Interest in mediation analysis has increased over time, with particular excitement in the social and behavioral sciences. A mediator is defined as an intermediate in the causal sequence between an independent and dependent variable. Previous research has demonstrated that the cross-sectional form of mediation analysis is inherently flawed, evidenced by the inability of the cross-sectional mediation model to account for temporal precedence and estimation of the indirect effect being biased in nearly all situations. For these reasons, a longitudinal model is recommended. However, a method for determining the exact time points to measure the variables used in mediation analysis has not been adequately examined. In this study, we examined methods for determining an appropriate time lag when designing a mediation study. The methods implemented include correlation analysis, the quadratic and exponential forms of the lag as a moderator approach, and knot estimation using basis splines. The data for the study was simulated for three distinct trends generated using a linear piecewise model, a sigmoid model, and a sigmoid piecewise model. Additionally, two sampling approaches, an intense sampling approach and a three-measure approach, were examined as well as six sample sizes and three effect sizes for the total effect on the outcome. The estimation methods were additionally compared by considering different types of error structures used in data generation as well as by examining equal and unequal time lag lengths between the predictor and mediator, and the mediator and outcome. The intent of the study is to provide methods so that researchers can estimate the best time to evaluate mediator and outcome measurements that will be used in mediation analysis. The results from this study showed that the best estimation method varied depending on the lag being estimated, the sampling approach, and the length of the lag. However, the knot estimation approach worked reasonably well in most scenarios considered even with small sample sizes of 5 or 10 per group. The findings from this study have the potential to improve study design for research implementing longitudinal mediation analysis by reducing bias in the estimate of the indirect effect when adequate time points are used.

Master of Science / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Jared R. Anderson / The present study tests the reciprocal relationships between marital attitudes, time spent together, and marital satisfaction in a sample of newlyweds (N = 1220). Using cognitive dissonance theory and the investment model, this study tests two sets of theoretically derived unidirectional pathways to provide empirical evidence for longitudinal associations between these three constructs. Two separate models were tested, one for husbands, and one for wives. For both husbands and wives, results of the panel models indicated significant autoregressive paths among all three variables from T1 to T2, T2 to T3, and T1 to T3. Among husbands, significant cross-lagged paths emerged between T1 marital satisfaction and T2 marital attitudes, T1 marital satisfaction and T2 time spent together, T1 time spent together and T2 marital satisfaction, T2 time spent together and T3 marital satisfaction, and T2 time spent together and T3 marital attitudes. For wives, cross-lagged paths between T1 marital satisfaction and T2 time spent together, T1 time spent together and T2 marital satisfaction, and T2 time spent together and T3 marital satisfaction were found to be significant. Bootstrap test for indirect effects resulted in no significant mediating effects in the models. The results of these models are discussed and implications for future research and intervention are given.

The purpose of this study was to take a multidimensional perspective to prosocial behavior and self-regulation by analyzing longitudinal, bidirectional relations between prosocial behavior toward strangers, friends, and family members and behavioral, cognitive, and emotional dimensions of self-regulation across adolescence. Participants included reports from 500 adolescents (age Time 1 = 12, Time 2 = 14, Time 3 = 16, Time 4 = 18; 52% female, 77% European American) taking part in the Flourishing Families Project. Nine cross-lagged panel models were conducted analyzing longitudinal associations between each target of prosocial behavior and each dimension of self-regulation. Results revealed that in early adolescence, prosocial behavior toward strangers and cognitive self-regulation were bidirectionally related. Prosocial behavior toward strangers was significantly associated with cognitive self-regulation from age 12 to age 18 and cognitive self-regulation was significantly associated with prosocial behavior toward friends across adolescence. Further, behavioral and emotional self-regulation were significantly related to prosocial behavior toward family from age 12 to age 18. Gender was significantly associated with initial levels of study variables but was not significantly relate to patterns of association. Discussion focuses on how findings fit into existent theory and research.

A number of preschool children engage in consistent problem behaviors that place them at-risk for developing emotional and behavioral disorders. These problem behaviors have been associated with poorer short and long-term outcomes for young children. Teacher-child relationships (i.e. conflict and closeness) and positive interactions between teachers and children may be reciprocally associated with problem behavior (e.g. teacher-child closeness reducing problem behavior). The purpose of this study was to explore the longitudinal bi-directional relations between teacher-child relationships, teacher-child interactions, and problem behavior over a single school year. Using a cross-lagged panel model, data from a larger randomized control trial of the BEST in CLASS program, was examined across three time points, and differences based on intervention participation were examined. Results indicated that there were far fewer paths in the business as usual group compared to the BEST in CLASS group. As expected, in the comparison group, problem behavior at Time 1 predicted lower levels of closeness at Time 2, however, this relation was not significant in the BEST in CLASS group. In the BEST in CLASS model problem behavior at Time 1 negatively predicted Time 2 positive interactions and there was a cross-lagged association with problem behavior at Time 1 predicting higher levels of conflict at Time, which in turn predicted higher levels of problem behavior at Time 3. Additional findings, limitations and implications for intervention work, practice, and policy are discussed.

abstract: The current study investigated the dynamic interplay of career decision ambiguity tolerance and career indecision over three assessment times in a sample of college students (n=583). While the previous research has repeatedly shown an association of career decision ambiguity tolerance with career indecision, the direction of this association has not been adequately assessed with longitudinal investigation. It was hypothesized in this study that there is a reciprocal pattern of career decision ambiguity tolerance leading to subsequent career indecision and career indecision leading to subsequent career decision ambiguity tolerance. Using a cross-lagged panel design, this study found support for the reciprocal pattern that aversion with ambiguity led to increased negative experience, choice anxiety, and lack of readiness in career decision making, while negative experience, choice anxiety, and lack of readiness led to increased aversion with ambiguity as well. Additionally, this study revealed that choice anxiety and readiness for career decision making led to increased interests in new information. The key findings were discussed with respect to the theoretical and clinical implications for career counseling along with limitations and suggestions for future research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Counseling Psychology 2017

Theoretical models specify that anxiety aggregates in families. Research confirmed maternal anxiety as a predictor of childhood anxiety; however, very little evidence exists in support of paternal anxiety's role in child anxiety as well as about potentially reciprocal relationships between parental and child anxiety. The parent-child anxiety transmission mechanisms are also not fully understood; the majority of previous research focuses on the child's acquisition of anxiety symptoms from a parent via cognitive processes. Recent integrative theoretical models propose that child emotion regulation processes might be involved in parent-child anxiety transmission. The current dissertation aimed to address these gaps in literature. Both studies utilized data from over 800 mothers, 400 fathers, and their children drawn from the longitudinal NICHD Study of Early Childcare and Youth Development. Measures of maternal anxiety, paternal anxiety, child anxiety, and child emotion dysregulation were collected over a nine-year period when children were between the ages of 6 and 15 years. Study I provided evidence of significant indirect effects from parental anxiety to child anxiety through child emotion dysregulation for both mother-child and the father-child relationships. Child emotion dysregulation was non-significant in the father-child path of a family model, despite significant direct effects. The results provide evidence for child emotion dysregulation as an underlying process of parent-child anxiety transmission. Study II provided evidence of significant bidirectional predictive links of maternal anxiety and child anxiety across ages 6, 8, 10, and 15 years tested in a mother-child cross-lagged path model. Significant predictive paths from paternal anxiety to child anxiety were found from ages 6 to 8 and a significant predictive path from child anxiety to paternal anxiety was found from age 10 to age 15 in a father-child cross-lagged model. Additional tests of family models confirmed that there were unique effects of both maternal and paternal anxiety on child anxiety over time. The results show the long-term impact of both maternal anxiety and paternal anxiety on child anxiety as well as child anxiety's reciprocal effects on parental anxiety. Both studies demonstrate the importance of both mothers and fathers in childhood anxiety etiology. / Doctor of Philosophy / Research has shown that anxiety might run in families, and that parental and child anxieties might reinforce each other. In research, most attention is paid to mothers and how their anxiety influences child anxiety, including how children learn their anxious experiencing from their mothers. Very little research has been dedicated to studying fathers and how their anxiety might impact their children. The current two studies of this dissertation wanted to better understand how maternal and paternal anxiety shape child anxiety over the years. Study I tested whether the way how children regulate their emotions is influenced by parental anxiety and whether it contributes to their own anxiety. The evidence shows both mother and father anxiety influence children's regulation of their emotions, and in turn, this contributes to child anxiety. Therefore, how children control their emotions impacts how parental anxiety shapes child anxiety. Study II tested whether parental anxiety influences child anxiety consistently over time as children become adolescents. Study II also tested whether child anxiety contributes to parental anxiety over the years. Results showed that maternal and child anxiety consistently foretold each other when children were at 8, 10, and 15 years old. The results for fathers were more complicated and showed that father anxiety likely influences child anxiety when children are younger, while child anxiety influences paternal anxiety when children are older, during their teenage years. Both studies highlighted showed the importance of both mother and father anxiety to better understand child anxiety.

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Persönlichkeitsforschung hat innerhalb der letzten Jahrzehnte den Fokus immer mehr von einer Trait- auf eine State-Perspektive verlagert. Psychologische States, einschließlich die der Motivation, werden durch ein komplexes Zusammenspiel von persönlichen Merkmalen und situativen Faktoren beeinflusst. Murray hat bereits 1938 mit seiner Unterscheidung zwischen Need und Press die Bedeutung dieses Zusammenspiels für die Motivationsforschung hervorgehoben, jedoch ist diese grundlegende Idee weitgehend ungeprüft geblieben. Dies liegt nicht zuletzt daran, dass es lange Zeit an Rahmenwerken und Instrumenten fehlte, um die Situation adäquat zu erfassen. Die vorliegende Dissertation konzentriert sich explizit auf Leistungsmotivation und untersucht, wie Variablen der Situationswahrnehmung mit Fluktuationen der Leistungsmotivation zusammenhängen. Zu diesem Zweck werden sowohl ein naturalistisches Design als auch ein Labordesign verwendet. Durch die Untersuchung des Zusammenspiels dieser Konstrukte auf einer hochfrequenten, momentanen Ebene kann Murrays Konzept von Need und Press geprüft werden. In Studie 1 wurde mit Hilfe der Experience Sampling Methode untersucht, ob Leistungsmotivation im täglichen Leben variiert und mit bestimmten Situationswahrnehmungen zusammenhängt. In Studie 2 wurden Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Modelle in einem akademischen Umfeld implementiert, um die Direktionalität des Zusammenhangs zwischen diesen Variablen zu ergründen. Die Ergebnisse zeigten Schwankungen der Leistungsmotivation auf State-Ebene sowie eine erhebliche Kovariation zwischen verschiedenen Konstrukten der Leistungsmotivation und der Wahrnehmung von Duty und Intellect. Die Ergebnisse lieferten zudem vorläufige kausale Belege für die Richtungsabhängigkeit der Beziehung (mit Spillover-Effekten, die hauptsächlich von der Situationswahrnehmung, d. h. Duty, auf Leistungsmotivationsvariablen mit positiver Valenz festgestellt wurden) und stützen damit Murrays Idee von Need und Press. / Personality research has more and more shifted from a trait to a state perspective over the last decades. Psychological states, including motivation, are influenced by a complex interplay of personal characteristics and situational factors. As early as 1938, Murray emphasized the importance of this interaction in the study of motivation with his distinction between need and press, yet this foundational idea has remained largely untested, not least because frameworks and instruments for the assessment of the situation have been lacking for a long time. The present dissertation focuses explicitly on achievement motivation and examines how perceptions of the situation relate to fluctuations in achievement motivation. Both a naturalistic and a laboratory design are utilized. By examining the interplay of these constructs at a highly frequented, momentary level, Murray’s need-press concept can be put to the test. Study 1 used an experience sampling approach to investigate whether achievement motivation varies in daily life and is related to specific situation perceptions. Study 2 implemented random intercept cross-lagged panel models in an academic setting to to fathom the directionality of the link between these variables. Findings revealed fluctuations of achievement motivation at state level as well as substantial covariation of different achievement motivation constructs and the perceptions of Duty and Intellect. Results also offered preliminary causal evidence on the directionality of the relation (with spillover effects that were mainly found from situation perception, that is, Duty, to achievement motivation variables with positive valence), thus supporting Murray’s idea of need and press.

Recent research into job insecurity (JI) features a greater tendency to undertake target group-specific investigations into the construct, in view of the growing diversity in the world of work. The present doctoral thesis focuses on a group that previous research into JI has so far failed to investigate fully, namely apprentices. The past disregard of this group is surprising, considering that young adults are at greater risk of unemployment than the average gainfully employed person (cf. de Witte, 2007). To meet the research objective of the present study, a JI tool validated by Staufenbiel et al. (2009), used to distinguish between four JI components within a 2*2 design, was modified for the target group of apprentices. In line with Borg and Elizur (1992), a differentiation was made between a cognitive and an affective JI component; furthermore, in line with Hellgren et al. (1999), quantitative JI involving the complete loss of employment was separated from qualitative JI, involving the aversive change of valued job features. In the first study, a survey was conducted amongst apprentices (a total of n = 392, from vocations requiring training in the areas of trade, crafts, industry and health care) at various vocational schools in the City of Osnabrück. Within the longitudinal design, potential antecedents and consequences of JI were gathered from these apprentices on two survey dates (T1: one year before completing the apprenticeship; T2: three to four months before completing the apprenticeship). Confirmatory analysis revealed the best fit for a two-factor model that differentiated between a cognitive and an affective JI component. Since qualitative items failed to be established on separate subcomponents within the structural analyses, as conceptually planned, these items were neglected, and further work was conducted using quantitative items only. The two-factorial structure of JI (cognitive versus affective) determined in the first study was replicated in the other two studies undertaken within the doctoral thesis. The longitudinal analyses conducted by structural equation modelling demonstrated that occupational self-efficacy and employability are the best predictors of cognitive and affective JI components, respectively. In the second study, an exhaustive survey was conducted amongst the apprentices of a large industrial group operating in the metal-working industry. These apprentices were practising various craft occupations that require training. In contrast to the preliminary study, the apprentices were at different stages of their apprenticeship at the time of the survey, enabling potential differences in levels of JI in the course of training to be determined. Furthermore, the second study focused solely on JI consequences. In addition to data provided by the apprentices, behavioural data such as absence data and the apprentices’ performance appraisals by their respective company trainer were also drawn on. The trajectory of JI in the course of the apprenticeship showed that JI was felt the least in the first year of training and the most in the penultimate year. In the third study, the focus on JI amongst apprentices was extended to the international context. To this end, around 100 wholesale trade apprentices were surveyed in each of three European countries that feature very different training systems, namely, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. While vocational training in Germany is traditionally offered as a dual system in which apprentices attend vocational school and work at the company in roughly equal parts, practical elements are less predominant in the Netherlands and are substituted fully by full-time school education in Spain. In addition to demonstrating the psychometric adequacy of the JI tool, its metric measurement invariance for samples taken amongst apprentices from the three countries was also shown in the international comparative analyses. Furthermore, employability was established as the most significant predictor of both JI components in all three countries. All in all, the results of the doctoral thesis confirm that JI is a considerable stressor for apprentices in the national and international context. The doctoral thesis concludes with a summary of the topic’s relevance in international education policy in view of the prevailing sustained high youth unemployment. With regard to methodology, diary studies are recommended for future study designs to enable the better estimation of JI covariations over time.

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