Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- Creators: Doane, Leah
Pediatric chronic pain is common and predicts risk for psychological and pain problems into adulthood. Biopsychosocial risk factors for the development of chronic pediatric pain have been examined, but the key health behavior of caloric consumption has not been explored. Adult and animal data suggest that caloric intake is positively related to chronic pain, and that adiposity and stress-related biological factors may serve as potential mediators. This study predicted that among children: 1) adiposity, flattened diurnal cortisol slopes, and caloric consumption are related to chronic pain, and 2) the caloric consumption—pain relation is mediated by elevated adiposity and/or flattened diurnal cortisol slopes. Methods: Twin children (N = 733) were drawn from the Arizona Twin Project sample. Measures included caregiver-reported caloric intake via five daily food diaries (Age-8); adiposity (composite of waist circumference, body mass index, body fat percentage) and diurnal cortisol slopes via three days of salivary cortisol sampling (Age-9); and caregiver-reported monthly chronic pain (Age-10). Results: Multilevel models (accounting for clustering within families) with sex, age, socioeconomic status, puberty, race/ethnicity as covariates, showed that caloric intake predicted greater waist circumference, which in turn predicted elevated chronic pain. However, adiposity, waist circumference, and diurnal cortisol slopes did not mediate the caloric intake-chronic pain relation. Discussion: Consistent with the literature, caloric intake predicted adiposity, and adiposity predicted pain in a diverse sample of children. More comprehensive assessment of behavioral (sleep, diet quality) and biopsychosocial factors (e.g. inflammation, cortisol; injury; catastrophizing) may aid efforts to prevent pediatric chronic pain.
Background: Unintentional injury has been the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in the United States for the past 2 decades. Its health outcomes are often studied, but it may also relate to psychological concepts such as emotion dysregulation, which may also result in severe outcomes for individuals, families, and societies. There is no consensus on a conceptual definition of emotion dysregulation, and little prior literature on the specific relation between dysregulation and injury in the transition to adolescence. Methods: The current study aims to identify latent factors of emotion dysregulation using exploratory factor analyses. Subsequently, multilevel regressions illuminate relations between dysregulation and injury at 2 late childhood and early adolescence time points in a large ethnically, socioeconomically, and regionally representative sample of Arizona twins recruited from birth records and ongoing efforts. Results: 6 total factors representing emotion dysregulation at 2 ages were created. Factors were valid when tested against temperament and psychopathology constructs. No significant longitudinal or cross-sectional associations between emotion dysregulation factors and unintentional injury were found. Sex and rurality differences were found in factor scores and dysregulation outcomes. Discussion: The current study highlights new avenues of research and funding. Future research on this topic should reflect a concentrated and nuanced focus on injury. Concordant age 9 and age 11 factors loaded differently, which urges the field to strive toward developing a standardized definition for emotion dysregulation. Covariate differences highlight target populations for interventions in unintentional injury and emotion dysregulation, which remain independent areas of concern.