College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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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 Anxiety and Anxiety-Coping in Children's Picture Books(2023) Hui, Janisa; Wang, Cixin; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The contribution of this study is to provide an understanding of how picture books educate young children on the common experiences of anxiety. This qualitative study used thematic analysis to analyze 82 English children’s picture books for infants and young toddlers (0 to 5 years old) that were published in 2020. Picture books in this sample portray anxiety in a way that match with the clinical knowledge of childhood anxiety in terms of characterization and signs of anxiety. This study identified five major themes of anxiety-eliciting situations, namely schools, bad things happen, being alone, health and diversity. The findings of this study also include themes and patterns of coping strategies that were used by the protagonists; finding comfort, inhibiting emotions, solving problems, recognizing and expressing emotions and culturally-related strategies are the five themes that summarize the coping strategies found in this sample. Across all types of anxiety-eliciting situations, finding comfort is the most frequently presented coping strategy. This study holds implications for caregivers, teachers and clinicians, through which they can have an idea of how anxiety is presented in some recently published children’s picture books in their use of the books for educational or clinical purposes. Publishers may also take reference on the gaps noted in this study to diversify the content of anxiety-related picture books.Item Disenfranchised Victims of the Opioid Epidemic: Predicting Grief and Growth after an Opioid-Related Loss(2022) Hill, Erin McKendry; O'Brien, Karen M; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over 75,000 people died from opioid drug overdoses between April of 2020 to April of 2021, compared to 46,000 deaths in 2018 (CDC, 2021; Wilson et al., 2020). Left behind are family members, significant others and friends struggling with grief as opioid-related losses are highly stigmatized and disenfranchised. Theoretically informed by the model of resilience (Mancini & Bonanno, 2009), as well as the transactional model of stress, appraisal and coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), this study examined the role of disenfranchised grief, social support, and coping in prolonged grief and posttraumatic growth among a sample (n = 159) of people bereaved by the loss of a family member, romantic partner or friend due to an opioid-related death. Together, disenfranchised grief, social support, and coping predicted 43% of the variance in prolonged grief and 36.6% of the variance in posttraumatic growth. Specifically active emotional coping predicted unique variance in both outcomes. Findings from this study have important implications for research and clinical practice to improve grief outcomes for this unique yet extensive population.Item COPING AS A MEDIATOR OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRESS REACTIVITY AND TEACHING OUTCOMES(2019) Kim, Margaret Jordan; Teglasi, Hedwig; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)To understand the origins of burnout in early-career teachers, the current study proposed that individual differences in stress reactivity and coping effectiveness would contribute to end-of-year teaching outcomes for student teachers in their final teaching placements as interns. Stress reactivity is a biologically-based individual difference that influences the intensity and duration of an individual stress response, while coping is the process through which external and internal stressors are addressed. Patterns of coping behavior and stress reactivity are often linked in research, as reactivity is thought to influence the intensity of stress, and thus also the emotional experiences with which individuals must cope. A preponderance of research investigates specific coping strategies and this study instead focuses on coping effectiveness in the face of negative emotions and challenging conditions. Two distinct mediation models were proposed. The first model hypothesized that stress reactivity would influence teaching self-efficacy indirectly through self-rated coping efficacy, and results revealed a significant negative indirect effect. This suggests that stress reactivity negatively influences one’s perceptions of their ability to cope with their emotions, which in turn has a negative influence on perceptions of teaching self-efficacy. The second model predicted that stress reactivity would influence evaluations of student teacher performance, through performance measures of coping effectiveness. Mediation analysis did not reveal a significant indirect effect, but did reveal a significant positive pathway from performance coping to supervisor evaluations of student teachers. A significant positive correlation between stress reactivity and performance coping was also identified and stands in contrast to the negative correlation between stress reactivity and self-rated coping efficacy. The unique direction of association across methods of measurement underlines the idea that performance and self-rated measures capture distinct facets of a construct, and that multiple approaches to measurement are crucial for a full understanding of functioning under stress. Results from the performance model open the door for continued investigation of alternate methods for understanding and assessing individual differences in coping. Implications of the findings for literature on stress reactivity, coping, and teacher stress and burnout are discussed.Item The cardiovascular and psychological effects of coping with perceived ethnic / racial discrimination.(2009) Gholkar, Radha; Smith, Barry D.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Most previous studies have demonstrated the superiority of active coping, but less is known about the role of coping in perceived ethnic and racial discrimination. The purpose of this study was to examine whether active or passive coping is more effective in situations of low vs. high perceived controllability over a discriminatory event. Fifty-two African-American participants were randomized to one of four conditions: High Control / Active Coping; High Control / Passive Coping; Low Control / Active Coping; and Low Control / Passive Coping. Before and after the coping task, participants played a simulated computer game in which they were ostracized due to race. Continuous measures of heart rate and blood pressure were collected, in addition to periodic measurements of mood, anxiety, and self-efficacy. It was first hypothesized that active coping and high controllability would be associated with greater decreases in cardiovascular reactivity / recovery, negative mood, and anxiety. Second, it was hypothesized that there would be an interaction between coping and control. Finally, it was hypothesized that individuals in the Low Control/Passive Coping condition would exhibit less cardiovascular reactivity / recovery, negative mood and anxiety, and higher self-efficacy when the uncontrollable discriminatory event was reintroduced. Data were analyzed using reactivity and recovery scores in a series of ANCOVAs. Results supported the benefits of active coping and high controllability, specifically in reference to negative mood. However, active coping was also associated with significantly longer diastolic blood pressure and heart rate recovery times. Furthermore, significant interactions were observed between coping and control for negative mood and anxiety. However, results did not support the hypothesis that the Low Control/Passive Coping group was more resilient during the second discriminatory event compared to the other groups, as this group scored significantly lower on subjective self-efficacy than all other conditions. Post hoc analyses largely confirmed these findings, but also demonstrated additional null results. Results suggest high controllability and active coping may be more advantageous for self-reported psychological than for cardiovascular indices, providing support for the concept of John Henryism. Implications for future work, including basic and applied research, are discussed.