Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

Browse

Filters

2009 - 200912010 - 20131

Settings

Author: search.filters.author.Sherman, Laura Jernigan

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Infants' representations and memories of their social-emotional interactions
    (2013) Sherman, Laura Jernigan; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    According to several theorists, infants form mental representations and memories of their social-emotional interactions (e.g., Bowlby, 1969/1982), but very few studies have investigated these claims. Across two studies, I hypothesized that 10-month-old infants would form representations and memories of their social-emotional interactions. In Study 1, infants (N = 24) were familiarized to a positive and negative puppet and their representations and memories were assessed with visual-paired comparison (VPC) and forced-choice tests. Ten minutes after their interactions, but not immediately after, significantly more infants chose the positive puppet (17/24, p = .030). To better understand these results, I conducted another study in which infants (N = 32) were randomly assigned to be familiarized to either a positive and neutral puppet or a negative and neutral puppet. In the positive condition infants were more likely to choose the positive puppet immediately after (12/16, p =.038), but not 10 minutes after the interactions, whereas in the negative condition infants' choices were at chance - but older infants were more likely choose the neutral puppet (Mdiff = 11.50 days, p = .022). In both studies, no effects emerged with infants' preferential looking. Overall, the results indicated that infants' representations and memories of their brief social-emotional interactions were stronger for positive than negative interactions. Results are discussed with regard to existing theory and research and the negativity bias hypothesis.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Bridging the Attachment Transmission Gap with Maternal Mind-mindedness and Infant Temperament
    (2009) Sherman, Laura Jernigan; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The goal of this study was to test (a) whether maternal mind-mindedness (MM) mediates the link between maternal attachment (from the Adult Attachment Interview) and infant attachment (in the Strange Situation), and (b) whether infant temperament moderates this model of attachment transmission. Eighty-four racially diverse, economically stressed mothers and their infants were assessed three times: newborn, 5, and 12 months. Despite robust meta-analytic findings supporting attachment concordance for mothers and infants in community samples, this sample was characterized by low attachment concordance. Maternal attachment was unrelated to maternal MM; and, maternal MM was related to infant attachment differences for ambivalent infants only. Infant irritability did not moderate the model. Possible reasons for the discordant attachment patterns and the remaining findings are discussed in relation to theory and previous research.