Developmental Psychology Commons^™

Exploring The Relationship Between Physical Activity And Executive Function In Early Childhood Populations: An Investigation Of Maternal Encouragement Of Activity, Lauren P. Driggers-Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have found positive associations between physical activity and executive function in adolescence and adulthood. However, research in early childhood has revealed only negative relationships. In the present study, I explored whether maternal encouragement of physical activity might moderate this relationship in very young children. Using video recordings from an archival dataset, eight maternal encouragement measures were derived from mother-child free play sessions. Although it was expected that maternal encouragement of child activity would broadly play a moderating role in the relationship between children’s physical activity and their executive function, only maternal questions seemed to moderate this relationship. One explanation …

General And Emotion-Specific Alterations To Cognitive Control In Women With A History Of Childhood Abuse, Kristen L. Mackiewicz Seghete, Roselinde H. Kaiser, Anne P. Deprince, Marie T. Banich

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Background

Although limited, the literature suggests alterations in activation of cognitive control regions in adults and adolescents with a history of childhood abuse. The current study examined whether such alterations are increased in the face of emotionally-distracting as compared to emotionally neutral information, and whether such alterations occur in brain regions that exert cognitive control in a more top-down sustained manner or a more bottom-up transient manner.

Methods

Participants were young adult women (ages 23–30): one group with a history of childhood physical or sexual abuse (N = 15) and one with no trauma exposure (N = 17), as assessed …

Design And Evaluation Of A Problem-Based Learning Environment For Teacher Training, Laura Hemker, Claudia Prescher, Susanne Narciss

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

Problem-based learning can have a great impact on the acquisition of practical knowledge, which is a central learning aim in the field of teacher education. Therefore, we implemented a problem-based learning approach in four seminars on educational assessment. In this paper, we outline our didactic design and discuss the results of the first evaluations, which explored acceptance of the approach, learning results, and expected applicability of the acquired knowledge.

The results show benefits of the problem-based learning approach, but also room for improvement. Specifically, the use of problems from multiple contexts (theoretical foundations and direct practical application) and the flexible …

Providers Perspectives On Self-Regulation Impact Their Use Of Responsive Feeding Practices In Child Care, Dipti A. Dev, Katherine E. Speirs, Natalie A. Williams, Samantha Ramsay, Brent A. Mcbride, Holly Hatton-Bowers

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Supporting children's self-regulation in eating through caregivers' practice of responsive feeding is paramount to obesity prevention, and while much attention has been given to supporting children's selfregulation in eating through parents' responsive feeding practices in the home setting, little attention has been given to this issue in childcare settings. This qualitative study examines childcare providers' perspectives on using responsive feeding practices with young children (2–5 years). Individual semistructured interviews were conducted with providers until saturation was reached. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The final sample included 18 providers who were employed full-time in Head Start or state-licensed center-based childcare …

Coming Together: How Science, Art, And Law Affect Change In The Treatment Of Lgbtq Persons, Lucas Liner

Honors Projects

The ongoing LGBTQ rights movement saw one of its biggest victories in the landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which recognized same-sex marriages in the United States. This decision was affected by not just scientific understanding of homosexual persons, but by artistic portrayal, demonstrations, and previous judicial decisions regarding homosexuality. The course of the American LGBTQ rights movement seems to run parallel to that of the German gay rights movement of the early 20th century, with a coming together of science, law, and art leading to change, both public and political. This paper highlights the work of Magnus Hirschfeld, a …

A Proposal And Examination Of A Novel Life History And Sociometer Model Of Self-Esteem, Jin Chuan Yong

Dissertations and Theses Collection

Self-esteem occupies an esteemed position in psychological research, but the self-esteem scholarship has often raised more questions than it has answered. Recent alternative approaches to self-esteem have made decent strides in resolving the mixed findings abound in the literature, such as a call for greater focus on self-esteem’s functionality and domain-specific components of self-esteem. However, the lack of a well-grounded, parsimonious theory of self-esteem has kept these proximate theories and findings disparate and our overall understanding of self-esteem incomplete. The current dissertation sought to address these issues by developing a model of self-esteem based on the evolutionarily driven sociometer and …

Impact Of Expressive Intensity And Stimulus Location On Emotion Detection, Brittany Nicole Groh

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Previous research demonstrates that the age of an observer, the peripheral location of a face stimulus on a display, and the intensity of the emotion expressed by the face all play a role in emotion perception. Older individuals have more difficulty identifying emotion in faces, especially at lower expressive intensities. The purpose of the current study was to understand how younger and older adults’ abilities to detect emotion in facial stimuli presented in the periphery would be affected by the intensity of the emotional expressions and the distance that the expressions are presented away from the center of the display. …

Longitudinal Predictors Of Parental Sensitivity: The Role Of Parent Personality And Infant Temperament Across Early Infancy, Lauren Grace Bailes

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Parents play a critical role in their infants’ social and emotional development (Zeifman, 2003). High parental sensitivity contributes to greater infant attachment security (De Wolff & van IJzendoorn, 1997), as well as better compliance later in life (van Berkel et al., 2015). Personality influences how parents respond to their infants, such that parents higher in neuroticism are more controlling and less stimulating (Clark, Kochanska, & Ready, 2000), and less responsive (Kochanska, Friesenborg, Lange, & Martel, 2004). However, previous studies have found mixed results with parent extraversion. Some studies found that high parental extraversion could lead to more parent responsiveness (Clark …

Growing Up With Porn: The Developmental And Societal Impact Of Pornography On Children, Gail Dines

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

The Public Health Harms Of Pornography: The Brain, Erectile Dysfunction, And Sexual Violence, John D. Foubert

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Of Early Class Start Times On Sleepiness And Driving Behaviors In An Emerging Adult Population, Jessica L. Fry

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Teenage driver sleepiness is a recent concern for preventing motor vehicle fatalities. Early school start times limit the amount of sleep teenage high school students acquire during the week and have been related to increased crash risk. The current study extends this finding to teenage and emerging adult college students. The author examined the link between sleepiness and teenage driving behaviors, including the relationship between school start times and sleepiness. In all, 536 participants were recruited to participate in an online survey assessing driving and sleep behaviors. Correlations and path analysis found that sleepiness fully mediated the relationship between early …

Complex Spatial Language Improves From 3 To 5 Years: The Role Of Prompting And Overhearing In Facilitating Direction Giving Using Between And Middle., Alycia M. Hund, L Bianchi, J Winner, Matthew S. Hesson-Mcinnis

Faculty Publications – Psychology

The primary goal of this study was to specify age-related improvements in young children’s use of the complex spatial terms between and middle in response to prompting and overhearing supports. Three- to 5-year-old children described the location of a mouse hidden between two furniture items in a dollhouse. Three prompting conditions (Between Directive, Middle Directive, Nondirective) were compared with two overhearing conditions (Overhearing Between, Overhearing Middle). Children’s use of between and middle was much more frequent in response to directive prompting than in response to nondirective prompting or overhearing. Only 4-5-year-old children showed some evidence of using middle in response …

Teachers’ Perspectives On The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment In Year 2: Easier To Administer But What Role Can It Play In Instruction?, Rachel E. Schachter, Tara M. Strang, Shayne B. Piasta

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

In this white paper, we present the results of a survey completed by teachers from across Ohio concerning their perceptions of Ohio’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA). We examined teachers’ perceptions during year 2 of KRA implementation and compared those results to findings from a similar survey completed in year 1 of the assessment implementation. Over 3,000 Ohio public school kindergarten teachers were invited to complete the survey; of which 841 responded. In year 2, teachers reported that administering the KRA was easier, compared to year 1. However, they expressed concerns that the assessment took too long to administer, distracted from …

Data Sets For “Pubh-D-17-00335r2 Effects Of Selected Socio-Demographic Characteristics On Nutrition Knowledge And Eating Behavior Of Elementary Students In Two Provinces In China”, Ling Qian, Fan Zhang, Ian Newman, Duane F. Shell, Weijing Du

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

The 2 attached digital files are placed in UNL Digital Commons for access by readers of open access journal BMC Public Health < https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/ >. The data set supports the analysis reported in the study “PUBH-D-17-00335R2 Effects of Selected Socio-demographic Characteristics on Nutrition Knowledge and Eating Behavior of Elementary Students in Two Provinces in China” by Ling Qian, MD PhD; Fan Zhang, MD PhD; Ian M. Newman, PhD; Duane F. Shell, PhD; Weijing Du, MD PhD.

The paper has been accepted by BMC Public Health. It is the journal’s policy that the data on which the conclusions are based are …

Associations Between Ethnic Identity, Academic Efficacy, Achievement Goals And School Belonging Among Early Adolescents, Leah Bonilla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The United States is experiencing a major shift in the population as more students who are considered ethnic minorities enter the school system. These students are at an increased risk for school failure due to language barriers, challenges with experiencing potential discrimination, and debating their identities across two cultural contexts. Although students who are considered ethnic minorities risk many potential stressors, the literature has shown that ethnic identity is a factor that facilitates positive academic adjustment and engagement among this population. Previous literature has also documented mixed findings regarding the relationship between ethnic identity and school outcomes. The current study …

Abnormal Dendritic Maturation Of Developing Cortical Neurons Exposed To Corticotropin Releasing Hormone (Crh): Insights Into Effects Of Prenatal Adversity?, Megan M. Curran, Curt A. Sandman, Elysia Poggi Davis, Laura M. Glynn, Tallie Z. Baram

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) produced by the hypothalamus initiates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which regulates the body’s stress response. CRH levels typically are undetectable in human plasma, but during pregnancy the primate placenta synthesizes and releases large amounts of CRH into both maternal and fetal circulations. Notably, placental CRH synthesis increases in response to maternal stress signals. There is evidence that human fetal exposure to high concentrations of placental CRH is associated with behavioral consequences during infancy and into childhood, however the direct effects on of the peptide on the human brain are unknown. In this study, we used a …

How Social Reactions To Alcohol-Related Facial Flushing Are Affected By Gender, Relationship, And Drinking Purposes: Implications For Education To Reduce Aerodigestive Cancer Risks, Ian Newman, Lanyan Ding, Duane F. Shell, Lida Lin

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Alcohol-related facial flushing is a sign of compromised alcohol metabolism and increased risk of certain cancers. This project examined how facial flushing might be used to reduce alcohol use to lower cancer risks. Interviews with Chinese university students identified gender, friendship, and drinking purpose as important variables related to whether someone would encourage a person who flushes when drinking alcohol to stop or reduce their drinking. A questionnaire was developed that incorporated these variables into 24 drinking scenarios in which someone flushed while drinking. Students responded whether they would (a) encourage the flusher to stop or drink less; (b) do …

Embodying Rhythm Nation: Multimodal Hip Hop Dance As A Site For Adolescent Social-Emotional And Political Development, Lauren M. Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This exploratory study employed qualitative methodology, specifically values analysis, to learn more about how being involved within Hip hop dance communities positively relates to adolescent development. Adolescence was defined herein as ages 13-23. The study investigated Hip hop dance communities in terms of cultural expertise (i.e. novice, intermediate and advanced/expert) to look specifically at dance narratives (i.e. peak experience narratives and “I dance because” essays) and hip hop dance performances. The primary purpose of this dissertation was to (1) explore how adolescents use multimodal Hip hop dance discourse for social-emotional development and critical consciousness, and to (2) understand how values …

Conceptualizing The Emergence Of Social Capital In Young Children, Courtney Wong

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper explores the concept of social capital as it relates to children. Three major theorists, Coleman (1988), Putnam (1995), and Bourdieu (1986), offer different conceptualizations of social capital, but all agree that social capital exists within relationships amongst people and allows them to facilitate an action or receive some sort of benefit. Within much of social capital literature, children are mostly viewed as passive recipients of social capital from their parents and teachers, as opposed to being acknowledged as creators of their own social capital. More recent research is starting to recognize the latter and to conceptualize how children, …

Exploring The Relationship Between Sequence Learning, Motor Coordination, And Language Development, Rita Obeid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dual-route approaches to language acquisition posit separable mechanisms for acquisition of vocabulary and grammar (e.g., Pinker, 1998). Working within the dualistic framework, Ullman and Pierpont (2005) proposed the procedural deficit hypothesis, which proposes that impairments in rule-based aspects of language (e.g. grammar, phonology) observed in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) may be linked to neural deficits that govern procedural memory and are critical for the procedural/sequence learning of both, cognitive and motor skills. In support of this hypothesis, recent meta-analyses indicate significant deficits in sequence learning in children with SLI relative to controls (Lum et al., 2014). Further research …