UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
Browse
5 results
Search Results
Item Lifted Up or Feet on the Ground? How Leader Emotional Balancing Moderates the Effect of Developmental Feedback on Employee Learning(2022) Guo, Siyan; Seo, Myeong-Gu; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Leaders expect their developmental feedback to help employees develop skills and improve performance, yet the effect of developmental feedback on learning remains unclear. In this dissertation, the concept of developmental feedback (DFB) is extended to include two dimensions, gap identification and gap elimination. I focus on the affective mechanisms underlying the DFB – learning relationship and identify trade-offs in each of the DFB dimensions. I argue that while gap elimination elicits employee positive affect (PA) that facilitates learning via increased learning self-efficacy, it undermines learning via PA and decreased learning need recognition. In addition, gap identification induces employee negative affect (NA) that works in the opposite way. Emotional balancing, or leaders’ dynamic engagement in both affect improving and affect worsening behaviors, is proposed to attenuate the negative mechanisms. I conducted a pilot study in the field to develop measures for the two DFB dimensions, followed by a three-wave, multisource field study to test my theoretical model at the between-person level, and a daily dairy field study to test the model at the within-person level. The findings largely support my proposed model. The results indicate that gap identification positively predicts employee NA, while gap elimination predicts PA. Gap identification is positively associated with learning via employee learning need recognition, but negatively predicts learning via employee NA and learning self-efficacy. I also find that gap elimination positively predicts learning through PA and improved employee self-efficacy in learning. Importantly, the results demonstrate the beneficial effects of emotional balancing, which significantly moderates the effects of PA and NA. Taken together, these findings indicate that receiving DFB is a highly emotional experience that creates a tension between feeling uplifted and keeping feet on the ground, and leaders can use emotional balancing to manage employee affect to achieve better learning outcomes.Item MENTAL HEALTH AND EMOTION REGULATION AMONG REFUGEE STUDENTS IN MALAYSIA(2016) Gosnell, Nicole; O'Neal, Colleen R; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The global refugee crisis has propelled over 65.3 million refugees into flight, including 33 million children (UNHCR, 2016). This study utilizes a mixed-methods design to examine mental health and emotion regulation among post-conflict Southeast Asian refugee children. To understand stressors that may cause mental health challenges, this study explores themes raised in qualitative interviews addressing oppression in Burma, flight to Malaysia, and life in Malaysia. Quantitative study participants included 90 refugee children in Malaysia aged 10-19 years (M = 14.22, 74.4% Burmese, 51.1% female). Measures included the Kiddie-Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL) and the Emotions as a Child (EAC) Qualitative participants included four refugee boys who participated in a group interview about their individual experiences. This study examined: rates of PTSD and MDD among refugee students, the relation between emotion regulation and mental health, and the unique post-conflict stressors experienced by refugee children.Item Examination of the Brain Processes Underlying Emotion Regulation within a Stress Resilient Population(2011) Costanzo, Michelle Elizabeth; Hatfield, Bradley D.; Neuroscience and Cognitive Science; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Emotion robustly affects the quality of cognitive-motor performance under conditions of mental stress. As such, the regulation of emotion is critical to successful execution of motor skills during emotional challenge. Previous investigations of the stress-performance relationship have typically focused on behavioral outcomes, however, few have adopted a cognitive neuroscience approach to examine the involved mechanisms underlying this relationship. Furthermore, it is unclear if individuals who have a history of superior performance under stress (stress resilient population) exhibit brain responses characterized by an efficiency of neural processing and an adaptive emotion regulatory strategy. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the present study examined activation in critical brain regions during affective challenge (i.e., presentation of International Affective Picture System negative images and Sport-Specific negative images) in 13 elite athletes (intercollegiate football players who have demonstrated successful execution of cognitive-motor skills under mental stress) relative to an age-matched control group (n=12). The present dissertation is organized into three main sections. The first report, entitled Brain Processes during Motor Performance under Psychological Stress, an Independent Component Analysis of EEG, is an examination of brain processes during competitive stress. This study revealed non-essential neuromotor cerebral cortical noise with a quantified increase in complexity during a cognitive-motor task. The second report is entitled Efficiency of Affective Brain Processes in Expert Cognitive-Motor Performers during Emotional Challenge. This fMRI examination of elite athletes revealed processing economy in brain regions critical to self regulation, management of emotional impulses and social cognition. The third report, entitled The Specificity of Neural Regulatory Processes during Emotional Challenge in a Stress Resilient Population, examined with fMRI if elite athletes spontaneously engage in cognitive reappraisal during the presentation of arousing sport-specific images. Results suggest that elite athletes process sports-relevant affective information in an automatic manner, congruent with a cognitive reappraisal strategy, which neutralized the negative impact of the scenes. In conclusion, the results suggest that elite performers are important models of stress resilience and respond not only in an efficient manner to stressful events, but demonstrate an adaptive regulatory response when challenged within their domain of experience.Item Parent Gender and Child Gender as Factors in the Socialization of Emotion Displays and Emotion Regulation in Preschool Children(2006-06-02) Kennedy, Amy Elizabeth; Rubin, Kenneth H; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In recent years, there has been a surge in the examination of the socialization of children's emotions (see Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998 for relevant review). Few researchers have examined the socialization of both (1) discrete positive emotions (e.g., happiness) and (2) discrete negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, anger). Furthermore, few studies have examined both mothers' and fathers' role in children's emotional development. The present study had three major aims (1) examine parents' emotional reactions and reactive socialization strategies to children's discrete positive and negative emotion-related behaviors; (2) examine the role of parent gender and child gender in the emotion socialization process; and (3) examine the role of context (public setting versus private setting) in the emotion socialization process. Eighty-six parents of preschool-aged children (26 mothers of daughters, 20 mothers of sons, 17 fathers of sons, and 23 fathers of daughters) participated in this study. Data were analyzed with respect to: (1) parents self-reported emotional reactions to their sons' or daughters' displays of happiness, anxiety, anger, or disappointment, in both the public and private contexts; and (2) the emotion socialization strategies parents utilized in response to their sons' or daughters' displays of happiness, anxiety, anger, or disappointment in public and private contexts. Results indicated (1) mothers and fathers report stronger emotional reactions in response to their same-sex child's display of emotions; (2) the cause for children's emotion may play a powerful role in the manner which parents respond to their children's emotions; and (3) parents respond differently to children's display of discrete positive and negative emotions.Item Characteristics of Exuberance: Novelty-Seeking, Sociability or Emotion?(2006-04-25) Toste, Cindy Polak; Fox, Nathan; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Current theories of temperament posit that individual differences in activity, reactivity, emotionality, sociability and self-regulation arise from biologically based systems and that these differences remain relatively stable over the lifespan (Goldsmith et al., 1987). One temperamental profile, Exuberance, has emerged from both conceptual and empirical work. Exuberance has been variously conceptualized in the extant temperament literature and has been associated with both positive and negative socio-emotional outcomes in children. In order to ascertain the impact of Exuberance on later adaptation, the first major goal of the current study was to identify its core features. The second major goal of the study was to examine the relations between Exuberance and later adaptation. Sixty toddlers and their caregivers participated in the study. At 24-months toddlers were invited to interact with a variety of novelty social and non-social stimuli and their caregivers were asked to complete the Toddler Behavior Assessment Questionnaire (TBAQ; Goldsmith, 1996). When the toddlers were 36-months old, caregivers were asked to complete the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL/1.5-5; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000) and the Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Battery (ITSEA; Carter & Briggs-Gowan, 2003). Separate confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the factor structure of Exuberance and Sociability and to examine the relations between Exuberance and behavioral inhibition. Findings supported an orthogonal two-factor of Sociability (i.e. quality of attachment to caregiver and sociability with an unfamiliar adult) and an orthogonal two-factor model of Exuberance (i.e. novelty-seeking and sociability with an unfamiliar adult). The current study also lent support for the distinctiveness of Exuberance (i.e. novelty-seeking and sociability with an unfamiliar adult) from behavioral inhibition. Also, little convergence between the scale items from the TBAQ and behavioral observations of Exuberance was found. Emotion regulation was found to predict both positive and negative adaptation and to mediate the relations between novelty-seeking and later positive and negative adaptation. Also, novelty-seeking predicted later externalizing problems. Taken together, these findings indicate the need for examining the unique facets of Exuberance in order to understand the impact of this temperamental profile on later social and emotional development.