Date of Award

5-1-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College

College of Humanities and Fine Arts

First Advisor

Andrew M. Terranova, Jr.

Second Advisor

Kerry A. Schwanz

Third Advisor

Yun Sil Jeon

Abstract

The possible correlation between language skills, temperament, and screen time in adulthood is understudied. It was hypothesized that high effortful control scores and low childhood screentime would corelate with higher cognitive reflection scores and higher language skills. Using a correlational design, 162 participants were studied (M age = 19.17 years old, 80% female, 86% White, 6% Hispanic). Participants completed an adapted version of the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (Evans & Rothbart, 2007), Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Fredrick, 2005), the Cognitive Reflection Test 2 (CRT-2; Thompson & Oppenheimer, 2016), Thompson & Oppenheimer, 2016), a childhood screen time questionnaire, a bilingualism questionnaire, and the Lexical Decision Task (Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971). Results indicated only a negative correlation between effortful control and negative affect. These findings add to existing literature by providing an interdisciplinary approach by combining communication, linguistics, and media studies to an understudied topic in psychology. The study also helps bring awareness of the possible positive and negative impacts that television shows and YouTube videos can have on children’s language development.

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