Papers by Hannah Thompson
Research largely shows that religion and spirituality have a positive correlation to psychologica... more Research largely shows that religion and spirituality have a positive correlation to psychological well-being. However, there has been a great deal of confusion and debate over their operational definitions. This study attempted to delineate the two constructs and categorise participants into different groups based on measured levels of religious involvement and spirituality. The groups were then scored against specific measures of well-being. A total of 205 participants from a wide range of religious affiliations and faith groups were recruited from various religious institutions and spiritual meetings. They were assigned to one of four groups with the following characteristics: (1) a high level of religious involvement and spirituality, (2) a low level of religious involvement with a high level of spirituality, (3) a high level of religious involvement with a low level of spirituality, and (4) a low level of religious involvement and spirituality. Multiple comparisons were made between the groups on three measures of psychological well-being: levels of self-actualisation, meaning in life, and personal growth initiative. As predicted, it was discovered that, aside from a few exceptions, groups (1) and (2) obtained higher scores on all three measures. As such, these results confirm the importance of spirituality on psychological well-being, regardless of whether it is experienced through religious participation.
Self-actualization is described as an individual's expression of their full potential and a desir... more Self-actualization is described as an individual's expression of their full potential and a desire for self-fulfilment. It is the leading need in Maslow's hierarchical motivation theory which does not specify an age range for each level, believing that individuals progress through the hierarchy at different rates. However, he recognises older adults are more likely than young adults to be concerned with higher motivation . Previous work has revealed that people over the age of 36 have a tendency to be concerned with higher motives and people under this age with lower motives . This study looks at the influence of age on the level of self-actualization and discovered that on 8 out of the 12 Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) scales, participants over the age of 36 showed higher levels of self-actualization than participants under the age of 36. These results indicate the relevance of developmental issues in this matter and back up the hypothesis that there is a relationship between one's age and levels of self-actualization. However, results also showed a degree of overlap of self-actualization scores across age groups, suggesting further research may find other important factors, beyond age, which have a relationship with self-actualization.
Neuropsychologia, 2013
Research suggests that semantic memory deficits can occur in at least three ways. Patients can (1... more Research suggests that semantic memory deficits can occur in at least three ways. Patients can (1) show amodal degradation of concepts within the semantic store itself, such as in semantic dementia (SD), (2) have difficulty in controlling activation within the semantic system and accessing appropriate knowledge in line with current goals or context, as in semantic aphasia (SA) and (3) experience a semantic deficit in only one modality following degraded input from sensory cortex. Patients with SA show deficits of semantic control and access across word and picture tasks, consistent with the view that their problems arise from impaired modality-general control processes. However, there are a few reports in the literature of patients with semantic access problems restricted to auditory-verbal materials, who show decreasing ability to retrieve concepts from words when they are presented repeatedly with closely related distractors. These patients challenge the notion that semantic control processes are modality-general and suggest instead a separation of 'access' to auditory-verbal and non-verbal semantic systems. We had the rare opportunity to study such a case in detail. Our aims were to examine the effect of manipulations of control demands in auditory-verbal semantic, non-verbal semantic and non-semantic tasks, allowing us to assess whether such cases always show semantic control/access impairments that follow a modality-specific pattern, or whether there are alternative explanations. Our findings revealed: (1) deficits on executive tasks, unrelated to semantic demands, which were more evident in the auditory modality than the visual modality; (2) deficits in executively-demanding semantic tasks which were accentuated in the auditory-verbal domain compared with the visual modality, but still present on non-verbal tasks, and (3) a coupling between comprehension and executive control requirements, in that mild impairment on single word comprehension was greatly increased on more demanding, associative judgements across modalities. This pattern of results suggests that mild executive-semantic impairment, paired with disrupted connectivity from auditory input, may give rise to semantic 'access' deficits affecting only the auditory modality.
Neuropsychologia, 2012
Patients with multimodal semantic impairment following stroke (referred to here as 'semantic apha... more Patients with multimodal semantic impairment following stroke (referred to here as 'semantic aphasia' or SA) fail to show the standard effects of frequency in comprehension tasks. Instead, they show absent or even reverse frequency effects: i.e., better understanding of less common words. In addition, SA is associated with poor regulatory control of semantic processing and executive deficits. We used a synonym judgement task to investigate the possibility that the normal processing advantage for high frequency (HF) words fails to emerge in these patients because HF items place greater demands on executive control. In the first part of this study, SA patients showed better performance on more imageable as opposed to abstract items, but minimal or reverse frequency effects in the same task, and these negative effects of word frequency on comprehension were related to the degree of executive impairment. Ratings from healthy subjects indicated that it was easier to establish potential semantic associations between probe and distracter words for HF trials, suggesting that reverse frequency effects might reflect a failure to suppress spurious associations between HF probes and distracters. In a subsequent experiment, the aphasic patients' performance improved when HF probes and targets were presented alongside low frequency distracters, supporting this hypothesis. An additional study with healthy participants used dual task methodology to examine the impact of divided attention on synonym judgement. Although frequently encountered words were processed more efficiently overall, the secondary task selectively disrupted performance for high but not low frequency trials. Taken together, these results show that positive effects of frequency are counteracted in SA by increases in semantic control requirements for HF words.
Journal of Religion and Health, 2013
Research largely shows that religion and spirituality have a positive correlation to psychologica... more Research largely shows that religion and spirituality have a positive correlation to psychological well-being. However, there has been a great deal of confusion and debate over their operational definitions. This study attempted to delineate the two constructs and categorise participants into different groups based on measured levels of religious involvement and spirituality. The groups were then scored against specific measures of well-being. A total of 205 participants from a wide range of religious affiliations and faith groups were recruited from various religious institutions and spiritual meetings. They were assigned to one of four groups with the following characteristics: (1) a high level of religious involvement and spirituality, (2) a low level of religious involvement with a high level of spirituality, (3) a high level of religious involvement with a low level of spirituality, and (4) a low level of religious involvement and spirituality. Multiple comparisons were made between the groups on three measures of psychological well-being: levels of self-actualisation, meaning in life, and personal growth initiative. As predicted, it was discovered that, aside from a few exceptions, groups (1) and (2) obtained higher scores on all three measures. As such, these results confirm the importance of spirituality on psychological well-being, regardless of whether it is experienced through religious participation.
Mindfulness meditation and curiosity: The contributing factors to wellbeing and the process of cl... more Mindfulness meditation and curiosity: The contributing factors to wellbeing and the process of closing the self-discrepancy gap. Abstract: Actual/ideal self-discrepancy is the measurable difference between an individual's beliefs about who they think they are (actual self) and their image of the person they would ideally like to be (ideal self). When the self-discrepancy gap is small, higher psychological wellbeing exists. Mindfulness meditation, by means of greater awareness of the continuous fluctuation of thought from one point to another, has been shown to increase self-acceptance, which can lead to minimizing self-discrepancy. Additionally, curiosity is an important third factor in motivating the change required to reduce self-discrepancy. This study hypothesises that mindfulness meditation reduces actual-ideal self-discrepancy. Additionally, it hypothesises that higher trait curiosity will lead to a larger reduction in self-discrepancy. One hundred and twenty participants took part in a mindfulness meditation course. Before and after this, participants completed a Selves questionnaire and the Curiosity and Exploration Inventory. The findings confirm that mindfulness meditation can effectively reduce the gap between actual/ideal self attributes. In addition, curiosity is an influencing factor in making the largest changes in self-discrepancy after meditation.
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Papers by Hannah Thompson