Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2007. / "Publication number AAT 3266293"

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2007. / "Publication number AAT 3281760"

The purpose of this study was to investigate how attachment style, sexual passion, and love directly and jointly affect the how the HPA-axis responds to relationship conflict. Cortisol measurements were gathered from 198 dating couples while they discussed a relationship issue that has recently been the source of heated debate. Sexual passion was associated with higher levels of cortisol during the conflict for men but not women. In contrast, being in love and being loved more by a partner were linked to lower levels of cortisol during the moment of conflict for both men and women. The hypothesis that cortisol levels during conflict further depend on the interaction between sexual passion, love and a person's attachment style received some support. Females high in sexual passion and attachment anxiety experienced a faster increase in cortisol in anticipation of conflict, and females high in love and avoidance displayed a slower increase in cortisol during conflict. The discussion also focuses on the role that cortisol appears to play in conflict related attachment processes.

Life events, even those that are predictable over the course of a life, can create psychosocial stress. Survivors of catastrophic events may be particularly susceptible to the stress of life. While the aid and comfort available to those embedded in a social networks appear to help most weather the storms of life, there may be unique populations that are relatively immune to social support. Veterans of combat, owing to the extreme nature of war experiences, may be just such a population. Throughout the life course, combat veterans can experience psychological distress stemming from their war experiences. One manifestation of this distress is symptoms of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A model was developed that would account for variation in symptoms of PTSD among veterans based on timing of military service, exposure to combat, current stressful life events, and level of social support available. This study examines determinants of reported symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder in veterans seeking ambulatory care at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities. Data derived from the pilot study for the Veterans Health Study, funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs, were used to assess whether veterans’ symptomatology may be viewed as an interplay between stress factors, specifically a history of exposure to combat and life events occurring within the last year, and perceived levels of current social support. The results indicate that stress factors, including combat exposure and current stressful life events, are major determinants of PTSD symptoms in veterans. Age at entry to the military and current levels of social support did not prove to be significant predictors of these symptoms in this sample.

Understanding the development and expression of conflict management styles within sibling relationships has important implications for identifying interventions for fostering children's social competence. The present study investigated the relationship between parents' early and concurrent marital conflict resolution styles and their first-grade child's use of constructive and destructive conflict management strategies with their siblings. Using both Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1969) and Family Systems Theory (Minuchin, 1985), the current study explored parents' styles of marital conflict resolution as predictors of children's observed sibling conflict strategies. Participants included 50 mothers and fathers, their first-grade child and next younger sibling, within a 3.5 year range. Families from the project were drawn from a larger longitudinal study investigating the transition to parenthood in 153 working-class, dual-earner couples. Self-report scales measuring marital conflict resolution (e.g., Positive Problem Solving, Engagement, Withdrawal, and Compliance) were completed by each parent across the transition to parenthood and five years later when their oldest child entered the first grade. At a 5-year follow-up home visit, parents rated their oldest child's behavior toward their sibling across three dimensions (e.g., Positive Involvement, Conflict and Rivalry, Avoidance). In addition, videotaped free-play sibling observations were conducted to assess sibling positive and negative connectedness as well as sibling conflict resolution styles. Observational data revealed that fathers' use of compliance strategies was associated with siblings' greater likelihood of being classified as using only destructive strategies and engaging in fewer conflicts. Mothers' conflict styles were more strongly implicated in parent reports of sibling behavior. Parents' conflict resolution styles were most linked to negative sibling interactions, rather than positive involvement. The findings highlight the balance of destructive marital conflict styles relative to constructive styles in understanding parent reports of the sibling relationship. Future research should consider particular couple patterns of conflict styles as potential influences on sibling conflict behaviors.

The purpose of this study was to identify self-reported psychological symptoms of African college students in five colleges and universities in Western Massachusetts. The question was whether the severity of the self-reported symptoms would predict help-seeking attitudes. The study also investigated whether sociodemographic variables and the extent of acculturation correlated with help-seeking attitudes and symptoms reported. In addition, this study also identified the African students' preference for and use of counseling services on college and university campuses. The Brief Symptoms Inventory, (Derogatis 1975) was used to collect data on self-reported symptoms of psychological distress. Fischer and Turner's (1970) Attitude Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help scale was used to measure help-seeking attitudes. To measure levels of acculturation among African students, a modified version of Ceullar and Jaso's (1980) Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans was used. Subjects were ninety African college students (65 males, 25 females) enrolled in undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral programs in colleges and universities in western Massachusetts. Students were identified through foreign student offices and the African Student's Association. The data obtained included a completed score on the Brief Symptoms Inventory and the Student Attitude Scale from each student. Correlations were computed for students' responses on both instruments. No statistically significant gender differences were found in the self-reported symptoms. Although African college students reported higher levels of depression, anxiety and paranoid ideation compared to the normative sample symptom severity does not necessarily predict a positive help-seeking attitude. The level of acculturation, however, was a fairly good predictor of positive attitude toward seeking professional help. It was also evident from this research that informal sources of counseling (e.g. use of foreign student advisors) were preferred over established counseling and mental health centers. It was therefore suggested that counseling centers tap this unique resource and also expand outreach programs to reach African college students. Based on these findings, it was suggested that American Embassies in African countries make pre-departure counseling a component of their services to African students. Also orientation programs on arrival should address perceived needs of African college students and direct them to available services on campus.

Research on the relationship between fear and persuasion led to a proliferation of conflicting results. The purpose of this project was to develop and test hypotheses regarding how fear might impact the persuasion process delineated by the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Fear could direct message recipients into the central or peripheral route by motivating or distracting them from extensive message processing. Fear could also serve as a peripheral cue. It was hypothesized that fear arousal relevant to a persuasive message would motivate subjects to carefully process the message, therefore, central route processing would occur and the amount of persuasion would be based on message quality. It was further hypothesized that fear arousal irrelevant to a persuasive message would distract subjects from attending to the message so that persuasion would occur in the peripheral route and not be based on message quality. Fear arousal was also expected to act as a peripheral cue, enhancing persuasion by its mere presence. A 3 (fear arousal: relevant, irrelevant, none) x 3 (message quality: strong, weak, minimal) x 2 (topic: heart disease, peptic ulcers) design was used. A secondary goal of this study was to develop a methodology to arouse fear separate from a persuasive message to avoid the confounding variable problem present in other fear appeal research. This was successfully accomplished. As predicted, there was a marginally significant effect demonstrating that relevant fear resulted in a greater disparity between strong and weak messages than no fear arousal for one of the topics. Contrary to predictions, irrelevant fear arousal did not result in smaller differences in persuasion when compared with no fear arousal. There was a marginally significant effect that relevant fear arousal produced greater intentions than no fear arousal in the minimal message condition for one of the topics. The results provided partial support for the hypotheses that fear can motivate extensive message processing and can serve as a peripheral cue. There was no evidence that irrelevant fear distracted from extensive processing. Implications of these results and possibilities for future research are discussed.

Recent research on the long-term effects of parental divorce has provided few clear answers as to how experiencing a parental divorce while growing up may affect an individual's subsequent romantic love relationships. The purpose of the present study was to explore the relationship between parental divorce and young adults' romantic love relationships. The literature on the long-term effects of parental divorce has generally paid very little attention to subjects' perspectives on how their parents' divorce affected them. However, recent research on traumatic life events has shown that subjects' interpretations of an event are intimately related to how that event affects them. The meaning that a person creates about a traumatic life event has profound consequences for adjustment to that event. The present study used a written narrative method to solicit young adults' views of their own strengths and weaknesses in romantic relationships, and how these were influenced by their family experiences. In order to avoid unintentionally pressuring subjects to discuss parental divorce, subjects were not informed that the study was about parental divorce until after the data were collected. They were encouraged to write freely in response to three openended questions. The first asked them to describe their strengths and weaknesses in romantic relationships, the second asked them to explain how they came to be the way they are in romantic relationships, and the third asked them how their family experiences might have influenced their romantic relationships. Three times as many young adults with divorced parents reported having poor relationships with one or both parents than those with married parents. Students from divorced households also reported experiencing much more interparental conflict than students from the non-divorced group. Despite describing these negative family experiences, subjects with divorced parents reported feeling as successful in their romantic relationships as their peers with married parents. Much of their success seemed to be due to their insight, creativity, and motivation. By overlooking the personal understandings that adult children of divorce have about their parents' divorce, the literature on divorce might have overlooked a great deal of their strength and resilience.

Imaginative involvement has long been seen a central characteristic of hypnosis with children. In attempting to predict which children would benefit from hypnosis as part of a clinical protocol, past researchers have focused on the relationship between imaginative involvement and hypnotizability. In particular, the constructs of absorption, vividness of mental imagery, and fantasy proneness have been investigated in correlational studies. However, Kirsch (1997) and others have recently drawn attention to the fact that hypnotizability scales, as they have been interpreted, confound hypnotic responsiveness with an individual's normal, baseline suggestibility. The purpose of this study was to assess various correlates of imaginative suggestibility (absorption, vividness, fantasy proneness, and dissociative behavior) while also controlling for nonhypnotic suggestibility. As predicted, vividness and fantasy were significantly associated with both nonhypnotic and hypnotic suggestibility. Contrary to what was predicted, absorption did not correlate significantly with nonhypnotic suggestibility but did evidence a strong correlation with hypnotic suggestibility. Also contrary to what had been predicted, neither birth order nor dissociation showed significant correlations with imaginative suggestibility (with and without induction). Overall, nonhypnotic suggestibility accounted for most of the variance in hypnotizability. The correlation between nonhypnotic suggestibility and hypnotic suggestibility was exceptionally high, and both vividness and absorption were found to predict unique variance in hypnotizability when nonhypnotic suggestibility was controlled. Fantasy did not uniquely predict hypnotizability. Finally, nonhypnotic suggestibility, absorption, and vividness were combined in a model that accounted for 76% of the variance in hypnotizability. Results of this study support the view of hypnotic responsiveness as reflecting a continuum of suggestibility. The present findings serve to further weaken the theory that hypnosis produces an altered state of consciousness.