Research master thesis | Developmental Psychopathology in Education and Child Studies (research) (MSc)
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Individual differences in behavior are best explained through a multisystem approach by integrating neurobiological, neurocognitive, and social environmental factors. This longitudinal study...Show moreIndividual differences in behavior are best explained through a multisystem approach by integrating neurobiological, neurocognitive, and social environmental factors. This longitudinal study examined whether early physical aggression could be predicted by stress regulation, inhibitory control, risk background, and sex. In addition, this study is among the first to investigate whether the four stress response patterns of the Adaptive Calibration Model (Del Giudice et al., 2011) could be generalized to 12-month-old children by studying: autonomic nervous system (ANS), sympathetic nervous system (SNS), parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), and hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. ANS was indexed by heart rate, SNS by salivary alpha-amylase and pre-ejection period, PNS by respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and HPA axis by salivary cortisol. The sample consisted of 214 mother-child dyads (116 boys) with an equal number of high- and low-risk backgrounds. Physical aggression was assessed through maternal reports at 12, 20, and 30 months of age. At 12 months, children performed an inhibitory control task and the fear task (robot paradigm) was used to measure baseline, response, and recovery levels of the stress systems. Latent profile analysis revealed three profiles: (1) ANS Responders, (2) Moderate Arousal, and (3) Hormonal Responders. No significant differences were found between the profiles with regard to inhibitory control, average age of mother and child, number of boys and girls, and number of high- and low-risk children. Results showed that higher physical aggression scores were associated at 12 months with ANS Responders and lower inhibitory control, at 20 months with Hormonal Responders, boys and high-risk, and at 30 months with boys and high-risk. In addition, an interaction effect was found at 20 months: higher inhibitory control in girls was associated with lower physical aggression scores, but not in the Hormonal Responders. The discussion highlights the importance of using a multisystem approach to explain individual differences in early physical aggression.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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Rules regulate society as they help to predict social interactions. Groups, however, do not always abide by rules. Instead, they break them when the conditions are right. Here we hypothesized that...Show moreRules regulate society as they help to predict social interactions. Groups, however, do not always abide by rules. Instead, they break them when the conditions are right. Here we hypothesized that rule abidance behavior is determined by a) an individual choosing another for mutual benefit based on their reputation and b) the social-environmental incentives like fairness and dishonesty. We had three participants building a reputation for their willingness to abide by or break rules. A fourth participant used that information to choose one to three participants, then played several rounds of a dictator game and a die-roll task. Participants were chosen more often when their reputation was in line with environmental incentives, where merely transitioning from one environment to another strengthened that effect. Regulators should therefore ensure the consistency and kinds of environmental incentives that individuals in power positions face across environments for controlling resulting rule abidance behavior.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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Previous research investigating the factors that shape a person’s degree of intergroup prejudice has focused primarily on relatively high level ideological and personality traits. In a largely...Show morePrevious research investigating the factors that shape a person’s degree of intergroup prejudice has focused primarily on relatively high level ideological and personality traits. In a largely separate body of work, psychophysiological predispositions towards threat sensitivity have been linked to ideological constructs. The current work integrates these two bodies of work by introducing a novel approach to measure implicit threat sensitivity and (theoretically) linking it to intergroup prejudice. Specifically, it was investigated whether individual differences in cognitively assessed sensitivity to threatening information were associated with a greater degree of implicit bias and explicit prejudice towards a stereotypically threatening minority-group (i.e., Muslims). While results did not support a relationship between threat sensitivity and intergroup prejudice, exploratory data, as well as limitations and implications of the current work, encourage future research.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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Background: Theoretical models propose that parenting practices play a role in the development and maintenance of child depression. However, previous meta-analytic findings indicated that parenting...Show moreBackground: Theoretical models propose that parenting practices play a role in the development and maintenance of child depression. However, previous meta-analytic findings indicated that parenting accounted for only 5-11% of the variance in childhood depression, with varying effects for different types of parenting behaviors. Research Question: The current study aimed to investigate the association between observed negative/positive parenting behavior, childhood depression, and child gender, while controlling for the confounding effects of type of informant and assessment approach for childhood depression. Method: Two meta-analysis were conducted for the negative parenting – childhood depression and positive parenting – childhood depression association, while including moderating and confounding variables. The current study included thirty articles in total, with nineteen examining negative parenting behaviors and twenty-three examining positive parenting behaviors. Results: Observed negative parenting behavior was positively and observed positive parenting behavior was negatively related to childhood depression, with overall small effect sizes. Type of parenting behavior, child gender, and assessment approach for childhood depression did not moderate the associations. Type of informant for childhood depression explained some variance in the positive parenting – childhood depression association. Conclusions: Parenting interventions for childhood depression might aim to improve a broader range of parental behaviors. Future research is advised to compare actual to perceived parenting behaviors and investigate the direction of the parenting – childhood depression association, while adopting a multiple levels of analysis perspective. This could possibly contribute towards developing most effective personalized interventions for childhood depression, while lowering the high burden of depression.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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Having an extra sex chromosome is known as sex chromosome trisomy (SCT). This may result in 47,XXY, 47,XXX, or 47,XYY. Previous research suggested that social attention to the eyes is reduced in ...Show moreHaving an extra sex chromosome is known as sex chromosome trisomy (SCT). This may result in 47,XXY, 47,XXX, or 47,XYY. Previous research suggested that social attention to the eyes is reduced in (young) adults with SCT and that individuals with SCT have more autistic characteristics compared to typically developing (TD) controls. It was unknown whether the group differences were also present in early childhood. The current study aimed to explore social attention, autistic traits, and their relation in three subgroups of children with SCT (47,XXY, 47,XXX, and 47,XYY; N = 70), aged 3 to 7 years, in comparison to TD peers (N = 62). Social attention to the eyes was measured using three eye-tracking video paradigms: A single-face condition, a multiple-face condition and a social interaction condition. Autistic traits were measured using the Social Responsiveness Scale-Second Edition. Results showed a difference in social attention between children with SCT and TD children during the social interaction condition. There was no difference in social attention between the SCT subgroups. The SCT group showed more autistic traits than the TD group and the 47,XXX subgroup had more autistic traits than the 47,XXY subgroup. There was a significant relation between social attention during the single-face condition and autistic traits in the 47,XYY subgroup only. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the importance of monitoring socio-cognitive challenges related to SCT in early childhood.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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Social anxiety in non-western children and adolescents has not been well studied in the Netherlands, so the purpose of this study was to investigate social anxiety in this group. This study tested...Show moreSocial anxiety in non-western children and adolescents has not been well studied in the Netherlands, so the purpose of this study was to investigate social anxiety in this group. This study tested whether a high score on perceived discrimination is associated with a high score on social anxiety, whether there are gender differences in the non-western group in social anxiety and whether loneliness strengthens the relationship between perceived discrimination and social anxiety. Three classes from three different schools participated, there was a total of 22 participants. To test the hypotheses, the Social Anxiety Scale for Children (SASC-A), Adolescent Discrimination Distress Index (ADDI) and the Asher Loneliness Scale (ALS) have been used as measurements. The results show that there was only a significant difference in gender in social anxiety, girls scored higher in social anxiety than boys. However, this should be interpreted carefully. The other hypotheses were all not significant. Due to the sample size the reliability and validity of this study was not great, so the results are not a good reflection. It is advised to perform this study in a bigger sample size since this is an important matter to the non-western community.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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The optimal strategy in a semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task is to focus on one semantic subcategory at a time and adaptively switch from one subcategory to another. This task has therefore been...Show moreThe optimal strategy in a semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task is to focus on one semantic subcategory at a time and adaptively switch from one subcategory to another. This task has therefore been used as a measure of self-directed executive functioning. Previous studies have found that SVF performance improves through childhood and adolescence. This developmentalimprovement has been observed both in the total number of words produced during the task and in switching between subcategories. The present online study tested the hypothesis that the agerelated improvement in SVF performance is partly driven by an improved ability to select between competing word representations. The study included three age groups: 8–10-year-olds (n=26), 12–14-year-olds (n=17), and young adults (n=31). The semantic blocking effect in the blocked cycling naming task was used as a measure of selection abilities. Measures of vocabulary and general processing speed were included as control variables. Age-related differences in SVF performance were only partly replicated: there were signs of age-related differences in the total word count but not in switching. The semantic blocking effect was replicated across age groups. However, there were no signs of age-related differences in the magnitude of this effect, suggesting that word selection abilities did not differ between age groups. Moreover, the magnitude of the semantic blocking effect did not predict SVF performance. Thus, although further research is needed, the present study does not support the hypothesis that the age-related improvement in SVF would be driven by an improvement in selection abilities.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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BACKGROUND: Childhood emotional maltreatment (CEM) has been identified as a considerable threat to adaptive child development. Emotion regulation is commonly impaired in victims of CEM, which can...Show moreBACKGROUND: Childhood emotional maltreatment (CEM) has been identified as a considerable threat to adaptive child development. Emotion regulation is commonly impaired in victims of CEM, which can adversely impact broader socio-emotional functioning, such as the quality of child-parent interactions in adolescence. The current study examines to what extent maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (i.e., catastrophizing and rumination) mediate the association between experienced CEM and the quality of child-parent interactions as perceived by the adolescent. METHOD: The healthy control group of the larger RE-PAIR study (‘Unravelling the Impact of Emotional Maltreatment on the Developing Brain’) was included, incorporating adolescents (N = 80, age 11 to17) and their parents (N (Mothers) = 80, N (Fathers) = 76). Adolescent participants performed a reminiscence task with each parent and consecutively filled in a questionnaire to assess perceived parental interaction and communication behaviors during the task. CEM and emotion regulation were assessed through online versions of a Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and a Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. RESULTS: Two underlying factors were formulated after performing Principal Component Analyses (PCAs) on the perceived behavior per parent, namely ‘perceived general satisfaction with the interaction’ and ‘perceived criticism’. CEM did not predict either formulated outcome, for parents together and mothers separately. However, CEM had a negative effect on perceived general satisfaction, (F(1,64) = 6.175, b = -.502, p = .016) and a positive effect on perceived criticism, (F(1,64) = 6.612, b = .127, p = .012) by the adolescent during the interaction with their father. No mediation effects were found for either catastrophizing or rumination. DISCUSSION: Suggestions for future research include comparisons between different childhood maltreatment and to assess emotion dysregulation on multiple levels of functioning.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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Using a wide variety of clinical questionnaires might hamper the communication between clinicians and researchers in Routine outcome monitoring (ROM). Linking test scores to T scores as a common...Show moreUsing a wide variety of clinical questionnaires might hamper the communication between clinicians and researchers in Routine outcome monitoring (ROM). Linking test scores to T scores as a common metric might be a solution. Item response theory (IRT) is the preferred way to estimate T-scores. However, required software and a large dataset is needed for that. In this thesis, two methods were used to arrive at a common metric for often used questionnaires and their subversions: the BSI, BSI-18, the DASS-42 and the DASS-21. As one method, we used an IRT approach to estimate theta-based T-scores, leading to crosswalk tables. For the second approach, conversion formulas were estimated for raw scores to calculated T-scores based on the best-fitting regression equation between the raw scores and the previously estimated theta-based T-scores. Crosswalk tables and conversion formulas are both alternative ways to link individual scores to a common metric. It was investigated if conversion formulas are valid by comparing calculated T-scores with theta-based T-scores. The agreement between calculated T-scores and theta-based T-scores were high for all questionnaires except the DASS-42. The agreement was also lower at the extreme ends of the questionnaires (T= < 50 and T= >75). All in all, conversion formulas seem to be a good alternative for estimating a common metric. Offering different options to calculate common metrics can help in improving the communication between professionals in the clinical field. Increased involvement and better communication in ROM is able to increase the quality of mental health care.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a newly developed dynamic test for phonological and prosodic awareness in children with and without dyslexia. Additionally, the impact of...Show moreThis study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a newly developed dynamic test for phonological and prosodic awareness in children with and without dyslexia. Additionally, the impact of reading self-concept was investigated. 30 children with dyslexia and 48 without dyslexia (Mage = 10.55) were included. The study consisted of two sessions: In the first session, all children completed a reading self-concept questionnaire. In the second session, the children were randomized into an experimental or control condition for a test-training-test design. Children in the experimental condition received a dynamic training between pre-test and post-test, the control condition did not. Results indicated that trained children had improved more on prosodic awareness than non-trained children. This effect was not found for phonemic awareness. Dyslexia diagnosis did not influence improvement. Furthermore, children with dyslexia had lower reading self-concept compared to children without dyslexia. However, reading self-concept was not related to improvement during a dynamic test, and dyslexia diagnosis did not moderate this relationship.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
open access
Identical sensory input may be perceived differently, based on expectations and goals. For example, object recognition is facilitated for expected or task-relevant objects. At the same time,...Show moreIdentical sensory input may be perceived differently, based on expectations and goals. For example, object recognition is facilitated for expected or task-relevant objects. At the same time, unexpected objects are found to elicit a stronger neural response. These effects can be explained by predictive coding accounts of visual processing, presenting perception as a process of minimizing the difference between predicted and observed sensory input. However, as expectation and task-relevance are often conflated, it is insufficiently clear how these factors influence sensory processing in conscious perception. The current study aimed to investigate the relative influence of expectation and task-relevance on behavioral and neural measures of perception. During two EEG sessions, participants performed a task in which they discriminated between masked face and house images while we independently manipulated expectation and task-relevance. We find that images were more often correctly recognized when they were expected or task-relevant. In addition, we used multivariate pattern analysis to show that a classifier trained on sensory representations of face and house stimuli is better able to distinguish between expected or task-relevant face and house images than between unexpected or task-irrelevant images. These results suggest that expectation and task-relevance have independent effects on sensory processing. Finally, our results show that cue-based manipulations may activate sensory templates even before stimulus onset. We therefore recommend that future studies manipulate expectation and task-relevance without the use of explicit cues.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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Background: Information processing impairments are frequently observed in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet, the neurobiological underpinnings of these impairments are not well understood....Show moreBackground: Information processing impairments are frequently observed in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet, the neurobiological underpinnings of these impairments are not well understood. Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an event-related potential (ERP) that is thought to represent early sensory change detection. Previous electro-encephalography (EEG) studies on MMN in PTSD have revealed inconsistent results, with findings of both enhanced and reduced MMN amplitudes. Objective: We aimed to extend previous MMN findings to trauma-affected refugees, a PTSD population that often presents with complex, chronic, and severe forms of PTSD. Methods: We examined amplitudes and latencies of MMN in 25 refugees with PTSD and 20 healthy refugee controls matched on age, sex, and country of origin. We employed an MMN paradigm with three types of sound deviants: frequency, duration, and frequency-duration combined. Furthermore, associations between MMN amplitudes and clinical scores of PTSD and functioning were examined. Results: There were no significant differences in MMN amplitudes or latencies in PTSD versus control participants, following any of the deviants. Exploratory analyses revealed a significant sex-by-group interaction effect on MMN following the frequency-duration combined deviant, with enhanced MMN amplitudes in women with PTSD compared with controls. This pattern of findings was not found for the other deviants. Significant associations were found between MMN amplitudes and clinical scores in women only. Conclusion: Our findings point towards sex-differences in the underlying mechanisms of PTSD in refugees, highlighting the need of considering sex in future MMN studies.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
open access
Recent work has shown that we can achieve a better understanding of learning behavior by integrating reinforcement learning models with evidence accumulation models (RL-EAM). RL-EAM predict that as...Show moreRecent work has shown that we can achieve a better understanding of learning behavior by integrating reinforcement learning models with evidence accumulation models (RL-EAM). RL-EAM predict that as people learn they respond faster and more accurately. However, two recent experiments showed that when learning under speed pressure, people demonstrated a learning-related increase in accuracy, but not in response speed. We hypothesized that this might be caused by a proportion of responses resulting from a timing accumulation process that keeps track of time in parallel to the evidence accumulation process during a decision. We compared RL-EAM with and without the addition of time estimation on data from two independent experiments. We found no compelling evidence that the proposed mechanism of time estimation aid in decision-making in learning.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
open access
Evidence-based mental health programs have long conceptualized mental disorders as interactions between thoughts, feelings, behaviours and external factors. Idiographic network models are a...Show moreEvidence-based mental health programs have long conceptualized mental disorders as interactions between thoughts, feelings, behaviours and external factors. Idiographic network models are a relatively novel way of estimating such intra-individual psychological processes. These methods are not without limitations, and concerns have been raised about the stability and accuracy of estimated networks. The extend to which idiographic networks are stable, or vary over time, is unknown. We explored temporal network stability from three angles, exploring variation within people, across different stability metrics, and across people. We reanalysed daily symptom records of people with personality disorders. We fit graphical Vector Autoregressive models separately for the first and second 50 days of consecutive measurements. Contemporaneous but not temporal idiographic networks appeared to be relatively stable within people. The assessment of stability varied considerably across metrics applied. There was large variation in network stability of contemporaneous structures across people, which could not be explained by subject-specific variables. We illustrate the temporal changes in contemporaneous network structures of two participants with high and low network stability and discuss the most pressing questions to be considered by future research.Show less
