Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Psychology

Pathological worry has been associated with both blunted and heightened autonomic arousal (AA). The cognitive control model posits that individual differences in effortful control (EC) can account for heterogeneity in level of AA among worriers. It suggests that EC conveys ability to effortfully shift attention to a verbal mode of processing, which, unlike imaginal processing, is associated with reduced AA. Despite the widely held view that pathological worry and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) are characterized by low EC, there are actually substantial individuals differences in such cognitive control capacity. Initial tests of the cognitive control model have yielded promising results, but they have so far primarily relied on measures that assess worry over relatively longer durations of time (e.g., past six months). The current study sought to extend prior findings by testing the model in the context of a laboratory worry induction in a sample of undergraduate college students (N = 174). It was expected that individual differences in change in percentage of thoughts during worry and change in HRV during worry would be each be accounted for by initial cognitive control capacity. While the results show that both percentage of thoughts and phasic HRV declined on average over time, statistical tests of moderation were not significant. Potential explanations for null findings are discussed.

Committee: Michael Vasey PhD (Advisor); Robert Cudeck PhD (Committee Member); Mark Pitt PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Psychology

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized by excessive anxiety and worry about a variety of life issues. Despite the fact that GAD has high prevalence rates and often presents with additional comorbid complaints and disorders, less research has been conducted on the underlying cognitive and regulatory processes of GAD compared to other mental disorders, and its underlying mechanisms are still unclear. One prominent theory of GAD is the cognitive avoidance model of GAD proposed by Borkovec and colleagues (2004), which proposes that worry is a cognitive form of avoidance of images related to the worry topics. Worry is maintained because it allows for suppression and avoidance of the experience of a full-blown fear response. An implication of this theory is that individuals with GAD should necessarily report experiencing fewer physiological hyperarousal (PH) symptoms as they successfully avoid their feared response, and a significant body of research has supported this. Nevertheless, some debate exists in the field about the level of association between worry and PH and there are also studies that have not found this relationship to be significant. Based on this latter body of research, Newman and Llera (2011) propose the contrast avoidance model of GAD and suggest that worry is not in the service of completely avoiding PH but that worry is utilized in the service of avoiding the experience of the contrast between positive or euthymic “worry-free” states of emotion and a negative state of emotion. Previous research conducted in our lab suggests that the strength of the relationship between worry and PH is moderated by effortful control (EC), which represents the capacity to override one's automatic tendencies and substitute an adaptive alternative response. The current study investigated the idea that the discrepancies that exist in the literature on the association between worry and PH can be attributed to EC. An additional primary purpose of the current (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Vasey (Advisor); Mary Fristad (Committee Member); Julian Thayer (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2012, Psychology

Social isolation and exclusion can be detrimental to the individual both psychologically and physically, and it is natural that human beings fear rejection. Rejection Sensitivity (RS) has been conceptualized as the extent to which individuals anxiously expect to be rejected by others in important relationships. High RS has been found to correlate with the presence of interpersonal difficulties. High-RS individuals are likely to perceive rejection in ambiguous behaviors of others and become reactive in response, leading to unstable relationships. Effortful Control (EC), which includes Attentional, Inhibitory, and Activation Control, represents the capacity to override one's automatic tendencies and substitute an adaptive alternative response (Rothbart, 2007). Studies have found that high self-regulatory capacities, such as EC may be protective against the development of psychopathology and interpersonal problems in the case of individuals with high RS. For example, in a cross-sectional study, Ayduk and colleagues (2008) found that RS correlated with BPD symptoms most strongly at low levels of Attentional Control. The aims of the current study were to replicate and extend these findings in several ways. First, the current study was a prospective one assessing whether EC moderates the relationship between RS and change in BPD symptoms over time. Second, the current study investigated whether the interaction of RS by EC predicted specific iii facets of BPD and explored the role of self-reported social support in the relationship between RS and BPD features. Furthermore, a measure of the broader construct of EC was included when assessing self-regulation, evaluating the three facets of EC—Attentional, Activation and Inhibitory Control. Finally, the study investigated whether the RS by EC interaction was predictive of social anxiety and loneliness. A sample of 298 individuals in Psychology 100 at The Ohio State University completed online questionnaires during three time (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Vasey PhD (Advisor); Julian Thayer PhD (Committee Member); Steven Beck PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Psychology

The self-regulatory construct known as effortful control (EC) has garnered considerable support from childhood psychopathology research (e.g. Muris, de Jong, & Engelen, 2004), which has relied upon multiple methods of data acquisition, including questionnaires and performance-based measures. Corroborative findings have emerged from adult research indicating that deficits in effortful control may serve as a risk factor for the development of anxiety and depression (e.g. Dinovo & Vasey, 2003, 2005), yet adult research exploring this construct has relied almost exclusively on self-reports. An important step in remedying this deficit would be additional validation of existing self-reports of EC. Fortunately, means for assessing a self-regulatory construct like effortful control are plentiful within the extant scientific literature, particularly from research on executive functions: neurological processes that permit self-regulation. Moreover, converging findings from physiological investigations of executive function and the cardiovascular system suggest that the processes underlying self-regulation can be indirectly assessed via measures of heart-rate variability (HRV), since many of the neural structures implicated in executive function also modulate heart rate (Ruiz-Padial et al., 2003).Using correlation- and regression analyses within an undergraduate student sample, this investigation found that self-reported EC held significant relations with physiological measurements of heart-rate variability. By contrast, neither self-reported EC nor indices of HRV were related to performance-based measures of executive functioning. Thus, while providing some important support for the validity of self-report instruments used in the extant adult literature exploring EC, not all findings were consistent with expectations. Implications for the construct of EC and future directions for research are discussed.

Committee: Michael Vasey PhD (Advisor); Steven Beck PhD (Committee Member); Daniel Strunk PhD (Committee Member); Julian Thayer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2009, Psychology

The present study explored the relationship between positive and negative reactivity, effortful control (EC), and symptoms of both general distress and depression in a sample of 1242 undergraduate students. Participant responses to self-report questionnaire measures of temperament and emotional symptoms were analyzed using multiple linear regression analyses. EC was divided into three facets of attentional control, inhibitory control, and activation control to examine the different relationships between the individual components of EC and emotional problems. Attentional control and inhibitory control were related to symptoms of general distress and depression that were associated with negative reactivity. There was also evidence that attentional control moderated the association between negative reactivity and symptoms of general distress and depression. Conversely, activation control was related to symptoms specific to depression, which are most strongly related to low positive reactivity. Activation control also moderated the association between positive reactivity and anhedonic symptoms such that low positive reactivity was more weakly related to depressive symptoms at higher levels of activation control. Sex differences were found indicating that men were more likely to report symptoms of depression not related to negative reactivity than women. The results also showed that low activation control was related to more depressive symptoms in men than women. There was evidence of an interactive relationship between Behavioral Inhibition (BIS) and Behavioral Activation (BAS) for general distress such that the at low levels of BIS, low BAS was associated with higher reports of general distress, and at high levels of BIS, reports of general distress were similar for both high and low levels of BAS. There was also an interaction between negative affectivity (NA) and positive affectivity (PA) for symptoms of depression such that the relationship between NA and depressive (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Vasey Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Julian Thayer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jennifer Cheavens Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Arts and Sciences: Psychology

Introduction: Children less than five years of age are at great risk of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Executive functions (EF) are particularly sensitive to early injury and emerging deficits contribute to negative functional outcomes. Effortful control (EC) is a stable temperament trait that develops early and preliminary research has suggested EF and EC are overlapping constructs measuring “self-regulation.” I hypothesized that children with TBI would perform poorer on measures of self-regulation than children with orthopedic injury (OI) and that self-regulation deficits would be associated with poorer global cognitive functioning and parent-reported adaptive functioning, regardless of injury. Furthermore, I hypothesized that family functioning would moderate the relationships between self-regulation and cognitive and adaptive functioning outcomes. Method: Children injured <5 years of age with TBI (n=48) or OI (n=30) were drawn from a larger prospective study investigating diagnostic/prognostic biomarkers of very early TBI. Baseline data included demographic information and family functioning. Cognitive (Mullen Scales of Early Learning) and adaptive functioning (Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales) were evaluated and parent-reported EC (Rothbart's Behavior Questionnaires) and 3 EF tasks (Tower, Gift Delay, and Delayed Alternation) were completed at1 and 6 months post-injury. Data Analysis: I examined injury-group differences on self-regulation measures at 1 and 6 months post-injury, as well as whether scores changed significantly between groups across outcome visits in separate ANCOVAs. Linear regression models were used to explore associations of early self-regulation with cognitive and adaptive functioning. Family functioning was included to explore the moderating effects of environment on recovery. Results: All models controlled for age and SES. The TBI and OI groups did not differ on parent-reported EC or EF tasks at either 1 or 6 months. Within- (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Shari Wade Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Chung-Yiu Peter Chiu Ph.D. (Committee Member); Quintino Mano Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Psychology

While some studies find worry and GAD to be associated with low autonomic arousal (AA) symptoms, others find the contrary. Two theoretical models, the Cognitive Avoidance Model (Borkovec, Alcaine, & Behar, 2004) and the Contrast Avoidance Model (Newman & Llera, 2011), one or the other set of findings. Yet, neither theory can account for the full range of AA symptoms linked to worry and GAD. Vasey, Chriki, and Toh (2017) offered initial support for an integrative model in which effortful control (EC) acts as a moderator that may explain the heterogeneous nature of AA symptoms in worry and GAD. A second study (Toh & Vasey, 2017) provided further support for that model and provided preliminary evidence suggesting that the ability to constrain worry to a verbal mode of processing may be the mechanism by which EC impacts AA symptoms. The current study sought to provide a further replication and extension for the basic interaction between GAD symptom severity and EC in predicting AA symptoms and percentage of verbal thoughts during worry. A further goal was to extend previous global self-report findings through use of a mentation sampling task to assess percentage of verbal worry, objective measures of AA (i.e., heart rate [HR]), and performance-based measures of EC. A sample of 198 individuals in the Psychology 1100 at The Ohio State University completed questionnaire as well as psychophysiological and behavioral measures. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted and interactions were probed using PROCESS, an SPSS tool (Hayes, 2012), while multilevel modeling was used to examine growth curves for AA, percentage of verbal thoughts, and HR during the worry task. Results showed that the basic interaction between GAD symptom severity and self-reported EC was successfully replicated. However, performance-based EC measures produced mixed results. Further, as expected, the interactions between GAD symptom severity and self-reported and performance-based EC (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Vasey PhD (Advisor); Andrew Leber PhD (Committee Member); Julian Thayer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2017, Marriage and Family Counseling/Therapy

The community college (CCcc) setting has become increasingly important in education; yet, graduation rates are low (20%) compared 4-year colleges (69%). Researchers have focused on factors that predict college students' retention and graduation. Measures of students' academic, social, and personal-emotional adjustment to colleges have been found to better predictors of college success than entrance characteristics (Crede & Niehorster, 2012). This study builds on previous research by Skowron and Dendy (2004) that focused on relations between Bowen's concept of differentiation-of-self, and effortful control, in a sample of adults; and by Skowron, Wester, and Azen (2004) that investigated relations between stress, differentiation-of-self, and personal adjustment to college. This study tested whether differentiation-of-self added incremental variance above the variance explained by effortful control to the prediction of students' academic, social, and personal-emotional adjustment to CC in a sample of 119 non-traditional students at a CC in the Midwest section of the United States. The sample was 17.6% male, 79% female, and ages ranged from 18 to 63 years. Most participants were White (75.6%), with 15.1% identifying as Black or African American. Participants completed the Differentiation-of-Self-Short Form (DIS-SF; Drake, 2011), the Effortful Control Scale (ATQ-S-EC; Rothbart, Evans, & Ahadi, 2000), and the Student Adjustment to College Questionnaire (SACQ; Baker & Siryk, 1989). Participants' ATQ-S-EC scores significantly predicted SACQ social adjustment. Students' DSI-SF (IP) scores significantly predicted SACQ personal-emotional adjustment scores. Suggestions for future research are given and implications for interventions by Marriage and Family Therapists (MFT's) are also provided.

Committee: Linda Perosa PhD (Committee Chair); Rikki Patton PhD (Committee Member); Ingrid Weigold PhD (Committee Member); Heather Katafiasz PhD (Committee Member); Rene Mudrey-Camino PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Academic Guidance Counseling; Adult Education; Community College Education; Community Colleges; Counseling Education; Developmental Psychology; Education; Educational Psychology; Families and Family Life; Mental Health; Psychology; Therapy

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, Psychology

Dual-process models of health behavior posit that conscious and non-conscious modes of processing independently influence whether or not a person chooses to engage in a target behavior. Prior research suggests that an individual's implicit attitudes may influence their physical activity level above and beyond the effect of explicit attitudes. The current study examined the extent to which implicit attitudes were associated with physical activity and explored potential moderators of this association. Undergraduate students (N= 150) completed a personalized, Single-Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) in order to measure their implicit attitudes towards physical activity. Participants also provided heart rate variability (HRV) data and self-reported their physical activity level and explicit attitudes towards exercise. Contrary to prior literature, implicit attitudes were not significantly associated with individuals' reports of their total physical activity level, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, or leisure-time physical activity (LTPA). The association between implicit attitudes and PA was not moderated by HRV or EC. Subscales of EC measures were explored in order to determine whether a particular facet of EC attenuated the association between implicit attitudes and PA. While individual facets of EC did not emerge as moderators, activation control was associated with LTPA. Implicit attitudes and EC may influence the extent to which an individual engages in physical activity. However, prospective studies using objective measures of PA are necessary.

Committee: Janice Kiecolt-Glaser (Advisor); Charles Emery (Committee Member); Michael Vasey (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Psychology

Temperamental factors, specifically negative and positive affectivity (NA and PA) and effortful control (EC), have clear associations with brain structure and function and have demonstrated associations with mood and anxiety symptoms in children. In general, research supports that high NA, low PA, and low EC are associated with greater depressive severity. Further work has also demonstrated significant two-way and three-way interactions among these constructs on depressive severity. Work in adults exists to support the notion that temperament may be influenced by pharmaceutical interventions as well as cognitive therapy. To date, no studies examining the impact of biological or behavioral interventions on temperament constructs have been conducted in youth with mood disorders. The purpose of the present study was to examine the impacts of omega-3 supplementation and family-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), alone and in combination, on the temperamental constructs of NA, PA, and EC in a sample of youth with mood disorders. Data are from a larger 12 week randomized, placebo controlled trial examining these same interventions on depressive and manic severity. 178 youth aged seven to 14 years were recruited and screened from community advertisement and clinician referral. 95 of these youth met enrollment criteria and were randomized to one of four treatment cells: omega-3 monotherapy, CBT monotherapy with pill placebo, combined omega-3 and CBT intervention, and pill placebo only. Youth and their caregivers completed the Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule (PANAS) to measure youth's levels of affectivity throughout the study. Youth also completed the Effortful Control Scale (ECS) to measure EC throughout the study. These report forms were given at screening assessment, at baseline (time of randomization), and at two, four, six, nine, and 12 weeks post-randomization (i.e., total of seven time points of data). Families randomized to a CBT condition partic (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mary Fristad (Advisor); Michael Vasey (Committee Member); Theodore Beauchaine (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Psychology; Behavioral Sciences; Clinical Psychology; Psychotherapy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Psychology

Previous research has shown that individual differences in self-regulatory capacity, including resting heart rate variability (HRV), moderate thought suppression success. However, it remains unclear to what extent individual differences in self-regulatory capacity predict thought suppression success under conditions of cognitive load. Furthermore, few studies have investigated whether utilizing thought suppression can impact an individual's perception of their self-regulatory capacity (i.e., self-reports of effortful control). The current study aimed to further explore the relationship between predictors and consequences of thought suppression ability and sought to replicate the findings from previous work. The current study used a standard thought suppression paradigm that included a cognitive load condition in which participants recorded occurrences of a personally relevant intrusive thought over three monitoring periods. Participants also rated their level of effortful control both before and after the thought suppression task. Results were not generally consistent with those found in previous study examining resting HRV and thought suppression ability. Cognitive load did not significant impact the effects of HRV and effortful control on thought suppression ability. Moreover, performance on the thought suppression task did not significantly affect self-reports of effortful control. Reasons for such replication failures are considered and future directions for research on the roles of self-regulatory capacity, cognitive load, and thought suppression ability are discussed.

Committee: Amelia Aldao Ph.D. (Committee Member); Julian Thayer Ph.D. (Advisor); Michael Vasey Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2014, Psychology

The Cognitive Avoidance model (Borkovec, Alcaine, & Behar, 2004) predicts that individuals with GAD will experience low levels of physiological hyperarousal (PH) symptoms while the Contrast Avoidance model (Newman & Llera, 2011) predicts the opposite. Yet, neither theory can fully account for the range of GAD patients. One individual difference that may explain the heterogeneous nature of GAD is Effortful Control (EC). Vasey, Chriki, and Toh (2014; in preparation) have demonstrated that worry/GAD symptoms are less positively correlated with PH symptoms when EC is high than low. The present study sought to replicate the finding by Vasey et al. (2014). Secondly, we sought to demonstrate that the moderating influence of EC is mediated by several worry characteristics. These candidate mediators include the percentage of thoughts, percentage of images, extent of imagery, and efforts to transform images into thought. A sample of 960 individuals in the Psychology 1100 at The Ohio State University completed online questionnaires assessing worry, GAD symptoms, EC, PH symptoms, and worry characteristics. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted and interactions were probed using PROCESS, an SPSS tool (Hayes, 2013). The results successfully replicated the findings by Vasey et al. (2014). We also found that EC moderated the relationship between GAD symptoms and PH symptoms through several factors. As expected, those with high GAD symptoms who reported higher EC experienced lower PH symptoms by virtue of higher percentage of thoughts during worry. Contrary to expectation, for those with high GAD symptoms, EC was negatively, rather than positively, associated with efforts to transform images into thoughts. Furthermore, as expected, while worry/GAD symptoms were positively associated with the extent of imagery, EC had a countervailing main effect. EC acts as a moderator to reconcile the contradictory findings about PH symptoms in worriers/GAD patients as well (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Vasey PhD (Advisor); Amelia Aldao PhD (Committee Member); Julian Thayer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2012, Psychology

Loneliness negatively impacts health, well-being, and performance in social situations. Prior work has suggested that lonely individuals process positive and negative social stimuli differently than those who are not lonely, and that self-regulation may play a role in this processing. However, this literature has relied mainly upon observations of social interactions and self-report methods. The current study used standardized stimuli in a reaction time paradigm to study the relationship between loneliness and attentional processing of social. A pictorial dot probe program was used to examine undergraduate participants' attention toward angry, disgust, and happy faces at three different stimulus intervals (250 ms, 500 ms, 1250 ms). Loneliness was measured using the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and effortful control composite scores utilized the Effortful Control – Persistence/Low Distractibility scale and the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (EC subscale). Loneliness was not related to attentional bias scores for angry, disgust, or happy trials. Effortful control did not moderate the association in the expected fashion. Post-hoc analyses tested other well-established trends (e.g., negative affectivity) in order to determine the dot probe program's utility. These data replicated some of these previous findings, suggesting that the current results should be interpreted cautiously. Accordingly, lonely individuals did not exhibit attentional biases in this study, and future research may help to pinpoint which stage of social processing is affected by loneliness.

Committee: Janice Kiecolt-Glaser Ph.D. (Advisor); Charles Emery Ph.D. (Committee Member); Michael Vasey Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2012, Psychology

Consistent with Nolen-Hoeksema's (1991) Response Style Theory, numerous studies have demonstrated that a ruminative style of responding predicts the duration and severity of depressive symptoms as well as the onset of major depressive episodes (see Watkins, 2008). More recent research has identified two aspects of rumination labeled brooding and reflective pondering (i.e., reflection). According to Treynor et al. (2003), brooding involves “a passive comparison of one's current situation with some unachieved standard” whereas reflection refers to “purposeful turning inward to engage in cognitive problem solving to alleviate one's depressive symptoms” (p. 256). Whereas research has consistently linked brooding to depression, research investigating the relationship of reflection and depression has produced conflicting results. Some studies have found that reflection, like brooding, is positively correlated with depression (Roelofs et al., 2008; Rudeet al., 2007; Verhaeghen, Joormann, & Khan, 2005) whereas others have either found reflection to be unrelated to (Burwell & Shirk, 2007; O'Connor & Noyce, 2008) or even negatively correlated with depressive symptoms (Treynor et al., 2003; Crane, Barnhofer, & Williams, 2007). In the present study, we sought to better understand the association between reflection and depressive symptoms. Specifically, we predicted that reflection (R) and brooding (B) should interact to predict depressive symptoms. This prediction was based on two lines of reasoning: 1) Some of the questions on the reflection subscale of the Ruminative Responses Scale (RRS; Treynor et al., 2003) are ambiguous and could be endorsed by high brooders, and 2) Efforts at reflection may trigger bouts of brooding, especially among individuals with deficits in executive control. Both lines of reasoning suggest that high scores on reflection should have a different meaning when they co-occur with high scores on brooding. Specifically, high levels of reflection should p (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Vasey PhD (Advisor); Jennifer Cheavens PhD (Committee Member); Julian Thayer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Psychology

Research on the emotional quality of the parent-adolescent relationship suggests that parental rejection is associated with internalizing problems including symptoms of anxiety and depression. Temperamental dimensions have also been found to be associated with anxious and depressive symptoms. In particular, high levels of negative affectivity, low levels of positive affectivity, and low levels of effortful control have been proposed as risk factors for symptoms of anxiety and depression. Although aspects of the parental relationship and dimensions of temperament have frequently been studied as unique correlates of internalizing symptoms, few studies have examined the extent to which these factors interact in predicting symptoms of anxiety and depression. The current study sought to examine the extent to which interactive models of temperamental dimensions as well as models of temperamental dimensions and rejection, would predict symptoms of anxiety and depression. The sample investigated included adolescents from the local community between the ages of 11 and 15. The results supported interactive models of temperament in predicting anxious and depressive symptoms. Effortful control moderated the relationship between negative affectivity and symptoms of both anxiety and depression as well as the relationship between positive affectivity and depressive symptoms. In addition, the interaction of effortful control and parental rejection was a statistically significant predictor of anxious symptoms but not depressive symptoms. Neither negative affectivity nor positive affectivity interacted with perceptions of parental rejection in predicting internalizing symptoms. Overall, the findings suggested that high levels of effortful control may buffer adolescents from experiencing internalizing symptoms.

Committee: Michael Vasey (Advisor) Subjects: Psychology, Clinical

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Psychology

Effortful Control (EC) represents a general self-regulatory capacity that moderates the risk for the development of psychopathology in children, through effortful regulation of reactive types of regulatory responses (e.g. Negative Affectivity and Positive Affectivity) in individuals. EC reflects a unique temperamental dimension that involves attentional control and behavioral regulation. Existing measures of EC have been plagued by inconsistencies in EC's conceptualization, and few measures have been developed for older children. For Study 1, data from 222 children (age 11-15), using their responses to the Effortful Control Scale and Attentional Control Scale, were factor analyzed to develop a new self-report measure of EC and Impulsivity for older children. Exploratory factor analyses resulted in a four-factor solution corresponding to the dimensions of Persistence, Attentional Focusing, Attentional Shifting, and Impulsivity, similar to the factor structure and dimensions that have been established in previous research. Study 2 examined the reliability and validity of the new Revised EC Scale. Responses from the Revised EC Scale, TPANAS, and the Modified YSR were collected from 84 children (ages 11-14) in the Columbus, Ohio area. A confirmatory factor analysis of the Revised EC Scale indicated that the factor structure adequately fit the hypothesized factor structure obtained from Study 1. Although the Persistence, Attentional Focusing, and Impulsivity dimensions possessed adequate to high levels of reliability and stability, psychometric data obtained for the Attentional Shifting factor was poor. EC's divergent validity from Impulsivity was demonstrated through the constructs' differential relationships to indices of internalizing and externalizing problems. The moderating influence of some of the EC factors on levels of NA, but not PA, to decrease the risk for internalizing and externalizing problems, was partly supported. Some of the EC factors' were also demons (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Vasey (Advisor); Steve Beck (Other); Herbert Mirels (Other) Subjects: Psychology, Clinical