<p> The Communal Coping Model of Pain Catastrophizing (CCMPC) postulates that pain catastrophizing occurs within social contexts as a way to communicate the need for support or empathy from others. An implied assumption of the CCMPC is that those individuals who catastrophize also feel entitled to pain-related support. To date, the majority of studies evaluating the CCMPC have focused on understanding the impact of pain catastrophizing on spousal support. The specific problem is that pain support provider characteristics may influence support provision, but there is no solid scientific evidence that the relationship of the person with pain to the pain support provider may be just as important given individuals elicit responses from close others, differently. This study is a quantitative quasi-experimental study to assess and compare the relationship between perceived entitlement to pain support and punishing pain-related perceived support among cohabitating couples and cohabitating parent/adult children dyads. Cohabitating couples were evaluated to validate a previously conducted seminal work among couples and cohabitating parent/adult child dyads were evaluated and compared to cohabitating couples as an original contribution. The participants in this study included a convenience sample of 200 subjects seeking treatment at a pain clinic in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Multiple regression analyses was used to evaluate the relationship between the data collected from the solicitude subscale of the Survey of Pain Attitudes (SOPA) and the punishing response subscale of the West Haven-Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI). A t-test and ANCOVA were also used to compare couples and parent/adult child dyads. The relationship between perceived entitlement to pain support and the perception of punishing pain-related support was significant, <i> F</i> (1, 133) =35.52, <i>p</i> = .00 among couples and among subjects living with a parent, <i>F</i> (1, 55) = 48.67, <i> p</i> = .00. The difference between the living situation groups on perceived entitlement to pain support and on perception of punishing pain-related support was not significant, <i>t</i> (193) = - 1.20, <i>p</i> = .23 and <i>t</i> (195) = - .76, <i>p</i> = .45, respectively. There was also no significant difference between the living situation groups in the relationship between perceived entitlement to pain support and punishing pain-related perceived support, <i>F</i> (1, 189) = .021, <i> p</i> = .89. Recommendations for future research include, the use of a more heterogeneous population to conduct observational studies, to conduct further research among parent/child dyads and among other dyads, as well as to conduct studies that work to better understand the interpersonal dimensions of pain.</p>

<p> Sexual health is considered an important part of adult life. While there are many factors that could influence sexual health, one that is particularly relevant is a history of sexual assault. Sexual assault can have a bigger impact than just the development of physical sexual dysfunction, as many aspects of a person&rsquo;s sexual health can be affected, including engagement of sexual risk-taking behaviors. Sexual assault can occur at all stages of development and, depending on the stage of development, can affect future sexual health. It is important to note that not all victims of sexual trauma see a decline in their sexual health. Trauma literature points to a quality referred to as resiliency as a buffer between their past experiences and present functioning. A theory of adjustment not well looked at in relation to sexual assault is psychological flexibility. Participants were undergraduate college females at a southern university recruited in introductory classes. All students received a link to an online survey that included 7 questionnaires. Multivariate analyses were conducted to investigate the relationships amongst all study variables. One way ANOVAs were conducted to compare the sexual health and psychological adjustment levels of participants with and without a victimization history. Multiple regression analyses were used to investigate moderation effects of psychological adjustment on sexual health for victims and non-victims. Results indicated no significant differences between victim and 81 non-victim sexual health. Psychological inflexibility and risky sexual behaviors did differ dependent on victimization status. Neither psychological inflexibility nor resiliency was considered a predictor of sexual health, and neither moderated the relationship between sexual health and sexual victimization. The current study added support to some claims already seen within sexual assault and psychological flexibility literature. Limitations and future directions are discussed.</p>

America has experienced a marked increase in non-nuclear family structures over the last five decades. The evolution of more diverse family systems has led some researchers to eschew a one size fits all approach to parenting assessment, as these measures may neglect or misconstrue parent-child dynamics unique to non-nuclear families. The current study examined the underlying factor structure of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ) in two distinct family structures to determine if parenting constructs were replicated across groups. Participants included 246 mothers from single parent and two-parent households in Louisiana. Statistical analyses included exploratory factor analysis, replication analysis, hierarchical regression analysis, and tests of interaction. Although one positive parenting construct was evident across family structures, the basic structural replication of the remaining constructs failed. Results also indicated that the original, theoretically-derived parenting constructs of the APQ demonstrated low reliability and internal consistency among the single parent sample. Finally, while increased levels of inconsistent discipline were predictive of increased conduct problems and child aggression in the two-parent sample, neither parenting constructs nor demographic variables were significant predictors of mother-reported behavior problems in children from single parent households. Overall, the current study failed to provide clear evidence to suggest that parenting constructs operate differently depending on family composition. Additional research will be beneficial in determining the degree to which family structure impacts parenting behavior.

<p> The path to adulthood has traditionally been marked by demographic transitions, such as graduating from college, attaining employment, becoming married, and having a child. Previous models of development have conceptualized adolescence as a time of identity exploration and consolidation. However, in the US, as well as many other countries, the timeline for attaining the aforementioned markers has been delayed. Additionally, a significant portion of individuals between the ages of 18 to 29, across several counties, report not seeing themselves fully as adults, and ascribing internal changes, such as taking responsibility for one&rsquo;s actions, as more indicative of adulthood status. Emerging adulthood has been conceived as a distinct developmental period between adolescence and adulthood. It has been conceptualized as a time for self-focus, identity exploration, possibilities, instability, and feeling in-between. Research on emerging adulthood has shown this to be a time of increased well-being, as well as increased risk for mental health issues. However, little research has been conducted connecting emerging adulthood with psychotherapy.</p><p> The purpose of this study was to qualitatively investigate what themes occurred related to the transition to adulthood among emerging adults who were receiving psychotherapy. The sample consisted of 10 videotaped therapy sessions from an archival database; two sessions for each of five client participants who received services from an outpatient community counseling center. Using an open coding and content analysis approach to analyze transcripts of the taped sessions, two Parent Themes emerged from the sessions, Self-Development and Interpersonal Relationships. These themes and their corresponding content supported existing models of emerging adulthood, and demonstrated that the developmental processes related to this period are relevant to clinicians. Additionally, the findings pointed to potential areas of future research including the need to study emerging adults who are parents and whether and how feeling in-between adolescence and adulthood relates to clinical presentations in this population.</p>

Homework, organization, and time-management skills are often a source of stress for undergraduate students. The type of homework given, self-management skills, and planning skill level combine to contribute to student success in school. Previous research has shown that the Homework, Organization, and Planning Skills (HOPS) program has been successful with teaching these skills; however, research has focused on younger students. The purpose of the current study was to determine if the HOPS program was suitable for undergraduate students, based on pretest, posttest, and follow-up scores on the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory- Second Edition (LASSI) using a randomized waitlist control trial. The HOPS program was adjusted to focus on self-management skills. Results indicated that scores on the LASSI improved for students, with significant results for several scales. Limitations of the study and future directions for research are included.

The ability to successfully bind features and objects at different levels of abstraction is important for everyday functioning of memory. The current study examined how actions and emotional arousal influence item recognition and between-item binding across two experiments. According to the Arousal-Biased Competition Theory (ABC; Mather and Sutherland, 2011), binding can be enhanced by emotional arousal, depending upon what is the focus of attention within a scene. In the current study, participants viewed a series of slides, each of which depicted a person performing an action with an object, as well as an object that is not interacted with. All of the actions performed were emotionally neutral. According to ABC, this difference between attended and non-attended items should be enhanced when in the presence of an emotionally arousing stimulus. In the current experiments, emotional arousal was manipulated using sounds presented before slides depicting a person performing an action using an object. In Experiment 1, actions led to enhanced attention to (and better item memory for) manipulated objects relative to objects that were not the focus of attention. Participants also gave higher confidence ratings for recognized interacted objects than recognized non-interacted objects. However, the predicted interaction between emotional arousal and item type was not obtained. The one impact of emotional arousal was that participants responded more conservatively to faces and items associated with a negative sound. In Experiment 2, there was no evidence for enhanced associative memory as a function of either emotion or action, although overall performance was very poor. The implications of these findings for theoretical views of memory are discussed, as well as future directions for research.

Cannabis use is associated with many negative consequences. Identification of factors associated with cannabis could inform prevention and treatment efforts. Social anxiety appears to be one risk factor for cannabis-related problems. Thus, it is important to identify malleable cognitive vulnerability factors that may play a role in the social anxiety-cannabis problems relationship. Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is the fear of anxiety-related bodily sensations and is composed of three subfacets: physical, cognitive, and social concerns. AS is associated with greater social anxiety and may play a role in cannabis-related impairment. Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) refers to a tendency to respond negatively to uncertain situations. IU is associated with social anxiety and may play a role in cannabis-related problems. The current study sought to examine the associations of AS subfacets and IU with cannabis problems as well as the direct and indirect (via AS subfacets and IU) effects of social anxiety on cannabis problems among 220 current (i.e., past three-month) cannabis users. Consistent with prior research, social anxiety was positively related to cannabis problems. All AS subfacets and IU were positively related to cannabis problems. Social anxiety was indirectly related to cannabis problems through AS-social concerns and IU but not through AS-physical concerns or AS cognitive concerns. When AS-social concerns and IU were tested simultaneously, social anxiety remained indirectly related to cannabis problems only through IU. Results highlight the importance of considering IU in treatment efforts for individuals experiencing cannabis-related impairment.

Attention and awareness are tightly coupled phenomena that describe how particular information is selected for processing and subsequently experienced. Many contemporary theories of both processes posit that there are specific neurobiological networks that produce each of these cognitive processes. These networks, however, do not exist in a vacuum and observable behavior is not the result of the activity of a single network. In order to fully understand how attention and awareness are instantiated in the brain, we must assess how connections between all networks of the brain differ for these phenomena. Network science and graph theory have taken hold in cognitive neuroscience as an instrument for describing both the global physical and functional connections in the brain. A primary goal of this thesis is to incorporate an understanding of the global changes in connectivity and network topology with current models of attention and awareness. Patterns of global functional integration were found to result from awareness of a simple target percept. These results support global neurobiological theories of awareness, rather than network-level or focal theories. However, the capture of attention by salient, irrelevant information produced an alternate global pattern of changes, favoring relatively more functional segregation. The results of these two experiments present potential mechanisms by which the brain processes task-relevant and task-irrelevant information, respectively. These mechanisms were then tested within the context of a single task, pitting processing of task-relevant information against potential distracting stimuli. Ultimately, by utilizing graph theory these experiments have identified global functional connectivity as a potential contributing brain mechanism of processing information.

Since the time of Kraepelin (1896) and Bleuler (1911) nearly every description of schizophrenia cognitive dysfunction highlights impairments in attention, yet the locus of this deficit is not well understood. One model proposes that the locus of schizophrenia attentional dysfunction is due to an abnormality in the memory representations that we activate to control our attention (i.e., selection guidance). Another model proposes that the neural mechanism important for shifting perceptual attention itself is damaged (i.e., input selection). Here, I use visual search tasks, electrophysiological methods, and noninvasive brain stimulation to develop an approach for understanding the processes underlying attention in healthy individuals. Next, I identify a set of neural and behavioral abnormalities related to impaired attention in patients with schizophrenia. Last, I use the noninvasive brain stimulation protocol I developed in healthy individuals to determine whether it is possible to improve attention in patients with schizophrenia. The results demonstrate that 20 minutes of noninvasive stimulation can enhance the transmission of information between memory systems leading to the temporary normalization of attention in schizophrenia. The results support theories of schizophrenia that cast the cognitive impairment as a selection-guidance abnormality, and suggest a new avenue for the development of intervention therapies in the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia.

Anxiety and stress can have debilitating effects on our physical and mental health. The purpose of the current study was to examine a way to buffer, or protect, people with anxious symptoms from the negative affect produced by a stressor. I examined if co-occurring laughter and amusement, elicited by an amusing video and instructions to act amused, has a stress buffering effect for people with elevated symptoms of anxiety. The study employed a between-subject design with two conditions. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control condition (boring video/boring instructions) or amusing condition (amusing video/amusing instructions). Results did not show evidence of a stress buffering effect of co-occurring laughter and amusement in this specific population of people with symptoms of anxiety. Negative affect post-stressor task significantly increased, rather than decreased (t(27) = - 2.995; p < 0.01). The current study reveals that a stress buffering manipulation that was effective in a sample of the general population was not effective in a sample of people with anxious symptoms. Potential reasons for these results, as well as limitations and future directions, are discussed.