Rhonda Swickert

• Doctor of Psychology
• College of Charleston

Mindfulness is an important psychological variable and heightened levels of mindfulness predict numerous positive outcomes. One of the most widely used measures of mindfulness is the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). The FFMQ measures five facets of mindfulness: Acting with Awareness, Describing, Nonjudgment of Inner Experience, Nonreact...

Swickert and colleagues surveyed young adults in the United States and found that gratitude and social support mediated the association between mindfulness and mood (both positive and negative affect). This study attempted to replicate Swickert et al.’s mediational findings using a young adult Hungarian sample. Results indicated that with one excep...

Many studies have examined psychological and substance use correlates of e-cigarette use. However, several potentially important personality and substance use variables have yet to be considered. In an effort to remedy this omission, we studied the associations among e-cigarette use, personality, and substance use in a sample of 380 college student...

Mindfulness allows an individual to reside in a state of nonjudgmental conscious awareness. In this state, individuals are able to make deliberate choices about their thoughts and emotions and in doing so, select more optimal experiences for themselves. In the present study, we predicted individuals who are more mindful are able to purposely attend...

The measurement invariance properties of four domains from the Extended Satisfaction with Life Scale (ESWLS) were examined in samples of young adults from the United States and Hungary. The four domains (scales) were general life satisfaction, social life satisfaction, family life satisfaction, and satisfaction with one’s self. For both countries,...

Objectives: Researchers have been attempting to understand the variables that predict differences in autobiographical narratives, given that these differences often reveal important information about the psychological characteristics of the person providing the narrative. Method: A sample of young adults (n = 80) and older adults (n = 80) completed...

This study investigated the relevance of social settings as predictors of risky sexual behavior. In a young adult sample (n = 324, M age = 20.2 years), we examined the association between frequency of attendance at five different settings and frequency of engaging in four risky sexual behaviors (i.e., unprotected intercourse when not drunk or high,...

High sensation seekers engage in more frequent substance use and perceive a host of potentially dangerous activities as less risky than do low sensation seekers. However, despite a plethora of research on these topics, no study has examined the extent to which personal substance use mediates the association between sensation seeking and perceived r...

Researchers have suggested that empathy may serve to explain, at least in part, the relationship between gender and forgiveness. Some findings in the literature have supported this claim, while other studies have not. Accounting for the variable of age might help to explain these inconsistencies, as age has been found to influence the expression of...

This study tested whether personality influenced the effect of a help-eliciting prime. Participants (N = 203) attended two experimental sessions. In the first session, Conscientiousness was meas-ured along with several control variables. Participants returned for a second session where they were randomly assigned to a help-eliciting prime or a Cont...

Objectives: Physiological reactivity (PR) describes the change in physiological functioning (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, pulse pressure) that occurs after the induction of a stressful task. This study aims to understand the influence of mental health symptoms on patterns of PR during autobiographical narratives in an older adult sample. Met...

Social support coping has been shown to mediate the relationship between gender and posttraumatic growth. This study examined whether empathy also serves as a significant mediator in this relationship, potentially as a precursor to social support coping. Participants (N = 156) were recruited on a college campus and at a retirement community. They c...

The purpose of this experiment was to assess the relationship between locus of control and posttraumatic growth. The study also examined level of growth after different types of trauma are experienced. Participants (N=221) were asked to record a traumatic event and answer questions concerning that event. They were given a packet of questionnaires w...

This study examined the ability of the Sense of Coherence subscales (manageability, meaningfulness, and comprehensibility) to effectively discriminate between 150 depressed and non-depressed college students. Results indicated that all three subscales significantly discriminated depressed from non-depressed individuals. Furthermore, the manageabili...

Many studies have examined the simple bivariate associations between the Big Five personality traits and perceived availability of social support. The current study examined whether any of the Big Five traits interacted to predict perceived support. Participants (N=366) completed a Big Five personality inventory and a measure of perceived social su...

This study examined the degree to which neuroticism and gender interact to influence the perceived availability of social support. Three-hundred and sixty-six participants completed measures assessing perceived social support and personality. Correlation and hierarchical regression analyses showed that these two dimensions interacted to predict per...

Females tend to report greater levels of posttraumatic growth following trauma than males. Little is known about why such an association exists. This study examined whether social support coping might mediate the relationship between gender and posttraumatic growth. College students and community residing adults ( N = 221) recalled a stressful or t...

Faster wave V latency has been found for introverts, as compared to extraverts, in studies that typically compared the ABR (auditory brainstem response) waveforms of relatively small samples of participants in the upper and lower ranges of the IE (Introversion - Extraversion) distribution. The present study confirms and extends these findings throu...

Little is known about how people might benefit from an indirectly experienced traumatic event. The authors examined the relationship between perception of benefit and trauma symptoms in response to a relatively severe, but indirectly experienced, traumatic event. The authors sampled from 2 colleges located in the southeastern United States (N = 136...

A sample of 415 university students (52 Crime Victims, 363 Nonvictims) who experienced indirectly the 9/11/01 disaster through media exposure, were administered the Davidson Trauma Scale. Crime victims had significantly more PTSD symptoms related to 9/11 exposure.

A meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the association between sensation seeking and alcohol use. Analysis of 61 studies revealed a small to moderate size, heterogeneous effect (mean weighted r=.263) between alcohol use and sensation seeking total scale scores. Analysis of the four sensation seeking components indicated that disinhibition was...

A relationship between gender and trauma symptoms has been documented in the literature. In this study, it was proposed that perceived benefit beliefs, just world beliefs, and coping style might serve as mediators in the gender-trauma association. This prediction was examined by assessing the responses of 136 individuals to the terrorist attacks in...

This study manipulated workload levels to test Eysenck's theory of neuroticism by examining individuals' differential responses to the stress of sudden shifts in workload. A sample of 194 participants who had completed an inventory to assess neuroticism were randomly assigned to either a High-to-Low or Low-to-High testing condition. Participants pe...

The primary goal of this study was to explore the nature of the association between extraversion and self-esteem. In addressing this issue two alternative models were examined: a direct effects model, which suggests that extraversion directly influences self-esteem, and a mediating model, which posits that four variables (optimism, positive affect,...

Given the magnitude of the September 11th terrorist attacks, attention to those exposed to media coverage of the attack appear warranted. In the current study, responses of students attending three Southern colleges were assessed one week to ten days following September 11th. A significant decrease in PTSD symptoms from the first 24 hours to the se...

Competing claims have been presented in the literature regarding the impact of Internet use on social support. Some theorists have suggested that Internet use increases social interaction and support (Silverman, 1999, American Psychologist 54, 780–781), while others have argued that it leads to decreased interaction and support (Kiesler & Kraut, 19...

This study was designed to determine the role extraversion plays in influencing the utilization of social support and how this support might then subsequently influence extraverts' and introverts' differential experience of stress. Ninety-nine undergraduate introductory psychology students served as participants in the study. Participants were admi...

According to Eysenck and Eysenck (1985), the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) extraversion scales should yield equivalent empirical findings. Several studies have failed to confirm this assertion. This study investigated whether the reliable differences in Wave V of the brainstem auditory evoked re...

This study examined two competing factor models of social support. The first model posited that functional and structural support are distinct latent constructs whose covariation can be partially accounted for by a second-order global support construct. The second and more parsimonious model posited that all of the social support measures are manif...

It has been suggested that the trait of extraversion is associated with physiological arousal (Eysenck, 1967). Both psychophysiological and behavioral studies have generally supported this statement (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985). However, recent research has suggested that the trait of impulsivity is the trait most closely linked to the physiological a...

Recent evidence suggests a larger role for personality determinants of the coping response than has been traditionally held. In the two studies presented here, we examined the influence of personality on the use of social support and other coping strategies in samples of undergraduate students. The first study surveyed a range of coping responses t...