Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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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Item Gender differences in emotion identification among young children(2017) Mulder, Blakely; Teglasi, Hedwig; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Gender differences in emotion competence, including emotion identification, are held in popular belief but are inconsistently supported in the research. Emotion identification (EID) is defined as one’s understanding of the experience and expression of emotion, as conveyed through the labeling of the emotions oneself or another person is experiencing. This study investigated gender differences in EID using both the traditional method of comparing scores on a structured task of emotion identification and a comparison of girls’ and boys’ patterns of responding. An ANCOVA was used to compare girls’ and boys’ scores on a task of Situational EID across age groups, while children’s response patterns were analyzed using chi-squares. Results found few effects due to gender, but many effects due to age. Results are framed in context of the biological and social factors that impact emotion identification.Item Relationships between Temperament, Emotion Understanding, and Social Competence in Early Childhood(2017) Verron, Heather; Teglasi, Hedwig; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Young children’s social competence is regarded as one of the strongest indicators of positive adjustment throughout the lifespan. As part of an effort to unpack its development, a large body of existing research has established relationships between temperamental factors and social competence, as well as between emotion understanding and social competence. However, studies that have examined these constructs have been laden with definitional disagreements and methodological issues, leaving the true magnitude and scope of the relationships difficult to discern. In addition, there has been very little research that has examined relationships between temperament and emotion understanding, although theory and research with clinical samples suggests there are likely links between the two. The current study thus aimed to add to the existing literature by examining temperamental factors, emotion understanding abilities, and social competence in concert. It was hypothesized that emotion understanding would mediate relationships between temperament and social competence. As expected, certain aspects of temperamental reactivity and self-regulation, as rated by both parents and teachers, correlated with preschoolers’ and kindergarteners’ performance on emotion understanding tasks, which required them to identify emotions likely to be elicited by common social situations (emotion situation knowledge) and to offer explanations for why certain situations may be elicited by those social situations (emotion situation reasoning). Interestingly, performance on emotion situation reasoning tasks, but not emotion situation knowledge tasks, emerged as a significant mediator between temperament and social competence, regardless of temperament informant. Although further research is needed in this area, emerging patterns suggest a need to distinguish between children’s possession of rote knowledge of emotions and abilities to reason about them. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are also discussed.Item The Role of Temperament and Emotion Understanding in the Development of Child Internalizing Disorders(2014) Gifford, Kathleen Marie; Teglasi, Hedy; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Internalizing disorders are among the most frequently diagnosed psychological problems in childhood (Crawford, Schrock, & Woodruff-Borden, 2011). Evidence suggests that children who have the tendency to avoid, and less developed effortful control, are more likely to develop symptoms of internalizing (White, McDermott, Degnan, Henderson, & Fox, 2011). Similarly, preschoolers who are rated as being more withdrawn during social interactions often display more social anxiety than less avoidant peers (Ale, Chorney, Brice, & Morris, 2010). Furthermore, more difficulty with emotion understanding, and social avoidance, has been shown to directly relate to internalizing problems such as depression, fear/anxiety, somatic complaints, worry and rumination (Rieffe & De Rooij, 2012). Although researchers have identified some early vulnerability factors that lead to the development of internalizing problems, research on anxiety/internalizing in the preschool age population is scarce (Wichstrom, Belsky, & Berg-Nielsen, 2013). The current study sought to fill this gap in the existing literature. The study sample consisted of 139 parent, teacher, and preschooler participants from a university setting (38 to 82 months old; with a mean age of 57 months). Temperament was examined through parent ratings on the Structured Temperament Interview (STI) (Teglasi, 2009) and the Children's Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ), Short Form (Putnam & Rothbart, 2006). Emotion understanding was examined by preschoolers' performance on the Emotion Comprehension Test (ECT) (unpublished). Internalizing behaviors were measured through teacher ratings on the Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation (SCBE) (LaFreniere & Dumas, 1996). Correlations between the STI factors and CBQ scales illustrated underlying aspects of emotionality and reactivity that influence children's approach/avoidance tendencies, and the link between temperament and overall adjustment. Children who were rated high on preferring familiar/routine activities were also rated as having more internalizing problems, and worse performance on a measure of emotion understanding; whereas, children who were rated high on sociability were rated as having fewer internalizing problems. Regression analyses demonstrated that effortful control moderated the relationship between sociability and internalizing behaviors such that children with high sociability and high effortful control displayed the best behavioral adjustment; and children with low sociability and high effortful control displayed the most internalizing behaviors.Item Assessment of Emotion Understanding in Preschoolers: Multiple-Choice vs. Open-Ended Methods(2014) Verron, Heather; Teglasi, Hedwig; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines a new method of assessing emotion understanding in preschoolers. Prior research has established that preschool is a critical time for emotion understanding development and that emotion understanding abilities are related to such important outcomes as social competence. Traditionally, measures of emotion understanding present multiple-choice questions that require children to select one emotion that is most likely to be elicited in various situations. However, this study proposes an alternative method in which children are asked to explain their answers on a subset of items. Their open-ended responses are then coded for quality of reasoning. Results establish preliminary evidence of the reliability and validity of the new assessment method. Notably, multiple regression analyses indicate that the coded emotion reasoning scores are a better predictor of social competence than scores obtained using traditional multiple-choice procedures. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are also discussed.Item Social and Emotional Functioning of Children with Cochlear Implants(2005-04-18) Schorr, Efrat; Fox, Nathan A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Studies of infants and children have demonstrated the importance of sensory processing in facilitating social and emotional development. Children who are deaf are deprived of the information typically provided by the auditory modality that is necessary to the development of basic social and emotional skills, which serve as the foundation upon which complex social and emotional constructs are built. Children with cochlear implants experience extended periods of total auditory deprivation during early childhood, followed by the introduction of auditory stimulation. Thirty-nine children with cochlear implants, aged five through fourteen, as well as an age and sex matched group of normal hearing peers, participated in assessment of the integrated perception of multimodal stimuli, processing of facial and vocal expressions of emotion, and emotion understanding skills. These dimensions of basic social and emotional functioning are vulnerable to the effects of atypical early experience. The age at which children received their cochlear implant and the length of time that they have used the cochlear implant were hypothesized to predict performance on the assessments. Results showed that the age at implant predicted performance on the McGurk fusion task, which requires the integration of multimodal sensory stimuli. Specifically, children who received their cochlear implant prior to age 30 months accurately identified the incongruent auditory-visual stimuli, whereas children who received their cochlear implant after 30 months of age did not. Age at implant and duration of implant use did not predict performance on the other experimental tasks. Comparison of groups revealed that performance of children with cochlear implants did not differ from children with normal hearing in a facial emotion identification task and in 2 components of emotion understanding: receptive identification of facial expressions and affective-perspective taking. Children with cochlear implants demonstrated poorer performance than children with normal hearing in tasks requiring free labeling of facial expressions of emotion, and vocal emotion identification. This research suggests sensitive periods in multimodal sensory integration. The present study provides understanding of the social and emotional influences of early experience with the auditory system on children with cochlear implants.