BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME:EventsCalendar PRODID:-//hacksw/handcal//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York LAST-MODIFIED:20240422T053451Z TZURL:https://www.tzurl.org/zoneinfo-outlook/America/New_York X-LIC-LOCATION:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZNAME:EDT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 DTSTART:19700308T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZNAME:EST TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 DTSTART:19701101T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:College of Arts and Sciences,Thesis/Dissertations DESCRIPTION:Internalizing behaviors in early childhood, such as anxiety and depression, have been consistently linked to sadness. However, the sadnes s-internalizing literature has almost exclusively treated sadness as a gen eral tendency or composite with other emotions. Assessment of children’s sadness is often without consideration of whether it occurs in expected, context-congruent (CC), or unexpected, context-incongruent (CI), contexts. CI emotional expressions may signal underlying vulnerabilities, as prior work on CI anger demonstrates links to maladaptive behavioral and social o utcomes. The present study extended this framework to sadness by examining whether CI sadness is uniquely associated with internalizing symptoms in preschool-aged children and whether sad perception bias (SPB), the tendenc y to interpret emotional situations as sad, plays a role in this associati on. Participants include 74 preschoolers (ages 4–5). CI and CC sadness were assessed through parent-report and behavioral observations during tw o tasks, one involving provocation and one involving loss. SPB was measure d as children’s tendency to label non-sad emotion-eliciting scenarios as sad. Internalizing symptoms were measured using parent and teacher report s of emotionally reactive and anxious/depressed symptoms. Parent-reported CI sadness predicted both emotionally reactive and anxious/depressed sympt oms after accounting for parent-reported CC sadness. Behavioral CI sadness was associated with anxious/depressed symptoms only among children with h igher behavioral CC sadness. SPB did not directly predict internalizing sy mptoms or CI sadness; however, SPB moderated the association between paren t-reported CI sadness and emotionally reactive symptoms with a similar tre nd for anxious/depressed symptoms. Specifically, CI sadness was more stron gly associated with internalizing symptoms among children with higher SPB. These findings suggest that considering the context of children’s sadne ss may help clarify early emotional vulnerabilities associated with intern alizing risk. Advisor: Robin Locke-Arkerson Committee members: Judith Sims -Knight, Mary Kayyal\nEvent page: https://www.umassd.edu/events/cms/7-29-2 6-psychology-masters-thesis-defense-by-claire-leamon.php\nEvent link: http s://umassd.zoom.us/j/98922058423?pwd=LOagz6Yfzmfa9qLdaXhGMDCr4KYVti.1 X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

Internalizing behaviors in earl y childhood\, such as anxiety and depression\, have been consistently link ed to sadness. However\, the sadness-internalizing literature has almost e xclusively treated sadness as a general tendency or composite with other e motions. Assessment of children’s sadness is often without consideration of whether it occurs in expected\, context-congruent (CC)\, or unexpected \, context-incongruent (CI)\, contexts. CI emotional expressions may signa l underlying vulnerabilities\, as prior work on CI anger demonstrates link s to maladaptive behavioral and social outcomes. The present study extende d this framework to sadness by examining whether CI sadness is uniquely as sociated with internalizing symptoms in preschool-aged children and whethe r sad perception bias (SPB)\, the tendency to interpret emotional situatio ns as sad\, plays a role in this association. Participants include 74 pres choolers (ages 4–5). CI and CC sadness were assessed through parent-re port and behavioral observations during two tasks\, one involving provocat ion and one involving loss. SPB was measured as children’s tendency to l abel non-sad emotion-eliciting scenarios as sad. Internalizing symptoms we re measured using parent and teacher reports of emotionally reactive and a nxious/depressed symptoms. Parent-reported CI sadness predicted both emoti onally reactive and anxious/depressed symptoms after accounting for parent -reported CC sadness. Behavioral CI sadness was associated with anxious/de pressed symptoms only among children with higher behavioral CC sadness. SP B did not directly predict internalizing symptoms or CI sadness\; however\ , SPB moderated the association between parent-reported CI sadness and emo tionally reactive symptoms with a similar trend for anxious/depressed symp toms. Specifically\, CI sadness was more strongly associated with internal izing symptoms among children with higher SPB. These findings suggest that considering the context of children’s sadness may help clarify early em otional vulnerabilities associated with internalizing risk.

Adviso r: Robin Locke-Arkerson

Committee members: Judith Sims-Knight\, Ma ry Kayyal

Event page: https://www.u massd.edu/events/cms/7-29-26-psychology-masters-thesis-defense-by-claire-l eamon.php
Event link: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/9892205842 3?pwd=LOagz6Yfzmfa9qLdaXhGMDCr4KYVti.1

DTSTAMP:20260716T170145 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260729T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260729T170000 LOCATION:LIB 426 SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:Psychology Masters Thesis Defense by Claire Leamon UID:7c6edfac84785b8f7045370e15b8d084@www.umassd.edu END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR