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The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of two modes of exercise on depression in adolescents with Down syndrome (DS). Twelve participants randomly completed one of two exercise interventions. The interventions were: 1) Voluntary Cycling (VC), in which participants cycled at their self-selected pedaling rate 2) Assisted

The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of two modes of exercise on depression in adolescents with Down syndrome (DS). Twelve participants randomly completed one of two exercise interventions. The interventions were: 1) Voluntary Cycling (VC), in which participants cycled at their self-selected pedaling rate 2) Assisted Cycling (AC), in which the participants' voluntary pedaling rates were augmented with a motor to ensure the maintenance of 80 rpms. In each intervention, the participant completed three cycling sessions each week for a total of eight weeks. Depression scores did decrease or improved after both AC and VC, but not significantly. There was a greater mean improvement for participants in the AC group than VC when analyzing total score and t-score. Future research will include a greater sample size and control group to reach significant results as well as try and reveal the mechanisms involved in these mental health improvements found after an acute bout of assisted cycling in adolescents with DS.
ContributorsTeslevich, Jennifer Lynn (Author) / Ringenbach, Shannon (Thesis director) / Kulinna, Pamela (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2013-12
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Description
Sport is a widespread phenomenon across human cultures and history. Unfortunately, positive emotions in sport have been long vaguely characterized as happy or pleasant, or ignored altogether. Recent emotion research has taken a differentiated approach, however, suggesting there are distinct positive emotions with diverse implications for behavior. The present study

Sport is a widespread phenomenon across human cultures and history. Unfortunately, positive emotions in sport have been long vaguely characterized as happy or pleasant, or ignored altogether. Recent emotion research has taken a differentiated approach, however, suggesting there are distinct positive emotions with diverse implications for behavior. The present study applied this evolutionarily informed approach in the context of sport to examine which positive emotions are associated with play. It was hypothesized that pride, amusement, and enthusiasm, but not contentment or awe, would increase in Ultimate Frisbee players during a practice scrimmage. Further, it was hypothesized that increases in pride and amusement during practice would be differentially associated with sport outcomes, including performance (scores, assists, and defenses), subjective social connectedness, attributions of success, and attitudes toward the importance of practice. It was found that all positive emotions decreased during practice. It was also found that increases in pride were associated with more scores and greater social connectedness, whereas increases in amusement were associated with more assists. The present study was one of the first to examine change in positive emotions during play and to relate them to specific performance outcomes. Future studies should expand to determine which came first: emotion or performance.
ContributorsKuna, Jacob Anthony (Author) / Shiota, Michelle (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Danvers, Alexander (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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Description
In this creative thesis, I traveled to India and used my month long summer vacation back home to interview people about mental health in India. I talked to a therapist and four students about depression to find out what the situation is in India, contributing factors, experiences and stigma unique

In this creative thesis, I traveled to India and used my month long summer vacation back home to interview people about mental health in India. I talked to a therapist and four students about depression to find out what the situation is in India, contributing factors, experiences and stigma unique to depression among students in India, what the government is doing, and possible solutions or steps that can be taken to help students struggling with mental health problems. I also went to mainstream and special schools to meet special educators who work with differently abled children, occupational therapists, parents of differently abled children, and a student with Asperger’s in Chennai, Tamil Nadu to find out about the stigma surrounding differently abled children and their education path.
My efforts have culminated in the creation of the website mentalhealthinindia.com that can be used as a resource both by people in India as well as those abroad who are curious to learn about the stigma surrounding depression and differently abled children in India.
ContributorsVenkatakrishnan, Ranjani (Author) / Koester, Nicole (Thesis director) / Pruitt, Rhonda (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is highly comorbid with mood disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Previous research suggests difficulties in emotion regulation to be concordant with experiencing these comorbid symptoms. Understanding the neural correlates of emotion regulation in ASD and relationships with mood symptoms could provide insights for effective treatments.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is highly comorbid with mood disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Previous research suggests difficulties in emotion regulation to be concordant with experiencing these comorbid symptoms. Understanding the neural correlates of emotion regulation in ASD and relationships with mood symptoms could provide insights for effective treatments. We employed an existing functional MRI paradigm to assess neural activation during an emotional regulation task in adults with ASD, and correlate activated regions with self-reported measures of depression and anxiety. We found the following regions to be significantly associated with emotion regulation (family-wise error corrected p<0.05): the bilateral insula, anterior cingulate, middle cingulate, precentral gyrus, angular gyrus, left dorsolateral PFC, right caudate/putamen, and left medial PFC. We found anxiety, but not depression, symptoms were negatively correlated with activation in the anterior cingulate, left insula, and left putamen, and showed a moderate relationship to the amygdala. These results expand current understanding of ASD and emotion regulation and suggest targets for future clinical intervention.
ContributorsHaynes, Caleb River (Author) / Braden, Brittany Blair (Thesis director) / Leslie, Baxter (Committee member) / Mary, Davis (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two positive discrete emotions, awe and nurturant love, on implicit prejudices. After completing an emotion induction task, participants completed Implicit Association Test blocks where they paired photos of Arab and White individuals with "good" and "bad" evaluations. We hypothesized

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two positive discrete emotions, awe and nurturant love, on implicit prejudices. After completing an emotion induction task, participants completed Implicit Association Test blocks where they paired photos of Arab and White individuals with "good" and "bad" evaluations. We hypothesized that nurturant love would increase the strength of negative evaluations of Arab individuals and positive evaluations of White individuals, whereas awe would decrease the strength of these negative evaluations when compared to a neutral condition. However, we found that both awe and nurturant love increased negative implicit prejudices toward Arab individuals when compared to the neutral condition.
ContributorsCarrasco, Mia Annette (Author) / Shiota, Michelle (Thesis director) / O'Neil, Makenzie (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In Memory of an Emily is a piece of creative nonfiction and a short film that together detail the author’s experience with mental illness in the collegiate environment. In its 45 pages, Jackman begins to detail the realities of living with depression, anxiety, and anorexia nervosa. The piece includes five

In Memory of an Emily is a piece of creative nonfiction and a short film that together detail the author’s experience with mental illness in the collegiate environment. In its 45 pages, Jackman begins to detail the realities of living with depression, anxiety, and anorexia nervosa. The piece includes five sections of writing, including a preface and four portions describing freshman to senior year. Each section endeavors to explore simplistic and purposefully cliché events common in young adult/collegiate life and juxtapose the banal nature of these events with the experience of the mentally ill. Her story endeavors to explore the emotional truths of pain and suffering, revealing that beneath her tender façade lies a very different existence, one tangled in eating disorders, panic attacks, and overwhelming sadness. While maintaining a story-like quality traditional to creative non-fiction, Jackman ventures to warn with a cautionary tale of pathologizing abnormality and exploring the long lasting effects of childhood trauma. Weaving careful storytelling into an exploration of the mentally ill mind, Jackman keeps the reader both terrifyingly close and far away, whispering painful secrets and then desperately running away with the truth. She speaks frankly of all aspects of life, ranging from far more mundane events, such as break ups and college rejection letters, to complicated issues, such as the suicide of her grandfather and her admission into an eating disorder facility. The author attempts to establish a balanced rapport with the reader, recognizing the need to maintain distance and elicit emotion simultaneously. Jackman writes In Memory of an Emily as a heartbreaking but authentic tale, playing with stream of consciousness and paralyzing emotional description. She opens the door and invites the reader into her mind so as to share in the physical and emotional discomfort of the storyteller, but then promptly slams the door once inside.
ContributorsJackman, Emily Deprey (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Barca, Lisa (Committee member) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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The ability to regulate emotions, attention, and behavior develops early in life and impacts future academic success, social competency, behavioral problems, and psychopathology. An impairment in regulation is known as dysregulation. Past research shows that children of mothers with postpartum depression are more likely to show impairment in regulatory abilities.

The ability to regulate emotions, attention, and behavior develops early in life and impacts future academic success, social competency, behavioral problems, and psychopathology. An impairment in regulation is known as dysregulation. Past research shows that children of mothers with postpartum depression are more likely to show impairment in regulatory abilities. There is an established link in the literature between family support and maternal depression, which in turn can impact child behavior. However, further research is needed to explore the impact of family support on early childhood dysregulation in the context of maternal depression. Using a sample of 322 Mexican-American, mother-child dyads, two models were examined. Model one hypothesized family support would buffer the effects of maternal depression on child dysregulation at 24 months. Model 2 hypothesized that family support is related to child dysregulation through its effect on maternal depression. Results showed that increased family support was related to more child dysregulation when there were high levels of maternal depression. There was no evidence to support the hypothesis that maternal depression mediated the relationship between family support and child dysregulation.
ContributorsRodrigues, Samantha Jean (Author) / Luecken, Linda (Thesis director) / Benitez, Viridiana (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
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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)

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
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Description
Investment and interest in mental health on a global scale is increasing. This interest creates a need to gain an in depth understanding about how mental illness is conceptualized and treated in different cultures. This article aims to explore the views of maternal mental health in Kenya's sub-counties. Maternal mental

Investment and interest in mental health on a global scale is increasing. This interest creates a need to gain an in depth understanding about how mental illness is conceptualized and treated in different cultures. This article aims to explore the views of maternal mental health in Kenya's sub-counties. Maternal mental health has a significant impact on child development outcomes, so the topic has cross-generational importance. Ten focus group discussions with a variety of participants were conducted to understand the health care system. The participants were from four Kenya sub-counties: Rachuonyo N., Wagwe, Okiki Amayo, Nyative and they were either members of either SCHMT (Sub-county health management team), CHEW (community health extension worker), facility/staff of the county hospital, HHCDO (Homa Hills Community Development Organization), THRIVE II staff (Catholic Relief Service's early childhood development program) or mothers and fathers with children under two years of age. The qualitative data were translated and transcribed on site and then retranslated and counterchecked. A secondary data analysis using Atlas.ti was performed to identify themes and trends in factors that contribute to maternal wellbeing. Four main categories were identified as having prevalent effects on the Kenyan mothers' mental health: cultural values, broken support system, limitations of resources, and knowledge, behavior and attitudes. The participants were broken up into administrative, clinical, social, maternal and paternal categories to determine specific influence in each of these areas. Further analysis defined participants' involvement in the categories as mediating, moderating and direct effects on maternal depression. Main contributors to depression were identified as a lack of paternal support, poor cultural values, and administrative resistance. Discussion focuses on consequences for the future.
ContributorsAugur, Haley Rose (Author) / Nelson, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Hagaman, Ashley (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
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Description
Affluent children have been previously understudied and considerably neglected in developmental research due to the notion that they are "low risk." There is limited empirical research exploring the effects of parent involvement in affluent youth: specifically, the importance of the adolescent's perception that their mother/father do not spend as much

Affluent children have been previously understudied and considerably neglected in developmental research due to the notion that they are "low risk." There is limited empirical research exploring the effects of parent involvement in affluent youth: specifically, the importance of the adolescent's perception that their mother/father do not spend as much time with them as they would like. The goals of the study were to explore the role of this dimension of perceived parental involvement in anxious-depressed symptoms, somatic symptoms, rule breaking behaviors and substance use with upper-class suburban youth. The sample was taken from the New England Study of Suburban Youth Cohort (NESSY) (Luthar & Latendresse, 2005b) consisting of 252 high school students in the 12th grade located in an affluent community in the Northeast. Results showed that the participants who indicated their fathers could have dinner with them more often if they tried presented significant group differences in anxious-depressed symptoms, somatic symptoms, and rule breaking behaviors while substance use trended towards significant. Thus, these data demonstrate that parent-child relationships are not only important for infant and child development, but are also an integral part of development of adaptive behaviors during adolescence. In addition, the data suggest the benefits from having strong, supportive, and stable relationships with not only mothers but with fathers as well. Results from post hoc analyses revealed perceived absence of fathers at dinnertime affects the adolescent more than the perceived absence of mothers at dinnertime. Finally, teens who indicated a need to spend more dinnertimes with their father may be suffering from a lack of open communication and opportunities to discuss social and emotional issues that are conducive to adolescent development and adjustment.
ContributorsOjeda, Johanna Alyssa Quiambao (Author) / Luthar, Suniya (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Curlee, Alexandria (Committee member) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12