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This study examined how women with advanced breast cancer manage adverse effects of disease and treatment so that they maintain energy for continued personal development and life quality during what may be a long period of dying. The specific purpose was to test a theory proposing that psychosocial resources mediate between illness related distress and self-transcendent views and behaviors that, in turn, lead to emotional well-being. The study employed a cross-sectional correlational design with a convenience sample (n = 107) of women with Stage IIIb or Stage IV breast cancer. Subjects had lived with advanced disease for a mean length of time of 1.7 years with bone being the most common site of metastases. Subjects completed a questionnaire consisting of 10 instruments indexing symptom distress, functional disability, concurrent distressful life events, financial concerns, perceived personal control, social support, spiritual perspective, self-transcendence, affective well-being and cognitive well-being. Factor analytic structural equations modeling was used for data analysis. There was no relationship between degree of illness distress and available psychosocial resources. Therefore, psychosocial resources did not serve as mediators between illness distress and self-transcendence. Self-transcendence mediated the positive link between psychosocial resources and emotional well-being. Negative paths between illness distress and both self-transcendence and emotional well-being led to a reconceptualization of the theory. An alternative model was analyzed with illness distress as a dependent variable. Self-transcendence continued to mediate between psychosocial resources and emotional well-being. Emotional well-being became a mediator between self-transcendence and decreased illness distress. Psychosocial resources indirectly served to decrease distress through their effect on self-transcendent perspectives and emotional well-being. However, the direct effect of resources was to increase illness distress. Further research is needed to support the reconceptualized theory and to clarify the apparent paradoxical role of psychosocial resources found in this study. Interventions that facilitate self-transcendent perspectives and activities may lead to increased emotional well-being and reduced distress associated with advanced breast cancer.

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Theory and research on emotion regulation have shifted from an emphasis on adaptiveness of specific regulatory strategies to regulatory flexibility according situational demands. Using the process model of flexible regulation (Bonanno & Burton, 2013), this dissertation reports two studies designed to investigate questions related to regulatory repertoire and responsiveness to feedback (two central components underpinning regulatory flexibility), respectively. In Study 1, participants undertook the Expressive Flexibility Task (EF Task), in which they were instructed to up- and down-regulate their emotional facial expressions, and the Affective Flexibility Task (AF Task), in which they were instructed to up- and down-regulate their subjective feelings. The results showed that the ability to enhance emotional expression, as rated by untrained observers, and the ability to enhance subjective feeling, as measured by facial electromyography (EMG), were moderately correlated, so were the abilities to suppress emotional expression and subjective feeling, suggesting regulation in distinct response systems are separable but also reflect a broader, unified capacity. In Study 2, extra trials (2nd phase) were added to examine the effect of practice and feedback instruction on expressive and affective regulatory abilities. Half of the participants were given predetermined negative feedback about their performance of the EF and AF Tasks and asked to try harder in the 2nd phase of the tasks (feedback group), and the other half were instructed to wait before proceeding to the 2nd task phases (control group). The two groups demonstrated comparable improvement in the ability to further enhance subjective feeling in the 2nd phase of the tasks, as measured by facial EMG. The feedback group also reported more or less emotion in accordance to the regulatory instructions in the 2nd task phases. Furthermore, both the abilities to further enhance and suppress subjective feeling as measured by facial EMG were negatively correlated with depressive symptoms and general distress, regardless of group status. The findings were discussed within the regulatory flexibility framework. Methodological limitations of the study and direction for future research were also discussed.

The current study investigates whether the ability to enhance and suppress emotional facial expressions display cross-sectional associations with feelings of loneliness among spousal bereaved individuals 1.5 to 3 years after a loss. We compare bereaved individuals to a demographically similar married control group to examine whether the relationship between loneliness and emotional expression regulation is moderated by grief after controlling for the effects of relationship satisfaction and symptoms of PTSD/depression. We evaluate three dimensions of loneliness: emotional loneliness, social loneliness, and collective loneliness.

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between psychological flexibility, self-concealment, and eating disorder severity. This study also sought to explore the relationship between these variables in a clinical sample. Existing literature has demonstrated that diminished psychological flexibility is likely to play a key role in eating pathology. Additionally, self-concealment has been found to be a common and treatment-interfering aspect of the clinical presentation of eating-disordered individuals. Preliminary evidence has been found linking these variables to severity of eating-disorder pathology. However, this relationship needs further clarification to understand fully the implications for treatment and relapse prevention, for these often treatment-resistant disorders. Participants were 182 respondents to an online survey including demographic information, the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q), the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-16), and the Self-Concealment Scale (SCS). Data were collected via Qualtrics software and analyzed in SPSS using Hayes PROCESS models. Findings included the following. Among a sample of eating-disordered individuals, the less (more diminished) psychological flexibility they reported, the more severe the reported eating-disorder symptoms; in other words, an inverse relationship was found. Additionally, the greater self-concealment participants reported, the more severe were their reported eating-disorder symptoms. These findings held up for overall severity of reported symptoms and also for subscale severity for eating restraint, eating concern, weight concern, and shape concern. Additionally, a moderated mediation model found that greater self-concealment, diminished psychological flexibility, and no treatment were all significantly related to increases in eating-disorder severity. This model also found a significant interaction between psychological flexibility and eating-disorder severity moderated by treatment condition. That is, the extent to which someone self-conceals helps to explain the relationship between psychological flexibility and severity. Furthermore, whether a patient has been in treatment significantly relates to the relationship between psychological flexibility and severity. Implications of these findings are discussed, including a focus on emotion-regulation models of eating disorders and the rationale for adopting a transdiagnostic understanding of eating pathology. Recommendations are proposed for clinical practice, including expanding the utilization of therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) for eating disorders, which specifically target psychological flexibility and self-concealment in the hope of preventing future relapse.

This study investigated the relationship between the Vineland Social Maturity Scale (VSMS) and the Adaptive Behavior Scale (ABS) in their assessment of adaptive behavior. Both scales, the VSMS and the ABS, were administered to a randomized sample of male and female residents of varying degrees of mental retardation. The ABS and the VSMS were administered by those hospital staff who were most familiar with the members in the sample. The scores from the ABS and the scores from the VSMS were then correlated. Additional correlations were carried by matching the sub-categories of the VSMS with the domains of the ABS.The results of this study indicate that there exists a significant relationship between the Adaptive Behavior Scale and the Vineland Social Maturity Scale. In the assessment of adaptive behavior one scale may be substituted for the other in those situations where an overall index of adaptive behavior is required.One of the major differences between the two scales is that the Adaptive Behavior Scale provides an extensive survey of personality and behavior disorders which identify areas that prevent progress in adaptive growth. As the assessment of maladaptive behavior is a major concern in the management of the mentally retarded, the Adaptive Behavior Scale has been found to be the preferred scale in this investigation.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University. / Bibliography: leaves 165-174. Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

The number of children identified as emotionally disturbed has been increasing. The success rate for these children has been disappointingly low in both their academic and post-academic lives. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between children identified as emotionally disturbed and their families, and to recommend strategies and family services that could increase the success rate of this particular population.Information was obtained from two self-report instruments, FACES II and a Personal Information Questionnaire, and from social-developmental histories and psychoeducational evaluations. The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Scale (FACES II) is a 30-item, self-report instrument that scores a family's view of flexibility and cohesion on the Circumplex Model grid. The Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems is a family typology that is based on the family's degree of flexibility and cohesion. The Personal Information Questionnaire was a demographic instrument used to obtain marital status and economic factors. Grade levels and incidents of child abuse were obtained from social-developmental histories and psychoeducational evaluations.Data were collected from families with children identified as emotionally disturbed. A total of twenty-seven children, ages eight to eighteen, and one parent of each child were included in the study (N = 54). Responses to FACES II and items on the questionnaire were analyzed usingchi-square analysis.Seventy-four percent of the families were classified as dysfunctional based on their responses to FACES II. Less than half of these families rated as disengaged on the cohesion level and more than half of these families rated as rigid on the flexibility level. The school levels of these children were also significant. A higher percentage of families with children in high school were dysfunctional as compared with families with children in elementary school. Parent relational status was not significant. The functional level of the family was not affected if the parents were married, divorced, or widowed. A relationship did exist between families with children identified as emotionally disturbed and reported incidents of child abuse. The dysfunctional families had a higher rate of reported child abuse while those families who were more balanced had fewer reported incidents of child abuse. Finally, socioeconomic status was not a factor in the functional level of the families.Findings from this study may assist school personnel when providing services for children identified as emotionally disturbed and their families. Teachers of students who are emotionally disturbed and general education teachers who will service these students require an accurate understanding of the etiological factors associated with the development of a child identified as emotionally disturbed. By assessing the family's specific areas of strength and weaknesses, school and community services could be provided to meet the needs of the families and their children. / Department of Special Education