Theses & Dissertations

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Browsing Theses & Dissertations by Author "Ablow, Jennifer"

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    Exploring the Effect of Social Media Popularity Metrics on Curiosity
    (University of Oregon, 2022) Waldron, Erica; Baldwin, Dare; Ablow, Jennifer; DeWald, Diana
    Social media inundates us with information about popularity; for example, social media posts are accompanied by a count of “likes” as well as comments. Dubey and colleagues (2020) recently demonstrated that such indicators of popularity influence people’s curiosity to learn more about specific topics. If so, this is one unexpected, beneficial side effect of social media popularity metrics. However, the way in which they manipulated popularity via Reddit-like upvotes may have inadvertently introduced a confound into their findings. Specifically, people were asked to report about an item’s popularity immediately before reporting on their curiosity regarding that item. The immediate juxtaposition of these two questions may have led participants to assume that popularity was relevant to curiosity, thereby creating a demand characteristic that could have contaminated their findings. My thesis research attempts to replicate that of Dubey and colleagues’ while avoiding this potential demand characteristic. People rated curiosity first and were asked about popularity only at the end of the survey. Analyses modeled after Dubey et al. (2020) indicate that I partially replicated their findings. That is, when accuracy in recalling item popularity is considered, people are indeed more curious about items with a high number of upvotes than those with a low number of upvotes. These findings confirm that indicators of popularity can elicit curiosity, which sets the stage for deploying popularity as a curiosity-trigger in a range of possible contexts, such as in curiosity research and educational settings.
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    Influence of Prenatal Nutrition and Supplementation on Birth Outcomes and Negative Affectivity in Infants
    (University of Oregon, 2021) Volk, Hailey; Ablow, Jennifer; Sullivan, Elinor; Graboyes, Melissa
    Excessive inflammation during pregnancy can exert powerful effects on the developing fetus by altering embryonic, fetal, and placental growth and development, predisposing the fetus to adverse birth outcomes and long-term health complications. An anti-inflammatory diet and proper prenatal supplementation could be a promising avenue to combat the inflammatory state pregnancy induces, particularly in obese women. However, there is a lack of data linking maternal environmental mediators of inflammation, such as diet, to birth outcomes and behavior in offspring. We examined the association among prenatal nutrition during the 22nd and 37th week of gestation and birth outcomes, as well as negative affect in infants 1 month after birth, in a cohort of 55 mother-child pairs. We found pro-inflammatory diets in the 3rd trimester and throughout the duration of participants pregnancy, as measured by the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII), were associated with higher APGAR scores at 5-minutes. Maternal under-supplementation of DHA and EPA and increased iodine supplementation during the 2nd trimester was associated with higher APGAR scores at 5 minutes, while increased iodine supplementation in the 3rd trimester was associated with lower APGAR scores at 5 minutes. Further, increased folic acid supplementation in the 3rd trimester was associated with higher levels of infant negative affectivity 1-month post-partum. This data will add to the broader literature surrounding prenatal diet and birth outcomes and expand it by including supplemental and post-natal behavioral considerations.
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    Like Mother, Like Child: Intergenerational Transmission of Maternal Emotion Regulation to Six-Month Infants
    (University of Oregon, 2022) Elliot, Annaliese; Ablow, Jennifer; Measelle, Jeffrey; ,
    Previous research demonstrates how maternal psychopathology is associated with negative infant outcomes; however, there is minimal research on intergenerational transmission. Specifically, there is a lack of literature on intergenerational transmission of emotion dysregulation. Emotion dysregulation has been demonstrated as a precursor to future psychopathology in childhood and adulthood; therefore, infancy is a crucial time period to develop self-regulatory skills. This study aims to build upon previous research to further understand how maternal emotion dysregulation predicts poor infant regulation. This study examines the predictive association among maternal emotional dysregulation reported prenatally during the third trimester and postnatally at six months, using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and observations of infant self-regulation postnatally (N = 221). Temperament, measured with the Infant Behavioral Questionnaire (IBQ-R), was controlled to capture the independent contributions of maternal dysregulation to infant’s early indices of emotion regulatory capacities. Infants’ self-regulation and negative affect was measured at 6 months postpartum with micro-analytic behavioral coding during the Still Face Paradigm (SFP), a widely used paradigm to examine early relationship patterns between caregivers and their infants. Although association between prenatal reports of maternal emotion regulation was not significantly related to infants’ emerging regulatory capacities, maternal reports of concurrent dysregulation at 6-months postpartum was associated with poorer self-regulation in their infants. This finding suggests that emotion dysregulation can be transmitted across generations by postpartum mother-child interaction influences.