Psychology Research Projects 2022

Anjali Bose

Advisor: Cora Mukerji

Neurodevelopmental pathways linking early and prolonged institutionalization to adolescent outcomes

Research has shown that in addition to having their physical needs met, children require supportive, stable, and enriching early caregiving environments in order to promote strong neurological and psychological development. Children raised in institutions, such as orphanages, can experience profound early psychosocial deprivation in these environments due to lack of funds, resources or caregivers. To better understand how institutionalization and childhood environment affect brain development, I will use data from the The Bucharest Early Intervention program (BEIP), a longitudinal randomized controlled trial which aims to research how exposure to prolonged institutionalization in the first years of life affects child development using a variety of neural, cognitive, and behavioral measures. This project follows the development of young children in institutional care who were randomly assigned to leave the institution and be placed in high-quality foster care (foster care group; FCG) and children who were randomly assigned to remain in their current institutional care placements (care as usual group; CAUG). In the current study, I will examine how prolonged institutionalization in early childhood impacts patterns of structural brain development over adolescence (from ages 8 to 16) in CAUG versus FCG. A primary region of interest is the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which is implicated in cognitive control processes that regulate thinking, memory, planning, and behavioral adaptation. I hypothesize that children reared in the FCG will have better ACC functioning, and therefore stronger executive functioning than children in the CAUG. Disrupted development of neural regions supporting cognitive control in children exposed to prolonged institutionalization could contribute to later difficulties in broader executive functioning and psychopathology. We will conduct longitudinal analyses to test whether changes in brain structure in specific regions (including the ACC) link early experiences of prolonged deprivation to executive functioning and psychopathology later in adolescence. This research will clarify the neural effects of adverse childhood environments and their implications for children’s mental health and inform public policy to better meet childrens’ developmental needs in the context of childcare systems.  

Catherine Fu

Advisor: Cora Mukerji

Impact of Neighborhood Collective Efficacy on Child Verbal Development

The bioecological model of development recognizes that children’s development is illustrated by multiple systems, including the family, school, neighborhood, and the larger ecosystems they interact with (Bronfenbrenner, Morris, 2006). Prior research has focused on examining the effects of neighborhood structural factors and neighborhood process factors (Pei, 2022). According to Pei (2022), neighborhood process factors include collective efficacy, defined as the neighbors’ willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good. Previous studies have shown that collective efficacy has a direct positive impact on children’s cognitive development (Choi, et al., 2018). Family socioeconomic status (SES) is also a strong predictor of child development (Froiland, 2011).

Since the home environment is not the only factor influencing a child’s development, it’s important to evaluate how the ecosystems that children are connected to might interact with each other. A number of studies have revealed that neighborhood conditions might positively support the parenting practices within the home (Choi, et al., 2018), thus influencing the children’s cognitive development.

However, there is a dearth of research studies regarding associations between neighborhood collective efficacy and important aspects of children’s cognitive development, such as children’s verbal development. We plan to utilize the Fragile Family and Child Wellbeing Studies (FFCWS) dataset to test longitudinal associations between neighborhood collective efficacy and child’s verbal development and among familial factors mentioned above. The FFCWS study focused on the low-income families where some children are born to unmarried parents. Data is collected on over 4700 families in the large cities in the United States. Surveys for mothers, fathers, and primary caregivers take place when the child is 3 years old.  Based on the FFCWS, we hypothesize that collective efficacy impacts children’s verbal development indirectly, through shaping factors such as parenting practices (Dupere, et al. 2010), parenting stress (Choi, et al. 2018), and home literacy environments (Aikens & Barbarin, 2008, Froiland, et al. 2011). The results may have important implications for public policy, providing insight into how neighborhood social organization can support families and support the development of verbal skills that are important to academic growth and identify neighborhood efficacy as a potential target for interventions seeking to promote healthy child development. Breaking down systemic barriers to accessing neighborhood resources may help foster children’s early literacy and flourishing.

Jianan Gu

Advisor: Ariana Orvell

Advice Giving and Promotion of Emotional Regulation

Psychological distance, the ability to move one’s mind beyond the present moment and place (Davis et al., 2011; Kross & Ayduk, 2017), is a key construct for emotion regulation (Davis, Gross, & Ochsner, 2011; Kross & Ayduk, 2017). Previous research in social and personality psychology has examined how people can regulate their negative emotions (Gross & John, 2003; Koole, 2009), indicating various approaches to gain psychological distance. These approaches include adopting a more objective perspective (Shiota & Levenson, 2009), using second or third-person pronouns (Orvell et al., 2019; Kross et al., 2014), or considering how the emotional intensity of the situation will fade with time (Bruehlman-Senecal & Ayduk, 2015). This research will examine whether giving oneself advice is another means to promote emotion regulation by enhancing psychological distance. When giving themselves advice, we expect that people should consider the unpleasant event from a more objective and normative perspective, resulting in a decrease in negative emotions.

Participants will be asked to recall a persistent stressor that makes them anxious. They will then be randomly assigned to immerse themselves in the stressor, offer themselves stressor-related advice, or imagine giving a peer stressor-related advice (all in writing). We will measure negative affect, psychological distance, loneliness, confidence in managing the stressor, normative perceptions, and a shift from immersed to a distanced perspective, measured via pronoun use. We hypothesize that participants who give themselves advice or imagine giving a peer advice will demonstrate a more distanced perspective (indexed via language and self-report) and show lower levels of negative emotion (Orvell, 2021). We also predict that giving advice will be associated with feeling less alone, feeling more confident with managing the stressor, more normative perceptions (Orvell, 2021).

Della Guo

Advisor: Heejung Park

Promoting Parenting Efficacy: Examining Maternal Actions in Multicultural Families From South Korea

Although parents commonly do their best to provide for their children, variability occurs in the extent to which they feel confident in their capability of meeting their children’s needs, known as parenting efficacy (Bloomfield & Kendall, 2012).Parenting efficacy is important as confident parents tend to have better parenting behaviors and produce more positive child outcomes (e.g., Leerkes & Burney, 2007). Unfortunately, parenting efficacy may be more challenging to attain for families with immigrant backgrounds due to limited knowledge about their host society despite the desire and pressure to adapt to society (Boruszak-Kiziukiewicz & Kmita, 2020). In South Korea, a previously ethnically homogeneous country under significant social change, the cultural adaptation pressure typically falls on the shoulders of mothers in multicultural families, a unique group that typically consists of Korean fathers and foreign mothers. Indeed, poor parenting efficacy is a common concern for mothers in multicultural families (Bang & Huh, 2011). Thus, my project investigates the extent to which various maternal actions may promote a sense of parenting efficacy in mothers from multicultural families in South Korea. A total of 67 mothers from multicultural families, who have lived in South Korea for an average of 14 years, participated in the daily diary study. Daily maternal actions (e.g., emotional support such as helping the child) and parenting efficacy (i.e., a sense of role fulfillment as a mother) were reported across seven days. In addition to capturing life as it is lived (Bolger et al., 2003), the daily diary method controls for individual variability. Furthermore, given that the data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, perceived change in family climates during the pandemic is included as a control variable. I predict that on days when mothers engage in more supportive maternal actions for their children, they also have a higher sense of role fulfillment. 

Keywords: parenting efficacy, maternal action, multicultural family

References

Bang, K.-S., & Huh, B.-Y. (2011). Foreign Immigrant Mothers’ Experiences of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Child Rearing. Korean Parent-Child Health Journal, 14(1), 36–44.

Bloomfield, L., & Kendall, S. (2012). Parenting self-efficacy, parenting stress and child behaviour before and after a parenting programme. Primary Health Care Research & Development, 13(4), 364–372.

Bolger, N., Davis, A., & Rafaeli, E. (2003). Diary Methods: Capturing Life as it is Lived. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 579–616.

Boruszak-Kiziukiewicz, J., & Kmita, G. (2020). Parenting Self-Efficacy in Immigrant Families—A Systematic Review. Frontiers in Psychology, 11.

Leerkes, E. M., & Burney, R. V. (2007). The Development of Parenting Efficacy Among New Mothers and Fathers. Infancy, 12(1), 45–67.

Julia Katowitz

Advisor: Ariana Orvell

Persistence and Conventions in Children

Research has demonstrated that rituals—fixed series of actions or behaviors, repeated in a rigid fashion—provide a powerful tool among adults for promoting self-control (Tian et al. 2018, 852). However, studies have yet to demonstrate whether children’s self-control can benefit from the enactment of a ritual. The purpose of this experiment is to determine whether leading children through a movement-based ritual can increase their ability to enact self-control during a tedious task.

Children will be introduced to a tedious job, a “peg-turning task” requiring persistence. While completing this work task, children will have the opportunity to take breaks by playing a more entertaining game. Before beginning the peg-turning task, children randomly assigned to a  ritual condition will be taught a ritual involving a series of repeated hand and body movements, while children randomly assigned to a control condition will be led through a less restricted movement activity. We predict that children who are in the ritual condition will persist longer at the tedious task, and spend less time playing the entertaining game, compared to children in the control condition.

The results of this study will contribute to existing literature by demonstrating whether children’s ability to exert self-control can be enhanced by engaging in rituals. These findings may have implications for educational practices, like providing children with an easy-to-implement strategy (i.e., simple rituals) to help them persevere through difficult tasks, like homework. Understanding the impact of a ritual on self-control would create a means to empower children when they are torn between immediate gratification and achieving a future goal.

 

Elizabeth Nuth

Advisor: Cora Mukerji

Impact of Child Maltreatment at Varying Ages on Adolescents' Behavioral Outcomes

Even with a growing body of research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), the mechanisms at play that lead to the development of internalizing and externalizing behavioral symptoms following ACEs remain unclear.  ACEs, especially child maltreatment, can affect all aspects of a child’s development, from their cognition to their emotion regulation and behavior (Bevilacqua et al., 2021; Hunt et al., 2017; McLaughlin et al., 2019).  Previous research has shown that child maltreatment is significantly associated with behavioral problems through adolescence (Thompson et al., 2016) while other studies have found that child maltreatment experienced in middle childhood led to higher levels of emotion dysregulation in adulthood when compared to adults who experienced trauma during other points in childhood, such as early or late childhood (Dunn et al. 2018).  Further research is needed to determine the role that the timing of maltreatment plays in modulating effects on mental health to inform policy and clinical practice.  Therefore, we will conduct a project testing which adolescent behavior outcomes are more greatly impacted by maltreatment at age 3 compared to age 5.  We will utilize data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine how earlier versus later exposure to child maltreatment may impact internalizing and externalizing symptoms in adolescence.  In line with preliminary findings from prior work, we hypothesize that adolescents are more likely to develop internalizing disorders if they experienced higher levels of maltreatment at age 3 versus age 5, more specifically, their score will be greater for internalizing behavioral problems at age 15.  We also hypothesize that adolescents are more likely to develop externalizing disorders if they experience maltreatment at age 5 versus age 3, more specifically, their scores will be greater for externalizing behavioral problems at age 15.  The results can provide meaningful insight into when early interventions may be needed for children who have been maltreated and inform the development of more focused interventions following maltreatment at different ages.

References

Bevilacqua, L., Kelly, Y., Heilmann, A., Priest, N., & Lacey, R. E. (2021). Adverse childhood experiences and trajectories of internalizing, externalizing, and prosocial behaviors from childhood to adolescence. Child Abuse & Neglect, 112, 104890.

Dunn, E. C., Nishimi, K., Gomez, S. H., Powers, A., & Bradley, B. (2018). Developmental timing of trauma exposure and emotion dysregulation in adulthood: Are there sensitive periods when trauma is most harmful? Journal of Affective Disorders, 227, 869–877.

Hunt, T. K. A., Slack, K. S., & Berger, L. M. (2017). Adverse childhood experiences and behavioral problems in middle childhood. Child Abuse & Neglect, 67, 391–402.

McLaughlin, K. A., Weissman, D., & Bitrán, D. (2019). Childhood Adversity and Neural Development: A Systematic Review. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 1, 277–312.

Thompson, R., English, D. J., & White, C. R. (2016). Maltreatment history as persistent risk: An extension of Li and Godinet (2014). Children and Youth Services Review, 64, 117–121.

Catherine O'Connor

Advisor: Cora Mukerji

Neurodevelopmental pathways linking early psychosocial deprivation and adolescent outcomes

            Orphaned or abandoned children living in institutions face psychosocial deprivation marked by low caregiver availability and limited cognitive inputs (Smyke et al., 2007). Children exposed to early institutionalization can experience difficulties in executive functioning (Wade et al., 2019), brain development (Gee et al., 2013), and language ability (Humphreys et al., 2020). The Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) is a randomized clinical trial examining whether the harmful effects of early institutionalization can be mitigated by removing children from institutions and placing them into high-quality family based care early in life. This foster care intervention included regular support from social workers to aid parents and children in the challenges of the initial transition and beyond. Comparing developmental outcomes from children randomly assigned to high quality foster placements and those who remained in their current institutions can reveal the effects of removal from a neglectful environment and supportive caregiving on cognition and mental health outcomes later in life. Previous studies in the BEIP sample have followed these children into late childhood and adolescence and found distinct outcomes between groups. Those who received foster care exhibited higher IQ at age 12 (Almas et al., 2016) and a lower rate of psychiatric disorders at age 16 relative to their counterparts who were originally randomized to remain in institutions (Humphreys et al., 2020). Another longitudinal study of previously-institutionalized children identified a link between early deprivation and steeper reductions in cortical gray matter in adults (Mackes et al., 2019). In contrast, studies with neurotypical children and adolescents who were never exposed to institutionalization have shown higher rates of cortical thinning to be associated with psychopathology (Fujisawa et al., 2015; Gogtay & Thompson, 2010) and decreases in IQ (Burgaleta et al., 2014). In the BEIP sample, those who received foster care demonstrated more cortical thinning from ages 8 to 16 than those who remained in institutions (Sheridan et al., (under review)), despite having better cognitive and mental health outcomes. It is critical to understand the functional consequences of the enhanced cortical thinning seen in the intervention group. Using data from the BEIP, we seek to determine the effects of early caregiving environments on gray matter structure and its implications for cognitive development. Specifically, we will examine whether the foster care intervention in early childhood improves general cognition at age 16 through changes in cortical thickness during adolescence. In addition, we seek to determine if general cognition is related to vulnerability to psychopathology during this period. We will conduct a path analysis examining whether change in cortical thickness from ages 8 to 16 in the inferior frontal gyrus mediates the link between the foster care intervention and IQ at age 16. We will then examine whether IQ at age 16 is, in turn, associated with vulnerability to general psychopathology at age 16. We expect that the effect of the foster care intervention on general cognition at age 16 will be mediated by patterns of cortical thinning from ages 8 to 16. This change in general cognition will, in turn, be associated with a lower general vulnerability to psychopathology in the foster care group compared to those originally randomized to remain in institutions. This research may emphasize the value of early intervention to remediate the effects of institutionalization on trajectories of brain development. Further, it may highlight the necessity of developing public policy and interventions to support better developmental outcomes for previously institutionalized children, such as the prioritization of social interaction and cognitive stimulation in group-residence homes.

Marrian Tan

Advisor: Anjali Thapar

Detection of Deception: an ERP study

Although deception has been studied for decades, most theories proposed for lie detection rely on unreliable and indirect behavioral (e.g. increased pitches of voice, less frequent blinks) or physiological parameters (e.g. changes in heart rate and blood pressure). Recently, researchers have found that studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG)/event-related potential (ERP) are more reliable in detecting deception. However, given the complicated nature of this cognitive process, valid findings on the neurocognitive basis of deception remain limited and controversial. Therefore, the goal of this study is to explore valid paradigms for discriminating lying from telling the truth. Among the theories (e.g. emotional approach, self-presentation perspective) that attempt to explain cognitive processes of deception, the cognitive load approach gains the most support from fMRI and EEG studies, assuming that deception demands more cognitive control. Thus, we hypothesize that deceptive behavior requires more cognitive control both to inhibit the truth response and to select the deceptive response conflicting with the truth. Ideally, such additional effort will be reflected in both ERP waveforms and behavioral measurement (i.e. response time). Given the high temporal resolution of EEG and ERP, we will use them as measurement tools to record and analyze neural activities during deception. Understanding the neurocognitive mechanism underlying the deception process will both move us forward in making a neurophysiological connection to our complicated cognition and provide essential insights for the credibility-assessing process, especially in criminal settings.

Keywords: ERP; deception detection; cognitive control

Xinming Zhang

Advisor: Anjali Thapar

ERP study of  memory performance for natural and man-made scenes

Research has shown that natural and man-made scenes have a different impact on people’s attention and memory performance. Natural scenes involve things we commonly think of as nature, such as  trees, grass, ocean, mountains, etc and man-made scenes include objects like buildings, pavements, statues, cars, highways, and so on. Research has shown that viewing pictures of nature or interacting with nature can boost people’s mood, memory, and attention. The goal of my summer research is to use electroencephalogram (EEG)  and event-related potential (ERP) to investigate the neural correlates of memory performance of participants when they view natural scenes compared with man-made scenes. The ERP component of interest is the parietal old/new effect, which reflects a more positively deflected waveform for correctly identified old items relative to when they correctly identify new items. The latency for this waveform is 300-800 ms after the stimuli are presented. We hypothesize that the participants will remember the natural scenes more than the man-made scenes and there will be a difference in the magnitude of the old/new effect for natural scenes and man-made scenes. This research will enhance our understanding of how memory performance is impacted by scene content and provide insights into the potential benefits of incorporating natural scenes to improve people’s memory performance.  

Max Zhu

Advisor: Heejung Park

The Effect of COVID-specific Psychosocial Stressors on Children’s Sleep Patterns

As the COVID-19 pandemic remains prevalent worldwide, its implications for child development are of major concern in the scientific community. Preliminary empirical evidence indicates that children may be particularly vulnerable to the effect of pandemic-induced biopsychosocial stressors (de Figueiredo et al., 2021) as drastic lifestyle changes, often due to school closure and mandatory quarantine, can disrupt children’s well-being in a multitude of ways. Not only were children who experienced quarantine at elevated risk for developing depression and anxiety, but they also presented higher levels of psychological distress (Chen et al., 2020; Saurabh & Ranjan, 2020). Nonetheless, these studies were limited to self-reported measures assessed at a single time point and focused on measures of psychological well-being.

My project expands the current state of research by advancing the methodological approaches and expanding the scope of developmental outcomes. Specifically, I utilize the daily diary and actigraphy methods to more objectively examine the daily associations between COVID-specific psychosocial stressors and children’s sleep, a crucial everyday behavior that presents significant health concerns when disrupted. My participants are ethnic minority multicultural children (n = 70) in South Korea,  a unique minority population in the previously ethnically homogenous country. Given that these children are considered to be more at risk compared to their Korean peers, they may be more susceptible to certain negative effects that are brought by COVID (Lund, 2021), thereby providing broader implications for child development in at-risk communities globally. I predict that greater COVID-specific psychosocial stressors will be associated with poorer sleep patterns. Furthermore, I posit that the link between the psychosocial stressors and poorer sleep would be intensified in children who experience greater loneliness. Of methodological significance, children’s sleep patterns were assessed using both subjective and objective measures; subjective sleep data came from children’s daily diary entries, a powerful tool to capture life as it is lived (Bolger et al., 2003), while actigraphy data were generated based on movement patterns using non-invasive wristwatch-like devices. Measures of psychosocial stressors and loneliness were gathered from daily diary entries as well.

Keywords: COVID, children, sleep, loneliness, actigraphy, daily diary

References

Chen, F., Zheng, D., Liu, J., Gong, Y., Guan, Z., & Lou, D. (2020). Depression and anxiety among adolescents during COVID-19: A cross-sectional study. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 88, 36–38.

de Figueiredo, C. S., Sandre, P. C., Portugal, L. C. L., Mázala-de-Oliveira, T., da Silva Chagas, L., Raony, Í., Ferreira, E. S., Giestal-de-Araujo, E., dos Santos, A. A., & Bomfim, P. O.-S. (2021). COVID-19 pandemic impact on children and adolescents’ mental health: Biological, environmental, and social factors. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 106, 110171.

Lund, E. M. (2021). Even more to handle: Additional sources of stress and trauma for clients from marginalized racial and ethnic groups in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 34(3–4), 321–330.

Saurabh, K., & Ranjan, S. (2020). Compliance and Psychological Impact of Quarantine in Children and Adolescents due to Covid-19 Pandemic. The Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 87(7), 532–536.