The Relationship of Impulsive and Dysregulated Behaviors to Substance Use
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Longitudinal studies indicate that individuals diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exhibit elevated rates of substance use and substance use disorders (SUDs). The development of substance use in individuals with ADHD has been found to be largely impacted by the presence of comorbid conduct disorder (CD). Several studies have shown an association between ADHD and increased substance use over the risk posed by CD whereas others have suggested that CD mediates the relationship between ADHD and later substance misuse. The diagnostic criteria for CD, ADHD, and SUD are notable for the presence of impulsive behaviors. One of the most robust predictors of maladaptive substance use is a persistent pattern of impulsive behavior.
The Psychological Impact of Racial Socialization on Identity Conceptualization and Race-Related Stress of Black College Students at a Multi-Racial Campus
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Thirty-six male and female black college students attending a small private college in New Jersey participated in a mixed method study exploring recollections of received parental racial socialization, covering childhood through entrance into college. Recollections of racial socialization were gathered using a survey administered to all 36 students and face-to-face interviews with a small subset of six students, which generated rich material on experiences with racial socialization. Results from the survey showed an increase or decrease in reported protective, protective, and total (combined) racial socialization messages were not significantly related to an increase or decrease in reported race-related stress. A more complicated picture was derived from the interviews in that the participants did negotiate racial identity; however most endorsed a racial identity orientation within a pointedly mainstream experience, with minor focus on Black culture. Directions for future research on other sources of resilience against race-related stress, such as self-efficacy, and the limitations of the study are also discussed.
Electrophysiological Identification of Malingered Executive Dysfunction
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Jillian Grose-Fifer
Traditional evaluation of cognitive functioning is based on the assumption that the individual being assessed is responding to the best of his or her abilities. However, when individuals have external incentives to appear more impaired, such as those involved in civil or criminal litigation, the results of these evaluations may be questionable. Therefore, measures designed to assess malingering have become an integral part of many neuropsychological evaluations, particularly in forensic settings. However, these malingering measures have been demonstrated to be vulnerable to both manipulation and coaching. Consequently, recent research has attempted to identify physiological indices of cognitive functioning that are less susceptible to overt manipulation. Previous physiological studies have focused on assessing the validity of an individual's memory impairment, however, this study evaluates the effectiveness of a physiological measure of frontal lobe executive functioning.
RE-LOCATING RECYCLING: A CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF RECYCLING BEHAVIOR IN THE USA AND GERMANY
Year of Dissertation:
2011
While recycling remains a common research topic within environmentally responsible behavior studies, it is little known how contextual factors such as physical environments, social interactions, and cultural backgrounds influence people's attitudes and behavior. This research adopts an ecological framework and conducts a mixed-method qualitative inquiry of whether and how relocation has impacts on people's ecological thinking and behavior in their everyday life. Semi-structured interviews were conducted within two groups of people: Americans who moved to Munich and Germans who moved to New York City. Interviews were conducted in participants' homes or workplaces. Pictures were taken inside the apartments, in common areas in the buildings, and recycling areas in public spaces to record recycling accessibility.
The geographical imagination of youth: Transformation through political participation and community engagement
Year of Dissertation:
2010
The period of adolescence is strongly associated with explorations of one's identity, values and surroundings. Youth organizations can offer a platform for young people to work collectively on community organizing and campaigns for social justice. Through the process of participating in social conflict and contestation, youth are often engaged in spatial conflict and contestation. The concept of the geographical imagination or critical consciousness about space makes this connection between the social and the spatial explicit. The geographical imagination includes the knowledge and meaning one ascribes to different places, along with an awareness of the social, spatial, political and economic forces that help to produce and maintain these spaces. There is little research that considers the contexts in which the geographical imagination develops in young people and how this relates to their emergent identities as political actors and activists.
MATERNAL MENTALIZATION AND CHILD PSYCHOSOCIAL ADAPTATION FOR CHILDREN WITH LEARNING AND BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS
Year of Dissertation:
2010
This study examined the relationship between maternal reflective functioning (maternal RF) and psychosocial functioning for children with learning and behavioral disorders (LBD). Because many, but not all, children with LBD experience social and emotional difficulties concurrent with learning, language and behavioral impairments, this project aimed to identify within-group differences to highlight protective factors and inform treatment. The study predicted that mothers' capacity to mentalize about their child, the parent-child relationship, themselves as parents, and their child's learning and behavioral disorders (RF-LBD) would be associated with improved psychosocial functioning in their child.
Modes of being-there and doing-here: Transformations in self-body-environment relations in marathon runners
Year of Dissertation:
2012
This dissertation examines self-body-environment relations under conditions where the body is undergoing changes in the course of its activity. Twenty-seven marathon runners were interviewed in order to provide insight into self-body-environment relations as they undergo various transformations in training over the course of months and while racing over the course of hours. This research identifies multiple and dynamic self-body-environment relations, affecting experiences of time, space and effort, the perceptions of taskscape and landscape, and different modes of being (not-yet-able, able-restrained, unable-restrained, no-longer able, able-again) and describes bodily activities (cultivating, preparing, equipping, saving, spending).
ACUTE EFFECTS OF ESTROGEN AND BISPHENOL-A, AN ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMICAL, ON COGNITIVE AND NEURAL FUNCTION
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Many natural and synthetic chemicals in environment can mimic or antagonize the effects of endogenous hormones. Bisphenol A (BPA) is one such chemical, with mixed estrogen agonist/antagonist properties. Recent evidence indicates that estrogen and BPA may exert effects on brain functions not only through genomic but also through non-genomic pathways, activating membrane-associcated estrogen receptors. Because at present little is known about how acute BPA may interact with estrogen in the adult brain and affect estrogen mediated behaviors such as memory and learning, this research examined acute effects of estradiol (E2) and BPA, alone, and in combination, on behavior (memory consolidation) and neural function (spine density and monoamine levels) in adult ovariectomized female rats. For behavioral study, acute 17beta- and 17alpha-E2 treatment effects on spatial and non-spatial memory consolidation were tested using object placement (OP) and object recognition (OR) tasks. Both isomers of estradiol facilitated memory consolidation, but enhancement occurred in a time-, dose-, and task specific manner. The dose-response relationship was an inverted-U for both tasks. Co-administration of BPA blocked E2-induced OP memory enhancement far below the current reference safe dose of 50ug/kg/day. A larger BPA dose was needed to block 17alpha-E2 induced OR memory enhancement. BPA alone had no effect on OP memory, but high doses enhanced OR memory.
Symbolic Ruptures: The Speech and Language of Trauma
Year of Dissertation:
2009
This dissertation project is a theoretical examination of `symbolic ruptures,' the traumatic disruptions in human experience that resist being represented in ordinary modes of symbolization. Insofar as the representation of such disturbing experiences is primarily non-verbal, it has been often relegated to the realm of the `desymbolic.' This project attempts to re-conceptualize the forms and symptoms in which such experiences are expressed as an unconscious language and seeks to reinstate them back into the realm of the symbolic, thus creating a new imperative for their understanding.
Transfer of oddity-from-sample performance in the pigeon to novel stimulus locations
Year of Dissertation:
2010
The study examined the role of stimulus location in oddity-from-sample conditional