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
In past decades, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) rapidly gained attentionas a public health crisis due to dose-response relationships with a range of health and
social problems, and early mortality. Converging studies show that ACEs are a pandemic
in the general population of the United States—even in middle to upper-middle class
families that are considered to be ‘better off’. There have been collaborative efforts in
public health to target root-causes of childhood adversity and increase resilient
adaptation in individuals and families at risk. Due to the importance of fostering positive
adaptation in the midst of adversity, this dissertation sought to examine both
vulnerability and protective factors in children’s proximal ecology—e.g., parents and
caring adults at school. A population-based study in this dissertation revealed that
parents’ emotional well-being, measured as negative feelings toward parenting, greatly
influences developing children, so as support and resources for parenting. The presence
of caring adults as a protective factor in teens with highly competitive settings—a newly
identified at-risk group due to high pressure to achieve and internalizing/externalizing
problems. Lastly, this dissertation discusses conceptual and methodological limitations
in current ways of measuring ACEs and provide future directions for research, practice,
and policy. Suggestions include frequent assessments on reaching consensus on how to
define ACEs, expanding the concept of ACEs, considering the duration, timing, and
severity of the event. Healthcare professionals have important roles in public health;
they incorporate frequent assessments on parents’ emotional wellbeing and needs for
parenting as a part of care. Ongoing support from multiple disciplines is necessary to
reduce the impact of ACEs and strengthen resilience development of children and
families.
ContributorsSuh, Bin (Author) / Luthar, Suniya (Thesis advisor) / Pipe, Teri (Thesis advisor) / Castro, Felipe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022