Theses and Dissertations - Department of Psychology
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Item A Study of the Effects of an Affective Curriculum Program on the Awareness, Self-Concept, and Social Interaction of First Grade Students(The University of Alabama, 1973) Sweaney, David R.The past decade has witnessed an increasing interest in elementary school counseling programs. Although the geneses of this movement have come from many sources, the rationales and justifications for child counseling can be broken down into two major functions: (1) the prevention of maladjustment and (2) the development of human potential (Dimick & Huff, 1970). The need for a preventive approach is· painfully obvious. Everyday, newspapers report some antisocial act/ committed by a young person. It is not necessary to document the increase in crime, drug usage, violence, and general anomie among high school and college students~ The evidence is there for all to see. Mental disturbances incapacitate more people than all other health problems combined, and mental patients occupy more than half the country's hospital beds. What is even more frightening is the estimate that for each of those currently hospitalized for mental illness, at least twenty more are in need of psychiatric or psychological help (Coleman, 1964). For these people, most of whom were ones elementary school students, it is too late for preventive measures. Prevention must precede the symptom.Item The acquisition of survey knowledge across repeated exposures to a novel environment in individuals with down syndrome(University of Alabama Libraries, 2018) Himmelberger, Zachary Mark; Merrill, Edward C.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaDown syndrome (DS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with many cognitive weaknesses, including certain aspects of wayfinding. There are several theoretical reasons, such as abnormal brain development and similar weaknesses in smaller scales of space, that these deficits include developing survey knowledge of an environment. However, few studies have directly investigated this ability. The current study compared people with DS to typical adults matched on chronological age and typical children matched on the KBIT-II Matrices Subtest on a measure of survey knowledge. More specifically, an experimenter exposed participants to a novel virtual environment, and then were asked to find a specific target on their own. The total distance traveled and time taken to find the target served as dependent variables. The task was repeated three times, such that the participants navigated to the target after the experimenter showed them the environment once, two additional times, and again after two more times. Participants in both comparison groups demonstrated linear improvement across the three trials, with the children travelling a longer distance and taking longer to find the target at each trial compared to the adults. Participants with DS performed similarly to the typical children after the initial exposure, but did not demonstrate any learning across the trials, thereby resulting in a worse performance than both control groups on subsequent trials. The findings suggest that survey representations are impaired in DS, specifically in the ability to improve these representations over time. This has important implications for developing wayfinding interventions, and for understanding how these individuals learn about new environments.Item ADHD symptoms predicting changes in friendship stability and quality over time(University of Alabama Libraries, 2019) Ferretti, Nicole Marie; Jarrett, Matthew A.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaResearch has identified friendship and friendship quality as important variables in predicting positive outcomes concurrently and longitudinally for children and adolescents. This work has identified friendship as a developmental construct that changes over time; however, not all children develop these abilities at the same rate, and some children struggle in navigating the social world. In particular, children with ADHD present with difficulty obtaining and maintaining friendships beginning in childhood and extending through young adulthood. Current literature has identified these difficulties but has yet to examine how friendship stability and quality may change over time for children with ADHD symptoms. The present study sought to explore the stability of friendships over time and the growth of friendship quality over time. In particular, we were interested in how the presence of ADHD symptoms predicts both friendship stability and friendship quality over time. It was hypothesized that children with more ADHD symptoms would show less friendship stability over time and a slower rate of development of friendship quality over time relative to children with fewer ADHD symptoms. ADHD symptoms were not a significant predictor of friendship social support over time, but they were a significant predictor of friendship negative interactions over time.Item Age differences in risky decision making: the effects of explicitness, personality, and working memory(University of Alabama Libraries, 2017) Wood, Meagan Michelle; Black, Sheila R.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaIn the current study, I examined the effects of age, explicitness of instructional materials, and personality differences on risky decision making while playing the Game of Dice Task (GDT). Participants were randomly assigned to one of two instruction conditions: Explicit vs. Standard. In the explicit condition, the instructions were very straightforward, with respect to risk, while the instructions in the standard condition were not. To describe this game in more detail, in the GDT, participants decide how risky they wish to be on each trial. To optimize performance, participants should make “safe” rather than risky choices. Overall, older adults were riskier than younger adults on the GDT even though they self-report being more risk averse than younger adults in several different risk domains except for social. In regards to the instruction condition, there were no significant age differences in the standard condition. Younger and older adults perform similarly. However, there were age differences in the explicit condition. Older adults were riskier in the explicit condition than younger adults were. In addition, a 3-way interaction between age, instruction, and conscientiousness was discovered. Older adults who are low in conscientiousness perform similar to regular older adults in the standard and explicit conditions. However, the effect of instruction condition disappears for those who are high in conscientiousness.Item Age differences in risky decision making: the effects of priming, personality, & working memory(University of Alabama Libraries, 2014) Wood, Meagan Michelle; Black, Sheila R.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaIn the current study, we examined the effects of priming and personality on risky decision making while playing the Game of Dice Task (GDT). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three priming conditions: Risk Aversive, Risk-Seeking, or Control. In the Risk Seeking condition, a fictional character benefited from risky behavior while in the Risk Aversive condition, a fictional character benefited from exercising caution. In the GDT, participants decide how risky they wish to be on each trial. To optimize performance, one should make "safe" rather than risky choices. Although older adults self-reported being more cautious than younger adults, older adults made riskier decisions than younger adults on the GDT. However, there were no longer significant age differences on the GDT after controlling for working memory. More than likely, the aforementioned age differences were due to age-related changes in effective strategy usage, rather than age-related changes in the propensity to take risks. In addition, for young adults, certain personality traits significantly predicted risky decision making on the GDT. The findings from this study have implications for older adults' decision making in everyday situations. Older adults may make risky decisions and thereby jeopardize their financial and other resources, not because they intentionally want "to roll the dice," but because of an inability to strategize and fully comprehend the consequences of their decisions.Item Aggravating, ambiguous, and arbitrary: perceptions of heinousness in capital punishment(University of Alabama Libraries, 2016) Applegate, Kathryn Christine; Salekin, Karen L.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaOf the 32 states with the death penalty, 25 states identify some variation of “heinous, atrocious, or cruel” as a statutory aggravating factor. In recognition of the vague nature of this factor, some states have enacted legislation that limits jurors’ discretion by providing guidance regarding how to define “heinousness,” or by outlining essential characteristics of heinous crimes. Despite this guidance, indiscriminate application is still a concern. Research has explored how heinousness affects juror decision-making, sentencing outcomes, and perceptions of the defendant; however, these studies have varied in their definitions and have not always ensured that perceptions of heinousness were different across conditions. The purpose of the current study was to better understand what elements of crimes are viewed as more or less heinous in the eyes of undergraduate mock jurors. Using a within-subject, vignette-based design, ratings of heinousness were collected for 53 vignettes and eight variables were studied (i.e., method of killing, relationship, victim age, victim vulnerability, mental suffering, physical suffering, gruesomeness, and time). Significant differences were found within each factor (p < .001). Results provide researchers with a framework for future heinousness research, as well as information for the legal system with regard to what constitutes heinousness.Item An analysis of conscious fear and automatic threat response in psychopathy(University of Alabama Libraries, 2019) Lamoureux, Virginia; Glenn, Andrea L.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaA lack of fear has been proposed to be one of the driving forces behind the callous and antisocial behavior of psychopathic individuals. However, the term “fear” has taken on many different meanings and has been operationalized in many different ways. On one hand, fear can be described as the subjective and conscious experience of fear (e.g., “I feel afraid”). On the other hand, fear is often equated with an automatic bodily response to threat (e.g., physiological responses to threatening stimuli). The present study sought to clarify whether psychopathy is associated with each of these types of “fear.” In a sample of 64 male and female inmates in a county jail, threat detection, as well as the ability to recognize threat directed toward others, were assessed using threatening images along with measures of skin conductance and heart rate. The conscious experience of fear was measured via self-reported emotional experience in response to fear-inducing stimuli, as well as though the peripheral processes of interoception, alexithymia, and empathy. In a departure from previous literature, almost no significant relationships were found between total psychopathy and measures for the conscious experience of fear and automatic threat response. Additionally, gender was not found to be a significant moderator in any of these relationships. Limitations, implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed.Item Antecedents and consequences of maternal sensitivity to their adolescent's vulnerability to jealousy over friends(University of Alabama Libraries, 2012) Nielsen, Blake Lawrence; Parker, Jeffrey G.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaRecent research has highlighted the important role parents can play in facilitating adolescents' adjustment with their friends. To do so, however, parents need to have insight into their children's social difficulties. Yet past research has shown that parents as a group are not particularly accurate at gauging children's social problems and concerns. However, very few studies have looked closely at variability from parent to parent in this skill. This study examines mothers' abilities to anticipate children's vulnerability to jealousy over friends. It was hypothesized that mothers would vary in their ability to accurately anticipate the circumstances that make their adolescent jealous and that this variability would relate in systematic ways to aspects of the mother, the child, and their relationship. Consistent with some past research, as a group, mothers' judgments of their child's jealousy was not highly correlated with what children reported. Nonetheless, wide variability in accuracy existed across mothers. Regression analyses indicated that mothers' proneness to romantic jealousy was not an important predictor of their accuracy, but mothers of emotionally expressive children and mothers with close relationships with their children were more accurate than were mothers of children who inhibited their emotions or mothers who had less close relationships. In turn, when their mothers were more accurate, adolescents had closer friendships, less aggressiveness with peers, higher social self-esteem, and less loneliness. Results caution against broad generalizations about maternal accuracy and support efforts to better understand why some mothers are more effective social coaches of their children than are others.Item Appraisals of Insomnia Identity in a Clinical Sample(University of Alabama Libraries, 2020) Emert, Sarah Elizabeth; Lichstein, Kenneth L.; Gunn, Heather E.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaDifficulties falling asleep, staying asleep, waking too early, and daytime dysfunction are prevalent in insomnia disorder. Insomnia-related complaint crossed with sleep data yields complaining good sleepers (CG) and complaining poor sleepers (CP). Many theories relate to the development and maintenance of insomnia disorder. Little is known about factors influencing an insomnia identity, the self-ascribed belief that one has insomnia, or that differentiate these groups. We evaluated insomnia identity severity and differences between treatment-seeking groups on factors related to one’s sleep experience and sleep parameters. An insomnia complaint was considered evidence for an insomnia identity; however, the final sample yielded an unexpected group who did not endorse insomnia identity. Therefore, participants were also classified via insomnia identity yielding insomnia identifying good sleepers (IIG), insomnia identifying poor sleepers (IIP), and participants without insomnia identity (WOII). Participants provided demographic information, medical and psychiatric diagnoses, information related to their insomnia complaint, and two weeks of daily sleep diaries. CG and CP were evaluated on differences between perceived sleep comparisons, restorative sleep, daytime impairment, and insomnia-related catastrophizing. There were no significant differences on any factors for ? < .05. IIG, IIP, and WOII were evaluated on differences for the same four variables. A statistically significant difference emerged among groups on restorative sleep, F (2, 60) = 3.83, p = .03. Post hoc testing revealed that restorative sleep ratings were significantly higher in IIG compared to IIP, but not WOII (p = .02). Multiple linear regression tested the four sleep variables and self-reported sleep parameters as predictors of insomnia identity severity. The overall model was significant, F (1, 61) = 5.21, p = .03, R2 = .08. The analysis was conducted again substituting the three subfactors of catastrophic thinking to determine the effect of each subscale. The overall model was significant, F (1, 61) = 7.55, p = .008. R2 = .11. Negative sleep comparisons and increased helplessness predicted a stronger conviction of insomnia identity. Restorative sleep significantly differentiated IIG, IIP, and WOII, perhaps reflecting differences in sleep status rather than insomnia identity. Implications of results and further study directions on insomnia identity are discussed.Item Are narcissists more tolerant of people who engage in narcissistic behavior?(University of Alabama Libraries, 2016) Burton, Kelly; Hart, William P.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaPrevious research suggests that narcissists (vs. non-narcissists) may be more tolerant of other narcissists. However, previous research on this topic has involved methodologies that rely on trait-relevant priming rather than observations of actual behavior, thus limiting the generalizability of the findings. It remains unclear whether the narcissistic-tolerance effect holds up under more ecologically valid conditions. The current study examined whether narcissists tolerated narcissists by assessing participants’ reactions to actors behaving in a narcissistic or non-narcissistic fashion. Narcissism was positively associated with liking in the narcissistic-actor condition and negatively associated with liking in the non-narcissistic-actor condition. Path modeling suggested that this interactive effect of narcissism and actor condition was mediated by perceived similarity and tendencies to selectively interpret the actor’s behavior. These findings have implications for how narcissists view other narcissists and interpret social information.Item The association between chronotype and nonrestorative sleep(University of Alabama Libraries, 2016) Tutek, Joshua; Lichstein, Kenneth L.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaNonrestorative sleep (NRS), characterized by a lack of refreshment upon awakening, has received little attention in the sleep literature even though it can occur and cause impairment apart from other sleep difficulties associated with insomnia. The Restorative Sleep Questionnaire (RSQ; Drake et al., 2014) is one of the first validated self-report instruments for investigating NRS severity, presenting new opportunities to explore what factors predict and perhaps contribute to unrefreshing sleep. The present study sought to determine whether inherent circadian preference for morning or evening activity, known as chronotype, predicted restorative sleep in 164 college undergraduates who completed daily RSQs over two weeks. Participants who endorsed greater orientation to evening activity on the morningness-eveningness questionnaire (Terman, Rifkin, Jacobs, & White, 2001) reported significantly less average restorative sleep across their full sampling period, and this association was maintained after accounting for demographic factors, number of sleep-relevant psychiatric and medical diagnoses, sleep diary parameters, self-reported status as an insomniac, and ratings of sleep quality. Furthermore, when analyses were conducted separately for weekday and weekend RSQ scores, eveningness significantly predicted NRS above extraneous variables only during the workweek, not during Saturday and Sunday. These findings have implications for the developing conceptualization of NRS, and continue the work of elucidating the interconnections between common sleep disturbances and the circadian system.Item Associations between sleep disturbances, personality, and trait emotional intelligence(University of Alabama Libraries, 2016) Emert, Sarah E.; Lichstein, Kenneth L.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaInsomnia is defined by difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking earlier than desired with inability to return to sleep. Complaints of nonrestorative sleep (NRS) are often associated with insomnia but can occur independently. Fragmented sleep and NRS have been shown to relate to one’s mood, one’s ability to process their own or others’ emotions, and can lead to changes in cognitions and behaviors. Personality traits related to increases in anxiousness may play a role in the development and maintenance of sleep disorders and associated daytime impairment of NRS. The relations between sleep disturbance, personality traits, and trait emotional intelligence are underrepresented in the current literature and findings have been mixed. This study addressed some inconsistencies by identifying associations between the Big Five personality traits, trait emotional intelligence (TEI), complaints of NRS, and disrupted sleep associated with insomnia. We predicted that neuroticism would relate to poorer sleep and that conscientiousness and TEI would be associated with better sleep. Openness to experience, extraversion, and agreeableness are not often discussed in the literature, but were expected to associate similarly as conscientiousness. Results provided support for the idea that trait characteristics are associated with insomnia severity and restorative sleep quality. These findings indicated that personality and TEI may play a role in development and maintenance of sleep disorders and daytime impairment of NRS; higher conscientiousness, lower neuroticism, and higher TEI possibly demonstrate a protective role to experiencing negative effects of poor sleep.Item The Atkins conundrum: deliberation, order effects, and an IQ score of 76(University of Alabama Libraries, 2014) Chen, Debra R.; Salekin, Karen L.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaThis study examined the effect of deliberation, presence of an intelligence quotient (IQ) score of 76 in the claimant's history, and evidence presentation order on mock juror decisions in an Atkins case. Jurors read and heard a transcript based on a real Atkins case and were asked to determine if the claimant has intellectual disability (ID) and the degree to which they were convinced the claimant has ID. Jury deliberation was manipulated on two levels (deliberation and no deliberation); an IQ score of 76 in the claimant's history (high prior IQ) was manipulated on two levels (presence and absence); and evidence presentation order was manipulated on two levels (IQ evidence first with adaptive behavior (AB) evidence second and AB evidence first with IQ evidence second). Three possible moderating variables were studied (need for cognition (NFC), legal authoritarianism, and endorsement of negative attitudes toward and stereotypes about individuals with ID). A total of 209 mock jurors were divided into 40 juries with each jury consisting of five to eight jurors. Linear mixed modeling revealed that juries that deliberated were more convinced the claimant has ID than juries that did not deliberate. Analyses also indicated that there was a primacy effect for the IQ evidence but not the AB evidence. There was also an interaction between NFC and presence of a high prior IQ. In the absence of a high prior IQ, high-NFC and low-NFC individuals were equally convinced the claimant has ID. With a high prior IQ, high-NFC individuals were less convinced the claimant has ID than low-NFC individuals. Deliberation also reduced endorsement of stereotypes. These findings suggest that there may be group processes occurring during deliberation that reduce group bias.Item Atkins decisions: the impact of crime and mock juror characteristics(University of Alabama Libraries, 2019) Applegate, Kathryn Christine; Salekin, Karen L.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaSince the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that individuals with intellectual disability (ID) could not be sentenced to death (Atkins vs. Virginia, 2002), triers-of-fact have been required to make determinations as to whether a defendant or offender meets the required diagnostic criteria. The current study evaluated the impact of crime and juror characteristics on diagnostic determinations. Undergraduate students were assigned to a “low” or “high” heinousness condition, which varied by the crime vignette, and listened to an Atkins hearing. Participants then made a determination regarding the claimant’s disability status (i.e., ID or not ID) and completed several measures assessing personal attitudes and emotions thought to affect legal decision-making. As hypothesized, results revealed that perceptions of crime heinousness and juror characteristics can influence mock jurors’ Atkins decisions. Specifically, the more heinous participants perceived the crime to be, the less likely that they were to conclude the individual had ID.Item Attachment, social support, and somatization after a natural disaster(University of Alabama Libraries, 2013) Sherwood, Ian M.; Hamilton, James C.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaFollowing large-scale disasters, there is a well-documented increase in medically unexplained symptoms in survivors. This increase in somatization appears to be related to an individual's attachment style, social support, and degree of exposure to the disaster. However, few studies are able to longitudinally analyze such relationships because disasters are difficult to predict and sufficient data are rarely available from immediately before the disaster to allow researchers to assess the effects of pre-trauma psychological variables on reactions to the trauma. The present study investigates the effects of the April 27, 2011 tornado of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, using data collected from screening measures administered to University of Alabama Psychology subject pool participants 2 weeks to 8 months prior to the tornado, as well as follow-up measures collected approximately 6 to 8 months after the tornado. Multiple regression analyses and structural equation modeling were conducted to assess the effects of attachment style, social support, and degree of exposure to the disaster on changes in somatization following the tornado. Two analyses were conducted, one using pre-tornado attachment and one using post-tornado attachment. In both of these analyses, high disaster exposure and low social support significantly predicted increased somatization. Post-tornado insecure anxious attachment predicted increased somatization, and this effect was most pronounced in participants with high levels of storm exposures. However, these effects were not found for pre-tornado insecure anxious attachment. For both the pre-and post-tornado attachment models, all simple and moderated effects of attachment on increasing somatization were mediated by poor social support. While these results confirm the importance of disaster exposure and social support in predicting symptom change, the inconsistency between the prospective and cross-sectional findings related to attachment cast doubt on a straightforward view that insecure attachment is a risk factor for somatization.Item Attentional biases in college-age adults with spider fears(University of Alabama Libraries, 2014) Rapport, Hannah Frea; Jarrett, Matthew A.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaThere has been a growing literature on an attentional bias to threat in anxious individuals. This bias has been shown in individuals with social phobia and generalized anxiety disorder, but it is unclear if such a bias appears in other anxiety disorders such as specific phobias (SPs). Initial evidence indicates that individuals with SPs appear to demonstrate an attentional bias towards the object they fear; however, it has not yet been examined if the attentional bias seen in individuals with SPs is limited to the specific feared stimulus or other threatening stimuli. In order to address this question, the current study evaluated college-age adults with elevated spider fears. Participants completed two separate dot-probe tasks. One task involved spider stimuli and the other task involved threatening faces. In addition to within-subject differences in task performance, spider fear severity and social fear severity were examined in relation to biases. It was predicted that participants would show a greater degree of attentional bias towards spiders than threatening faces; however, those with higher levels of social anxiety were expected to show a greater attentional bias towards threatening faces and those with higher spider fear severity were expected to show a greater bias towards spiders. Results from the present study did not support this hypothesis. While results did indicate a significant difference between the spider dot-probe task and the faces dot-probe task and a significant attentional bias towards faces, results indicated that there was not generally an attentional bias towards or away from spiders. The implications of these findings are discussed.Item Auditory and visual sustained attention in Down syndrome(University of Alabama Libraries, 2014) Faught, Gayle Graham; Conners, Frances A.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaCognitive deficits are pervasive in youth with Down syndrome (DS) and are likely due to abnormal brain development. Alterations to the prefrontal cortex in particular suggest sustained attention may be a deficit in DS, though some psychological studies found youth with DS performed at developmental level on sustained attention tasks. The current study investigated sustained attention in DS by comparing youth with DS to typically developing (TD) youth matched for cognitive ability. Groups completed visual and auditory sustained attention to response tests (SARTs), as well as tasks to determine if sustained attention predicted their short-term memory. Results indicated groups performed similarly on both SARTs, and sustained attention predicted only a small portion of variance in their short-term memory beyond the influence of cognitive ability. Overall, these findings suggested sustained attention matches developmental level in DS, and it does not predict the pattern of poor auditory relative to visual processing characteristic of DS.Item Awareness of rhyme in children and adolescents with Down syndrome(University of Alabama Libraries, 2009) Moore, Marie; Conners, Frances A.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaThe aim of the present study was to measure rhyme awareness, along with alliteration and final phoneme detection, in a sample of children and adolescents with Down syndrome, compared with typically developing children of similar verbal mental age. Each phonological task was a judgment task requiring participants to decide whether two auditory words rhymed, alliterated, or shared the final phoneme. However, most participants with Down syndrome did not score above chance on a non phonological same different judgment control task. Although it was not possible to test the original hypotheses in this group, this finding is informative for future attempts to measure phonological skills in this population. Also, item analyses of data from typically developing children revealed specific performance patterns on the phonological tasks.Item Barriers and facilitators to yoga practice in adults with chronic low back pain(University of Alabama Libraries, 2015) Combs, Martha Anne; Thorn, Beverly E.; University of Alabama TuscaloosaGiven the high prevalence of chronic low back pain in the United States and the potential beneficial effects that integrative yoga interventions may have on this condition, the current study sought to examine barriers and facilitators to trying yoga in a population of adults with chronic low back pain. Participants self-reporting chronic low back pain were recruited from community sites in a collegiate town in western Alabama. Primary analyses utilized hierarchical regression and traditional 4-step mediational analyses to examine the predictive influence of catastrophizing and fear of movement on yoga attitudes. Results indicate that fear of movement serves a mediating role between catastrophizing and yoga attitudes. Originally proposed analyses included measurement of "intent to try yoga" as a primary outcome of interest. However, relationships between predictor variables and the unstandardized intent measure were, in general, extremely weak and execution of analyses was not indicated. Measurement of intention is discussed in Appendix A. Participants also responded to items asking them about perceptions of potential barriers and facilitators to trying yoga. Responses were subjected to qualitative thematic analysis and several common themes emerged for both barriers and facilitators: physical issues, cognitive/affective issues, motivational issues, informational issues, practical issues, and social issues. Qualitative analyses are discussed in Appendix B. Identifying cognitive barriers to consideration of yoga as a potential beneficial treatment for chronic low back pain conditions has great importance for clinical treatment of pain, especially as health care focus in the U.S. shifts to be more preventative and emphasizing self-management.Item Barriers to mental health service use: variations by age and race/ethnicity(University of Alabama Libraries, 2013) Ford, Katy Lauren; Kim, Giyeon; University of Alabama TuscaloosaThis study examines the variation by age and racial/ethnic minority status in factors affecting misuse of mental health services (MHS) to identify barriers to adequate mental healthcare among racially/ethnically diverse older adults. Drawn from the nationally representative Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), a racially/ethnically diverse group of adults who demonstrated either an objective (psychiatric diagnosis) or perceived need for MHS (n=5,545) was selected for analyses. Binary logistic regression analyses were conducted, with a focus on the interaction of older age with racial/ethnic minority status. To further explore the issue, we used chi-squared tests of proportional differences to compare the rates at which varying racial/ethnic groups and age groups encountered various attitudinal and structural barriers to proper MHS use. We found that Asian, Hispanic/Latino, and Black respondents were significantly more likely to misuse MHS than non-Hispanic Whites (ORs [95% CIs]=1.960 [1.471, 2.609], 2.362 [1.955, 2.854], & 2.906 [2.475, 3.412], respectively). Older adults were less likely than younger adults to misuse MHS (OR=0.991; 95%CI=0.986, 0.995). All differences were significant at p<0.001. There were significant age by race/ethnicity interactions on overall misuse of MHS. Post hoc analyses indicate that many attitudinal and structural barriers showed greater disparity between racial/ethnic minorities and whites in older adults than in younger adults. These results suggest that older age and membership in a racial/ethnic minority group interact to predict greater deficits in openness and access to MHS. Efforts to improve MHS underutilization by these groups should take their unique obstacles into account in order to reduce existing disparities.