Date of Award

Summer 8-22-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D. in Psychology

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

First Advisor

Michelle Rozenman

Second Advisor

Kimberly Bender

Third Advisor

Anne DePrince

Fourth Advisor

Kathryn Fox

Fifth Advisor

Kateri McRae

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

Emerging adulthood, Single-session intervention, Social support

Abstract

Emerging adulthood, the developmental stage between adolescence and young adulthood (Arnett, 2000), is marked by increases in autonomy, changes in social dynamics, and identity exploration (Arnett, 2015). During this stage, social stressors may trigger or exacerbate preexisting mental health problems (Slavich & Auerbach, 2018), though few emerging adults seek or receive mental health support (Zhao et al., 2025). Single-session interventions, or “specific, structured programs that intentionally involve just one visit or encounter” (Schleider et al., 2019), may present an opportunity to provide some support to those who face barriers to participation in traditional forms of treatment (Janota et al., 2022). Social support has been demonstrated to moderate negative outcomes associated with stress (Jones & Rozenman, 2024), and interventions that target social support, rather than specific mental health problems, may be more palatable to emerging adults (Lattie et al., 2020). Previous work has leveraged social support as an intervention target for older adults and in multi-session formats. This study is the first to test a single-session social support intervention specifically designed for emerging adults. As an initial step of intervention development, this study primarily tests the feasibility and acceptability of a novel single-session intervention, and secondarily tests whether there may be changes from pre- to post-intervention in clinically relevant variables (e.g., perceived social support). Three hundred and ten undergraduate students (Mage = 19.72) consented to participate. Multiple measures of feasibility, acceptability, and clinically relevant outcomes were administered. Overall results indicate feasibility and acceptability of the intervention, as well as pre- to post-intervention increases in perceived social support. None of the findings suggest that substantial revisions to the intervention are needed. While some results indicate the need for relatively minor revisions to enhance feasibility and acceptability, overall results support the continuation of this line of research. Future work should test the intervention in randomized controlled trials with a comparison condition and where clinically relevant outcomes are a primary aim. Overall, this single-session intervention holds promise for large-scale tests of increasing access to mental health support in emerging adults.

Copyright Date

8-2026

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Emily L. Jones

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

161 pgs

File Size

986 KB

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