Date of Award

2-2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Graduate Department of Clinical Psychology

First Advisor

Roger Bufford, PhD.

Second Advisor

Mary Peterson, PhD., ABPP

Third Advisor

Winston Seegobin, PsyD.

Abstract

Since publication in 2005, the Young Schema Questionnaire Short-­‐version 3rd Edition (YSQ-­‐S3) has increased in popularity over the years among psychologists in Europe and the U.S.; yet to date it has not been normed within a U.S. sample. A sample of 148 participants completed eight demographic questions, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder -­‐7 (GAD-­‐7), Patient Health Questionnaire -­‐9 (PHQ-­‐9), and YSQ-­‐S3 via Survey Monkey. Participants were classified into clinical and non-­‐clinical groups depending on responses to the GAD-­‐7, PHQ-­‐9, and demographic questions. YSQ-­‐S3 results were analyzed via SPSS 23.0 to conduct descriptive statistics, one-­‐way ANOVA, and exploratory analyses to test the following hypotheses: (a) There will be significant mean score differences between the clinical and non-­‐clinical participants on each YSQ-­‐S3 schema except entitlement/grandiosity and unrelenting standards/hypercriticalness; and (b) That the clinical sample will have a higher number of schemas active. An additional goal was to produce preliminary cut-­‐off scores for distinguishing pathological from normal scores for the schema-­‐based scales. Results indicated significant differences between clinical and non-­‐clinical participants on YSQ-­‐S3 mean scores with moderate to mostly large effect sizes. Due to substantial overlap between the two groups, we were unable to establish cut-­‐off scores for the YSQ-­‐S3 subscales. Regression analyses demonstrated perfect classification for anxious participants for the Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMS) and weaker classification in predicting depression and the comorbidity of anxiety and depression in participants. The main limitation to our study was that schemas are commonly conceptualized as a partially unconscious phenomenon; thus the self-­‐report approach of the YSQ-­‐S3 may not readily capture schemas (Bowlby, Ainsworth, Boston, & Rosenbluth, 1956), and we lacked a severe clinical group. Results indicated that at least in the present sample the YSQ-­‐S3 was only somewhat able to effectively distinguish the normal group from those with mixed anxiety and depression for individual schemas. Due to overlap between the clinical and normal samples and absence of an established method, we were unable to propose preliminary cutoff scores on the YSQ-­‐S3 subscales, or suggest a difference in EMS quantity between pathological and normal samples.

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