During the past decade, obesity has become a worldwide epidemic, and bariatric surgery has been used to treat obesity. Previous researchers have addressed the success of the Roux-en-Y bariatric (RYGB) surgery within 12 months or later of the surgical procedure; however, a lack of research exists regarding participant success in maintaining their post-surgery weight loss long term. The current qualitative, phenomenological study was based on the conceptual framework of social learning and examined the beliefs, experiences and perceptions of women who underwent RYGB weight loss surgery but did not maintain their ideal weight during the 1st year and later following surgery. Participants included women at least 18 years of age who had undergone RYGB surgery 12 months or later prior to the study and who had regained 20-40% of their weight. Semistructured interviews with 8 recipients were conducted to gain an understanding of the experiences that hindered the maintenance of participants' long-term weight loss goals. Convenience Sampling was used to analyze the experiences of women post-surgery. Results suggest that important factors were commitment to change, the effects of body change and social support. These factors were based on sub-textual themes of eating habits, quality of life, lifestyle change, mentality, misconceptions of surgery, weight loss, excess skin, social support, and weight regain. This study contributes insight into weight gain and weight loss maintenance following bariatric RYGB surgery and is useful for medical and weight loss professionals, bariatric patients, and community members. Stakeholders increased understanding of weight gain and weight loss maintenance following RYGB surgery may contribute to the development of strategies that improve the long-term physical, psychological, and psychosocial health of bariatric surgery patients.

This study investigated group processes as potential mediators or moderators of positive development outcome and negative reduction intervention response by evaluating the utility of a group measure modified from a widely known measure of group impact found in the group therapy research literature. Four group processes were of primary interest, (1) Group Impact (2) Facilitator Impact (3) Skills Impact and (4) Exploration Impact as assessed by the Session Evaluation Form (SEF). Outcome measures included the Personally Expressive Activities Questionnaire (PEAQ), Erikson Psycho-Social Index (EPSI) and the Zill Behavior Items, Behavior Problem Index (ZBI (BPI)). The sample consisted of 121 multi-ethnic participants drawn from four alternative high schools from the Miami-Dade County Public School system. Utilizing a Latent Growth Curve Modeling approach with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) statistics, preliminary analyses were conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the SEF and Its role in the mediation or moderation of intervention outcome. Preliminary results revealed evidence of a single higher order factor representing a “General” global reaction, which was hypothesized to be a “Positive Group Climate” construct to the program as opposed, to the four distinct group processes that were initially hypothesized to affect outcomes. The results of the evaluation of the mediation or moderation role of intervention outcome of the single “General” global latent factor (“Positive Group Climate” construct) did not significantly predict treatment response on any of the outcome variables. Nevertheless, the evidence of an underlying “General” global latent factor (“Positive Group Climate” construct) has important future directions for research on positive youth development programs as well as in group therapy research.

The current study conducted a psychometric evaluation of the Participation Evaluation Rating Form (PERF), an exploratory session-by-session measure of group process which provides the intervention team’s quantitative and qualitative rating of each member’s performance. Relational Data Analysis (RDA) was used to analyze the psychometric properties of the PERF. Inter-coder percent agreement among the TOC and TCC coders for each category level ranged from .87 to .95, being moderate to high. The Fleiss’ kappa across all category levels ranged from .53 to .83, indicating moderate to almost perfect agreement. The Pearson Correlations between the TOC and TCC ranged from r (40) = .969, p <.0001 at the second order levels of theoretical categories to r (40) = .824, p< .0001 at the first order levels. These findings indicate the RDA-PERF has acceptable reliability and validity, providing support for the use of this measure in future studies of group process.

A total of 283 multi-ethnic college students participated in a study investigating (a) the extent to which late adolescents perceived themselves to be attached to parents and peers and (b) the effects of low, medium and high perceived parent and peer attachment on the students' attitudes toward academic dishonesty. Self-report measurements were used in assessing perceived parent and peer attachment levels and the students' tolerance or condemnation toward cheating. The majority of students reported equivalent attachment levels for parents and peers. Contrary to the hypothesis, students reporting low parent attachment and high peer attachment were the least tolerant to cheating. These findings suggest that for late adolescents, low parental attachment without compensatory peer attachment may be a contributing factor in the development ofa tolerant attitude toward academic dishonesty

The current study examined the influence of weak parental and peer attachment on academic achievement among late adolescent college students. In previous research, weak attachment to parents and/or peers had been found to have an adverse influence on the academic success of college students. This study also examined the potential moderating influence of several cognitive and non-cognitive psychosocial variables that might act as protective factors for weakly attached students and, therefore, enhance their academic co etece. Data regarding attachment, cognitive variables, and non-cognitive variables were collected using several self-report measures. The multi-ethnic sample of students in this study (n = 357) attended an urban university. Students were classified into one of nine parental-peer attachment groups (e.g., Low-Low, Medium-Medium, High-High). Attachment groups were compared in terms of cognitive and non-cognitive variables. Contrary to the hypothesis, no statistically significant academic achievement differences were revealed for the group of college students who perceived themselves to be weakly attached to both parents and peers. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) identified the High- High group to be significantly different in terms of academic outcome variables from the other eight groups while the Low-Low group had significantly lower levels of noncognitive variables than several of the other attachment groups. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that cognitive variables accounted for significant amounts of variance in academic outcomes and that several non-cognitive variables were significant predictors of scholastic competence. Correlational analyses revealed that parental and peer attachment were positively correlated with several cognitive and non-cognitive variables but neither was significantly correlated w self-reported college GPA. In general, the findings do not provide support for a in effect of weak attachment to parents and peers upon academic adversity among college students. Results suggest that both cognitive variables and non-cognitive variables may moderate academic risk due to weak attachment to parents and peers. Descriptive within group analyses of the Low-Low group revealed a heterogeneous group of students with regards to academic outcomes and scores on non cognitive measures. Gender and ethnic differences were found for attachment status but not for cognitive or non-cognitive variables. Implications for interventions and suggestions for future research are presented.

A cross-cultural examination of a selected group of Indian and American adolescents was conducted to understand the influence of cultural expectations, gender, and identity on adolescents' niche-building behavior. For the purpose of the present study, adolescents' niche was limited to their bedrooms. Data were collected from 285 American adolescents of which 151 were females and 134 were males. The Indian sample consisted of 198 adolescents of whom 75 were females, 118 were males, and 5 adolescents who did not mention their gender. Participants from both cultures were from eighth and ninth grades, with an age range of 12.17 to 16.50 years. The results of the study showed that adolescents' niche-building behavior differed based on culture, gender, and identity. Indian adolescents possessed/desired a greater variety of electronic equipment, furniture, and decorative items in their bedrooms as compared to their American counterparts. Females had/desired a larger variety of items in their bedrooms as compared to males. Females had/desired more relationship items like pictures of family members and make-up accessories in their bedrooms, whereas males had/desired more instrumental items like athletic equipment or sporting goods. Interestingly, more females than males had/desired pictures of themselves that reflected "who they were." A higher percentage of diffused/avoidant adolescents had/desired items and possessions in their bedrooms as compared to achieved/moratorium or foreclosed adolescents. Achieved/moratorium as well as diffused/avoidant adolescents were more likely to have/desire computers, internet access, globes or maps in their bedrooms as compared to foreclosed adolescents who were more likely to have/desire religious items. Interaction effects showed that Indian females were mostly likely to have/desire possessions in their bedrooms followed by American females, Indian males, and American males.

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which factors influencing cognitive autonomy differed for "identified" and "not identified" troubled adolescents. One hundred and nineteen residential treatment youth aged 14 to 18 and 13 7 public high school adolescents were compared using the Cognitive Autonomy Self Evaluation (CASE) inventory, which examines five elements of cognitive autonomy including evaluative thinking, voicing opinions, decision making, self-assessing, and comparative validation. Findings reveal that generally cognitive autonomy did not differ according to troubled status. However, ninth-grade females at the traditional public high school rated themselves much higher in evaluative thinking, voicing opinions, decision-making, and self-assessing than the ninth-grade females at the residential treatment center. Implications for these findings and further recommendations were also discussed.

The author investigated the effects of abrupt and graduated temporal reductions on academic performance. Six elementary school children who were referred to a remedial special education classroom received token reinforcement contingent on the number of correct math problems answered during daily sessions. A multiple baseline across subjects design with replication of baseline and experimental conditions was employed. The design also balanced the order of exposure to an abrupt reduction in time limits (20 - 5 - 20 min.) and a graduated sequence of time reductions (20 - 15 - 10 - 5 - 20 min.). Children also performed copying tasks daily under a constant time limit in order to assess the degree to which the effects of temporal manipulations on one academic behavior (math) generalized to another academic behavior (copying). The findings demonstrated that as a result of systematic temporal reductions students completed more math problems correctly in five minutes than twenty minutes of baseline. More specifically, the findings demonstrated that graduated temporal reductions markedly enhanced the math performance of slow learners. Furthermore, when students were exposed to an abrupt temporal reduction first their math performance declined, whereas, abrupt temporal reductions which followed graduated temporal reductions markedly enhanced both rate and number of correct math problems. A return to baseline conditions demonstrated that the improved math rates were not completely reversible. Additionally, improved math performances were found to be enduring as indicated by two follow-up math probes conducted two and five weeks after the study. Although copying performance improved over the duration of the study, these improvements did not closely correspond with the math time manipulations. Therefore, the effects of temporal manipulations on math performance did not appear to generalize to a non-reinforced behavior (copying words) that was performed under constant time limits.

The purpose of this thesis was to compare the results from two vocational interest blanks, the Job Activity Preference Questionnaire (JAPQ) and the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB) in the prediction of grade point averages (GPA) for university students. An investigation was also made to determine if the variable vocational interest would contribute to a multiple r composed of American College Test (ACT) scores and GPA. One hundred students were administered both instruments and predictions made of their GPA's after the completion of two quarters of classroom study and after the completion of the most recent quarter of classroom study. It was found that the predictions from the JAPO were as good as or better than predictions based on SVIB achievement scores. For the 36 males in the sample a corrected multiple correlation coefficient of .48 resulted between Undergraduate Cumulative grade Point Average (UCGPA) and the JAPQ Job Dimension Score whereas the SVIB Achievement Scale secured a correlation of .21. The JAPQ correlation is significant at the .005 level, but the SVIB correlation is insignificant. When the 64 females in the sample were tested the JAPQ secured a corrected multiple correlation coefficient of .40, while the SVIB secured a cross-validation coefficient of .31 between interest and UCGPA. The JAPO correlation is significant at the .005 level and the SVIB correlation is significant at the .OS level. It was found that for the 22 males in the sample, for which ACT scores were available, when the variable vocational interest, as measured by the JAPQ or the SVIB, is added to the ACT it increases the correlation with GPA from .13 to .63 with the JAPQ and from .13 to .23 with the SVIB. However, for the 46 females in the sample, who had available ACT scores, the gain in adding the variable vocational interest to the combined prediction of ACT and GPA is negligible. The results were discussed in respect to vocational interest and academic achievement, and for the implications of these results for vocational counselors.

This exploratory study focused on the use of positive, negative, and neutral enactments in couple therapy and the effectiveness of each type of enactment in immediate changes in specific communication behaviors. The sample consisted of 37 videotaped segments of the 10 minutes before and the lO minutes after an enactment. Communication behaviors were coded using the Marital Interaction Coding System-Global (MICS-G). Paired! tests were used to test the differences between pre- and post-enactment scores. Positive enactments (!! = 20) were not related to positive nor negative communication behaviors. There were not enough negative enactments (!! = 2) to test whether they were related to negative or positive communication behaviors. The null hypothesis that neutral enactments (!! = 15) would not affect the positive nor the negative communication behaviors was supported. The lack of statistical significance may be due to the small, homogeneous sample (religion, race, and time married) .