Human Development & Quantitative Methodology
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The departments within the College of Education were reorganized and renamed as of July 1, 2011. This department incorporates the former departments of Measurement, Statistics & Evaluation; Human Development; and the Institute for Child Study.
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Item PREFERENCE-FOR-SOLITUDE, FRIENDSHIP SUPPORT, AND INTERNALIZING DIFFICULTIES DURING EARLY ADOLESCENCE IN THE U.S.A. AND CHINA(2014) Wang, Jennifer M.; Rubin, Kenneth H.; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Social withdrawal has been associated with adjustment difficulties across development. Although much is known about shyness, little is known about preference-for-solitude; even less is known about how friendship might influence its relations with adolescent adjustment across different cultures. In particular, despite the significance of friendship for youth adjustment, not much is known about the ways in which friendship quality might lead to different adjustment outcomes for youth who prefer solitude; even less is known about these relations across different cultures. Accordingly, the overall goal of this research was to examine the relations between preference-for-solitude, friendship support, and internalizing difficulties during early adolescence in the U.S.A. and China. Specifically, this research examined the moderating role of friendship support in the relations between preference-for-solitude and internalizing difficulties (negative affect, negative self-esteem) in early adolescence across the U.S.A. and China. The U.S.A sample comprised 300 American youth (121 boys; M age = 14.28 years, SD = .51) from the greater Washington DC metropolitan area. The China sample comprised 201 youth living in Beijing, China (86 boys; M age = 14.21 years, SD = .62). Participants across both samples completed self- reports of social withdrawal (shyness; preference-for-solitude), friendship support, and internalizing difficulties (negative affect; negative self-esteem). Results from structural equation modeling demonstrated that preference-for-solitude and shyness emerged as related but unique dimensions of withdrawal across both the U.S.A. and China. Consistent with previous research, preference-for-solitude was positively associated with negative affect and negative self-esteem across both samples. In the U.S.A., friendship support significantly moderated the link between preference-for-solitude and negative self-esteem: preference-for-solitude was most associated with negative self-esteem beyond shyness for American youth with low friendship support. This was not found for negative affect; friendship support did not significantly moderate the effect of preference-for-solitude on negative affect in American youth. In China, friendship support did not significantly moderate any of the relations between preference-for-solitude and internalizing difficulties. Rather, for Chinese youth, preference-for-solitude and friendship support contributed independently beyond the effects of shyness to negative affect and negative self-esteem. In summary, preference-for-solitude was positively associated with negative affect and negative self-esteem in early adolescence across the U.S.A. and China. In the U.S.A., preference-for-solitude was most associated with negative self-esteem for youth with low friendship support. In addition to contributing to the developmental literature on preference-for-solitude, findings highlight the role of close interpersonal relationships for understanding the heterogeneity of withdrawal in development and across different cultures.Item The best friendships of young adolescents: The role of internalizing symptoms, characteristics of friends, friendship quality, and observed disclosure(2008-01-15) Buskirk-Cohen, Allison Anne; Rubin, Kenneth H; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The best friendships of emotionally distressed and typical young adolescents were investigated. A group of 5th and 6th grade young adolescents completed ratings on friendship quality and participated in videotaped friendship tasks. Emotional distress was identified using a T score cut-point of 60 on the Internalizing symptoms subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). There were 131 friendship dyads available for analyses. Of these, 48 were considered distressed dyads (24 female dyads; 24 male dyads) and 83 were considered typical dyads (47 female dyads; 36 male dyads). Results demonstrated similarity of internalizing symptoms between best friends of typical adolescents, but not distressed adolescents. Analyses on friendship quality ratings emphasized the importance of perspective. Distressed targets rated their friendships lower on validation/caring, help/guidance and total positive friendship quality than did typical targets. However, friends of distressed adolescents did not rate their friendships differently than friends of typical adolescents. Congruent with past research, females tended to rate their friendships higher on intimate disclosure than did males. No developmental differences emerged in analyses of friendship quality. Regarding observed disclosure, only half of the dyads engaged in spontaneous disclosure talk. The majority of disclosures involved negative speech about the self or dyad. Females tended to devote more time to disclosure talk and respond to disclosure in more positive ways than males. Fifth-graders tended to devote more time to disclosure talk, initiate more disclosures and respond in more negative ways than 6th graders. Differences between distressed and typical dyads did not emerge in analyses of observed disclosure. Finally, relations between reported friendship quality and observed disclosure were explored. Overall, a lack of relation among variables suggests that the ways in which adolescents think about friendship quality are not related to visible interactions that took place in the laboratory.Item Brain Electrical Activity in Infants of Depressed and Anxious Mothers(2005-05-09) VanMeenen, Kirsten; Wigfield, Allan; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Numerous studies suggest that positive and negative emotions are associated with different patterns of cerebral hemisphere activation and that specific patterns of electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetry may indicate risk for depression and anxiety. The extant developmental psychopathology literature has examined patterns of EEG asymmetry in the offspring of parents with affective disorders and such research has reported linkages between frontal EEG asymmetry and depression, suggesting that measures of EEG asymmetry may be important neurological markers of risk for affective disorders. Despite the greater prevalence of anxiety disorders than depressive disorders and the literature suggesting that resting EEG asymmetry may serve as an index of both depression and anxiety, no research has yet examined patterns of EEG asymmetry in the offspring of parents with anxiety disorders. The purpose of the present study was to examine early markers of risk for psychopathology in the biological domain (e.g., patterns of EEG asymmetry) in an attempt to elucidate some of the precursors of anxiety and depression in children so that we might gain a better understanding of the development of these disorders. The present investigation examined the relation between maternal history of depression and anxiety and patterns of EEG asymmetry in infant offspring. EEG measures of alpha power (4-6 Hz) in the right and left hemisphere were recorded in infants (four to eight months of age) of mothers with a documented history of major depressive disorder (n = 39), anxiety disorder (n = 22), and comparison subjects (n = 38) during a resting baseline task. Results suggest that maternal depression and maternal anxiety was statistically unrelated to patterns of infant asymmetry. The results suggested that fewer infants of mothers with specific phobia (with and without depression) had right mid-parietal asymmetry than infants of control mothers. Perceived social support was related to patterns of infant EEG asymmetry. These findings provide modest support for the hypothesis that maternal diagnostic history may be related to patterns of infant asymmetry in various regions of the brain during a resting state.