Psychology and Counseling Electronic Theses and Dissertations (UMKC)
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The items in this collection are the theses and dissertations written by students of the Department of Psychology and Counseling. Some items may be viewed only by members of the University of Missouri System and/or University of Missouri-Kansas City. Click on one of the browse buttons above for a complete listing of the works.
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Item Hope's resilience: moderating climate threat and future outlooks(2025) Siems, Melànie Brianne; Nilsson, Johanna E.Literature on climate change reveals its existing power as a health threat to all of humanity. Research on the psychological impacts of climate change details the mental health toll that is exacted (e.g., distress and anxiety about what is to come with continued climate change). Many of these mental health concerns are future-oriented and indicate limited, negative, and uncertain views of the future. On the other hand, having open expectations and a positive outlook about the future has been shown to be important for a number of outcomes (e.g., well-being, protection against maladaptive behaviors, and lower anxiety and rumination). Thus, there is an important relation between perceptions of climate change and perceptions of the future, which both have implications for mental health. It is crucial to now consider what factors may protect from or provide resilience to these negative impacts. Hope is a well-known construct that indicates the belief that goals will be met in the future, or that desired outcomes may occur, which has been shown in many studies to be a protective factor. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the role of hope in relation to perceived climate threat and expectations about the future. A cross-sectional design was used with a sample of 231 undergraduate students (ages 18-29; M = 20.46; SD = 2.12) at a Midwestern university in the United States to investigate this research question. The results showed that having a higher perception of climate threat is related to a more limited view of the future. Additionally, this positive relation was strengthened by increasing levels of hope. The results also showed that, at low levels of hope, there is a positive relation between perceived climate threat and open future time perspectives; however, at high levels of hope, this relation becomes non-significant. Hope was found to have a null relation with pro-environmental behaviors, a positive relation with climate threat and limited and ambiguous views of the future, and a negative relation with open views of the future. Study limitations, implications, and future directions are discussed. Keywords: climate threat, future time perspectives, hopeItem Hope or hurt? Unpacking the complex effects of hope and ethnic identity on ethnic discrimination(2025) Jung, Joanne; Ternes, MichaelRacial discrimination remains a pervasive challenge for many racially minoritized college students, contributing to adverse mental health outcomes such as depression, anxiety, and trauma-related stress. Though hope and ethnic identity are often viewed as protective factors, recent evidence suggests their effects may vary or even be paradoxical depending on context and racial group. This study examined whether hope and ethnic identity moderate the impact of discrimination on well-being, general stress, and race-based traumatic stress (RBTS) among 286 college and graduate students (ages 18-60; M = 24.7, SD = 6.0). Participants were grouped into Participant Group 1 (Black/African American) and Participant Group 2 (American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, Multiracial/Other) based on self-reported skin tone differences. Results confirmed that discrimination was consistently associated with lower well-being, higher general stress, and greater RBTS. Hope was positively linked to well-being overall, but exhibited a paradoxical effect for Participant Group 2, where higher hope was linked to lower well-being under conditions of high discrimination. Similarly, individuals with high hope reported increased stress as discrimination rose, whereas those with low hope maintained stable stress levels, regardless of discrimination levels. Hope’s moderating effect on general stress did not differ between racial groups. For RBTS, hope was protective for Participant Group 1 under low discrimination but became a potential risk factor at higher discrimination levels. In contrast, hope did not significantly moderate RBTS in Participant Group 2. Contrary to expectations, ethnic identity moderated the association between discrimination and well-being but not general stress or RBTS, with its protective effects evident across both groups. Taken together, these findings suggest that protective factors like hope and ethnic identity may function differently across racial groups and contexts, highlighting the importance of considering sociodemographic and cultural factors when implementing interventions and conducting resilience research.Item Exploring grandmother kinship caregivers' perceptions of caregiving experiences(2025) Guhin, Taylor Anne; Berkel, LaVerne A.Grandmothers stepping in as kinship care providers is a growing subset of foster care. This study provided new insight into the changes a child endures when receiving care from their grandmother through Bronfenbrenner’s ecological lens. Conceptualizing child development through Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model helps explain how human development can be influenced by a child’s constantly changing immediate and larger social systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). Our study reviews the foster care system; including relative or nonrelative care, which can be formal or informal, as well as congregate care. There are many strengths highlighted in kinship care. For instance, in previous research, children shared that kinship care provided a protective environment that supported emotional recovery and helped them cope with adverse life circumstances (Burgess et al., 2010; Geen, 2004). Also, kinship care provides children with permanence and stability within their microsystem. However, many obstacles arise during this type of caregiving placement. Specifically, kinship caregivers are more likely to be older and have fewer economic resources (Stein et al., 2014), have received fewer educational services (Sakai et al., 2011), and to be in worse physical health than non-kin caregivers (Liao & White, 2014). Therefore, it is imperative to learn more from the grandmother’s perspective, specifically the caregiving struggles and how this change has direct and indirect effects on the child’s microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. Through a qualitative study, the research team interviewed 12 grandmothers and used Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis guide to derive themes and subthemes from the data. This study found three main themes: challenges in caregiving, strengths in caregiving, and resources needed. Specific challenges discussed by the grandmothers were navigating relationships with biological parents, the lack of financial assistance, and the need for childcare. Some unique strengths found were that stability and safety were maintained in the child’s microsystem. Overall, this study offered insight into the child’s functioning in grandmother kinship care through the grandmother's perspective, while utilizing Bronfenbrenner’s ecological lens to examine each level of the child’s ecological system. This study's findings gave specific ideas on how to support grandmother kinship families in clinical settings and identified future research directions.Item Computational modeling of health decision-making(2025) Bailey, Carrie Elizabeth; Ha, Oh-RyeongValue-based decision making consists of weighting stimulus attributes to compute stimulus value and guides choice such that the stimulus with highest value is chosen. While successful in maximizing value in the short-term, this does not always lead to long-term advantageous choices. Incorporating self-control, the ability to choose long-term rewards over short-term rewards, into the decision process guides choices to be congruent with one’s long-term rewards. Therefore, individuals must utilize self-controlled value-based choice which guides choice to maximize value in alignment with long-term rewards. Self-controlled value-based choice successfully captures the decision dynamics in food decision-making. Little has been done to see if self-controlled value-based choice captures decision dynamics in activity decision-making. Considering the role of food and activity choice in energy balance (calories in, calories out) it is possible they share a similar decision process. The present experiment examined the cognitive and physiological decision dynamics of self-controlled value-based food and activity choice using computational methods. Individuals completed a series of decision-making tasks for food and activities while electroencephalogram (EEG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) were recorded. EEG data were then input into a convolutional neural network (CNN) to classify self-control success/failure choices and classify individuals as high/low self-controllers. Results show a similar valuation process for food and activity stimuli by independently weighting stimulus attributes to compute value. To promote self-controlled value-based choices, the valuation process is altered by enhancing the weight of the long-term reward attribute (health) and diminishing the weight of the short-term reward attribute (taste/enjoyment). The CNN classified self-control success and failure choices and high/low self-controllers above chance level. The EEG electrodes that led to the highest classification accuracy were located over frontal, parietal, and occipital regions known to be involved in self-controlled value-based choice. Feature visualization revealed the networks place high importance on theory-aligned brain responses for classifying food data, but theory-unaligned brain response for classifying activity data. Overall, the experiment successfully modeled food and activity decision-making demonstrating both domains share a similar decision process and demonstrated the feasibility of applying advanced computational methods to EEG data to elucidate the physiological processes underlying the cognitions involved in the decision process.Item Social exclusion, internalizing/externalizing behaviors, and cooperation in middle childhood(2024) Sotos, Jarrod Joseph, 1995-; Ha, Oh-RyeongCooperation is a complex prosocial behavior shaped by social experiences and perceptions of others' cooperativeness. In adults, social exclusion and high levels of internalizing/externalizing (I/E) behaviors can reduce cooperation. However, it is unclear whether these negative impacts are present during middle childhood, a critical stage of social development. This study examined how social exclusion and I/E behaviors affect cooperation in middle childhood to fill this gap in understanding. It was hypothesized that social exclusion would predict decreased cooperation, and that this effect would persist when controlling for I/E behaviors. Twenty-seven children aged 8-12 and their families were recruited online for an online synchronous experimental study. Children were randomly assigned to either a social inclusion (n = 12) or exclusion (n = 15) condition while playing Cyberball (Williams et al., 2000), an online social exclusion manipulation game. After Cyberball, children completed a questionnaire about their current emotional state and played The Coin Game (Corbit et al., 2022), an online public-goods game assessing cooperation. A child’s level of I/E behaviors were parent-reported using the Child and Adolescent Behavior Inventory (CABI; Cianchetti et al., 2013), and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman et al., 1997). An independent-samples t-test showed that excluded children exhibited significantly lower cooperation levels than included children, t(25) = 2.123, p = .022, d = .24. However, an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) examining this relationship while controlling for I/E behaviors revealed no significant main effects of social exclusion (F(1, 23) = 2.391, p = .136, ηp2 = 0.094) or internalizing behaviors (F(1, 23) = 1.360, p = .255, ηp2 = 0.056), while a significant, negative association was found between externalizing behaviors and cooperation (F(1, 23) = 4.776, p = .039, ηp2 = 0.172). Interactions between exclusion status and I/E behaviors were not significant, indicating these behaviors did not significantly alter the relationship between social exclusion and cooperation. A 2x2 Mixed ANCOVA revealed no significant main effects or interactions between opponent type and social exclusion when controlling for I/E behaviors. Overall, this study demonstrates that social exclusion and externalizing behaviors negatively impact cooperation during middle childhood.