Caregiving Quality as a Predictor of Emotion Regulation in Early Childhood
2021
Northrup, R., Sellers, T., & Dozier, M. [Faculty Sponsor: Mary Dozier]
Children who are adopted internationally or involved in the foster care system early in life are at an increased risk for negative developmental outcomes due to experiences with inadequate and inconsistent caregiving. The current study examined whether caregiving quality, conceptualized as sensitivity and intrusiveness, predicted children’s later emotion regulation. I hypothesized that sensitive caregiving would be associated with better emotion regulation in children, and that intrusive caregiving would be associated with worse emotion regulation in children. Children adopted internationally (n = 74) and foster children (n = 44) were enrolled in a randomized controlled trial testing the efficacy of an attachment-based parenting program, and a sample of low-risk children being raised by their biological parents were enrolled as a comparison group (n = 25). Caregiving quality was assessed through semi-structured play assessments when children were infants and toddlers. Children’s emotion regulation was examined using a frustrating lab task called the Perfect Circle Task when children were five years old. More sensitive caregiving was not found to be significantly associated with better emotion regulation skills during the frustration task than less sensitive caregiving, but more intrusive caregiving was found to be associated with worse emotion regulation skills during the frustration task than less intrusive caregiving. Results suggest that intrusive caregiving may predict later emotion regulation outcomes in children.
Live Zoom Room
Is Visual Comparison Associated with Recognition of Difference by Infants?
2021
Finn, S., Lieberman, M., Reid, C., Rubin, J., Steren, R., Wood, C., & Quinn, P.C. [Faculty Sponsor: Paul C. Quinn]
Prior research has suggested that comparison facilitates category formation during development by allowing participants to extract commonalities from members of a category. In the present research, we asked whether comparison would also be associated with recognition of difference. Using a spontaneous preference task, Caucasian 3-month-old infants were presented with own- versus other-race face pairs. Although group data did not indicate that the infants showed a preference for the own-race faces as has been reported in previous investigations, analyses of individual performance showed that the number of switches between the own- and other-race faces displayed by the infants was positively associated with their own-race preference scores. The findings are consistent with the proposal that visual comparison is related to recognition of difference and suggest an expanded role for comparison in perceptual-cognitive development.
The Ventral Midline Thalamus Mediates Successful Deliberation by Coordinating Prefrontal and Hippocampal Neural Activity
2021
Stout, J.J., Hallock, H., Adiraju, S.S., Griffin, A.L. [Faculty Sponsor: Amy L. Griffin]
Pre-recorded Video Presentation
Emotion Regulation and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Among Opioid-Dependent Pregnant Women
2021
Hamill, T.M., Tabachnick, A.R., Labella, M., & Dozier, M. [Faculty Sponsor: Mary Dozier]
Substance using parents may have emotion regulation problems that interfere with parenting. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is associated with emotion regulation in children and adults. We examined RSA and emotion regulation among opioid-dependent pregnant women. As predicted, low resting RSA was associated with more difficulties in emotion regulation than high resting RSA (r = -.32, p = .03). The present study extended previous work on RSA and emotion regulation to a sample of opioid-dependent women.
Live Zoom Room
Fidelity and Effectiveness of ABC Implemented Through Telehealth: A Response to COVID-19
2021
Kipp, E., Schein, S.S., Roben, C.K.P., & Dozier, M. [Faculty Sponsor: Mary Dozier]
Home visiting programs are a critical pathway for addressing early adversity in children (Garner, 2013; Minkovitz et al., 2016), and the inability to deliver in-person services due to the COVID-19 pandemic challenged the foundation of implementation fidelity for home visiting programs across the globe. Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC) is an evidence-based home visiting intervention designed to increase sensitivity in parents of children who have experienced early adversity. ABC utilizes an active process of fidelity monitoring and supervision focused on the active ingredient of ABC, “in-the-moment” commenting (Caron et al., 2016a), which allows effectiveness to be maintained amidst dissemination. In the current study, fidelity was examined among parent coaches implementing ABC through telehealth in community settings. Random 5-minute clips from 510 telehealth ABC session videos conducted by 91 parent coaches from 48 agencies were coded for their frequency and quality of in-the-moment comments. Additionally, parental sensitivity change in 70 parents who received ABC via telehealth was assessed through pre- and post-intervention play assessments. On average, parent coaches exceeded ITM commenting fidelity standards when implementing ABC through a telehealth format, and significant effects on parental sensitivity, intrusiveness, and positive regard were observed. ABC’s preliminary effectiveness amidst a transition to telehealth was attributed to the active fidelity monitoring and supervision process inherent to ABC’s dissemination. Future endeavors should include a randomized clinical trial that compares fidelity and effectiveness outcomes between in-person ABC and TeleABC. Further, TeleABC services should be kept in place after the pandemic ends in order to reach families for whom in-person delivery is impossible.
Pre-recorded Video Presentation
Do adaptation aftereffects associated with painful expressions differ as a function of race?
2020
Okorie, O., Drain, A., Lin, J., & Mende-Siedlecki, P. [Faculty Sponsor: Peter Mende-Siedlecki]
Self-report as a moderator of racial bias in pain perception
2020
Turner, B., Goharzad, A., Lin, J., & Mende-Siedlecki, P. [Faculty Sponsor: Peter Mende-Siedlecki]
Sad but not fearful facial expressions restore recognition of other-race faces in infants following perceptual narrowing
2020
Beichert, A., Johnson, K., Mayerson, S., Reid, C., Reynolds, R., Zografos, C., & Quinn, P.C. [Faculty Sponsor: Paul Quinn]
A recent investigation reported that perceptual narrowing for face race in infants could be disrupted with faces that depict angry or happy facial expressions (Quinn, Lee, Pascalis, & Xiao, 2020). Given that angry faces pose threat and happy faces invite affiliation, the findings were interpreted as evidence that the expressions motivated infants to encode face identity. The current study was undertaken to explore this interpretation by examining whether sad or fearful expressions could disrupt perceptual narrowing for face race. The participants were Caucasian 6- and 9-month-olds who have been shown to have difficulty discriminating among neutral Asian faces and between African faces, respectively. The results were that the infants discriminated the other-race faces when depicted with sad but not fearful facial expressions. The findings provide further support that infants are processing the communicative intent of the expressions. Infants may have encoded the identity of the sad faces because those faces display a call for help. By contrast, fearful facial expressions indicate an external threat, but may not provide motivation for encoding face identity given that the threat is external to the individual posing the expression.
Hostile attributional bias and self-esteem as mechanisms linking earlier peer victimization and later internalizing symptoms
2020
Osicky, J. & Hubbard, J. [Faculty Sponsor: Julie Hubbard]
Approximately 33% of American youth report serious instances of peer victimization. Peer victimization is linked to internalizing problems, specifically anxiety and depression. The goal of the current study was to evaluate hostile attributional bias (HAB) and self-esteem as mechanisms linking earlier peer victimization and later internalizing problems. The study leveraged longitudinal data to assess whether HAB and self-esteem at age 13 mediate the relations between peer victimization at age 10 and depressive and anxious symptoms at age 15. Participants were 143 adolescents (mean age = 15.1 years; 52% female). At age 10, participants reported on their victimization using the Comprehensive Scales of Peer Victimization (Morrow et al., 2014). At age 13, participants completed a task assessing HAB (Kupersmidt, Stelter, & Dodge, 2011) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1989). At age 15, participants reported on their depressive and anxious symptoms using the Children’s Depression Inventory 2 (Kovacs, 2011) and the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (March, 1997). Data were analyzed using path analysis in Mplus Version 8 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017). Victimization at age 10 positively predicts internalizing symptoms at age 15. Self-esteem at age 13 mediated relations between victimization at age 10 and both internalizing symptoms at age 15. However, HAB did not serve as a mediator in the relations between victimization and the internalizing symptoms.
Pre-recorded Video Presentation
Preventative effects of valproic acid on outcomes associated with caregiver maltreatment
2020
Zimmerman, C., Collins, N., & Roth, T. [Faculty Sponsor: Tania Roth]