College of Education
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Getting on the Same Page: Associations of Immediacy and Client-Therapist Alliance Congruence(2022) Hillman, Justin William; Kivlighan, Jr., Dennis M; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examined the within-dyad association of immediacy (i.e., a skill that therapists use to work with the therapeutic relationship in the here-and-now) with the strength and congruence of the working alliance across 1352 sessions of 58 adult community clients seeing 11 doctoral student therapists in individual psychodynamic-interpersonal psychotherapy. As a preliminary step, the factor structure and validity were tested for the Metacommunication in Session Questionnaire–Client Form (MSQ-C), a client-rated measure of immediacy adapted from the supervisory MSQ (Calvert, Deane, & Grenyer, 2020). After every session, clients and therapists completed the Working Alliance Inventory–Short Revised (WAI-SR; Hatcher & Gillaspy, 2006) and clients completed the MSQ-C. Factor analysis supported a two-factor structure for MSQ-C (Open Communication and Managing Disagreement/Discomfort factors). Validity of the MSQ-C was supported by predicted correlations with measures of helping skills, sessions quality, alliance, and therapist reported immediacy use, although some associations varied depending on the client or therapist rater perspective. Results of multilevel, latent variable models found that when clients reported more immediacy in a session compared to their average session, they tended to report a stronger alliance; and this effect was strongest in earlier sessions, weaker in magnitude in middle sessions, and non-significant in later sessions. Results of multilevel truth-and-bias models showed that therapist alliance ratings were temporally congruent with client alliance ratings, but client-perceived immediacy did not predict alliance congruence. Limitations and future directions are discussed.Item Identity Conflict Among Religious Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals: The Role of Coping Strategies on Psychological Distress(2021) Yeung, Jeffrey Garrick; Lent, Robert W; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Sexual minority people experience more negative physical and mental health compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people who also identify as religious and spiritual may experience additional negative health outcomes especially in the case that their religious and spiritual values, beliefs, and practices come into conflict with their sexual minority identity. Applying minority stress theory (Meyer, 2003) and the integrative psychological mediation model (Hatzenbuehler, 2009), the present study takes an intersectionality approach (Crenshaw,1989) that examines the relationship between LGB and religious identity conflict and psychological distress and whether religious coping and discrimination-based (i.e., internalization and detachment) coping strategies meditate this link. Participants consisted of 469 religious LGB Christian adults in the United States who took an online survey. Results from a parallel multiple mediator analysis (Hayes, 2018) revealed that religious LGB identity conflict was indirectly related to more psychological distress via internalization coping, detachment coping, and negative religious coping. Unexpectedly, positive religious coping was not significantly related to the study variables, nor did it mediate the identity conflict and psychological distress link. Findings provide evidence for integration and application of intersectionality, minority stress, and psychological mediation theories to examine intersectional identity conflict between one’s LGB and religious identity, identity-specific coping meditators, and psychological distress. A discussion of the study results, limitations, and implications for future research and practice follows.Item Social Influences of Error Monitoring(2016) Barker, Tyson Vern; Fox, Nathan A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Adolescence is characterized by dramatic hormonal, physical, and psychological changes, and is a period of risk for affective and anxiety disorders. Pubertal development during adolescence plays a major role in the emergence of these disorders, particularly among girls. Thus, it is critical to identify early biomarkers of risk. One potential biomarker, the error-related negativity (ERN), is an event-related potential following an erroneous response. Individuals with an anxiety disorder demonstrate a greater ERN than healthy comparisons, an association which is stronger in adolescence, suggesting that pubertal development may play a role in the ERN as a predictor of anxiety. One form of anxiety often observed in adolescence, particularly among girls, is social anxiety, which is defined as anxiety elicited by social-evaluative contexts. In adults, enhancements of the ERN in social-evaluative contexts is positively related to social anxiety symptoms, suggesting that the ERN in social contexts may serve as a biomarker for social anxiety. This dissertation examined the ERN in and its relation with puberty and social anxiety among 76 adolescent girls. Adolescent girls completed a flanker task in two differentItem Neural Bases of Emotional Language Processing in Individuals with and without Autism(2015) Sand, Lesley Ann; Bolger, Donald J.; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A fundamental aspect of successful social interactions is the ability to accurately infer others’ verbal communication, often including information related to the speaker’s feelings. Autism spectrum disorder is characterized by language and social-affective impairments, and also aberrant functional neural responses to socially-relevant stimuli. The main objective of the current research was to examine the behavioral and neural effects of making affective inferences from language lacking overt prosody or explicit emotional words in individuals with and without autism. In neurotypical individuals, the current data are consistent with previous studies showing that verbal emotional stimuli enhances activation of brain regions generally responsive to discourse, and also “social-affective” brain regions, specifically medial/orbital frontal regions, bilateral middle temporal areas, temporal parietal junction/superior temporal gyri and pCC/PC. Moreover, these regions respond differentially to positive and negative valence, most clearly in the medial frontal area. Further, results suggest that mentalizing alone does not account for the differences between emotional and neutral stories, as all of our stories required similar inferencing of the feelings of the protagonist. In autism, there is general agreement that the neurodevelopmental disorder is marked by impairments in pragmatic language understandings, emotional processes, and the ability to “mentalize,” others’ thoughts, intentions and beliefs. However, findings are mixed regarding the precise nature of emotional language understandings. Results of the present study suggest that autistic individuals are able to make language-based emotional inferences, and that like neurotypical controls, social-affective brain regions show task-related facilitation effects for emotional compared to neutral valence. However, the neural activations in the autism group were generally greater than controls, especially in response to emotion. Additionally, results showed greater difficulty with incongruent judgments in participants with autism. Together, these findings represent a first step toward revealing social-affective abilities in the language context in autism, despite irregular brain response. Such understandings are critical to generating effective intervention strategies and therapeutic practices for autistic individuals and their families. For remediation to be most beneficial, one must understand and utilize areas of skill, and leverage those to positively impact deficits.Item PREFERENCE-FOR-SOLITUDE, FRIENDSHIP SUPPORT, AND INTERNALIZING DIFFICULTIES DURING EARLY ADOLESCENCE IN THE U.S.A. AND CHINA(2014) Wang, Jennifer M.; Rubin, Kenneth H.; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Social withdrawal has been associated with adjustment difficulties across development. Although much is known about shyness, little is known about preference-for-solitude; even less is known about how friendship might influence its relations with adolescent adjustment across different cultures. In particular, despite the significance of friendship for youth adjustment, not much is known about the ways in which friendship quality might lead to different adjustment outcomes for youth who prefer solitude; even less is known about these relations across different cultures. Accordingly, the overall goal of this research was to examine the relations between preference-for-solitude, friendship support, and internalizing difficulties during early adolescence in the U.S.A. and China. Specifically, this research examined the moderating role of friendship support in the relations between preference-for-solitude and internalizing difficulties (negative affect, negative self-esteem) in early adolescence across the U.S.A. and China. The U.S.A sample comprised 300 American youth (121 boys; M age = 14.28 years, SD = .51) from the greater Washington DC metropolitan area. The China sample comprised 201 youth living in Beijing, China (86 boys; M age = 14.21 years, SD = .62). Participants across both samples completed self- reports of social withdrawal (shyness; preference-for-solitude), friendship support, and internalizing difficulties (negative affect; negative self-esteem). Results from structural equation modeling demonstrated that preference-for-solitude and shyness emerged as related but unique dimensions of withdrawal across both the U.S.A. and China. Consistent with previous research, preference-for-solitude was positively associated with negative affect and negative self-esteem across both samples. In the U.S.A., friendship support significantly moderated the link between preference-for-solitude and negative self-esteem: preference-for-solitude was most associated with negative self-esteem beyond shyness for American youth with low friendship support. This was not found for negative affect; friendship support did not significantly moderate the effect of preference-for-solitude on negative affect in American youth. In China, friendship support did not significantly moderate any of the relations between preference-for-solitude and internalizing difficulties. Rather, for Chinese youth, preference-for-solitude and friendship support contributed independently beyond the effects of shyness to negative affect and negative self-esteem. In summary, preference-for-solitude was positively associated with negative affect and negative self-esteem in early adolescence across the U.S.A. and China. In the U.S.A., preference-for-solitude was most associated with negative self-esteem for youth with low friendship support. In addition to contributing to the developmental literature on preference-for-solitude, findings highlight the role of close interpersonal relationships for understanding the heterogeneity of withdrawal in development and across different cultures.Item AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF A MEASURE OF VOCATIONAL IDENTITY FOR SPANISH-SPEAKING PERSONS(2012) Tosado, Luis; Gottfredson, Gary D; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Two overlapping issues have given rise to this study: the need for assessment instruments to use with Spanish-speaking Latinos and the need for normative data on current and future Spanish-language instruments. Numerous career assessment instruments exist for the English-speaking population. These instruments may be administered on computer-based systems or in paper and pencil format, but few instruments exist for use with the Spanish-speaking population. Holland's Vocational Identity Scale is widely used both as a screening instrument to assess the need for vocational assistance and as an outcome measure in studies of counseling effects. To examine the feasibility of using this English-language instrument with a Spanish-speaking population, a translation of the English- language instrument was prepared, internal consistency of the translated scale was scrutinized, and explorations of the construct validity of the instrument were undertaken. Norms based on a Spanish speaking sample were produced. An overarching question for this study was whether a Spanish translation of My Vocational Situation, which contains the Vocational Identity scale, would yield similar results in terms of reliability and correlations with other variables as the English-language version. The study focused on two additional questions pertaining to the translated scale: To what degree does Identity have a positive correlation with other measures of psychological adjustment? Do groups presumed to be higher in Vocational Identity (more educated persons, persons higher in age) score higher than groups presumed to be lower in vocational identity? Data were collected via the Internet. Measures included Spanish-language versions of four established instruments: My Vocational Situation, Career Decision Self-Efficacy Short Form (CDSE-SF), Hope Scale, and the Neuroticism Scale of Goldberg's International Personality Item Pool. A new experimental scale devised for the present research, Latino Barriers, was also included. Items for each measure were subjected to internal consistency item analyses. Most Spanish language scales were satisfactory based on the item analysis, but one item in the translated Neuroticism scale was deleted. Analysis of the reliability of the measures revealed that the Spanish-language version of the Vocational Identity scale had an alpha of .86 which was comparable to reliability with the English version for high school students (á = .86) and for college students and workers (á = .89) (Holland, Gottfredson, & Power, 1980). Correlations of the translated Vocational Identity scale with other instruments imply that it provides a measure of vocational adjustment with a psychological meaning similar to that of the English language Vocational Identity scale. It appears appropriate to apply the translated instrument in research and practical applications while continuing to study its psychometric properties and practical utility with Spanish speaking persons.Item A session level analysis of the relationship between a group member’s fit with her group and PTSD symptom change in a sample of incarcerated women seeking trauma treatment(2010) Paquin, Jill Denise; Kivlighan, Dennis M; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The present study sought to apply the concept of person-group fit from the domain of organizational psychology to the domain of group psychotherapy. Specifically, using a time-series series design, the current study examined the relationship between an individual group member's fit with her group on two dimensions, perceptions of group climate and in-session intimate behaviors, and whether fit and standing on these dimensions were related to change in PTSD symptoms. An archival data set of 73 incarcerated women participating in six manualized (Trauma Recovery Empowerment Model [TREM], Harris, 1998) therapy groups for the treatment of co-morbid trauma and substance use disorders were analyzed. The relationship between the level of fit on these dimensions and change in PTSD symptoms as documented by participants' pre- and post-test scores on the PTSD Symptom Scale-Self Report (PSS-SR) was assessed. Using a session-level analysis (N = 1,606) and the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) (Kenny, Kashy, Manetti, Piero, & Livi, 2002) both individual (Actor) and group (Partner) effects were modeled in order to test hypotheses about the individual, the group, and the fit between actor and partner and PTSD symptom change. Twenty-two of 73 women did not complete treatment. Analyses revealed significant partner effects for group members who completed both pre and posttest PTSD measures (n = 51) and those who did not (n=22). Specifically, members who completed both measures were in groups in which the other members perceived higher levels of engagement and lower levels of conflict. Results indicated that for both the individual and the other group members (partners), perceptions of the level of group engagement increased over time, perceptions of group conflict and avoidance decreased over time, and the average level of intimate behaviors in which group members engaged did not significantly change over time. PTSD symptoms decreased significantly between pre and posttest, however, no significant relationship was observed between fit of a group member and her group and PTSD symptom change. Results, limitations, and alternatives for data conceptualization and future analysis are discussed.