The current study examined divergences among impulsivity and sensation seeking items from the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire Impulsive Sensation Seeking scale in terms of their relations to other personality models, deviance, and laboratory task outcomes. A sample of 654 undergraduates was gathered across two studies and given a Five Factor Model of personality measure (e.g. NEO Five Factor Inventory, NEO Five Factor Report Form), deviance measures (e.g. Antisocial Behavior Inventory, Explicit Attitudes Towards Marijuana Questionnaire), and three laboratory tasks (e.g. Balloon Analogue Risk Task, Newmans Card-Playing Task). Results demonstrated the hypothesized divergences among impulsivity and sensation seeking items on measures of personality and deviance as well as laboratory tasks. We conclude that Impulsive Sensation Seeking is multidimensional and would be more useful if employed as two independent constructs: (Lack of) Premeditation and Sensation Seeking.

Background: The number of Foreign Born (FB) individuals in the United States (US) is growing and their health behaviors and beliefs are important to know. In the US, cancer is the second leading cause of death, and there is need to explore factors that are associated with the use of cancer prevention strategies among FB individuals. Objective: The study aimed to compare cancer screening rates, assess factors associated with use of cancer screening tests across FB and Non-Foreign Born (NFB) individuals and association between length of stay and use of selected cancer screening tests among FB people. Methodology: Using the 2012 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) 4, cycle 2 data, which comprised of 3,630 participants of which 513 were FB, logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify predictors of selected cancer screening tests. Independent variables included demographic and selected healthcare, beliefs, and information seeking factors. Results: There were no significant differences in screening rates for cervical, breast, and colon cancers among the FB and NFB individuals. For breast cancer screening, having had a routine checkup in the last year was found to be associated with increased likelihood of having a mammography exam. For cervical cancer screening, none of the selected healthcare, beliefs and information seeking factors was found to be significant among the FB individuals. For colon cancer screening, only the information seeking factor “it took a lot of effort to get cancer information” was found to be significant among FB individuals. Length of stay in the US for FB individuals was found be associated with increased likelihood of colon cancer test only. Conclusion: Inventive and ethnically appropriate strategies are essential to increase awareness for cancer prevention strategies. Well-designed information strategies that take into account the diversity of the US population can lead to benefits such as increased cancer screening.

This study is an investigation of how people’s attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help are related to how they typically cope with stressors and by their general self-efficacy – a relationship that has not been examined in prior research. Participants were 754 men and women students in a mid-sized Midwestern university. Students completed an online survey that included the Brief COPE, Beliefs About Psychological Services scale, and New General Self-Efficacy scale. Results revealed that higher general self-efficacy and coping by means of Use of Emotional Support, Use of Instrumental Support, and Venting were associated with more positive attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help; and that lower self-efficacy and coping by means of Denial, Substance Use, Behavioral Disengagement, and Self-Blame were associated with less positive attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

This project introduces a new measure, Beliefs and Evaluations About Counseling Scale (BEACS), based on social psychological theories of attitudes, including the Multiattribute Model of Attitudes (MMA) and the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). Applying a MMA formula, two scales (beliefs and evaluations) linked with the BEACS were constructed. The BEACS was also designed to incorporate subjective and normative beliefs and attitudes based on the concept of social norms (SN) from the TRA. Three studies were conducted. Study 1 employed a qualitative approach to generate scale items. Forty-three college students participated. A thematic analysis led to the identification of 61 items for each of the belief and evaluation scales. Study 2 explored latent variables tied to the BEACS by administering the initial item pool to 497 college students. Results of factor analyses yielded five and six factor solutions that seemed valid. In Study 3, the five- and six-factor models were tested through a confirmatory factor analysis using an independent sample of 183 college students. It was determined that the BEACS was best represented by 28 pairs of items (beliefs & evaluations) and five factors: Expectancy for Positive Outcome, Tolerance for Negative Outcome, Tolerance for Negative Quality, Expectancy for Positive Norm, and Tolerance for Negative Norm. This factor solution was consistent with the factors tied to the Thoughts About Psychotherapy Survey. Furthermore, the BEACS Expectancy for Positive Outcome and the Expectancy for Positive Norm factors were consistent with two TRA components: general attitudes and social norms. In Study 3, support was also found for the known-group validity of the BEACS. Results revealed that women, counseling users, and people who have thought of seeking counseling scored higher on two subscales of the BEACS. Convergent and predictive validity of the BEACS was evaluated using the Beliefs About Psychological Services (BAPS). Results indicated moderate correlations between responses to the five BEACS subscales and the three BAPS subscales (Intent, Stigma Tolerance, & Expertness). Subsequent regression analyses revealed that four of the five BEACS subscales were significant predictors of the BAPS Intent factor. The BEACS was additionally found to possess high internal consistency reliability. Strengths, limitations and implications for research and practice are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Although research has shown that mental health interventions are effective, many people who are afflicted with a mental disorder or emotional distress do not seek services (e.g., Wang et al., 2005). Perceived stigma, the belief that an individual will be devalued and discriminated against for seeking psychological assistance, is a barrier to seeking mental health services, as some people avoid these services in order to avoid the associated stigma. Another barrier to mental health service utilization is mental health literacy, which refers to how well-versed people are in information regarding mental illness and treatment (Jorm et al., 1997). Low levels of mental health literacy may inhibit people from seeking help as they may not recognize their need for services and may not be aware that effective services are available. The first of two studies examined a social influence intervention aimed at reducing perceived stigma and increasing intentions to seek counselling. One hundred and sixty-six undergraduate students watched videos of ingroup or outgroup speakers discussing their non-stigmatizing experience with therapy or speakers discussing a control topic. No significant differences were found between the groups after the intervention. The second study investigated an educational intervention aimed at improving mental health knowledge and increasing intentions to seek counselling. One hundred and fifty-five undergraduate participants listened to either a control lecture or a lecture about mental illness and treatment with or without a testimonial by the lecturer about her positive experience with therapy. The participants who listened to the lecture and testimonial had higher relevant mental health knowledge and intentions to seek counselling compared to the control condition. No differences were found between the education only and control conditions on intentions to seek counselling. The main finding of this project was that a combination of social influence and educational approaches has the most potential of improving intentions to seek mental health services, as each of these components does not appear to be effective independently.

Increasingly, workplace information seeking takes place in digital information environments and is reliant upon search systems. Existing systems are designed to retrieve information that is relevant to the query, but are not capable of identifying information that is well-suited to the context and situation of a search. This is a problem for professionals who often are searching for a small amount of useful information that can be applied to a problem or task, and have limited time to browse through large sets of results. This inability of search systems to discriminate between relevant and useful documents is one of the core problems in information retrieval. In this dissertation, I address this problem by studying the role that contextual factors play in determining how a group of professionals searches for and selects information. The central question concerns the nature of the relationships between these contextual factors, specifically between the genres in the document collection and the tasks of the searcher, with an aim to exploit such relationships to improve workplace information retrieval. Research was conducted through multiple studies in three phases, moving from an exploratory study of workplace information behaviour to a controlled experimental user study. Findings confirm that workplace context shapes search behaviour. This relationship is modeled as a set of key contextual factors and sets of context-dependent access constraints, preferred document characteristics, and search strategies. Among the contextual factors identified, work tasks and information tasks were found to be significantly associated with document genres. This task-genre relationship was modeled as a matrix of associations between domain-specific task and genre taxonomies and successfully implemented as a filtering component in a workplace search system. This is the first major study of the relationship between task and genre in information seeking and of its application to information retrieval systems.

When stress becomes distress, people seek to decrease their psychological pain using methods that seem convenient and appropriate. In an increasingly technology-based society, the Internet provides opportunities for individuals in distress to seek information and connections with others. Research on Internet-based help services indicates that many people seek help online because of the anonymity and control afforded by the communication medium. This study explored the experiences of 10 people who sought help for mental health concerns and used the Internet as part of the process. Participants were recruited from online sources and posters placed in Internet cafes. Transcripts from the community message boards and blogs helped to support the reports for some participants. Basic qualitative inquiry was used to help understand these experiences and represent them in a way that facilitates understanding in others. Results of this study indicate that the role of the Internet in the process of help seeking is perceived differently, based on participants individual differences. However, the results also indicate ways that online and offline resources can be combined to facilitate early help seeking and seamless transitions between helping services. This study highlights the unique implications of online help services for adolescents and those seeking help online for suicidality, highlighting the benefits and challenges of online help. Implications of this study support the necessity to develop an integrated online/offline mental health strategy, as well as clear guidelines for online counselling. Recommendations are made for online service providers and directions for future research are suggested. / Counselling Psychology

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

This study explored the experiences of street-involved youth who have received mental health services for symptoms of methamphetamine-induced psychosis. Specifically, the study investigated what factors were perceived by participants to promote and hinder access to mental health services. The researcher interviewed nine street youth at Covenant House, a Vancouver agency serving street-involved youth. Interview data and the researcher's field notes were coded and analyzed within a grounded theory paradigm. Youth discussed formal and informal sources of help and routes to both. Two distinct perspectives to treatment were identified: an addictions perspective and a concurrent disorders perspective. Respondents outlined the typical pathway into methamphetamine use and described barriers and supports for accessing services while undergoing drug-induced psychosis. Significant factors that encouraged access to services were positive relationships with helpers, strong peer supports, and the use of involuntary services when necessary. Identified barriers included fear of being stigmatized, lack of problem awareness, and systemic barriers. The current research proposed a model of access to mental health services that positions outreach and frontline workers as key figures to mediating street youth's access to appropriate services.

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 48-54).