Theses and Dissertations
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on-cisgender identity, age of awareness, age of social transition, primary caregiver acceptance, secondary caregiver acceptance, and mental health. Hypotheses were partially supported for age of social transition with mental health, parental acceptance with mental health, and awareness-transition gap with parental acceptance. This study investigated under studied concepts of social transition and parental acceptance that appear to have an effect on the mental health of transgender adults.
Graduating from college is an important time of life transitions and career development for undergraduates and their future. Future self-identification, the connection between an individual’s current and future self, can negatively predict depression and utilize self-control as a mechanism to achieve later academic goals. Investigating an individual’s future self- identification, depression scores, and behavioral outcomes in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic can help optimize college graduate success in an uncertain world. The present study aimed to (1) determine if earlier future self-identification moderated the changes between later outcomes (e.g., depression, perceived alcohol consumption, and academic and career goals) from pre-COVID-19 to during COVID-19, (2) investigate if psychological resources (e.g., self-control and emotion regulation) had any intermediary effects between earlier future self-identification and later depression and behavioral outcomes during the pandemic, and (3) test for any moderation effects of future self-identification on the relationship between available psychological resources before COVID-19 and during COVID-19. The present research demonstrated that students with greater earlier future self-identification were less likely to change their academic and career goals and were less likely to experience symptoms of depression during the pandemic. Additionally, self-control was demonstrated as an intermediary factor between earlier future self-identification and later academic and career goal changes. These findings may help college graduates develop resilience in other stressful situations.
The sociological model of mental illness (Weitz, 2020, pp. 146-148) offers a much needed contrast to the disproportionate dominance of the medical model in research, public policy, and popular discourse (Weitz, 2020, pp. 145-146 & 158-160). Unfortunately, the sociological model receives little attention in comparison (Mulvaney, 2001), although there has been a slight revival in recent years. However, the bulk of research on mental illness within the sociological model is predominantly quantitative, relying heavily on statistics and reducing complex systemic processes to various separated variables (Chandler, 2019; Mullaney, 2016; Spates & Slatton, 2021). Both sociological and psychological research on mental illness tend to be dominated by a highly quantitative focus on ‘social factors’, and generally shy away from examining the role of macro-level social structures and institutions. Consequently, even the sociological model of mental illness tends to fall short of implicating the underlying socio-economic system as a potential contributor to psychological harm and distress. This paper offers critiques of the medical model of mental illness and highlights both the strengths and shortcomings of work in the sociological model. I will also attempt to address these issues by providing a sociological and philosophical analysis of how the capitalist socio-economic system, and systems of oppression in general, shapes social constructions of mental illness and inflicts chronic stress and stigma, leading to much of the psychological distress that many people currently experience.