Psychology Theses and Dissertations

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/995

This collection contains some of the theses and dissertations produced by students in the University of Oregon Psychology Graduate Program. Paper copies of these and other dissertations and theses are available through the UO Libraries.

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Open Access
Perceiving Different Types of Bad People: How Moral Person Prototypes Influence Moral Impressions
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Dimakis, Sarah; Mauro, Robert
In response to a complex and information dense world, we organize related information into categories (e.g., furniture, animals) to make it easier to apply existing knowledge to newly encountered objects and situations (Rosch, 1978). Categories are represented in the mind as cognitive prototypes: examples that possess common features of category members (Posner & Keele, 1968; Reed, 1972; Rosch & Mervis, 1975). A key feature of prototype-based categories is that unobserved characteristics are inferred to category members once the prototype is activated (Cantor & Mischel, 1977; Osherson et al., 1990). I propose in this dissertation that we use moral person categories to make inferences about the unobserved or unobservable immoral characteristics of others, which influences our decisions about with whom to interact and how to interact with them. In a series of studies, I demonstrated that people perceive multiple bad person categories, examined their properties, and tested a prototype model of moral character evaluation against dimensional models. This dissertation is the first rigorous investigation of the structure and properties of perceived bad person categories. In Study 1, fifty prototypical characteristics of a bad person (e.g., lacking empathy, selfishness, racism) were gleaned from previous literature and augmented with additional characteristics generated by participants in a free-listing task. In Study 2, participant sorting data of characteristics from Study 1 revealed that respondents distinguished between multiple types of bad people (e.g., psychopath, abuser, narcissist, bigot). Additionally, categorical and dimensional models of bad person characteristics were generated from the responses in Study 2 and tested with new data in Study 3. Consistent with prototype-based categories, unobserved immoral characteristics that were prototypical of a category were more likely to be attributed to exemplars of that category compared to exemplars of competing bad person categories. Further, prototype models outperformed dimensional or multidimensional models, but prototype-unidimensional dual models performed the best. Thus, people infer prototype-consistent immoral characteristics to exemplars of a category, and additionally infer prototype-inconsistent immoral characteristics that are similar in morality to the exemplar (but not similar on other social dimensions such as intelligence or sociability). Additionally, further providing support for multiple bad person prototype-based categories, large differences were observed in the perception of four bad person prototypes regarding their morality, competence, sociability, gender, race, age, physical appearance, the innateness and permanence of their immoral characteristics, and the ways respondents prefer to interact with them. Overall, this dissertation provides strong evidence against the unidimensional model of morality commonly used in the moral character evaluation literature and in support of a model of moral character evaluation that includes cognitive prototypes. This research may have significant implications for why we make errors that others are bad based on harmless or morally irrelevant characteristics (e.g., physical appearance, harmless behaviors), including in criminal justice contexts. In the future, the methods presented in this paper should be replicated with diverse samples to assess commonalities and differences in the cognitive prototypes of bad people across relevant subgroups (e.g., liberals versus conservatives, experts versus novices).
Open Access
Mindfulness and Appraisal-based Interventions for Promoting Distress Tolerance and Preventing Chronic Illness and Persistent Psychological Distress
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Lipsett, Megan; Berkman, Elliot
Addressing the psychological and emotional components of chronic physical and mental health issues is crucial for overall well-being and disease management. Psychoeducational interventions that target meta-cognitive skills and are informed by mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches show great promise in enhancing distress tolerance and fostering health-promoting skills. This dissertation explores the efficacy of interventions that pair contemplative practices with psychoeducational programs in two high-risk populations. The first study focuses on a brief, computer-delivered intervention for T2D prevention in a high-risk adult population, while the second study examines the impact of a mindful self-reflection training combined with a positive psychology and neuroscience course for college-transitioning adults at risk for chronic psychological and emotional distress. Study 1 presents findings from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a brief (45-min), computer-delivered mindfulness- and acceptance-based intervention for T2D prevention in a screen-identified high-risk population, compared to conventional diabetes prevention education (DPE). Despite strong evidence that Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) can be prevented through lifestyle changes, traditional programs have limited effectiveness in altering behaviors or reducing incidence. Effective, accessible interventions targeting key psychosocial mechanisms and implementable virtually after risk assessments or primary care visits are needed. This intervention aims to enhance meta-cognitive skills (present-moment awareness, psychological flexibility, controllability awareness, experiential acceptance, cognitive defusion, and values identification) and reduce perceptions of threat and diabetes distress, a known barrier to health behavior change. The ACT + DPE group showed significantly higher controllability awareness and emotional acceptance, along with lower state anxiety, perceptions of diabetes risk-related threat, and state stress compared to the DPE-only group. Groups demonstrated equivalent readiness to change, self-management activation, or self-efficacy. This RCT is one of the first to test a brief, web-based, ACT-informed diabetes prevention program, demonstrating its potential to increase specific meta-cognitive skills and reduce anxiety, stress, and diabetes risk-related threat when engaged immediately after learning about being at high risk for diabetes. Study 2 explores the impact of meta-cognitive skills on college-transitioning adults' well-being through a 4-week mindful self-reflection training combined with a 10-week positive psychology and neuroscience (PPN) course for first-year undergraduate students, compared to a control group (general psychology course). The meta-cognitive skills of mindful awareness and psychological distance are valuable for reflecting on adverse life experiences and promoting emotional and psychological well-being, particularly among college-transitioning adults prone to psychological distress. We employed a multi-modal assessment that included psychological surveys, linguistic analysis, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both the PPN course alone and the Mindful Self-reflection training + PPN course groups showed significant increases in self-distancing (i.e., reduced psychologically immersed speech and blame attributions) and self-transcendence. The PPN course alone led to greater increases in interpersonal perspective-taking, while the Mindful Self-reflection training + PPN course group showed greater increases in other-focus and well-being (relationship quality, self-acceptance, sense of purpose, and personal growth), as well as decreases in perceived stress, interpersonal distress, and depression. The Mindful Self-reflection training + PPN course group also had greater pre-to-post decreases in neural activity in the posterior precuneus, dmPFC, and TPJ during self-distancing tasks compared to the control group. Training in mindfulness and adaptive self-reflection on emotionally difficult events during the first year of college can alter the thought content and neural mechanisms of meta-cognitive skills, including self-referential processing, self- and other-mentalizing, self-distancing, and emotion regulation, ultimately reducing psychological and interpersonal distress and increasing multiple dimensions of well-being.
Open Access
Assessments (in the Making) of Attachment in the Making: Organized Patterns of Infant Regulatory Behavior in Response to the Maternal Still-Face
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Hagan, Katherine; Ablow, Jennifer
Infants’ experiences of caregiver attunement and regulatory support in the first months of life likely shape embodied expectations about the self, the caregiver, and the extent to which the emerging attachment relationship can transform and soothe distress. Infants’ biobehavioral responses to the Still-Face Paradigm (SF) offer a potential index of these emerging expectations, with potential implications for understanding precursors to later quality of attachment and the origins and malleability of these precursors in early development. This dissertation adopts a programmatic and integrative approach to evaluating the possibility that infant responses to the Still-Face paradigm are meaningfully indicative of dyadic adjustment during the infant’s first year of life and potentially prognostic of quality of attachment in the infant’s second year. To this end, the introduction to the dissertation describes (1) the theoretical and empirical rationale for regarding infant SF response as a marker of the infant’s interactive history and (2) the importance that identification of attachment-like regulatory patterns or precursors to later quality of attachment in the SF may have for the study of infant adaptation and long-term health. The dissertation’s second chapter consists of a narrative review of existing efforts to glean attachment-like patterns or otherwise predict later quality of attachment on the basis of infants’ SF response. The narrative review details discrete affective and regulatory behaviors in the SF that have received attention as possible markers of infants’ attachment-related working models in-the-making; the review identifies overlap and discrepancies among existing microanalytic findings. While modest associations between infant SF behaviors and attachment outcomes point to the promise of the SF paradigm as a source of information about dyadic adjustment and attachment in the making, discrepancies across microanalytic studies of discrete behaviors (including among infants at different ages) and differences in measurement strategies exemplify the need for programmatic, synthesizing efforts to facilitate comparison of findings between studies. The narrative review also draws on the development of the attachment classificatory system to advocate for an approach to individual differences in the SF that attends to organized patterns of regulatory behavior rather than discrete behaviors. The subsequent chapters of this dissertation examine proximal and distal correlates to infant regulatory responses in the SF, by way of three sub-studies of a single sample of mother-infant dyads contending with socioeconomic and other psychosocial risk. Each of the three sub-studies make use of archived recordings of the SF paradigm and leverage secondary analysis of several related measures that were collected in an already-completed study that predated the dissertation. Study 1 adopts a novel but existing typological approach to identifying organized patterns of infant regulatory behavior in the SF, to in turn compare the distribution of the patterns in the present sample to that of other samples that have applied a similarly categorical approach. Study 1 also (a) examines evidence for convergent validity of the regulatory patterns by juxtaposing the patterns with more granular approaches to observing and describing infant SF behavior, and (b) evaluates the hypothesis that patterning of infant regulatory behavior reflects features of the infant’s interactive history. Study 2 examines whether patterns of regulatory behavior are accompanied by differences in infants’ autonomic (specifically, heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia) responses to the SF stressor. Finally, Study 3 seeks to replicate an existing finding of association between SF regulatory patterns and later organized attachment classification. Studies 1 and 2 find evidence of convergent validity of the regulatory patterns, which exhibit expected associations with more granular observations of infant behavior, maternal sensitivity to infant distress, and differential changes in infant heart rate during the SF paradigm. While several hypothesized associations between infants’ SF-based regulatory patterns and concurrent measures bear out in the present study, the regulatory patterns observed in the SF paradigm in this sample at five months postpartum are not associated with later organized quality of attachment assessed in the Strange Situation Procedure one year later. Connections to current findings are discussed, as are recommendations for future study of organized patterns of regulatory behavior and attachment in the making.
Open Access
The Development of Disability and Foreignness Concepts: A Comparative Approach
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Weinstein, Netanel; Baldwin, Dare
Human cognition often displays a tendency to “see beyond” the available perceptual input. Although inferences indicative of such seeing-beyond tendencies are fundamental to efficiency in human cognition, they may also be associated with the expression of prejudice towards stigmatized others. In this dissertation, we systematically compared college students’ and children’s inductive generalization tendencies regarding two stigmatized social categories: foreignness and disability. Since such cues may be apparent both in speech (i.e., a foreign accent; a speech disorder) and appearance (i.e., foreign garb; a wheelchair), directly juxtaposing children and college students’ reactions to such cues may be particularly informative regarding the development of foreignness and disability concepts alike. In a first study, we compared 180 North American college-aged students’ and 163 young children’s (Mage = 5.75) explicit assessments of a) three speech categories (neurotypical American English - L1, Spanish English - L2, and American English with Autism Spectrum Disorder - ASD), and b) four illustration categories (children whose appearance was: able-bodied typical North American appearance; able-bodied foreign appearance; typical North American wheelchair-bound with signs of contracture in the wrist and torticollis in the neck; and typical North American amputee appearance) along several key dimensions (i.e., foreignness, dependence, competence, interest in friendship and comprehensibility for speech). To further explore developmental change in inductive generalization tendencies, in study 2, we assessed 130 college-aged students’ and 143 North American children’s (Mage = 5.3) associations between speech variability and visual appearance. Specifically, participants listened to one of three speech conditions (L1, L2, ASD) while looking at two illustrations side-by-side (one of a typical American child, the other depicting a foreign child or a child with a disability) and were asked to select the child who was talking. Across both studies, college students, but not children, appeared to associate the variability they detected in the ASD speech with a latent disability concept in a similar manner to which both samples associated L2 speech with foreignness. Nevertheless, there was an emerging age-related increase in this tendency for children as well, particularly for those with advanced metacognition. Furthermore, whereas college students were biased against ASD speakers but showed a prosocial bias towards images depicting physical disabilities (particularly amputees), children were biased against wheelchair (and foreign) images but showed no bias in the case of ASD speech. This work advances our understanding of complex ways in which conceptual representations of the social world relate to the expression of prejudice, and how such relationships may change developmentally. Our findings also hold potential to inform development of empirically-oriented interventions to reduce the expression of prejudice in childhood and across the lifespan.
Open Access
Hippocampal Repulsion as a Function of Memory Interference and Subjective Beliefs
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Guo, Wanjia; Kuhl, Brice
Resolving memory interference is critical for performing essential tasks in our daily life. The hippocampus is believed to play a critical role in distinguishing similar memories. This dissertation focused on understanding the mechanisms of hippocampal repulsion, which stands for when the representations of two overlapping memories are actively pushed away to be represented less similarly to each other than non-overlapping memories. The first chapter draws direct connections between repulsion and behavioral expression of memory interference resolution. In particular, we show that the timing when repulsion happens is exactly when memory inference is resolved. The second chapter focuses on why repulsion occurs. It provides evidence that repulsion can occur with distinct internal states, even when external stimuli are identical. The third chapter focuses on how the intensity of repulsion changes with different levels of experience and shows that repulsion is not simply a linear process that accumulates with learning. Instead, it is transient and subsides after memory interference is resolved. Across all 3 chapters, the hippocampus was also segmented into subfields, and we consistently found CA3/DG to be the region that showed the repulsion effect, but not CA1.
Open Access
Developing An Integrative Structural Model To Capture Worldviews Associated With Support For Political Violence In The United States
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Siritzky, Meghan; Saucier, Gerard
In any field of research, standardization of theoretical constructs and measurement tools allows researchers to build on each other’s work and share the same language. In the task of measuring political worldviews, there is no such tool to standardize theory or measurement. There are, however, a plethora of theory-driven constructs that have only been empirically validated independently of each other. Because these constructs have discrete theoretical foundations but share similar behavioral outcomes, it remains to be seen whether they capture the same underlying worldview. This dissertation seeks to understand the relation between these theoretically discrete constructs by examining them not only in terms of concurrent association/correlation but in terms of their predictiveness regarding an outcome/criterion they might all predict – support for violence as an acceptable means to achieve political aims (hereafter referred to as SPV, Support for Political Violence). Using a high-dimensionality approach to maximize comprehensiveness, I gathered a large item pool sourced from existing measures of worldviews associated with SPV and found a set of 14 high-dimensionality factors that captured granular components of an overall structural model. Study 1 developed the initial structural model, while Study 2 determined the relative strength of each factor in predicting SPV in a US sample. Four notable findings emerged from Study 2: (1) dehumanization, xenoparanoia, and ingroup purity predict both state violence and partisan physical violence; (2) military imperialism, pro-torture, and conservative political orientation positively predict state violence while negatively predicting anti-state violence; (3) left-wing authoritarianism positively predicts anti-state violence while negatively predicting identity-based indirect violence; and (4) two predictors had a narrower range of effects on support for political violence: pluralistic spirituality in negatively predicting identity-based indirect violence and political alienation in positively predicting anti-state violence. By understanding which worldview dimensions are most strongly associated with SPV, one can enhance existing early-warning violence prediction and prevention tools and better assess the efficacy of interventions.
Open Access
Memory over time: Neural mechanisms for preserving memory when experiences repeat
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Zou, Futing; Hutchinson, Ben
Much of our everyday life involves repeated experiences. The fact that humans are able to form and retain separate memories for experiences that repeat over time is not only important for everyday behavior, but it is foundational to theories of episodic memory. While the effect of repetitions on memory has been the subject of extensive research over decades, the mechanisms that preserve memory across repeated experiences are not well understood. Across three studies, this dissertation explores how the human brain represents and preserves memories when experiences repeat over time, using measurements of behavior as well as brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In these studies, human participants viewed thousands of visual stimuli that repeated at lags ranging from seconds to many months and then later completed different types of memory probes. In the first chapter, we test how spacing between repeated stimulus encounters with a stimulus influences memory and corresponding neural similarity. We show that the spacing increases the similarity of neural activity patterns in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and, critically, these increases in neural similarity parallel and predict behavioral benefits of spacing. We demonstrate that these spacing benefits-in brain and behavior-reflect the re-encoding of memories for past experiences. In the second chapter, we characterize the role of neural representations in medial temporal lobe (MTL) subregions in preserving memory for when individual events occurred. We show that the ability to remember the temporal context in which a stimulus originally occurred is predicted by re-expression of previously-evoked patterns of activity in CA1 and ERC across repeated stimulus encounters, suggesting temporal context reinstatement as a mechanism that protects temporal memories when stimuli repeat. In the final chapter, we develop a novel approach for directly measuring temporal context reinstatement. We show that re-encountering a stimulus reinstates semantic information of temporally-adjacent stimuli that putatively ‘compose’ the temporal context in which the stimulus was originally encountered. Further, we show that neural similarity in CA1 across repeated stimulus encounters positively relates to the degree of temporal context reinstatement. Collectively, these data highlight the multi-faceted impact of repeated experiences on memory and provide novel insight into the neural mechanisms that preserve memories when experiences repeat across time.
Open Access
Machine-Learning-Based Classification of Acute Partial Sleep Deprivation with Resting-State fMRI
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-06) Yang, Xi; Casement, Melynda
Insufficient sleep is highly prevalent. Limited knowledge has been accrued on the functional correlates of acute partial sleep deprivation in the awake brain. As resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) becomes an essential measure to investigate spontaneous neural activity and intrinsic functional connectivity, applying machine learning to rs-fMRI to classify the state of acute partial sleep deprivation remains an uncharted area. In the present study, based on sleep deprivation literature, a set of predetermined rs-fMRI region and network functional connectivity features were used to classify the sleep states (sleep deprived/well-rested) of the senior (N = 34, age 65-75) and young adult (N = 41, age 20-30) participants in an archival dataset. The best performing support vector machine model classified the sleep states of the senior adult participants with a 68% accuracy rate. During external validation, this model trained on senior adults demonstrated low transferability to the young adult dataset. Low classification accuracy were reported in models trained on young adult dataset. The theoretical implications of the findings and recommendations for future research were discussed to contribute to a multi-modal understanding of the mechanism of sleep insufficiency as a causal factor of neural vulnerability and inform neurobehavioral interventions.
Embargo
DIGITAL MENTAL HEALTH: MODERATORS AND MECHANISMS OF AN ONLINE MENTAL HEALTH INTERVENTION
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-06) Pettitt, Adam; Allen, Nicholas
In the last few decades, digital approaches to mental health treatment has become more prevalent and widespread in an effort to make mental health treatment more accessible to a wider range of individuals. This dissertation aimed to identify and characterize the moderators and mechanisms of a digital mental health intervention (DMHI). Because of the nascent nature of the field, much of the research that has been conducted has focused on if digital mental health interventions are effective. Much of that research has shown it to be on-par with in-person interventions. However, little research has examined the mechanisms by which these interventions are effective. Across five sub-studies, this dissertation sought to elucidate some of the underlying mechanisms for who this DMHI is effective for, how individuals interact with the DMHI, and identify the underlying mechanisms of improvement in symptoms of depression and anxiety. Participants were drawn from a larger sample of individuals who participated in the Meru Health Program, which is a DMHI platform available to the public. Participants underwent an 8-week or 12-week intervention (depending on which version they were given) that focused on therapeutic techniques derived from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, and other evidence-based therapies. Participants were administered demographic questions at the beginning of the intervention and administered depression and anxiety questionnaires at enrolment and every 2 weeks until the end of treatment. The analyses used in this dissertation were mixed-methods ranging from mixed-effects modeling to qualitative thematic analyses aimed at understanding the underlying mechanisms for efficacy within the MHP. Results from Chapter 1 Study 1 revealed that across age, gender, and race, the DMHI was effective for all groups, and in particular (from Chapter 1 Study 2) there was a disproportionate drop in suicidality within gender expansive individuals when compared with cis gender individuals. Additionally, results from Chapter 2 study 1 indicate that participants engaged in messaging with their therapist for a wide array of reasons, including rapport building and solving tech difficulties. Further analyses in Chapter 2 Study 2 revealed that, within the first week, days active within the app was the most predictive of completion of the DMHI. Finally, the results from Chapter 3 demonstrated that improvements in HRV across the DMHI are associated with reductions in depressive symptoms. The implications of these findings and proposed areas for ongoing research are discussed.
Embargo
Integrating Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills and Parenting for Emotionally Dysregulated Parents: Intervention Development
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Everett, Yoel; Zalewski, Maureen
Parental emotion dysregulation (ED) is linked to less effective parenting behaviors that are associated with increased child emotional and behavior problems. There is a lack of integrated adult mental health + parenting interventions that can improve these interlinked domains in families experiencing clinical-level symptoms. Integrating Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills with parenting may be a promising, transdiagnostic treatment approach to intervening on parental ED and parenting. This dissertation aimed to advance intervention development in this area.In study 1, an integrated DBT Skills + Parent Training (DBT Skills + PT) group therapy intervention for parents of preschoolers was developed and tested in a case study with dually-dysregulated parent-child dyads. The study used idiographic analyses of repeated measures of parental ED, child ED and parenting quality to evaluate changes throughout treatment. In study 2, the intervention was pilot tested with parents struggling with ED and substance misuse. Study 2 examined changes in parent, child and parenting outcomes, and evaluated feasibility, implementation and acceptability of DBT Skills + PT. Group-level analyses of pre-post effects, idiographic individual-level analyses of cascading effects between parental ED, parenting and child behavior, and qualitative analyses of participant feedback were all conducted. Across both studies, parents reported improvements in their ED, their children’s behavior and emotion regulation, and their parenting, often with large effect sizes. The pattern of changes varied across parents. Some showed a cascading effect and others showed evidence of bidirectional effects of children’s behavior on parent outcomes. Parents had high rates of attendance, good implementation of skills, and found the intervention highly acceptable. Study 3 coded video-recorded sessions of Standard DBT Skills Training for mothers with severe ED to identify skills mothers reported were helpful to improving parenting. Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation skills were useful to increasing positive parenting and Distress Tolerance skills were useful to decreasing negative parenting behaviors. Study 3 findings can aid in selection of DBT Skills to include in an abbreviated version of DBT Skills + PT. Together, these three studies lay the groundwork for a larger scale randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of DBT Skills + PT.
Embargo
The Impact of Early Life Adversity and Parenting Skills on Emotion Regulation in a Child Welfare-Involved Sample
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Rock, Alexus; Skowron, Elizabeth
Child Welfare (CW) involved children are vulnerable to developmental problems, including deficits in emotion regulation. Emotion regulation is crucial for understanding and responding to situations appropriately. The capacity of emotion regulation skills is sensitive and can be affected by early life adversity, family climate, and quality of parenting. This study investigates the emotion regulation skills of 189 CW-involved children and their associations with observed parenting behaviors and early life adversity. Children aged 3-7 (M = 4.86 years) completed an Emotional Go/No-Go Task to assess emotion regulation abilities and a series of DPICS-IV coded interaction tasks with their caregiver. CW-involved parents showed low rates of positive parenting skills (M = 2.5) and 9x higher rates of negative parenting skills (M = 23.6). Additionally, there was a significant amount of controlling parenting behavior, with almost half of the verbalizations children received being commands that were impossible to comply with. These controlling parenting behaviors were associated with higher false alarm rates and quicker reaction times. Exposure to early life adversity was unrelated to performance on the Emotional Go/No-Go Task. As predicted, older children showed faster, more accurate responses and fewer mistakes in correctly identifying facial emotions. Gender differences also emerged, with girls resisting error more efficiently than boys to both happy and angry distractor emotions and boys being quicker in accurately identifying angry faces in the presence of happy and neutral distractor emotions. These findings provide new insights into CW children’s emotion regulation, aiding clinicians in understanding the challenges CW-involved children and caregivers face.
Open Access
Contextual Factors Influencing Posttraumatic Stress After Campus Sexual Assault
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Adams-Clark, Alexis; Freyd, Jennifer
Sexual assault has been repeatedly associated with multiple types of psychological distress, including posttraumatic stress. Post-assault outcomes are frequently linked to intrapersonal or psychological processes (e.g., cognitions, behaviors, biology), yet contextual factors also play important roles. In this dissertation, I examine how intrapersonal and contextual factors are associated with posttraumatic stress among student survivors of campus sexual assault – a specific type of sexual violence that occurs within the context of important interpersonal and institutional relationships. In Chapter I, I review the extant theory and research on psychological outcomes of sexual assault, with an emphasis on socioecological and betrayal trauma theories and their application to campus sexual assault. Using prior theory and research as justification, I then describe twocomponents of one empirical project that investigate how intrapersonal and contextual factors influence posttraumatic stress among survivors of campus sexual assault at the University of Oregon. The first analysis (Chapter II) examines how factors at various layers of the social ecology are related cross-sectionally to posttraumatic stress in a large student sample. Results suggest that intrapersonal factors (e.g., self-blame cognitions, avoidance coping), relational factors (e.g., relationship with perpetrator, reactions to disclosure), and institutional betrayal each explain unique variance in posttraumatic stress. The second analysis (Chapter III) examines the relationships between campus sexual assault victimization, institutional betrayal, and posttraumatic stress among a subsample of women and gender minority students across a period of six months. Results suggest that campus sexual violence victimization and institutional betrayal are consistently associated with posttraumatic stress across time, with the highest levels of posttraumatic stress experienced by sexual assault survivors in a context of institutional betrayal. Chapter IV closes by discussing the results and limitations of both analyses within the context of the larger empirical and theoretical literature. Overall, this dissertation supports the feasibility and value of taking a socioecological and betrayal-informed approach to understanding and researching campus sexual assault and points to avenues for prevention and intervention efforts at multiple levels of the social ecology.
Open Access
An Exploration of Fear of Sleep and Experiential Avoidance in the Context of PTSD and Insomnia Symptoms
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Kelly, Shay; Casement, Melynda
Fear of sleep (FoS) has been posited to develop following trauma exposure and significantly contribute to the maintenance of insomnia symptoms. While FoS has been operationalized within the Fear of Sleep Inventory - Short Form (FoSI-SF), preliminary examinations of the measure have yielded diverging factor structures. Experience avoidance (EA), a trait-based measure of avoidance implicated in PTSD and insomnia symptomatology, is thought to be conceptually akin to FoS and may be an important foil to clarify the unique contributions of the construct in trauma-induced insomnia. In the present study, the psychometric properties of the FoSI-SF were evaluated in a population of college students (N = 197), including the underlying factor structure, convergent validity with EA as well as discriminant validity with sleep hygiene, another sleep-related process implicated in insomnia. A conceptual model of FoS was investigated within a subsetted sample (n = 50) that had clinically-significant PTSD and sub-threshold insomnia symptoms. An exploratory factor analysis revealed the following three-factor structure: (1) fear of loss of control and/or vulnerability (FoSI-V); (2) fear of darkness (FoSI-D); and (3) fear of re-experiencing traumatic nightmares (FoSI-N). The FoSI-SF was found to have convergent validity with EA, but did not display discriminant validity with sleep hygiene. The FoSI-V and FoSI-N were significantly predicted by trauma-related hypervigilance and nightmares, respectively. Analyses indicated that FoS was a more robust predictor of PTSD and insomnia symptom severity than EA. Theoretical implications of the findings were discussed to guide future research into the role of FoS in trauma-induced insomnia.
Open Access
The Pathology of Imagination: Picturing the Worst
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Castillo, Andrew; Condon, David
This pre-registered study evaluates the relationship between imagination and maladaptive personality traits using the Four-Factor Imagination Scale and Personality Inventory for DSM-5. Large-scale, multinational, cross-sectional data (N = 114,559) were collected from the SAPA-Project using a planned-missingness design. Functional sample size (pairwise-n = 600) was derived from the mean number of pairwise-complete administrations of all items. Significant associations were found between imagination and PID-5 facets saturated with negative affect and psychoticism. Extreme groups analysis demonstrated participants with non-normative levels of PID-5 Depressivity and Anxiousness had elevated levels of emotionally negative imagination (mean d =1.14, p < 0.001); non-normative Perceptual Dysregulation and Emotional Lability featured greater overall imaginative activity (mean d = 1.00, p < 0.001). Item-level analyses using machine learning revealed the content of PID-5 items predicted facet-level imagination scores, suggesting imagination features in some pathological traits. All statistical analyses are reproducible and publicly available in the Supplemental Materials file.
Open Access
Background Functional Connectivity Reveals Neural Mechanisms of Top-Down Attentional Control
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Li, Yichen; Hutchinson, Ben
Top-down attentional control is essential for efficiently allocating our limited attentional resources to process complex natural environments, focusing on information relevant to our goals. The neural mechanism underlying this pervasive cognitive ability can be dichotomized into externally-oriented, which allocates attention to perceptual details, and internally-oriented, which direct attention to mnemonic episodes. Extensive research has investigated these neural mechanisms by focusing on the operations of attentional control, executed in response to a stimulus, by examining the evoked activity patterns in the brain. However, growing evidence indicates the importance of exploring these neural mechanisms supporting the states of attentional control that persist over time, by scrutinizing the intrinsic functional interaction patterns among brain regions. The present dissertation follows along the latter perspective to extend our current knowledge of the neural mechanism of top-down attentional control. In a series of two experiments, background functional connectivity (BGFC) analyses were applied to isolate intrinsic functional organizations of the brain from stimulus-evoked signals. Utilizing a whole-brain, data-driven approach combined with machine learning, important neural interaction circuits and pathways were revealed in response to switching between externally and internally oriented attentional control states (Chapter 2) and concurrently representing multiple states requiring either external or internal attention (Chapter 3). Moreover, evidence was provided suggesting the systematic distinctions between stimulus-related signals (captured by evoked activity) and state-related signals (captured by BGFC) in reflecting the process of top-down attentional control. Finally, in Chapter 4, a self-developed open-source Python library (BGFC-kit) was introduced for streamlining the preprocessing steps of BGFC analyses. Together, the works in this dissertation provide important insights and facilitate future investigations of the general neural mechanisms underlying top-down attentional control.
Open Access
Maternal Stress, Family Functioning, and Child Well-Being According to Latinx Mothers With Young Children: A Mixed Methods Approach
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Hernandez, Ana; Zalewski, Maureen
While there is an inextricable link between parental stress and child well-being, considerably less research has examined this relationship among Latinx parent-child dyads despite their unique experiences in the United States. The well-being of U.S. Latinx children is often shaped by economic hardship, family interactions, and the level and types of stress their mothers experience. The Coronavirus 2019 pandemic was an unprecedented situation by which the relationship between stressors experienced by Latinx mothers and child well-being may be further understood. The goal of this dissertation was to use mixed methods to advance the field's understanding of the relationship between maternal stress, family functioning, and child well-being in Latinx mothers who have young children in a sample of mothers who participated in the Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development–Early Childhood project between April 2020 and April 2022. Part one tested the association between material hardship, maternal stress, intrafamily conflict, maternal experiences of racism and discrimination, and child well-being via quantitative data from a national sample of Latinx mothers. Part two explored mothers' lived experiences of stress via qualitative data from a subsample of Latinx mothers who resided in Oregon. This dissertation found evidence that material hardship was associated with Latinx mothers' maternal stress, which was associated with their child's well-being. These associations were found after examining quantitative data from the national sample of Latinx mothers and contextualized by qualitative data analysis from the subset of Latinx mothers who lived in Oregon. When further examining factors that may influence the association between maternal stress and child well-being, this dissertation did not find evidence that the association was mediated by intrafamily conflict or moderated by maternal experiences of racism and discrimination. When asked about their most significant challenges, mothers noted concerns about factors such as the availability of childcare and school, their health and safety, and concerns around maternal stress, child well-being, and family relationships. Mothers also reported many factors that helped them and their families through the pandemic, including financial support, having a positive mindset with coping skills, and culturally relevant factors such as family cohesion and community support.
Open Access
When “Self-Harm” Means “Suicide”: Adolescent Online Help-Seeking for Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors
(University of Oregon, 2024-03-25) Lind, Monika; Allen, Nicholas
The sensitive period of adolescence facilitates key developmental tasks that equip young people to assume adult roles. Adolescence features important strengths, like the need to contribute, and some risks, like vulnerability to the onset of mental ill health. Adolescence increasingly occurs online, where existing in-person dynamics and new affordances of digital technology combine. Online help-seeking suits the needs and preferences of adolescents, and online peer support capitalizes on adolescent strengths. The success of online peer support communities for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITB) may depend on the balance of social support and social contagion in these communities. In this study, we investigated adolescent help-seeking and peer support for SITB online. We used topic modeling, machine learning classification, and multilevel modeling in pursuit of three aims. In the first aim, we discovered the topics that characterized help-seeking expressions of over 100,000 posters who chose to post in the “Self Harm” category of an online peer support platform. In the second aim, we measured the amount and type of social support provided in over a million comments in response to these posts. In the third aim, we tested whether the topics of help-seeking expressions predicted the presence and type of social support provided. The over-arching goal of these aims was to help inform policy and guide the design of online spaces to support healthy adolescent development, especially amongst adolescents experiencing mental health challenges. From the first aim, we learned that adolescents seek help online for serious problems and suffering. From the second aim, we learned that their peers provide social support most of the time, but this social support often lacks specificity and elaboration. From the third aim, we learned about the power of help-seeking expressions focused on “hopeless suicide,” “self-harm abstention,” and “hiding self-harm” to elicit social support. Across all three aims, we learned that platform design matters, and platform designers can do more to support healthy development. Adolescent online help-seekers need help that makes them feel connected. Academic researchers and corporations must work together to help young people help each other.
Open Access
Stereotypes and Social Decisions: The Interpersonal Consequences of Socioeconomic Status
(University of Oregon, 2024-01-09) Hughes, Bradley; Srivastava, Sanjay
Interpersonal perceptions of socioeconomic status (SES), those formed in face-to-face interactions, can perpetuate inequality if they influence interpersonal interactions in ways that disadvantage people with low SES. There is indirect evidence to support that SES is perceived accurately, elicits SES-based stereotypes, and influences interpersonal decisions but these effects and the underlying mechanism have not been examined in social interactions. This dissertation extends the study of the interpersonal effects of SES into real world social interactions between people from a socioeconomically, and otherwise diverse population. To study how SES impacts these interactions, I developed a novel computer mediated online round robin method (CMORR) that uses videoconferencing technology to recruit a diverse online sample. In Study 1, I describe the CMORR procedure and shows that impressions of personality traits formed in CMORR interactions are comparable to those formed in-person. In Study 2, I used CMORR to facilitate interactions among N = 297 participants from across the United States. Participants interacted dyadically in virtual rooms and then provided judgments of their interaction partner’s SES, personality traits, and the credibility of their consumer experience. The results showed that in these interactions perceptions of SES were accurate and elicited negative interpersonal stereotypes for people with low SES, in all 12 of the personality traits measured. SES was also associated with social decisions about affiliation, credibility, and sympathy, and these effects were mediated by the interpersonal stereotypes. I finish by discussing the implications for the interpersonal perpetuation of inequality and future directions for studying the interpersonal effects of SES.
Open Access
Utilization of Linguistic Markers in Differentiation of Internalizing Disorders, Suicidality, and Identity Distress
(University of Oregon, 2024-01-09) Ivie, Elizabeth; Allen, Nicholas
The adolescent period of development is associated with a significant increase in the occurrence of mental illness. In addition, death by suicide is one of the leading causes of death amongst adolescents. Identity formation is a key developmental task of adolescence, and successful navigation of this process is associated with greater well-being and resilience, while difficulties are associated with risk for mental health disorders and suicidality. Adolescents today spend enormous amounts of time on digital devices, which have become a new instrument by which they explore and confirm their identities and experiences. The study of natural language use is related to wide range of psychological phenomena, including psychopathology, and offers a tool by which we can begin to ask and answer these questions utilizing new tools that allow us to passively collect adolescents’ language use directly from their digital devices. The current study leverages a unique clinical sample of adolescents who have been followed over six months to explore the relationship between both between and within participant measures of psychopathology, suicidal thought and behaviors, and putative linguistic markers of adolescent identity formation derived from online communications in order to further understand the association between these variables using ecologically valid measures in a community sample of adolescents experiencing significant mental health challenges. The aims of the study were to (1) assess whether there are differences in how adolescents with psychopathology, suicidal ideation, and previous suicide attempts use language, (2) language differences associated with mental illness symptomology, (3) and language differences in hypothesized identity domains associated with mental illness symptomology communicated through social communication apps via text. Participants completed baseline measures of depression, suicidality, and anxiety symptoms. Participants downloaded the EARS tool onto their digital devices that passively collected text data sent through social communication applications. The results of this study indicated that there are natural language use differences between adolescents with psychopathology and those who experience suicidality, depression, and anxiety symptoms.
Open Access
The Role of Fractal Fluency on Visual Perception
(University of Oregon, 2024-01-09) Robles, Kelly E.; Sereno, Margaret
From quarks to galaxies, the natural world is organized with fractal geometry. Fractal fluency theory suggests that due to their omnipresence in our visual world, fractals are more fluently processed by the visual system resulting in enhanced cognitive performance and aesthetics. However prior research has yet to define the boundaries of fractal perception. Thus, the present dissertation aims to explore 1) how individual differences and 2) inclusion of additional structure impact fractal perception, as well as define the unique contribution of fractal statistics on 3) visual judgments in Euclidean space and 4) memory performance. In four empirical chapters, I demonstrate robust trends in fractal perception across wide variation in viewing conditions. Moreover, fractals are shown to be perceived as definitively unique compared to nonfractal images. Together these findings provide insight into how the visual system handles self-repeating patterns and reaffirms the vast potential of fractal installments for occupant wellbeing.