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.

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Author: search.filters.author.Shoplik, HelenaSubject: search.filters.subject.Preschool

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    Are different temperament traits involved in adapting to routine and novel situations?
    (2021) Shoplik, Helena; Teglasi, Hedwig; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Individual differences in adaptability, defined as ease of responding to changes, was initially suggested as a temperamental disposition, observable during the first years of life (Thomas & Chess, 1977), but turned out to be a more complex phenomenon with contributions from multiple temperamental traits (Teglasi, 1998). Temperament traits contribute differently depending on the functional requirements of routine and familiar contexts for reactive and self-regulatory processes. The current study utilizes parent-reported temperament traits measured by the Structured Temperament Interview (STI) and by a well-respected temperament measure (the Child Behavior Questionnaire; CBQ), as well as correlates of adaptive responsiveness (e.g. social competence and emotion understanding) to highlight the role that emotions play in adjustment to familiar and novel contexts. Part of an archival data set, pre-schoolers’ parents completed the CBQ (Rothbart, et al., 2001) and the STI (Teglasi, unpublished) and reported how well their child adapted in novel and routine contexts. Children completed the Emotion Comprehension Test (ECT; Teglasi, unpublished) and teachers filled out the Social Competence Behavior Evaluation (SCBE; Freniere & Dumas, 1995). Results provided support for conceptualising temperament traits as working together like a team—the addition of one temperament trait can change the expression of another. Additionally, different traits emerged as unique predictors in novel and routine situations, even when controlling for the overlap between those situations and other traits. Finally, this study continued to expand on a new construct, Resistance to Emotional Attention, which captures the function of attention as it relates to emotional stimuli.
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    The Contributions of Temperament Traits to Regulatory Flexibility in Preschoolers: The Importance of Context
    (2019) Shoplik, Helena; Teglasi, Hedwig; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Regulatory flexibility is the ability to meet demands of a situation by modulating behavior, cognitions, or emotions. While flexibility has been studied in early childhood, the role of reactive and regulatory temperamental building blocks of flexibility to meet requirements of different contexts has not been investigated in preschoolers. Routine and novel contexts require very different skills to navigate appropriately. For example, different aspects of inhibition and modulation of behavior may come into play in familiar/routine and novel contexts such those that depart from expectations. The current study utilized a parent-report measure of temperament and of regulatory flexibility to address the unique contributions of selected temperamental attributes—including attention, sensitivity, and activity level—to regulatory flexibility. Because of its multi-faceted nature (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010), an in-depth examination of regulatory flexibility could provide a better understanding of how preschoolers meet the challenges that are introduced to them during this developmental period.