Date of Completion

12-15-2016

Embargo Period

12-14-2016

Keywords

Counseling, Mental Health, School Psychology, Future Thinking, Cognition, Hope

Major Advisor

Dr. Melissa Bray

Associate Advisor

Dr. Thomas Kehle

Associate Advisor

Dr. D. Betsy McCoach

Field of Study

Educational Psychology

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Open Access

Open Access

Abstract

This study attempted to replicate the methods of Miles, MacLeod, and Pote (2004) who attempted to extend the application of a theory proposed by Andrew MacLeod and colleagues in the late 1990s. Only the aforementioned study has examined this theory with adolescents ages 14 to 19 year olds enrolled in public schools and 18 to 19 year olds enrolled universities. In the present study 169 students were asked to complete an assessment battery containing measures of depression, anxiety, stress, hope, and demographic information, as well as completing a positive and negative cognition task. It was hypothesized that a strong negative relationship would exist between Positive Future cognition (PFC) and depression, that a positive relationship would exist between Negative Past cognition (NPC) and Stress, and a positive relationship would exist between Negative Future cognition (NFC) and Anxiety. Hope was used in contrast to PFC, NPC, and NFC to determine if each had a unique contribution to the variance above and beyond an already established positive cognition construct. The results demonstrated that there was not enough difference between PFC and Hope to establish that PFC has a unique contribution to Depression, however both NPC and NFC did have some unique contribution relative to Hope on Stress and Anxiety respectively. It should also be noted that there were significant limitations to the sample size, sampling procedures, and method of measurement for the cognitive task and that going forward these issues should be considered.

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