Alzheimer's disease (AD) has multiple factors that contribute to the disease process. Among these is a state of chronic inflammation that is endured by the brain during the aging process. The use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) decreases the amount of neuroinflammation sustained by the brain, and greater levels of NSAID use have been demonstrated to be associated with decreased probability of developing AD. This study looked at whether greater rates of NSAID use were also associated with decreased rates of cognitive and funtional decline and survival in a population-based sample of persons with AD.

The purpose of this study is to determine if a new intervention using techniques from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes et al., 1999) in combination with activities from The Body Project (Stice et al., 2009), will be able to reduce negative body image concerns and increase mindfulness skills in college females. Prior to receiving the intervention, participants completed a pre-test measuring their current body image concerns as well as mindfulness abilities. The intervention was administered in a large, group setting and took approximately 35 minutes to administer. After receiving the intervention, participants completed the same assessment measures as the pre-test, but in a post-test form. Results indicate that there was a significant difference in body image after participants received the intervention of ACT and The Body Project. There was not a significant difference for the mindfulness facets measured in the study. This research contributes to a growing area of eating disorder treatment using ACT, and can help provide evidence for the benefits of using specific ACT and The Body Project activities for treating and preventing negative body image.

Introduction—Bullying involvement is associated with many long-term adverse outcomes. Bullied children are at risk for internalizing disorders including anxiety, depression and suicidal behavior in childhood and adulthood. Bullies are also at risk for psychiatric disorders, specifically externalizing disorders. Bully victims—children who are both bullied and bullies—have a particularly poor prognosis, with a higher risk for internalizing and externalizing disorders. The purpose of this study is to study the epidemiology, risk of psychiatric disorders, and genetic and environmental influences of being bullied, a bully, and a bully victim—in the sample and individually in males and females. Methods—Twins (N=2,844, aged 8-17) from the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development and the Young Adult Follow-Up were used to study bullying involvement. Child and mother responses from three waves of data collection were used to determine bullying involvement status and to diagnose internalizing and externalizing disorders. The epidemiology of bullying involvement was examined. The odds ratios (OR) of being involved in bullying and having a psychiatric disorder were calculated. The twin methodology was used to estimate the genetic and environmental influences of bullying involvement. Results—In the sample, 14.56% were bullied, 17.33% were bullies, and 10.69% were bully victims. Males are more often involved in bullying, but females are more severely affected by their involvement. Bullied children are at a higher risk for internalizing disorders, especially young adult depression (OR 1.29). Bullies are at a higher risk for externalizing disorders, and depression (OR 1.72). Bully victims are at a higher risk for nearly every disorder tested. Bullying involvement is heritable, and being bullied has a dominance genetic component. The heritability of being bullied, a bully, and a bully victim is 48.12%, 54.81%, and 62.62% respectively. Conclusion—Individuals involved in bullying are at risk for serious and long-lasting psychiatric disorders. Interventions need to be developed that target each category of bullying involvement, and the specific disorders that these children are at risk for, while keeping in mind that their involvement is heritable.

The focus of this study was to explore the impact of challenging behaviors on Applied Behaviors Analysis treatment in Autism Spectrum Disorder. The prevalence of ASD is on the rise, so it is important that we understand how patients are responding to treatment. In this study, we cluster patients (N=854) based on their eight observed challenging behaviors using k-means, a machine learning algorithm, and then perform a multiple linear regression analysis to find significant differences between average exemplars mastered. The goal of this study was to expand the research in the area of ABA treatment for ASD and to help provide more insight helpful for creating personalized therapeutic interventions with maximum efficacy, minimum time and minimum cost for individuals.

The purpose of this study was to determine the preferences, if any, subjects have for counselors based on counselor characteristics of age, sex and attire. Photographs were taken of persons of differing ages (old, middle-age, young), sex (male, female) and attire (formal, casual, grub). One-hundred and five college and non-college adults were shown the photographs, asked to perceive the photographs as being those of counselors, and asked to rank their preferences for the persons depicted as counselors using a modified Q sort methodology. To determine whether the subjects had actually perceived the photographs as representing counselors and, therefore, discriminated among them on that basis, the subjects were also instructed to perceive the photographed individuals as attorneys and as friends, and to rank their preferences for the persons pictured under these conditions. Statistical analysis of the data was accomplished by assigning each photograph a numerical value (weighting) from one to seven, based on the location (ranking) it had been given by each subject. This procedure resulted in each photograph receiving a score each time a subject ranked the set of pictures. The data were analyzed using three three-way analyses of variance. Significant main effects were found for counselor age (F=6.77; df=2; p<.05) and attire (F=110.97; df=2; p<.05). Significant interaction effects were found for counselor age by sex (F=12.65; df=2; p<.05), counselor sex by attire (F=10.46; df=2; p.05), and counselor age by sex by attire (F=8.54; df=4; p<.05). The manipulation of subject perception of the photographs appeared successful. The results indicated that systematic differences occurred in subject rankings of the photographs when the photographed individuals were perceived and ranked separately as counselors, attorneys and friends, respectively. From the results of the study it was concluded that counselor age, attire and, to a lesser extent, sex are related to subject preferences for counselors. Recommendations concerning the applications of the results to practical settings and areas of further research were given.

As the majority of Americans identify with a religious affiliation, the religious context is an important backdrop upon which identity development occurs. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and allied (LGBTQA) youths, the process of development may be complicated in a religious context due to denominational positions on same-sex sexuality. While recent researchers highlighted the importance of contextual influences on LGBTQA developmental processes, few studies have examined LGBTQA sexual and religious identity development. The goal of the current study was to gain a better understanding and appreciation of LGBTQA adolescent and young adult experiences of religious and sexual identity development. Eight adolescents (15-18 years) and 11 emerging adults (19-24 years) who identified as both LGBTQA and having been raised in an active Christian religious tradition participated in the study. The study included three phases: face-to-face individual interviews, journal writings, and focus groups. In each phase of the study, participants were asked to reflect on their experiences of sexual and religious identity development across childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood (if applicable). Findings from the current study supported three broad themes and several subthemes. Early in their development, participants described a behavioral religious participation and early awareness of their same-sex attractions. The young adult participants also shared a tendency to deny their attractions. During their middle phase of experiences, participants often self-labeled as LGBTQA. Religiously, participants shared they questioned their beliefs yet continued their religious participation. A proportion of the participants indicated experiencing guilt, conflict, and mental health difficulties, which many participants related to their emerging sexual orientation and religious involvement. The late experiences, which often coincided with sharing a same-sex attracted label with friends and/or family members, was marked by a religious disengagement, social consequences, self-acceptance, and personal values clarification. Using the participants’ own words these findings are presented, along with possible implications and suggestions for future research.

The basic behavioral process of operant conditioning contributes to problem behaviors in psychological disorders. Escape from aversive situations in depression, the rewarding effects of drugs in substance abuse, and the receipt of caregiver attention for disruptive behavior in intellectual or developmental disabilities are just a few examples of operant reinforcement contingencies that perpetuate undesirable behavior. Behavioral treatment strategies often introduce alternative sources of reinforcement for a desirable alternative behavior. Although treatments can be effective, alternative reinforcement removal can trigger relapse of the problem behavior, called resurgence. Persistence in alternative reinforcement treatments and resurgence can be understood from the prospective of behavioral momentum theory, which predicts greater operant persistence and resurgence when there is a greater history of reinforcement associated with the context in which an operant response occurs. Shahan and Sweeney incorporated resurgence into the framework of behavioral momentum theory, and the proposed model makes explicit qualitative and quantitative predictions that are tested in this dissertation. Chapter 1 provides the background and significance of resurgence of operant behavior, and gives an introduction to behavioral momentum theory and the quantitative model of resurgence. Chapter 2 reports two recently published experiments that show increased time with alternative reinforcement treatment reduces subsequent resurgence in an animal model with pigeon subjects. The study presented in Chapter 3 examined how persistence and resurgence may be affected when alternative reinforcement is delivered in a novel context. This experiment, which used rat subjects, integrated and compared the animal model of resurgence with another operant relapse phenomenon, renewal, in which context change alone is known to induce relapse of a previously reduced response. Chapter 4 describes a study with college undergraduates as participants that tested the feasibility of a brief, three-alternative, forced-choice procedure as a human operant model of resurgence. Despite procedural manipulations of the length of training and probability of reward for choice of the target stimulus, resurgence was never consistently observed. Chapter 5 provides an integrative discussion of these research topics.

This study investigated empathic accuracy in adolescent romantic relationships. The project examined the relationships between psychological characteristics and relationship outcomes (i.e., satisfaction and aggression) to determine if the relationships were mediated by empathic accuracy. Participants were 92 heterosexual couples aged 14-18 years old who lived in rural areas in Utah and Arizona. Couple members completed surveys assessing attitudes and behaviors in their relationships and a video-recall procedure in which partners rated their own and their partner's behaviors during problem-solving discussion. Empathic accuracy was generally not related to psychological characteristics or outcomes. It became apparent that there were limitations with the methodology used to measure empathic accuracy. Due to the very strong correlations between participants' ratings of themselves and their ratings of their partners, ratings of self and partner were collapsed for each interaction variable to capture interpretations/biases employed by the participants in evaluating aspects of their interactions. The global video-recall ratings were then analyzed to determine if they mediated the relationships between psychological characteristics and outcomes. Rejection sensitivity emerged as an important psychological characteristic, and interpretations of conflict and sarcasm mediated the relationship between rejection sensitivity and outcomes of aggression and satisfaction.

Abstract Although spiritual or religious behaviors are sometimes targeted within behavioral activation protocols (Hopko & Lejuez, 2007; Hopko, Lejuez, Ruggiero, & Eifert, 2003), the efficacy of a protocol that exclusively develops a religiously-based behavioral repertoire has not been investigated. This randomized controlled study investigated the efficacy of a brief protocol for religious action in behavioral activation (PRA-BA) relative to a no-treatment “support” condition among mild to moderately depressed undergraduate students (n = 50). PRA-BA consisted of an individualized one-session intervention and 2-week activation interval. Clinical outcomes assessed depression, environmental reward, anxiety, and quality of life. Repeated measures ANOVAs indicated that the PRA-BA group had significantly greater decreases in depression and anxiety and increases in environmental reward at post-treatment. There was also a statistical trend indicating that PRA-BA may improve quality of life. At one-month follow-up, treatment gains were maintained for the PRA-BA participants. This study provides encouraging support for the efficacy of a strictly religiously-based behavioral intervention toward attenuating symptoms of depression in college students.

Adherence to traditional masculinity has been associated with negative physical and psychological health outcomes. Specifically, the standards of masculinity imposed on men have been associated with high levels of stress reactivity, interpersonal violence, and substance abuse. However, previous research has been limited to primarily Caucasian samples. In order to better understand masculinity and the stress associated with adherence to masculinity across ethnicity, we examined the validity of the Masculine Gender Role Stress scale in a diverse sample. We hypothesized that the MGRS in a diverse sample would function similarly to the MGRS in a primarily Caucasian sample in that it would be reliable and valid and that a five factor model of MGRS would be the best fit. Undergraduate students (N = 234) completed the MGRS scale and several questionnaires measuring masculinity, stress, anger and anxiety. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted in order to assess the validity of the five-factor model of the MGRS scale in a diverse sample. Results confirmed that the MGRS is valid among a diverse sample, a diverse Caucasian excluded sample, and a Hispanic only sample. Additionally, the five factor model was the better fit for all samples evaluated.