Developmental Psychology Commons^™

Intraracial And Intraethnic Microaggressions Experienced By Korean American Internationally And Transracially Adopted Persons, Karin J. Garber

Doctoral Dissertations

This research examined the microaggressions that Korean American internationally and transracially adopted persons (ITAPs) reported based on intraracial/intraethnic interpersonal exchanges. This research tested a conceptual model that: 1) determined the themes of intraracial/intraethnic microaggressions reported by Korean American ITAPs; 2) investigated how psychological symptoms and emotion outcomes were predicted from these microaggressions; and 3) tested specific moderators (i.e., age, engagement coping, disengagement coping, ethnic identity, stigma consciousness, parental racial, ethnic, and cultural socialization, and level of interaction with other Asians) that could change the relationship between these microaggressions and negative psychological symptoms and emotion outcomes. Two studies with different samples …

The Cognitive Effects Of Light Color Temperature, Lauren Hartstein

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of the current studies is to explore the conditions by which light color temperature impacts cognitive abilities and the development of this relationship. Experiments 1 and 1A explored whether exposure to light fluctuating around a central color temperature leads to increases in attention in adult participants. Results showed that, under the dynamic lighting condition, participants’ showed a significant decrease in reaction time on a measure of sustained attention, beyond those of a static light source at a cooler color temperature. Experiment 2 tested whether preschool-aged and 7-year-old participants would show increases in attention and cognitive flexibility after exposure …

The Influence Of Early Media Exposure On Children’S Development And Learning, Katherine Hanson

Doctoral Dissertations

A number of studies suggest that the amount of early screen media exposure is related to negative developmental outcomes, namely poorer executive functioning and language skills (Anderson & Pempek, 2005). Television’s constant presence in the home could lead to potentially serious consequences for infants and toddlers. However, hypotheses attributing long-term negative outcomes to the direct effects of television on children are limited. There are no definitive mechanisms to explain how these effects are instantiated within children over time. Furthermore, the indirect influences of television on children remain entirely unexplored. Television’s impact can have a potentially greater indirect effect on young …

The Effect Of Unique Labels On Face Perception In Infancy, Hillary R. Hadley

Doctoral Dissertations

Faces are universally important for a variety of reasons, ranging from identifying individuals to conveying social information. During the first year of life, infants’ experience with commonly encountered face groups shapes how infants perceive familiar and unfamiliar faces. Between 6 and 9 months of age, infants become worse at differentiating among individual faces from unfamiliar face groups (e.g., other-species faces), a process known as “perceptual narrowing”. Labeling faces from a previously unfamiliar face group has been found to promote individual-level differentiation, as well as expert neural processing for the face group. However, it is currently unclear what influences individual-level labels …

The Neural Correlates Of Emotion Reactivity And Regulation In Young Children With Adhd, Claudia I. Lugo-Candelas

Doctoral Dissertations

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most frequently occurring pediatric neurobehavioral disorder. Although emotion reactivity and regulation are frequently impaired in ADHD, few studies have examined these factors in preschool aged children with ADHD, and none have explored the neural correlates of emotion reactivity and regulation in this group though event-related potentials (ERPs). Children aged 4 to 7 with (n = 24) and without (n = 30) ADHD symptoms completed an attention task composed of four blocks: baseline, frustration, suppression, and recovery. In the frustration and suppression blocks, negative affect was induced by false negative feedback. During the …

Infants' Reasoning About Agents' Identity: The Case Of Sociomoral Kinds, Hernando Taborda

Doctoral Dissertations

Recent studies in development psychology suggest that early on infants are able to distinguish characters who display a cooperative behavior from characters who display an antisocial behavior. The current research builds on these findings and aims at determining the extent to which infants possess the sociomoral distinction of “good” and “mean” agents. In particular, we propose that infants represent sociomoral behaviors through kind-based categories. This hypothesis was tested in the current research across 5 different experiments by investigating how infants represent the identity of agents in sociomoral situations. Experiment 1 used a looking-time paradigm to demonstrate 11-month-old infants’ bias to …

Bidirectional Relationships Between Maternal Parenting Behaviors And Conduct Disorder Symptoms In Preschool Children, Benjamin Rolon Arroyo

Doctoral Dissertations

Conduct disorder (CD) symptoms emerge in preschool children, and some evidence for bidirectional effects between maternal parenting behaviors and these symptoms has been found in school-age children and adolescents. However, the strength and pattern of these effects are unknown during the preschool years. The present study examined the bidirectional relationships between several key maternal parenting behaviors (negative affect, warmth, overreactivity, and laxness) and CD symptoms across the preschool years. Participants were 197 preschool children (M = 44.24 months, SD = 3.37; Girls = 92) exhibiting significant behavior problems and their mothers who participated in a 3-year longitudinal study. Maternal …

Infants' & Toddlers' Social Evaluations Of Trustworthy And Untrustworthy Faces, Ashley Lyons

Doctoral Dissertations

Our understanding of the social world is highly influenced by the fast and automatic evaluations we make about others based on their facial appearance. The goal of the current studies is to explore the developmental origins of the particular face-trait evaluation of ‘trustworthiness.’ Experiment 1 tested whether 10-month-old infants differentiate between faces that adults rate as trustworthy and untrustworthy, and if they have a preference for one over the other in a crawling task. Experiment 2 tested whether 10-month-olds have implicit expectations about the social behavior of characters with trustworthy of untrustworthy faces in a looking-time task that presents infants …

Predicting Social Skills And Adaptability In Preschoolers With Behavior Problems, Nastassja Marshall

Doctoral Dissertations

Social skills and adaptability have been associated with a host of positive child outcomes. However, previous research has rarely examined the extent to which child symptomatology and family environment are associated with social skills and adaptability in children. Furthermore, no studies have looked at these associations longitudinally in preschool children with behavior problems, for whom social functioning may be especially important. The current study examined the relationship of five predictors (child oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), child attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), marital conflict strategies, parental depression, and parental warmth) with social skills and adaptability measured in preschoolers with behavior problems at …

Estrogen-Sensitive Learning Is Not Affected By Combination Ethinyl Estradiol And Levonorgestrel Oral Contraceptive Use, Darlene F. Ficco

Doctoral Dissertations

Two studies were conducted to explore the cognitive effects of combination ethinyl estradiol and levonorgestrel contraceptive use during late adolescence and young adulthood. Three groups of females, naturally cycling, active pill phase, and hormone-free interval phase, were tested on a battery of estrogen-sensitive, i.e., place learning and word generation, and estrogen-insensitive, i.e., map drawing, mental rotation, digit span, story recall, and object recall, tasks. Study 2 was conducted as a means to replicate the findings observed in Study 1 and to manipulate task difficulty and sensitivity. Two measures of mood were administered, and salivary estradiol levels at time of testing …

Same-Sex Parent Socialization: Associations Between Gay And Lesbian Parenting Strategies And Child Behavioral Adjustment, Marykate T. Oakley

Masters Theses

Cultural socialization has been linked with child development and outcome, but, to date, the majority of research has focused on race and ethnicity. However, since families headed by gay and lesbian parents experience stigma related to parental sexual orientation, socialization practices may be uniquely important for families headed by gay and lesbian parents. The present study examined same-sex parent socialization among 54 families headed by gay and lesbian parents (52 fathers, 43 mothers, 51 school-aged children) using a cultural socialization framework. Findings revealed that parents engaged in socialization along three dimensions: Cultural Socialization, Preparation for Bias, and Proactive Parenting. Children …

The Impact Of Television Program Diet On Children's Achievement, Heather J. Lavigne

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study, three waves of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics’s Child Development Supplement were used to examine patterns of children’s early TV exposure and its influence on middle childhood and adolescence. Analyses examined the pathways of influence depending on whether a dosage (hours of exposure) or diet (proportion of content to total TV time) variable was used. Results revealed that, in a dosage model, violent hours of early TV exposure were associated with decreases in independent reading and increases in externalizing behavior problems, but these did not predict later achievement. Early educational TV amount of exposure …

The Role Of Napping On Memory Consolidation In Preschool Children, Laura Kurdziel

Doctoral Dissertations

Nocturnal sleep has been shown to benefit memory in adults and children. During the preschool age range (~3-5 years), the distribution of sleep across the 24-hour period changes dramatically. Children transition from biphasic sleep patterns (a nap in addition to overnight sleep) to a monophasic sleep pattern (only overnight sleep). In addition, early childhood is a time of neuronal plasticity and pronounced acquisition of new information. This dissertation sought to examine the relationship between daytime napping and memory consolidation in preschool-aged children during this transitional time. Children were taught either a declarative or an emotional task in the morning, and …

Emotion In Adoption Narratives: Links To Close Relationships In Emerging Adulthood, Holly A. Grant-Marsney

Doctoral Dissertations

An adopted person develops a narrative or story to help make sense of his or her adoption. This narrative provides a window into how the adoptee understands the role of adoption in his or her life and articulates feelings and thoughts about it. Adolescent and emerging adult adoptees’ data from the Minnesota-Texas Adoption Research Project (MTARP) were examined. MTARP longitudinally followed 190 adoptive kinship networks, with varying levels of openness in the adoption, from childhood to emerging adulthood. The current study sought to understand how emotion (affective valence and specific emotions), as identified in the adoption narratives during adolescence and …

The Role Of Representational Flexibility In Toddlers' Manual Search, Lauren Hartstein

Masters Theses

In the model room task, children watch as a miniature toy is hidden somewhere in a scale model of a room and are asked to find the larger version of the toy in the corresponding place in the actual room. Previous work has shown that children under age three often perform very poorly on this task. One prominent theory for their failure is that they lack the ability to understand the model as both a physical object and as a symbolic representation of the larger room. An alternative hypothesis is that they need to overcome weak, competing representations of where …

Through A Critical Sociocultural Lens: Parents’ Perspectives Of An Early Childhood Program In Guatemala, Yaëlle Stempfelet

Master's Capstone Projects

The present case study is on an Early Childhood program in Guatemala based on participant parents’ feedback. The Early Childhood program is non-formal, focuses on emergent literacy and nutrition, and takes place in a community-run library in a poor, semi-rural town in the mountainous regions of Quiche, Guatemala. The library was set up by a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that works in Guatemala as well as another neighboring country.

Using a critical sociocultural lens, this study assumes that the parents’ perceptions reflect the state of the program and that involving their feedback through this research will ultimately help to bolster the …

Predicting Social Behavior By Sound & Surface Appearance In Infancy, Ashley Lyons

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Our naïve theory of social behavior assumes that the positive and negative actions of others are caused by some underlying social disposition. Furthermore, adults automatically infer such traits in advance based upon whatever observable, even superficial, properties are available (e.g., how someone looks or sounds). The goal of the current study is to explore the developmental origins of this bias. We tested whether 12-month-old infants automatically infer a character’s social disposition (i.e., whether they ‘help’ or ‘hinder’ another character’s goal) based upon the superficial properties they display. Infants were habituated to two characters that possessed surface properties that were rated …

Resilience In School, Milka Ndura

Master's Capstone Projects

This study explores the factors that motivate students to perform well in the national examination at their basic primary education level despite the unlikely environment to support this success in Kibera slums, Kenya. In the current situation in Kenya, national examinations are used as a basis of distributing the fewer than students slots in secondary school, despite the different circumstances facing each candidate, passing of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education is still an important factor that determines a child’s eligibility to attend secondary school. Students enrolled in Kenyan primary school system take the same national exams regardless of the …

Does Early Perceptual Experience Influence Later Perceptual And Neural Discrimination In Children?, Hillary R. Hadley

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

In infancy, the ability to tell the difference between two faces within a category (e.g., species, race) that is infrequently experienced declines from 6 to 9 months of age (Kelly et al., 2009, 2007; Pascalis et al., 2005; Pascalis, de Haan, & Nelson, 2002; Scott & Monesson, 2009). This decline in the ability to distinguish faces is known as "perceptual narrowing" and has recently been found to be absent when infants are given experience matching a face with an individual-level proper name between 6 to 9 months of age (Scott & Monesson, 2009). Additionally, individual-level experience between 6 and 9 …

Associations Of Childhood Family Adversity And Pubertal Timing With Depressive Symptomotology In Adulthood, Jeffrey P. Winer

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

To date, no prior research has examined the combined roles of childhood family adversity and pubertal timing in longitudinal pathways to depressive symptomatology in adulthood. The present study was conducted with 225 men and 225 women to explore the unique and combined roles of childhood family adversity and pubertal timing on depressive symptoms in a community sample of married adults. Results for both men and women indicated significant main effects of a cumulatively risky family environment on depressive symptoms, as well as main effects of families with higher levels of abuse and neglect, chaos and disorganization, and interpersonal family conflict. …

Working Memory Performance Across Development And Following Acute Exercise, Patrice L. Stering

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis investigates the developmental trajectory of visuo-spatial working memory as well as the potential influence of acute exercise on working memory performance. Individuals between the ages of 6 and 25 years were randomly assigned to a 30-minute bout of exercise on an elliptical trainer or to a no-exercise control condition. Participants then performed a computerized N-back task to assess working memory. Developmental results suggest that working memory ability continues to develop into early adulthood with the exact trajectory depending on the cognitive demand of the task being assessed. No difference in working memory performance was found between the exercise …

The Priming Effects Of Video Viewing On Preschoolers' Play Behavior, Heather J. Lavigne

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis investigates the relationship between educational television content and children‘s play behaviors immediately after viewing. Children ages 41-43 months of age were randomly assigned to view a television program with predominantly object-constructive or social dramatic content. All children participated in a period of video viewing, approximately 25 minutes in length, followed by a 30-minute play session. Each participant was subsequently administered a brief card sorting task to assess categorical knowledge of constructive and social activities. Each child‘s session was coded for looking at the television, toy choice, and play content (constructive or social-narrative). Video viewing condition and the interaction …

The Behavioral Effects Of Increased Physical Activity On Preschoolers At Risk For Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Jasmin L. Roberts

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Physical activity (PA) has many health benefits, both physical and psychological. PA has been linked to improved cognitive functioning, superior overall health, and enhanced emotional well-being in populations ranging from school-age children to older adults. There has been less research, however, examining the benefits of PA in atypical preschool populations.

The present study examined the efficacy of a PA intervention in preschool-aged children at risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD symptomatology, response inhibition, and physical activity were measured at three time points over a 6-month period. Results provide support for the efficacy of PA as an alleviative tool …

The Influence Of Television Exposure On Infants' Toy Play, Katherine G. Hanson

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The association between television exposure and infants’ toy play was examined. Specifically, differences in the amount of program content and coviewing in the home were expected to predict different patterns of play when children were away from television. This thesis also sought to extend Pempek’s (2007) findings indicating that the more parents coviewed certain baby videos (i.e., Sesame Beginnings) in the home with their children, the more likely these parents actively engaged with their children in the laboratory. Consequently, the current thesis examined whether or not this active engagement resulted in something meaningful for children’s play behaviors. Parents of infants …

The Emergence Of Dp In The Partitive Structure, Helen Stickney

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation is a first look at English-speaking children’s acquisition of the syntax of the partitive. It presents four experiments that contrast three types of structures and examines how they interact with adjectival modification: the partitive, the pseudopartitive and complex nouns with prepositional adjuncts. The experimentation investigates whether children recognize that the Determiner Phrase (DP) in the partitive is a barrier to adjectival modification. The partitive is contrasted with the pseudopartitive –a minimal pair structure that lacks an internal DP. The data shows that children under the age of six do not distinguish between the partitive and the pseudopartitive. They …

Cross-Age Peer Tutoring In Dialogic Reading: Effects On The Language Development Of Young Children, Itsuko Jamie Udaka

Open Access Dissertations

There are certain ways of reading to young children that are more effective than others in increasing language, vocabulary, and building early literacy skills. Dialogic reading is a method to enhance shared book reading by providing a context for dialogue and interaction between the adult and the child. Dialogic reading has been shown to have positive effects on young childrens’ early literacy and language skills. Thus far, parents and teachers have used these techniques in the home and school in one-on-one or small group settings. However, results have been variable due to inconsistent implementation. The purpose of this study was …

Visuospatial Reasoning In Toddlers: A Correlational Study Of Door Task Performance, Iris Louella Price

Open Access Dissertations

Previous research using violation-of-expectation paradigms suggests that very young infants have a good understanding of unobserved physical events. Yet toddlers appear to lack this knowledge when confronted with the door task, a visuospatial reasoning task which parallels ones used in the habituation/looking time studies. Many studies have been conducted in an effort to determine why toddlers perform poorly on the door task yet the answer remains unclear. The current study used a correlational approach to investigate door task performance from both psychological (executive function), and neuroscience (prefrontal cortex) perspectives. Children between the ages of 2 ½ - 3 years were …

Do Actions Speak Louder Than Knowledge? Action Manipulation, Parent-Child Discourse And Children’S Mental State Understanding In Pretense, Dawn K Melzer

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

In the current study children 3-5 years of age (N = 75) participated in a mental state task to investigate the effect of action saliency on young children's appreciation of mental states during pretend play activities. They also engaged in a parent-child interaction period, including storybook reading and pretend play activities, in order to examine the relation between mental state term utterances and performance on the mental state task. Two actors appeared side-by-side on a television screen, either in motion or as static images; one actor had knowledge of the animal he was pretending to be; the other actor did …

The Other-Race Effect And Its Influences On The Development Of Emotion Processing, Alexandra Monesson

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The theory of perceptual narrowing posits that the ability to make perceptual discriminations is very broad early in development and subsequently becomes more specific with perceptual experience (Scott, Pascalis, & Nelson, 2007). This leads to the formation of biases (Pascalis et al., 2002; 2005; Kelly et al., 2007), including the other-race effect (ORE). Behavioral and electrophysiological measures are used to show that by 9-months-of-age, infants exhibit a decline in ability to distinguish between two faces from another race compared to two faces from within their own race. Significant differences in the P400 component revealed a dampening of response to other-race …

Permanently Temporary: Roma Refugee Youth Seeking Schooling, Karen N. Binger

Master's Capstone Projects

This study investigates the experiences of education in exile from a small case study of Roma refugee male youths from Kosovo temporarily settled in Macedonia as ‘asylum seekers.’ These refugees are at an overlooked age where they have slipped through the cracks between the post-war, short-term relief and longer-term development efforts in terms of education. Many of the frustrations of this community stem from their difficulties in accessing education, and their uncertain legal limbo or ‘permanently temporary’ situations.

As adolescents, refugees, and Roma, the youth are at a triple jeopardy of marginalization and invisibility. Through conversations with four Roma refugee …