Undergraduate Honors Program - Psychological Sciences

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https://ir.vanderbilt.edu/handle/1803/205

Includes Baccalaureate theses from Department of Psychology in the College Arts and Science, the Department of Psychology and Human Development in Peabody College, and allied disciplines across the university.

Department Location:	301 David K. Wilson Hall
Mailing Address:	Department of Psychology Vanderbilt University PMB 407817 2301 Vanderbilt Place Nashville, TN 37240-7817
Phone:	615-322-2874
Fax:	615-343-8449
Email:	Trisha.James@vanderbilt.edu
Website:	Department of Honors Psychological Sciences

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 271

A Multi-Method Examination of Self-Regulation Processes in Preschool-aged Children
(Vanderbilt University, 2025-05) Zhang, Yichi; Hill, Kaylin; Garon-Bissonnette, Julia; Kujawa, Autumn; Dr. Kaylin Hill; Dr. Julia Garon-Bissonnette; Dr. Autumn Kujawa
Self-regulation is a multi-faceted developmental construct that relates to all aspects of a child’s functioning. However, specific self-regulation constructs and their associations within the preschool age period are not well established. Understanding self-regulation at the point of action involves assessing associations amongst reward, risk-taking, and impulsivity. The current study examined reward responsiveness as it relates to risk-taking and impulsivity in a sample of 44 preschool-aged (M = 4.27 years, SD = 0.75) children. Approximately half of the children experienced neonatal opioid exposure. We used a multi-method approach, which included a neural measure of reward responsiveness (i.e., RewP), behavioral measures of risk-taking and impulsivity, and parent-reported impulsivity. Results did not indicate statistically significant associations between risk-taking and impulsivity, potentially due in part to the relatively small sample size. For reward responsiveness, although we did not observe a statistically significant difference between RewP conditions, the RewP to loss component was significantly related to parent-report impulsivity.
Acoustic Parameters of Speech and Attitudes Towards Speech in Childhood Stuttering: Predicting Persistence and Recovery
(Vanderbilt University, 2016-04) Gerald, Rachel; Walden, Tedra, 1952-
The relations between the acoustic parameters of jitter and fundamental frequency and children’s experience with stuttering were explored. Sixty-five children belonging to four talker groups will be studied. Children were categorized as stuttering (CWS) or non-stuttering (CWNS), and were grouped based on their diagnosis of stuttering/not stuttering at two time points in a longitudinal study: persistent stutterers (CWSàCWS), recovered stutterers (CWSàCWNS), borderline stutters (CWNSàCWS), and never stuttered (CWNSàCWNS). The children performed a social-communicative stress task during which they were audio-recorded to provide speech samples from which the acoustic parameters were measured. There were no significant relations between talker group and acoustic parameters, nor were children’s attitudes towards their speech different across talker groups. Therefore, acoustic parameters nor children’s attitudes towards their speech did not determining their prognosis with stuttering.
Acoustic Properties of Laughter in Individuals with Williams Syndrome
(Vanderbilt University, 2010-04-28) Culp, Diana; Bachorowski, Jo-Anne
Acoustic properties of speech under stress in preschool children who do and do not stutter
(Vanderbilt University, 2014) Morrow, Emily; Walden, Tedra, 1952-
Previous research has shown that stuttering, a potentially life-altering developmental disorder with typical onset during the preschool years, is linked in severity to temperamental and situational emotionality. Thirty-three participants, aged four to six years old, 14 of whom stutter and 19 of whom do not, provided temperamental measures of emotionality via parent-report surveys. Measures of stress/emotionality were derived from acoustic data (fundamental frequency and jitter) drawn during a card stressor task as part of a larger study. Analyses included correlations between temperamental and acoustic measures of emotionality for all participants, as well as comparisons of temperament data and lab acoustic measures of fundamental frequency and jitter between children who do and do not stutter. Although independent samples t-tests and discriminate function analysis showed no significant difference between the two groups for either temperamental or acoustic data, bivariate correlations for both groups showed significant correlations between temperament measures of emotional reactivity and regulation, and acoustic measures, such as mean jitter and jitter range. Results support acoustic measures as indicators of vocal stress in children who do and do not stutter.
The acoustics of children's laughter
(Vanderbilt University, 2009-04-12) Tennis, Katherine; Bachorowski, Jo-Anne
Laughter is a unique sound--one that most of us produce many times each day. Despite laughter's seeming ubiquity, though, we really do not know much about this vocalization's psychological function(s) or details about its acoustics. The goal of the proposed research is to measure several acoustic features from a large corpus of children's laughter, with the goal being to catalog what makes this class of vocalizations arguably special. Through duration and frequency analyses we predict that due to their comparatively underdeveloped vocal-production anatomy, children's laughter will have a much higher F0 than adult laughter and will not expect sex differences. We also predict that children's laughter may be more tightly coupled to internal emotional state seems to be the case for adult laughter.
Affect as a Model of Pro-Environmental Spillover
(Vanderbilt University, 2018) Vasan, Ana A.; Smith, Craig A.
In an effort to mitigate the potentially catastrophic effects of human consumption on the environment, many researchers are driven to understand the mechanisms underlying sustained engagement in pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Using the concept of behavioral spillover, a primary PEB may either lead to an increase (positive spillover) or a decrease (negative spillover) in future PEBs. Previous research into PEB spillover suggests that situational factors, such as identity and emotion, may affect whether an individual tends toward positive spillover behavior or negative spillover behavior. The present study synthesizes research on behavioral spillover with that of emotional appraisal to attempt to create a framework for the affective mechanisms underlying the spillover effect, within the domain of PEB. Specifically, this study looks at the participants’ decision to complete a second PEB after completing an initial PEB, and how that decision may be differentially affected by induced elevation, pride, guilt, and anger. Participants were led to engage in a primary PEB (recycling a plastic water bottle), subsequently underwent a targeted emotion induction, and finally were given the opportunity to engage in a second PEB (turning off a dripping water faucet), with the latter recorded on a binary scale. Results were non-significant, and indicate a potential difference between the Elevation and Guilt conditions’ and the Pride and Anger conditions’ influence on sustained engagement in PEB, especially as guilt may predict sustained PEB engagement. Results further suggest the possibility that individual identity and values may not predict direction of spillover behavior. Our research provides a preliminary framework from which future social psychologists and policy makers may create widespread and sustainable initiatives towards PEB.
Affective Considerations in Anxiety and Depression Comorbidity
(Vanderbilt University, 2023-03-20) Keith, Rebecca
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) co-occur at rates much higher than chance. Because of overlapping risk factors and higher rates of comorbidity than other anxiety disorders, researchers have proposed reclassifying GAD; one of the most influential proposals calls for GAD and MDD to be classified together as anxious-misery disorders, with the remaining anxiety disorders reclassified as fear disorders. The tripartite model attempts to explain comorbidity of depression and anxiety through positive affect, negative affect, and physiological hyperarousal. However, its theory that low positive affect is exclusive to depression has been questioned – instead, low rates of positive affect are found in all anxiety disorders, especially in GAD. The current study examines positive affect in anxious-misery symptoms and fear symptoms to determine if positive affect varies in a manner consistent with the model and if it supports the reclassification of mood and anxiety disorders. Using a sample of adolescents and young adults (n=904), correlations and linear regression were conducted on positive affect and mood disorder symptoms. Symptoms of depression, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and panic disorder each had significant negative correlations with positive affect. A regression analysis controlling for the overlapping variance among symptoms demonstrated that depression showed the strongest negative relationship with positive affect, followed by generalized anxiety and social anxiety. There was no significant relationship between positive affect and panic disorder symptoms. These findings support the close relationship between depression and generalized anxiety but also demonstrate that positive affect may not be adequate to differentiate anxious-misery and fear disorders.
African American and Euro-American Mother-Child Communication within the Context of Maternal Depressive Symptoms
(Vanderbilt University, 2015-04-15) Royster, Quela Nile
Past research has shown that depressive symptoms and race/ethnicity separately impact parenting behaviors, although the latter is often confounded with other contextual variables. This study examined the association of depressive symptoms and race/ethnicity with the parenting behaviors of African American and Euro-American mothers while controlling for demographic variables. Mother-child dyads were recorded discussing recent peer stressors and mothers’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors and emotions were coded using the Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scales (IFIRS). Maternal depressive symptoms did not significantly predict any of the parenting behaviors. African American mothers were significantly higher in structure, authoritarian parenting, and psychological control, significantly lower in engagement, and similar to Euro-American mothers in warmth and overall communication. However, race/ethnicity only significantly predicted structure and authoritarian parenting. Implications for parenting style research and familial depression preventions are discussed.
Analysis of Structural Network Topology in Depression using Graph Theory
(Vanderbilt University, 2019) Ganesh, Swathi
Neuroimaging studies have suggested a difference in structural brain connectivity in depression. Recently, structural brain connectivity and psychopathology have been studied using graph theory analysis, which provides metrics on properties of brain organization. While there have been some studies applying this analytic technique to study depression, these have largely been done using categorical rather than dimensional approaches to psychopathology. This study applied both a traditional categorical approach and a dimensional approach to examine the relation between commonly used graph theory measures and depression. The dimensional analysis included 439 subjects and the categorical approach included 357 subjects with depressive symptoms and 82 subjects without any diagnoses. Anatomical co-variance matrices were constructed using 9 morphometric features and matrices were analyzed to produce the following metrics: normalized clustering coefficient, normalized path length, small-world parameter, normalized global efficiency, and normalized local efficiency. The categorical approach utilized an ANCOVA and the dimensional approach utilized multiple regressions. The categorical analysis did not suggest a significant difference between the “depressed” and “healthy” group with regards to any of the graph theory metrics. In the dimensional analysis a significant positive relation was identified between depressive symptom counts and both normalized local efficiency and normalized clustering coefficient. This shows some concordance with previous studies, and suggests that global features of white matter microstructure may be relevant for depression when examined dimensionally. Future studies using other types of neuroimaging data and applying graph theory techniques may yield additional insight into which graph theory metrics are most relevant for depression.
Antecedents of Blame: Causal Attributions and Appraisals
(Vanderbilt University, 2023-03-20) Jeong, Chanyoung; Smith, Craig
There are studies (Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope, 1993) suggesting that appraisals of blame mediate between causal attributions and anger. Thus, causal attributions appear to be systematic antecedents to appraisals of blame. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model of attributions and blame that depicts the specific ways that particular attributions contribute to the definition of anger-inducing blame. A survey was administered using the online survey manager REDCap consisting of two vignette scenarios with four conditions each. These conditions manipulated attributions of causal locus, controllability, foreseeability, and intentionality. These attributions as well as appraisals of other blame and the emotion of anger, were assessed. The resulting data were analyzed through a series of ANOVAs and regression analyses designed to map out how, given other locus, various combinations of the other attributions determined blame and thus emotion. Thus, this study demonstrates the specific ways that key attributions contribute to appraisals of blame, and hence how those attributions contribute to the experience of anger.
Appraisal in Positive Emotion: Differentiation Between Hope and Challenge/Determination
(Vanderbilt University, 2011-04-08) Garden, Rebecca; Smith, Craig (Craig Alexander); Kirby, Leslie D. (Leslie Deneen)
The object of this study was to test individual differentiation between the emotions Hope and Challenge/Determination in terms of motivational, cognitive, and behavioral components. The former emotion requires a more globalized and potentially optimistic appraisal process while the latter is reliant on self-motivation to a greater extent in a short-term context. If individuals are asked to recall hopeful or challenging memories in open-ended and other appraisal-focused self-report measures are they more likely to be able to generally differentiate between the emotions? We found that psychological ownership and internal motivation in a task plays a pivotal role Determination while Hope relies on a relationship to external factors; both emotions utilize problem-focused coping to a greater extent than emotion-focused coping potential.
Are You Making the Right Choice? How Deciding Impacts Food Evaluation and Judgment
(Vanderbilt University, 2023-04-10) Lai, Ke
Traditional approaches in studying decision making typically use artificial or well-defined lab stimuli to investigate changes in the perception of choices. However, the processes of how people generate, evaluate, and integrate attributes of real-world choices are less-studied and understood. In this study, we used food as an example of the real-world stimuli to investigate how deciding between options can accentuate the differences in the perception of their attributes. Specifically, we examined whether making decisions would accentuate the differences between food items and increase the differences in subsequent judgments of pleasure, healthiness, and overall value for similar food pairs. We found that the accentuation effect only occurred for pleasure and overall value judgments of the food but not for healthiness judgment. We propose multiple explanations to account for these results.
Association of Maternal Anxiety, Perceptions of Child Prognosis, and Coping with Maternal Supportiveness for Children with Cancer
(Vanderbilt University, 2010-04) Barnwell, Anna S.; Compas, Bruce E.
Over 12,400 children in the United States are diagnosed with cancer annually. The diagnosis and treatment of cancer can create significant amounts of stress for the mothers of these children. While facing this stress, mothers are traditionally expected to serve as primary sources of emotional support to assist their children in dealing with the illness. A variety of factors may hinder the ability to provide emotional support, including psychological distress (anxiety), perceptions of cancer prognosis, and the specific coping mechanisms employed to deal with the stress of having a child with cancer. This paper explores how maternal anxiety, perception of prognosis, and coping may independently or jointly affect maternal emotional supportiveness for children with cancer.
Associations among Depression, Rumination, and Mindfulness in Adolescents
(Vanderbilt University, 2024-03-27)
We examined the associations among mindfulness, rumination, and depression, and between trait and state mindfulness in an at-risk adolescent sample. In addition, we tested the effect of an internet-based mindfulness intervention on depressive symptoms and rumination. Participants were 110 adolescents between 12- to 17-years-old (Mean = 14.73, S.D. = 1.65). The sample was 68% female and 55% White. At both pre- and post-intervention, we measured rumination, trait mindfulness, and depressive symptoms using self-report questionnaires and state mindfulness using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA). Using Pearson correlations, we found significant correlations among mindfulness, rumination, and depression, and between state and trait mindfulness. Multiple regression analyses revealed no significant main effects of Condition (intervention vs. control) on rumination, depression, or state mindfulness. Furthermore, baseline trait mindfulness did not moderate the effect of Condition on rumination, depression, or state mindfulness. Midpoint trait mindfulness did not mediate the effect of Condition on rumination or depression. Future research concerning mindfulness interventions for at-risk adolescents should use a larger sample. In addition, there is a need to further examine the components of a mindfulness intervention that may produce benefits for adolescents.
Associations of Caretaking with Internalizing Symptoms in Offspring of Huntington's Disease Patients
(Vanderbilt University, 2022-03-28) Quam, Annika
This study examines Huntington’s Disease in the context of patients and their children. Huntington’s Disease is a progressive, autosomal dominant, neurodegenerative disorder, meaning that children of parents with the disease have a 50% chance of having the disease themselves. The children have a unique role in taking care of their parents physically and emotionally throughout their parent’s disease progression. The purpose of this study is to examine the associations among caregiving, offspring and patient characteristics, and internalizing behavior problems in offspring of Huntington’s Disease patients. Caregiving behaviors were negatively associated with internalizing behaviors in offspring of Huntington’s Disease patients. Patient emotional well-being was found to be negatively correlated with offspring internalizing symptoms. Patient CAP scores and offspring age were positively correlated with caretaking behaviors. Implications of the findings and future directions for research are explored.
Associations of Maternal Macro- and Micro-Level Communication Styles and Child Emotions During Parent-Child Discussions About Children’s Cancer
(Vanderbilt University, 2011-04) Hughart, Leighann; Compas, Bruce E.
Previous research indicates that children with pediatric cancer may be at risk for both short-term and long-term emotional difficulties including anxiety and depression. Parent communication may guide a child in successfully coping with stressful experiences related to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, which can ultimately influence the child’s ability to cope and adjust to challenges posed by the illness. The current study aims to identify what aspects of maternal parent communication patterns may heighten or relieve child pediatric cancer patients’ anxiety about cancer. Sixty-two mother-child dyads of families with children diagnosed with cancer were recruited to participate in this two-site study. Mothers and children 10 years of age or older were asked to complete questionnaire packets pertaining to their experience with the illness. All families who completed the packets were then recruited to participate in a video-recorded observation including a communication task that involved a cancer-related discussion. Parent communication techniques and child emotions evident in the conversation were coded. Results indicate that mothers’ linguistic structures of their responses were related to their general communication styles and that these ultimately predicted their child’s mood.
Associations of Parental Emotions and Behaviors with Changes in Child Emotions During Face-to-Face Interactions
(Vanderbilt University, 2021-03-29) Redic, Margaret
Objectives. Parenting is a significant factor in the development of depression during adolescence. However, little research has specifically studied the association of expressed parental emotion during parent-child interactions on later expressed child emotion. The current study investigated the relationship between parent and child observed emotion—more specifically, how parents’ expressed emotion in one task may be associated with children’s expressed emotion in a subsequent task. Methods. Parents with a history of depression (N = 242, M age = 41.72) and their children (M age = 11.53) participated in two interaction tasks—one conversation about a recent pleasant activity and one about a recent stressful experience for the family. Observed emotions including sadness, hostility, and positive mood in parents and children in these video-recorded interactions were measured using a macro-level coding system. Parent observed emotion scores in the stressful task were used to predict changes in child observed emotion scores in the stressful task, controlling for child observed emotion scores in the prior, pleasant task. Results. Parent sadness was positively correlated with child sadness and negatively correlated with child hostility in the second task. Parent sadness accounted for changes in child sadness and hostility in task 2, parent hostility accounted for changes in child hostility in task 2, and parent positive mood accounted for changes in child positive mood in task 2, even after accounting for levels of child respective emotions in the prior task and the parent BDI-II score. Conclusions. Parent and child emotions are significantly related and parents’ emotions may contribute to changes in children’s emotions. Analyzing changes in child emotions from moment-to-moment, interaction-to-interaction may provide insight into healthy parenting strategies, and, more specifically, the significant influence of parental emotions and behaviors on their children.
Attention retraining treatment for contamination fear: A randomized control trial
(Vanderbilt University, 2011-04) Sarawgi, Shivali; Olatunji, Bunmi O.
Although an attentional bias for threat-relevant information has been connected to the etiology of contamination-based obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the treatment implications of such a bias remains unclear. Accordingly, the present investigation examined the hypothesis that direct manipulation of attention for threat-relevant stimuli (disgusted faces and disgusting objects) may effectively reduce symptoms of contamination fear, commonly observed in OCD. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three probe detection conditions: (1) training away from threat (2) training toward threat, or (3) no training (control condition). Self-reported symptoms, behavioral avoidance, and physiological responding during exposure to threat-relevant images was assessed before and after two attention retraining sessions conducted one week apart. The results revealed that attention was successfully manipulated for both training groups. However, the desired attention training bias was observed for disgusting objects and not disgusted faces. Contrary to predictions, symptom levels did not improve as a result of attention training. However, there was some evidence of significant associations between change in symptoms and the magnitude of the bias observed as a function of attention training. The implications of these complex patterns of findings for the feasibility of attention retraining as a treatment for OCD and other anxiety disorders will be discussed.
Attentional Effects of Processing Emotional Faces Using Continuous Flash Suppression
(Vanderbilt University, 2009) Krellenstein, Nicole J.; Zald, David H.
Controversy exists concerning whether emotionally valenced information facilitates or inhibits orientation of spatial attention when presented without observers' awareness. Following prior work by Jiang et al., (2006) suggesting that unconsciously presented erotic cues directed spatial attention, we investigated the attentional effects of unconsciously presented emotionally valenced cues. Using a continuous flash suppression (CFS) paradigm, invisible emotional faces were presented as valid or invalid cues to the location of a grating stimulus. In contrast to prediction, reaction time and accuracy to the target stimuli were unaffected by the validity and valence of emotional faces, though some evidence was found for unique processing of fearful faces. These results may suggest that valenced stimuli presented under CFS are unable to influence spatial attention.
Behavioral Economics and Microfinance: A Study of Risk Preferences in Rural South Africa
(Vanderbilt University, 2011-04-05) Leiberman, Eric M.; Heuser, Brian Lloyd
When deciding between safe and risky prospects, human decision-makers exhibit a number of framing effects. One of the most prominent of these effects, the reflection effect, is the tendency for decision makers to evaluate gambles relative to a reference point, and to act risk-seeking when prospects are framed as losses but risk-averse when identical prospects are framed as gains. This tendency is one of the primary predictions of Prospect Theory, the modified Expected Utility Theory that was proposed by Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. The present study seeks to closely replicate the work of the Nobel laureates in the cross-cultural setting of rural South Africa with subjects who are extremely poor. Using a similar choice problem to that of Kahneman and Tversky’s Asian Disease Study, we show that subjects exhibit an alternate reversal of risk preferences depending on whether outcomes are presented as Gains or Losses. These results seem to suggest that poor South African women exhibit similar framing effects but that their risk preferences are the complete opposite of the Western Kahneman and Tversky subjects. This study therefore finds a skewed preference for risk and loss in its cross-cultural subjects and suggests that specific decision-making phenomena are not necessarily universal. The implications of this study are wide reaching, as they move closer to a theory of how poverty influences decision-making.

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