Browsing by Subject "individual differences"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Children's Epistemological Understanding: Developmental Mechanisms and Individual Differences
    (2019-08) Suarez, Sarah
    Individuals’ epistemological understanding—that is, their beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing— is thought to have important implications for critical thinking in both formal and informal learning contexts (Burr & Hofer, 2002; Council of Chief State School Officers, 2014; Kuhn, 1999; NGSS Lead States, 2013). Indeed, our epistemological beliefs are thought to influence the questions we ask, the sources of information we place trust in, the certainty of our beliefs, and even academic outcomes (Greene, Sandoval, & Bråten, 2016a). However, most of the literature describes the developmental patterns of epistemological understanding in adolescence and adulthood, without characterizing the cause-effect mechanisms at play, particularly those in childhood. Although there is observational evidence suggesting that parent-child interactions are a context in which epistemological understanding may develop (Luce, Callanan, & Smilovic, 2013), and parent epistemological beliefs have been found to predict children’s critical evaluations of speakers who reason about evidence with varying competence (Suárez & Koenig, accepted), the role of adult influences on children’s epistemological development has not been examined experimentally. In the present study, I investigate: 1) How children develop the ability to consider the nature of knowledge within the context of conversation; 2) Whether improved epistemological understanding supports children’s critical thinking in informal social learning; 3) Whether cognitive self-control and verbal IQ moderate or mediate epistemological development; and 4) Whether individual differences in epistemological understanding relate to parent characteristics.
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    Examining the Nature, Origins, and Health Consequences of Attachment-Related Individual Differences in the Emotion Regulation Process
    (2014-07) Fillo, Jennifer
    Individuals vary in their tendency to habitually adopt different emotion-regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal and suppression (Gross & John, 2003). These strategies have implications for individuals' subjective, expressive, and physiological reactions to emotions, with certain emotional profiles being considered "healthier" than others (John & Gross, 2004). A key direction for research in this area is the identification of individual differences that can explain how and why individuals develop these tendencies. This information could help researchers and clinicians better predict and potentially curtail the negative consequences associated with some emotion-regulation tendencies. The present research examines individual differences in attachment orientations as one such explanation. According to attachment theory, individuals' histories of interactions with caregivers throughout life shape their relational orientations, as well as their motivations and abilities for coping with stressful events (Bowlby, 1969). Study 1 examined relations between attachment orientations and self-reported emotion-regulation tendencies, as well as experimentally tested attachment-based individual differences in the emotion regulation process by examining subjective, expressive, and physiological emotional responses to an emotion-eliciting film clip. Attachment avoidance and anxiety were associated with a number of similar emotion-regulation difficulties, but specific approaches to regulating emotions. In the experimental portion, the nature and effectiveness of specific emotion-regulation strategies varied across levels of avoidance and anxiety. Additionally, avoidant individuals showed some evidence of spontaneous emotion-regulation attempts, even when they were given no specific emotion-regulation instructions. Study 2 replicates and extends Study 1 by examining the developmental antecedents and long-term health consequences of these individual differences in emotion regulation, using data collected as part of the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation. It examined the potential mediating role of emotion-regulation difficulties in the link between attachment representations and later substance use (i.e., alcohol consumption, tobacco use). There was an indirect effect of attachment representations on later alcohol consumption through impulse control difficulties and limited access to emotion-regulation strategies. Attachment representations directly predicted tobacco use, but this relation was not mediated by difficulties with emotion regulation. As a whole, this research reveals important information about the nature, origins, and health consequences of attachment-based individual differences in emotion regulation.
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    Personality Traits and Cognitive Abilities Relations Database
    (2023-10-26) Stanek, Kevin C.; Ones, Deniz S.; stane040@umn.edu; Stanek, Kevin C.
    This database consists of personality-ability correlations that were amassed for a set of meta-analyses. Contributing materials spanned journal articles, theses, personal communications, archival datasets, conference presentations, and others sources. Further details about how these data were curated, cleaned, and organized as well as results of the meta-analyses based on these data are presented in Of Anchors & Sails: Personality-Ability Trait Constellations (2023).
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    Sex-correlated variability in exploration strategy in uncertain environments
    (2022-07) Chen, Sijin 'Cathy'
    Every organism must balance between two goals: exploiting rewarding options when they are available and exploring more new information about potential better alternatives. Adaptively transition between exploration and exploitation is essential when navigating an uncertain world. Exploration is dysregulated in numerous neuropsychiatric disorders, many of which are sex-biased in risk, presentation, and prognosis. This raises the possibility that sex-linked mechanisms could modulate exploration differently and contribute to sex-linked individual variability in the vulnerability or resilience to these conditions. Understanding how individuals explore uncertain environments can give us in sight into how brains implement divergent exploration strategy. In this dissertation, I present three studies investigating 1. exploration strategy in a complex novel environment, 2. exploration strategy in a changing environment, 3. neuromodulatory systems underlying exploration strategy. In experiment 1 and 2, I observed a spectrum of strategies that individuals adopted to navigate the environment and sex captured a major source of variability in the strategies adopted. Both sexes did not differ in the ability to learn the task but they differed in the preferred strategy employed to explore an uncertain environment. Females preferred a more energy-conserving, systematic and exploitative approach across both tasks, where as males predominantly used more variable and exploratory approach. In experiment 3, I modulated tonic dopamine and norepinephrine level and examined the modulatory effect on exploration. The results suggested novel role of dopamine in mediating exploration and highlighted the sex-differentiated modulatory effect of norepinephrine on exploration. This dissertation took advantage of computational tools and revealed sex-correlated variability in strategies employed when interacting with an uncertain environment, rather than any difference in ability. This highlighted sex as source of individual variability and implicated potential sex-modulated circuits and systems that could contribute to vulnerability or risk for neuropsychiatric disorders.