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Psychology

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University of Denver

Theses/Dissertations

2016

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences

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Biopsychosocial Models Of The Development Of Childhood Disruptive Behaviors, Anne Bernard Arnett Jan 2016

Biopsychosocial Models Of The Development Of Childhood Disruptive Behaviors, Anne Bernard Arnett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hyperactivity/attention problems (HAP) and conduct problems (CP) are common and impairing disruptive behaviors in childhood and adolescence. Previous research has established that HAP and CP are highly comorbid, and that outcomes are worse for youth exhibiting both symptom clusters relative to youth with only one disruptive behavior type. Despite ample evidence that HAP and CP share common etiological factors and maladaptive outcomes, the nature of their developmental association remains unclear. This dissertation clarifies three important characteristics of comorbid HAP and CP development, in two replicate, longitudinal, population samples of youth. First, I test the theory that within-person variation in HAP …


Development Of Cognitive Vulnerability For Depression In Youth: Sex, Emotional Maltreatment, And Depression Predict Negative Cognitive Style, Jessica R. Technow Jan 2016

Development Of Cognitive Vulnerability For Depression In Youth: Sex, Emotional Maltreatment, And Depression Predict Negative Cognitive Style, Jessica R. Technow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hopelessness theory is a prominent cognitive theory of depression that has been shown to predict depression in youth. However, research has yet to elucidate normative mean-level development of the cognitive risk factor in hopelessness theory from childhood through adolescence. The current study utilized a multi-wave design and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses to examine mean-level negative cognitive style growth and stability in late childhood, early adolescence, and mid-late adolescence. Participant sex, emotional maltreatment, and major depression were also tested as predictors of negative cognitive style. For three years, youth (N = 681, ages 7-18 at baseline) were assessed every 1.5 …


Defining A Role For Affect In Decision-Making, Pareezad Cyrus Zarolia Jan 2016

Defining A Role For Affect In Decision-Making, Pareezad Cyrus Zarolia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent theories of decision-making have hinted that affect might be useful during some decision-making processes. I propose a model, the affective evaluation model, which defines the role of affect in decision-making as helpful when affect is decision-relevant and unhelpful when it is not. In three studies, I manipulate the decision-relevance of affect to test this central component of the affective evaluation model. Study 1 demonstrates that emphasizing decision-relevant affective signals facilitates optimal decision-making as compared to emphasizing purely cognitive evaluations. Study 2 tests the hypothesis that creating the expectation that affect is useful can facilitate decision-making. Finally, Study 3 tests …


Quantile Regression Analyses Of The Component Skills In Various Comprehension Tests, Anh Ngoc Hua Jan 2016

Quantile Regression Analyses Of The Component Skills In Various Comprehension Tests, Anh Ngoc Hua

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many studies to date have examined cognitive factors that drive individual differences in reading comprehension. However, these studies often focused on typical readers, and it is not clear whether their findings apply similarly to readers performing in the extreme ends of the distribution, i.e., poor and good readers. In this dissertation, we used quantile regression on a sample of 834 children (age 8-18) to advance our understanding of the relative importance of different component processes of comprehension not just for the typical but also for poor and skilled readers. In Study 1, we examined how the relative importance of components …


Lesbian Couple Dynamics And Heterosexist Stressors: Building A Foundation For Culturally Competent Relationship Interventions, Shelby B. Scott Jan 2016

Lesbian Couple Dynamics And Heterosexist Stressors: Building A Foundation For Culturally Competent Relationship Interventions, Shelby B. Scott

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lesbian relationships are severely underrepresented in the couples and family literature (Hartwell, Serovich, Grafsky, & Kerr, 2012). The current study sought to expand the basic science on lesbian couples with the overarching goal of informing evidence-based relationship interventions. The first aim of this study was to examine processes found to be important to relationship success in previous studies of couples in general, including communication, external support, household tasks, intimacy, and sex, as these processes are typically targeted in relationship interventions. The second aim was to examine the role of factors more specific to lesbian couples and related to heterosexist stressors …


The Role Of Self-Focused Cognition In Emotion Regulation, Ana Maria Draghici Jan 2016

The Role Of Self-Focused Cognition In Emotion Regulation, Ana Maria Draghici

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present dissertation reports a set of three studies that sought to characterize the effects of self-focused cognition on emotion regulation, specifically, cognitive reappraisal. Across the three studies, I investigated the effects of self-distancing, disengagement of self-focused thought, and changing the content of self-focused thought on multiple measures of emotion regulation success and emotion regulation difficulty. Results broadly suggested that disengaging self-focused cognition provides distinct advantages for emotion regulation, which are independent of effects on emotional reactivity. Specifically, I observed that other-focused cognition resulted in equally successful, but less difficult emotion regulation, the ability to more quickly disengage from self-focused …


Attention And Mimicry In Minimal Groups, Heidi Blocker Jan 2016

Attention And Mimicry In Minimal Groups, Heidi Blocker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is a group effect on matching behavior; ingroups tend to be matched more than outgroups. Differences in attention to ingroup and outgroup members may correspond with group differences in matching. Determining how both attention and matching are influenced by minimal groups can help distinguish between potential mechanisms used to explain group effects in social behavior. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to know if attention biases can be trained to social groups. Study 1 replicated attention training to neutral faces, but study 2 failed to replicate attention training to emotional faces. Study 3 used the same attention training method, but …


Predictors Of Emerging Psychopathology Among Toddlers And Preschoolers Of Mothers With Childhood Abuse Histories, Rebecca Lynne Babcock Fenerci Jan 2016

Predictors Of Emerging Psychopathology Among Toddlers And Preschoolers Of Mothers With Childhood Abuse Histories, Rebecca Lynne Babcock Fenerci

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to elucidate cognitive and behavioral mechanisms involved in the intergenerational transmission of trauma from abuse-survivor mothers to their toddler/preschool-aged children. This study investigated whether maternal trauma-related cognitions, i.e. child abuse-related appraisals (betrayal, self-blame, fear, anger, shame, alienation), disorganized memory and intrusive memory for abuse were associated with toddler internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and whether mother-child dysfunctional interactions mediated these relationships among a sample of 113 mothers who survived child abuse. When controlling for maternal trauma symptoms, maternal child abuse-related appraisals, disorganized memory, and trauma symptoms predicted toddler internalizing symptoms, whereas maternal intrusive memory and …


The Association Between Exposure To Poverty And Anxiety In Middle Childhood: Examination Of The Modulating Roles Of Coping, Responses To Stress, And Threat Bias Neural Activity, Hannah Bianco Jan 2016

The Association Between Exposure To Poverty And Anxiety In Middle Childhood: Examination Of The Modulating Roles Of Coping, Responses To Stress, And Threat Bias Neural Activity, Hannah Bianco

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the relationship between the amount of time spent living in poverty since birth and self-reported symptoms of anxiety in middle childhood. Several models were tested with consideration to the potential modulating roles of coping strategies, responses to stress, and threat bias neural functioning. Exposure to poverty is associated with increased risk for anxiety throughout childhood, adolescence, and into young adulthood (McLoyd, 1998, Najman et al., 2010). Individual factors such as use of various coping strategies and responses to stress, as well as neural processes related to attentional bias toward threat, have been shown to differentially impact risk …