UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
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Item Facilitators and Barriers of Neighborhood Social Integration(2024) Fuchs, Joelle; Gard, Arianna M; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Social isolation has reached concerning rates, particularly in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. Social integration can combat social isolation and loneliness and promote feelings of belonging. Social integration within the neighborhood context (e.g., chatting with neighbors, participating in local organizations) can be used combat loneliness, but less is known about the process of social integration across various social identities. The current study examines variability in the patterns and mechanisms of neighborhood social integration across sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., developmental stage-social role, ethnic-racial identity, and housing tenure). Thematic analyses were conducted on interviews with 29 residents of Wards 4 and 5 of Washington, D.C. Results suggested that youth were far less socially integrated with their neighborhoods due to gentrification-induced transience and school choice programming. Despite sociodemographic differences in the perceived facilitators and barriers to neighborhood social integration, many residents called for more community programming and shared spaces to facilitate neighborhood connections.Item Early Adolescent Romantic Experiences: Early Childhood Predictors and Concurrent Associations with Psychopathology(2019) Foster, Chelsey Barrios; Dougherty, Lea R; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research has demonstrated that early adolescent romantic relationships are prevalent, and initiation of romantic relationships at younger ages bears important implications for youths’ future development. Although earlier dating involvement may increase risk for negative outcomes, the majority of research on teen relationships focuses on older adolescents; a paucity of research explores the phenomenology of preteen romantic relationships. Further, a striking gap exists in the study of how early childhood factors may affect early adolescent romantic relationships. In order to address these gaps, the current study aimed to elucidate the phenomenology and concurrent psychosocial correlates of preteen (age 12) romantic relationships and to delineate early childhood variables that predict involvement in and quality of preteen romantic relationships. In a longitudinal sample of 440 youth, we examined concurrent associations between multiple dimensions of age 12 romantic relationships (dating experiences, risky dating, relationship discord, relationship closeness, sexual experience) and friendship competence, and age 12 psychopathology (anxiety, depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD], disruptive behavior disorder [DBD] symptoms) and psychosocial functioning. Given prior research indicating that pubertal status and child sex may also play a role in romantic relationship involvement, we examined these two variables as moderators in concurrent analyses. In addition, we examined how two salient dimensions of early childhood (temperament and parenting, assessed at age 3) predicted romantic relationship outcomes at age 12. Results indicated that more frequent romantic experiences at age 12 were associated with increased psychosocial distress and poorer functioning; however, youth with higher quality romantic relationships evidenced lower levels of psychiatric symptoms and better psychosocial functioning. In addition, the associations between early adolescent romantic relationships and adjustment were complex and were moderated by child sex and pubertal status. Further, dimensions of age 3 childhood temperament and parenting differentially predicted dimensions of early adolescent romantic relationships and friendship competence. Importantly, our findings contribute to a growing body of literature on preteen romantic relationships, and are among the first data to examine early childhood predictors of age 12 romantic relationship outcomes. These findings hold important clinical implications for future early adolescent prevention and intervention programs.Item Development of Motivational Influences on Monitoring and Control Recruitment in the Context of Proactive and Reactive Control in Adolescent Males(2020) Bowers, Maureen; Fox, Nathan A; Neuroscience and Cognitive Science; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Adolescence and the onset of puberty is a time period of physiological and behavioral changes that include a heightened reward sensitivity, but underdeveloped cognitive control. Cognitive control involves monitoring for salient stimuli and recruiting control to adapt behavior advantageously to reach a specific goal and is supported by the three domains of executive functioning (EF): inhibitory control, set-shifting, and working memory. Proactive control is engaged after an informative cue in preparation for an upcoming stimulus, while reactive control can be employed when preparation is not possible and you need to respond to a stimulus. Oscillations in the theta frequency (4-8Hz) during both cue presentation and stimulus presentation are implicated in proactive and reactive control processes. While reward has been shown to upregulate proactive control in adults, little work has assessed how reward influences theta oscillations during both proactive and reactive control throughout adolescence and pubertal development. Further, no work has sought to understand how EF abilities bolster reward-related changes in proactive or reactive control. Here, 68 adolescent males (Meanage=13.61, SDage=2.52) aged 9 – 17 years old completed a rewarded cued flanker paradigm while electroencephalogram (EEG) was collected. They also completed tasks from the NIH toolbox that tap the three EF domains. Behaviorally, reward hindered performance on proactive trials, particularly in mid-puberty, while enhancing performance on reactive trials. Reward was associated with increases in cue-locked theta power, but with overall reductions in cue-locked theta ICPS. Stim-locked theta power increased on reactive trials with increasing age, while stim-locked theta ICPS peaked in mid-adolescence for rewarded trials. Increased cue theta power was associated with worse performance on proactive trials. On proactive trials, adolescents with low levels of inhibitory control experience more reward-related interference, while reward-related interference was mitigated by better set-shifting abilities only in younger and older adolescents. In conclusion, reward differentially impacts proactive and reactive control throughout adolescent development and EF influences the impact of reward on proactive control throughout adolescence.Item Developmental pathways from maternal emotion dysregulation to parenting behaviors and adolescent emotion lability: interactive effects of youth ADHD symptoms and sex(2019) Oddo, Lauren Elizabeth; Chronis-Tuscano, Andrea; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A large literature base convincingly suggests that maternal and child characteristics interact to predict parenting practices and children’s emotional development. However, the independent and interactive effects of parent- and youth-level risk factors on emotion parenting behaviors and adolescent emotion lability over time is largely unknown. Using secondary data analyses of a longitudinal community sample of adolescents and their caregivers (N = 277), the current study examined the extent to which supportive vs. harsh parenting reactions to adolescents’ expressions of negative emotions underlie the longitudinal association between maternal emotion dysregulation and changes in adolescent emotion lability, and whether youth ADHD symptoms and sex impact these processes. Using structural equation modeling, results showed that mothers who reported being more emotionally dysregulated were more likely to endorse engaging in harsh parenting for boys with more ADHD symptoms, relative to mothers of adolescent girls or adolescents with fewer ADHD symptoms. Contrary to hypotheses, no other pathways were statistically significant. These results partially align with a transactional model of parenting wherein parent- and adolescent-level risk factors interact to confer risk for maladaptive parenting. Future work should further attempt to characterize the independent and interactive effects of maternal emotion dysregulation and youth ADHD symptoms on parenting and adolescent outcomes over time.Item The Child Labor Movement's Night Messenger Service Campaign: Rights and Reform in the Progressive Era(2016) Gardner, Elizabeth Ellen; Parry-Giles, Shawn J.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Progressive Era is known for the democratization and expansion of government and the professionalization of occupations. The campaign to regulate child labor in the night messenger service (NMS) exemplifies the symbiosis and clash of these progressive forces. Specifically, this study analyzes how NMS reformers adopted rhetorics of social science, moral citizenship, and rights to define social problems and to expand the power of states over childhood. To this end, this study examines the NMS campaign’s discourse between 1909 and 1915 to demonstrate the ways in which reformers used technical arguments to renegotiate the process of reform and to realign the rights of children, parents, and states. These chapters follow the evolution of this campaign as it defined the NMS problem through its investigative reports, constructed the American public as under threat in its public appeals, and realigned the rights of adolescents within the states during its legislative process. As part of their technical arguments, campaigners identified experts as the instigators of reform, constructed the American public as an educated but inactive moral ideal, and established the leaders of the newly-formed child labor organizations as the undisputed managers of legislative initiatives. In so doing, the NMS campaigners helped establish the legitimacy and centrality of child welfare organizations within reform. In the NMS campaign model, technical expertise was necessary to collect research and guide a legislative campaign. As the American people were not experts, campaigners simply called on the general public to be vigilant and responsive to the directives of reformers. In the process, this study looks at the ways in which this reform campaign renegotiated the boundaries of adolescence in the Progressive Era. NMS campaigners sketched the independence of these adolescent laborers as a threat to the good of the community, and on the basis of that threat, reformers successfully lobbied to place the work of adolescents under the authority of the state. The NMS legislation positioned state governments rather than the family as the primary overseer of an adolescent’s labor and moral education and redefined the confines of adolescent labor in terms of age, time, and space.Item Experimentally Testing the Effect of Parent-Adolescent Conflict on HIV Risk, and Investigation of a Neurobiological Moderator of This Effect(2015) Thomas, Sarah Ann; De Los Reyes, Andres; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a condition in which immune cells become destroyed such that the body may become unable to fight off infections. Engaging in risk-taking behaviors (e.g., substance use) puts people at heightened risk for HIV infection, with mid-to-late adolescents at increasing risk (Leigh & Stall, 1993). Environmental and neurological reasons have been suggested for increased risk-taking among adolescents. First, family-level precursors such as parent-adolescent conflict have been significantly associated with and may pose risk for engaging in substance use and risk-taking (Duncan, Duncan, Biglan, & Ary, 1998). Thus, parent-adolescent conflict may be an important proximal influence on HIV risk behaviors (Lester et al., 2010; Rowe, Wang, Greenbaum, & Liddle, 2008). Yet, the temporal relation between parent-adolescent conflict and adolescent HIV risk-taking behaviors is still unknown. Second, at-risk adolescents may carry a neurobiological predisposition for engaging in trait-like expressions of disinhibited behavior and other risk-taking behaviors (Iacono, Malone, & McGue, 2008). When exposed to interpersonally stressful situations, their likelihood of engagement in HIV risk behaviors may increase. To investigate the role of parent-adolescent conflict in adolescent HIV risk-taking behaviors, 49 adolescents ages 14-17 and their parent were randomly assigned to complete a standardized discussion task to discuss a control topic or a conflict topic. Immediately after the discussion, adolescents completed a laboratory risk-taking measure. In a follow-up visit, eligible adolescents underwent electrophysiological (EEG) recording while completing a task designed to assess the presence of a neurobiological marker for behavioral disinhibition which I hypothesized would moderate the links between conflict and risk-taking. First, findings indicated that during the discussion task, adolescents in the conflict condition evidenced a significantly greater psychophysiological stress response relative to adolescents in the control condition. Second, a neurobiological marker of behavioral disinhibition moderated the relation between discussion condition and adolescent risk-taking, such that adolescents evidencing relatively high levels of a neurobiological marker related to sensation-seeking evidenced greater levels of risk-taking following the conflict condition, relative to the control condition. Lastly, I observed no significant relation between parent-adolescent conflict, the neurobiological marker of behavioral disinhibition and adolescent engagement in real-world risk-taking behavior.Item Social Influences of Error Monitoring(2016) Barker, Tyson Vern; Fox, Nathan A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Adolescence is characterized by dramatic hormonal, physical, and psychological changes, and is a period of risk for affective and anxiety disorders. Pubertal development during adolescence plays a major role in the emergence of these disorders, particularly among girls. Thus, it is critical to identify early biomarkers of risk. One potential biomarker, the error-related negativity (ERN), is an event-related potential following an erroneous response. Individuals with an anxiety disorder demonstrate a greater ERN than healthy comparisons, an association which is stronger in adolescence, suggesting that pubertal development may play a role in the ERN as a predictor of anxiety. One form of anxiety often observed in adolescence, particularly among girls, is social anxiety, which is defined as anxiety elicited by social-evaluative contexts. In adults, enhancements of the ERN in social-evaluative contexts is positively related to social anxiety symptoms, suggesting that the ERN in social contexts may serve as a biomarker for social anxiety. This dissertation examined the ERN in and its relation with puberty and social anxiety among 76 adolescent girls. Adolescent girls completed a flanker task in two differentItem Childhood Attention Problems and the Development of Comorbid Symptoms at the Transition to High School: The Mediating Role of Parent and Peer Relationships(2015) LeMoine, Kaitlyn Ashley; Chronis-Tuscano, Andrea; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are at increased risk for the development of depression and delinquent behavior. Children and adolescents with ADHD also experience difficulty creating/maintaining high quality friendships and parent-child relationships, and these difficulties may contribute to the development of co-morbid internalizing and externalizing symptoms in adolescence. However, there is limited research examining whether high quality friendships and parent-child relationships mediate the relation between ADHD and the emergence of these co-morbid symptoms at the transition to high school. This study examines the mediating role of relationship quality in the association between ADHD and depressive symptoms/delinquent behaviors at this developmentally significant transition point. Results revealed significant indirect effects of grade 6 attention problems on grade 9 depressive symptoms through friendship quality and quality of the mother-child relationship in grade 8. Interventions targeting parent and peer relationships may be valuable for youth with ADHD to promote successful transitions to high school.Item Truancy and the onset of marijuana use: Testing the relationship among Chilean students(2014) Larroulet Philippi, Pilar; Thornberry, Terence P.; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Previous research conducted in the United States has shown that truancy increases the risk of marijuana use among adolescents. The current study examines this relationship in Chile. By using a longitudinal study conducted from 2008 to 2011 among school students in 7th grade in Santiago, Chile, I test the effect that truancy has on the onset of marijuana use, controlling for a number of potential confounders. The findings support the hypothesis that youths who reported having been truant were more likely to initiate marijuana use. However, I did not find enough support for the hypothesis that youths who reported have skipped schools more days were at a higher risk of initiating marijuana use.Item Examining the Meaning of Procedural Justice among Serious Adolescent Offenders(2013) Augustyn, Megan Bears; Paternoster, Raymond; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Attempts to reduce delinquent/criminal behavior among juveniles tend to operate outside of the criminal justice system. Part of this emphasis is due to the fact that the criminal justice system has long prescribed to a control/deterrence framework in order to reduce juvenile delinquency even though this perspective has not been shown to be overly effective. However, a growing body of literature has begun to realize the importance of "process" over "control" within the criminal justice system; thus demonstrating that increasing perceptions of procedural justice and legitimacy can increase compliant behavior and reduce offending. This investigation seeks to add to the growing body of literature examining the normative perspective of compliance through the examination of the role of procedural justice and legitimacy among serious adolescent offenders. The value of this work is in its contribution to important gaps in the extant literature. Although the expansion of outcomes of interest to include official measures of recidivism and substance use is worthy of note, the main value of this research is the examination of the relevance of Procedural Justice Theory as a potential guide for the reduction of recidivism rates among serious juvenile offenders. Furthermore, this research will examine how perceptions of legitimacy are formed through variable experiences of procedural justice among adolescent offenders. The ambiguity surrounding the formation of perceptions of legitimacy will be addressed through the examination of the importance of varying sources of experiences of procedural justice. In addition, analyses also will discern the varying importance of the different elements of treatment that make up the concept of procedural justice (e.g. representation, impartiality, consistency, accuracy, correctability and ethical treatment), which, in turn, are predicted to inhibit criminal behavior through the formation of positive perceptions of legitimacy. Finally, this dissertation adopts examines whether or not the relevance and meaning of procedural justice varies among males of different race/ethnicity. This line of inquiry has rarely been applied to normative perspective of compliance and never applied among adolescent populations. Using a sample of 1,353 serious adolescent offenders from the Pathways to Desistance Study, this research examines the theoretical and empirical implications of various means used to determine what is "fair" and "just" among the adolescent population. Among serious adolescent offenders, weak evidence exists regarding the applicability of Procedural Justice Theory as a means to reduce recidivism. However, subsequent analyses reveal that the theory is better at predicting the relative frequency of criminal acts as well as overall recidivism among novice offenders. In the end, this dissertation speaks to the importance of personal interactions with the police in the formation of perceptions of legitimacy and the reduction of recidivism rates among some serious adolescent offenders. Not only does this work have important implications for the generality of Procedural Justice Theory, but it also speaks to the need to continue to examine the relevance of the normative perspective of compliance among adolescents in general in order to determine if this population actually appeals to morality when making decisions to engage in criminal behavior.