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Full-Text Articles in Developmental Psychology

We Can Be Heroes: Sustaining Vitally Engaged Social Heroes In A Heroic Organization (Act Up/New York), Michael Condren Jan 2026

We Can Be Heroes: Sustaining Vitally Engaged Social Heroes In A Heroic Organization (Act Up/New York), Michael Condren

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Contextual factors are particularly important in understanding social heroism, which is characterized by heroic action in the service of existing and emerging community values, principles and ideals (Franco et al., 2011). Social heroism almost always entails serious risks for the hero and frequently requires committed action over long time periods to achieve positive social change. Unlike other types of heroism, social heroism frequently emerges from and is enacted through organizations. However, heroism research has focused largely on individual factors involved in different types of heroic actions, such as character, moral development and courage. The goal of this study was to …


The Dunning-Kruger Effect In Sixth Grade Adolescents: Improving Metacognition For Self-Regulated Learning, Julie H. Chen Jan 2026

The Dunning-Kruger Effect In Sixth Grade Adolescents: Improving Metacognition For Self-Regulated Learning, Julie H. Chen

Scripps Senior Theses

The Dunning-Kruger (DK) effect is a cognitive bias where low-performing individuals overestimate their own abilities, and top-performing individuals underestimate their own abilities relative to their peers. The purpose of this proposed study is to investigate the DK effect in sixth grade adolescents and to use metacognition as an intervention to improve self-assessment calibrations. This study will investigate adolescents in Piaget’s formal operational stage, aiming to improve metacognition levels. The study will occur over 12 weeks, and participants will be given a preparation handbook with or without metacognition activities for the purpose of preparing for the California Assessment of Student Performance …


Bilingual Beginnings: Expressive Language And Socio-Emotional Development In Early Childhood, Molly C. Mccormick Jan 2026

Bilingual Beginnings: Expressive Language And Socio-Emotional Development In Early Childhood, Molly C. Mccormick

Scripps Senior Theses

Although research on bilingualism has expanded rapidly in recent years, the majority focuses on cognitive advantages or receptive vocabulary, or the words children understand. Far less attention has been given to how expressive language, the words children produce, and its potential role as the mechanism linking bilingual exposure to socio-emotional development. Although dual-language learners sometimes appear to have relatively limited expressive vocabularies in one language, these differences tend to reflect patterns of language use and input quality rather than true developmental delays. Even so, temporary differences in expressive skills can be especially meaningful during children’s formative years, when they rely …


Components Of Evolutionary Psychology Are Falsifiable, But Does That Make It A Good Theory? Commentary On Costello Et Al. (2025), David S. Moore Jan 2025

Components Of Evolutionary Psychology Are Falsifiable, But Does That Make It A Good Theory? Commentary On Costello Et Al. (2025), David S. Moore

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

At the center of narrow evolutionary psychology’s theory lies the assumption that many human behavioral mechanisms evolved via natural selection. Although some components of this theory are falsifiable, its Lakatosian framework protects its core assumptions from falsifiability, even though most human behaviors probably do not require evolutionary explanations. Crucially, falsifiability is a necessary but insufficient quality of a good scientific theory, and the value of narrow evolutionary psychology (NEP) can be questioned on other grounds. NEP holds that only natural selection can create complex, functional adaptations, but natural selection is not a creative force; this process merely functions as a …


Resisting Racial Oppression: Ethnic Identity & Critical Consciousness As Pathways To Thriving For Young Black, Indigenous, And People Of Color, Adriana Ariza Jan 2025

Resisting Racial Oppression: Ethnic Identity & Critical Consciousness As Pathways To Thriving For Young Black, Indigenous, And People Of Color, Adriana Ariza

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Young Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in the United States continuously defy the odds through resilience, resistance, and the pursuit of liberation, yet they are historically understudied as agents of their own positive development within the context of racial oppression (García Coll et al., 1996). This explanatory sequential mixed-method study examined how 393 BIPOC-identifying youth (ages 18-25) thrive amid racial oppression. Survey results initially indicated that higher levels of perceived racial discrimination were related to higher levels of thriving, as measured by the 5Cs model of positive youth development (Lerner et al., 2005). In alignment with previous theoretical …


A Bad Bet For Adolescents: Psychological Perspectives On Sports Betting & Digital Gambling Technologies, Kaitlyn Helfrich Jan 2025

A Bad Bet For Adolescents: Psychological Perspectives On Sports Betting & Digital Gambling Technologies, Kaitlyn Helfrich

CMC Senior Theses

Digital sports betting is a rapidly expanding sector of the gambling industry, allowing users to place wagers on the outcomes of sporting events from virtually anywhere. While structurally comparable to traditional gambling systems, sports betting is often perceived as a more socially acceptable and accessible alternative, contributing to its growing appeal and largely positive sentiment among Americans. Yet, in the seven years since sports betting has become legalized, growing numbers of Americans have reported psychological and financial problems stemming from problem gambling. Of particular concern is the increasing percentage of adolescents engaging with these platforms, despite legal restrictions on underage …


Built By Family: How Early Environments Shape Transformational Leaders And Star Followers, Gabrielle J. Ong Jan 2025

Built By Family: How Early Environments Shape Transformational Leaders And Star Followers, Gabrielle J. Ong

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines how early family environments—defined in this paper by parenting and attachment styles—influence the development of transformational leadership and star followership qualities in children. By integrating research from behavioral and developmental psychology, it explores how authoritative parenting and secure attachment foster self-concept, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. These traits, in turn, predict transformational leadership behaviors such as intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration, as well as star followership traits like active engagement and independent thinking. Through this, a conceptual model is proposed to illustrate the pathways from parenting and attachment to leadership and followership outcomes, mediated by personality, self-concept, and …


Neural Correlates Of Attentional Biases In Dietary Choice: Role Of Childhood Socioeconomic Status, Justine Jamie N. Gotico Jan 2025

Neural Correlates Of Attentional Biases In Dietary Choice: Role Of Childhood Socioeconomic Status, Justine Jamie N. Gotico

CMC Senior Theses

Childhood poverty has been shown to increase adult risk for obesity above and beyond its direct effects on adult socioeconomic status (SES). One proposed mechanism of these effects is by shifting behavioral patterns of dietary consumption and choice, for example by increasing rapid attention to high-calorie unhealthy foods. Yet, whether such neural mechanisms can explain observed differences in dietary behavior based on childhood SES remains an open question. Here we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine early attentional correlates of low childhood SES during a dietary choice task, based on research suggesting that early attentional biases toward high-calorie foods emerge …


Money Matters: Investigating The Emotional, Cognitive, And Biological Pathways Connecting Maternal Early Life Financial Insecurity And Parenting Quality, Elise Power, Stacey N. Doan Jan 2025

Money Matters: Investigating The Emotional, Cognitive, And Biological Pathways Connecting Maternal Early Life Financial Insecurity And Parenting Quality, Elise Power, Stacey N. Doan

CMC Senior Theses

Early life adversity has been shown to have a variety of negative effects on adult functioning, including parenting quality, with implications for child wellbeing. Adverse early life experiences including poverty have been linked to long-term disruptions in emotional, cognitive, and physiological functioning that compromise the ability to provide sensitive, nurturing care. The present study investigated whether emotional regulation difficulties, physiological regulation, and cognitive function mediate the relationship between early life financial insecurity and parenting quality. A sample of 132 mother-child dyads completed self-report measures, biological samples, and cognitive assessments. A multiple mediation model ran in SPSS, revealed a significant indirect …


Epigenetics And Character Virtue Development, David S. Moore Jan 2024

Epigenetics And Character Virtue Development, David S. Moore

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Current understandings of epigenetics offer some insights into the developmental origins of character virtues. Research on epigenetics has demonstrated that phenotypes depend on both genomic and non-genomic information for their development, and such is true for the development of character virtues as well. This conclusion offers significant support for the Developmental Systems perspective. Although researchers have not yet studied the role of molecular epigenetic factors in the development of character, the field of behavioral epigenetics has revealed how such factors contribute to psychological and other behavioral phenotypes in general. In particular, behavioral epigenetics research can highlight the plasticity of human …


How Do Babies Come To Know What Babies Know?, David S. Moore, David J. Lewkowicz Jan 2024

How Do Babies Come To Know What Babies Know?, David S. Moore, David J. Lewkowicz

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Elizabeth Spelke’s What Babies Know is a scholarly presentation of core knowledge theory and a masterful compendium of empirical evidence that supports it. Unfortunately, Spelke’s principal theoretical assumption is that core knowledge is simply the innate product of cognitive evolution. As such, her theory fails to explicate the developmental mechanisms underlying the emergence of the cognitive systems underlying that knowledge.


Examining The Impacts Of A Relational Savoring Intervention On Parental Reflective Functioning And Children’S Emotion Regulation Across Time, Megan Blackard Jan 2024

Examining The Impacts Of A Relational Savoring Intervention On Parental Reflective Functioning And Children’S Emotion Regulation Across Time, Megan Blackard

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The ability to regulate emotions is an important competency that enables goal attainment and maintenance of satisfying interpersonal relationships throughout life. Key to the development of healthy emotion regulation is the sensitivity of the caregiver. One internal mechanism underlying parents’ ability to be sensitive is parental reflective functioning, the ability to understand a child as having a complex inner world of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that serve as the basis for the child’s behaviors. Strong parental reflective functioning allows parents to understand the needs behind children’s behavior and respond sensitively to meet those needs. The sensitive parenting that depends on …


Healing Through The Struggle: Sociopolitical Empowerment As Context For Youth Thriving, Manijeh Fe Mahmoodzadeh Azadi Jan 2024

Healing Through The Struggle: Sociopolitical Empowerment As Context For Youth Thriving, Manijeh Fe Mahmoodzadeh Azadi

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Young people from marginalized groups are impacted by structural and societal injustice yet are systematically prevented from participating in processes that disrupt oppressive systems (Camino & Zeldin, 2002). Because social justice requires the inclusion of marginalized groups in sociopolitical processes, programs and initiatives intended to reduce these barriers to civic and social changemaking have become popular (Ginwright, 2018). In order to meaningfully support youth resistance, those who are positioned to collaborate with young people must be informed about youths’ experiences of oppression and the processes and implications of their sociopolitical empowerment. This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study used quantitative and qualitative …


Leadership In Startups: How Founder Personality And Leadership Behaviors Impact Startup Success And Psychological Safety, Ria Passi, Ronald Riggio Jan 2024

Leadership In Startups: How Founder Personality And Leadership Behaviors Impact Startup Success And Psychological Safety, Ria Passi, Ronald Riggio

CMC Senior Theses

New ventures created by entrepreneurs are crucial to the economy and to the diffusion of innovative technologies. However, startups often operate in highly uncertain environments characterized by constrained resources, lack of established processes, and complex market dynamics. Despite surges in startup investment, the failure rate for new ventures remains high, making it crucial to understand the factors that can contribute to their success. This thesis explores how founder personalities, leadership styles, and cultivating psychological safety impact startup performance and growth trajectories. Founder personality traits like openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are positively associated with securing funding, achieving exit opportunities, and overall …


Polygenic Scores Ignore Development And Epigenetics, Dramatically Reducing Their Value, David S. Moore Jan 2023

Polygenic Scores Ignore Development And Epigenetics, Dramatically Reducing Their Value, David S. Moore

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Polygenic scores cannot elucidate the mechanisms that produce behavioral phenotypes (including “intelligence”). Therefore, they are unlikely to yield helpful interventions. Moreover, they are poor predictors of individuals’ developmental outcomes. Burt’s critique is well-supported by the details of molecular biology. Specifically, experiences affect epigenetic factors that influence phenotypes via how the genome functions, a fact that lends support to Burt’s conclusions.


Molecular And Systemic Epigenetic Inheritance: Integrating Development, Genetics, And Evolution, Robert Lickliter, David S. Moore Jan 2023

Molecular And Systemic Epigenetic Inheritance: Integrating Development, Genetics, And Evolution, Robert Lickliter, David S. Moore

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Currently, a central problem for theoretical biology is the integration of development with genetics and evolutionary theory. Through the late 20th century, biologists held that animals resemble their ancestors strictly because of the transgenerational transmission of DNA. This view effectively wrote development out of evolutionary biology. However, many molecular and developmental biologists now understand that phenotypes—anatomical, physiological, and behavioral traits—are not determined by genes (i.e., DNA segments) alone; instead, they emerge epigenetically from developmental processes involving co-acting genetic factors, environmental factors, molecular epigenetic factors, and other non-genetic factors within organisms’ bodies. This insight forces a rethinking of biological inheritance. …


More Moments With Others Matter For Emotion Regulation And Well-Being: A Study Of First-Year College Students’ Daily Life During Covid-19, Jaymes Paolo Delas Armas Rombaoa Jan 2023

More Moments With Others Matter For Emotion Regulation And Well-Being: A Study Of First-Year College Students’ Daily Life During Covid-19, Jaymes Paolo Delas Armas Rombaoa

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted emerging adult, first-year college students’ daily lives and well-being. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) recognizes that effective and adaptive emotion regulation can be improved by training skills for managing contextual (ABC) and physiological (PLEASE) factors. An ecological momentary assessment study collected 1,796 data points from 76 first-year students' daily usage of emotion regulation (ER) skills and momentary experiences of well-being (PERMA; Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationship, Meaning, Accomplishment) during COVID-19 in Spring 2020. Research questions explored: (a) Is usage of ER skills associated with elements of momentary PERMA above and beyond trait-level PERMA?; (b) Are lifestyle factors (e.g., …


Who’S To Blame For Shame? Interpersonal Influences On Self-Conscious Emotions In Early Adolescence, Elsie Dank Jan 2023

Who’S To Blame For Shame? Interpersonal Influences On Self-Conscious Emotions In Early Adolescence, Elsie Dank

Scripps Senior Theses

Theories of self-conscious emotional experience suggest that shame and guilt arise as a result of negative self-appraisals surrounding one’s conformity to social norms; however, shame focuses on whole-self appraisal while guilt focuses more specifically on the actions one has taken. As a result, shame tends to be associated with more negative aspects of behavior, mental health, and wellbeing. Thus, it is valuable to examine possible aspects of development that influence individuals’ tendencies toward shame or guilt. Some evidence suggests that negative parenting styles are associated with shame, and positive parenting styles with guilt. This study aims to investigate whether the …


The Relationship Between Maternal Emotion Socialization And Child Executive Functioning And Behavior: Exploring The Moderating Role Of Cortisol, Mayela Norwood Jan 2023

The Relationship Between Maternal Emotion Socialization And Child Executive Functioning And Behavior: Exploring The Moderating Role Of Cortisol, Mayela Norwood

CMC Senior Theses

In the early years of life, the development of children’s executive functioning (EF) and behavior regulation are critical to their later growth and self-sufficiency. Previous studies have indicated that one pathway by which children learn to regulate their emotions is through their immediate social environments (de Cock et al., 2017). Parents, in particular, play a significant role in the development of their children‘s emotion regulation and executive functioning (Fernandes et al., 2022). At the same time, physiological responses to stress also matter. Cortisol, the end product of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, has also been associated with children’s executive functioning and behavior …


How Deep Do We Have To Go To Rehabilitate Evolutionary Psychology? Reply To Bjorklund, Ellis, & Geary (2022), David S. Moore, David C. Witherington, Darcia Narvaez, Timothy I. Vandiver, Robert Lickliter Jan 2022

How Deep Do We Have To Go To Rehabilitate Evolutionary Psychology? Reply To Bjorklund, Ellis, & Geary (2022), David S. Moore, David C. Witherington, Darcia Narvaez, Timothy I. Vandiver, Robert Lickliter

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Disciplines like evolutionary-developmental psychology admirably focus on trying to rehabilitate Narrow Evolutionary Psychology (NEP) from within, by adding a developmental focus to NEP’s tenets of adaptationism and computationalism. We argue, however, that these tenets are fundamentally incompatible with taking psychology and its development seriously, and that the kinds of modifications introduced by evolutionary-developmental psychologists do not go deep enough to qualitatively change the non-developmental outlook of NEP.


Evolving Evolutionary Psychology, Darcia Narvaez, David S. Moore, David C. Witherington, Timothy I. Vandiver, Robert Lickliter Jan 2022

Evolving Evolutionary Psychology, Darcia Narvaez, David S. Moore, David C. Witherington, Timothy I. Vandiver, Robert Lickliter

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Which evolutionary theory can best benefit psychological theory, research, and application? The most well-known school of evolutionary psychology has a narrow conceptual perspective (a.k.a., “Narrow Evolutionary Psychology” or NEP). Proponents of NEP have long argued that their brand of evolutionary psychology represents a full-fledged scientific revolution, with Buss (2020) recently likening NEP’s scientific impact to that of a Copernican or Darwinian paradigm shift. However, NEP stands on two traditions that are now the subjects of serious debate and revision: the neo-Darwinian adaptationist framework within evolutionary biology, and the computationalist “mind-as-computer” framework within cognitive science. Although NEP calls itself revolutionary, the …


Leveraging Developmental Psychology To Evaluate Artificial Intelligence, David S. Moore, Lisa M. Oakes, Victoria L. Romero, Koleen C. Mccrink Jan 2022

Leveraging Developmental Psychology To Evaluate Artificial Intelligence, David S. Moore, Lisa M. Oakes, Victoria L. Romero, Koleen C. Mccrink

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems do not exhibit human-like common sense. The principles and practices of experimental psychology – specifically, work on infant cognition – can be used to develop and test AIs, providing insight into the building blocks of common sense. Here, we describe how the evaluation team for DARPA’s Machine Common Sense program is applying conceptual content, experimental design techniques, and analysis tools used in the field of infant cognitive development to the field of AI evaluation.


Examining How Individual Approaches To Learning Support Mentorship Relationships And Greater Well-Being For At-Risk College Students, Rebecca Renae Donaldson Jan 2022

Examining How Individual Approaches To Learning Support Mentorship Relationships And Greater Well-Being For At-Risk College Students, Rebecca Renae Donaldson

CGU Theses & Dissertations

A large body of research suggest positive educational contexts may buffer against negative effects of childhood trauma for some individuals (Bessey, 2017). However, to date, only a small body of research has examined the characteristics of students’ approaches to learning that may interact with mentorship experiences in higher education and support greater well-being for this population (Mak, 2012). Studies suggest mentorship relationships in higher education are critical for the well-being of at-risk students, as they provide greatly needed social support and guidance (Al Makhamreh & Stockley, 2019). Literature also indicates that generative force characteristics of students may support mentorship experiences …


Investigating How Reading Enhances Empathy: A Longitudinal, Diary Study Of Everyday Reading Habits, Caleb H. Mitchell Jan 2022

Investigating How Reading Enhances Empathy: A Longitudinal, Diary Study Of Everyday Reading Habits, Caleb H. Mitchell

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Empathy is the social glue that holds people together, and one way to enhance empathy is through reading fiction. Though reading can enhance empathy, there is little understanding of the mechanisms by which it does so. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how time spent reading enhances empathy. I posit that two reading experience variables, narrative transportation and reading flow, mediate the relationship between reading and empathy. This is because transportation, feeling absorbed into a story, helps bring characters to life and increases readers’ emotional connections, and reading flow, a balance between skill and challenge while reading, can …


Using An Intervention To Promote Social Development In Kindergarten During Remote Learning, Vivian Matthews Jan 2021

Using An Intervention To Promote Social Development In Kindergarten During Remote Learning, Vivian Matthews

Scripps Senior Theses

Remote learning has become the new normal for students across the world due to the current pandemic. Especially for those children in crucial stages of their development, the social isolation that is a product of online schooling is concerning for parents and educators alike. This thesis proposes a 6 week virtual social intervention to promote social development for kindergarteners participating in remote learning. Participants will be assigned to either an intervention or control group, and will be assessed on social competence and social satisfaction before and after the intervention. The length of time that they spend in remote learning during …


Why Do You Wear A Mask? Children’S Conceptualizations Of Covid-19 And Contagion Avoidance Behaviors, Emily Hillman Jan 2021

Why Do You Wear A Mask? Children’S Conceptualizations Of Covid-19 And Contagion Avoidance Behaviors, Emily Hillman

Scripps Senior Theses

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a need has emerged for psychological research on children’s understanding of infectious disease transmission. However, little existing research examines the link between children’s cognitive reasoning about illness and their subsequent behaviors regarding its transmissibility. This study will examine children’s conceptualizations of contagious illnesses such as COVID-19 and their subsequent contagion avoidance. A mixed methods approach will be used to establish the content of children’s conceptualizations of contagion and level of causal reasoning related to illness transmission. Dyads will be constructed comprising 4-12-year-old children and their parents. It is expected that parental contagion avoidance …


Uncovering Object Categories In Infant Views, Naiti S. Bhatt Jan 2021

Uncovering Object Categories In Infant Views, Naiti S. Bhatt

Scripps Senior Theses

While adults recognize objects in a near-instant, infants must learn how to categorize the objects in their visual environments. Recent work has shown that egocentric head-mounted camera videos contain rich data that illuminate the infant experience (Clerkin et al., 2017; Franchak et al., 2011; Yoshida & Smith, 2008). While past work has focused on the social information in view, in this work, we aim to characterize the objects in infants’ at-home visual environments by modifying modern computer vision models for the infant view. To do so, we collected manual annotations of objects that infants seemed to be interacting within a …


Medical Knowledge As A Recalcitrant Epistemological System: An Application Of Standpoint Epistemology In The Analysis Of Marginalization Within U.S Healthcare, Abby Deshazo Jan 2021

Medical Knowledge As A Recalcitrant Epistemological System: An Application Of Standpoint Epistemology In The Analysis Of Marginalization Within U.S Healthcare, Abby Deshazo

CMC Senior Theses

Research on healthcare disparities outside the field of epistemology tend to miss the true origins of oppressions imposed on marginalized individuals by the U.S healthcare system. This happens because of the false belief that these oppressions are reducible to social or political oppressions. By employing the perspective of a standpoint epistemologist, we can better identify the origins of these oppressions and subsequently consider more appropriate solutions. The standpoint epistemologist’s perspective (1) provides an intuitive case for the role individuals’ schemas play in the evaluation of what healthcare professionals know; (2) situates medical knowledge within epistemology, leading us to …


The Development Of Mental Rotation Ability Across The First Year After Birth, David S. Moore, Scott P. Johnson Jan 2020

The Development Of Mental Rotation Ability Across The First Year After Birth, David S. Moore, Scott P. Johnson

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Mental rotation (MR) is the ability to imagine the appearance of an object from a different perspective. This ability is involved in many human cognitive and behavioral activities. We discuss studies that have examined MR in infants and its development across the first year after birth. Despite some conflicting findings across these studies, several conclusions can be reached. First, MR may be available to human infants as young as 3 months of age. Second, MR processes in infancy may be similar or identical to MR processes later in life. Third, there may be sex differences in MR performance, in general …


Pathways For Integration And Growth: Exploring Love, Passion, And Peak Experience, Monica N. Montijo Jan 2020

Pathways For Integration And Growth: Exploring Love, Passion, And Peak Experience, Monica N. Montijo

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Love, passion and peak experiences are connected to flourishing as generally positive, energizing and intense experiences that make life worth living. Although they share theoretical overlaps as potent sources of integration and growth (Mouton & Montijo, 2017), love, passion, and peak experience have rarely been examined together or across cultures. The purpose of this study was to (a) explore how, if at all, subjective accounts of love, passion, and peak experience increase organization of the self through integration and differentiation by satisfying basic psychological needs (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and helping to develop psychological complexity (Csikszentmihalyi & Rathunde, 1998), and …