Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Mendelian Randomization Study Of Testosterone And Cognition In Men, Jie Zhao, Tai Hing Lam, Chaoqiang Jiang, Stacey S. Cherny, Bin Liu, Kar Keung Cheng, Weisen Zhang, Gabriel M. Leung, C Mary Schooling

Publications and Research

Testosterone replacement for older men is increasingly common, with some observations suggesting a protective effect on cognitive function. We examined the association of endogenous testosterone with cognitive function among older men in a Mendelian randomization study using a separate-sample instrumental variable (SSIV) analysis estimator to minimize confounding and reverse causality. A genetic score predicting testosterone was developed in 289 young Chinese men from Hong Kong, based on selected testosterone-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs10046, rs1008805 and rs1256031). The association of genetically predicted testosterone with delayed 10-word recall score and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score was assessed at baseline and follow-up using …

Exploring The Use Of An Iphone App: A Novel Approach To Dietary Assessment, Melissa Keeney, Ming-Chin Yeh, Rissa Landman, May May Leung, Ann Gaba, Khursheed Navder

Publications and Research

Recent advancements in smartphone technology have provided new methods of dietary assessment. An iTunes application (app) called Meal Snap lets users take pictures of the meal they eat, and then estimates the calories of the food items eaten. We conducted a pilot study to explore the user-friendliness and calorie estimation functions of the Meal Snap app. Two female nutrition graduate students pilot-tested the Meal Snap app. Using the app, each student took pictures of foods and drinks consumed daily for two weeks. The data were analyzed using the Nutritionist ProTM software, version 4.4.0. The mean daily caloric intake obtained from …

Could Latinos Choose The Next President? States In Which Latinos Could Determine The Margin Of Victory In The 2016 Presidential Election, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

This special report in partnership with CNN en Espanol examines characteristics of states in which the Latino electorate could determine victory in the 2016 presidential election. Methods: Data were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau, Voting and Registration, as a part of the Current Population Survey data from the November Voter Supplements. The 2016 estimates were derived by using the yearly percentage rate of increase between 2004 and 2012. Additional data were derived from an analysis of the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) American Community Survey (ACS). Results: In Florida Latinos comprise a large share of the electorate and …

Spectators Or Patriots? Citizens In The Information Age, Amrita Dhawan

Publications and Research

In theory, a strong democracy rests on robust citizen participation. The practice in most democracies is quite different. This gap presents a challenge, which can be narrowed by augmenting civic education to bring it up to date with the current information environment and thus give citizens the opportunity to participate. Robert Dahl’s work on democracy provides a model that looks at this problem structurally. He writes about the ideals and the actual institutions necessary for a democracy and if we situate his model in the modern information environment we get a better idea of how to improve civic education. Successful …

Neighborhood Matters: The Impact Of Hispanic Ethnic Density On Future Depressive Symptoms 1-Year Following An Acs Event Among Hispanic Patients, Ellen-Ge Denton, Jonathan Shaffer, Carmela Alcantara, Esteban Cadermil

Publications and Research

The Ethnic Density hypothesis posits that living around others from similar ethnic backgrounds reduces the risk of adverse mental health outcomes such as depression. Contrary to this hypothesis, previous work has shown that Hispanic ethnic density is cross-sectionally associated with increased depressive symptom severity among patients hospitalized with an acute coronary syndrome (ACS; myocardial infarction or unstable angina pectoris). To date, no study has examined the prospective association of Hispanic ethnic density on long-term depressive symptom severity following an acute medical event. We prospectively assessed the impact of Hispanic ethnic density on depressive symptoms, 1-year following an ACS event, among …

Annotate The Web: Four Ways To Mark Up Web Content, Robin Camille Davis

Publications and Research

Web annotation has been a pipe dream almost since the birth of the Internet itself. Commenting in the margins of a text itself is so simple for paper and print, yet replicating the experience online remains elusive. In this article, I examine four tools for private or public web annotation. Hypothesis and Genius offer users a shareable way to annotate webpages line by line and start conversations in the margins. Pinboard and Evernote allow users to organize and save web documents and add private annotations.

Repetition: A Study In Visual Form Using Selected Artworks By Edward Hopper, Lauren Irwin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An attempt was made to study the form, function and patterns of repetition as expressed in visual form. A selected series of paintings by the artist Edward Hopper spanning a period of over thirty years served as the data set and was examined using an integrative approach combining both psychoanalytic theory and art criticism. The paper explored firstly, how unconscious fantasies shaped the content of Hopper's selected works, the function of the repetitive form of visual expression, and the possible psychic determinants. It was suggested that early childhood issues remained ongoing areas of conflict that continued to find repeated symbolic …

Ways Of Thinking About Illness Representations Of Cancer, Ian Zachary Pervil

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For people who have illnesses with vague or diffuse symptoms, such as systemic cancers that lack solid masses or tumors (e.g. leukemia), the process of adjustment appears more difficult than for those with clearly-defined symptoms. Dual systems theory attempts to understand this phenomenon by contending that individuals rely upon two modes of cognitive processing when conceptualizing illnesses: implicit, System 1 processes and explicit, System 2 processes. Those with illnesses whose symptoms lack specificity may rely more heavily on System 1 processing and have greater difficulty adjusting.

This study tested whether illness representations mediate the relationship between cancer patients' tumor status …

Firms' Decisions To Enter A Market Of Highly Differentiated Products: Apparel Industry And New York Fashion Week, Yoko Katagiri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation deals with economic aspects of the fashion industry. It begins with a discussion of the complex industrial organization aspects of the industry. A wealth of information in this area has been assembled and is presented for the first time. The focus is on the high-end fashion market: how it started, how it works, New York Fashion Week, and its significance for the industry. Then a comprehensive review of the economics literature as it pertains to the industry is presented, also for the first time. The empirical sections of the dissertation contain estimates of demand functions for apparel and …

Wandering In Contemporary Literature: A Narrative Theory Of Cognition, Hillel E. Broder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study offers a theory of wandering cognition as an animating feature of western literature, in general, and of contemporary literature, in particular. Unlike existing theories of peripatetic bodies and minds in fiction that focus primarily on political critiques, cultural practices, or pleasures of digression, this theory of wandering offers an aesthetic philosophy and ethical critique of representing cognition, memory, and narrative identity that finds affinities in the political, phenomenological, and ethical thought of Walter Benjamin, Emmanuel Levinas, and Giorgio Agamben.

Unlike existing cognitive theories of literature that apply cognitive theory to literary study (or vice versa), this study develops …

Psychological Perspectives On The Under-Representation Of African Americans And Females In Entrepreneurship: The Relationship Between Perceptions Of Fit And Intentions To Leave, Rachel Pascall-Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Advisor: Professor Charles Scherbaum

Entrepreneurship is widely recognized as a vehicle for economic growth (Ireland & Webb, 2007), and recent years have shown growing multi-disciplinary interest among entrepreneurship scholars. The primary focus of this study was to identify psychological and contextual variables that explain African American and females’ intent to quit entrepreneurship. Specifically, using Heilman’s (1983) lack-of-fit model as a theoretical lens, it tested the proposal that the intent to quit entrepreneurship could be explained by the extent of African American and females’ perceptions of fit and identification with the role. Data were collected via survey methodology from a sample …

Stress And Suicidal Behavior: A Cognitive, Behavioral, And Biological Integrative Approach, Jorge Valderrama

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in young adults in the United States. Previous research has established distal and proximal life stress as a strong risk factor for suicidal behavior. However, how stress impacts suicidal behavior via interactive cognitive and biological mechanisms has not been thoroughly examined. The present research sought to better understand the relationship between stress and suicidal behavior via altered neurobiological functioning, maladaptive cognitions, and deficits in executive functioning. The first study found a relationship between the brooding subtype of rumination and trait impulsivity in the forms of negative urgency, lack of premeditation, and …

Unfaithful Allies: Local Resistance And The Failure Of Statebuilding, Ervin Kallfa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Unfaithful Allies: Local resistance and the failure of statebuilding in the Western Balkans

Adviser: Professor Susan Woodward

International efforts to build strong and legitimate states in developing societies often present a paradox. In many instances they are undermined by the resistance of very local actors with whom the Union partners up. The form that this resistance takes varies by country. In some instances the domestic partners show open defiance. In other cases they formally conform, while working behind the scene to undermine statebuilding.

My dissertation examines the factors that shape the domestic resistance to statebuilding projects by examining EU statebuilding …

An Exploration Of Target Event Encoding In A Predictive Learning Task With Humans: Integrated Or Separable Processing?, Natasha B. Nadler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A major theme in the study of Pavlovian learning explores how attributes of a predicted event are represented and encoded. In Pavlovian conditioning, the conditioned stimulus (CS) is frequently assumed to associate with one or more of the various attributes of a motivationally significant unconditioned stimulus (US, e.g. it’s hedonic, motivational, and/or sensory features). The present research asks whether humans learn to predict and encode different aspects of motivationally neutral target events, namely, their specific sensory and temporal features in a separable or integrated manner. This question of how target events are encoded has implications for associative and timing models …

The Politics Of Court Driven Morality Policy: A Comparative Analysis Of Abortion And Same-Sex Marriage 1971-2015, Korey L. Hughes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation had two principal components. First was the development of an argument outlining the five critical differences between abortion and same-sex marriage policy, which highlight the current insufficiency of the existing morality politics framework. These differences were: the duration of the issue, whether it demonstrated an incrementalist of a punctuated equilibrium theory of policy change, the scope of conflict, the degree of institutional entrenchment within the two parties, and the social construction of stakeholders. I then advanced five hypotheses to explain why these differences between the two policy areas in both process and outcome existed, for the purpose of …

The Dream Defaulted: Foreclosure, Crisis, And Hope In Baltimore, Maryland, And Detroit, Michigan, Heidi M. Rafferty-Reijm

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, the late 2000s were a time of crisis that tested many urban decision-makers. The recession that started in 2007 was defined by a severe crash in the housing market and the proliferation of mortgage foreclosures across the country. Foreclosures occurred in urban, suburban, and rural communities, but had a particularly devastating impact on larger, older cities and their low and moderate-income neighborhoods. These cities had been dealing with economic and population decline for half a century. In many of their urban neighborhoods, foreclosures affected as many as one in four households and added yet another challenge …

African American Young People's Views Of Youth Participation And Its Implications For Addressing Community Problems, Isabelle M. Elisha

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Youth participation has been brought to the forefront of scholarly concerns by a growing interest in the positive effects of youth participation on developmental outcomes. However, few studies have investigated within group variations in African American young people’s views of civic participation. The present study examined African American early adolescents’ perceptions of youth participation in resolving community problems. Using a written protocol instrument with open-ended questions, the present study elicited diverse narratives from thirty-one 11-14 year old African American adolescents in order to address within-group variations in their experiences with youth participation and their understanding of racial discrimination. Participants described …

The New Reflexivity: Puzzle Films, Found Footage, And Cinematic Narration In The Digital Age, Jordan Lavender-Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“The New Reflexivity” tracks two narrative styles of contemporary Hollywood production that have yet to be studied in tandem: the puzzle film and the found footage horror film. In early August 1999, near the end of what D.N. Rodowick refers to as “the summer of digital paranoia,” two films entered the wide-release U.S. theatrical marketplace and enjoyed surprisingly massive financial success, just as news of the “death of film” circulated widely. Though each might typically be classified as belonging to the horror genre, both the unreliable “puzzle film” The Sixth Sense and the fake-documentary “found footage film” The Blair Witch …

Neurophysiological Correlates Of English Vowels /I/ And /E/ In Monolingual And Bilingual 4 And 5-Year-Old Children, Nancy Vidal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Second language (L2) input in the infant and toddler years clearly affects speech processing, particularly for L2 vowels (Cheour, Shestakovab, Ceponieneb, Näätänen 2002), Moreno, Rodriguez-Fornells, Matti, 2008); Rinker, Paavo, Brosch, Kiefer 2010). However, few studies have closely examined how amount of L1 versus L2 input impacts automaticity of speech processing in young children. Greater language use of one than the other language promotes improved speech perception and production in the language of greater use (Flege & Munro 1994; Flege & MacKay 2004). Investigations have used a variety of custom-designed questionnaires to quantify amount of language use, but most have not …

The Effect Of The Long Anchor Duration On Performance In The Temporal Bisection Procedure, Sho Araiba

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study investigated the determinants of the location of the bisection point (BP) in the temporal bisection procedure. Interest in the study of temporal perception emerged from the finding of the scalar property such as Weber’s law for time and the ratio rule in behavior under Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. One method to investigate temporal perception in both non-human animals and humans is the temporal bisection procedure. The primary dependent variable of this procedure is the BP, which has been taken as the subjective midpoint between two durations. The ratio similarity rule (Gibbon, 1981) hypothesizes that the location of …

The Effect Of Community And Individual Differences On College Students' Attitudes And Behaviors Towards Transgender Individuals, Laura Hackimer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For transgender adolescents in an environment consisting largely of non-transgender (cisgender) individuals, whether adults and their peers in school are rejecting or accepting of their gender identity can have a large impact on their immediate and future outcomes. As college students will go on to form the social environment for the next generation of transgender adolescents, it is important to assess their beliefs and behaviors regarding this population. The present study sought to investigate the impact of individual and community factors on cisgender college students’ attitudes and behaviors towards transgender individuals. Using a sample of 302 cisgender college students from …

Politics Between And Within Us: Authenticity And Theatricality In Modern Political Thought, Daniel J. Mccool

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation details the ways in which two distinct models of politics — the politics of authenticity and the politics of theatricality — have influenced political rhetoric and activity in America and beyond. The focus on authenticity in politics goes back to the ancients, yet it has taken on greater political significance in the modern era. Morally-charged language of “telling the truth”, or “being oneself” in politics has meant that public judgment and analysis has increasingly focused on the interiority of the speaker: one’s intentions, feelings and consistency, rather than on the persuasive case one is attempting to communicate. In …

Connectivity: An Ecological Paradigm For The Study Of Bronze Age, Slobodan Mitrović

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Connectivity: an ecological paradigm for the study of Bronze Age” addresses the relationship between historic and prehistoric people, and the landscapes they inhabited, moved about, and continue to inhabit. It suggests alternative methodological approaches that have broader ramifications for the discipline of (Bronze Age) archaeology. By engaging the code and innovations stemming from ecology and digital technology, the research questions concern the interface – referred to as connectivity – between the archaeological sites, resources, networks of communication, and the conditions of archaeological knowledge acquisition. Drawing on published and new data, the aim of the project is to put forward a …

Empowerment From Within: Supporting Palestinian Women’S Struggle Against Violence, Ortal Bensky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Recent reports by the United Nations and local non-governmental organizations present a troubling increase in incidents of violence against Palestinian women in Palestine. These are cases of domestic violence, where the attackers are Palestinians, and political violence, where the attackers are Israeli settlers and soldiers. These violent incidents include attacks on body and property. Most incidents are neither dealt with by the Palestinian authorities nor by the Israeli government and judicial system. There is not sufficient international pressure to enforce justice. The purpose of this study is to offer alternative ways to prevent violent crimes, enforce relevant laws, and provide …

The Conflicts Of Coexistence: Contested Meanings Of Carnivore Management And Conservation In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Hannah F. Jaicks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) encompasses urbanizing areas adjacent to essential conservation habitat with an inimitable capacity to support carnivore populations, including grizzly bears, wolves, and cougars. This geography has resulted in divisive social conflicts about these animals’ management as well as physical conflicts when they come into contact with people over the course of daily life in the region. Employing a qualitative methodology with semi-structured interviews, participant observation, wilderness treks, and archival work, this study examines the context, social processes, and decision-making processes that underlie the predator conflicts and produce management challenges in the GYE. This approach integrates theory …

Voicing The Other: Mock Aave On Social Media, Hanna L. Smokoski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project looks at the use on social media sites of features of African American Vernacular English by nonspeakers of it. This outgroup use of AAVE does not require nor reflect any true proficiency with the variety, but instead is often used to exaggerate the social distance between the stylizers using it on social media and the marginalized people for whom AAVE is a genuine mode of communication. Through double indexicality, nonspeakers of AAVE use features of it to annex certain positive qualities associated with Black or hip hop culture—toughness, coolness, an anti-establishment stance—for themselves, while reproducing negative stereotypes of …

What Are The Barriers And Conduits To College Success For Academically Vulnerable Students?, Marisol Zacarias

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What are the barriers and conduits to college success for academically vulnerable students? Employing two theoretical frameworks—ecological systems theory and intersectionality—this thesis interrogates two concepts: grit/persistence and support. To do this, data were collected from a group of academically vulnerable students of color from low-income backgrounds via two methodologically different venues: a focus group in 2012 and follow-up one-on-one interviews two years later, in 2014. From the focus group, two themes emerged: discouraging messages and hope. Two years later the follow-up one-on-one interviews produced two additional themes: balancing act and support. Building positive peer relationships was identified as a key …

Lucumi And The Children Of Cotton: Gender, Race, And Ethnicity In The Mapping Of A Black Atlantic Politics Of Religion, Akissi M. Britton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I have examined claims to religious authenticity, purity, legitimacy and authority through the lens of a Black and African American Orisa community in Brooklyn, New York. Through these claims, made both internally and to a broader Orisa community within the United States and throughout different locales in the Black Atlantic, I have articulated how they are more often than not linked to very non-religious aspects of social life. Members of this community, and the broader Orisa Atlantic of which they are a part, do not practice this tradition in a social, cultural, or political vacuum. In fact, …

The Politics Of Middle Class Decline And Growth In Industrialized Democracies, 1980 To 2010, Young-Hwan Byun

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research explains why some industrialized democracies have experienced middle class decline while others have experienced middle class growth since the 1980s. The prevailing political science literature based on the median voter theory predicts that middle class decline should not occur in democracies, whereas economic theories fail to explain national variation of middle class decline by attributing the decline to common developments such as globalization or technological change. I analyze data from the Luxembourg Income Study Database, the Comparative Welfare States Dataset, and the Comparative Welfare Entitlement Dataset, and demonstrate a significant partisan effect on middle class decline. I argue …

Millets From The Margins: Value, Knowledge And The Subaltern Practice Of Biodiversity In Uttarakhand, India, Priya R. Chandrasekaran

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Millets from the Margins: Value, Knowledge and the Subaltern Practice of Biodiversity in Uttarakhand, India analyzes what is at stake for small-scale, predominantly women, farmers as local varieties of rainfed food grains such as finger millet are being newly commodified and valued as a biodiversity resource. With support from a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation, I conducted seventeen months of ethnographic research with farmers, activists, scientists, NGO leaders, government officials, transnational functionaries and agribusiness representatives in segregated yet interconnected realms ranging from a village in the Himalayan foothills to transnational institutions in Rome.

This work demonstrates …