This study examined the potentially differing emotional consequences of sexual versus non-sexual traumas in both a student and a community residing treatment seeking sample of women. The extent to which a trauma survivor considers the traumatic event central to her identity (CES) was examined as a potential mediator between traumatic events and PTSD. Additionally, the extent to which a women views herself and her body as a sexual object, to be valued based on her appearance and sexual usefulness to others (sexual self-objectification: OBCS), was examined as a potential mediator between traumatic event and event centrality. Study results showed survivors of sexual assault reported greater CES and PTSD symptoms (PCL-S) than non-sexual trauma survivors in the student population. Mediation results showed sexual self-objectification (OBCS-Shame) significantly mediated the relationship between trauma type and CES, and CES significantly mediated the relationship between type of trauma and PTSD symptoms in the student population only. Data from the community sample did not support these conclusions as women from this sample reported higher PCL-S, CES, and OBCS-Shame scores across categories of trauma.

Although research has linked central nervous system activity with changes in immunoresponsivity, research on the possible role of the central nervous system in altering a specific class of antibody is lacking. This study was an investigation of the possible relationship between anterior or medial hypothalamic functions on Immunoglobulin G. concentrations in rat serum. Thirty-six male albino rats were randomly assigned to three groups of equal size. Animals within the anterior hypothalamic group received bilateral electrode implants in the anterior hypothalamus while animals in the medial hypothalamic group received electrode implants within the ventromedial area of the hypothalamus. A control group received bilateral electrode implants within the lateral hypothalamus. Electrical brain stimulation was administered to animals in both experimental groups. Control animals spent a comparable time in an operant chamber but did not receive electrical brain stimulation. Following brain stimulation of animals within the experimental groups, Immunoglobulin G. concentrations were determined for all groups 3, 6, 12, and 24 hours post-stimulation sessions.

Recent estimates suggest that a large percentage of the population experiences some type of traumatic event over the course of the lifetime, but a relatively small proportion of individuals develop severe, long-lasting problems (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder; PTSD). One major goal for trauma researchers is to understand what factors contribute to these differential outcomes, and much of this research has examined correlates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity. An important next step in this line of research is the development of conceptual frameworks to foster a deeper understanding of the relationships among these diverse predictors of PTSD and their predictive power in relation to each other. A framework proposed by Rubin, Boals, and Hoyle centers on the influence of narrative centrality (construal of a traumatic experience as central to one's identity and to the life story) and negative affectivity (the tendency to experience negative emotion and to interpret situations and experiences in a negative light), suggesting many variables may correlate with PTSD symptoms via shared variance with these two factors. With a sample of 477 participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, this dissertation project extended the work of Rubin and colleagues by a) utilizing structural equation modeling techniques to …

A large body of research has depicted relative arousal of the left and right cerebral hemispheres as related to utilization of particular defensive coping styles, level of anxiety, and perceptual styles. The right and left hemispheres are also presented in the literature as differing in visual-spatial and verbal-auditory short term memory abilities. The present research studied 127 right handed undergraduates' relative performance on forward spatial and digits memory spans in relation to hemispheric lateralization and other perceptual and personality variables hypothesized in the literature to be related to hemispheric arousal. It was hypothesized that the forward spatial and digit memory spans would display asymmetrical sensitivity to hemispheric arousal. That is, in a series of successive factor analyses, a hemispheric balance factor, a trait anxiety factor, and a short term memory factor would emerge. The three factors were hypothesized to be unrelated to each other. During an initial group pretesting, subjects were given pencil and paper measures of handedness, trait anxiety, and several defensive coping styles. During a second individual testing, subjects were administered measures of short term memory, field independence, and a computerized presentation of geometric designs which measured the subjects ability to detect differences which occurred at either the …

Within the last decade, more organizations are utilizing a non-traditional workforce. Specifically, these organizations are utilizing contract workers as resources to provide services and manufacture products. While this change in workforce provides benefits to organizations, the change also presents numerous challenges such as turnover. The turnover involved in such a relationship along with the addition of newcomers translates into an organizational socialization and knowledge transfer (KT) issue, because contract workers as well as employees need to be efficiently brought into a new organization, and knowledge needs to be shared with these new individuals so that they can effectively contribute to the work process. It is contended that organizations follow a typical, informal organizational socialization "policy" which involves KT in getting new contract workers and employees up to speed. This study addressed the typical organizational socialization policy as it is represented by formal knowledge transfer (FKT) via instructor-led/classroom training (ILT) and computer-based training (CBT) and by informal knowledge transfer (IKT) via a social network. The study focused on IKT, because companies understand this type of KT the least. In order to evaluate the organizational socialization of contract workers for this study, the contract worker population was compared to a baseline population …

Little research has addressed the degree to which domestic violence is mutual and whether patterns are stable across women's relationships. Studies that exist have conflicting results. This study addressed these issues and the effects of sustaining past violence on women's expressions of violence in their current relationship. Archival data from a sample of severely psychologically abused community women (N = 92) and a sample of low-income community women (N = 836) were analyzed. Results showed the presence of mutual violence in women's current relationships which was not related to past partners' violence. Results regarding the stability of violence are weak, but indicate that the frequency and severity of violence across relationships sustained by women does not decrease across relationships. Overall, results supported the hypothesis that violence is mutual in the relationships of community women, although specific patterns may differ by ethnicity.

Individuals with a minority sexual identity, such as lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGB) face increased risk for stigmatization surrounding their sexual identities and subsequent psychological distress. Sexual minorities of color (SMOC) face the same difficulties faced by White sexual minorities, often compounded with stigma and discrimination linked to their racial/ethnic identities. However, because SMOC remain underrepresented in research on LGB issues, empirically-driven knowledge about these groups is lacking, even among outcomes where noted disparities exist, such as depression. Emerging adulthood may be a particularly important period for understanding effects of intersectional identities and discrimination among SMOC, who often navigate identity-related milestones and experiences independently for the first time within this developmental period. This study examined the relationships between discrimination based upon racial/ethnic and sexual intersecting identities and depression symptoms among emerging adults, as well as ways that group identity factors (ethnic identity, sexual identity, conflicts in identity allegiances) moderated this relationship. Findings indicated that experience of intersectional discrimination was strongly, positively related to depression symptoms. Ethnic identity negatively related to depression independently, but not in the regression model accounting for other variables. Identity factors were not found to statistically significantly moderate the relationship between discrimination and depression symptoms. Discussion …

This study was designed as an attempt to extend Schneider and Shiffrin's (1977) automatic versus controlled processing distinction into the area of visual perception. Hasher and Zacks (1979) proposed a continuum of automatic processes, with processes which encode the fundamental aspects of the flow of information as the anchor of the continuum. They presented evidence that depressed people perform more poorly than nondepressed on effortful (controlled) memory tasks, but not on automatic tasks. Tachistoscopic and free inspection presentation of Piaget's (1961/1969) primary geometric illusions meet two of Hasher and Zack's criteria for automatic and effortful tasks, respectively. Consequently, multiple regression techniques were used to determine the relationship between depression (operationally defined as score on the Beck Depression Inventory) and method of presentation of a Piagetian primary illusion, the Müller-Lyer. Furthermore, correlations were determined between tachistoscopic versus free inspection of the Müller-Lyer illusion and forward versus backward digit span (operationally defined as score on the WAIS Digit Span subtest), since forward and backward digit span have been linked theoretically to automatic and effortful processing, respectively.