Psychology Theses and Dissertations

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/995

This collection contains some of the theses and dissertations produced by students in the University of Oregon Psychology Graduate Program. Paper copies of these and other dissertations and theses are available through the UO Libraries.

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Browsing Psychology Theses and Dissertations by Author "Allen, Nick"

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    The Development of Infant Self-Regulation in the Context of Family History of Mental Illness: A Three-Generation Study
    (University of Oregon, 2020-12-08) Sun, Xiaoning; Allen, Nick
    Young children’s capacities for emotional, biological, and behavioral self-regulation are key indicators for their optimal developmental outcomes. Early in their lives, infants display limited regulatory capacity and largely rely on their caregivers to observe, learn, and practice regulation strategies. However, caregivers who suffer from mental disorders, especially those characterized by affective and behavioral dysregulation, tend to be compromised in their abilities to provide these essential learning opportunities, often leading to compromised self-regulation skills in their offspring. The current dissertation examined the impact of family history of mental illness on the development of self-regulation during infants’ first two years of life. This dissertation also explored the role that parental behaviors during parent-child interactions might play as mechanisms that explain this association. Operationalizing infants’ self-regulation by behavioral orientation, the results revealed that infants demonstrated overall increasing regulatory capacities from 3- to 24-months, with, however, a short-term decrease from 3- to 12-months. Moreover, there was significant within-sample individual differences in these trajectories. Further, those who demonstrated self-regulation intercept subsequently experienced slower development of self-regulation. Analyzing the impact of parental lifetime psychopathology on such development, maternal psychopathology was associated with self-regulation intercept, whereas fathers’ internalizing disorder predicted infants’ faster self-regulation growth rate. Regarding the association between parental history of psychopathology and infant self-regulation development, parental behaviors including both positive and negative behaviors demonstrated moderating effects. Finally, the three-generation analyses revealed that lifetime psychopathology in G1 maternal grandmothers showed an overarching influence on their grandchildren’s self-regulation, and lifetime psychopathology in G1 paternal grandparents demonstrated moderating effects on the association between G2 fathers’ psychopathology and G3 self-regulation development. This dissertation advances the current literature on the development of self-regulation during infancy and early childhood by addressing (a) its development trajectory, (b) maternal, paternal influences, as well as grandparental influences, and (c) the potential mechanisms through which family history of mental illness may impact the development of children’s self-regulation. Finally, the results of this dissertation can inform the development of interventions, including early identification of those who are at risk for self-regulation development difficulties, and early intervention strategies.
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    The Transition to Parenthood and the Family System: Links from Grandparents, Parents, and Infants to Perinatal Medical Risk and Early Parent Affect
    (University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Loi, Elizabeth; Allen, Nick
    Biopsychosocial factors in early childhood set the foundation for later neurocognitive and language competence. This dissertation aimed to identify and characterize the early psychosocial correlates of perinatal medical risk and parent affect. Prior research has documented associations between both perinatal medical risk and parenting behavior and child functional outcomes across a wide array of developmental domains, including cognition and language. However, perinatal medical risk and parent affect do not emerge out of a vacuum. Rather, they are formed against the backdrop of, and in response to, factors embedded within the family system across time and among individuals. In three sub-studies, this dissertation sought to elucidate the multigenerational psychosocial factors associated with outcomes in pregnancy, birth, and parenting across the transition to parenthood. Participants were three generations within 137 individual families who took part in both the Oregon Adolescent Depression Project (OADP) and the Infant Development Study (IDS). The proband participants were adolescents who enrolled in the OADP; this cohort and their partners represented Generation 2 (G2) of the overall dissertation project. The parents of the G2 participants constituted the Generation 1 (G1) cohort, while the infant children of the G2 participants represented Generation 3 (G3). Indices of environmental context, psychological adaptation, relationship dynamics, and affect at both family and individual levels across the three generations were collected between the G2 cohort’s adolescence through the early period of their transition to parenthood. Analyses sought to broadly identify and characterize the links among grandparental, parental, and child psychological and relational functioning and outcomes in perinatal medical risk and parent affect. Results across the series of three studies revealed a lack of clear links between the majority of factors sampled from the familial ecology and the outcomes of perinatal medical risk and parent affect, likely due to restricted power resulting from the relatively small sample size. However, in support of the view of the parent-child relationship as mutually reinforcing, infant positive affect was related to parent positive affect. The implications of these findings and proposed areas for ongoing research are discussed.