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open access

An Examination of Risk and Resilience Factors Predicting Executive Functioning in Women following Psychological Trauma

Description: Psychological trauma may affect higher-order executive functions, which include selective attention, inhibition, and task-switching processes. Difficulty in these executive processes can in turn influence individuals' daily functioning and may also negatively affect the psychological treatment of post-trauma symptoms. Women may be most at risk for developing problems with executive functioning following trauma, consistent with their overall greater risk of developing post-trauma symptoms. Yet, … more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Sullivan, Erin
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

Self-Efficacy and Competence: A Physical Activity Experimental Comparison

Description: Sedentary behavior has been shown to lead to overweight and obesity, which are risk factors for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular heart diseases (CHD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Two constructs have been used to attempt to enhance motivation in order to promote long-term physical activity behavior change: self-efficacy (from Self-Efficacy Theory) and competence (from Self-Determination Theory). Though these constructs are from two different theories and purportedly measure two different… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Phillips, Amanda S.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Universal Suicide Risk Screening in the Parkland Health and Hospital System: Evaluation of the Parkland Algorithm for Suicide Screening

Description: Suicide is a significant public health issue in the US. Despite national and international prioritization since 1996, little definitive progress has been made in terms of identification and intervention in cases of elevated suicide risk. Forty percent of those who died by suicide attended an emergency department within a year of death. Therefore, universal suicide risk screening in emergency departments could prove a vital component to a national suicide prevention strategy. The present study e… more
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Date: August 2019
Creator: Goans, Christian
Partner: UNT Libraries

Who Does Online Dating Benefit? Association of Adult Attachment with Relationship and Sexual Satisfaction for Online Daters

Description: Research on associations between online dating and later relationship and sexual satisfaction is limited. The purpose of this study is to examine the association between meeting a romantic partner online or in person and later relationship and sexual satisfaction for heterosexual males and females. Main analysis results suggest that men report higher relationship satisfaction when they met their partner online and women with a preoccupied and dismissing attachment style reported higher sexual s… more
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Date: August 2019
Creator: Woolford, Brittany
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Therapeutic Assessment as Preparation for Psychotherapy

Description: This study examined the impact therapeutic assessment (TA) had on participants recruited from the UNT Psychology Clinic's waiting list. Using a pretest-posttest design, participants completed measures prior to and following their assessment. UNT Psychology Clinic archive data was used to compare this sample to clients who received traditional information gathering assessments with implicit measures, those receiving assessments relying on only self-report measures, and those who did not receive… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Vance, Jeffrey Michael
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Healthy Eating in College Students: 24-Hour Dietary Recall and the Theory of Planned Behavior

Description: The transition to college is marked by poorer eating behaviors. The Theory of planned behavior (TPB) represents a promising tool for predicting eating behaviors through the examination of attitudes (ATT), subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC), and intention (INT). Despite prior application of the TPB, there exist several key methodological issues in the literature addressing eating behaviors. The present study utilized an enhanced dietary assessment methodology, the ASA24 di… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Douglas, Megan E.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Adult Attachment, Cultural Orientation and Sacrifice in Couples: A Comparison between American and Chinese Samples

Description: The present study examined the effects of adult attachment and cultural orientation on sacrifice behaviors and the corresponding emotional reactions, using a cross-cultural sample in the U.S. and China. Strain-tests protocol was utilized in this study, in which an individual (i.e., the asker) was asked to share with their romantic partner a personal goal that required a major sacrifice from their partner (i.e., the responder), and then entered a discussion to process their plan of carrying out … more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Zhu, Wenzhen
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Accuracy of Three Assessments of Sleep Timing, Duration and Efficiency Compared to a Single-Channel EEG Device

Description: Poor sleep measured across many dimensions has been linked to adverse physical and mental health outcomes including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, increased mortality, depression, and anxiety. Current research typically relies upon brief, subjective, inadequately validated methods to assess limited dimensions of sleep, resulting in inaccurate measurements and possibly faulty conclusions. Specifically, research validating objective (e.g., actigraphy) and subjective (e.g., sleep diarie… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Dietch, Jessica R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

An Experimental Study of Mindfulness and Acceptance-Based Skills for Internalized Ageism in Older Adults and College Students

Description: This project explored whether mindfulness and acceptance-based practices (MABPs) for older adults would reduce the negative effects of ageism and negative attitudes and beliefs related to aging. In addition, state affect and stress were explored. This study used an experimental design to compare two groups of older adults and two groups of undergraduate students – those who received a MABP and those who did not, after being presented with negative ageist stereotypes. Condition and condition by … more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Lester, Ethan G.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Military and Veteran Mental Health Stigma and Help-Seeking Behaviors: Role of Leadership and Attachment

Description: Mental health stigma has been identified as a barrier to help-seeking in the United States. Research suggests that insecure attachment may contribute to higher mental health stigma and lower help-seeking behavior. This may be particularly salient in military personnel who tend to report higher mental health stigma than the general population. Evidence suggests that both supportive and destructive military leadership are related to service members' attitudes toward seeking help. In the current s… more
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Date: August 2019
Creator: McGuffin, James
Partner: UNT Libraries

Improving Actigraphy Specificity to Better Inform Insomnia Diagnosis and Treatment Decisions

Description: Accurate assessment of sleep-wake patterns is important for sleep researchers and clinicians. Actigraphs are low-cost, non-intrusive, wrist-worn activity detectors used to estimate sleep-wake patterns in a natural environment for several nights. Although actigraphy shows good sensitivity (sleep detection), it has consistently demonstrated poor specificity (wakefulness detection while lying in bed relatively motionless). Because insomnia is characterized by wakefulness in bed, actigraphy may not… more
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Date: August 2019
Creator: Francetich, Jade Marie
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

External Validation of the MMPI-A-RF with Youth with Mental Health Needs: A Systematic Examination of Symptom-Based Correlates and Interpretive Statements

Description: Over the last several decades, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - Adolescent (MMPI-A) has remained one of the most extensively studied and commonly used adolescent assessment measures. Most recently, the MMPI-A was revised, published as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - Adolescent Restructured Form (MMPI-A-RF). Given the infancy of the extant MMPI-A-RF literature, the current dissertation sought to be one of the first criterion studies since the test manual to est… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Sharf, Allyson J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Discrimination, Attachment, and Ethnic Identity as Predictors for Wellbeing and American Affirmation among Racial and Ethnic Minority University Students

Description: Extant literature has provided evidence suggesting that ethnic minority individuals experiencing discrimination report poor mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, and an overall lower sense of belongingness with the majority culture, but empirical research examining how ethnic identity affects this relationship is extremely scarce. The first goal of the current study was to replicate the results of previous studies demonstrating a strong relationship between discrimination and … more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Khan, Arubah
Partner: UNT Libraries

Modeling Marijuana Use Willingness and Problems as a Function of Social Rejection and Social Anxiety

Description: Marijuana is the second most commonly used substance in the US. A growing literature suggests that socially anxious individuals use marijuana to manage their symptoms in social situations, which may explain why they are also more likely to experience problems. Unfortunately, the majority of the literature is based on research conducted with adult samples or the co-occurrence of diagnoses in adolescent samples. The proposed study sought to test the link between social anxiety (SA) and proxies fo… more
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Date: May 2019
Creator: Cloutier, Renee
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Physical Activity and Relationship Functioning: Mediation Roles of Sexual Satisfaction and Self-Esteem

Description: Little research has examined the role of physical activity in relationship functioning. Utilizing two heterosexual subsamples of 618 females and 155 males, results indicated that physical activity was positively correlated with sexual satisfaction and self-esteem for the female subsample, but was not significant for the male subsample. For both subsamples, although physical activity was not a significant unique predictor of relationship functioning in regression analyses, sexual satisfaction an… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Schumacher, Matthew Robert
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Putting Bullying into Perspective: Peer Aggression as a Function of Perspective Taking, Empathy, and Psychological Willingness

Description: Bullying has long-term negative effects on the mental health and wellbeing of everyone involved. School-wide interventions have been successful in some contexts, but they often require significant institutional and financial resources. Empathy is comprised of a cognitive component (perspective taking) and an affective component (empathic concern), both of which may be necessary for prosocial behavior. According to relational frame theory (RFT), empathy involves a transformation of stimulus func… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Moyer, Danielle N.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Nature of Cognitive Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis

Description: Cognitive impairment is common in multiple sclerosis (MS), with as many as 70% of patients with MS affected. Individuals with MS who experience cognitive deficits are less likely to be employed, and may have more difficulty performing independent activities of daily living. Most commonly, deficits are observed in processing speed, complex attention, and memory. Because lesion location varies widely among individuals, no clear pattern of cognitive dysfunction in MS has emerged. However, a number… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Carlew, Anne R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Interpersonal Functioning and Experiential Avoidance: Considering New Measurements and Their Implications

Description: Interpersonal functioning can be conceptualized as being comprised of social skills, connectedness, social cognition, and intimacy. A concept that is related to an examination of interpersonal functioning is experiential avoidance (EA), which can be defined as an unwillingness to experience or remain in contact with unpleasant private events through attempts to avoid or escape from these experience. An examination of EA and interpersonal functioning has not previously taken place. This study… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Steinberg, Daniel
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Keep Calm and Play On: The Effects of Grit, Mindfulness, and Goal Orientation on Sport Anxiety and Performance

Description: Achievement motivation theory suggests there are two primary approaches to achievement tasks: to appear competent or to develop a skill. These two different approaches to performance yield different affective and behavioral responses. Athletes holding a performance goal orientation tend to respond to challenges with behaviors exemplifying learned helplessness and increased anxiety. Athletes holding a mastery goal orientation tend to respond to challenges with greater effort and experience less … more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Auerbach, Alex
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Cross-Cultural Study of Adult Attachment, Social Self-Efficacy, Familismo, and Psychological Wellbeing

Description: Although Latinos are the largest minority group in the country, research examining how different psychological and cultural variables affect Latino individuals' wellbeing is disproportionately developed and cross-cultural comparison studies are particularly scarce. To address these issues, this dissertation research examined cross-cultural adult attachment-social self-efficacy-psychosocial wellbeing conceptual mediational model while investigating the moderator effects of country membership and… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Zamudio Leal, Gabriel Mario
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

An Exploratory Mixed Method Study of Gender and Sexual Minority Health in Dallas: A Needs Assessment

Description: Gender and sexual minorities (GSM) experience considerably worse health outcomes than heterosexual and cisgender people, yet no comprehensive understanding of GSM health exists due to a dearth of research. GSM leaders in Dallas expressed need for a community needs assessment of GSM health. In response to this call, the Center for Psychosocial Health Research conducted a needs assessment of gender and sexual minority health in Dallas (35 interviews, 6 focus groups). Competency was one area highl… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Bonds, Stacy
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Psychosocial Predictors of Eating Disorder Classification: Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Analyses

Description: There is growing concern for eating pathology and body dissatisfaction in sports; particularly, in sports that emphasize a lean body type. In 325 female collegiate swimmers/divers and gymnasts, we examined psychosocial well-being (i.e., perception of weight pressures, levels of internalization, body satisfaction, dietary intent, negative affect) at the beginning and end of an athletic season and predict their eating disorder classification at the end of their athletic season. Logistic regressio… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Tackett, Bailey Price
Partner: UNT Libraries
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