Search Results

open access

Therapist (Dis)Continuity, Therapeutic Relationship, and (Premature) Termination in a Psychology Training Clinic

Description: Premature termination is a substantial problem with significant adverse effects for clients, therapists, and treatment organizations. Unfortunately, it is also a relatively common phenomenon within mental healthcare settings. Across varied mental healthcare settings, rates of premature termination have reportedly ranged from 19.7 % to 40 %. Perhaps not surprisingly, the rate of premature termination in training clinics is substantially higher than in community mental health settings and private… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Al-Jabari, Rawya M.
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
open access

Exploring Psychopathic Personality Traits and Moral Development in a Non-criminal Sample

Description: This study explored psychopathic personality traits among a non-criminal, college undergraduate sample. Much research has been done on conceptualizing the construct of psychopathy, but this work has been conducted primarily with incarcerated individuals using a structured interview, The Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991, 2003). The goal of the current study was to assess psychopathic traits among non-criminal individuals using The Self-Report Psychopathy Scale - Version Four … more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Bewsey, Kyle
open access

Miranda Reasoning and Competent Waiver Decisions: Are Models of Legal Decision Making Applicable?

Description: Miranda understanding, appreciation, and reasoning abilities are essential to courts' determinations of knowing and intelligent Miranda rights waivers. Despite the remarkable development of Miranda research in recent decades, studies have generally focused on understanding and appreciation of Miranda rights, but have not examined Miranda reasoning and waiver decisions. Therefore, examining the nature of defendants' decisional capacities constitutes a critical step in further developing theore… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Blackwood, Hayley L.
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
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
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.
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.
open access

Psychopathy in Male and Female Offenders: Validating the CAPP-IRS and Investigating the Impact of Gender Role Conformity

Description: Recent conceptualizations of psychopathy are moving toward more inclusive, purely trait-based models. However, researchers continue to heavily rely on assessments of psychopathy that include categorical behavioral elements. The newly developed Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality – Institutional Rating Scale appears to be a promising interview-based measure of psychopathy, but research on its reliability and validity is in its infancy. As a second issue, the vast majority of … more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Carter, Rachel Marjann
open access

Organized Semantic Fluency and Executive Functioning in an Adult Clinical Sample and a Community Sample

Description: The study investigated an organized semantic fluency task, (the Controlled Animal Fluency Task - CAFT) as a measure of executive functioning (EF) in adults, and the relationship with instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). Participants (N = 266) consisted of a clinical sample (n = 142) utilizing neuropsychological assessment data collected at an outpatient psychological center, and a community sample (n = 124). The clinical sample was a heterogeneous mixed neurological group including a… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Chlipala, M. Linda
open access

How Exposure to Parental Intimate Partner Violence Affects College Students' Dating Violence: A Structural Equation Model with Adult Attachment and Social Information Processing as Mediating Factors

Description: The effects of childhood exposure to parental intimate partner violence (EPIPV) on dating violence (DV) were examined through two layers of mediations. Based on attachment theory, individuals who are exposed to parental intimate partner violence are less likely to experience secure parent-child attachment, which in turn transfers to insecure adult attachment that is prone to perceive significant others as less trustworthy and less reliable as well as higher likelihood of over-reacting and/or st… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Chong, Chu Chian
open access

The Role of Self-Compassion in Posttraumatic Growth

Description: Although the experience of trauma is associated with a great deal of psychological distress, it may also lead to meaningful positive change, known as posttraumatic growth (PTG), evidenced as progression in areas of life appreciation, intimacy in relationships, sense of personal strength, new possibilities, and spiritual development. Utilizing an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) perspective, the current study explored whether self-compassion helped to explain the willingness to approach a… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Connally, Melissa Londoño
open access

Phases of Change in Psychotherapy Across Levels of Clinician Training

Description: Given the alarmingly high rates of premature termination in training clinics, research aimed at understanding the course of change and treatment outcomes in training clinics deserves considerable attention. Additionally, more research is needed to understand the effectiveness of psychotherapy training and whether more training is actually associated with better client outcomes. Thus, this study sought to investigate whether clinicians' level of training and experience were related to a variety … more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Connor, Dana R.
open access

An Investigation of Malingering and Defensiveness Using the Spanish Pai Among Spanish-speaking Hispanic American Outpatients

Description: For response styles, malingering describes the deliberate production of feigned symptoms by persons seeking external gain such as financial compensation, exemption from duty, or leniency from the criminal justice system. In contradistinction, defensiveness occurs when patients attempt to downplay their symptoms of psychological impairment. Both of the aforementioned response styles can markedly affect the accuracy of diagnosis, especially on self-reports, such as multiscale inventories. As a… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Correa, Amor Alicia
open access

Using Pre-Session Mindfulness to Improve Session Presence and Effectiveness: A Randomized-Controlled Trial

Description: While a significant amount of research illustrates the overall positive effects of therapists' general use of mindfulness, very few studies have addressed whether therapists' use of mindfulness translates to improved psychotherapy outcomes. The present study utilized a randomized-controlled design to test whether a brief mindfulness training program and pre-session mindfulness practice could have a positive impact on therapy; in particular, we hypothesized that mindfulness training and practic… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Dunn, Rose
open access

A Multi-method Approach to Examining Stress and Anxiety Among Mexican American College Students

Description: United States post-secondary education continues to see an increase in Hispanic enrollment, particularly those of Mexican heritage. The present study was designed to examine this population’s experience of stress, anxiety and academic approach-avoidance conflict. Data were collected at North Texas postsecondary institutions. Participants (N = 197) completed an online survey including a Picture Story Exercise (PSE), open-ended responses to hypothetical scenarios, and self-report measures. The c… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Durón, Kelly M.
open access

Factors Affecting Revictimization in Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Description: Structural equation modeling was used to examine how childhood sexual abuse (and other associated variables, such as family functioning and experiencing multiple forms of abuse) relates to revictimization and psychological distress. Participants were women who participated in Project HOW: Health Outcomes of Women interviews, a longitudinal study that spanned six waves of interviews. Only women with a history of childhood sexual abuse were included in the present study (n=178). Experiencing nons… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Ericksen, Stephanie J.
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
open access

Refining the Definition and Detection of Response Styles: An Initial Examination of Defensiveness and Feigning on the Personality Inventory for DSM-5

Description: The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM 5) presents an alternate model for personality disorders, blending categorical and dimensional assessment into a hybrid diagnostic procedure. Released concurrently, the Personality Inventory for DSM 5 (PID 5) measures the five domains and 25 facets that comprise the trait components of this hybrid model. However, the PID 5 currently lacks validity indicators to capture intentionally distorted responding. The cu… more
Date: May 2015
Creator: Fiduccia, Chelsea E.
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
open access

Risk and Resilience Faced by Children of Deployed Service Members

Description: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of military deployment on children, and the roles that risk and protective factors and parenting stress play in emotional symptoms and behaviors exhibited by children while their parents are deployed. A sample of 143 parents (recruited from all branches of the military) who remained at home while their spouses were deployed completed online self-report questionnaires measuring demographic and background information, child internalizing and ext… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Geddes, Jeffrey D.
open access

Impact of Yoga on Mental Well-Being

Description: The present study sought to more rigourously explore outcomes of psychological well-being immediately following a psychotherapeutic yoga class. Specifically, the study hypothesized improvements in state anxiety and subjective well-being as well as an observable relationship between state and trait mindfulness following a yoga intervention, all while controlling for differences between yoga instructors, prior yoga experience, and participant endorsements of psychological symptoms. Previous yoga … more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Gerber, Monica
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.
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
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