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Browsing *Faculty of Humanities (ETDs) by Department "Department of Psychology"
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Item Exploring the pandemic: COVID-19 lockdown response levels as predictor of working memory performance and associated emotional responses(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-03-10) Oyejide, Aderemi Oyewunmi; Besharati, Sabba; Brooks, SamanthaThe unprecedented outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the course of many lives, resulting in multiple health and social challenges. Due to the speed with which this pandemic spread, various public health ‘lockdown’ measures were introduced to mitigate its spread. The outcome of adherence to these measures has revealed the possible influence on individuals varying cognitive abilities. Therefore, this study aimed at exploring the predicting relationship between lockdown responses to COVID-19 restrictions and working memory performance and associated emotional responses, while looking at the socio-demographic influences of age, gender, and level of education. Participants were drawn from a secondary dataset of an international online survey study of 1634 individuals between 18 – 75 years across 49 countries. Participants’ demographic questionnaires, working memory measures (free memory recall and digit span forward tasks), and hospital anxiety and depression scale were employed to collect data for analysis. A 4-way MANOVA and hierarchical multiple regression were utilised to explore the mean differences and predicting relationships between the study variables respectively. Significant differences were found in general memory performance, anxiety and depression scores across lockdown groups, but with no significant difference in working memory. The regression analysis indicated socio-demographic variables as non-predictive markers between lockdown responses and memory performance, while age and gender were significant predictors between lockdown responses and anxiety. The current study provides valuable information for interventions that may improve peoples’ psychological appraisals in preparation for any new potential waves or future pandemics.Item Towards the development of a screening tool for Anorexia Nervosa in men(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Reeves, Megan Moya; Prof. Sumaya LaherAnorexia Nervosa (AN) in men is still not wholly understood and is often misdiagnosed. The primary aim of this tri-phasal exploratory, mixed methods study was to propose content domains and items that may be used to inform the development of future quantitative tests to screen for AN in men. It has been reported that there is currently no quantitative instrument available, which has been specifically designed to measure anorexic symptomatology in men (Darcy et al., 2012; Murray et al., 2012). The quantitative content domains and test items developed in this study may be used in future self-report screening measures to help improve the accurate recognition of AN symptoms in men. These items will help to counter the effects of gender biases evident in current AN screening tools and biases held by clinicians and psychiatrists that are reported when screening for AN in men. These test items and content domains were developed in the third phase of this study and were derived from the findings of the first two phases. In phase one, a comprehensive thematic list of symptoms reportedly experienced by men diagnosed with AN was developed from an integrative literature review of peer-reviewed journal articles published between July 2000 to July 2013 on PsychINFO, SA ePublications, and Google Scholar. The data from phase one were supplemented by a thematic analysis of 14 interviews with South African clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, conducted under phase two, which deconstructed their beliefs regarding AN in men. Ultimately, the study’s three phases cumulatively showed how the symptoms reportedly experienced by men differed to those of women, deconstructed the beliefs held by a sample of South African clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, recommended a gender sensitive and identity based conceptualisation of AN that served to explicate theory, and finally proposed original test items that may be used in future research to develop a test to more validly and reliably screen for AN symptomatology in men.