The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of autistic traits, socioeconomic status, barriers in the physical environment of school, and school climate on school participation among...Show moreThe aim of this study is to investigate the influence of autistic traits, socioeconomic status, barriers in the physical environment of school, and school climate on school participation among autistic youths in Dutch primary and secondary schools. This study used an existing data set, which was collected by the larger-scale research project through collaboration with the Nederlands Autisme Register (NAR). The participants were aged between 4 and 16 years old, who received a formal diagnosis of autism as confirmed by their parents (N= 200; Mage= 12 years). The questionnaires Autism-Spectrum Quotient, CASE, school climate and CASP were used. A multivariate linear regression analysis was conducted. The enter method for the regression analysis showed a significant model, F(4, 113) = 8.41, p<.001, R2= .229 and adjusted R2=.202. Our model explains 22.9% of the variance in school participation among autistic youths in the Netherlands. Barriers in the physical environment of school was the only statistically significant predictor of school participation among autistic youths. This study showed that the barriers in the physical environment of school play a more important role in predicting school participation among autistic youths than autistic traits and socioeconomic status. This underscores the importance of an accommodating environment of school in school participation among autistic youths.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
The relationship between socioeconomic status (SES), subjective social status (SSS), stress and prosocial behavior remains a topic of debate in science with conflicting theories and contradictory...Show moreThe relationship between socioeconomic status (SES), subjective social status (SSS), stress and prosocial behavior remains a topic of debate in science with conflicting theories and contradictory results. Correctly understanding the meaning of the relationship can contribute to promoting socioeconomic equality in society through targeted interventions. The three main objectives of this study were to investigate whether 1) SES and SSS predict prosocial behavior; 2) SES predicts prosocial behavior while controlling for SSS; 3) Stress affects the outcomes in question 1 and 2, when comparing a stressful context to a non- stressful context. The research was conducted through a two-session repeated measure design, one during a stressful period of exams and once during a non-stressful period without exams, measuring university students’ well-being and academic performance in association to prosocial behavior. 502 students from universities throughout the United Kingdom were recruited through the online platform Prolific. The experiment took place online and consisted of a behavioral task measuring prosocial behavior, assessing how much work participants would be willing to do to obtain a reward for themselves versus for a fictive participant, followed by self-report questionnaires. Results indicated that: 1) SES and SSS did not significantly predict prosocial behavior; 2) SES did not significantly predict prosocial behavior while controlling for SSS; 3) Stress did not significantly affect the outcomes in question 1 and 2, when comparing a stressful context to a non-stressful context. Limitations to the study include unmet assumptions of normality and linearity, a generalizability bias and a potential motivation bias. Future studies should consider random sampling and making use of an in-person experimental setting. This study highlights the possible complexity of the relationships between SES, SSS, stress and prosocial behavior and thus calls for further investigations.Show less
In the post-medieval Netherlands (c. 1650 to 1850 CE), large socioeconomic differences within urban centres existed, which appear to correlate with the diet each socioeconomic group had access to....Show moreIn the post-medieval Netherlands (c. 1650 to 1850 CE), large socioeconomic differences within urban centres existed, which appear to correlate with the diet each socioeconomic group had access to. While low socioeconomic status (SES) often evokes the association of low body mass as a result of having little access to food, modern-day studies show that people living in poverty actually have a higher body mass than contemporaries of higher socioeconomic status. This thesis aims to study to what extend the relationship between body mass and socioeconomic status existed in the post-medieval Netherlands, with a focus on the role of diet and lifestyle. This was done by studying two post-medieval urban populations: one with a low SES from the Eusebiuskerk in Arnhem and one with a high SES from the Broerenkerk in Zwolle. Body mass was estimated by applying body mass estimation equations developed by Ruff et al. (2012) to measurements of the femoral head breadth. Statistical analyses were applied to compare the mean body mass between the high- and low SES samples. The males and females were compared separately. The results showed a positive relation between body mass and low SES. However, this relation was only statistically significant between the male samples. As males had more access to food because of their role in the household, the calorie-dense diet of low SES males could have allowed them to consume more calories than their high SES male counterparts who had access to a more varied diet with overall less calories. Low SES males furthermore performed more physically intense labour than the high SES males, increasing their muscle mass. Both female groups likely had less access to food in general, thus it is plausible that bottom line they consumed similar amount of calories. Also, both female groups would have mostly performed similar household tasks leading to no difference in muscle mass. Lastly, the femoral head is less responsive to changes in body mass in females which could attribute to these results. It can thus be concluded that that body mass can change as a result of status-differences in diet and labour. Based on the sites of Zwolle and Arnhem there seems to be a positive relation between low socioeconomic status and body mass in the post-medieval Netherlands.Show less
At least one in seven children have experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year and more than two thirds of children reported at least one traumatic event by the age of sixteen....Show moreAt least one in seven children have experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year and more than two thirds of children reported at least one traumatic event by the age of sixteen. Psychological problems, gender, mood, and socioeconomic status (SES) are all related to the severity of childhood trauma. Childhood trauma has not only been associated with a lower SES, but also with lower scores on IQ-tests. For example, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect are all negatively correlated with IQ. The relationship between SES, IQ and childhood trauma is not well understood. Especially in a population with individuals that report overall higher levels of traumatic experiences and have a lower IQ, such as offspring of people with a mood disorder. In this study, we investigated the relationship between SES, IQ, and trauma in offspring of parents with a mood disorder. Children (N = 198 and N = 40) participating in the MARIO cohort study were assessed for gender, age, SES, and exposure to childhood trauma (emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect) using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Child IQ-scores were assessed with either the WISC or the WAIS. A linear regression analysis showed that IQ was only weakly related to childhood trauma. In contrast SES was strongly related to childhood trauma. These findings suggest that IQ is not a determinant of childhood trauma in current research but underscores the importance of SES. The significant association between SES and childhood trauma could be further investigated and implemented in clinical practice. Future interventions could for example focus on preventing and/or reducing childhood trauma in children who grow up with a low SES.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
open access
Individuals with a lower socioeconomic status (SES) are at an increased risk for developing depressive symptoms. However, it has not been investigated whether this link is homogenous, or whether...Show moreIndividuals with a lower socioeconomic status (SES) are at an increased risk for developing depressive symptoms. However, it has not been investigated whether this link is homogenous, or whether specific depressive symptoms relate to SES differentially. In this thesis, I explored (1) which individual symptoms of depression are related to subjective social status (as a proxy for SES); (2) how specific indicators of SES are related to specific symptoms of depression; and (3) how the addition of stressors impacts the relations between SES indicators and depressive symptoms. I used data previously gathered from 448 students aged ≥18 at institutions of higher education in the Netherlands, as a part of the WARN-D study. Variables were assessed through a questionnaire that was administered online. I estimated three regularised partial correlation networks to explore shared variances among nine symptoms of depression, five indicators of SES, and seven stressors. The network analyses revealed that (1) subjective social status (as a proxy for SES) was negatively associated with guilt/worthlessness, depressed mood, anhedonia, trouble concentrating, and feeling tired, meaning that participants with higher scores on subjective social status had, on average, lower scores on these symptoms; (2) educational level (as one of multiple indicators of SES) was negatively associated with appetite disturbances, and the ability to get by financially was negatively associated with depressed mood, guilt/worthlessness, and appetite disturbances; (3) these associations diminished considerably or disappeared altogether when controlling for the stressor variables. Overall, all SES-depression associations were small in magnitude. The results suggest that patterns of depressive symptoms might differ between high-SES and low-SES individuals. Future research should explore the mechanisms behind these differences to guide prevention and intervention. My findings are consistent with previous research showing that symptom composite scores obscure important differences between individuals.Show less
This thesis studies the effect of age-at-death, sex, and socioeconomic status on the burial ritual in the Netherlands between 1200 and 1650 AD by analysing archaeological data from three urban...Show moreThis thesis studies the effect of age-at-death, sex, and socioeconomic status on the burial ritual in the Netherlands between 1200 and 1650 AD by analysing archaeological data from three urban cemeteries across the country. The late medieval and early modern burial ritual is often perceived as uniform and plain, restricted by the regulations set out by the church. These regulations included strict rules on grave orientations, body positions, nature of the graves, and burial locations. Although, by analysing and comparing these different aspects of the burial ritual from the urban cemeteries of the Franciscan monastery in Alkmaar, the St. Catharina church in Eindhoven, and the Eusebius church in Arnhem, this view of uniformity has been challenged. The results of this thesis revealed the occurrence of local variation in the burial location of non-adults, especially infants, in the urban context of the Netherlands. This variation is hypothesized to be related to the baptism status of the individual, varying beliefs about purgatory and the afterlife, death at childbirth, and/or the context of the burial ground. Nonetheless, men and women were found to receive uniform burial treatment, implicating that, despite their different social standing in life, in death, they were considered equal in terms of burial practices. Furthermore, it was found that socioeconomic status influenced burial treatment. The St. Catharina church displayed not only a statistically significant difference in non-adults buried inside the choir as opposed to the adjacent churchyard, considerably more men were present than women. This prevalence of men buried inside the church compared to the low to middle socioeconomic populations buried in outdoor cemeteries could be related to high secular status.Show less
Although participation in school is critical for supporting children's psychosocial development, this relationship is understudied in the autistic population. The present study investigated the...Show moreAlthough participation in school is critical for supporting children's psychosocial development, this relationship is understudied in the autistic population. The present study investigated the relationship between school participation and psychosocial functioning of Dutch autistic children aged 4-16 years. The potential moderating effect of the child's age, family socioeconomic status, and school physical environment on the relationship were also examined. Parents of a total of 200 autistic children participated in the study, who filled in information of their child on an online survey. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to examine the link between school participation and psychosocial functioning and the moderating role of child’s age, family socioeconomic status, and school physical environment. The results showed that autistic children’s school participation was negatively associated with psychosocial problems. However, no moderating effect of child’s age, parental education, or school physical environment was found. This study was among the first to provide empirical evidence on the contributing role of school participation in psychosocial development of autistic pupils. Despite its limitations, it serves as a preliminary investigation into the relationship, and it provides methodological recommendations for future research to yield more accurate findings.Show less
Recently, there has been a renewed interest in understanding the linguistic behaviour of humans when profanity is used. However, much of the current literature focuses on adult participants, the...Show moreRecently, there has been a renewed interest in understanding the linguistic behaviour of humans when profanity is used. However, much of the current literature focuses on adult participants, the factual usage of swear words or the distinction between English as an L1 and L2 when using profane expressions. Thus, the perceived profane behaviour amongst Dutch adolescents still has to be understood. Hence, this research aimed to analyse the perception of frequency and severity with regard to profane behaviour amongst Dutch adolescents. As a result, four research questions were posed in order to compare the perceptions of adolescents to profanity in relation to two demographic factors, namely, socioeconomic status and urbanity. The different social contexts and the perception of severity related to such contexts were also explored. The current study employed a crosslinguistic approach using both a questionnaire and follow-up interviews as tools. The results of this research show that the lower socioeconomic status group perceived their swearing behaviour as less frequent compared to average and higher socioeconomic statuses. The degree of urbanity for the places in which the schools were situated was divided into three categories: urban, semi-urban, and rural, based on the official ranking of the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek considering the address density (CBS, 2019). When regarding the perceptual parameter for frequency and severity, the findings yield similar results, concluding that the students in rural areas perceive to use the most frequent, and severe profane words. Lastly, the different social environments in which Dutch adolescents perceive to use profane words were analysed. The findings show a general tendency of profanity being expressed in informal environments, and in particular in the presence of friends. However, it seems unacceptable to utter swear words when in the presence of a family member or an authoritative figure. This study implies that Dutch adolescents perceive to use swear words frequently, distinguishing between mild swear words such as ""kut"" ""fuck"", and ""shit"" versus more severe expressions such as ""kanker"" ""tyfus"" and ""homo"". This is in line with the existing literature 4 (see, e.g. Jay, 1992; Jay & Janschewits, 2008). In order to gain more insight into the perspective of Dutch adolescents, further research could be required.Show less
Most attachment research is focused on the influence of attachment on different developmental outcomes of the individual. This present study focused on the influence of different characteristics of...Show moreMost attachment research is focused on the influence of attachment on different developmental outcomes of the individual. This present study focused on the influence of different characteristics of the individual on the attachment representation. The aim of this study was to examine the role of the combination between anxiety and depression on the attachment representation of adopted young adults at 14 and 23 years of age. Additionally, the influence of socioeconomic status of the adoptive parents and the family composition on the adoptees´ attachment representation have been examined. In this study, 84 international adopted young adults participated in the Secure Base Script method to measure their attachment representation. The degree of anxiety and depression of the adoptees when was measured at age 14 with a subscale of the Youth Self Report and at age 23 with a subscale of the Adult Self Report. Results showed no significant differences between the attachment representation of young adoptees from a mixed family and non-mixed family. There was also no significant difference in the attachment representations between adoptees whose parents were from low, middleclass or high socioeconomic status. Regarding the anxiety and depression, there was no influence of both these measures at age 14 and 23 on the attachment represenations of adopted young adults. It can be concluded that socioeconomic status, family composition, and anxiety and depression do not play a role in the prediction of attachment representation of adoptees in young adults. Future research should indicate whether these findings can be replicated and, if so, whether these non-significant findings are age-specific.Show less
According to the socio-ecological theory the environment has an impact on student’s problem behaviour. Research demonstrates that on individual level, the socioeconomic status of the student is of...Show moreAccording to the socio-ecological theory the environment has an impact on student’s problem behaviour. Research demonstrates that on individual level, the socioeconomic status of the student is of profound influence. It has also been suggested that for European students, the neighbourhood surrounding the school could be important and consequently meaningful in explaining problem behaviour. Furthermore the social context, in which these factors are experienced, influences its impact on student’s behaviour. Therefore present study proposes a mediation model linking the socioeconomic status of the student and the school environment to problem behaviour and examining the role of school culture to this relation. To test this model, students from three different schools in The Hague were asked to fill in questionnaires and information about the school environment was collected. The results did not support the mediation model. Although negative school culture was related to more problem behaviour, differences in problem behaviour outcome between students were not explained by socioeconomic status or school environment. Moreover, differences between schools were of incremental value when taking into account school culture. Explanations and implications of these results are discussed.Show less
