<p> The empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory states that individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) can be identified by a deficit in empathy (social skills, communication skills, and theory of mind) and a propensity for systemizing (islets of ability, obsessions with systems, and repetitive behavior). This theory has been tested in various contexts, but never with adolescents between the ages of 12 and 16. The EQ-A (Empathizing Quotient for Adolescents) and the SQ-A (Systemizing Quotient for Adolescents) were administered to 47 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 16 who had been diagnosed with ASC and 97 adolescents with no reported physical or mental disorders to discover differences in empathizing and systemizing.</p><p> To test the specific elements and predictions of the E-S theory, the EQ-A was divided into a set of three subscales derived by conceptually mapping items to factors corresponding to the concepts theoretically underlying the scale. The SQ-A was divided into subscales using factor analysis.</p><p> It was found that all four subscales resulting from the factor analysis on the SQ-A were associated with obsessions with systems. A weak positive correlation was found between the SQ-A and the EQ-A. Although the EQ-A was able to differentiate significantly between individuals with an ASC and those without, the SQ-A was not. In addition, although the EQ-A and EQ-A subscales scores correlated with similar subscales scores of the GARS-2 (a well-validated existing autism screening test), the SQ-A and its subscales did not. Implications for the E-S Theory are discussed.</p>

<p> This study explores the psychological dynamics associated with labor and birth in order to better understand the role these experiences play in women&rsquo;s psychological development. This research study utilized interpretative phenomenological analysis as a research methodology and sought to address the following questions through the theoretical perspective of psychoanalysis and social constructionism: How does the experience of pregnancy and birth impact the subjectivity of women? How do women make sense of these experiences? What role does the body play in women&rsquo;s psychological development? Does the experience of childbirth mark a unique developmental phase in the psychological life of women? In this research study, six women were asked to describe their birth narrative in full and respond to a series of open-ended questions. The results of this study indicate that pregnancy and childbirth is a porous developmental period associated with fears about capacity and feelings of omnipotence as well as multiple losses and a new sense of self. One of the more significant findings of this study is that the experience of labor and birth is felt by many women to involve feelings associated with encountering death. This finding may lead to increased understanding of why pregnancy and childbirth results in fragmentation for some women, while it appears to be a catalyst for increased subjectivity and maternal embodiment for other women.</p>

<p> The purpose of this project was to explore the mediating effects of social and academic self-efficacy on the relations between bullying role behaviors and academic achievement. Research has primarily focused on the bully and the victim in bullying situations, which neglects to examine the experiences of those who witness or are involved in the aggressive act, including assisting bullies, defending victims, and ignoring others. As a result, research has overlooked how other bullying roles relate to academic performance. However, research has explored how various bullying role behaviors relate to self-efficacy. Additionally, self-efficacy has been associated with academic performance, such as GPA. The purpose of the current study was to add to the existing bullying role behavior literature by investigating the relations among bully participant role behaviors, self-efficacy beliefs, and GPA. This project investigated the mediational effect of social and academic self-efficacy on the relation between bullying role behaviors and GPA. The mediation models were evaluated separately by gender to differentiate this effect in males and females. In other words, does social and academic self-efficacy explain the association between bully participant role behaviors and GPA in males and females? Data were collected on 7^th-grade students (N= 348). In general, most models exploring the association between bullying role behaviors and GPA through social and academic self-efficacy had consistent results in the male and female samples; however, there were some significant results that were supported in females only (victimization experience). When exploring the mediation models, individuals who engaged in bullying, assisting, outsider behaviors or experience victimization had negative associations with social self-efficacy and academic self-efficacy; there were no significant positive associations between defending behavior and self-efficacy. Across all models, social and academic self-efficacy were significantly and positively associated. Additionally, all or most of the models found significant positive associations between academic self-efficacy and GPA and significant and negative associations between social self-efficacy and GPA. The results of the mediational model varied for each bullying role behavior to suggest that an individual&rsquo;s behavior when bullying occurs influences their self-perceptions and GPA differentially. </p>

<p> Abstract of Dissertation The Power of Peers: Do Deviant Peers Facilitate or Suppress Genetic Contributions to Externalizing Behavior During adolescence, children&rsquo;s social norms are increasingly established and enforced by peers. Affiliation with deviant peers at this time is an established risk factor for externalizing behavior, presumably because peers model, encourage, and permit antisocial behavior. What is unclear however is the degree to which deviant peers facilitate the expression of genetically influenced predispositions to externalizing behavior (contextual triggering), or whether peers socialize behavior and suppress genetic predispositions (social control). To examine these questions, a biometric moderation model was employed to examine the degree to which peer deviance moderates genetic and environmental contributions to externalizing behaviors during adolescence. </p><p> Analyses used archived data from the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development (NEAD) project. NEAD included a national sample of 708 same sex sibling pairs from never-divorced families and stepfamilies from the USA: monozygotic twin (N=93), dizygotic twin (N=99), and full sibling (N=95) pairs from never-divorced families, and full sibling (N=182), half sibling (N=109), and unrelated sibling (N=130) pairs from stepfamilies. The mean ages of Sibling 1 and Sibling 2 were 14.52 and 12.91, respectively. Mothers and fathers reported on their own perceptions of their adolescents&rsquo; involvement with deviant and prosocial peers (Perceptions of Child&rsquo;s Peers) and on their adolescents&rsquo; engagement in externalizing behavior (Zill Behavior Inventory). </p><p> Analyses indicated that peer deviance moderates genetic and nonshared environmental contributions to adolescent externalizing behaviors. Specifically, at higher levels of peer deviance, genetic contributions to externalizing behavior were stronger, while nonshared environmental contributions were weaker. Shared environmental contributions were significant, but not moderated by peer deviance. These findings are consistent with a contextual triggering model of gene-environment interaction: within the context of deviant peers, the heritability of externalizing behaviors was higher, while nonshared environmental contributions were lower. Therefore, deviant peers appear to enhance the expression of genetic predispositions to externalizing behaviors rather than exert social control. These findings provide insight into the process through which deviant peers affect the development of externalizing behavior.</p>

<p> Although the association between child maltreatment and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) has been demonstrated in the literature, additional examination is needed to investigate cognitive processes that contribute to the development of NSSI. Four early maladaptive schemas (Emotional Deprivation, Mistrust/Abuse, Social Isolation/Alienation, and Insufficient Self-Control) have been found to be related to NSSI history (Castille et al., 2007) and have also been investigated as cognitive processes associated with the development of NSSI. The aim of the current study was to test if Emotional Deprivation, Mistrust/Abuse, Social Isolation/Alienation, and Insufficient Self-Control early maladaptive schemas (EMS) statistically predict NSSI in the context of childhood emotional abuse (CEA) and also to test whether the each of the four relevant EMS mediated the association between CEA and NSSI in a community adult sample. Participants were 516 U.S. adults recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk, aged 18 and 74. Emotional Deprivation, Mistrust/Abuse, Social Isolation/Alienation, and Insufficient Self-Control EMS and CEA severity differed significantly by NSSI history status. Although Emotional Deprivation, Mistrust/Abuse EMS did not statically predict NSSI frequency, Social Isolation/Alienation and Insufficient Self-Control EMS were found to be associated with NSSI history and frequency. As CEA was not associated with NSSI frequency, models investigating Emotional Deprivation, Mistrust/Abuse, Social Isolation/Alienation, and Insufficient Self-Control EMS as mediators of the association between CEA and NSSI frequency were not testable. However, CEA was found to statistically predict NSSI history, and Social Isolation/Alienation and Insufficient Self-Control EMS were identified as mediators of this relationship, although Emotional Deprivation and Mistrust/Abuse EMS were not. These findings can guide treatment providers by identifying relevant EMS, and informing how the related cognitive distortions may be organized, and how cognitive restructuring can be used to target the EMS and related cognitions to decrease triggers and maintenance of NSSI behaviors, especially in the context of CEA.</p>

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

A theory is presented of the development of pattern recognition and looking behaviour in infancy. It is proposed that scanning habits are acquired and patterns recognized with the reproduction of fixations and eye movements in the order in which they originally occurred. Recognition is achieved by correctly predicting the current input for each fixation. Evidence supporting this proposal is discussed, and the limitations of other theories are examined. A case is made for the storage of two kinds of visual information, originating from central and peripheral vision respectively. Infants indicate recognition of familiar patterns by looking less at them than patterns which are new. This can be explained by the discrepancy principle which proposes a curvilinear relation between the amount of looking and degree of discrepancy between a pattern and its representation in memory. This principle is incorporated in the theory to account for the control of the length of sequences of fixations. A computer model of the theory is described. This contains a simulation of the cortical processing of visual input, a number of oculomotor reflexes, learning mechanisms, and the means of controlling the length of a fixation sequence by assessing its discrepancy with the contents of memory. The model was run on a computer and learned to recognize patterns by scanning them and reproducing the original sequences of fixations. The ability of the model to mimic infant looking behaviour is shown in three simulations of different infant experiments. Recognition was demonstrated by a decline in looking at familiar relative to new patterns, and this ability was retained after a delay. Such behaviour took time to develop, and the model required a certain level of visual experience before it appeared. Individual differences in the performance of the model resembling tempo differences in infants were also produced.

This thesis considers infant social development from the viewpoint of the perceptual and memory capacities necessary for particular social abilities. Some social abilities, e.g. facial or voice discrimination, require visual or auditory integrity, thus the development of visual and auditory capacities are reviewed. Recognition of familiar faces and/or voices requires memory. Hence the development of memory abilities is considered. Subsequently the development of social behaviour is reviewed. After these literature reviews, three experimental studies are described. The first of these investigates the recognition of mother's voice and reports evidence of that such recognition develops during the first month of life. The second experiment considers visual recognition of the mother and differential responsivity to face-to-face and averted gaze and to different tones of voice. One month old infants did not reveal any conclusive evidence on these points. However, post-hoc analysis suggested the importance of the physical characteristics of faces in eliciting infant visual attention. Experience in these studies suggested the need for the study of more naturalistic encounters and hence a methodology for the study and analysis of naturalistic social interactions was developed. This methodology was then applied to a study of interactions between mothers and strangers with infants seen from one to eight months of age. This study revealed a surprising developmental pattern of differentiation between mother and stranger, with an unexpected period of positive responsiveness to strangers occurring at five months of age. The sequential analysis of interactions revealed evidence of a progressive development of infant receptivity to gaze, and also an exploratory analysis of receptivity to adult smiles and vocalizations suggested infants may respond to these adult behaviours. Subsequently the results of these studies are linked to other recent research.

This investigation consisted of field-descriptive and experimental analysis of young children's verbal behaviour, aiming at the identification and description of parental verbal stimulation and assessment of reinforcement variables. Five 21-month-old children and their respective mothers participated in the field-descriptive study. Observational sessions were carried out at the subjects' home and in a playroom; the situation was one of free-play. Verbal behaviour was taped; non-verbal behaviour was recorded according to selected categories. The audio-tapes were submitted to a technique designed to record the kind and frequency of utterances and the temporal interval between them. The interactive sequences of mother-child utterances were analysed with regard to these three aspects. Indices were computed to describe the characteristics of the patterns of interaction with regard to maternal verbal behaviour and to the child's verbal performance. The results indicated relationships among the categories aid descriptive indices of maternal behaviour and the child's speech: 1) the frequency of the child's verbalisations did not relate to the total amount of maternal verbal output in itself but to the mother's utterances which consisted of a direct response, within 4 sec, to the child's previous utterance; 2) the child's usage of speech correlated with the degree in which the mother responded selectively to the child's utterances; 3) the mother presented different verbal responses as consequences to the child's utterances, which had significant differential effects on the child's verbal performance as related to initiation, maintenance and ending of verbal chains of interaction. Two out of these five children participated in the experimental study which tested the effectiveness of 'repetition' (plus praise and/or the subject's name) as compared with the effectiveness of a material reinforcer (a small toy) on the emission of "correct utterances" as opposed to "incorrect utterances". The verbal reinforcer was delivered by a 'talking clown' and the material reinforcer by feeder. The results indicated that the verbal reinforcer was relatively more effective in controlling the subjects' rate of 'correct' verbal responses. When reinforcement was delayed the main effect observed was the decrease of rate of responses during the verbal periods to a level similar to that observed during the periods of contingent material reinforcement. The results were discussed within a reinforcement theory framework, and suggestions concerning certain methodological requirements to analyse parental stimulation in relation to children's language development were presented.

<p> Although school dropout rate remains a significant social and economic concern to our nation and has generated considerable research, little attention by scholars has examined the phenomena of re-engagement in effective school context and its developmental influences on at-risk students expectancy for success and task-value towards graduation. Given the multifaceted interactions of school context and the complex developmental needs of at-risk students, there were dual purposes for this three-phase, two-method qualitative study that addressed the literature concerns.</p><p> The first purpose was to explore and identify policies, programs, and practices perceived as being most effective in re-engaging at-risk students behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively, at ten Model Continuation High Schools in California. Phases one and two collected data on the Model Continuation High Schools (MCHS) to address this purpose.</p><p> In phase one, an inductive document review of the ten MCHS applications including four statement letters was conducted and results identified eleven policies, ten programs, and eleven practices that were effective in re-engaging at-risk students behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively. In phase two, the phenomenological ten-step analysis of semi-structured administrator interviews revealed eight re-engaging implementation strategies perceived to be effective with at-risk students.</p><p> The second purpose was to build upon Eccles' Expectancy-Value Theoretical Framework by gaining insight on effective school context that supported at-risk students' developmentally appropriate expectancy for success and task-value beliefs towards graduation. Phase three conducted a deductive content analysis of eight theoretical based components on the combine data collected in phases one and two to address this second purpose. Results revealed that principles of Eccles&rsquo; Expectancy-Value Model were evident in all identified policies, programs, and practices of the ten MCHS.</p><p> Model Continuation High Schools are exemplary sites with effective school context that have much to share with other continuation high schools looking for successful re-engaging approaches for at-risk students. The research provided results suggesting that MCHS had significant policies, programs, practices and implementation strategies that transform disengaged at-risk students into graduates by developing students' expectancy for success belief and task-value belief towards graduation. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.</p>