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
A Contextual Psychology Approach to Improving Health Outcomes in the Perinatal Period
(University of Oregon, 2023-07-06) Lightcap, April; Berkman, Elliot
The United States holds alarming records for highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the developed world. The US infant mortality rate is on par with many low and middle income countries, and despite the decline in maternal mortality rates globally, pregnancy-related deaths in the US have trended upwards. The Birth Your Way perinatal health promotion program was designed to address this US public health crisis by amplifying the ability of federal maternal child health programs to mitigate the primary infant mortality risk factors, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) admissions, low birthweight and preterm deliveries, and the key maternal mortality risk factor, Cesarean delivery. The federal Medicaid program buffers mortality risk via increased access to perinatal healthcare services; while the federal Women, Infants and Children supplemental nutrition program (WIC) improves health outcomes via improved prenatal nutrition. Employing an implementation science approach, the Birth Your Way intervention has been developed and evaluated in collaboration with Medicaid and WIC partners in a model public health test site. The Birth Your Way intervention is the first to utilize an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) approach to increase pregnant individuals’ adherence to the WIC prenatal nutrition protocol via increases in psychological flexibility, the psychological mechanism underlying ACT. A pragmatic randomized clinical trial was conducted to examine Birth Your Way program effects on psychological flexibility, perinatal nutrition and infant and maternal birth outcomes. Results from the Birth Your Way pragmatic randomized clinical trial demonstrate the ACT-based intervention’s potential to bolster WIC program effects and mitigate poor infant birth outcomes when a minimum dose is received. The current study documents a promising role for the application of ACT in the prenatal period to increase maternal engagement in values-directed actions and healthy dietary behaviors and to decrease the likelihood of NICU admissions, low birthweight, and preterm deliveries. Expanding the reach of ACT-based programs across Medicaid distributors to amplify WIC program engagement could prove a critical component in the public health effort to mitigate the US infant and maternal mortality crisis.
Open Access
Boredom and the Need for Agency
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06) Kahn, Lauren; Berkman, Elliot
Humans are highly motivated to avoid boredom. What is the functional role of boredom, and why is it so aversive? An empirical study tested the hypothesis that a need for agency, or control over one’s actions and their effects, plays a role in our avoidance of boredom. The study also explored the role of an individual difference called experiential avoidance, which captures the tendency to avoid negative internal experiences, sometimes via problematic behaviors. Results were integrated with current clinical techniques that use mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches to address such avoidance of internal experiences. In the study, one hundred twenty-three adults completed a series of computer tasks in which their sense of agency was manipulated. After being oriented to high and medium levels of agency, participants completed a series of 30-second low agency trials in which they had the opportunity to escape to high or medium agency, at a cost. The amount of money they were willing to forego indicated their motivation to avoid low agency, or “need for agency.” After a break, they were then asked to complete a series of 30-second trials in which they did nothing, but again had the option to escape to high or medium agency at a cost. The amount of money they were willing to forego in this task indicated their motivation to avoid doing nothing, or “need for action.” Results demonstrated that on average, people were willing to give up money to avoid both low agency and to avoid a boring situation (doing nothing). Furthermore, their motivation to avoid boredom indeed was driven by the extent to which they felt that doing nothing afforded them a low sense of agency. Finally, those who were higher in experiential avoidance demonstrated a higher need for agency and action, and those lower in mindfulness demonstrated a higher need for agency. These results demonstrate that the motivation to avoid boredom may be rooted in a need for agency, and that acceptance- based clinical approaches may have success addressing this avoidance and the problematic behaviors that follow.
Open Access
Investigating Dopamine- and Norepinephrine-Linked Variability in Cognitive Control in Lab and in Life
(University of Oregon, 2017-09-06) Calcott, Rebecca; Berkman, Elliot
A series of experiments investigated the relationship between locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) function and striatal dopamine (DA) tone and the flexibility of stability of cognitive control. Across 4 experiments, participants completed an attention shifting task, in which they had to periodically switch the focus of their attention while avoiding distraction. In 3 of the 4 experiments, participants’ eyes were tracked to collect eye blink rate and pupil size, indices of striatal dopamine and LC-NE function respectively. A second aim of this project was to determine whether DA- and NE-linked variability in cognitive control was predictive of more ecologically valid real-world behaviors. To this end, participants in Experiment 4 also completed an additional lab session, in which they performed an internet search task, designed to be similar to what a student might experience in their everyday life. Participants then completed 2 weeks of follow-up questionnaires to provide a self-report of their daily experience of distractibility and flexibility. We hypothesized that observable indices of flexibility and distractibility during the internet search task would mediate the relationship between attention task performance and real-world experiences. Results indicated that EBR is related to attentional flexibility; however the specific shape of the effect was inconsistent across studies, with one showing a linear effect on the ability to update the attentional set, and the other showing a quadratic effect. There were large, consistent main effects of both tonic and phasic pupil measures on attention task performance, with longer latencies, larger phasic responses, and larger baseline pupil sizes all tending to predict slower responding and a higher error rate. There was no clear pattern of pupil effects across conditions, however, and so it is not clear whether pupil-linked changes in task performance are related to specific effects on cognitive control processes, or rather a more general arousing effect on performance. Finally, there were also no clear links suggesting that observable behaviors on our internet search task could be used to bridge between attention task performance and real-world behavior.
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
The Psychology of Socioeconomic Inequality in the United States
(University of Oregon, 2021-11-23) Ludwig, Rita; Berkman, Elliot
Effective, evidence-based public policy is of critical importance to address issues of socioeconomic inequality, poverty, and class mobility. Psychological science has a valuable opportunity to inform the development of effective policy through its person-centered approach to understanding social phenomena. The core thesis of this dissertation is that the ability to design effective social welfare is dependent upon a comprehensive understanding of inequality as a systemic social phenomenon, and that psychological science can fill gaps in this understanding that are unaccounted for by traditionally dominant sociological and economic theories. To demonstrate this, I present two novel empirical studies that link socioeconomic status and mobility to psychological factors. The first study (Chapter II) tests whether personality traits such as conscientiousness and impulsivity, discounting of distant financial rewards, and socioeconomic status are related in a sample of N = 1100 American adults with annual income ranging from at or below the poverty line ($0–$20,000) to upper-middle class ($200,000+). The second study (Chapter III) builds on the former with a sample of N = 313 American adults who recorded their daily financial expenditures to test whether and how personality traits and affective experience relate to everyday purchases. I conclude with a general discussion (Chapter IV) reviewing how extant psychological theories can account for the muted successes of real-world policy, and make recommendations for those seeking to further address issues of socioeconomic inequality through research and policy initiatives. This dissertation includes previously published co-authored material.
Open Access
Towards an Integrative Study of Self
(University of Oregon, 2019-01-11) Livingston, Jordan; Berkman, Elliot
The study of self within psychology has been limited in a number of ways. Two sets of empirical studies extended the study of self beyond traditional trait-based self-perception. In the first set of studies, seven hundred and eighty-nine adults listed their multiple “self-aspects” that represent meaningful elements of their lives and completed trait ratings for each of their self-aspects. The similarity between trait responses for the different self-aspects indicated the degree of “self-complexity” for a participant, as well as the degree of “self-integration.” Results replicated previous findings indicating that lower self-complexity is associated with higher well-being, and that network-based approaches for measuring self-complexity were more strongly with well-being. Finally, participants who completed the same task 3 weeks later demonstrated an increase in self-integration. Broadly, the results demonstrate that network-based approaches are an effective metric for studying the structure of the self and that future work may have success using networks to inform identity-based interventions. In the second set of studies, five hundred and ninety-four adults completed studies about personal identity and morality. Participants imagined that some trait about someone had changed and were asked to indicate the degree to which the trait change would change the person’s identity. Comparisons of interest examined the degree to which moral trait changes led to more perceived identity change than non-moral trait changes and the degree to which imagining changes to oneself versus to another person yielded differences in perceived identity change. Results replicated previous work indicating that morals lead to most perceived identity change and find that changes to self yielded large perceived identity change than changes to a friend. Moreover, neuroimaging work revealed that thinking about identity change for both targets recruits regions of the cortical midline and that thinking about moral trait words does not recruit any regions compared to thinking about non-moral trait words, challenging previous assumptions about the nature of self-perception and personal identity. Results from both sets of studies were integrated with philosophical and translational perspectives to consider the overall contributions to real-world, self-control issues and broader questions about the nature of the self.

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Browsing Psychology Theses and Dissertations by Author "Berkman, Elliot"

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