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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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
This dissertation examines how teams experience and co-construct hope for one another through storytelling and shared imaginings of possible futures during facilitated, future-focused workshops. I conducted a total of 38 qualitative, semi-structured interviews and performed two observations of facilitated workshops. This study reveals how hope in teams is a shared, complex, and emergent state that motivates team members toward accomplishing future-oriented change through empowered action. Using a gestalt framework of emotions, findings suggest hope in teams is greater than the sum of its parts and is rife with tensions and contradictions. In fact, this study suggests that hope in its latent state may first present as jadedness in team members, wherein they are guarded and seek to protect themselves from re-experiencing past pains and failures. This study found teams engage in a five-step hope emergence process during facilitated, future-focused workshops and that teams who emerged from the workshop hope-filled were able to sustain that hope by accomplishing meaningful progress toward ideas they had created in the workshop. This research expands understanding of positive emotions in the workplace and, specifically, the understanding of hope in teams by: (a) elucidating hope in teams using a gestalt emotion framework, (b) uncovering jadedness as a latent state of hope, (c) highlighting how teams experience hope as an ebb-and-flow of organizational life, (d) identifying five steps in a co-construction process of hope emergence, (e) recognizing the need for meaningful progress to be made in order for hope to persist in the team, (f) illuminating the role of disempowerment and the potential darker sides of hope, and (g) surfacing practical implications for co-constructing and sustaining hope for teams, leaders, and facilitators in the workplace.
ContributorsLopez, Cary Jensine Sanden (Author) / Tracy, Sarah J (Thesis advisor) / Adame, Elissa (Committee member) / Zanin, Alaina (Committee member) / Waldron, Vince (Committee member) / Ashforth, Blake (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023