College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item An Experimental Evaluation of After School Program Participation on Problem Behavior Outcomes: Does Pre-Existing Risk Moderate the Effects of Program Participation?(2009) Cross, Amanda Brown; Gottfredson, Denise C; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Background: Some prevention programs negatively affect participants. Previous research indicates that peers can cause these negative effects. However, little is known about which students may be most vulnerable to negative peer effects in prevention interventions. Purpose: This study tests the effect of participation in an after-school program (ASP) on student outcomes of peer delinquency, problem behavior and antisocial attitudes and beliefs for students of differing pre-test levels of risk for those outcomes. Drawing on social learning theory, this study examines whether low- and moderate- risk students in the intervention are more likely to acquire delinquent behaviors and beliefs in the ASP than their already-delinquent counterparts. Participants: 447 middle school students attending underperforming schools in Baltimore County, Maryland. Intervention: The data are drawn from an experimental evaluation of an after school program which operated in five middle schools in Baltimore County during the 2006-2007 academic year. The overall evaluation of the program found null effects on the wide range of measured outcomes (including academic achievement and delinquency). I explore whether the lack of beneficial program effects is partially attributable to negative effects among low and moderate risk participants who absorbed negative beliefs and behaviors from high-risk peers in the ASP. Research Design: Randomized, controlled field trial. Findings: Results indicate that low- and moderate- risk youth are not more likely to experience negative outcomes than high-risk youths. On the contrary, low-risk participants are less likely to experience negative effects than high-risk participants. Students who began the program with elevated negative peer influences grew in this characteristic if they often participated in the ASP but declined in negative peer influences if they less often attended the program. Implications for universal prevention are discussed.Item Connecting the forgotten half: The school-to-work transition of non-college bound youth(2009) Ling, Thomson Joseph; O'Brien, Karen; Kivlighan, Dennis; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)When we think of high school students making the transition to adulthood, most of us picture students pursuing a college or university education. However, for many individuals, this image is not the case. For some youth, the transition to adulthood is marked by entrance into the workforce. While previous research has examined the school-to-work transition of non-college-bound youth, most only have considered a limited set of variables and only examined job attainment. By considering job quality and employment stability in addition to job attainment, the present study examined the school-to-work transition of non-college bound youth using a nationally representative sample of youth followed longitudinally. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort, we examined a comprehensive set of predictors within an ecological framework. This study sought to determine: "What were the predictors of job attainment, stability of employment, and job quality for youth who are making the school-to-work transition?" Logistic regression and structural equation modeling were used to examine the hypotheses. With regard to job attainment, depression, substance use, adolescent educational attainment, and employment in adolescence were associated with obtaining employment. With regard to job quality and stability of employment, depression, substance use, adolescent educational attainment, employment in adolescence, parental educational attainment, and income were associated with these job characteristics. Parent-adolescent relationship and physical risk were not associated with job characteristics.Item The Development of Syntactic Complexity and the Irregular Past Tense in Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter(2009) Bauman, Jessica; Ratner, Nan B; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examined spontaneous language samples and standardized test data obtained from 31 pairs of children who stutter (CWS), ages 25-59 months, and age-matched children who do not stutter (CWNS). Developmental Sentence Scores (DSS; Lee, 1974) as well as the relationships among age, DSS, and other standardized test scores were compared for both groups. No substantial differences were found between groups in the syntactic complexity of spontaneous language; however, the two groups show different relationships between age and DSS and between test scores and DSS. Additionally, observed differences between CWS and CWNS in patterns of past-tense errors and usage are discussed in light of a recent theoretical model of language performance in populations with suspected basal ganglia involvement (Ullman, 2004).Item Factors Related to Changes in Infant Attachment Security: A Test of the Differential Susceptibility Hypothesis(2009) Stupica, Brandi Shawn; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A major tenet of attachment theory is that the stability of the caregiving environment drives the stability of infant attachment security. The research investigating the factors related to the stability and change of infant attachment is limited by its lack attention to infant characteristics related to attachment stability outcomes. The newly developed differential susceptibility hypothesis posits that temperamentally difficult children are more influenced by their caregiving environment. In the present study, I examine infant irritability as a moderator of the link between changes in maternal (a) depressive symptomatology, (b) life satisfaction, and (c) parenting self-efficacy on changes in infant attachment security between 12 and 18 months.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.Item Infant speech perception in noise and early childhood measures of syntax and attention abilities(2008) Blayney, Elizabeth Sarah Sanford; Newman, Rochelle; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Childhood outcomes in syntactic and attention abilities were measured for 23 children (mean age = 5:3) who, as infants, had either succeeded or failed at identifying their name in the presence of multitalker background noise. Children from the unsuccessful infant group were rated by parents as having significantly more difficulty with attention-related behaviors than children from the successful infant group. The two groups did not perform significantly differently on standardized measures of morphosyntactic ability, but the unsuccessful group was found to have significantly lower MLUs on narrative language samples than the successful group.Item Emotion & Prosody: Examining Infants' Ability to Match Subtle Prosodic Variation with Corresponding Facial Expressions(2008-12-04) Haszko, Sarah Elisabeth; Newman, Rochelle; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Emotions are conveyed largely through facial expressions and prosody. One important part of language development is learning to express and comprehend these features of emotion. This study examined infants' ability to pair facial expressions with corresponding prosody for "happiness" and "fear". These emotions differ in valence but contain similar prosody. Sixteen-month-olds viewed a single video screen displaying either a happy or fearful facial expression. Simultaneously they heard a series of phrases containing either fearful or happy intonation. During some trials the voice and face expressed the same emotion; during other trials there was a mismatch. Infants' looking time was measured during each condition; they were expected to look longer when both the face and voice matched in emotion. Sixteen-month-olds did not look significantly longer during any particular condition. This suggests that infants may have a limited understanding of the manifestations of "fear" and "happiness" at 16 months of age.Item Maternal and Paternal Perceptions of Hostility Toward Their Adolescents: Links to Adolescent Peer-Reported Social Acceptance and Social Behavior(2008-08-21) Butler, Heidi Marie; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The goal of the present study was to examine the links between parental perceptions of hostility and peer-reported adolescent social acceptance and social behavior in eleventh grade students. Results revealed the following associations among study variables: (1) the association between parental perceptions of hostility and peer-reported social acceptance and social behavior exists; (2) the association between parental perceptions of hostility and adolescent perceptions of hostility exits; and (3) the association between adolescent perceptions of parental hostility and peer-reported adolescent social acceptance exists, however, the association between adolescent perceptions of parental hostility and peer-reported social behavior does not exist. The findings of this study provide a basis for future researcher examining the associations among parental perceptions of hostility, adolescents' perceptions of parental hostility, social acceptance, and social behavior.Item What's in a Mitten?: The Effects of Active Versus Passive Experience on Action Understanding(2008-05-28) Gerson, Sarah A; Woodward, Amanda L; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Prior research has shown that young infants understand something about others' goals. This understanding has been developmentally linked to infants' own actions. An open question is what aspects of experience are crucial to action understanding. In the current studies, we sought to examine the relation between experience and action understanding in 3-month-old infants and to investigate the differential effects of active and passive experience. Findings from Study 1 demonstrated a threshold effect: a minimal amount of active experience led to subsequent action understanding. In Study 2, we assessed whether visual experience alone would have the same effect by giving another group of infants matched passive experience. These infants, however, did not reap the same benefits from passive experience. These findings demonstrate that active experience provides important information, above and beyond that which can be gleaned from passive experience, at a time when intention understanding is first emerging.Item Conflict at home and problems with peers: Family-peer linkages and the role of adolescent depressive symptoms and gender(2008-05-05) Ehrlich, Katherine Babcock; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Peer relationships have a significant impact on developmental outcomes throughout the lifespan. One variable that has been identified extensively as a contributor to peer outcomes is children's family environment. In the present investigation, I examine the relation between adolescents' family environment and peer relationships. Specifically, I study how family conflict, including both parent-child conflict and marital conflict, is linked to social acceptance and social behavior. I examine whether adolescents' depressive symptoms act as a mediator of the links between family conflict and social acceptance and behavior. Finally, I examine the moderating role of gender.