Adjustment Scales (CAS) as a measure of quality of college … more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Cardona, Laura A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Correlates Between Adult Romantic Attachment Patterns and Dimensional Personality Pathology

Description: Previous research has suggested that adult attachment disturbance is related to maladaptic interaction patterns and personality disorder constructs. Specifically, research indicates that those with attachment disturbance are significantly more likely to meet criteria for a number of personality disorders, including borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. The purpose of this study was to investigate the associations between adult… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Ernest, Kimberly Dawn
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Cultural Influence on Attachment and Psychopathic Traits

Description: Individuals evidencing psychopathic personality traits have been shown to have problematic attachment to others. Moreover, research suggests that culture affects attachment style as well as the expression of various psychopathic traits using the four-factor model of psychopathy. However, the majority of this research has included only white college students, which is a limiting factor. The current study assessed the relations among attachment representations and psychopathic features across two… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Lasslett, Heather Elicia
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Decentering and the Theory of Social Development

Description: The concept of decentering originated with Piaget, who defined decentering as a feature of operational thought, the ability to conceptualize multiple perspectives simultaneously. Feffer applied Piaget’s concept of decentering to the cognitive maturity of social content. This study used Feffer’s Interpersonal Decentering scoring system for stories told about TAT pictures to investigate the developmental hierarchy of decentering for children and adolescents. The participants originated from the B… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Fincher, Jennie
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Denial of Risk: the Effects of Intentional Minimization on Risk Assessments for Psychopathic and Nonpsychopathic Offenders

Description: Risk assessments for offenders often combine past records with current clinical findings from observations, interviews, and test data. Conclusions based on these risk assessments are highly consequential, sometimes resulting in increased criminal sentences or prolonged hospitalization. Offenders are therefore motivated to intentionally minimize their risk scores. Intentional minimization is especially likely to occur in offenders with high psychopathic traits because goal-directed deception is … more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Gillard, Nathan D.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Development and Validation of a Measure of Religious and Spiritual Flexibility

Description: Religion and spirituality are vital aspects of many people’s lives both in the United States and across the globe. Although many constructs and measures exist to describe and assess the experience of pursuing the sacred, the complexity of religious and spiritual experience leads to mixed results in relation to well-being and psychopathological traits. However, in broad terms, the relationship appears positive. Over the past 30 years the need for more refined and useful approaches to the study o… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Schmalz, Jonathan E.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Effectiveness of the PAI in Identifying Minimized Substance Use and Predicting Poor Treatment Outcomes in an Offender Population

Description: The accurate evaluation of substance use is a critical component of forensic assessment due to the well-established link between drug use sentencing issues and risk of recidivism. Due to limited resources and chronic time constraints, practitioners typically rely only on self-report measures to assess substance use (SU) patterns. As these measures directly inquire about SU patterns, they remain vulnerable to response distortion. This can lead to ineffective treatment recommendations made to … more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Henry, Sarah
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Effects of Attributional Styles on Perceptions of Severely Mentally Ill Offenders: a Study of Police Officer Decision-making

Description: Police officers are allowed considerable discretion within the criminal justice system in addressing illegal behaviors and interpersonal conflicts. Broadly, such resolutions fall into two categories: formal (e.g., arrest) and informal outcomes. Many of these interventions involve persons who have historically faced stigmatization, such as those who have mental disorders, criminal histories, or both (i.e., mentally disordered offenders). On this point, stigma generally includes discriminatory … more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Steadham, Jennifer A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Eight-Year Course of Cognitive Functioning in Bipolar Disorder with Psychotic Features

Description: The purpose of the current study was to examine neuropsychological functioning in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) with psychotic features. Data from a large, epidemiological study of patients with first-episode psychosis was used to examine verbal learning and working memory 10 years after onset of psychosis in patients with BD relative to patients with schizophrenia (SZ) and patients with psychotic major depressive disorder (MDD). Cross-sectional comparisons of verbal learning and working … more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Bain, Kathleen Marie
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Evaluating Preventative Interventions for Depression and Related Outcomes: a Meta-analysis

Description: The burden of depression requires modalities other than individual psychotherapy if we are to reduce it. Over the past two decades preventative programs for depression have been developed and refined for different populations. The six years since the last meta-analysis of preventative interventions—inclusive of all program types—have seen a number of new studies. The current study used the greater statistical power provided by these new studies to analyze moderators of, and sub-group difference… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: González, David Andrés
Partner: UNT Libraries
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