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No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Adverse experiences (e.g., child maltreatment, peer victimization) have long-term consequences for emotion regulation (ER) development. Adolescents may be particularly susceptible to these effects due to heightened sensitivity to environmental influences as well as the protracted development of the prefrontal cortex, which includes regions responsible for regulatory efforts. Previous research has indicated that difficulties with ER can be both a precursor to and consequence of adverse experiences, such as child maltreatment and peer victimization. As such, the present study evaluated reciprocal relations between dynamic longitudinal changes within repeated measures of peer victimization and ER across adolescence and into young adulthood and to determine how child maltreatment may predispose youths to these issues. The sample included 167 adolescents (53% male, Mage = 14.07 years at Time 1) who participated in a longitudinal study across five time points, with approximately one year between each assessment. First, we used confirmatory factor analyses to test latent factors of child maltreatment (abuse and neglect), peer victimization, and ER. Then, we used latent change score modeling to examine reciprocal relations between peer victimization and ER. Finally, we added child maltreatment (abuse and neglect) as a preceding predictor of reciprocal relations between peer victimization and ER. Our results offer insights toward developmentally informed longitudinal, transactional models linking child maltreatment and developmental changes in peer victimization and ER in adolescence. Findings of associations between peer victimization and ER support social information processing theory (Dodge and Crick, 1990) by suggesting that adolescent difficulties with ER may confer risk for experiences of peer victimization. Finally, child neglect effects on relational peer victimization in adolescence underscore how early contextual environments may impact later social development, with child neglect predicting developmental change in relational peer victimization during adolescence. / Doctor of Philosophy / Adverse experiences (e.g., child maltreatment, peer victimization) have long-term consequences for emotion regulation (ER) development. Adolescents may be particularly at risk to experiencing negative consequences on ER development given their continued brain development. Previous research has indicated that difficulties with ER can be both a precursor to and consequence of adverse experiences, such as child maltreatment and peer victimization. As such, the purpose of the proposed study was to evaluate how peer victimization and ER are associated across adolescence and into young adulthood and to determine how earlier child maltreatment may predict these associations. The sample included 167 adolescents (53% male, Mage = 14.07 years at Time 1) who participated in a longitudinal study across five time points, with approximately one year between each assessment. Results suggest that both child neglect (maltreatment) and adolescent difficulties with ER may confer risk for experiences of peer victimization during adolescence.

In comparison to their non-maltreated peers, adult survivors of child maltreatment experience more social and emotional maladjustment; however, survivors can be resilient when they have adequate psychological and social resources to cope with abuse sequelae. Similarly, stress and health studies have shown that social support schemas are stress buffers that attenuate negatively-valenced emotional reactivity. As a result of interpersonal problems, however, some individuals might interpret current relationships more negatively and expect little support in the future. Young women (ages ranging from 18 to 23) with histories of child maltreatment were administered a harassment task while their cardiac activity, emotional states, and stress appraisals were assessed. Before the stressor, the women were randomly assigned to either of two schema priming conditions: thinking and writing about a supportive person (social support schema condition) or a casual acquaintance (control condition). In comparison to women in the control condition, women in the support condition evidenced less state anger and heart rate variability (i.e., rMSSD) reactivity in response to the laboratory stressor; however, the support schema and reactivity relationship did not vary significantly between women with high versus low interpersonal problems. The support schema and state anger reactivity relationship was fully mediated by primary stress appraisals (e.g., feeling challenged and feeling intimidated), but not secondary stress appraisal (e.g., feeling in control). These findings suggest that there are nuances in the relationship between support schema and reactivity. Clinical and research implications are discussed. / Ph. D.

This study informs research on how private speech, which is typically seen as a cognitive ability, is utilized during an emotion-eliciting task. This research helps to bridge the divide between cognitive and emotional aspects of children's self-regulation by integrating how cognitive private speech strategies may be used to regulate emotion. Preschool-aged children (n = 116) completed a frustration task. Emotional expressions (anger and sadness), emotion regulation strategies (distraction and self-comforting behaviors), persistence (latency to quit and duration of on-task behavior), and children's private speech were coded. Whereas higher levels of nonfacilitative task-relevant private speech were associated with higher levels of both sadness and anger, social speech was positively associated with sadness, and inaudible muttering was positively associated with anger. Private speech, specifically vocalizations and task-irrelevant private speech, was also positively associated with the regulation strategies of self-comforting and distraction. Facilitative task-relevant private speech, however, was negatively associated with distraction. Finally, higher levels of social speech were associated with less persistence, while higher levels of facilitative task-relevant private speech was associated with more persistence. Findings from this study support the idea that private speech can have a regulatory effect during frustrating situations that children experience. Private speech occurred alongside emotions and regulation strategies in meaningful ways. Including measures of private speech in future studies on emotion regulation will add more detail and depth to researchers' understanding of children's regulatory abilities. In the future, interventions could be created to encourage children's use of private speech to enhance their emotion regulatory abilities. / Master of Science

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), characterized by irritability and defiant behavior, is associated with several negative outcomes in childhood and adulthood (APA, 2000; Webster- Stratton, 1996). There are a variety of approaches to treating ODD that differ in their focus on parents, children, or both parent and child (Greene & Ablon, 2005; Kazdin, 2005). These treatments also target different underlying processes of oppositional behaviors, such as parenting behaviors and children's emotion regulation. Research suggests that parent emotion socialization practices may indirectly influence externalizing behaviors, such as those present in ODD, through children's emotion regulation abilities (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). The present study examines this mediation model in children diagnosed with ODD (n = 100; 58 boys) who received either Parent Management Training or Creative & Proactive Solutions. Findings indicate that families receiving CPS exhibited higher decreases in ODD symptoms than those receiving PMT. There was no evidence for an indirect effect of emotion socialization on symptoms of ODD through emotion regulation. Regarding direct effects, increases in emotion encouraging, emotion discouraging, and emotion regulation were associated with decreases in ODD symptoms, whereas increases in problem solving were associated with increases in ODD symptoms. There were also pre-treatment indicators of children's treatment response, such as parent's problem solving, children's emotional lability, and ADHD symptoms. These results indicate the importance of both emotion socialization and emotion regulation in treatment improvement, as well as factors that may contribute to treatment response. Treatment implications and future research directions are discussed. / Master of Science

The transmission of emotion regulation from parent to adolescent as well as the relationship between adolescent emotion regulation and substance use is not clearly understood in extant psychological literature. The present study hypothesizes that parents transmit their emotion regulation skills to their adolescents via the mediator of parenting behaviors and that adolescents who are better emotion regulators are less likely to use substances. In the present study, cross-sectional and longitudinal structural equation modeling analyses were utilized to determine the relationship among these variables. In the cross-sectional analyses (n = 219), the sample was 55% male and were between the ages of 12 to 18 years (M = 15.12). In the longitudinal analyses (n = 129), the sample was 42% male and were between the ages of 13 to 21 years (M = 17.13). In both the cross-sectional and longitudinal models, adolescents with high negative parenting had higher levels of lability/negativity, whereas adolescents with high positive parenting had better emotion regulation skills and lower levels of substance use. In addition, in the longitudinal analyses, higher levels of suppression in parents were negatively related to adolescent emotion regulation. The findings of the present study highlight that parents transmit emotion regulation skills to their adolescents and that parenting behaviors may be a key point of intervention for promoting adolescent emotion regulation and demoting adolescent substance use. / Ph. D.