Date of Award
1-1-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A. in Psychology
First Advisor
Stephanie E. Miller
Second Advisor
Kate Kellum
Third Advisor
Grace Rivera
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
Negative parenting can often be described as having three domains (i.e., laxness, verbosity, and over-reactivity, Arnold et al., 1993; Rhoades & O’Leary, 2007), which may have relations to toddlers’ behaviors, like executive function (EF) and sleep. However, this field is understudied, especially in early childhood development. One possible explanation for the lack of research in this field is that it can be difficult to study executive function in toddlers due to variability in the stability of regulatory behaviors and emerging regulatory abilities at this age range. Although positive sleep patterns (e.g., quality and quantity) have been linked to executive function, many of these studies focus on older children and to date, few studies have examined EF, sleep, and negative parenting together in younger samples. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between executive function, toddlers’ sleep patterns, and negative parenting in parent-toddler dyads. Toddlers completed nine executive function tasks in this study, as work in this area suggests that examining controlled behavior across a battery of tasks may provide a better indication of children’s emerging regulation at this age. To examine how sleep and negative parenting correlate to executive function, parents completed a survey about their parenting techniques and their toddler’s sleep habits. Analyses examined potential relationships between toddlers’ executive function performance, negative parenting techniques, and sleep patterns. In addition, analyses look at the possibility of mediational models examining how sleep may mediate the relationship between negative parenting domains and EF.
Recommended Citation
Harris, Morgan Elizabeth, "Examining the Relationship Between Toddlers’ Sleep Patterns, Negative Parenting, and Executive Function" (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3015.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/3015
