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
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
Description
Despite the technical competence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) graduates of the Department of Computer Science (DCS) at the University of Guyana, stakeholders’ perception generally holds that they lack affective and behavioural (soft) skills. These soft skills are expected of them to lead and champion technological change in Guyana. This dissertation addresses the question of what is understood about, and how meaning and sense are made of, the concept of ‘ICT graduate employability’, in the context of the local public sector, by the key stakeholders: employers (government), and alumni (graduates) and lecturers (educators) of the DCS. On account of the cyclic, incremental, reflective nature of Action Research (AR) and its tenet of integrating theory with practice, an AR project was undertaken to develop a deep local understanding about ICT graduate employability. This understanding has implications for how ICT graduates are prepared as a function of their programme of study in the DCS and how their performance and careers are managed in the public sector. The research comprised one reconnaissance study (Cycle 0), an intervention-based study (Cycle 1), and a qualitative study (Cycle 2). The focus and direction of Cycle 2 were refined by insights garnered from Cycles 0 and 1. Cycle 2 employed surveys, interviews, and focus groups to elicit the perceptions, views, opinions, experiences, values, and framing ideas and beliefs of a sample of forty participants. Thematic analysis was used to identify patterns and develop themes in the process of analysing and interpreting the data. The findings unearthed a local definition of ICT graduate employability; revealed implications of environmental factors in the public sector for the psychological safety and resilience of ICT graduates; and informed recommendations for a locally relevant ICT graduate education ecosystem.
ContributorsWilliams, Malcolm Maxwell (Author) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Thesis advisor) / Basile, Carole G (Committee member) / Thomas, Troy D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023