Matching Items (4)
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- All Subjects: Depression
- All Subjects: Taste
- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
- Creators: Homer, Judith
- Creators: Capaldi Phillips, Elizabeth D
Description
The unpleasant bitter taste found in many nutritious vegetables may deter their consumption. While bitterness suppression by prototypical tastants is well-studied in the chemical and pharmacological fields, mechanisms to reduce the bitterness of foods such as vegetables remain to be elucidated. Here tastants representing the taste primaries of salty and sweet were investigated as potential bitterness suppressors of three types of Brassicaceae vegetables. The secondary aim of these studies was to determine whether the bitter masking agents were differentially effective for bitter-sensitive and bitter-insensitive individuals. In all experiments, participants rated vegetables plain and with the addition of tastants. In Experiments 1-3, sucrose and NNS suppressed the bitterness of broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower, whereas NaCl did not. Varying concentrations of NaCl and sucrose were introduced in Experiment 4 to assess the dose-dependency of the effects. While sucrose was a robust bitterness suppressor, NaCl suppressed bitterness only for participants who perceived the plain Brussels sprouts as highly bitter. Experiment 5, through the implementation of a rigorous control condition, determined that some but not all of this effect can be accounted for by regression to the mean. Individual variability in taste perception as determined by sampling of aqueous bitter, salty, and sweet solutions did not influence the degree of suppression by NaCl or sucrose. Consumption of vegetables is deterred by their bitter taste. Utilizing tastants to mask bitterness, a technique that preserves endogenous nutrients, can circumvent this issue. Sucrose is a robust bitter suppressor whereas the efficacy of NaCl is dependent upon bitterness perception of the plain vegetables.
ContributorsWilkie, Lynn Melissa (Author) / Capaldi Phillips, Elizabeth D (Thesis advisor) / Cohen, Adam (Committee member) / Johnston, Carol (Committee member) / Sanabria, Federico (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Academic achievement among Asians has been widely recognized in the literature, but the costs of this success may be tied to significant mental health consequences. Three samples of undergraduate students in India were recruited from cities such as Chennai, Kerala, and Delhi totaling 608 (303 male, 301 females). Both online and in class recruitment occurred.
There were three main purposes of this study: 1) to construct a quantitative measure of parental pressure, 2) to evaluate whether self-esteem was a potential buffer of the negative impacts of parental pressure and academic stress, and 3) to understand better the factors impacting suicidality among adolescents in India by testing a path model of possible predictors suggested by the literature. Prevalence data of suicidal ideation and attempt history were also collected. Reporting on their experience over the past six months, 14.5% (n = 82) of the participants endorsed suicidal ideation and 12.3% (n = 69) of the participants admitted to having deliberately attempted to hurt or kill themselves.
Five constructs were explored in this study: parental pressure, academic stress, depression, suicidality, and self-esteem. The Parental Pressure for Success Scale, designed for this study, was used to measure parental pressure. The Educational Stress Scale-Adolescents was used to measure academic stress. The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale was used to measure depressive symptomology. Two items from the Youth Self-Report Checklist were used as a measure of suicidality in the past six months. The Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale was used to measure global self-esteem.
Preliminary support for the reliability and validity of the Parental Pressure for Success Scale was found. While self-esteem was not a significant moderator in this study, it was a predictor of both stress and depression. Results of the path analysis indicated that parental pressure predicted academic stress, stress predicted depression, and depression predicted suicidality. Parental pressure indirectly predicted suicidality through academic stress and depression. Results were discussed in the context of cultural influences on study findings such as the central role of parents in the family unit, the impact of cultural valuing of education, collectivistic society, and the Hindu concept of dharma, or duty.
There were three main purposes of this study: 1) to construct a quantitative measure of parental pressure, 2) to evaluate whether self-esteem was a potential buffer of the negative impacts of parental pressure and academic stress, and 3) to understand better the factors impacting suicidality among adolescents in India by testing a path model of possible predictors suggested by the literature. Prevalence data of suicidal ideation and attempt history were also collected. Reporting on their experience over the past six months, 14.5% (n = 82) of the participants endorsed suicidal ideation and 12.3% (n = 69) of the participants admitted to having deliberately attempted to hurt or kill themselves.
Five constructs were explored in this study: parental pressure, academic stress, depression, suicidality, and self-esteem. The Parental Pressure for Success Scale, designed for this study, was used to measure parental pressure. The Educational Stress Scale-Adolescents was used to measure academic stress. The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale was used to measure depressive symptomology. Two items from the Youth Self-Report Checklist were used as a measure of suicidality in the past six months. The Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale was used to measure global self-esteem.
Preliminary support for the reliability and validity of the Parental Pressure for Success Scale was found. While self-esteem was not a significant moderator in this study, it was a predictor of both stress and depression. Results of the path analysis indicated that parental pressure predicted academic stress, stress predicted depression, and depression predicted suicidality. Parental pressure indirectly predicted suicidality through academic stress and depression. Results were discussed in the context of cultural influences on study findings such as the central role of parents in the family unit, the impact of cultural valuing of education, collectivistic society, and the Hindu concept of dharma, or duty.
ContributorsSarma, Arti (Author) / Robinson-Kurpius, Sharon (Thesis advisor) / Kinnier, Richard (Committee member) / Homer, Judith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Given the continued increase in obesity rates in the United States, there has been growing research regarding factors related to obesity. Researchers have examined biological factors, such as set point theory, as well as various psychological factors such as motivation, self-efficacy, and eating styles. Taster-type, defined as how an individual experiences the perception of taste (particularly bitterness), is a recent area of research that has explored the potential relationship between this phenomenon and obesity. The current study examined whether taster-type impacted weight loss, along with secondary measures of BMI, waist circumference, and food neophobia, as well as taster-type’s impact on these measures over time. This study also examined the potential role of taster-type as a predictor of weight loss, independent of the psychological variables of motivation, self-efficacy, and eating styles. Ninety adult participants, consisting of 64 females and 19 males were recruited for this study. They were asked to diet for four weeks; 60 finished the full four weeks and completed psychosocial measures over two time periods. They were asked to record their food using an online food journal, attend weekly meetings for weigh-ins, and were given psychoeducational materials regarding factors affecting weight loss. The results indicated that taster-type was not a significant factor in BMI or waist circumference, but taster-type did interact with time to reveal that supertasters consistently lost weight across the four week dieting period while nontasters leveled off after Week 2. Additionally, both groups increased in food neophobia from the start of the dieting period to the end of Week 4. Consistent with previous research, motivation and self-efficacy predicted weight loss; however, taster-type did not increase the prediction of weight loss across the dieting period. This effect only occurred at Week 2. By Week 4, no psychosocial variables were significant predictors of weight loss.
ContributorsWagner, Melissa C (Author) / Robinson-Kurpius, Sharon (Thesis advisor) / Capaldi Phillips, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Homer, Judith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether five select scales of the MMPI-A (F, Scale 2, A-dep, A-lse, and A-aln) are predictive of a diagnosis of a major depressive episode according to the current DSM-IV-TR criteria. Participants were 90 girls and 58 boys in a clinical psychiatric setting. The study examined two separate hypotheses across the five scales. The first set of hypotheses tested whether a significant T-score on each of the five scales would predict a diagnosis of a major depressive episode in clinical adolescents. The second set of hypotheses attempted to step away from the constraints of diagnostic and statistical cut-off criteria and evaluated the ability of discrete T-scores of the MMPI-A in predicting the number of symptoms of a major depressive episode in clinical adolescents. Results indicated that none of the five scales were predictive of a diagnosis of a major depressive disorder in clinical adolescents. All but one scale (Scale 2) was significant in its ability to predict the number of depressive symptoms in clinical adolescents. Implications of this study include the need for a better diagnostic criteria for adolescent depression as well as re-evaluating the cut-off criteria of scales on the MMPI-A. Directions for future research are also discussed.
ContributorsPham, Tuyen T (Author) / Claiborn, Charles D. (Thesis advisor) / Homer, Judith (Committee member) / Gerkin, Richard D. (Committee member) / Fair, Christine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010