Psychology Commons^™

Contributions Of Social Support To Mitigate The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Pediatric Depressive And Irritability Symptoms, Alexandra Mactavish

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prior research, including my initial research on the mental health of children inSouthwestern Ontario, highlighted the broad, widespread impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of adults, children, and youth, globally, including the potential for social support to attenuate the harmful impact of the pandemic. Social support, one’s belief that others will help in times of need, may protect against the impact of myriad life stressors on the development of psychopathology. The present study examines the potential for social support to mitigate the longitudinal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s irritability and depressive symptoms. Families (N = …

Maternal Hpa Axis Function During Parenting Is Associated With Reduced Brain Activation To Infant Cry And More Intrusive Parenting Behavior, Andrew Erhart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research indicated that maternal cortisol function and maternal brain response to infant stimuli are separately related to differences in parenting behavior. Evidence from animal models have demonstrated that chronically high cortisol concentration alters brain structure and function, suggesting that studying these two mechanisms together may further improve understanding of parental behavior in human mothers. First time mothers of infants aged 1-7 months old (M age = 3 months) were recruited to participate. Mother’s cortisol concentration was measured during a naturalistic interaction with their infant and their behavior was coded for maternal sensitivity and nonintrusiveness. In a separate session using …

Socioeconomic Disadvantage And Brain Structure In Adulthood, Alexander J. Dufford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Socioeconomic disadvantage in childhood has been associated with difficulties in physical and mental health later in life. A potential pathway underlying this association is through variations in brain development. While associations between concurrent socioeconomic disadvantage and brain structural development have been established, it is unclear if there are prospective associations between childhood disadvantage and brain structure later in life (adulthood). The following studies address these gaps in the knowledge by examining the prospective association between childhood socioeconomic status and brain structure in adulthood. Study One examines the association between average family income across childhood and brain structural morphometry in adulthood. …

First Semester Academic Functioning Of College Students : The Role Of Stressful And Traumatic Life Events., Ashlee J. Warnecke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A large number of the nearly 20 million students who were attending American colleges in 2015 will not graduate. One factor that may affect the success of students is the influence of past experiences, including past adversity, or exposure to traumatic or non-traumatic stressors. The present study sought to better describe and understand the role of stress/trauma history in college students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The potential relationship this history has with academic outcomes was explored. Additionally, as not all students with a history of stressful and traumatic life events struggle academically, self-reported resilience, as well as resiliency factors, were …

Examining The Complex Relationships Of Early Intervention On Language And Psychosocial Development In Families Facing Multiple Risks With A Focus On Children Of Hispanic Immigrants, Marina Marie Mendoza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abundant research has shown that poverty has negative influences on young child academic and psychosocial development, and unfortunately, disparities in school readiness between low and high income children can be seen as early the first year of life. The largest federal early care and education intervention for these vulnerable children is Early Head Start (EHS). To diminish these disparate child outcomes, EHS seeks to provide community based flexible programming for infants and toddlers and their families. Given how relatively recent these programs have been offered, little is known about the nuances of how EHS impacts infant and toddler language and …

Phonological Memory And Broader Language Development: Longitudinal And Etiologic Relations, Robin Leonhardt Peterson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current research investigated the relationship of phonological memory (PM) to vocabulary and syntax learning in school-age children with and without language disorders. Previous research has established that PM and broad oral language skills covary, but disagreement remains about the reason for this association. Opposing theoretical viewpoints emphasize the importance of either bottom-up (PM influences vocabulary and syntax acquisition) or top-down (vocabulary growth influences PM skill) factors. In three longitudinal studies, we tested competing bottom-up and top-down explanations of the PM-broad language link. Study 1 utilized a structural equation modeling approach to understand PM and broad language relations from age …

The Humiliation Experience: Causes, Emotional Correlates, And Behavioral Consequences, Kendall Elyse Mccarley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research was to provide a comprehensive investigation of the emotional experience of humiliation by examining: (1) the direct effects of self-esteem and narcissism on emotional responses to potentially humiliating events; (2) the direct effects of the emotional correlates of humiliating experiences (i.e. sadness, humiliation, and anger) on the related behavioral reactions to such events (i.e., withdrawal, retaliation, and minimization); and (3) a process model to determine whether or not the emotional correlates of potentially humiliating events mediated the predicted effects of self-esteem and narcissism on the behavioral consequences on those events.

Participants, ranging in age from …