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
3 results
Search Results
Item Children's Developing Conceptions of Fairness: The Role of Status in Children's Responses to Inequalities(2018) Rizzo, Michael Thomas; Killen, Melanie; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The moral concern for fairness is a core element of social life throughout the lifespan. Concerns about fairness arise in multiple contexts, and one very salient context is the allocation of resources. Understanding the harmful consequences of unfair resource allocations, for example, is essential to ensuring social harmony and protecting the welfare of all individuals. This study investigated how 3- to 8-year-old children (N = 176) perceived of, and responded to, resource inequalities based on their status within the inequality (advantaged or disadvantaged) and whether the allocation was based on differences in individual merit or gender biases. Across a range of assessments, the present study documented how children’s status within individual and gender based inequalities had a profound influence on how they perceived a context of resource inequality. Children’s status and the type of inequality were related to their perceptions of the inequality in several ways. Children who were disadvantaged by an inequality judged it to be more unfair than children who were advantaged by it. However, both advantaged and disadvantaged children judged gender based allocations to be more unfair than individually based inequalities. Further, children who were advantaged by the inequality were more likely to support redistributing the resources when they expected that a fellow – advantaged – ingroup member initiated the redistribution. Finally, children were more likely to rectify a gender based inequality than an individual one, whereas they were more likely to perpetuate an individual inequality than a gender based one. Children’s intra- and intergroup attitudes and inclusion decisions were also related to their status and the type of inequality that they experienced. Although children were more favorable towards gender ingroup than outgroup members, with age, children preferentially included gender outgroup peers that performed well at the activities. Evidence was also found to support the argument that children’s experiences with resource inequalities are related to their conceptions of fairness in subsequent contexts. Children who were personally disadvantaged by an inequality evaluated rectifying a separate, third-person, inequality more favorably and were also more likely to rectify the third-person inequality. Finally, children’s ToM competence was revealed as an important developmental mechanism for children’s developing conceptions of fairness. Children with a more advanced understanding of others’ mental states judged rectifying gender based inequalities more positively and were more likely to include gender outgroup peers who performed well at the activities (controlling for age). Interestingly, children’s status within the inequality was also related to their ToM performance. Children who were advantaged by the inequality were less likely to pass subsequent ToM assessments compared to those who were disadvantaged by the inequality. Overall, results provide novel insights into children’s developing conceptions of fairness. Specifically, results detail the critical role of children’s perspective within a context in their perceptions of, and responses to, the context. Results also have implications for fostering positive intergroup relationships, improving children’s concern for rectifying first and third-person inequalities, and for our understanding of how children’s position within a context relates to their ability to understand others’ mental states.Item The Developmental Niches of Young Children from Central Americna Immigrant Families: Links between Their Early Social Environments and Social Skills(2012) Denmark, Nicole Marie; Jones Harden, Brenda P; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)National studies reveal early gaps in the language and literacy skills of children from low-income Central American (CA) immigrant families, yet also indicate strengths in the social development of these children (Galindo & Fuller, 2010). Using the framework of the developmental niche, the aim of this mixed-methods study was to explore how cultural goals, the physical and social settings, and customs of childrearing conspire to affect the social skills of children from CA immigrant families. I sought to learn about the "developmental niches" of children from CA immigrant families by 1) exploring themes in mothers' goals for their children; 2) exploring the persons and activities available to children; and 3) exploring the types of activities that parents engage in with their children. The next goal was to analyze the quantitative connections between children's developmental niches and their social skills. Forty-eight mothers who had emigrated from a CA country and whose children were enrolled in Head Start classrooms participated in this study. Most children's early environments were characterized by mothers goals' for bien educado (e.g., proper comportment) and buenas relaciones (sociability, getting along with family), multi-family households, and free play with other children. Salient parenting activities included purposeful conversations, children's co- participation in household tasks, and "going out" as a family. These aspects of children's developmental niches were largely unrelated to maternal characteristics or child gender. Further, there were few relations between mothers' parenting goals, the persons present in the household and parenting activities. Mothers' and teachers' reports of children's social skills were unrelated. Parental participation in play, conversation, and household tasks were positive predictors of children's social cooperation according to mothers but not teachers. This study reveals a potential disconnect between skills and types of activities valued in children's homes versus at school. The findings also highlight the challenges that immigrant families face in structuring children's environments to be consistent with their childrearing norms and goals. Future research should explore parenting and education practices that help promote social skills valued in the multiple contexts of CA children's lives.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.