Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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- All Subjects: Resilience
Description
Sometimes difficult life events challenge our existing resources in such a way that routinized responses are inadequate to handle the challenge. Some individuals will persist in habitual, automatic behavior, regardless of environmental cues that indicate a mismatch between coping strategy and the demands of the stressor. Other individuals will marshal adaptive resources to construct new courses of action and reconceptualize the problem, associated goals and/or values. A mixed methods approach was used to describe and operationalize cognitive shift, a relatively unexplored construct in existing literature. The study was conducted using secondary data from a parent multi-year cross-sectional study of resilience with eight hundred mid-aged adults from the Phoenix metro area. Semi-structured telephone interviews were analyzed using a purposive sample (n=136) chosen by type of life event. Participants' beliefs, assumptions, and experiences were examined to understand how they shaped adaptation to adversity. An adaptive mechanism, "cognitive shift," was theorized as the transition from automatic coping to effortful cognitive processes aimed at novel resolution of issues. Aims included understanding when and how cognitive shift emerges and manifests. Cognitive shift was scored as a binary variable and triangulated through correlational and logistic regression analyses. Interaction effects revealed that positive personality attributes influence cognitive shift most when people suffered early adversity. This finding indicates that a certain complexity, self-awareness and flexibility of mind may lead to a greater capacity to find meaning in adversity. This work bridges an acknowledged gap in literature and provides new insights into resilience.
ContributorsRivers, Crystal T (Author) / Zautra, Alex (Thesis advisor) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Kurpius, Sharon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Understanding the resilience of water management systems is critical for the continued existence and growth of communities today, in urban and rural contexts alike. In recent years, many studies have evaluated long-term human-environmental interactions related to water management across the world, highlighting both resilient systems and those that eventually succumb to their vulnerabilities. To understand the multitude of factors impacting resilience, scholars often use the concept of adaptive capacity. Adaptive capacity is the ability of actors in a system to make adaptations in anticipation of and in response to change to minimize potential negative impacts.
In this three-paper dissertation, I evaluate the adaptive capacity of the water management systems of two medieval Khmer cities, located in present-day Cambodia, over the course of centuries. Angkor was the capital of the Khmer Empire for over 600 years (9 th -15 th centuries CE), except for one brief period when the capital was relocated to Koh Ker (921 – 944 CE). These cities both have massive water management systems that provide a comparative context for studying resilience; while Angkor thrived for hundreds of years, Koh Ker was occupied as the capital of the empire for a relatively short period. In the first paper, I trace the chronological and spatial development of two types of settlement patterns (epicenters and lower-density temple-reservoir settlement units) at Angkor in relation to state-sponsored hydraulic infrastructure. In the second and third papers, I conduct a diachronic analysis using empirical data for the adaptive capacity of the water management systems at both cities. The results suggest that adaptive capacity is useful for identifying causal factors in the resilience and failures of systems over the long term. The case studies also demonstrate the importance and warn of the danger of large centralized water management features.
In this three-paper dissertation, I evaluate the adaptive capacity of the water management systems of two medieval Khmer cities, located in present-day Cambodia, over the course of centuries. Angkor was the capital of the Khmer Empire for over 600 years (9 th -15 th centuries CE), except for one brief period when the capital was relocated to Koh Ker (921 – 944 CE). These cities both have massive water management systems that provide a comparative context for studying resilience; while Angkor thrived for hundreds of years, Koh Ker was occupied as the capital of the empire for a relatively short period. In the first paper, I trace the chronological and spatial development of two types of settlement patterns (epicenters and lower-density temple-reservoir settlement units) at Angkor in relation to state-sponsored hydraulic infrastructure. In the second and third papers, I conduct a diachronic analysis using empirical data for the adaptive capacity of the water management systems at both cities. The results suggest that adaptive capacity is useful for identifying causal factors in the resilience and failures of systems over the long term. The case studies also demonstrate the importance and warn of the danger of large centralized water management features.
ContributorsKlassen, Sarah E (Author) / Nelson, Ben (Thesis advisor) / Redman, Charles (Thesis advisor) / Evans, Damian (Committee member) / Smith, Mike E (Committee member) / Barton, Michael C (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts or actions are on the rise in adolescents (National Institute of Mental Health, 2015; Bridge, Asti, & Horowitz, 2015). Parents, school administrators, and therapists are searching for resiliency factors with in at-risk groups to aid students in need. In previous work, Luthar and Zigler (1992) reported that intelligent youth are more resilient than less intelligent youth under low stress conditions but they lose their advantage under high stress conditions. This study examined whether intelligence (reflected in grade point average; GPA) and maladaptive (internalizing and externalizing symptoms) behaviors are negatively related in adolescents, and tested whether level of stress, reflected in emotion regulation and friendship quality, moderated that association. It also probed whether the relationships differ by gender. Sixth-graders (N=506) were recruited with active parental consent from three middle schools. Adolescents completed self-report questionnaires Regarding demo graphics, maladaptive behaviors, emotion regulation, and friendship quality, and GPA data were collected from the school. Regression analyses found that GPA was negatively related to externalizing symptoms. Girls with poor friendship communication report significantly higher maladaptive behaviors. This relation was more pronounced for girls with high GPAs, as predicted. Results support the theory that intelligent female adolescents are more reactive under adverse circumstances. Future efforts should follow students through middle school into high school to evaluate whether friendships remain important to adjustment, hold for boys as well as girls, and have implications for relationship interventions.
ContributorsGonzales, Ashlyn Carol (Author) / Luthar, Suniya (Thesis director) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Infurna, Frank (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12