Matching Items (12)
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- All Subjects: Adolescence
- All Subjects: Stress
- Creators: Infurna, Frank
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
The thesis project merges interdisciplinary research to develop a self-directed creative intervention for immigrant youth, allowing them to make sense of their social and cultural identities. It takes research on self-awareness, multicultural identification, perceived belonging, and bibliotherapy to create a guided journal titled "Unearth," filled with art and writing prompts that are age-appropriate for adolescents and that serve as avenues for self-exploration. The project ultimately engages a focus group discussion to understand the usability and accessibility of the intervention.
ContributorsDizon, Arni Elyz (Co-author) / Nawrocki, Andie (Co-author) / Pina, Armando (Thesis director) / Benoit, Renee (Committee member) / Causadias, Jose (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
During adolescence, friends are a central part of adolescents' daily lives, they serve as significant sources of emotional support and companionship (Keefe & Berndt, 1996; Way & Robinson, 2003) as well as provide opportunities to negotiate interpersonal conflicts and disagreements (Laursen & Pursell, 2009). This study was designed to examine the nature and correlates of friendships, capturing the multidimensional nature of these relationships. Specifically, three goals were proposed: (a) to use a pattern-analytic approach to identify different profiles of adolescents' friendships along three dimensions: intimacy, negativity, and involvement; (b) to examine linkages between profile membership and adolescents' cultural orientations and values; and (c) to explore the relation between profile membership and adolescent well-being. Participants were 246 Mexican-origin adolescents (M = 12.50 years; SD = 0.58) who participated in home interviews and a series of nightly phone calls. Adolescents reported on their friendship qualities, their cultural orientations and values, as well as their depressive symptoms, risky behaviors, and on their current grades (GPA). Adolescents' time spent with best friends was calculated from the seven nightly phone calls. Results revealed three distinct latent profiles: Positive Engagement, Moderate Engagement, and Low Involvement. Profile membership was not linked to adolescents' cultural orientations and values. Further, associations emerged between profile membership and adolescents' GPA, but not their risky behaviors and depressive symptoms.
ContributorsRodriguez, Sue Annie (Author) / Updegraff, Kimberly (Thesis advisor) / Umana-Taylor, Adriana (Committee member) / Bradley, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Family plays an important yet understudied role in the development of psychopathology during childhood, particularly for children at developmental risk. Indeed, much of the research on families has actually concentrated more on risk processes in individual family members or within-family subsystems. In general, important and complex associations have been found among family-related constructs such as marital conflict, parent-child relationships, parental depression, and parenting stress, which have in turn been found to contribute to the emergence of children's behavioral problems. Research has begun to emerge that certain family system constructs, such as cohesion, organization, and control may influence children's development, but this research has been limited by a focus on parent-reports of family functioning, rather than utilizing observational methods. With notable exceptions, there is almost no observational research examining families of children at developmental risk. This study examined the longitudinal relations among family risk and family system constructs, as well as how family systems constructs mediated the relations between family risk and child outcome. Further, the study examined how developmental risk moderated these relations. The sample followed 242 families of children with and without developmental risk across the transition-to-school period. Family risk factors were assessed at 5 years, using parental reports of symptomatology, parenting stress, and marital adjustment, and observational assessments of the parent-child relationship. Family system constructs (cohesion, warmth, conflict, organization, control) were measured at age 6 using structured observations of the entire family playing a board game. Child behavior problems and social competence were assessed at age 7. Results indicated that families of children with developmental delays did not differ from families of typically developing children on the majority of family system attributes. Cohesion and organization mediated the relations between specific family risk factors and social competence for all families. For families of typically developing children only, higher levels of control were associated with more behavior problems and less social competence. These findings underscore the importance of family-level assessment in understanding the development of psychopathology. Important family effects on children's social competence were found, although the pathways among family risk and family systems attributes are complex.
ContributorsGerstein, Emily Davis (Author) / Crnic, Keith A (Thesis advisor) / Aiken, Leona (Committee member) / Bradley, Robert (Committee member) / Gonzales, Nancy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis was an analysis of items in the Late Adolescent Home Observation for Measure of the Environment (LA HOME) after the first wave of N = 138 interviews. The purpose of this project was to learn how to utilize a statistical software such as SPSS to analyze items and interpret results. Frequency analysis, inter-rater reliability (IRR), correlation analysis, internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha, and feedback from research assistants were considered when deciding which items should be eliminated from the measure. After running these analyses, ten items were suggested for deletion including: clean, adolescent's room allows for privacy, reference materials, news, family encourages adolescent to think independently, community service, parent knows where adolescent spends time, weekly household responsibilities, school/career planning, and dentist. Future interviews generating a larger sample size as well as discussions and subsequent revisions to the manual will clarify additional items that may be eliminated from the final version of the instrument.
ContributorsMiller, Ava Kathryn (Author) / Bradley, Robert (Thesis director) / Spinrad, Tracy (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Pediatric anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and while pharmacological intervention seems to be an effective treatment, the validity of reported adverse side effects remains unclear. <br/><br/>Objective: To analyze the nature of evidence regarding adverse side effects in the pharmacological treatment of pediatric anxiety disorders. <br/><br/>Approach: A search using Google Scholar, PubMed, and PsychInfo was conducted for meta-analyses of pharmacological treatment of pediatric anxiety disorders as well as randomized controlled trials. The focus was on adverse events.<br/><br/>Results and Conclusion: Reportings of a limited number of adverse events were found among resources available to clinician and patient informed sources to inform pharmacological treatment of pediatric anxiety disorders. Only a small fraction of adverse side effects were found in the research literature. This finding raises concerns about making informed decisions to treat pediatric anxiety disorders with pharmacotherapy.
ContributorsMartin, Mark (Co-author) / Reyes, Trevin (Co-author) / Whooley, Max (Co-author) / Pina, Armando (Thesis director) / Benoit, Renee (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
The literature has consistently established levels of adolescent maladjustment well above national norms for both socioeconomic (SES) extremes (Lyman & Luthar 2014). Yet literature on positive adolescent adjustment, and its protective or even corrective factors is lacking (Eisenberg, Zhou, & Coller, 2001). This study examined the effects of gender and SES on parent attachment in relation to reports of prosocial behavior. Eleventh grade adolescents (N = 397) were recruited from two public high schools for academically-gifted students who were either high or low-level SES (i.e. the extremes). The students provided passive consent and answered questions on their demographics, perceived relationship with their parents, and tendency to behave in a prosocial manner. Multivariate analyses of variance and follow up analyses of variance were run by gender and SES to determine main effects for gender and SES on parent attachment and prosocial behavior. Regressions following preliminary correlations analyzed whether parental attachment predicted higher levels of adolescent prosocial behavior. Results demonstrated that females communicated with their mothers significantly more and reported higher levels of prosocial behavior than their male counterparts. Findings with regard to SES revealed that high SES adolescents reported increased parent attachment, whereas low SES adolescents reported higher levels of community\u2014based prosocial behaviors. Finally, certain dimensions of parent attachment predicted increases and decreases only in specific prosocial behaviors. Because prosocial behaviors change throughout adolescence, future ventures should consider a longitudinal analysis to obtain a more comprehensive picture of adolescent positive adjustment.
ContributorsAli, Hira (Author) / Luthar, Suniya (Thesis director) / Infurna, Frank (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
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
Chronic pain is among the most prevalent health issues experienced by older adults and negatively impacts daily functioning and psychosocial well-being through mechanisms that include energy depletion, pain interference, and pain-related changes in negative affect. The capacities to be aware of and regulate negative emotions play a critical role in the successful management of chronic pain. One dimension of negative emotion awareness, termed negative emotion differentiation (NED), is the ability to discriminate between negative affective experiences and recognize them as discrete categories. The ability to identify and distinguish between the various emotions that accompany pain flares and other stressors may enhance the precision of the individual’s regulatory efforts. In doing so, NED may be one possible resilience resource that can facilitate adaptive functioning in the context of chronic pain by buffering the effects of chronic pain flares on daily interpersonal stress. However, this has not yet been investigated. The current study aimed to examine the moderating effect of trait NED on the relationship between daily pain and same-day stress in 259 patients diagnosed with osteoarthritis (OA) or fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Individuals completed daily diaries each evening for 30 days reporting on average daily pain, negative emotions, interpersonal stress, and depressive symptoms. It was hypothesized that higher levels of NED would buffer the effects of daily pain on same-day stress. In exploratory analyses, it was evaluated whether the buffering effects were larger for individuals with FMS versus OA. Results of multilevel models revealed that, as expected, higher levels of trait NED predicted lower levels of same-day negative interpersonal events and perceived interpersonal stress. Trait NED also moderated the relationship between pain-related increases in same-day perceived interpersonal stress. Additionally, findings indicated that NED was similarly important for those with FMS and OA. Taken together, the current findings suggest that NED is an important resilience trait that can attenuate chronic pain-related increases in daily experiences of interpersonal stress.
ContributorsOlah, Meryl (Author) / Davis, Mary C (Thesis advisor) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Committee member) / Infurna, Frank (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
I did a literature review on how childhood trauma causes health issues in the future. Based on the information gathered, I did a clinical proposal for trauma informed care to help address this problem.
ContributorsShanavas, Yuktha (Author) / Infurna, Frank (Thesis director) / Ha, Thao (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Guided by the Risky Families model and Daily Process methods, the present study examined how daily stressors are related to emotional well-being at the between- and within-person levels among adolescent grandchildren raised by grandmothers. This study also examined whether risk (i.e., adverse childhood experiences/ACES) and resilience (i.e., socio-emotional skills) factors were linked to differences in daily well-being, stressor exposure, and emotional reactivity, and evaluated the efficacy of an online social intelligence training (SIT) program on daily stressor-emotion dynamics. Data came from a subsample (n = 188) of custodial adolescents who participated in an attention-controlled randomized clinical trial and completed 14-day daily surveys prior to and following intervention. Analyses were conducted with dynamic structural equation modeling. Daily stressors, on average, and experiencing above average stressors, were associated with higher negative emotions and lower positive emotions and social connection. Those with more ACEs, on average, reported higher daily stressors and worse well-being, whereas those with higher socio-emotional skills, on average, reported lower daily stressors and better well-being. At the within-person level, more ACEs were associated with higher daily negative emotions. Nonverbal processing was linked to higher daily positive emotions and social connection. Conversational skills were associated with higher daily positive emotions and social connection, and lower, more inert daily negative emotions. Neither ACEs nor socio-emotional skills were associated with within-person reactivity to stressors. Also, the SIT program did not demonstrate efficacy for any outcome. My discussion focused on how findings extend the literature on custodial adolescents by showing that daily stressors impact well-being, offer knowledge of how ACEs and socio-emotional skills shape daily stressor-emotion dynamics, and considers reasons why the online, self-guided SIT program failed to show efficacy on key outcomes.
ContributorsCastro, Saul (Author) / Infurna, Frank (Thesis advisor) / Doane, Leah (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Grimm, Kevin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023