Shadi Beshai

Shadi Beshai
Kennesaw State University | KSU · Department of Psychology

Ph.D.

About

58
Publications
24,947
Reads
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1,566
Citations
Additional affiliations
July 2019 - February 2020
University of Regina
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
Description
  • http://shadibeshai.ca/
July 2013 - August 2014
University of Exeter
Position
  • Researcher

Publications

Publications (58)
Article
Full-text available
Individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment are particularly vulnerable to a longer course of depression. Immunisation theories of resilience suggest that resilience and related factors may buffer against the deleterious effects of early childhood adversity. Trait mindfulness is linked to resilience and may be a pathway to cultivating this...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most widely tested and empirically supported psychological treatments for depression. Beck and other scholars established the theoretical foundations of CBT among North American populations, yet surprisingly few studies have examined central hypotheses of the cognitive model of depressio...
Article
Full-text available
Objective Depression and anxiety are major concerns among students. Unfortunately, there are disparities between the mental health of majority culture students (White; Judeo-Christian) and that of Indigenous students. Although mindfulness, self-compassion, and reappraisal are correlated with symptoms of psychopathology among White students, these r...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives The COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with a dramatic rise in symptoms of depression and anxiety. Dispositional mindfulness (DM) and self-compassion (SC) have consistently been associated with psychological disorder symptoms and appear to buffer the effects of stress on depression and anxiety. Methods Across two studies ( n = 888),...
Article
Canadian universities are experiencing a dramatic increase in enrollment of students from diverse backgrounds. Evidence suggests many educators are not prepared to teach in multicultural contexts. Educators’ lack of preparedness to teach in such contexts may lead them to develop burnout, which can negatively impact their mental and professional wel...
Article
Full-text available
Mindfulness-based stress reduction is efficacious in reducing mental health symptoms among cancer patients; however, there is a paucity of research of protective concepts such as spiritual well-being and hope and whether such concepts can be cultivated through MBSR among this population. In this trial, we examined the efficacy of a MBSR program in...
Article
Full-text available
Negative automatic thoughts about self (NATS) are a central feature of depression, and have been linked cross-sectionally and prospectively with its symptoms. This suggests negative self-referent thoughts are both a by-product and accelerant of depression. Accordingly, reducing NATS is worthwhile given its downstream effects on depression. Very few...
Article
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Social rank theory posits people with depression experience feelings of inferiority in relation to others. These feelings of inferiority and their associated processes in depression bear a striking resemblance to the experience of envy; however, the direction of the association between depression and envy remains unclear. In this study, we investig...
Article
Full-text available
The applicant faking literature suggests that faking warnings - brief messages that dissuade applicants from faking - can reduce faking on personality tests by up to 50%. However, the efficacy of warnings may be limited by their atheoretical construction. Further, these threatening messages can cause applicants to feel negatively about the personal...
Article
Full-text available
While CBT is an effective treatment for depression, uptake can be low. This is largely due to attitudinal barriers. Accordingly, the goals of the current investigation were to (a) tailor and develop persuasive psychoeducational materials to match dominant cultural beliefs about the causes of depression and (b) examine the effectiveness of tailored...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives Indigenous university students experience high rates of anxiety and depression due primarily to the pernicious and persistent effects of colonialism, racism, and discrimination. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) hold promise, but likely require adaptation to make them culturally relevant for Indigenous peoples. We sought to gather I...
Article
Evidence suggests that a large percentage of job applicants fake their responses on personality tests. This faking has the potential to undermine the value and validity of personality tests in the selection context. Faking warnings are messages that try to dissuade applicants from faking by warning them about potential consequences and have been sh...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Public safety personnel (PSP; e.g., border services personnel, correctional workers, firefighters, paramedics, police, public safety communicators) are frequently exposed to potentially psychologically traumatic events. Such events contribute to substantial and growing challenges from posttraumatic stress injuries (PTSIs), including bu...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) cultivate the capacity for mindfulness, defined as nonjudgmental acceptance and awareness of present-moment experience. Mindfulness has been associated with a host of benefits for users, such as improved indices of mental well-being. We examined public perceptions of acceptability (i.e., how appropriate...
Article
Full-text available
Background—Public safety personnel (PSP) are at heightened risk of developing mental health challenges due to exposures to diverse stressors including potentially psychologically traumatic experiences. An increased focus on protecting PSP mental health has prompted demand for interventions designed to enhance resilience. While hundreds of available...
Article
Full-text available
Public safety personnel (PSP) face frequent stressors that increase their risk of developing symptoms of depression and anxiety. In addition to being exposed to potentially traumatic events, PSP trainees may face a compounded risk of developing mental health symptoms, as their training environments are conducive to social comparisons and the result...
Article
Full-text available
Background The menopause transition is associated with an increased risk of depressive symptoms. The current study aimed to test whether Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, an 8-week group intervention involving meditation and yoga, might reduce the risk of depressive symptoms among perimenopausal women. A secondary aim was to examine baseline char...
Article
Full-text available
Cognitive models of psychopathology propose that early developmental environments give rise to cognitive schemas and distortions, which color our interpretations of the world. Evolutionary theorizing suggests that developmental environments have far-reaching consequences for behavior. Accordingly, we examined associations between self-reportedunpre...
Article
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Classic fatalism is the belief that regardless of actions, events are predestined to occur (Straughan and Seow 1998). Researchers have found that fatalism is positively correlated with depression symptoms and higher endorsement of an external locus of control. Although fatalism is thought to be a unitary construct, based on the current literature,...
Article
Introduction: How income inequality associates with poorer mental health remains unclear. Personal relative deprivation (PRD) involves appraising oneself as unfairly disadvantaged relative to similar others and has been associated with poorer mental health and negative cognitive appraisals. As generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is associated with n...
Article
Objectives This research examined whether people’s causal explanations of depression were associated with acceptability and efficacy‐related treatment perceptions and likelihood to choose cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and antidepressant medication (ADM) as depression treatments. Design A cross‐sectional internet‐based design was used. Metho...
Preprint
Full-text available
Objectives: The demand for effective psychological treatments for depression, anxiety, and heightened stress is far outstripping their supply. Accordingly, internet delivered, self-help interventions offer hope to many people, as they can be easily accessed and at a fraction of the price of face-to-face options. Mindfulness and self-compassion are...
Article
Full-text available
The current study replicated and extended previous studies by examining the mediating and moderating role of rumination in the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and depression in a community sample using both cross-sectional (n = 494; 56.9% female) and a two-months longitudinal (n = 321; 48.4% female) designs. Participants in eac...
Article
Full-text available
Heightened perceived stress is consistently associated with symptoms of psychopathology. Perceived stress can be reliability linked with physiological responses, such as increased heart rate. Even though dispositional mindfulness is associated with lower self‐reported stress, no studies to‐date have examined whether dispositional mindfulness can pr...
Article
The majority of people with depression in the United States either never seek treatment or gravitate exclusively to antidepressant medication (ADM), despite the existence of other effective treatments, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Reluctance to use psychotherapy is partly due to lack of appropriate mental health literacy and percepti...
Article
Full-text available
Psychological resilience – successful adaptation when faced with adversity – is a product of the balance of risk and protective factors relevant to an outcome. This study examined if protective factors (perceived resilience; mindfulness; grit; self-efficacy) explained variance in problem gambling tendencies (assessed with the Problem Gambling Sever...
Article
Full-text available
Emotional flexibility can be defined as the ability to respond in a context-appropriate emotional manner and recover from one’s initial emotional responses when the context changes. Emotional flexibility has been associated with psychological health. Mindfulness and self-compassion have both been associated with various aspects of well-being and ar...
Article
Full-text available
Substantial media attention has focused on suicide among Canadian Public Safety Personnel (PSP; e.g., correctional workers, dispatchers, firefighters, paramedics, police). The attention has raised significant concerns about the mental health impact of public safety service, as well as interest in the correlates for risk of suicide. There have only...
Preprint
Objective: Individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment are particularly vulnerable to a longer course of depression. Immunization theories of resilience suggest that resilience and related factors may buffer against the deleterious effects of early childhood adversity. Trait mindfulness is linked to resilience and may be a pathway to culti...
Article
Full-text available
Background Personal relative deprivation is a negative social comparison process typified by self-comparison, negative appraisal, and resultant negative emotionality. Personal relative deprivation has been associated with poorer physical and mental health in several domains. It has been hypothesized that the deprivation-health link operates through...
Data
Data from Beshai et al. Relative Deprivation and Functional Disorders. (SAV)
Article
Full-text available
Background: Canadian public safety personnel (PSP; e.g., correctional workers, dispatchers, firefighters, paramedics, police officers) are exposed to potentially traumatic events as a function of their work. Such exposures contribute to the risk of developing clinically significant symptoms related to mental disorders. The current study was design...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Researchers have found that an earlier age of disorder onset and the severity of the first depressive episode are associated with recurrence in depression. Additionally, neuroticism has been shown to be an important factor in the recurrence of the disorder. Aims: This exploratory study aimed to replicate and extend previous research by...
Article
Background: Depression is a significant contributor of global disease burden. Previous studies have revealed cross-cultural and gender differences in the presentation of depressive symptoms. Using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), the present study examined differences in self-reported somatic, negative affective, and...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose Research in depression has revealed differences in the way depressed individuals across cultures report their symptoms. This literature also points to possible differences in symptom reporting patterns between men and women. Using data from a larger dataset (Beshai et al. 2016), the current study examined whether non-depressed and depressed...
Data
Cross-cultural Depressive Symptoms Dataset
Article
Substantial evidence has linked depressive symptoms to various indices of societal-level inequality and relative deprivation. A larger literature has also addressed cognitive vulnerability and correlates of depression. Despite this evidence, little research to date has examined the relationship of depressive symptoms with such downstream individual...
Article
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Introduction: Models of depression that arise in the West need to be examined in other regions of the world. This study examined a set of foundational hypotheses generated by Beck's cognitive model of depression among depressed individuals in Egypt and Canada. Method: We recruited 29 depressed and 29 non-depressed Egyptians and compared their re...
Data
Data from Beshai et al. Cognitive Model of Depression in Egypt–Total Scores. (ZIP)
Article
Full-text available
Depression is a highly prevalent and debilitating mental health condition. Evidence suggests that there is a widening gap between the demand for and availability of effective treatments. As such, there is a vast need for the development and dissemination of accessible and affordable treatments for depression. In the past decade, there has been a pr...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Article
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Teacher stress is a serious and endemic concern. Mindfulness-based interventions show promise in reducing stress and increasing well-being by cultivating mindfulness and self-compassion. This feasibility trial evaluated a mindfulness-based programme customised for teachers. A sample of 89 secondary school teachers and staff were recruited and self-...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Case conceptualization is assumed to be an important element in cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) because it describes and explains clients' presentations in ways that inform intervention. However, we do not have a good measure of competence in CBT case conceptualization that can be used to guide training and elucidate mechanisms. A...
Article
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The modified selective attention hypothesis proposes that individuals showing signs of depression will fail to disengage from negative stimuli in the environment. Some research suggests that depressive symptoms decrease once this bias is "corrected". Thus, attention may play a causal and/or sustaining role in depression. The present study examined...
Article
Middle East Current Psychiatry 2013, 20:223–228 Background The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) is a widely used instrument in the measurement of depression symptoms. Unfortunately, and despite the ubiquity of depression in all regions of the world, the psychometric properties of the CES-D have never been examined in Egypti...
Chapter
This chapter discusses the concepts and issues related to tertiary prevention for recurrent depression. The chapter begins with a review of variables that have been identified through research as moderators of risk, vulnerability, and resiliency for recurrent depression. Different models that have been presented to account for the chronic nature of...
Article
Full-text available
This manuscript examines the issues related to the gap between theory and practice in the area of cognitive-behavioral therapy. The article begins with a review of the evidence for such a gap, and having demonstrated that the gap exists, provides a discussion of some of the factors that are likely important in its genesis and maintenance. The artic...
Article
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Research indicates that health and disorder are polar opposites of the same continuum of vulnerability. Research has focused almost exclusively upon one end of this continuum, namely disorder. As such, instruments that assess adaptive dispositions (e.g., "thriving", or post-trauma growth) have rarely been developed. The purpose of this study was to...
Article
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Islam is one of the leading religions of the world. Its adherents, who number approximately one billion, are present in all parts of the world and can be found in all ethnic and racial categories. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most prominent and empirically-supported of all psychological treatments. In light of such facts, a disc...
Article
There is a growing body of literature which indicates that acute phases of psychotherapy are often ineffective in preventing relapse and recurrence in major depression. As a result, there is a need to develop and evaluate therapeutic approaches which aim to reduce the risk of relapse. This article provides a review of the empirical studies which ha...
Article
Full-text available
Beck's (1979) cognitive triad postulates that depressed and dysphoric individuals hold negative, automatic thoughts about the self, the world and the future. Despite the central role of this hypothesis in the cognitive theory for depression, this prediction has rarely been studied outside of the Western world. This study examined the relationship b...
Article
Reviews the book, The Core Program: A cognitive behavioural guide to depression by Randy J. Paterson, Lynn E. Alden, and William J. Koch (Narrated by Randy J. Paterson). Depression is one of the most common mental health concerns, and efforts to alleviate its burden are truly commendable. Emerging from the Changeways Clinic in Vancouver, this book...

Questions

Question (1)
Question
I need the RFD for a project, however, I am having a hard time finding a copy of it. As far as I am aware, this scale is not copywritten. Thank you very much in advance.

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