Margaret Sheridan
Biographic Data
| ID | 5722232 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Margaret Sheridan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Margaret |
| FAMILY NAME | Sheridan |
| SIGNATURE | SHERIDAN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8909-7501 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Who Participates in Research and Why: Reducing Barriers to Diversifying Samples in Developmental Psychobiology
Recent calls emphasize the need to diversify samples in developmental psychobiology regarding race and ethnicity. However, there is limited guidance on effective methods to involve individuals from marginalized communities in research, or which issues these participants prioritize when considering involvement in studies with neurobiological data collection. Here, we explore these motivations for caregivers with children of color who participated …
Identifying cognitive, affective, and developmental mechanisms linking threat and deprivation with adolescent psychopathology
BACKGROUND: The mechanisms linking early-life adversity with psychopathology over the life-course are complex. In this prospective study, we collectively examined cognitive, affective, and developmental mediators previously found to individually link childhood threat and deprivation experiences to adolescent psychopathology to identify the most potent mechanisms. METHODS: Data came from a community sample of 227 children (mean child age 11.5 ± 0.…
Social circuits under developmental threat: Bridging rodent and human neuroscience
Children’s emotion word knowledge is associated with adaptive emotion regulation: Links to family-level and child-level factors
Emotion understanding and emotion regulation play important roles in children's development, but we have only a limited understanding of how these constructs are socialized. Constructionist theories suggest that as children engage in interactions with caregivers, they learn to associate words naming emotion categories with conceptual representations of specific emotions, leading to greater emotion understanding. In this preregistered study, we po…
Environmental contributions to cognitive development: The role of cognitive stimulation
Cognitive stimulation is the availability of enriching environmental inputs that facilitate learning opportunities for children. • While cognitive stimulation plays an important role in children’s cognitive development, it remains a relatively understudied topic. • This review provides an overview of the role of cognitive stimulation in children’s brain and cognitive development. • We present evidence from intervention studies which demonstrates …
Does early nutrition predict cognitive skills during later childhood? Evidence from two developing countries
Classifying Young Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Based on Child, Parent, and Family Characteristics: A Cross-Validation Study
We aimed to identify subgroups of young children with differential risks for ADHD, and cross-validate these subgroups with an independent sample of children. All children in Study 1 (N = 120) underwent psychological assessments and were diagnosed with ADHD before age 7. Latent class analysis (LCA) classified children into risk subgroups. Study 2 (N = 168) included an independent sample of children under age 7. A predictive model from Study 1 was …
The Value of Dimensional Models of Early Experience: Thinking Clearly About Concepts and Categories
We review the three prevailing approaches—specificity, cumulative risk, and dimensional models—to conceptualizing the developmental consequences of early-life adversity and address fundamental problems with the characterization of these frameworks in a recent Perspectives on Psychological Science piece by Smith and Pollak. We respond to concerns raised by Smith and Pollak about dimensional models of early experience and highlight the value of the…
Heightened sensitivity to the caregiving environment during adolescence: Implications for recovery following early‐life adversity
BACKGROUND: Adolescence has been proposed to be a period of heightened sensitivity to environmental influence. If true, adolescence may present a window of opportunity for recovery for children exposed to early-life adversity. Recent evidence supports adolescent recalibration of stress response systems following early-life adversity. However, it is unknown whether similar recovery occurs in other domains of functioning in adolescence. METHODS: We…
Deprivation and psychopathology in the Fragile Families Study: A 15‐year longitudinal investigation
BACKGROUND: Early adversity consistently predicts youth psychopathology. However, the pathways linking unique dimensions of early adversity, such as deprivation, to psychopathology are understudied. Here, we evaluate a theoretical model linking early deprivation exposure with psychopathology prospectively through language ability. METHODS: Participants included 2,301 youth (47.5% female) enrolled in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.…
Corporal Punishment and Elevated Neural Response to Threat in Children
Spanking remains common around the world, despite evidence linking corporal punishment to detrimental child outcomes. This study tested whether children (Mage = 11.60) who were spanked (N = 40) exhibited altered neural function in response to stimuli that suggest the presence of an environmental threat compared to children who were not spanked (N = 107). Children who were spanked exhibited greater activation in multiple regions of the medial and …
Autonomic reactivity to social rejection, peer difficulties, and the buffering effects of adolescent friendships following early psychosocial deprivation
Autonomic nervous system reactivity has been posited to be a mechanism contributing to social and emotional problems among children exposed to early adversity. Leveraging data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of foster care versus institutional care of abandoned children in Romania, we assessed whether altered sympathetic reactivity to peer rejection feedback in early adolescence mediated t…
Cognitive Stimulation as a Mechanism Linking Socioeconomic Status With Executive Function: A Longitudinal Investigation
Executive functions (EF), including working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility, vary as a function of socioeconomic status (SES), with children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds having poorer performance than their higher SES peers. Using observational methods, we investigated cognitive stimulation in the home as a mechanism linking SES with EF. In a sample of 101 children aged 60–75 months, cognitive stimulation fully mediat…
Reducing Crime and Violence: Experimental Evidence from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Liberia
We show that a number of noncognitive skills and preferences, including patience and identity, are malleable in adults, and that investments in them reduce crime and violence. We recruited criminally engaged men and randomized one-half to eight weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy designed to foster self-regulation, patience, and a noncriminal identity and lifestyle. We also randomized $200 grants. Cash alone and therapy alone initially reduced …
Dimensions of Adversity, Physiological Reactivity, and Externalizing Psychopathology in Adolescence: Deprivation and Threat
OBJECTIVE: Dysregulation of autonomic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis function is a putative intermediate phenotype linking childhood adversity (CA) with later psychopathology. However, associations of CAs with autonomic nervous system and HPA-axis function vary widely across studies. Here, we test a novel conceptual model discriminating between distinct forms of CA (deprivation and threat) and examine their independe…
Measuring the Measurement Error: Method to Qualitatively Validate Survey Data
Empirical social science relies heavily on self-reported data, but subjects may misreport behaviors, especially sensitive ones such as crime or drug abuse. If a treatment influences survey misreporting, it biases causal estimates. We develop a validation technique that uses intensive qualitative work to assess survey misreporting and pilot it in a field experiment where subjects were assigned to receive cash, therapy, both, or neither. According …
Beyond Cumulative Risk: A Dimensional Approach to Childhood Adversity
Children who have experienced environmental adversity—such as abuse, neglect, or poverty—are more likely to develop physical and mental health problems, perform poorly at school, and have difficulties in social relationships than children who have not encountered adversity. What is less clear is how and why adverse early experiences exert such a profound influence on children’s development. Identifying developmental processes that are disrupted b…
Reducing Crime and Violence: Experimental Evidence on Adult Noncognitive Investments in Liberia
The paper shows that self-control, time preferences, and values are malleable in adults, and that investments in these skills and preferences reduce crime and violence. The authors recruited criminally-engaged Liberian men and randomized half to eight weeks of group cognitive behavioral therapy, fostering self-regulation, patience, and noncriminal values. They also randomized $200 grants. Cash alone and therapy alone dramatically reduced crime an…
Measuring the measurement error: A method to qualitatively validate survey data
Dimensions of early experience and neural development: Deprivation and threat
Childhood adversity and neural development: Deprivation and threat as distinct dimensions of early experience
Child Maltreatment and Autonomic Nervous System Reactivity: Identifying Dysregulated Stress Reactivity Patterns by Using the Biopsychosocial Model of Challenge and Threat
OBJECTIVE: Disruptions in stress response system development have been posited as mechanisms linking child maltreatment (CM) to psychopathology. Existing theories predict elevated sympathetic nervous system reactivity after CM, but evidence for this is inconsistent. We present a novel framework for conceptualizing stress reactivity after CM that uses the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat. We predicted that in the context of a social-e…
Family Socioeconomic Status and Child Executive Functions: The Roles of Language, Home Environment, and Single Parenthood
The association between family socioeconomic status (SES) and child executive functions is well-documented. However, few studies have examined the role of potential mediators and moderators. We studied the independent and interactive associations between family SES and single parenthood to predict child executive functions of inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory and examined child expressive language abilities and family …
Family Socioeconomic Status and Child Executive Functions: The Roles of Language, Home Environment, and Single Parenthood
The association between family socioeconomic status (SES) and child executive functions is well-documented. However, few studies have examined the role of potential mediators and moderators. We studied the independent and interactive associations between family SES and single parenthood to predict child executive functions of inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory and examined child expressive language abilities and family …
Dimensions of early experience and neural development: Deprivation and threat
Childhood adversity and neural development: Deprivation and threat as distinct dimensions of early experience
Child Maltreatment and Autonomic Nervous System Reactivity: Identifying Dysregulated Stress Reactivity Patterns by Using the Biopsychosocial Model of Challenge and Threat
OBJECTIVE: Disruptions in stress response system development have been posited as mechanisms linking child maltreatment (CM) to psychopathology. Existing theories predict elevated sympathetic nervous system reactivity after CM, but evidence for this is inconsistent. We present a novel framework for conceptualizing stress reactivity after CM that uses the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat. We predicted that in the context of a social-e…
Measuring the Measurement Error: Method to Qualitatively Validate Survey Data
Empirical social science relies heavily on self-reported data, but subjects may misreport behaviors, especially sensitive ones such as crime or drug abuse. If a treatment influences survey misreporting, it biases causal estimates. We develop a validation technique that uses intensive qualitative work to assess survey misreporting and pilot it in a field experiment where subjects were assigned to receive cash, therapy, both, or neither. According …
Beyond Cumulative Risk: A Dimensional Approach to Childhood Adversity
Children who have experienced environmental adversity—such as abuse, neglect, or poverty—are more likely to develop physical and mental health problems, perform poorly at school, and have difficulties in social relationships than children who have not encountered adversity. What is less clear is how and why adverse early experiences exert such a profound influence on children’s development. Identifying developmental processes that are disrupted b…
Reducing Crime and Violence: Experimental Evidence on Adult Noncognitive Investments in Liberia
The paper shows that self-control, time preferences, and values are malleable in adults, and that investments in these skills and preferences reduce crime and violence. The authors recruited criminally-engaged Liberian men and randomized half to eight weeks of group cognitive behavioral therapy, fostering self-regulation, patience, and noncriminal values. They also randomized $200 grants. Cash alone and therapy alone dramatically reduced crime an…
Measuring the measurement error: A method to qualitatively validate survey data
Reducing Crime and Violence: Experimental Evidence from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Liberia
We show that a number of noncognitive skills and preferences, including patience and identity, are malleable in adults, and that investments in them reduce crime and violence. We recruited criminally engaged men and randomized one-half to eight weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy designed to foster self-regulation, patience, and a noncriminal identity and lifestyle. We also randomized $200 grants. Cash alone and therapy alone initially reduced …
Dimensions of Adversity, Physiological Reactivity, and Externalizing Psychopathology in Adolescence: Deprivation and Threat
OBJECTIVE: Dysregulation of autonomic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis function is a putative intermediate phenotype linking childhood adversity (CA) with later psychopathology. However, associations of CAs with autonomic nervous system and HPA-axis function vary widely across studies. Here, we test a novel conceptual model discriminating between distinct forms of CA (deprivation and threat) and examine their independe…
Cognitive Stimulation as a Mechanism Linking Socioeconomic Status With Executive Function: A Longitudinal Investigation
Executive functions (EF), including working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility, vary as a function of socioeconomic status (SES), with children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds having poorer performance than their higher SES peers. Using observational methods, we investigated cognitive stimulation in the home as a mechanism linking SES with EF. In a sample of 101 children aged 60–75 months, cognitive stimulation fully mediat…
The Value of Dimensional Models of Early Experience: Thinking Clearly About Concepts and Categories
We review the three prevailing approaches—specificity, cumulative risk, and dimensional models—to conceptualizing the developmental consequences of early-life adversity and address fundamental problems with the characterization of these frameworks in a recent Perspectives on Psychological Science piece by Smith and Pollak. We respond to concerns raised by Smith and Pollak about dimensional models of early experience and highlight the value of the…
Heightened sensitivity to the caregiving environment during adolescence: Implications for recovery following early‐life adversity
BACKGROUND: Adolescence has been proposed to be a period of heightened sensitivity to environmental influence. If true, adolescence may present a window of opportunity for recovery for children exposed to early-life adversity. Recent evidence supports adolescent recalibration of stress response systems following early-life adversity. However, it is unknown whether similar recovery occurs in other domains of functioning in adolescence. METHODS: We…
Deprivation and psychopathology in the Fragile Families Study: A 15‐year longitudinal investigation
BACKGROUND: Early adversity consistently predicts youth psychopathology. However, the pathways linking unique dimensions of early adversity, such as deprivation, to psychopathology are understudied. Here, we evaluate a theoretical model linking early deprivation exposure with psychopathology prospectively through language ability. METHODS: Participants included 2,301 youth (47.5% female) enrolled in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.…
Corporal Punishment and Elevated Neural Response to Threat in Children
Spanking remains common around the world, despite evidence linking corporal punishment to detrimental child outcomes. This study tested whether children (Mage = 11.60) who were spanked (N = 40) exhibited altered neural function in response to stimuli that suggest the presence of an environmental threat compared to children who were not spanked (N = 107). Children who were spanked exhibited greater activation in multiple regions of the medial and …
Autonomic reactivity to social rejection, peer difficulties, and the buffering effects of adolescent friendships following early psychosocial deprivation
Autonomic nervous system reactivity has been posited to be a mechanism contributing to social and emotional problems among children exposed to early adversity. Leveraging data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of foster care versus institutional care of abandoned children in Romania, we assessed whether altered sympathetic reactivity to peer rejection feedback in early adolescence mediated t…
Classifying Young Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Based on Child, Parent, and Family Characteristics: A Cross-Validation Study
We aimed to identify subgroups of young children with differential risks for ADHD, and cross-validate these subgroups with an independent sample of children. All children in Study 1 (N = 120) underwent psychological assessments and were diagnosed with ADHD before age 7. Latent class analysis (LCA) classified children into risk subgroups. Study 2 (N = 168) included an independent sample of children under age 7. A predictive model from Study 1 was …
Does early nutrition predict cognitive skills during later childhood? Evidence from two developing countries
Environmental contributions to cognitive development: The role of cognitive stimulation
Cognitive stimulation is the availability of enriching environmental inputs that facilitate learning opportunities for children. • While cognitive stimulation plays an important role in children’s cognitive development, it remains a relatively understudied topic. • This review provides an overview of the role of cognitive stimulation in children’s brain and cognitive development. • We present evidence from intervention studies which demonstrates …
Identifying cognitive, affective, and developmental mechanisms linking threat and deprivation with adolescent psychopathology
BACKGROUND: The mechanisms linking early-life adversity with psychopathology over the life-course are complex. In this prospective study, we collectively examined cognitive, affective, and developmental mediators previously found to individually link childhood threat and deprivation experiences to adolescent psychopathology to identify the most potent mechanisms. METHODS: Data came from a community sample of 227 children (mean child age 11.5 ± 0.…
Social circuits under developmental threat: Bridging rodent and human neuroscience
Children’s emotion word knowledge is associated with adaptive emotion regulation: Links to family-level and child-level factors
Emotion understanding and emotion regulation play important roles in children's development, but we have only a limited understanding of how these constructs are socialized. Constructionist theories suggest that as children engage in interactions with caregivers, they learn to associate words naming emotion categories with conceptual representations of specific emotions, leading to greater emotion understanding. In this preregistered study, we po…
Who Participates in Research and Why: Reducing Barriers to Diversifying Samples in Developmental Psychobiology
Recent calls emphasize the need to diversify samples in developmental psychobiology regarding race and ethnicity. However, there is limited guidance on effective methods to involve individuals from marginalized communities in research, or which issues these participants prioritize when considering involvement in studies with neurobiological data collection. Here, we explore these motivations for caregivers with children of color who participated …
Psychology (21 works) · Developmental psychology (16 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (11 works) · Child Abuse and Trauma (10 works) · Medicine (10 works) · Cognition (9 works) · Psychiatry (9 works) · Clinical Psychology (8 works) · Psychopathology (7 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (6 works)