UNT Theses and Dissertations - 172 Matching Results

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Cognitive Engagement in Later Life: Descriptive and Explanatory Findings

Description: Findings on the relationship between engagement in lifestyle and cognitive functioning are not consistent; some authors report that engagement in lifestyle predicts an individual's cognitive functioning; while other report that an individual's cognitive functioning predicts the type and level of engagement an individual participates in. The current study will use longitudinal data (N = 235) to investigate the bidirectional relationship between engagement (engaged lifestyle activities) and cogni… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Abdullah, Bashir
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Determinants of Effort and Associated Cardiovascular Response to a Behavioral Restraint Challenge

Description: This study directly tested implications of motivation intensity theory on effort to restrain against a behavioral urge or impulse (i.e. restraint intensity). Two factors were manipulated—magnitude of an urge and the importance of successfully resisting it—with cardiovascular (CV) responses related to active coping measured. Male and female undergraduate students were presented with a mildly- or strongly evocative film clip with instructions to refrain from showing any facial response. Success w… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Agtarap, Stephanie
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Interpersonal Factors Related to the Pursuit of a Higher Education Among First Generation Undergraduate Students

Description: The typical educational stressors experienced by college students, in conjunction with developmental stressors such as separation from parents, individuation, and perceived social support, can interact to impact adaptation significantly. First generation college students (students who are the first in their family to attend college) can experience stressors beyond the typical educational stressors experienced by later generation college students, including lack of support from family and peers … more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Aguirre, Jacqueline S.
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Sexual Identity and Social Anxiety in Emerging Adulthood

Description: Elevated social anxiety (SA) is linked to issues with emotional distress, substance use, and social anxiety disorder (SAD). Notwithstanding concerns of how sexuality has been defined in the extant literature, emerging evidence suggests that the prevalence of SA and related challenges may be disproportionately present among sexual minorities, including lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGBs). This trend may be especially relevant within the developmental context of emerging adulthood, an importa… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Akibar, Alvin
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Relationships Among Self-esteem, Psychological and Cognitive Flexibility, and Psychological Symptomatology

Description: Previous findings on the relationship between self-esteem and psychological outcomes are inconsistent. Therefore it appears that self-esteem, while related to crucial variables, does not provide a clear, direct, and comprehensive prediction of psychological symptoms. Thus, it was hypothesized that the relationship between self-esteem and symptomatology would be moderated by broader measures of how one interacts with emotional and cognitive stimuli.The purpose of this study was to examine the in… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Al-Jabari, Rawya M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Relation of Perceived Motivational Climate, Mindset, and Achievement Goal Orientation to Grit in Male High School Soccer Players

Description: Grit is defined as "perseverance and passion for long-term goals." Although studied in relation to various outcomes, such as retention and academic performance, few studies have examined variables that may contribute to grit's development. Further, few studies have examined this construct in relation to sport performance or within athletic environments, despite its clear connection to sport-related constructs like mental toughness and resilience. Thus, based in achievement motivation theory, th… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Albert, Erin D.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Overgeneral Memory and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Adults Exposed to Family Violence

Description: Childhood exposure to familial violence increases risk for adult pathology, namely posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Primary PTSD symptoms of hyperarousal and avoidance are implicated in overgeneral memory (OGM) theory in prior research. Individuals with trauma history tend to report OGMs, or non-specific autobiographical memories, perhaps to avoid unpleasant arousal elicited by recalling specific events. OGM, PTSD, depression, and arousal were assessed in adults with and wit… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Amador, Amy R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Impact of Grit on Performance After Mastery- or Performance-Oriented Feedback

Description: Grit and achievement motivation have been predictors of behavior in academia and military settings (Duckworth, Matthews, Peterson, & Kelly, 2007), but to date, research on their effects on sport performance has been limited. Given grit's predictive role in other performance domains, grit may be influential in athletes' long-term goal attainment, interacting with their achievement motives and leading to better performances. Athletes' trait levels of grit may influence how they understand and res… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Auerbach, Alex
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Attention Biases Associated with Vulnerability to Bipolar Disorder

Description: Bipolar disorder is associated with significant social and occupational impairments, as well as increased risk for substance abuse and suicide. More research is needed to identify potential mechanisms associated with vulnerability to the disorder. Previous research has identified altered processing of emotional information in bipolar and bipolar-prone individuals, including attentional biases which appear to differ based on the current affective state of the individual. The current study appl… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Bain, Kathleen Marie
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Partner: UNT Libraries
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Coping Strategy as Mediator between Parental Attachment and the Parent-Child Relationship

Description: Previous research has shown that adult attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance are associated with both coping strategy use and the parent-child relationship. Additionally, research has shown that coping strategy is associated with aspects of the parent-child relationship. The current study aimed to further examine associations between parental romantic attachment, coping strategy use, and the parent-child relationship. It was hypothesized that coping strategy use would mediate the relat… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Baxter, Lauren N.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Mental Toughness: An Analysis of Sex, Race, and Mood

Description: Mental toughness has become a focus for researchers as coaches, athletes, and others extol its influence in performance success. In this study I examined mental toughness among collegiate athletes, focusing on its potential relationship to different demographic variables and to the athletes’ mood. Two hundred seventy-two student-athletes representing 12 different sports from a southwestern NCAA Division I university, participated by completing the Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire (SMTQ), t… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Beck, Nicholas M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Revised Stress-Related Growth Scale: Improving the Measurement of Posttraumatic Growth

Description: This study evaluated a revised version of the Stress-Related Growth Scale (SRGS-R). The SRGS-R has two major differences from the Stress-Related Growth Scale (SRGS). It uses neutral wording of items instead of the original positively worded items, and it uses positive and negative scaling choices. This study included participants (N = 764) recruited through Amazon MTurk. There were three versions of the SRGS-R tested - the SRGS with neutral wording of items only (SRGS-R-N), the SRGS with positi… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Bedford, Lee
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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Religious Coping and Experience of Body Satisfaction Among College Women

Description: This study examined whether religious coping moderated the effects of thin-ideal images on body satisfaction among college women. Religious (N = 178) participants met for a pre-test to complete religiosity measures. A week later, the participants reconvened and were assigned to one of two conditions: before (n = 83) or after (n = 95). Within each of these two groups, participants were randomly assigned to read a list of statements: positive religious statements, positive nonreligious statements… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Bell, Keisha
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries

Independence of Mania and Depression across 4 Years in Bipolar Disorder

Description: If mania and depression are part of the same pathological processes, one would predict that episodes of one prospectively increase the odds of episodes of the other. The aim of the present study was to test this hypothesis. For comparison purposes, their relationship was contrasted to the relationship between mania and periods of psychosis. Exploratory analyses also tested the degree to which episodes of each occur with greater frequency over time (i.e., kindling). Participants for the present … more
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Date: May 2019
Creator: Bennett, Charles B.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Childhood Bereavement and Parents’ Relationship With Children

Description: It has long been recognized that childhood bereavement is a risk factor for depression in adulthood. Research also has consistently demonstrated that parental depression is linked to poor parent-child relationship quality. The current study examined whether bereavement in childhood increases likelihood of current depressive symptoms among parents and explored whether this vulnerability in the parent then alters the quality of the parent-child relationship. Archival data for a sample of 86 famil… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Benson, Karen M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Mental Illness Stigma, Parent-Child Communication, and Help-Seeking of Young American Adults with Immigrant Parents

Description: This study examined a mediational model of mental illness stigma, parent-child communication about mental health concerns, and help seeking attitudes/behaviors among young adults with at least one immigrant parent while considering the possible moderating effect of acculturation gap. The primary goal of this study was to examine whether the acculturation gap changed the relation between mental illness stigma and communication about personal mental health concerns with immigrant parents, which i… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Bismar, Danna
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Shame Due to Heterosexism, Self-esteem and Perceived Stress: Correlates of Psychological Quality of Life in a Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Sample

Description: Sexual minorities experience higher levels of stress than heterosexuals, which in turn affects coping and psychological quality of life (PQOL). Although many sexual minorities remain mentally healthy, a higher prevalence of mental disorders among members of the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) communities exists; thus, LGB PQOL becomes an important area to examine. Several key factors are related to PQOL: shame due to heterosexism, self-esteem and perceived stress. Using minority stress model… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Bonds, Stacy E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Quantitative EEG Analysis of Patients with Chronic Pain: An Exploratory Study

Description: This study examined quantitative EEGs of six individuals with chronic pain and compared them to an age- and gender-matched normative database of healthy control subjects in an attempt to discern whether a particular pattern of resting state EEG activity is associated with chronic pain. In the chronic pain group, significantly reduced absolute power was seen in delta and theta bandwidths at frontal sites in the eyes-closed condition. In the eyes-open condition, significantly reduced absolute p… more
Date: December 2011
Creator: Burroughs, Ramona D.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Acculturation and Depression in Older Mexican American Adults: the Role of Social Support

Description: Despite socioeconomic disadvantages, less acculturated Mexican Americans tend to exhibit better mental health than their more acculturated counterparts. However, in the case of older Mexican American adults, research has demonstrated the opposite to be true (Gonzalez, Haan, & Hinton, 2001). A variable of interest potentially responsible for this difference is social support. Thus, the current study proposed to investigate the mediation and moderation effects that social support has on the relat… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Caballero, Daniela
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Academic and Social Functioning of College Students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Description: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a complicated psychiatric disorder that is typically first diagnosed in childhood and associated with negative outcomes in adulthood such as poor academic performance and difficulties with social relationships. ADHD can be difficult to accurately diagnose in adulthood, given the absence of clear, agreed upon ADHD symptomology in adults. In the current study, two raters used psychometrically sound instruments and diagnostically valid assessment … more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Calmenson, Nina
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Partner: UNT Libraries
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Social Support As a Moderating Factor Between Mental Health Disruption and College Adjustment in Student Veterans

Description: Research has indicated that OEF/OIF veterans are experiencing mental health concerns following deployment. While there are increasing numbers of veterans returning to higher education institutions after discharging from the military, there is a scarcity of empirical research investigating student veterans’ experiences as they transition into college. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether social support moderates the effects of psychological distress on college adjustment amo… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Campbell, Robyn
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Pathways to Prolonged Grief and Posttraumatic Growth: Examining the Roles of Attachment, Identity Distress, and Shattered Assumptions

Description: The sudden or violent death of a loved one (e.g., suicide, homicide, accident, etc.) poses unique challenges for the bereaved. Research has found such losses to be associated with higher levels of chronic psychological distress, now termed Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder in the DSM-5 and Prolonged Grief Disorder in the forthcoming ICD-11. The present study, developed through the lens of Multidimensional Grief Theory (MGT; Kaplow et al., 2013), explored underlying mechanisms and risk and… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Captari, Laura E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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An Investlarks and Hearts: Circadian Mismatch and Effort Intensity

Description: My experiment concerned the influence of chronobiological (circadian) rhythm on fatigue, effort, and cardiovascular (CV) response. It evaluated responses of morning people (Larks) presented an easy or difficult recognition memory task at a time congruent or incongruent with their rhythm. Based on an extension of a conceptual analysis of fatigue influence, my central prediction was that circadian rhythm would combine interactionally with task difficulty to determine effort and associated CV res… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Carbajal, Ivan
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Understanding Quality of Life in Older Adults

Description: I analyzed the 2004 and 2006 Health and Retirement Study data to test structural equation models of the quality of life (QOL) construct. The participants (N = 1352) were non-institutionalized individuals aged 42 and older (M = 65.70, SD = 10.88), with an average education of 12.73 years (SD = 2.96) and of varied ethnicities. The results indicated that physical functioning, affective experience, life satisfaction and social support could serve as indicators for a second order QOL factor. Further… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Cardona, Laura A.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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