Child Psychology Commons^™

The Effects Of Gender And Implicit Theories On Science Achievement And Interest In Elementary-Aged Students, Savannah Benningfield

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The current study set out to determine the relationship between student grade
level, implicit views of science ability, science achievement and science interest.
Differences by grade level were also explored. The study also considered the differences in male and female implicit theories of science ability, science interest, and science achievement. Participants in the current study consisted of a total of 1910 students from six elementary schools from one south-central Kentucky district that participate in Project GEMS (Gifted Education in Math and Science). Data were analyzed by means of analysis of variance and Pearson correlations. Younger students evidenced lower scores on ...

The Influence Of Children's Affective Ties On The Goal Clarification Step Of Social Information Processing, Amanda C. Thorn

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Previous studies have shown that children’s social goals are influenced by
emotion and that emotions can be manipulated using relationships. The present study combines these previous findings by examining the effect of children’s relationships on social goals. Social goals were examined in second and fifth grade children using hypothetical ambiguous provocation situations in which the relationship between the participant and the provocateur was manipulated by inserting the name of a friend, enemy, or a neutral peer into the story. After each situation, children rated the importance of four different social goals, indicating which of the four would be ...

What Are The Relations Among Stress Perception, Health Perception And Activity Participation In School-Aged Children?, Allison Caplin

Honors Theses

This correlational study examined possible relations among children’s activity patterns, perceived stress, and perceived health. A variety of self-report questionnaires were administered to a sample of 33 school age children. The Pediatric Activity Sort (PACS) was used to measure activity participation, a health questionnaire was used to assess health, and the Childhood Stress Questionnaire (CSQ) was used to measure perceived stress. Correlations showed no significant relationships between stress level and the amount of reported activity participation. The absence of significant relationships may be due to testing a sample of middle to upper class, Caucasian children, as there was a ...

Children's Understanding And Experience Of Anger Within Their Peer Groups, Nicole J. Hamel

University of Western Ontario - Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this study was to describe how children understand, experience and express their anger with others in their peer group, from their perspectives. Semi-structured focus groups were conducted with third grade students in an elementary school. Children were asked three questions: 1) What did you learn about dealing with anger this week? 2) What are some good/positive things that happened between you and your classmates this week? 3) What are some not so good or negative things that happened between you and your classmates this week? Six themes emerged from analysis of the transcripts of the semi-structured ...

The Impact Of Home Visitor Relationship Quality On Parenting And Child Outcomes: Does Maternal Age Matter?, Elizabeth A. Colsey

Senior Honors Papers

Early Head Start (EHS) is an early intervention program that seeks to mitigate the effects of risk for those families with young children. Consistent with attachment theory, the home visiting component of EHS targets parent-child relationships in order to combat negative child outcomes. Research indicates that children of adolescent mothers are susceptible to poor outcomes both in childhood and adulthood. The current study utilized EHS data from 1198 parent-child dyads to assess the indirect relationship of home visitor quality on child aggression through parent quality, as moderated by maternal age. Findings indicated that home visitor quality may have a greater ...

The Impact Of Cumulative Risk On Parenting Behaviors As Mediated By Parental Distress, Courtney E. Green

Senior Honors Papers

Cumulative risk is a salient construct addressed in family dynamics research. There have been multiple relationships established among cumulative risk, parenting, and child outcomes through previous research. The current study furthered this body of research by addressing the role of parenting distress within models predicting parenting behaviors within a context of risk. Cumulative risk, parenting, child behavior, and transactional relationships highlighted the relationships between an environment of risk and resulting parenting outcomes. It was predicted that parental distress will act as a mediator variable between the baseline cumulative risk and later parenting behaviors. This hypothesis was tested using data from ...

Predictors Of Preschool Children's Peer Interactions: Temperament And Prosocial Behavior, Ibrahim H. Acar

Open Access Theses and Dissertations from the College of Education and Human Sciences

The current study was a correlational study that examined children’s temperament (inhibitory control and shyness) and prosocial behavior as predictors of preschool-aged children’s peer interactions. The current study also examined the moderating effects of inhibitory control and shyness on relation between children’s prosocial behavior and peer interactions. Participants were 40 children (19 boys) aged from three to five enrolled in eight different preschools in a Midwestern city. It was hypothesized that children’s prosocial behavior and temperament (inhibitory control and shyness) would be correlated with preschool children’s peer interactions, operationalized as sociability, communication, assertiveness, conflict, and ...

Motor Skills And Imitation In Children With Autism, Rachelle Stover

Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Toddlers’ Social Behaviors In Response To Helping/Hindering Displays, Allison M. Leonard

Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Contributions Of Caregiver Interaction To Infant Attention, Nahomie Julien, Lindsay White, Joseph Antico

Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Causal Explanations And Judgments About Children’S Potentially Problematic Behaviors, Jennelle Elizabeth Yopchick

Psychology Dissertations

Children with burgeoning psychological problems are not always correctly identified as having such problems, often do not receive necessary treatment at critical developmental periods, and subsequently suffer more serious dysfunction as adults (Garland et al., 2001; Miller, 1995; Yeh & Weisz, 2001). Why are children's early warning-sign behaviors overlooked? Previous work has shown that lay people perceive severely disordered adult behaviors as less disordered and less in need of intervention when given a plausible causal explanation (Ahn et al., 2003; Kim & LoSavio, 2009). The current work asked whether parents and lay adults without children are similarly influenced by provided and self-generated explanations for children's potentially problematic behaviors. The aims were threefold: (1) to examine the influence of explanations on judgments of potentially problematic child behaviors, (2) to assess whether the domain experience of parents influences problem category judgments, and lastly (3) to determine if self-generated explanations influence problem category judgments by increasing reasoners perceived understanding of the ambiguous child behaviors.

Experiments 1 and 2 addressed the first and second aims. Parents and adults without children were presented with vignettes depicting ambiguous (i.e., not clearly problematic) child behaviors, and were either provided with a congruent explanation that helped make sense of the behaviors, an incongruent explanation that did not help to make sense of the behaviors, or no explanation for the behaviors. Experiment 3 addressed the second and third aims. Parents and adults without children were presented with the same behavioral vignettes and were asked either to read the vignettes and generate an explanation for the behaviors that would help them to understand the behaviors better, or only to read the vignettes. In all three experiments, participants then judged the degree to which they perceived the behaviors to be problematic by assessing a variety of clinically relevant factors that can be subsumed under the following: psychological normality/health, statistical commonness, socio-cultural effects. Additionally, Experiments 2 and 3 examined participants' direct experience with the behaviors in question, asking whether experience with similar exemplars similarly influences problem category judgments. Critically, Experiment 3 also assessed whether people believed that the self-generated explanations made it easier or more difficult to understand the behaviors. Each self-generated explanation was separately rated for how plausible it was and how proportionate (in strength and valence) it was to the behaviors in question. An additional set of raters also coded each individual explanation for explanation type (i.e., internally versus externally controlled).

Across experiments, parents and adults without children were strongly influenced by explanations for each of the clinically relevant measures, such that behaviors that people thought to be well-explained were seen as less problematic overall than behaviors that people thought were either poorly explained or unexplained. Interestingly, although domain experience did not seem to influence problem category judgments, direct experience with similar exemplars was a significant predictor of judgments, such that the more prior experience a person had with the behaviors, the less problematic the behaviors seemed overall. Critically, how well people felt they understood the behaviors given the explanation was a strong predictor of their judgments about problem status, such that children's behaviors were seen as less problematic to the degree that people felt they were well understood. In Experiment 3, the ratings of plausibility, proportionality, and explanation type as assessed by outsider reasoners had no influence on problem category judgments; again, only self-rated perceptions of understanding predicted problem status.

Taken together, these findings suggest that judgments of the problematic nature of ambiguous child behaviors are influenced both by provided and self-generated explanations to the degree that the explanations help increase perceived understanding of the behaviors, suggesting one potential reason why adults often do not recognize early signs of child psychological ...

A Study Of The Utilization Of Brief And Biblically Integrated Child Parent Relationship Therapy With Mothers From Christian Families And Their 11-14 Year Old Children, Valerie Waruszewski

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Twenty-six mothers and their 11-14 year old children participated in the Child Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT). Although designed for elementary-aged children, CPRT was modified for pre-teens and biblically integrated worldview. An analysis of data obtained from the Parenting Relationship Questionnaire-CA (Kamphaus & Reynolds, 2009), Conflict Behavior Questionnaire-20 (Robin & Foster, 1989), and Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987) revealed meaningful trends in the decrease of frustration, levels of conflict, and negative communication within family systems. It is hoped that these findings will encourage additional research to help Christian mothers and therapists with an effective tool that can be utilized ...

A Positive Approach: Training Coaches To Build A Positive Motivational Climate, J. Spencer John

UNLV Theses/Dissertations/Professional Papers/Capstones

The purpose of this paper is to develop a training program for youth sport coaches focusing on a positive motivational climate, with an intended outcome to increase intrinsic motivation in youth sport participants. The coaching workshops that are available today tend to focus on teaching the fundamentals of the sport; while largely ignoring the motivational side of coaching. Pop Warner Football is the largest youth football league in the country, they have a large coach training program that focuses on drills and skill development, but fails to address positive motivation. Providing youth sport organizations with a training program that adds ...

Reducing Disruptive Behavior During Lunchtime In Urban Elementary Students: A Comparison Of Two School-Based Lunchtime Interventions, Victoria Joy Downes

Counseling Psychology Dissertations

Although there has been research on ways to reduce disruptive behavior in elementary school students during class time, a need for interventions that target disruptive behavior in elementary students during unstructured school times, such as lunch and recess, remains. In addition, there has been little research on school-based interventions that address the unique needs of students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds who live in urban areas. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of two cafeteria-based behavioral interventions on students' disruptive and prosocial behaviors. The study was conducted with 250 kindergarten and first grade students in ...

College Mission Alignment: Lessons For Laboratory Schools, Sharon L. Carnahan Ph.D., Diane Terorde Doyle Ma

NALS Journal

This paper concerns the content, role, and purpose of mission statements in higher education and the the advisability of aligning the mission and activities of a laboratory school with the overall aims of the sponsoring college. We review strategic planning for alignment and share mission-driven activities that we have developed. We end with ideas about receiving recognition for doing the important job of a laboratory school, through disseminating and displaying examples of excellence.

Promoting Early Skin-To-Skin Contact And Its Effect On Breastfeeding, Jamie Atkins, Grace Frederick, Ellen Lintemuth

Pharmacy and Nursing Student Research and Evidence-Based Medicine Poster Session

This study explores the implementation of skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby immediately following birth and its effects on: successful breastfeeding initiation, duration of breastfeeding, and breastfeeding exclusivity.

The Intersection Between Home And School: Developing A Scale To Measure Parental Perceptions Of Childhood School Stress, Teresa Marie Henke

Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

Parents in the home and educators in the schools are key adults in the most important contexts in the daily lives of school-age children. In the demanding, achievement, and accountability oriented culture of today, it is expected that children experience normal everyday stressors as they move between these two environments. The impact of stress related to daily hassles has been reported to have both cognitive and physical effects on the present and future well-being of children. This study represented an attempt to advance the understanding of childhood stress in the intersection between school and home by investigating the perceptions ...

Mindfulness And Self-Compassion: Exploring Pathways To Adolescent Emotional Well-Being, Karen Leslie Bluth

Doctoral Dissertations

Adolescents today are confronted with the compounded stressors of life in our high-pressured society and the cognitive, physiological, and emotional changes that are characteristic of this stage of development. As a result, they often struggle with self-doubt, leading to depression, anxiety, and maladaptive trajectories. Mindfulness, or paying attention in the moment in an intentional and purposeful way, has been reported to have positive effects on emotional well-being in adults, and shows promise for similar results in recent research with children and adolescents.

Moreover, the mechanisms through which being mindful achieves positive outcomes has only recently been explored, and has not ...

Low Risk Associated With Most Teenage Sexting: A Study Of 617 18-Year-Olds, Elizabeth Englander

MARC Research Reports

This report describes research conducted in 2011 and 2012 on 617 subjects, 30% of whom reported sexting. The report details the frequency of sexting behaviors as well as the relationship between coerced and non-coerced sexting, sexting and gender differences, characteristics of sexters, and data on risk of discovery and social conflict following engaging in sexting. The study revealed that most risk associated with sexting is experienced by youth who are coerced into sexting; they are more impacted emotionally by the experience, and are more likely to have a prior victimization. Risk of discovery and social conflict was highest for coerced ...

Digital Self-Harm: Frequency, Type, Motivations, And Outcomes, Elizabeth Englander

MARC Research Reports

This report describes research conducted in 2011 and 2012 on 617 subjects, 10% of whom reported self-cyberbullying. The report details the frequency of self-cyberbullying in boys versus girls (17% versus 8%) and the frequency of the incidents in questions. The data also reveals some of the characteristics of self‐cyberbullies, their motivations for digital self-harm and the relative success of the tactic.