Early maladaptive schemas (EMSs) are persistent dysfunctional beliefs that form in childhood and are thought to underlie chronic and recurring psychopathology. EMSs have been categorized into five...Show moreEarly maladaptive schemas (EMSs) are persistent dysfunctional beliefs that form in childhood and are thought to underlie chronic and recurring psychopathology. EMSs have been categorized into five broader schema domains. Transdiagnostic depressive symptoms entail depressive symptoms observed across various psychological disorders. We studied the relative contribution of the five EMS domains on transdiagnostic depressive symptoms in a cross-sectional within-subjects design. The sample consisted of students from Leiden University (N = 125) participating for course credit or monetary rewards, of which 91.2% were assigned the sex female at birth and 8.8% male (median age = 19, IQR = 2). Participants completed measures of the Young Schema Questionnaire 3 - short form (YSQ-S3) and the DSM-5 self-rated level 1 cross-cutting symptom measure – Adult (DSM-XC). Pearson correlations were inspected between each EMS domain and transdiagnostic depressive symptoms. A multiple regression analysis including the total scores of the five EMS domains as predictors was carried out. Individually, the EMS domains Disconnection & Rejection, Impaired Autonomy & Performance, Impaired Limits, Other-directedness, and Overvigilance & Inhibition were positively associated with transdiagnostic depressive symptoms (rs .451, .365, .289, .298, .345, p < .001), as hypothesized. The joint effect of the five EMS domains was positively associated with transdiagnostic depressive symptoms (Adj. R2 = .18, F(7, 117) = 4.88, p <.001). Interestingly, when holding the other domains constant, only the Disconnection & Rejection domain significantly predicted transdiagnostic depressive symptoms in the model (β = .44, 95% CI [.15, .74], p = .004). The domain groups the beliefs about expectations that one’s needs for security and stability will not be met predictably. Our findings suggest that each EMS domain is positively related to transdiagnostic depressive symptom severity in a university student population. The Disconnection & Rejection domain, relative to the other four domains, seems to uniquely contribute to transdiagnostic depressive symptoms. Future research could test whether identifying and changing the EMSs someone has in psychotherapy could reduce their transdiagnostic depressive symptoms across different psychological disorders. It remains a question if paying specific attention to the Disconnection & Rejection domain in psychotherapeutic treatment could improve the reduction of transdiagnostic depressive symptoms.Show less
Going to school is a milestone in the development of a youth, with research showing that youths with autism struggle to participate. This thesis examines the relationship between the level of...Show moreGoing to school is a milestone in the development of a youth, with research showing that youths with autism struggle to participate. This thesis examines the relationship between the level of autistic traits and the school participation of autistic youths. Furthermore, this thesis investigated whether and to what extent the relation between autistic traits and school participation could be moderated by household income, parental education and social school environment. Data was acquired through the Dutch Autism Register (NAR), out of which a sample was created containing 200 children (age range: 4-16 years, Mage = 12.23, SDage= 2.93). The AQ28, CASE & CASP questionnaires were used to measure relevant variables. Correlation analysis along with moderation analysis using the PROCESS v4.1 plug-in were employed to test the formulated hypotheses. Results showed that the effect of autistic traits on school participation was not significant (r(110 = -0.24, p = 0.02), with parental education being the only significant moderator (b = -34.32, t(108) = -2.03, p = 0.045). Results are interpreted and reasons for discrepancies are discussed. Future research should aim to further the representativeness of the sample and power of the analyses used, with future practice focussing on adapting youths' environment to suit their special needs.Show less
Part of the origin of anxiety comes from genetic heredity and the rest is explained by environmental factors. Parental and family characteristics play an important role in the environmental factors...Show morePart of the origin of anxiety comes from genetic heredity and the rest is explained by environmental factors. Parental and family characteristics play an important role in the environmental factors of anxiety. Specific parenting styles are linked to childhood anxiety. Several studies showed that parental overprotection can be linked to anxiety in children. However, there are some inconsistent results between the different studies. This inconsistency may occur because previous studies looked at parents and children in general and possibly, this relationship is mainly important in specific groups of parents and children. Therefore, in this study we look at parents’ socioeconomic status and the gender of the child as a moderator for the link between parental overprotection and anxiety in children. This study was part of a larger research project named Cool Little Kids. We used the pre-intervention, baseline data of the Cool Little Kids project in which 170 parents participated. Parents filled out several questionnaires regarding parental overprotection, child anxiety and demographic characteristics. The results showed that there was no significant effect between overprotective parenting and childhood anxiety that is moderated by SES of the parents and gender of the child. However, the results did point at the expected directions, although they are too small to give significant results. This means that overprotective parenting may not be as important as we assumed. Results of this study must be considered with regard to several limitations. The sample size of this study is small, parents with low socioeconomic status are underrepresented and the study is based on cross-sectional data. Further studies might focus on other parental and environmental factors such as an authoritarian parenting style that may have a larger influence on childhood anxiety and the influence of parenting styles on childhood anxiety in same sex parent-child pairs.Show less
Objective: Significant to the adolescence is the ability to predict (pro)social behavior of peers. Research shows that there are many motivations underlying prosocial behavior but two are important...Show moreObjective: Significant to the adolescence is the ability to predict (pro)social behavior of peers. Research shows that there are many motivations underlying prosocial behavior but two are important for this thesis: selfishness (maximizing personal gain) and risk aversion (minimizing losses). The prediction of others’ prosocial behavior can depend on social motivations or choices of oneself. Research suggests this might be different in social anxiety disorders (SAD). The social projection theory (SPT) suggests that socially anxious adolescents expect others to be risk averse. Another theory suggests that the negative social expectations that socially anxious adolescents have, means they predict others to be selfish. Therefore, the current study focused on whether predicting risk averse and selfish behavior of others develops during adolescence as well as the question whether the development of social learning is different for adolescents with higher levels of social anxiety. The main effect of motive was explored as well as the effects of trait social anxiety and age on the difference of motivations and the number of correctly predicted motivations. Method: A total of 38 participants were recruited by Bachelor-and Master Psychology students (17 boys and 21 girls; age range 9 to 26, mean = 15.2, SD = 3.8). The study was a cross-sectional design using a social decision-making game, inspired by Van Baar et al. (2020) and the social anxiety scale for adolescents (SAS-A). Statistical analyses included a two paired sample t-test, and two consecutive multiple regression analyses (MRA). Results: No significant results were found, meaning that adolescents expectations about motivations behind their peers’ prosocial decisions do not depend on age and trait social anxiety. It is discussed that the lack of evidence is due to the age difference in this study compared to prior research, not including a clinical sample and having a small sample size. Future research is needed to further explore social learning and social anxiety.Show less
Stressful Life Events (SLEs) and trauma exposure often lead to children experiencing symptoms of distress and reduced overall wellbeing and Quality of Life (QoL). Each child has a different...Show moreStressful Life Events (SLEs) and trauma exposure often lead to children experiencing symptoms of distress and reduced overall wellbeing and Quality of Life (QoL). Each child has a different response to exposure to adversity, with some children coping well while others develop psychopathology. Acknowledging the bioecological model of child development, this study aims to contribute to the understanding of vulnerabilities, risk and protective factors for optimal QoL after exposure to a potentially traumatic event. This knowledge can support practitioners in creating effective trauma-related child interventions. The study used existing questionnaire data collected between 2018 and 2022 by the Dutch national youth health care service. As part of this service in Amsterdam, Drenthe and Flevoland, parents of 968 children aged 9-12 (Mage = 10,19, SD = .507), digitally completed a questionnaire set on which they also indicated their child had experienced a potentially traumatic life event. Their anonymised data was used for a multivariable regression analysis (MRA) to explore for these children the research questions if behavioural inhibition (measured using the BIQ-SF), parental stress (OBVL- K), and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms (CRIES-8) associate negatively with their QoL (KidScreen-10) and if physical activity (Bewegen score) is positively associated with QoL. By comparing the results of a MRA and a bivariate correlation analysis, the degree of interconnectedness between these variables was also explored. Between behavioural inhibition and QoL, the results showed a negative association (β = -.115, p < .001) with a small unique effect size (r2 = .01). Parental stress was significantly associated with QoL (β = -.443, p < .001) with uniquely a medium to large negative effect size (r2 = .18). Physical activity was positively associated with QoL (β = .148, p < .001) with a small unique effect size (r2 = .02). Lastly, a negative association (β = -.22, p < .001) and small to medium effect size (r2 = .044) was identified between PTSD symptoms and QoL. In the MRA, none of the demographic control variables (age, gender nor ethnicity) were significantly associated with QoL. With this, the study hypotheses were all confirmed. In the discussion, the correlation between independent variables is explored. The study contributes valuable knowledge that could contribute to preventing reduced QoL and psychopathology in children after adversity. The results stress the importance of reducing parental stress and promoting physical activity as strategies to improve the well-being of children. This can be of great use for carers and professionals tasked with supporting children to cope after stress or trauma exposure.Show less
In this study a social prediction game was used to investigate expectations about others’ prosocial behavior in adolescence. Prosocial behavior can be seen as a voluntary action of a person to help...Show moreIn this study a social prediction game was used to investigate expectations about others’ prosocial behavior in adolescence. Prosocial behavior can be seen as a voluntary action of a person to help others. There are different motivations to behave prosocially. This study investigated the motivations of selfishness; always wanting more, and risk aversion; avoiding risks. The goal of this study was to investigate adolescents’s expectations about the prosocial behavior of others and if there was a difference in gender and age in these expectations. First, an improvement in the number of correct predictions in the risk averse motivation over age was found. There was no significant improvement of the number of correct predictions in the selfish motivation found. Second, there were no gender differences within the number of correct predictions of both motivations. Third, a significant correlation was found between gender, age and the number of correct predictions, which showed that the number of correct predictions of the risk averse motivation increased with age for girls and the number of correct predictions of the selfish motivation increased with age for boys. In conclusion, there is a gender difference between the expectations of the use of selfish or risk averse motivations of other players in a social prediction game and age has an influence on this difference during adolescence. This means that within the classroom, a different approach for boys and girls is needed to adopt more prosocial and cooperative motivations and expectations.Show less
The cognitive models of social anxiety disorder (SAD) reason that SAD is caused and maintained by self-focused attention and safety behaviors. The avoidance of eye contact is viewed as a safety...Show moreThe cognitive models of social anxiety disorder (SAD) reason that SAD is caused and maintained by self-focused attention and safety behaviors. The avoidance of eye contact is viewed as a safety-seeking behavior employed to reduce the risk of negative evaluation and is reported by both adults and children with SAD. In the light of growing evidence for the cognitive models of SAD, it seems likely that changing socially anxious individuals’ negative beliefs about themselves, and their performance could lead to more eye gaze behavior, which in turn could break the vicious cycle maintaining SAD. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of a cognitive behavioral intervention on the the relation between socially anxious adolescents’ cognitions and their eye gaze behavior. Cognitions were assessed by a questionnaire and eye gaze behavior was assessed using a wearable eye tracker during a public speaking task. The participants’ total fixation time, total fixation counts and average fixation time on the faces of nine virtual audience members were measured. As expected, the results showed a significant increase in positive cognitions and a significant decrease in negative cognitions from pre-test to post-test. The group as a whole did not show a significant increase in eye gaze behavior, however participants who showed more substantial improvements in terms of positive self-statements on average fixated longer on the audience members’ faces. These findings offer support for the cognitive models of SAD and suggest that promoting more positive self-statements in socially anxious adolescents would be clinically beneficial.Show less
Background: Social anxiety has been found to influence certain characteristics of the voice during various structured speaking tasks, but its assessment in more naturalistic contexts is scarce....Show moreBackground: Social anxiety has been found to influence certain characteristics of the voice during various structured speaking tasks, but its assessment in more naturalistic contexts is scarce. When directly looked at, socially anxious individuals feel more intimidated compared to when their social partner averts their eye gaze. The primary aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between social anxiety and five vocal characteristics (including mean voice intensity, mean fundamental frequency, rate, pausing, and speech duration) during a face-to-face conversation. A secondary aim was to examine the moderating effect of a social partner’s gaze direction (direct vs. averted gaze) on this relationship. Methods: Fifty-two university students (M = 21.27 years old, 86.5% female) participated in a face-to-face conversation task with a same-sex confederate. Both the participants and the confederates were given four question cards which they were asked to answer interchangeably. The confederates’ cards also included instructions about gaze direction without the participants knowing. Throughout the conversation task, participants’ voices were recorded using high-quality wearable eye-trackers. Results: The analyses revealed that neither social anxiety nor social partner gaze direction affected vocal characteristics during the conversation task. Conclusion: Increased mean fundamental frequency and degree of pausing and decreased mean voice intensity, speech rate, and duration were not identified as potential physiological indicators of social anxiety. Though translating such findings into real-life social interactions proved to be a difficult venture, future researchers could further investigate this topic with the hope of better clarifying the relationship between social anxiety and atypical voice patterns, as well as the moderating effect of confederate gaze direction on the speech patterns of more or less socially anxious individuals.Show less
Social competence is important for engaging in meaningful interactions with other people. An important aspect of social competence is prosocial behaviour. Some prosocial behaviours can be costly...Show moreSocial competence is important for engaging in meaningful interactions with other people. An important aspect of social competence is prosocial behaviour. Some prosocial behaviours can be costly and by showing sensitivity in their parent-child interaction, children learn and adopt behaviour from their parents. Therefore, we investigated the relation between parental sensitivity and costly prosocial behaviour because parents might influence their children's prosocial behaviour. Moreover, differential susceptibility markers such as the temperamental trait perceptual sensitivity contribute to responding to environmental cues. Therefore, we investigated whether perceptual sensitivity had a moderation effect on the relation between parental sensitivity and costly prosocial behaviour in terms of donation in middle childhood. This study focused on this developmental period because it is an important, transitional stage of children’s development. This study is cross-sectional and our sample consisted of participants (N=216) aged 7-9 that were part of a larger experimental cohort-sequential longitudinal twin study (L-CID). Parental sensitivity was measured with an observational task in which parent-child interaction was observed during a structured situation. A donation task was performed to assess the amount of money that children donate after watching a charity video. Self-report measures were used to access the temperament trait in terms of perceptual sensitivity. Firstly, we hypothesized that there was a positive relation between parental sensitivity and costly prosocial behaviour. After performing a regression analysis, we found no relation within our sample. Secondly, we also hypothesized that perceptual sensitivity moderated the relation between parental sensitivity and costly prosocial behaviour. However, after performing moderation analysis, there was found no interaction effects between our constructs. Our findings indicate that there is not a direct association in how the level of sensitivity in parents influences their children donating behaviour but that other factors such as individual characteristics or environmental factors might be further researched in order to know predictors of costly prosocial behaviour in middle childhood.Show less
Self-esteem is a fundamental change that occurs during adolescence, and previous studies suggested that maternal love withdrawal, parental and peer attachment quality contribute to adolescents’...Show moreSelf-esteem is a fundamental change that occurs during adolescence, and previous studies suggested that maternal love withdrawal, parental and peer attachment quality contribute to adolescents’ self-esteem. Since lower levels of self-esteem are related to poor health outcomes, it is important to find out which factors contribute to these negative outcomes and which group of adolescents are especially at risk. Therefore, the present study investigated whether gender and attachment quality moderate the relationship between maternal love withdrawal and self-esteem. It was expected that there is a negative relationship between maternal love withdrawal and self-esteem in adolescents and that there are gender differences in this relationship. Moreover, it was hypothesized that there is a relationship between attachment quality and self-esteem, and that the relationship between maternal love withdrawal and self-esteem is stronger in adolescents who are more securely attached to their mother, father and/or friend than adolescents who are less securely attached. Participants were 160 adolescents aged 11-21 years who completed online questionnaires about maternal love withdrawal, attachment quality and self-esteem. The results showed that maternal love withdrawal, and maternal, paternal and friend attachment (anxious/avoidant) were negatively related to self-esteem. Furthermore, gender and attachment did not moderate the relationship between maternal love withdrawal and self-esteem. Interventions should be created that support insecurely attached adolescents or adolescents whose mother withdrew their love and educate parents about the negative consequences of using love withdrawal as a punishment for their child’s undesirable behavior.Show less
This study examined whether highly intelligent children experience stronger peer attachment and if they show more prosocial giving behaviour when attending gifted education as opposed to regular...Show moreThis study examined whether highly intelligent children experience stronger peer attachment and if they show more prosocial giving behaviour when attending gifted education as opposed to regular primary education. To examine the relation between peer attachment, prosocial giving behaviour and education type 117 Dutch students between 9 and 12 years old have filled in the Raven Progressive Matrices, the IRI, the Prosocial Donation Task and the IPPA as part of the Brightwave study. The results show that there is no significant effect of education type on peer attachment in highly intelligent children (t(1) = .102, p = .751). Furthermore, no significant effect of education type was found on prosocial giving behaviour (t(44) = .562, p = .577). We did find a significant effect of peer attachment on the number of donated coins F(2,88) = 10.543, p = .002. However, this effect was not influenced by education type. The results from this study were unexpected because previous research has shown that highly intelligent children differ from their classmates in terms of emotional development and playstyle (Kroesbergen et al., 2016). This could make them feel less familiar towards their classmates which would cause them to show less prosocial giving behaviour (Amici, 2015). A possible explanation why highly intelligent children do not experience higher peer attachment or show more prosocial giving behaviour in gifted education is that they do not differ as much from their classmates in regular education as previously thought or despite this difference they may still befriend some classmates that share their interests and playstyle.Show less
The relation between bullying victimization and hostile attribution bias (HAB) and the possible mediation of positive parenting and alexithymia were examined in the current study with a sample of...Show moreThe relation between bullying victimization and hostile attribution bias (HAB) and the possible mediation of positive parenting and alexithymia were examined in the current study with a sample of 44 middle school children. The used data was obtained through the SCARS study, a cross-sectional study that conducted both fMRI and survey measures for neural activity and behaviour in relation to bullying victimization. The current study solely uses the survey data obtained through both child and parent report. Findings suggest that the expected relations do not exist, although indications that bullying victimization and HAB are associated are described. Further research on this relation is advised.Show less
The present study is a longitudinal study that examined whether depression in adolescence within a two-year gap could be predicted by adolescents’ stress responses to social stressors, while also...Show moreThe present study is a longitudinal study that examined whether depression in adolescence within a two-year gap could be predicted by adolescents’ stress responses to social stressors, while also investigating whether gender and age play a role in this prediction. At T1, participants were 205 adolescents between 12 and 17 years old (mean age=14.81 year, SD=1.31, 49.3% female). This study also replicated past studies that investigated gender differences in depression and stress responses including coping. The Response to Stress Questionnaire was used as an instrument to assess adolescents’ reaction and coping methods to social stressors, whereby the participants indicated the ways in which they react to social stressors on a four-point scale. Furthermore, the depressive symptoms of the participants were measured with the Children Depression Inventory at two time points two years apart, whereby the participants answer a 27-item self-report questionnaire. Based on the results of the statistical analyses, there were no significant gender differences in depression, nor were there significant age-related differences in depression between adolescent girls and boys. There were, however, significant gender differences in stress responses, namely Primary Control Engagement coping and Involuntary Engagement stress response. And finally, Primary Control Engagement coping, gender, and depression at T1 significantly predicted depression at T2, however the interaction effects of gender, age, and gender by age with the stress response did not significantly predict depression at T2. In conclusion, later depression can be predicted by stress responses, however gender and age do not moderate this prediction.Show less
Social rejection is conceptualized as a threat to survival, yet the physiological mechanisms at work during social rejection have not received much attention. Prior research has shown a link...Show moreSocial rejection is conceptualized as a threat to survival, yet the physiological mechanisms at work during social rejection have not received much attention. Prior research has shown a link between heart rate changes and social rejection and the possible correlation of self-esteem levels to heart rate changes. Here we examined the effect of positive and negative peer feedback on heart rate changes of participants. Fifty participants (mean age = 20.4) took part in the newly developed social evaluation through feedback (SELF)- paradigm where they predicted, then received social evaluative feedback from four peers who differed in their probability of giving social acceptance versus rejection feedback. We hypothesized that social rejection would result in a transient slowing of heart rate and that this effect would be more prominent with unexpected social rejection. We also expected to find a significant difference in heart rate changes towards each different peer. Moreover, we expected self-esteem to influence heart rate reactions to feedback. As predicted, results revealed a more pronounced deceleration of heart rate during unexpected rejection, though this effect was also found with unexpected social acceptance. Difference in heart rate in response to feedback from each different peers was found, namely a transient slowing of heart rate for negative feedback from Peer 1 and positive feedback from Peer 4. Moreover, levels of self-esteem did not explain a significant amount of variance in heart rate changes. Future research should focus on a larger and more diverse sample size in order to confirm the current findings. This study added to current literature by again confirming a brake in heart rate during unexpected social rejection and by finding new results in heart rate during unexpected social acceptance from a more negative peer.Show less
