Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Days Take Care Of Themselves: Early Head Start Teacher Interactions With Children In Association With Factors Affecting Environmental Quality, Britta Karin Shine

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to propose a new framework for the assessment of environmental quality in infant-toddler classrooms in Early Head Start (EHS), in which sequential observational scores across the morning on the Quality of Caregiver-Child Interactions for Infants and Toddlers (Q-CCIIT; Atkins-Burnett et al., 2015) were re-framed as a micro-time-series. The purpose of these analyses was to assess within-person differences across a typical morning in EHS in teacher responsiveness and sensitivity to children’s social and emotional cues, their capacity for building relationships with children, and their support for children’s peer interaction and play. During hypothesis testing, interaction …

Proximity, Touching, And Testosterone: An Observational Study Of Mate Retention Tactics In Humans, Kraig Shattuck

Wayne State University Dissertations

Mate guarding behaviors are strongly selected for in species that suffer from infidelity and cuckoldry. Two forms of mate guarding behaviors that have been found in self-report studies on humans are proximity and touching. Proximity actively prevents infidelity though the physical act of being present. Touching indirectly prevents infidelity by signaling to any potential rivals that their partner is taken, as well as signaling to the partner that they are being watched. Testosterone is a hormone implicated in competition and aggression. When in the presence of a potential rival, testosterone levels tend to increase. This increase should be related to …

Characterizing The Development Of Episodic Memory And Assessing The Reliability Of Fmri Measures, Lingfei Tang

Wayne State University Dissertations

The ability to remember past events is critical for everyday life and showed robust improvement over development from childhood to adulthood. With advances in noninvasive neuroimaging methods such as functional MRI in recent years, research efforts have been focused on identifying neural correlates underpinning developmental gains in memory performance. In my dissertation work, using a widely-validated subsequent memory paradigm, I aim to characterize functional MRI correlates of memory development. Specifically, I focused my investigation on identifying age differences in the functional patterns of two brain regions critical for memory, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. Focusing on the prefrontal cortex …

The Protective Role Of Parenting Behaviors In The Development Of African American Adolescents, Kelsey Johanna Sala-Hamrick

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation aimed to understand how African American parents protect their teens from developing psychopathology in the face of extreme adversity. To do this, I examined three dimensions of parenting behavior, stress exposure, and behavior problems in order to understand the direct and moderating relations between parenting behaviors, cumulative stress and youth internalizing, externalizing, and total psychological problems. 150 African American primary caregivers reported on their adolescent children’s internalizing, externalizing and total behavior problems, exposure to stressful events, and their own parenting behavior. 150 inner-city African American adolescents reported on their exposure to traumatic stressors and a subsample of 43 …

Identifying Sex-Specific Cognitive And Diagnostic Profiles Of Children On The Autism Spectrum, Jessica Lee Irwin

Wayne State University Dissertations

Although there has been great interest in identifying sex differences in diseases or disorders that differentially affect males versus females, relatively less effort has been devoted to research on the differences between males and females with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), despite the known male preponderance in ASD. The identification of separate male and female phenotypes within ASD would help parents, teachers, and clinicians better identify girls who may need ASD-related intervention services, inform the targets and goals of such interventions, and lead to the refinement of diagnostic criteria and instruments designed to diagnose ASD in children.

The current study sought …

Maternal Attachment Representations Of The Infant In The First Year Of Life: The Influence Of Prenatal Factors., Fatimah Hussain Alismail

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the predictability of prenatal factors, including maternal depression, reflective functioning, and romantic attachment style, on maternal mental representations at seven months postpartum. The participants were 74 mothers, a subsample of the Perinatal Imaging of Neural Connectivity study (PINC). Data from the current study were collected using semi-structured interviews, including the Pregnancy Interview-Revised (PI-R) (Slade, Grunebaum, Huganir, & Reeves, 1987) and the Working Model of the Child Interview (WMCI; Zeanah, Benoit, Barton, & Hirshberg, 1996); and self-report questionnaires, including the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) (Cox, Holden, & Sagovsky, 1987) and the Experiences …

Parent-Child Interaction Style And Adjustment To Pediatric Cancer Treatment, Benjamin D. Goodlett

Wayne State University Dissertations

Substantial gains in the survival rate of children diagnosed with cancer have been achieved; however, a large body of evidence exists that children and their families are at increased psychosocial risk. Missing from our understanding is how real-time, moment-to-moment interactions build to long-term, developmental changes in child functioning. This project expands our understanding of the variation in child distress during procedures as well as long-term adjustment. Real-time coding and global ratings of parent and child behaviors were used to describe parent-child interactions in terms of dyadic flexibility and dyadic mutuality.

To carry out this project, a new system of collecting …

A Study Of Stability: Maternal Reflective Functioning From Pregnancy To Seven Months Postpartum, Kristyn Mei-Lee Wong

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study examined the stability of parental reflective functioning from the third trimester of pregnancy to seven months postpartum, as well as possible factors that impact stability. The current sample included a subsample of 47 mothers who participated in a larger study examining fetal brain connectivity and infant outcomes. Parental reflective functioning was assessed using the Pregnancy Interview-Revised (Slade, Grunebaum, Huganir, & Reeves, 1987; Slade, 2011) and the Parent Development Interview-Revised Short form (Slade et al., 2003). Additional measures assessed parity, adult romantic attachment, and demographic factors. Stability of reflective functioning was assessed in two ways, continuously and categorically. Findings …

A Developmental Contextualism Perspective On Young Children's Friendships: How Much Do Parental Characteristics, Parental Behaviors, Child Characteristics Matter?, Nicholas Ryan Bergeron

Wayne State University Dissertations

The present study investigated the relationships between parents' proximal factors: strategies used to manage and facilitate children's peer relationships, knowledge of children's playmates and close friends, and endorsement of these strategies; and parents' distal factors: parenting stress, social support network, and personality, and children's quality of peer relationships. It also investigated the relationships between child age, gender, child temperament, and children's peer relationships and children's prosocial behavior. Parents' strategies used and endorsement of those strategies were unrelated to children's peer problems and prosocial behavior, but their knowledge of children's peer relationships was negatively related to children's peer problems. Parenting stress …

Urban African American Youths' Academic Performance As Related To Fathers' Involvement During Development, Travis A. Goldwire

Wayne State University Dissertations

Father involvement in the context of urban African American youth was examined using a subsample (n = 556) of a large cohort of participants followed longitudinally through development. Data was collected at regular intervals (e.g., Age 7, 14, 19 and young adult). Young adults (n = 93) were surveyed for retrospective accounts of their fathers’ involvement in their lives before age 18. In the young adult data collection phase (the main subject of this project), most participants reported varying levels and frequency of involvement from their fathers while growing up, including helping at school, providing social support, and encouraging academic …

The Role Of Individual Character Strengths In Adolescent Academic Achievement And Risky School Behavior, Paul Deschamps

Wayne State University Dissertations

Adolescent achievement is a major developmental task in adolescence and reducing Risky School Behaviors is an important part of the process. Patterns of adolescent achievement and general development are the result of the cumulative process that includes a long history of experience and socialization in school, in the family, in the peer group, and in the community. This study is the first to expand understanding of these key interrelated but unique outcome variables of both Academic Achievement and risky School Behavior through examination of individual Character Strengths in the presence of other key intrapersonal and contextual variables from multiple systems …

Adolescent Risk Behaviors: Examining Latent Classes And Latent Transition Statuses In A Longitudinal Bahamian Sample, Veronica Koci

Wayne State University Dissertations

Adolescence is a developmental period marked by much change across physical, cognitive, psychological, and social domains leading to greater vulnerability for poor decision making. As a result, adolescence is a period of increased risk taking behaviors. Prevention of risk behaviors would benefit from early intervention prior to the onset of these risk behaviors. Unfortunately, it is difficult to identify those youth who may be most at risk. Risk-taking adolescents may choose to engage in specific risk behaviors; as well, risk factors that influence risk taking may also differ as a function of the specific domains of risk behaviors. The present …

Differential Parenting Practices Within Families: Associations With Siblings' Academic And Behavioral Outcomes, Ashley Ceresnie

Wayne State University Dissertations

The association between parenting behaviors and the outcomes of children has been widely studied, with results commonly linking parents' attitudes and behaviors with child outcomes. Few studies, however, have examined and analyzed the link between differential or inconsistent parenting within families and the academic and behavioral outcomes of siblings. Thus, the main purpose of this study was to explore the relations between differential parenting within families and the academic and general behavioral outcomes of pairs of siblings. Included in this study were variables that represent parenting factors (demandingness and responsiveness) and child outcomes (academic grades and behaviors). Unique to this …

Empathy As A Moderator Of Adolescent Bullying Behavior And Moral Disengagement After Controlling For Social Desirability, Amy Zelidman

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to assess the moderating influence empathy has on the associations between adolescent bullying behavior and moral disengagement after controlling for social desirability (e.g., response bias). 676 students in 7th and 8th grade from a suburban middle school in Southeast Michigan participated in this study in the fall of 2012.

Results showed male respondents were more likely than female respondents to (a) report engaging in all forms of traditional bullying behavior overall, including physical, verbal, and social bullying and (b) report higher rates of physical victimization and moral disengagement. Female respondents were more likely to …

Understanding The Role Of Nutritional Stress In The Adult And Developing Zebra Finch, Jessica Bayley Thompson

Wayne State University Dissertations

Songbirds are particularly susceptible to stress during the sensitive period for song learning. Thus the developmental stress hypothesis (DSH) proposes that adult song reflects a male's early life environment during this period. Nutritional stress (NS) has been shown to cause deficits in song learning and adult song output that are salient to females. Female song birds consistently prefer control males over those raised under NS, yet the effects NS on females are still unclear. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) has been implicated in this process. However, evidence directly linking HPA functioning to the deficits due to NS have inconsistently shown elevations …

Associations Between Maternal Maltreatment-Specific Shame, Maternal-Infant Interactions, And Infant Emotion Regulation, Rena A. Menke

Wayne State University Dissertations

The current study focuses on maltreatment-specific shame as a potential mechanism by which mothers' histories of childhood maltreatment might influence parenting and infant emotion regulation. Shame is a common reaction to childhood maltreatment, and the persistence of maltreatment-specific shame is associated with psychopathology and other psychosocial problems long after the abuse ends (Andrews, Brewin, Rose, & Kirk, 2000; Feiring, Taska, & Lewis, 2002a; Feiring & Taska, 2005). Despite being associated with psychopathology (e.g., depression, PTSD), shame is a conceptually distinct abuse-specific reaction that can interfere with self and interpersonal development (Feiring, Cleland & Simon, 2010; Feiring, Simon, Cleland, 2009; Feiring, …

Risk Taking Behaviors In Emerging Adults And Peer, Sibling & Parental Relationships, Malasri Rani Chaudhery-Malgeri

Wayne State University Dissertations

Research shows emerging adults are more likely than younger and older cohorts to engage in such risky behaviors. However, research on the outcomes of emerging adults and their relations with peers, parents, and siblings is less conclusive. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between emerging adults' perceptions of peers', siblings', and parents' risk-taking behaviors, and risk behavior after controlling for participants' sensation seeking tendencies. This study explored the moderating role of emerging adults' relationships with peers, siblings, and parents in the relation between these models' risk taking behaviors and emerging adults' risk taking behaviors, The mediating …

Child And Family Predictors Of Bullying In Middle School Students, Rene Michele Nota

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the shared variables that contribute to direct and indirect aggression, specifically bullying and to explore the role of family context, and adolescent personality characteristics on predicting bullying behavior. The theoretical framework of this study was based on evidence that no specific element can describe why some individuals are at risk for behaving aggressively and other are more resilient. The study included 259 middle schools students in grades six through eight. The students were enrolled at a single middle school located in a suburban area. The largest group of students was African American, …

Dispositional Mediators Of Burnout Syndrome In A Sample Of Direct Care Staff Employed At Group Homes In A Midwestern State, Cristovao Bartolo Carreira

Wayne State University Dissertations

The current research examined the dispositional characteristics that mediated burnout syndrome in a sample of direct care workers who were employed in group homes for the mentally ill in a Midwestern state. Specifically, the indirect effects that the direct care staff's attachment systems and problem solving ability were examined as they applied to their potential burnout status. Attachment theory, a contemporary psychodynamic theory of personality, was used to provide a context for the study. The researcher studied the interactions between construct subcomponents to address a criticism in the literature stating that only total scores were used to study burnout and …

Examination Of The Acquired Preparedness Model And Alcohol Use In Emerging Adults, Richard Michael Staszkow

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the predictive utility of the acquired preparedness and alcohol use in emerging adults. Data were collected from a sample of 273 participants, ages 18 to 25 years old, from an urban university in the Midwest. The participants completed self-report questionnaires via SurveyMonkey. It was predicted that expectancy variables would mediate the relations between impulsivity and the frequency and quantity of drinking. Results suggest that social pressure self-efficacy was found to fully mediate the relation between the impulsivity variables (lack of premeditation and positive urgency) for both drinking frequency and quantity. Increased confidence, …

Neuropsychological Outcome In Relation To Duration Of Early Orphanage Experience, Jacquelyn Marie Perry Avery

Wayne State University Dissertations

In this sample of 144 children with a history of prior orphanage experience, increasing duration of institutionalization is related to decreasing performance for a number of cognitive domains, most consistently verbal measures and executive Functioning measures. The relationships with duration for measures requiring visual-spatial skills were more mixed and a visual reasoning task was found to significantly relate to duration but not a measure of visual memory or a measure of nonverbal achievement. There was little evidence to support a relationship between the duration of institutionalization and fine-motor dexterity. The strongest relationships with duration were observed for language measures followed …

A Model Of Student Engagement And Academic Achievement: The Role Of Teacher-Student Relationships And Teacher Expectations, Aja C. Temple

Wayne State University Dissertations

A MODEL OF STUDENT ENGAGEMENT AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT: THE ROLE OF TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS AND TEACHER EXPECTATIONS

by

AJA C. TEMPLE

MAY 2012

Advisor: Dr. Jina Yoon

Major: Educational Psychology

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of academic achievement among minority students and investigate teacher-student relationships, teachers' classroom and future educational expectations for students, and students' levels of classroom engagement in order to better understand their patterns of academic achievement. Participants (n=522) were students in grades four through six from a suburban district in Michigan. Student achievement varied according to both gender and ethnicity …

A Bioecological Approach To Empathy, Altruism, And Intent To Help: Developmental, Dispositional And Contextual Factors Influence Prosocial Motivations And Intentions, Michelle Provenzano Beechler

Wayne State University Dissertations

Whether one helps due to altruistic empathy or egoistic motivators has been debated in the social psychological literature most recently with the Felt-Oneness (Cialdini et al., 1997) and the Empathy-Altruism (Batson 1991) hypotheses. For strangers, it appears that helping intentions are predicted by felt-oneness, except in circumstances in which a bystander feels nurturance toward a target, in which case empathy is found to predict helping. For close relationships, however, empathy predicts helping, particularly in high need situations. Antipathy has been presented as a possible confound as well (Batson et al., 1997), but has not been tested. The present study took …

Collective Identification In Arab American Emerging Adults: Does Affirmation To Ethnic, National, Family And Religious Groups Predict Positive Adjustment?, Mona K. Poinsett

Wayne State University Dissertations

There has been little work investigating multiple social identities, though an individual can identify with several groups (Kiang, Yip, & Fuligni, 2008). The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships among theoretically significant ingroup identifications and their contributions to adjustment in Arab American emerging adults. The Inclusion of the Ingroup in Self (IIS) measure and the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure - Revised (MEIM-R) were adapted to measure affirmation to ethnic, national (American), family, and religious groups. The results indicate that a pure model of pure affirmation could not be supported - it may be important to consider exploration …

Trajectories Of Emotion Regulation Into Middle Childhood: An Investigation Of Attachment, Temperament, And Language, Julie Elizabeth Braciszewski

Wayne State University Dissertations

The development of emotion regulation continues to be considered a cornerstone to adaptive child development. However, studies have yet to integrate early relationship, child-centered factors, and socio-demographic factors, from infancy through middle childhood, in an attempt to look at emotional regulation development over time. By utilizing latent growth curve modeling, the current study aimed to extend understanding of how child-centered factors (temperament and language skill) and socio-demographic factors (gender, ethnicity, and family resources) affect the development of emotion regulation from 3rd to 6th grades, within the context of early attachment relationships. Stability in emotion regulation in the general sample, as …

Personality And Risk-Taking Behaviors In Emerging Adulthood, Agnes Ward

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

PERSONALITY AND RISK-TAKING BEHAVIORS IN EMERGING ADULTHOOD

by

AGNES WARD

December 2010

Advisor: Dr. Stephen B. Hillman

Major: Educational Psychology

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

Much theory and research has focused on adolescent risk-taking behavior. Common theories include Zuckerman's (1971) perspective on sensation seeking, the problem behavior perspective identified by Jessor and Jessor (1977), and the causal model of risk-taking behavior by Irwin and Millstein (1986). While beneficial to understanding risky behaviors, these perspectives do not take into account specific personality traits that contribute to risk-taking or cognitive appraisals of risky behaviors. Further, most research has focused on the adolescent …

Does A Sense Of Control Moderate Self-Regulation Strategies And Performance? When Feedback Lingers, Annette Feravich

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This study examined whether a sense of control moderated the relationship between self-regulation and performance on an anagram task. High school students agreeing to participate in this study completed the Behavioral Inhibition/Behavioral Approach Scale (BIS/BAS) in order to determine individual promotion or prevention chronic self-regulatory strategies, as well as the revised Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire (CASQ-R) to determine a sense of control based on explanatory style. Changes in mood and performance on anagram tasks were measured at three different times during the study: prior to, after, and after discrediting randomly assigned negative or positive feedback. Performance tasks were designed …