Filtering by
- All Subjects: Mental Health
- All Subjects: Stress
- Creators: School of Social and Behavioral Sciences
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Resource Type: Text
We have seen the joy pets bring into people’s lives, and the sadness that follows the loss of them. Many pet owners view their pets as more than just animals: they are family. They offer a level of love and support similar to friends and family, despite not being human. Some pets are also trained as service animals to assist humans who struggle with diagnosed physical, mental, and other disabilities. However, emotional support animals appear to lie somewhere between pets and service animals, as there are rules and policies still developing around them. With more and more college students requesting to bring ESAs on campus, the question of their effectiveness has been raised. The aim of this honors thesis study is to examine the effectiveness of ESAs in alleviating mental health symptoms in college students. More specifically, I wanted to evaluate students who currently live on campus (or have lived on campus in the past). The first aim will be to determine whether non-pet owners versus ESA owners (and pet owners in general) show a difference in their stress levels. The second aim is to examine if owning a pet or ESA predicts stress levels differently between genders. The final aim of the study is to determine if degree of attachment to pets predicts differences in stress in the owners.
Trauma is increasingly experienced by people in transit as border militarization increases migrants’ exposure to violence and forces them into more precarious situations. For queer migrants, this includes situations where they are more likely to experience persecution and sexual violence. This paper explores the availability of care for queer undocumented migrants in the United States after surviving a precarious and potentially deadly journey from their country of origin to the US, as well as forms of alternative care developed by the undocuqueer community. In particular, it focuses on access to care for LGBT migrants, who face stigmatization on multiple levels and as a result are more likely than their straight counterparts to experience extreme mental health consequences pre-, in-, and post-transit. Faced with a number of obstacles that prevent them from receiving appropriate mental health care, the undocuqueer community utilizes various strategies to ensure that the health and needs of the community are supported. I argue that in spite of facing traumatic experiences and being unable to fully access healthcare to alleviate these problems in the US, LGBT migrants demonstrate extreme resilience and resist the mechanisms that otherwise threaten their mental well-being.
"No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth." These were the words of former Facebook Vice President Chamath Palihapitiya who publicly expressed his regret in a 2017 interview over his role in co-creating Facebook. Palihapitiya shared that social media is ripping apart the social fabric of society and he also sounded the alarm regarding social media’s unavoidable global impact. He is only one of social media’s countless critics. The more disturbing issue resides in the empirical evidence supporting such notions. At least 95% of adolescents own a smartphone and spend an average time of two to four hours a day on social media. Moreover, 91% of 16-24-year-olds use social media, yet youth rate Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as the worst social media platforms. However, the social, clinical, and neurodevelopment ramifications of using social media regularly are only beginning to emerge in research. Early research findings show that social media platforms trigger anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and other negative mental health effects. These negative mental health symptoms are commonly reported by individuals from of 18-25-years old, a unique period of human development known as emerging adulthood. Although emerging adulthood is characterized by identity exploration, unbounded optimism, and freedom from most responsibilities, it also serves as a high-risk period for the onset of most psychological disorders. Despite social media’s adverse impacts, it retains its utility as it facilitates identity exploration and virtual socialization for emerging adults. Investigating the “user-centered” design and neuroscience underlying social media platforms can help reveal, and potentially mitigate, the onset of negative mental health consequences among emerging adults. Effectively deconstructing the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (i.e., hereafter referred to as “The Big Three”) will require an extensive analysis into common features across platforms. A few examples of these design features include: like and reaction counters, perpetual news feeds, and omnipresent banners and notifications surrounding the user’s viewport. Such social media features are inherently designed to stimulate specific neurotransmitters and hormones such as dopamine, serotonin, and cortisol. Identifying such predacious social media features that unknowingly manipulate and highjack emerging adults’ brain chemistry will serve as a first step in mitigating the negative mental health effects of today’s social media platforms. A second concrete step will involve altering or eliminating said features by creating a social media platform that supports and even enhances mental well-being.
Veterans are approximately 30% more likely than non-veterans to suffer from severe hearing impairment. Tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, which is increasingly common among military service men and women, has been linked to significant cognitive and psychological impairment and can be worsened by the same sounds that trigger post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In fact, tinnitus and PTSD often present as comorbidities, and recent studies suggest these two disorders may share a common neurological pathway. Additional studies are required to better understand the connection between hearing loss and impaired cognitive function such as that observed in with PTSD. Here, we use the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to explore the relationship between hearing loss and cognitive function. Negative geotaxis climbing assays and courtship behavior analysis were used to examine neurobehavioral changes induced by prolonged, intense auditory stimulation. Preliminary results suggest that exposure to loud noise for an extended period of time significantly affected Drosophila behavior, with males being more sensitive than females. Based on our results, there appears to be a potential connection between noise exposure and behavior, further suggesting that Drosophila could be an effective model to study the link between hearing loss and PTSD.