Major
Psychology
Anticipated Graduation Year
2023
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
Problem: This study will evaluate the connection between childhood trauma and current symptoms of cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS) in college students. Cognitive disengagement syndrome is characterized by a combination of behavioral symptoms such as excessive daydreaming, mental confusion and fogginess, being lost in one’s thought, and slowed behavior and thinking (Becker, 2021). CDS has comorbid symptoms that overlap with interpersonal childhood traumas (e.g., disengagement from environment; Musicaro et al., 2020), which calls into question whether trauma exposure may exacerbate CDS symptoms in later life. As anxiety, depression, and emotion dysregulation are also associated with childhood trauma, we will include those as covariates in our model. Ultimately, the purpose of the study is to evaluate the connection between childhood trauma and cognitive disengagement syndrome in college students. Procedure: We will analyze data from at least 217 participants (data collection ongoing) currently enrolled at a private mid-size university in the Midwest. Participants will be evaluated using self-report measures assessing for CDS in adulthood (the adult concentration inventory), and childhood trauma in adults (adverse childhood experiences measure). Results: For the bivariate correlation, we expect to find a moderate positive association between childhood trauma and CDS. For hierarchical linear regressions, we will put anxiety, depression, and emotion dysregulation in step 1 if these are significantly associated with CDS in the bivariate correlations. Childhood trauma will be input into step two, predicting current CDS symptoms. We expect that childhood trauma will show a weak affect and predict a small amount of the variance in CDS when accounting for all other variables (depression, anxiety, emotion dysregulation). Conclusions: The expected findings would highlight that the overlap between childhood trauma and CDS are moderately, positively associated, and resemble shared similarities, further contributing to the currently unknown etiology of CDS. This means that the more childhood trauma experienced, there were higher levels of CDS symptoms. Future work should seek to understand the shared similarities between CDS and childhood trauma symptoms as well as how they may be distinct from each other. It will be important to determine whether childhood trauma may cause CDS presentation, though it is more likely that trauma may increase CDS symptomology as people without childhood trauma also can experience exhibit high levels of CDS. Either way, intervention is needed to decrease symptoms of CDS and it will be important for clinicians assessing childhood trauma to also assess for CDS.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Zoe Smith, Director
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Is childhood trauma associated with current cognitive disengagement syndrome symptoms in college students?
Problem: This study will evaluate the connection between childhood trauma and current symptoms of cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS) in college students. Cognitive disengagement syndrome is characterized by a combination of behavioral symptoms such as excessive daydreaming, mental confusion and fogginess, being lost in one’s thought, and slowed behavior and thinking (Becker, 2021). CDS has comorbid symptoms that overlap with interpersonal childhood traumas (e.g., disengagement from environment; Musicaro et al., 2020), which calls into question whether trauma exposure may exacerbate CDS symptoms in later life. As anxiety, depression, and emotion dysregulation are also associated with childhood trauma, we will include those as covariates in our model. Ultimately, the purpose of the study is to evaluate the connection between childhood trauma and cognitive disengagement syndrome in college students. Procedure: We will analyze data from at least 217 participants (data collection ongoing) currently enrolled at a private mid-size university in the Midwest. Participants will be evaluated using self-report measures assessing for CDS in adulthood (the adult concentration inventory), and childhood trauma in adults (adverse childhood experiences measure). Results: For the bivariate correlation, we expect to find a moderate positive association between childhood trauma and CDS. For hierarchical linear regressions, we will put anxiety, depression, and emotion dysregulation in step 1 if these are significantly associated with CDS in the bivariate correlations. Childhood trauma will be input into step two, predicting current CDS symptoms. We expect that childhood trauma will show a weak affect and predict a small amount of the variance in CDS when accounting for all other variables (depression, anxiety, emotion dysregulation). Conclusions: The expected findings would highlight that the overlap between childhood trauma and CDS are moderately, positively associated, and resemble shared similarities, further contributing to the currently unknown etiology of CDS. This means that the more childhood trauma experienced, there were higher levels of CDS symptoms. Future work should seek to understand the shared similarities between CDS and childhood trauma symptoms as well as how they may be distinct from each other. It will be important to determine whether childhood trauma may cause CDS presentation, though it is more likely that trauma may increase CDS symptomology as people without childhood trauma also can experience exhibit high levels of CDS. Either way, intervention is needed to decrease symptoms of CDS and it will be important for clinicians assessing childhood trauma to also assess for CDS.