Since 2002, the number of veterans enrolled in universities has nearly doubled, although 30-40% of veterans fail to complete their degree. While research efforts to understand the challenges veterans face transitioning from military life to college has increased in recent years, few studies have looked beyond the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Insomnia is the most frequently reported symptom of combat veterans and can have serious implications for college students. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of insomnia and student veteran adaptation to college relative to civilian students. College students (N = 588) were administered a Background Information Questionnaire, the Insomnia Severity Index, the Deployment Risk and Resilience Inventory, and the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire. Results revealed that students with insomnia reported significantly lower adaptation to college than students without insomnia. Student veterans reported better academic and personal-emotional adaptation to college than civilian students, while civilians reported better social adjustment than veterans. Although combat veterans without insomnia scored consistently higher academic adjustment than non-combat veterans and civilian students, when present insomnia seemed to have a greater negative effect on combat veterans’ academic adjustment relative to civilian students. Furthermore, insomnia mediated the relationship between combat …

As increasing emphases are placed on the importance of a muscular male physique in Westernized culture, more men are experiencing eating, exercise, and body image (EEBI) disturbances. Clinician-researchers have identified a syndrome, termed muscle dysmorphia (MD), in which individuals, usually men, are pathologically preoccupied with their perceived lack of muscularity. The current study tested a modified version of an extant theoretical model of MD symptomatology as well as an alternative model of MD symptomatology. Over 700 adult men completed a demographic questionnaire, a symptom inventory, a self-esteem questionnaire, a measure of perfectionism, a measure of the media’s influence on EEBI disturbances, and measures of body dissatisfaction and MD symptoms. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the goodness of fit of the proposed models. Overall, the first model demonstrated poor fit with the data. Conversely, the alternative model fit the data adequately. The alternative model was cross validated with a second sample, and also fit this data adequately.

When a romantic relationship ends in dissolution, the ex-partners may experience distress similar to post-traumatic stress or complex grief (i.e., dysphoric mood, feelings of loss, intrusive memories, negative rumination regarding the relationship, and a loss of self-esteem). Interventions designed to reduce post-breakup distress have historically attempted to foster integration of the breakup into the self-narrative through techniques such as expressive writing. Recent research indicates centrality, or heightened integration of an event or concept into an individual’s identity, predicts heightened levels of distress in the case of negative life events, including romantic relationship dissolution. Given the role romantic relationships themselves play in identity formation, exploration is warranted of the potential distress resulting from over-identification with a romantic relationship itself, or relationship centrality, after a breakup has occurred. Furthermore, if an individual has overly-integrated a relationship into their identity, the effectiveness of interventions focusing on further integration of the breakup is called into question. This study explored the centrality of participants’ previous romantic relationships, the distress resulting from the dissolution of those relationships, and the role of expressive writing as a distress reduction tool when centrality is taken into account.

Nearly 10% of college students experience chronic insomnia. Cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi) is an empirically validated multi-component treatment that has been demonstrated to produce reliable and durable benefits in the general adult population. However, there have been no studies examining the effectiveness of multi-component CBTi in a college student population, even though many studies have examined the efficacy of single treatment modalities. These young adults are different from the general adult population because they are in a unique transitional developmental phase as they are maturing from adolescence into adulthood, they are sleepier than adults, they tend to have irregular sleep schedules, and their living situations are often different from the general adult population. In this study college students with chronic insomnia were randomly assigned to either six sessions of CBTi or a wait list control (WLC) group. All participants completed sleep diaries, sleep measures, and psychosocial measures. The results indicated students who received CBTi showed improvements in sleep efficiency (SE), sleep onset latency (SOL), number of awakenings (NWAK), time awake after sleep onset (WASO), and sleep quality (SQ). They also had decreased insomnia severity (ISI), dysfunctional beliefs about sleep (DBAS), and general fatigue (MFI), as well as increases in …

The focus of the current study was to determine if SIP biases and perspective-taking serve as mediators between parental intimate partner violence (IPV), aggression, and interpersonal dominance in emerging adults' romantic relationships. We analyzed archival data comprised of self-report measures and TAT stories administered to 84 undergraduate students (women n = 62, M age = 21.73) between the ages 18 and 35. To test our hypotheses, we modified the social information processing model by incorporating perspective-taking, as measured through Interpersonal Decentering. Overall, we did not find significant association between witnessing parental IPV and Interpersonal Decentering maturity in college students. However, women's father-to-mother IPV was significantly negatively associated with Interpersonal Decentering maturity. For our mediation model, SIP aggressive responding biases were significantly associated with Interpersonal Decentering (average of story average scores) and with the presence of aggression in current romantic relationships; however, Interpersonal Decentering was not significantly predictive of aggression in current romantic relationships. Gender differences, study strengths and limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

Mindfulness meditation is a growing area of interest for both mental health professionals and the general public alike. Beneficial outcomes are associated with these practices, although the variety of measurement techniques makes research difficult to interpret. Definitions of these constructs are varied, and anecdotal accounts point to the idea that many people hold misconceptions about mindfulness and meditation, even when meanings are made clear. Still, no formal research has been published on misconceptions of mindfulness – or, if they exist, how such misinformation affects acquisition of related skills. Furthermore, mindfulness has been incorporated into therapeutic modalities without much consideration for context, including the client's learning history. The current analogue study examined how the presentation of mindfulness meditations (i.e., inaccurate rationale/meditation and accurate rationale/meditation) affects an individual's practice. Specifically, self-reported mindfulness and meditation skills, mood questionnaires, a matching-to-sample task, and qualitative measurements were used to assess acquisition. Although primary hypotheses did not yield significant findings, results from both preliminary and exploratory analyses demonstrate significant findings with regard to teaching, learning, and measurement related to mindfulness meditation. The results, future directions, and limitations are discussed.

Binge-watching, the act of watching large amounts of television at a time, has become a popular phenomenon internationally; however, it has yet to be sufficiently defined. In order to define binge-watching, data was collected on specific watching instances from 216 undergraduate students at a large research university. Hierarchical and k-means cluster analyses were conducted in Phase I to empirically determine how binge-watching should be defined. In Phase II, that definition was tested by correlating the number of instances of binge-watching in a one-week period, collected by seven days of daily diary logs, with several theoretically related measures including body mass index, dissociative tendencies, psychological distress, compulsion to watch, boredom proneness, and escapism through watching. The data-driven definition was found to be that eight hours or more of continuous watching was binge-watching, while anything less than that was not. In Phase II, the frequency of binge-watching through the seven-day period was calculated based on that new definition. The frequency of binge-watching was positively correlated with body mass index and dissociative tendencies with statistical significance at the alpha = .05 level. Compulsion to watch was not statistically significant; however, there was a positive correlation. These findings indicate that the proposed data-driven definition …

Religion and spirituality are vital aspects of many people’s lives both in the United States and across the globe. Although many constructs and measures exist to describe and assess the experience of pursuing the sacred, the complexity of religious and spiritual experience leads to mixed results in relation to well-being and psychopathological traits. However, in broad terms, the relationship appears positive. Over the past 30 years the need for more refined and useful approaches to the study of religious and spiritual behavior has been repeatedly acknowledged. Although authors wisely caution development of further measures without due cause, extant constructs and measures do not provide clear and consistent results for understanding the influence of one’s relationships to religion and spirituality upon behaviors of clinical interest. The present project drew from the functional contextual concept of psychological flexibility, which provides clarity to understanding the encouragement and maintenance of psychological well-being. A new construct of religious and psychological flexibility is explicated as a functional approach to understanding religious and spiritual behavior in a manner that is useful in research and clinical settings alike. The development and evaluation of the Measure of Religious and Spiritual Flexibility (MRSF) is described. The MRSF evidenced adequate internal …

I analyzed the 2004 and 2006 Health and Retirement Study data to test structural equation models of the quality of life (QOL) construct. The participants (N = 1352) were non-institutionalized individuals aged 42 and older (M = 65.70, SD = 10.88), with an average education of 12.73 years (SD = 2.96) and of varied ethnicities. The results indicated that physical functioning, affective experience, life satisfaction and social support could serve as indicators for a second order QOL factor. Furthermore, the developed QOL model explained 96% of the variance of the CASP-19 (Control, Autonomy, Self-realization and Pleasure), a QOL measure that reflects fulfillment of psychological needs. The results also indicated that Depression and Life Satisfaction are related through reciprocal causation and that Physical Functioning is more likely to cause a change in Depression than the reverse. The results suggest that QOL is a complex, multidimensional concept that should be studied at different levels of analysis.

Chronic insomnia is a highly prevalent disorder in general and young adult populations, and contributes a significant economic burden on society. Previous studies have shown healthcare utilization (HCU) is significantly higher for people with insomnia than people without insomnia. One limitation with previous research is accurate measurement of HCU in people with insomnia is difficult due to a high co-morbidity of medical and mental health problems as well as varying operational definitions of insomnia. Assessing HCU in people with insomnia can be improved by applying research diagnostic criteria (RDC) for insomnia, using a population with low rates of co-morbid medical/mental health problems, and measuring HCU with subjective, objective, and predictive methods. The current study found young adults with chronic insomnia had greater HCU than normal sleepers, specifically on number of medications, and chronic disease score (CDS) estimates of total healthcare costs, outpatient costs, and predicted number of primary care visits. The presence of a medical and/or mental health problem acted as a moderating variable between chronic insomnia and HCU. Simple effects testing found young adults with chronic insomnia and a medical/mental health problem had the greatest HCU followed by normal sleepers with a medical/mental health problem, chronic insomnia, and normal …

Religion has a well-documented relationship with mental health benefits and has consistently demonstrated an impact on several specific mental health concerns, including suicide, generally finding various religious facets to be inversely associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors. More specifically, religion has been found to be associated with suicide in a number of ways, including decreased acceptance of suicide, decreased likelihood of suicidal thoughts, decreased likelihood of suicidal attempts, fewer suicide attempts, lower relative risk of suicide, lower suicide rate, and increased reasons for living. Several studies have proposed potential mediators (e.g., social support, locus of control, and substance abuse) of the relationship between religion and mental health, usually in non-clinical samples. The current study sought to examine the association between religious attendance and suicidal ideation using archival data of a clinical sample collected from the University of North Texas Psychology Clinic. Results from this sample revealed no evidence of mediation, instead suggesting a direct effect of religious attendance on suicidal ideation. Two mediation models demonstrated the effects of external locus of control and social support on suicidal ideation. These models are discussed in terms of their directionality, considering the extant research on these associations. Findings of the current study have …

Accurate assessment of sleep-wake patterns is important for sleep researchers and clinicians. Actigraphs are low-cost, non-intrusive, wrist-worn activity detectors used to estimate sleep-wake patterns in a natural environment for several nights. Although actigraphy shows good sensitivity (sleep detection), it has consistently demonstrated poor specificity (wakefulness detection while lying in bed relatively motionless). Because insomnia is characterized by wakefulness in bed, actigraphy may not be a valid objective measure of wakefulness for this group. It is possible that refinement of actigraphy software settings for sleep/wake algorithms might improve specificity. The current studies investigated this hypothesis by comparing wake parameters from 48 combinations of actigraphy settings to determine which sleep/wake algorithms best inform insomnia diagnosis and treatment. In the first study, none of the 48 actigraphy setting combinations consistently discriminated between adults with insomnia (n = 69) and non-insomnia (n = 80) on all three wake parameters, and no setting clearly discriminated between groups for the composite variable, total wake time. Similarly, in the second study, no setting combinations consistently discriminated between adults treated for insomnia (n = 18) and controls with untreated insomnia (n = 26) on all three wake parameters. Although two setting combinations discriminated between groups for the composite …

Experiential avoidance (EA) is a process in which a person attempts to avoid, dismiss, or change experiences such as emotions, behaviors, and thoughts. EA is associated with a number of psychological disorders and is generally harmful to psychological well-being. Various studies have explored the role of EA as a mediator, while others have studied EA as a moderator. The current study aimed to further understand and broaden the knowledge of the role of EA in regard to trauma, substance abuse, aggression, and impulsivity by examining relationships between these variables with EA as a mediator and as a moderator. Experientially avoidant behaviors (i.e., substance abuse, aggression, and impulsivity) were related to higher levels of EA. EA was found to partially mediate the relationship between the number of traumatic experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, as well as the relationship between substance abuse and PTSD. EA was also found to moderate the relationship between PTSD symptoms and aggression. Findings from the present study as well as its limitations and future directions for research are discussed.

Achievement motivation theory suggests there are two primary approaches to achievement tasks: to appear competent or to develop a skill. These two different approaches to performance yield different affective and behavioral responses. Athletes holding a performance goal orientation tend to respond to challenges with behaviors exemplifying learned helplessness and increased anxiety. Athletes holding a mastery goal orientation tend to respond to challenges with greater effort and experience less sport-related anxiety. Individual athlete factors, such as grit, mindfulness, and achievement orientation may influence how athletes experience their environment and their levels of sport anxiety, and may interact with athletes' achievement motives to influence performance. I used hierarchical multiple regressions to test the main effects of feedback and mindfulness, and feedback and goal orientation, to determine if either mindfulness or goal orientation moderated the effects of feedback on performance. I also used simple regression to determine the relative predictive strength of mindfulness, grit, and goal orientation on athletes' experience of sport anxiety. Mindfulness, but not goal orientation, was a significant moderator of the feedback-shooting performance relationship, but particularly for athletes low in mindfulness; mastery-goal orientation, independently of feedback, was also a significant predictor of task performance. Mindfulness also emerged as the strongest …

Custodial grandmothers and grandchild (aged 4 to 12) dyads (N = 170) completed self-report, other-report, and an observational task that captured child HI, expressive social support, and custodial grandmother-grandchild compliance variables. A multivariate analysis of covariance tested differences between high and low hyperactivity-inattention on observed parenting variables while controlling for child age. While overall results were not significant, there were significant differences between child age and observed parenting variables. A hierarchical regression model revealed that, when controlling for age, child hyperactivity-inattention does not moderate the relationship between commands given by a custodial grandmother and child compliance, but revealed that direct commands from the grandmother predicted compliance. A second hierarchical regression model suggested that encouragement and praise (versus criticism and discouragement) from a grandmother moderated the relationship between grandmother commands and child compliance, when controlling for child age. It appeared that when grandmothers gave indirect commands more frequently, encouragement and praise instead of criticism was associated with greater compliance. In dyads with frequent direct commands given, compliance was high, however dyads who scored high in direct commands with criticism and discouragement were most likely to comply. This study adds to the literature by providing insight into the challenges and strengths for …

This study explored the impact of three psychological interventions over seven weeks - goal setting (GS), GS and imagery (IM), and GS and mindful self-compassion (MSC) - on 20 athletes' (Mage = 16.75 years) pain, cognitive appraisal, depression reinjury anxiety, psychological readiness to return to sport, and range of motion (ROM). IM and GS interventions have demonstrated initial effectiveness; however, no study has examined MSC in relation to post-ACL recovery. All athletes experienced significant decrease in pain (F(2) = 97.30, p = .000) from Week 1 to Week 7 and a significant increase in ROM from Week 2 to Week 7 (F(1) = 77.93, p = .000). All athletes experienced significantly higher depression at Week 1 compared to both Week 2 and Week 7 (F(2) = 9.01, p = .001), and significantly higher difficulty coping with their injury at Weeks 1 and 2 compared to Week 7 (F(2) = 6.32, p = .005). There were no statistically significant effects found between the intervention groups at Weeks 1, 2, and 7. However there were moderate effect sizes between interventions which suggest MSC and IM could help athletes cope with their injury during the first few weeks after surgery, and GS may …

In recent years, organizations have invested increasing financial and labor-related resources on employee training. The assumption is that training will benefit the organization through improved performance which will result in greater efficiency, greater customer satisfaction and, ultimately, increased revenue and profits. Further, employees are assumed to benefit because their improved performance should lead to career advancement and increased compensation. However, measuring the effect of training on employee performance has been problematic due to the difficulty of isolating the effect of training from other human resource management practices and environmental and organizational influences. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to test a model for predicting merit pay increase, job promotion and performance ratings from measures of general and finance training, as well as employee tenure, gender, educational level and organizational level. It was found that while significant contributions (i.e., betas) were made by finance and general training for performance ratings, promotion and merit pay increase, they did not increase the variance accounted for by tenure, organizational level and gender.

The current study replicated and extended previous research by examining empirically the direct and indirect influence of social pressure (to lose weight and diet), social body comparisons, internalization of the thin ideal, body dissatisfaction, self-esteem, and cardiorespiratory fitness on self-reported dietary restraint in a diverse sample of middle school boys (n = 663); Mage was 12.49 years (SD = .99). With IRB approval, parental consent, and child assent, during annual FITNESSGRAM testing, participants completed questionnaires that measured the study’s constructs. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) was determined by the boys’ performance on the PACER running test. The proposed model was examined using structural equation modeling (SEM). Because measures demonstrated univariate and multivariate normality, the maximum likelihood procedure within EQS to examine the measurement and structural models was used. Fit was determined using a two-index procedure. Participants were randomly split into exploratory (Sample A - 331) and confirmatory (Sample B - 332) samples. For Sample A, the measurement and structural models fit the data well. The structural model was confirmed in Sample B, with the same paths being significant and nonsignficant. For both Sample A and Sample B, 35% of the Dietary Restraint variance was explained. These findings support a multifactorial approach to …

Marijuana is the second most commonly used substance in the US. A growing literature suggests that socially anxious individuals use marijuana to manage their symptoms in social situations, which may explain why they are also more likely to experience problems. Unfortunately, the majority of the literature is based on research conducted with adult samples or the co-occurrence of diagnoses in adolescent samples. The proposed study sought to test the link between social anxiety (SA) and proxies for ‘real-time' marijuana use behaviors (i.e., use willingness) as well as use-related problems among adolescents. Participants were 69 adolescents (15-17; 55% female) recruited from the community reporting any lifetime marijuana use. Participants were randomly assigned to a novel social rejection or neutral laboratory task and completed measures of SA, marijuana use frequency, and related problems. Consistent with adult findings, main effects of SA and experimental condition on marijuana use willingness were expected to be qualified by an interaction in which the greatest marijuana use willingness would occur among high SA youth post-rejection (H1), SA would be positively related to marijuana use problems (H2), and among adolescents in the rejection condition, marijuana use willingness would be positively correlated with use problems (H3). Only H2 was …

Individualist and collectivist cultural approaches describe the relationship between an individual and his or her social surroundings. the current study had a two-fold purpose. the first was to investigate whether Brazilians, like other collective peoples, displayed more group self-representations, categorized items more relationally and paid more attention to context than Americans. the second purpose of this study was to investigate if counter-cultural primes played a role in activating either collective or individual selves. Both American (n = 100) and Brazilian (n = 101) participants were assigned either to a no-prime condition or a counter-cultural prime condition and then were asked to rate emotion cartoons, categorize items, complete the Twenty Statement Test (TST), and choose a representative object. As expected, unprimed Brazilian participants displayed more collectivist patterns on emotional (F[1,196] = 10.1, p = .001, ?²= .049; F[1,196] = 7.9, p = .006, ?²= .038; F[1,196] = 9.0, p = .005, ?²= .044) and cognitive (F[1, 196] = 6.0, p < .01, ?² = .03) tasks than Americans. However, Brazilians offered more individualist self-representations (F[1, 195] = 24.0, p < .001, ?² = .11) than American participants. Priming only had a marginal effect on item categorization (F[1,194] = 3.9, p = …

Intimate partner violence (IPV) in sexual and gender minority relationships is an underexplored and misunderstood phenomenon. Much of what has been investigated has explored IPV from a heterosexual lens, without taking into account the complexities of these relationship dynamics. Further, outcomes of IPV traditionally focus on negative sequelae, such as depression or anxiety. In this study, we examined the propensity to forgive partner abuse as a means of adaptively coping with the trauma. Further, we looked at resilience as a possible factor in the process of forgiveness. We hypothesized that psychological resilience significantly moderates the forgiveness process in sexual and gender minorities who have experienced IPV. Our sample of 77 gender- and sexual-minority participants completed measures of psychological and physical IPV, resilience, and forgiveness. A regression analysis found our model accounted for 36% of the variance in forgiveness of self (adj. R2=.36, F (4, 72) = 10.34, p < .01) and 20% of forgiveness of others (adj. R2=.20, F (4, 72) = 5.01, p < .01). However, there was no significant moderating effect, nor was IPV a significant contributor to forgiveness. Results suggest trauma does not influence one’s likelihood to forgive, though some personal trait, such as resilience, is more …

If mania and depression are part of the same pathological processes, one would predict that episodes of one prospectively increase the odds of episodes of the other. The aim of the present study was to test this hypothesis. For comparison purposes, their relationship was contrasted to the relationship between mania and periods of psychosis. Exploratory analyses also tested the degree to which episodes of each occur with greater frequency over time (i.e., kindling). Participants for the present study came from the Suffolk County Mental Health Project (N = 628), a study of first-admission patients with psychosis. Of these participants, 144 met diagnostic criteria for bipolar I disorder and were analyzed for the current study. Results indicated that mania in a given month predicted depression the following month, even after controlling for other symptoms. The reverse, however, was not the case. Mania and psychosis, in contrast, were found to be robust predictors of one another from month to month. Effects were not due to treatment or demographic differences. These findings provide evidence that mania and depression are weakly related. In contrast, mania and psychosis are more closely linked. Findings are consistent with suggestions that psychiatric nosology regroup mania more closely with …

Gender microaggressions are normative messages that communicate harmful stereotypes or attitudes towards women. Research suggests that being the target of microaggresions may contribute to negative mental and physical health outcomes. The current study examined how gender microaggressions affect emotional and physiological reactivity as well as performance on a working memory task. Results indicated condition (i.e., control vs. sexual objectification microaggression vs. denial of sexism microaggression) did not have a significant affect on reactivity or performance. Issues of population bias and essentialism may have played an important role in study findings. Future directions are discussed.

Estimates of healthy years of life lost due to mental illness are increasing, calling greater attention to the provision of effective psychotherapy services. Hypothesized to be the key mechanism through which competencies are developed in trainee clinicians and subsequent client outcomes, clinical supervision is deserving of greater attention. Drawing on a sample of supervisors, trainees, and clients from a training clinic, the present study sought to clarify the relational factors that could facilitate the asserted supervisor-client outcome link and to better understand if, and how, clinical supervisors influence client outcomes. With the exception of supervisor openness to experience, supervisor factors did not predict meaningful variance in client outcomes. Trainee extraversion and openness to experience predicted significant variance in leader-member exchange and supervisory working alliance. Dispositional trainee factors (e.g., personality) appear to impact trainee perceptions of the supervisory relationship. Implications for training and development are discussed, in addition to directions for future research.