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Multifactorial Determinants of Change in Mental Disorder and Happiness among Older Americans

Description: Mental health is an intrinsic capability that constitute an essential component of healthy aging. Mental health is constituted by positive constructs such as happiness and negative constructs (mental disorders) such as depression. As people grow older, they become more prone to developing mental disorders which are linked to poorer quality of life, increased disability, increased utilization and cost of health services, and higher rates of suicide. This dissertation involved three studies that … more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Adaralegbe, Adeleye Ayinde
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries

Development of a Scale to Measure Victim Reliance on a Perpetrator

Description: Betrayal trauma theory (BTT) explains the relationship between a victim and perpetrator to be an especially critical factor for predicting adverse trauma outcomes; however, to date, there is no adequate measure to assess this relationship. We aimed to create a measure of reliance, here defined as dependence on another for food, clothing, finances, emotional support, and more. We utilized a new scale, the Reliance on Perpetrator Scale, to measure this construct. 397 participants completed a batt… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Griffith, Elizabeth
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Investigating the Motivation-Cognition Interface: The Influence of Motivation on the Recognition Old/New Effect and Metamemory

Description: The purpose of this study was to thoroughly review previous work and to create a new experimental paradigm combining recognition memory with value-based incentives and metacognitive confidence judgments, which may provide convergent evidence for the motivation-cognition interface. This paradigm involves a game-like task administering global and local motivational incentives. Furthermore, trial-level metacognitive confidence ratings were gathered to understand the relationship of metacognitive a… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Doshier, Kirby
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries

Effects of Impaired Verbal Abilities on Miranda Comprehension and Reasoning: "Do You Understand Your Rights?"

Description: In Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the Supreme Court of the United States required that custodial arrestees be informed of their constitutional and continuous rights to silence and to legal counsel. Moreover, the ruling mandated that waivers be considered valid only if they were made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. However, in the decades that followed, evidence from both caselaw and empirical scholarship clarified that, for many vulnerable populations, these rights are in jeopardy. Among… more
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Date: December 2023
Creator: Tazi, Kamar Y.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Consistency, Consolidation, and Cognition in Autobiographical Memories: a Flashbulb Memory Approach

Description: Flashbulb memories are highly vivid and long-lasting memories for events that are emotionally significant and personally important. These memories are held in very high confidence in accuracy over an extended period. In particular, individuals believe that they can remember the personal details surrounding the event such as where they were and what they were doing at the time the event occurred. Evidence from research, however, indicates that this may not be the case. The study of flashbulb mem… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Kraha, Amanda
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Glass Is Neither Half Full Nor Empty, It Is Shattered: a Prospective Study of Shattered Assumptions Theory and Psychological Flexibility

Description: Shattered assumptions theory posits that each individual has a core set of assumptions about the world and the self, often termed the assumptive world which includes: the world is a benevolent place, the world is meaningful, and the self is worthy. Experiencing a traumatic event is believed to lead individuals to question these assumptions in light of the new contradictory information that causes the assumptive world to shatter, leaving the individual to rebuild a more negative perception of th… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Schuler, Eric Robert
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Self-Control in Overweight and Obese Individuals: The Relationship of Dispositional Self-Control and Blood Glucose

Description: Currently, the etiology of obesity is conceptualized as a confluence of environmental, socioeconomic, behavioral, biological and genetic factors. With regard to behavioral factors, some have suggested that a failure of self-control may contribute to the difficulty of an overweight/obese individual because of their inability to resist food or maintain physical activity. Recent research proposed that self-control could be described as similar to a muscle that can be fatigued. Thus, if an individu… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Edwards, Kate
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Logic, Emotion and Closure: Motivations for Choices of Faith

Description: Spirituality and religiosity can play key roles in individual lives through influencing health, social relationships, political views, as well as many other facets (Newberg, D'Aquili & Rause, 2001; Milevsky & Levitt, 2004; Hirsh, Walberg & Peterson, 2013). As important as religious and spiritual beliefs are to societies, cultures, and individuals, little is known about which psychological factors determine choices of faith. Although there are likely many determinants of religious, spiritual, at… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Jenkins, Elizabeth
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
open access

Glucose As an Energy Source to Increase Self-control in Restrained Eaters

Description: Research evidence is suggestive of a strength model of self-control, also known as ego depletion, in social psychological literature. Engaging in an initial task of self-control depletes a limited resource, resulting in less self-control on a subsequent, unrelated task. The strength model of self-control has been applied to many practical, everyday situations, such as eating behaviors among dieters. Newer studies suggest that blood glucose is the resource consumed during acts of self-control. C… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Valentine, Lisa M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Survivor vs. Victim: Self-Labeling of Trauma Victims and Its Implicit Impact on Resilience and Recovery

Description: Past research demonstrates that participants who label themselves as ‘victims' experience worse trauma-related outcomes than those who label themselves as ‘survivors.' Self-labeling in trauma research is typically measured using a dichotomous measure where participants choose either victim or survivor, but this construct may be better conceived as more continuous. The current study assessed self-labeling as a possible continuous construct and explored its predictive validity. To capture self-la… more
Date: May 2023
Creator: King, Ruth
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Is Mind Wandering the Mechanism Responsible for Life Stress Induced Impairments in Working Memory Capacity?

Description: The relationship between life stress and working memory capacity (WMC) has been documented in college students and older adults. It has been proposed that intrusive thoughts about life stress are the mechanism responsible for the impairments seen in WMC. To examine the mechanism responsible for these impairments the current study attempted to induce intrusive thoughts about personal events. The current study allowed for a test of predictions made by two theories of mind wandering regarding the … more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Banks, Jonathan Britten
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Response to Sexual Trauma in Relation to Event Centrality and Objectified View of Self

Description: This study examined the potentially differing emotional consequences of sexual versus non-sexual traumas in both a student and a community residing treatment seeking sample of women. The extent to which a trauma survivor considers the traumatic event central to her identity (CES) was examined as a potential mediator between traumatic events and PTSD. Additionally, the extent to which a women views herself and her body as a sexual object, to be valued based on her appearance and sexual usefuln… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Knowles, Laura R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The PICTS, Trauma, Experiential Avoidance, Criminal Thinking and Behavior in an Online Community Sample

Description: This study sought to generalize the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) factor structure using the PICTS-Layperson (PICTS:L) in a community sample. The current study also sought to replicate previous findings that criminal thinking mediates the relationship between trauma and criminal behavior. Additionally, this study sought to explore if and/or how experiential avoidance (EA) contributes to the relationships between post-traumatic symptoms (PTS) and criminal thinking, … more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Hulsey, Teresa
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Construct Validity of the I-SIP and Its Clinical Utility in Differentiating between Factitious Psychological Presentations (FPPs) and Malingering

Description: Forensic researchers and practitioners continue to face challenges when attempting to differentiate deceptive response styles, notably when comparing malingering and factitious disorder. However, due to the great disparities in research available, forensic examiners may not be adequately informed for considering factitious presentations as a competing hypothesis to malingering. De-emphasis of factitious disorders may also be attributed to the lack of empirical research and poor conceptual under… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Velsor, Sarah Frances
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Effectiveness of the SASSI-4 in Classifying Substance Use Disorders and Detecting Response Styles

Description: The current study explored the effects of simulated adjustment domains (i.e., partial denial and social desirability) on specialized substance abuse measures in a sample of 104 inpatient offenders with substance use disorders. Results indicated nearly two thirds (57.9%) of offenders successfully escaped detection on the SASSI-4 and InDUC-2R. Further, subtle approaches employed by the SASSI-4 failed to detect unacknowledged substance use by simulators, and the remaining decision rules were redun… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Hartigan, Sara E
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

An Alternative Operationalization of Betrayal Trauma using Perceived Betrayal

Description: There are many identified factors that correlate with whether an individual experiences adverse symptoms following a traumatic event. Research indicates that betrayal, where the victim is betrayed by another individual, may be one of these factors. Betrayal Trauma Theory (BTT) posits that betrayal during trauma increases the likelihood of developing adverse psychological symptoms. BTT objectively dichotomizes traumas as high betrayal or low betrayal traumas based on details of the event. Though… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Bedford, Lee
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Idiographic Temporal Dynamics of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Symptom Dimensions in Daily Life

Description: Understanding temporal relations among posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom dimensions has received increasing attention in research. However, current findings in this area are limited by group-level approaches, which are based on inter-individual variation. PTSD is a heterogeneous syndrome and symptoms are likely to vary across individuals and time. Thus, it is important to examine temporal relations among PTSD symptom dimensions as dynamic processes and at the level of intra-individua… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Schuler, Keke
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Female Psychopathy Predictors: Cluster B Traits and Alexithymia

Description: Psychopathy has long been lauded as a premier predictor of negative behavioral outcomes because of its demonstrated associations with violence, antisocial conduct, and institutional maladjustment. Traditional conceptualizations of psychopathy highlight the relatively equal importance placed on personality features (i.e., a grandiose, deceitful interpersonal style and deficits in affective experience) and behavioral elements (i.e., an impulsive and irresponsible lifestyle marked by social devian… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Rogstad, Jill E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

An Examination of Resnick's Model of Malingering: a Pai Study of Feigned Ptsd

Description: Malingered posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) poses a formidable clinical challenge in personal injury and disability cases because of the apparent ease in feigning PTSD and the supposed link (proximate cause) to the claimed damages. The effective assessment of feigned PTSD is particularly challenging because this diagnosis is both easier to fake than other Axis I disorders and more difficult to detect. As an additional confound, some patients with genuine PTSD produce highly variable, elevat… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Wooley, Chelsea N.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Influence of Extraversion, Religiosity, and Spirituality on Health Behaviors

Description: Religion and spirituality are thought to be of great importance for the meaning and quality of life for many individuals, and research suggests that there may be important health benefits associated with religion and spirituality. Religion and spirituality should be related to health behaviors for a number of reasons. Health behaviors are important contributors to an individual's overall health, illness and mortality. Major negative health behaviors related to health outcomes are smoking, exces… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Jenkins, Elizabeth P.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Correlates of Video Game Addiction

Description: Video game addiction often leads to a tremendous burden on those afflicted with the condition, draining their time, resources, and life away until they have nothing left. To further elucidate the problem of video game addiction, the current research examines the level of video game addiction of 111 participants, along with their motivation for their addictive behaviors, the quality of life of addicted individuals, and possible relations between video game addiction and other forms of addiction.… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Langley, Alex
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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