Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

/N/:/R/ Correspondences In Albanian Dialects: Understanding The N>R Sound Change, Katie Albany

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Albanian language is an Indo-European language that constitutes a separate branch in the Indo-European language family. There are two major dialects, Geg and Tosk, spoken in present day Albania that are mutually intelligible. There are morpho-syntactic differences between the two dialects and shared words provide evidence for a number of sound changes applying in certain contexts in Tosk. The focus of this paper is n > r sound change in Tosk applying to the nasal /n/ in an intervocalic position followed by an unstressed vowel. The lenition rule has been prolific diachronically, but stopped applying some time between the 13 …

Exploring The Effects Of Strain On Cross-National Lethal Violence: An Integrated Model, Catrin Andersson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Lethal violence is a global problem. In 2012, the United Nations documented 437,000 homicides worldwide (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2014b), and in 2012, the World Health Organization reported that there were 800,000 suicides internationally (World Health Organization, 2015c). There is a large body of research on violence in the social sciences. Although suicide and homicide are often studied separately, they have been said to share many of the same correlates, such as inequality and divorce (e.g., inequality and divorce; Nivette, 2011; Stack, 2000). There is a need to integrate theories drawn from different disciplines to better understand …

Basic Cable: A Reluctant American Perspective On The Arab Spring Through Revolutionary Art, Philip Ayoub

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Supported by a critical component that traces back the Egyptian revolution of 2011 to its roots in the post-Nasser era when the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces assumed nearly complete political and economic control over the country, this novella, based in New York City, looks at the crisis through an American lens. As the story progresses the protagonist learns that the conditions which precipitated the events in Egypt can be viewed at once as both a product of American capitalism and Egyptian complicity, as well as act as a mirror, albeit on a magnified scale, of the changing socio-economic …

Developmental Coordination Disorder: The Relationship Between Gait And Attention With Possible Implications For Early Identification And Intervention, Yocheved Bensinger-Brody

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this research was to evaluate how increased levels of challenge to attentional capacity would affect the motor planning and coordination in the gait of children at risk of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) across developmental ages. The study incorporated a dual task paradigm requiring both motor and attention performance, with the primary hypothesis that children who are at risk of DCD across different ages (3- to 8 yrs.-of-age) would demonstrate an alteration in their motor strategies if they were simultaneously engaging in an attention task. A secondary hypothesis of this study was that there is an underlying deficit …

Eyewitness Identification Jury Instructions: Do They Enhance Evidence Evaluation?, Marlee Kind Berman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mistaken eyewitness identifications are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. Even with procedural safeguards (e.g., cross-examination) in place, jurors still have difficulty evaluating the reliability of eyewitness identifications. The purpose of the present line of research is to examine whether the issue-specific judicial instructions, set forth by the New Jersey Supreme Court (New Jersey v. Henderson, 2011), effectively sensitize jurors to eyewitness identification accuracy. Results of the first study indicate that the current Henderson instructions delivered on issues specific to a case are not as effective as intended. Results of the second study indicate a sensitivity effect, such that mock …

The Relationship Between A Norm Referenced Measure Of Theory Of Mind And Preschoolers' Social Skills In The Classroom, Sarah Ellen Birch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study sought to examine the effect of Theory of Mind (ToM) performance as measured by a norm-referenced assessment on the social skills of a multicultural group of preschool students. This study extends the current research in this area. Most previous studies examined the relationship among ToM, other social cognitive skills and social skills using participants from predominately Caucasian middle class families (Slaughter et al., 2015). Additionally, earlier research relied primarily on homemade measures of such skills (Cassidy et al., 2003; Disendruck & Ben-Eliyahu, 2006; McAlister & Peterson, 2013; Watson et al., 1999; Walker, 2005).

Participants included 67 children between …

Social-Ecological Resilience In The Viking-Age To Early-Medieval Faroe Islands, Seth Brewington

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims to evaluate the development and maintenance of social-ecological resilience during the settlement-period (ca. 9th through 11th centuries CE) in the Faroe Islands. In particular, the core objectives include the identification of the key social and natural variables involved, the examination of how these variables contributed to overall resilience, and the investigation of the initiation of the Faroese domestic economy.

This research focuses primarily on an analysis of the 9th through 13th century archaeofaunal assemblage from the site of Undir Junkarinsfløtti, located on the island of Sandoy. This analysis represents the first detailed study of the Faroese settlement-period …

Sexual Victimization, Disclosure, And Accountability: Organizational Responses Of The Boy Scouts Of America To Child Sexual Abuse, Michelle Anne Cubellis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Child sexual abuse has always been a highly publicized and controversial topic due to the vulnerability of children. However, there have been several recent child sexual abuse (CSA) scandals garnering even more attention and concern. With the exposure of the Catholic Church abuse scandal in 2002, public attention became focused on the Archdiocese's poor and prolonged response. However, this crisis was not the sole case of widespread sexual violence and institutional failure. In October of 2012, Boy Scouts of America files from 1959 to 1991 containing reports of child sexual abuse were released. These reports feature detailed information about the …

Improving Investigative Interviews: Facilitating Disclosure Of Information Through Implicit Means, Evan Crawford Dawson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Investigative interviews are essential to intelligence collection. However, eliciting information from subjects is challenging when they are not motivated to cooperate. Psychological research has examined social influence tactics that may influence an interviewee's forthcomingness, however, there has been no focus on implicit methods despite their prominence in the basic social cognitive literature. Research on implicit cognition has found that activating mental concepts can lead people to behave in ways that are semantically related to or metaphorically consistent with the activated concept. In the present research, I sought to examine the concept of disclosure and test the effects of its activation …

The Reciprocal Relationship Among Object Relations, Attention, And Language In A Sample Of School-Aged Children, Katherine Ann Eiges

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Object relations (OR) disturbances are implicated in a broad range of socio-emotional problems and psychopathology in childhood, which are also common among children diagnosed with attention and language impairments. Though attachment-based factors are shown to play a role in the socio-emotional adjustment of children with learning disabilities, the specific influences of attention and language deficits on OR development is unknown. The present study aims to investigate the reciprocal influences of attention and language functioning on OR development. An empirically established OR measure for the Rorschach was systematically adapted to the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and examined for convergent validity …

Revisting The Domestic Labor Debate: Toward A Critique Of Workerist Feminism, Alice Feng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The extremely high presence of housewives in Italy during the 'miracle years,' of 1950-1963, seemingly suggested that an unprecedented number of women were unemployed after their expulsion from large-scale industry. This phenomenon inspired debate among feminists on questions such as the contribution of housewives to the reproduction of labor-power, the character of reproductive labor and the relation between the participation of women in waged labor and unwaged domestic labor. In revisiting this phenomenon, this thesis argues that, contrary to the appearance of women being unemployed, a significant number of women, along with children, were irregularly engaged in undeclared forms of …

Getting Out Of The Ghetto: Harm Reduction, Drug User Health, And The Transformation Of Social Policy In New York, Rachel Faulkner-Gurstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a qualitative study of the emergence and evolution of harm reduction drug policies in New York City. It examines harm reduction as a case of the institutionalization of a public health policy movement. Harm reduction seeks to treat the medical and social consequences of drug use without requiring abstinence. The dissertation examines the process by which harm reduction has managed, in the words of one informant, to 'get out of the ghetto' and become increasingly integrated into New York's public health establishment. Harm reduction has undergone three stages of institutionalization. It began as an activist policy movement. …

Beauty Practices Among Latinas: The Impact Of Acculturation, Skin Color And Sex Roles, Angelica Flores

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study sought to explore if and how Latinas use of beauty products (cosmetics) was influenced by their degree of acculturation to U.S. American culture, their phenotype (skin color and facial features) and sex role orientation. While beauty practices are often regarded as trivial, they are important because they reflect women's internalization of societal values and speak to the importance placed on impression management. Although it can be easily observed that people go to great lengths to decorate their exteriors in order to manage others perceptions of them, very few studies look at variables that influence these behaviors. Also, while …

Pragmatics And Semantics In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Karece Lopez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined scalar implicature to investigate semantic bases of pragmatic language impairment in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Scalar implicatures are inferences made by listeners, whereby they strengthen the weaker meaning of a term that can be represented on a scale (Grice, 1975; Horn, 1992). Scalar terms include: some/all; or/and; numerals. These inferences depend on understanding a speaker's intent and having the cognitive skills necessary to process such information in real time. Informativeness is the value a listener places on having to derive an implicature and assumes that the listener perceives the speakers intentions. Cognitive effort includes the …

Deception As Forgery: The Role Of Reference Information In Honesty And Deceit, Timothy John Luke

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Using concepts derived from cybernetics, self-presentation theory, and research on human self-regulation, I develop a cybernetic perspective of deception and self-presentation. In this perspective, human communication, both honest and deceptive, is controlled by feedback mechanisms. I report two studies designed to test the basic prediction derived from the cybernetic framework that deceivers are able to better emulate truth-tellers when they have access to relevant reference information about the way truth-tellers behave. Each study manipulated liars' and truth-tellers' access to reference information in a different manner. In Study 1, some participants viewed video recordings of people being interviewed in a manner …

Essays On Exchange Rate Pass-Through, Michael Malenbaum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the degree to which the prices of imports to the United States respond to changes in bilateral exchange rates. The first chapter provides a review of the literature on exchange rate pass-through and outlines how research on the topic has changed over the past forty years. The next two chapters focus individually on specific questions that are important to the pass-through literature. These topics include the impact of imperfect competition and varying market shares on pass-through rates, as well as the decline in pass-through to import prices and the possible effects of China's increased role in trade …

Rethinking Internal Working Models From A Developmental Perspective: Clarifying The Concept And Making A Case For A Sensitive Period Of Attachment, Leah Bothe Manning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chapter 1 attempts to clarify the internal working model (IWM) by offering a revised and more precise definition of the concept. Chapter 2 discusses the existing IWM research and asserts what aims should be applied to future research to further clarify the IWM concept. Chapters 3 and 4 describe the current three studies that sought to test the validity of the proposed IWM definition by determining if: (1) attachment status during the first three years fluctuates as a function of changes in maternal sensitivity, (2) IWM status in middle childhood and adolescence remains stable independent of changes in maternal sensitivity, …

Optimal Targeting Regimes And Instrument Rules In The Basic New Keynesian Model, Luc Marest

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the first chapter, the objective is to measure the value of commitment in executing monetary policies in the context of the New Keynesian model and with value that is represented by the standard quadratic welfare function containing weighted output gap and inflation variances. It is found that there is a substantial potential for improvement of welfare under commitment, but this depends on some key parameters in the model. The range of parameter calibrations most often found in the literature, however, suggests the improvements will be large. We then consider specific monetary policies akin to Taylor rules. From the optimality …

Essays In The Economics Of Education And Health, Jesse Margolis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this work, I study several aspects of the economics of education and health. The first chapter focuses on education, analyzing the New York City Teacher Bonus Program. Recent reviews of the program have found lower student test scores at schools randomly chosen to receive performance pay than at control schools not eligible for bonuses. Several studies have suggested lower intrinsic motivation among teachers at treatment schools as a possible mechanism driving these surprising results. The program was abruptly ended after three years, allowing me to use post-trial data to study the program's persistent effect on intrinsic motivation absent any …

The Influence Of A Child's Learning Disability On A Parent's Psychological Experience: A Comparison Of Parents With And Without Learning Disabilities, Alice Varley Mangan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examined the psychological experience of parents whose children have been diagnosed with moderate to severe learning disabilities (LD) and compared the impact of a child's learning disability across two groups of parents: one with LD and one without LD. In-depth semi-structured interviews were administered to eleven parents of children with LD, four of whom had LD themselves, and seven of whom did not have LD. Three levels of qualitative data analysis were employed to code the interviews resulting in four theoretical constructs: (1) Diagnosis as a Threat to Parental Narcissism; (2) Parents Engage Containing and Stabilizing Strategies; (3) …

Maternal Dissociation, Emotional Acceptance And Child Emotion Regulation: A Study Of Residents In A Family Homeless Shelter For Victims Of Domestic Violence, Brian S. Mueller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study examined the relationships between maternal dissociation, mothers' self-described parenting behaviors in child emotion regulation, and the emotion regulatory capacity of their children. These relationships were investigated in a sample of predominately low-income African-American and Latino mothers and children residing in a domestic violence shelter. In this study, I investigated a mediational model relating maternal dissociation, mother's acceptance of child emotions, and child difficulties in emotion regulation and behavior. I predicted that mothers who reported more dissociative experiences would demonstrate less awareness and acceptance of emotions when they responded to children's sadness, fear, happiness, and anger. I also …

Surviving The Gauntlet: Adult Undergraduates In American Higher Education, David Bernard Monaghan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In modern American higher education, people ages twenty-five and older account for nearly forty percent of all undergraduates. Though neglected by scholars, these students and their experiences are both important in their own right and can help shed light on the broader world of non-elite postsecondary education. In this dissertation, I combine qualitative and quantitative methods to address central questions relating to college-going among adults. I draw on data from a nationally-representative longitudinal study (the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 cohort) and from in-depth interviews with thirty-six adult undergraduates in order to explore factors that lead students to drop …

Interpretation Of Overt Pronouns In L1 And L2 Japanese: The Role Of Context, Marisa A. Nagano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the interpretation of Japanese overt 3rd person pronouns by native (N=21) and advanced L1-English/L2-Japanese (N=20) speakers, using interpretation, reaction-time, and eye-tracking data. Previous studies have investigated L1 and L2 pronoun interpretation in null-subject languages like Spanish, Italian, and Greek, finding that L1 speakers tend to show a topic-shift effect for overt pronouns more often than L2ers (Sorace, 2011). Similar studies on Japanese, which allows null subjects but also differs greatly from these languages, have been mixed; crucially, several studies found no antecedent bias for overt pronouns by L1 speakers to begin with (Okuma, 2012; Ueno & Kehler, …

Music In Poetry And Poetry In Music: Tumanian's Anush, Beata Asmik Navratil

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The poem Anush by the Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanian (1869-1923) is rooted in traditional Armenian music. Tumanian's poem reflects a number of manifestations thereof: (1) It borrows in its style from Armenian lyrical songs (such as lalik and khagh), from the parerg style (the traditional dance-song), and from the voghb style (laments such as funeral laments, bayati, and tragic odes). (2) Ashug style of storytelling/singing as a main form of conveying the storyline and emotions of protagonists are present. (3) Dancing and music making during Armenian traditional rituals -- in particular, the Hambarsum celebration (Feast of Christ's Ascension), …

Investigating The Effects Of Intervention Intensity On Skill Acquisition And Task Persistence In Children With Down Syndrome, Nicole Marie Neil

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Maximizing outcomes for learners with Down syndrome requires an approach which is both effective and efficient. Modifying the intensity of intervention has the potential to affect the rate of skill acquisition as well as other learner behavior, such as task persistence, which alters the efficiency of intervention. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of varying intensity levels of a behavior-analytic on acquisition and task persistence for young children with Down syndrome. Three children with Down syndrome were taught expressive language targets using three manipulations of intervention intensity (dose): the number of opportunities, the spacing of opportunities, …

The Power Of Place: A Comparative Analysis Of Prison And Street Gangs, Jennifer M. Ortiz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

One misconception in gang research is the assumption that the terms prison gang and street gang are organizationally and ideologically synonymous. Although in the minority, some researchers suggest that prison gangs are qualitatively and quantitatively different from other gangs (Fleisher & Decker, 2001). Utilizing 30 in-depth semi-structured interviews, this study assesses the effect of environment on the emergence, organization, and ideologies of prison and street gangs. The findings identify key differences between the 'free' society where gangs emerge and the captive societies where prison gangs emerge. The primary difference was the level of formal and informal control exerted over individuals …

Roles Of Shifting Attention, Alternating Attention And Inhibition On Temporary Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution And Use Of Context In Younger And Older Adults, Youngmi Park

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Twenty-four younger adults (20-35 years, mean: 25.88) and thirty-four older adults (65-79 years, mean: 71.82) read sentences via a word-by-word self-paced reading paradigm. Study 1 examined how older and young adults resolve sentences containing Noun Phrase (NP) and Verb Phrase (VP)-attached Prepositional Phrases (PPs) yielding temporary syntactic ambiguity, and which cognitive factors (working memory capacity, inhibition, shifting attention, alternating attention, and cognitive processing speed) contribute to temporary syntactic ambiguity resolution.

Study 2 was designed to investigate how both age groups utilize contextual information while resolving PP-attachment, and which cognitive functions play a role in the use of referential context during …

The Role Of Posterior Parietal Cortex In Episodic Memory Retrieval: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Studies (Tdcs), Denise Pergolizzi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Neuroimaging studies of recognition memory have shown that greater activity in the lateral posterior parietal cortex (PPC) correlates with successful recognition in a variety of paradigms, but experimental techniques that manipulate brain activity are necessary to determine the specific contribution of the PPC in episodic memory retrieval. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive technique that can be used to manipulate cortical excitability. The collection of experiments that comprise this dissertation use tDCS to determine: 1) whether or not the lateral PPC is causally involved in episodic retrieval, and 2) whether the lateral PPC has a direct role in …

Singing Motherhood: First Time Mothers' Experiences Singing To Their Infants, Margaret Mia Pixley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mothers have sung to their children for centuries. Because singing provides an opportunity for self-expression and connection with others, understanding how first time mothers experience this age old practice might help us understand how singing facilitates a woman's developing relationship with herself as a mother and with her new infant. To date, little research exists on this particular function and experience of first time maternal singing. In this qualitative phenomenological study, 16 first time mothers with infants one year and under were interviewed about their experiences singing to their babies and were also asked to write a one-time diary entry …

Is Cue-Based Memory Retrieval 'Good-Enough'?: Agreement, Comprehension, And Implicit Prosody In Native And Bilingual Speakers Of English, Elizabeth Pratt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on structural and prosodic effects during reading, examining their influence on agreement processing and comprehension in native English (L1) and Spanish-English bilingual (L2) speakers. I consolidate research from three distinct areas of inquiry'cognitive processing models, development of reading fluency, and L1/L2 processing strategies'and outline a cohesive and comprehensive processing model that can be applied to speakers regardless of language profile. This model is characterized by three critical components: a cognitive model of memory retrieval, a processing paradigm that outlines how resources may be deployed online, and the role of factors such as prosody in parsing decisions.

The …