Year of Award

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Name

Clinical Psychology

Department or School/College

Department of Psychology

Committee Co-chair

David Schuldberg, Anisa Goforth

Commitee Members

Paul Silverman, Michael Scolatti, George Price

Keywords

American Indian, Humor, Indigenous Methodology, Older Adults, Resilience, Spiritual Well-Being

Abstract

Native American older adults remain underrepresented in psychological research. The unique cohort of participants in this study (born 1924 - 1957) possesses experience and knowledge that can greatly enhance the knowledge base and contribute to the overall understanding of culturally embedded resilience. Participants contributed to the identification of Spirituality and Humor as positive, culturally embedded coping factors through a set of qualitative interviews, and the present study further investigates those specifically identified coping processes using quantitative measures. This research explores how these constructs (measured by the Spiritual Well-Being and Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scales) might counteract (main effect) or buffer (moderating effect) the impact of psychological stressors: thoughts of Historical Loss, and Life Events (measured by the Historical Loss Scale and Life Events Checklist). Positive Affect (measured by a Subscale of the CES-D) and Communal Mastery (Communal Mastery Scale) were used as resiliency outcome measures.

Level of Spiritual Well-Being predicted the resiliency outcome of Communal Mastery as a main effect. The main finding of this study, although not statistically significant, suggests there is a trend for Spiritual Well-Being to moderate the effect of thoughts of Historical Loss on Communal Mastery, the only finding in line with the study’s hypotheses. For participants with low levels of Spiritual Well-Being, Historical Loss functions as a Stress variable as expected, with greater frequency of thoughts being associated with lower levels of Communal Mastery. However, for participants who score high on Spiritual Well-Being, frequent thoughts of Historical Loss are associated with higher levels of Communal mastery, a positive outcome.

Post-Hoc analyses were conducted using the CES-D, a more widely used outcome measure. No significant moderator effects emerged; however, level of Spiritual Well-Being did predict lower CES-D scores as a main effect.

There remains a dearth of empirical research addressing factors of resiliency in Native American and older adult populations. This study adds to the fund of knowledge in both areas. This is particularly relevant in regard to the role of culturally specific coping factors (Spirituality and Humor) identified by this population, which, according to the 2020 census, is growing in representation and life expectancy.

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© Copyright 2025 Georgie Victoria Ferguson