Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Interplay Of Social Constraints And Individual Variation In Risk Tolerance In The Emergence Of Superspreaders, Earl Carr, Matthew J. Young, Matthew J. Silk, Alexander J. Pritchard, Nina F. Fefferman

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Individual host behaviours can drastically impact the spread of infection through a population. Differences in the value individuals place on both socializing with others and avoiding infection have been shown to yield emergent homophily in social networks and thereby shape epidemic outcomes. We build on this understanding to explore how individuals who do not conform to their social surroundings contribute to the propagation of infection during outbreaks. We show how non-conforming individuals, even if they do not directly expose a disproportionate number of other individuals themselves, can become functional superspreaders through an emergent social structure that positions them as the …

Enhancing Access And Inclusion: The Retrofitting Of Olympic Facilities For The Paralympic Games, Lawrence W. Judge, Jeffrey Petersen, Adam Smith, Kyra Livergood

Journal of Applied Sport Management

This critical review examines the strategies and challenges in adapting Olympic facilities for Paralympic use. A synthesis of recent literature evaluates successful retrofitting initiatives, elucidates ongoing challenges, and assesses the repercussions of global events on the dynamic process of facility conversion. The resulting analysis culminates in evidence-based recommendations for future investigations and the operational enhancement of Paralympic venues. These findings suggest that adopting a collaborative approach, anchored in universal design principles and preemptive planning, is imperative to developing accessible, efficient, and ecologically responsible Paralympic infrastructures.

Focus On Followers: An Analysis Of Factors Impacting Division I Athletes’ Name, Image, And Likeness Value, Sarah Stokowski, Chris Corr, Andrew Rudd, Imani Lewis, Adria Powell, Abigail Stuart, Sydney Bellamy, Jaylen Rivers, Michael Godfrey

Journal of Applied Sport Management

Opportunities to engage in name, image, and likeness (NIL) partnerships have pervaded college athletics on numerous fronts. To contextualize the most important factors contributing to a college athletes’ NIL value, the present study analyzed High-Major basketball players NIL valuations during the 2023-2024 season. In total, data representing 69% of High-Major men’s basketball players (n = 572) and 52% of High-Major women’s basketball players (n = 429) was collected. Attempting to statistically control for factors such as institutional prestige, media exposure, and athletic performance, results indicate that an athlete’s social media following – specifically their Instagram following – is …

Managing Coach-Athlete Dynamics: Immediacy And Meta-Perception In Intercollegiate Sports, Erica Pasquini, Lindsey Blom, James Johnson, Adam Smith, Lawrence W. Judge

Journal of Applied Sport Management

This study investigates the correlation between intercollegiate athletes' meta-perception accuracy and their assessment of coaches' immediacy behaviors, and actions that foster closeness. Utilizing the Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire, 54 athletes evaluated their coaches' immediacy. Findings indicate that lower meta-accuracy aligns with perceived lower immediacy, highlighting the role of perceived relational closeness in athlete self-awareness. Gender dynamics, in terms of coach-athlete dyads, exhibited no effect on meta-perception accuracy. The findings of the study lend credence to sport managers including immediacy behaviors in coach training to enhance athletes' meta-accuracy perception, while also contributing to the literature on meta-perception in sports and coach-athlete gender …

Introjection, Mentalization, Ego Functioning, And Lacan’S “Name Of The Father”, Chloe T. Cohen

Doctoral Dissertations

Psychoanalytic literature has traditionally focused on the theoretical explanations of psychological phenomena rather than empirical research to support those ideas. One such theory is Lacan’s “Name of the Father” (NOF), which recast Freud’s Oedipal situation, positing its representation in language use and situating it even earlier in psychological development. Lacan suggested that the NOF construct (establishing psychological structure and preventing psychosis) was best represented by metaphor use and linguistic structure. The current study attempted to measure the NOF construct (1955) through linguistic structure and metaphor use. We examined the relationship between an indirect measure of NOF functioning and overall personality …

Affirmative Reproductive & Gynecological Healthcare For Transgender And Nonbinary Individuals, Deja Imani Fitzgerald

Masters Theses

Health disparities in gynecological and reproductive healthcare persist as a critical concern for the transgender and nonbinary (TNB) community. There is a significant dearth of education and training for healthcare providers regarding TNB gynecological and reproductive healthcare needs, which negatively impacts quality of healthcare and patient experiences. Thus, gynecological and reproductive healthcare is often experienced as inaccessible, poorly informed, and stigmatizing for TNB communities. This qualitative study aimed to identify and share self-reported TNB-affirming interpersonal and environmental factors within gynecological and reproductive healthcare settings as informed by the transmasculine community. Data were collected through online qualitative surveys, and thematic analysis …

Family Ghosts: Kinship, Identity, And Memory In The American South, Rachel H. Griffin

Masters Theses

This project examines the relationship between cultural memory of ancestral racial violence among White American Southerners and cultural conceptualizations of kinship, particularly through the impact of various kinship frameworks on notions of inheritance and cultural and familial identity. My population of interest consists largely of “old stock” residents of rural and small-town agricultural communities, those whose families have remained in the same area for generations, frequently going back to settlement. My ethnographic inquiry takes place between the small towns and unincorporated communities of Haywood and Lauderdale counties in West Tennessee. Tensions between the uncertainties of the past, present, and future, …

A Multi-Metric Approach To Fay-Herriot Small Area Estimation Of Forests, Zachary Dorminey

Masters Theses

Forest managers are tasked with decisions regarding silvicultural practices that require detailed information about the environments they serve. Managing complex structures like forests demands consideration of many interrelated variables characterizing the overall condition of a forest. Success in these management initiatives includes not only maximum production from the timber assets, but also proof that these operations accord with modern sustainable practices. Small area estimates obtained from a National Forest Inventory (NFI) dataset lack necessary statistical certainty due to a relatively small sample of forest plots. These inventory datasets are spatially sparse, yet attribute-rich. Given these properties, research efforts in this …

Alchemy Of The Wounded Healer & Becoming "Good Company For The Journey": Integration Of Counselors’ Grief Experiences Within Professional Identity Development, Sarah E. Anderson

Doctoral Dissertations

Counselor professional identity development (PID) involves integrating the counselor's personal attributes with the roles and standards of the counseling profession, a primary goal of counselor training and supervision. Despite extensive research on PID, understanding how grief impacts this process and how one integrates loss within their professional identities remains underexplored. To address this, I conducted a 20-year scoping review to map the literature on counselors' grief experiences and their effects on PID within mental health professionals. Using the PRISMA-ScR protocol, I reviewed twenty empirical studies, revealing themes on the impacts of loss and grief on personal and professional identity. In …

Device-Based Measures Of Maternal Physical Activity, Pregnancy Nocturnal Glucose, Postpartum Sleep, And Infant Adiposity, Bethany R. Hallenbeck

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents physical activity, sedentary behavior, and bedrest (sleep estimation) data from ActiGraph devices worn during pregnancy and postpartum. Analyses of these data consider how these behaviors may relate to each other and health outcomes in the mother and child. The research aims to bridge the gap in understanding the intricate relationship between physical activity health behaviors and maternal and infant health metrics during the critical phases of pregnancy and postpartum. For this work, we employed repeated measures mixed modelling and integrated device-based, research-grade, ActiGraph data with clinical measures and survey responses to elucidate the multifaceted dynamics influencing a …

Presentations Of Value: Evaluative Outlooks And Practical Reason, Michael Ebling

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue for an evaluative outlook account of human practical reason by developing a viable representational psychology that vindicates the following key claims. First, some mental states are evaluative representations with ineliminably evaluative representational content. Second, any successful explanation of a rational action must appeal to evaluative representations. Third, many evaluative representations are products of subrational processes and capacities. Fourth, in humans evaluative representations function to be elements in an overall evaluative understanding. And fifth, evaluative representations by nature have motivational efficacy. In addition to these five foundational claims, I add two more speculative points. Some evaluative …

“Permission To Be Human”: A Narrative Inquiry Exploring New Counselors’ Growth In Emotional Awareness And Attunement To Self, Betsy Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations

The ability to self-attune, recognize emotional responses, and make meaning of these experiences within their own historied contexts is the foundation of the interpersonal work of counselors. Focused attention on affective development within a counseling program is essential to prepare future counselors for the task of helping individuals develop greater emotional awareness. Manuscript one includes a scoping review that seeks to map out current terminology used within counselor education related to affective development and explore how it is intentionally addressed in the counselor education literature. Current exploration of affective development within counselor education are discussed in seven emergent themes: Stress …

“If They Look At Me And Land At He/Him, It's The Consolation Prize”: Transmasculine Nonbinary Individuals’ Conceptualization Of Passing, Lex Pulice-Farrow

Doctoral Dissertations

The present study sought to understand how transmasculine nonbinary individuals conceptualize and understand passing for themselves and for other transmasculine nonbinary individuals. Much of the literature on this topic focuses on binary identified trans women or men, while the ways that nonbinary individuals conceptualize passing remains largely unexplored. Utilizing a critical-constructivist grounded theory framework, 20 transmasculine nonbinary individuals participated in semi-structured interviews that centered on how this population understood passing for themselves and for other transmasculine nonbinary people. Using minority stress and intersectional theories as frameworks, the following core category was identified: for transmasculine nonbinary individuals, passing includes a cognitive …

Intersections Of Culture And Romantic Relationships: A Thematic Analysis Of College Students' Inter-Identity Romantic Relationships, Rachel Miriam Maskin

Doctoral Dissertations

Emerging adulthood is a critical period for identity development. Emerging adults who date outside of their social identity groups (e.g., race, class, sexual orientation) must negotiate issues related to identity difference in their relationships while exploring and refining their own identities. The current study explored the messages emerging adults receive about their own identities and the ways in which they navigate identity-related issues within inter-identity relationships. Undergraduate inter-identity couples (N = 25 couples; N = 50 participants) participated in a semi-structured interview regarding their individual and dyadic experiences of identity. Thematic analysis yielded four themes related to messages individuals …

Three Essays In Population Economics, Lucas Nogueira Garcez

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the economic drivers and consequences of population dynamics through three distinct analyses. Chapter One examines the effects of trade-shock-induced migration and return migration on local crime rates and labor market outcomes. Utilizing the 1990s Brazilian trade reform as an exogenous shock, we analyze Brazilian census data to investigate how migrants from regions affected by trade shocks influence labor markets, particularly when they lack social networks, family support, or prior knowledge of the local economy. Chapter Two assesses the impact of increased access to education on teenage fertility. We leverage the 2012 Mexican education reform, which made high …

A Village: Examining The Associations Between Social Support, Aggravation In Parenting, Child Behavioral Problems, And The Mother-Child Relationship., Natalie Christine Blocher

Doctoral Dissertations

The following study examines the relationships between maternal social support (measured individually by instrumental, policy, and emotional), aggravation in parenting, child behavioral problems (CBPs), and the mother-child relationship during middle childhood (ages 6 to 12) and adolescence (13-18). The purpose of the study was to create nuance in the social support literature of the unique role of different types of maternal social support. The study collected data from a subsample of mothers and their children from Wave 5 (2007-2010) and Wave 6 (2014-2017) from the Future Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCW), when the child participants were 9 and 15-years-old, …

A Holistic Approach To Ecosystem Decline In Mosquito Lagoon, Florida, Stephanie A. Insalaco

Doctoral Dissertations

Examining the decline of an ecosystem should be done through a holistic and interdisciplinary lens to fully understand all factors which might contribute to this ecosystem imbalance. This dissertation focuses on the declining ecosystem of Mosquito Lagoon, Florida which started to see a significant decrease in health since the early 2010s due to a variety of factors. The dissertation is separated into three papers: quantifying the total decline of seagrass in Mosquito Lagoon from 2000 to 2020, the effects of this seagrass and overall ecosystem decline on stakeholders’ livelihoods, and the regrowth of seagrass in 2023 after the events of …

Using Contemplative Pedagogy To Encourage Professional Counselor Identity Development: A Multiple Case Study, Tony Burch

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this study was to examine how contemplative practices might inform the development of professional counselor identity in student-counselors. Critical to both of these topics is the development of self-awareness. Contemplative practices are a well-documented and common means to improve wellness and promote self-awareness across history and cultures. Those who engage in contemplative practices place intentional focus on mindful attention, awareness, and presence, contemplative practices and experience a wealth of positive outcomes. Professional counselor identity is a central component of ethical and effective counseling practice according to the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the Council for Accreditation of …

From Non-Reaching To Reaching: A Micro-Analysis Of Group Differences In Movement Behavior Around Reach Onset., John Paul Connell

Doctoral Dissertations

The onset of reaching during infancy, a critical milestone influenced by developmental experiences, is the focal point of this research study. The individual differences in these experiences may significantly impact when infants achieve this milestone. Traditionally, the study of reaching onset has focused on the interplay between the visual and motor systems, with researchers often overlooking the motor system. However, a detailed analysis of motor behaviors is warranted, given the extensive research on the visual-motor system. This study, therefore, not only fills a gap in the existing research but also makes a significant contribution to the developmental psychology field and …

Understanding The Perspectives And Experiences Of A Teacher Utilizing Trauma-Informed Strategies - A Qualitative Case Study, Matthew Scott Riddle

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative case study focuses on a high school teacher’s perspectives and experiences as she teaches students using trauma-informed strategies. The research questions focused on how the teacher conceptualizes building relationships through the use of trauma-informed strategies and what supports and/or challenges she receives from outside sources in teaching using those strategies. Data collected included a screening questionnaire for participant selection, semi-structured interviews, and field notes collected during classroom and whole day observations. The analysis focused on using data gathered from data collection along with literature to develop themes that answered the research questions posed.

Key findings identified several trauma-informed …

The Effects Of A Novel Adaptive Method With Task Variations Of Different Inherent Task Difficulty, Andrew J. Strick

Doctoral Dissertations

Practice schedule optimization is an important topic for practitioners and researchers alike. One way to optimize a practice schedule and promote motor skill learning is to adapt practice conditions to the learner. This is important as creating customized practice conditions based on the learner could provide a new way to improve skill acquisition. The literature review starts with a history of adaptive practice followed by definitions and terms relevant to this topic. Then, our current understanding of adaptive practice is overviewed by first explaining the characteristics of different methods and models, and second, introducing the practice conditions adaptively modified in …

"Protecting Children: A Study Of 'Drag Bans' And Gun Laws", William Robert Medlin

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Environmental Impact Of Rock Climbers At Woodcock Cove, Tennessee, Gavin Woodard

Masters Theses

Rock climbing, among many outdoor recreational activities or sports, is seeing rapid growth in participation (Statista, 2022). The rise in participation has led to new environmental impacts which have yet to be fully researched, although evidence of these issues has been presented by numerous land managers of climbing areas and is one of their main focus (Access Fund, 2019). Understanding the relationship between the number of users of a climbing area and the level of impact the environment endures would be greatly beneficial to land managers. Although there has been minimal data collected on the number of users at climbing …

Dyad And Group Alignment In Pure Coordination Games, Kennedy D. Evins

Masters Theses

Game theory research has utilized pure coordination games to examine response matching as the most basic form of coordination between participants, even when the participants are not able to communicate with one another. Studies with pure coordination games have found that people are able to coordinate above-chance, and findings suggest that there are interesting coordination differences between groups that may be influenced by the social cognition of participants. The present study explored how strangers respond in pure coordination games at dyad and group-levels and how social cognition may be impacted by synchronous and asynchronous conditions. Data from 392 students at …

Contention Within The Family: Environmental Justice And Religion In Indonesia, Husnul Khitam

Masters Theses

The religious dimensions concerning environmental justice have been neglected in scholarly conversation despite the fact that religious organizations were initially part of environmental justice activism and movements. To fill this gap, scholars have begun to scrutinize the role of religious institutions in relation to various environmental harms that disproportionately affect marginalized people and people of color. Pellow and Guo (2017) have identified three main ways in which religion shapes environmental justice. First, religion is used to legitimize environmental injustices. Second, religion can be used as a means of resisting environmental injustices. Third, environmental injustices can negatively impact religious or spiritual …

Emotion, Transformative Learning, And United States Air Force Leader Development, Nicholas Alexander Cary

Doctoral Dissertations

Leader development in the Air Force comprises a complex blend of deliberate education, training, and experience shaped by organizational culture and core values. Emotion, a frequently overlooked aspect of these elements and leader development, is often viewed as detracting from logical decision-making and sound leadership. However, emotion touches on every aspect of our lives, from how we experience life, what we learn, our passions and commitment, why we serve, and much more, but it remains underrepresented in leader development literature, particularly in the military context. Bridging the gap from emotion to leader development is experience, which fuels learning and can …

Black Men’S Experiences Of Coercive Controlling Tactics, Meagan Alexandria Stewart

Doctoral Dissertations

Black men’s experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization, particularly coercive control and coercive violence, are largely absent from the literature. Guided by intersectionality and hegemonic masculinity, this study examined Black men’s experiences of non-physical IPV victimization, focusing on the ways patriarchal systems and White supremacy influenced the type of coercive controlling tactics utilized against the participants. Intersectional multilevel analysis guided the examination of how interlocking oppressive systems at multiple levels impacted the Black men’s experiences of non-physical IPV victimization. Findings from this study demonstrate the complexity of Black men’s IPV victimization, including physical violence and emotional and psychological abuse …

Human Decomposition Evaluation: A Standardized Approach For Staging And Scoring Morphological Features Using Artificial Intelligence, Phillip D. Ditto

Masters Theses

Anthropological estimates of the post-mortem interval (PMI) or the time since an individual died depend on understanding the morphological features of the body present at the time of examination. Such changes may include skin color, bloating, or mummification that are assumed to occur sequentially from the time of death until skeletonization, broadly indicating how long a person may have been deceased. However, there are no standards or even agreed-upon stages in which these morphological changes are observed, given the number of factors influencing human decomposition over time. This lack of standards makes the observer's reliability of morphological decomposition traits and …

Moral Education Through Mass Art: Implementing Vanderpump Rules In The Modern Ethics Classroom, Madison A. Cosby

Masters Theses

In a world dominated by screens, professors more than ever need to diversify their pedagogical methods to compete for the tech-dependent students’ attention. In Section One, I argue the traditional method for teaching ethics does not cater to the modern student, thus to cultivate a more compassionate and ethical society, we should rethink how we conduct our ethics classes.

Traditional ethics classes rely too much on bizarre thought experiments, convoluted and abstract texts, and unstimulating lectures making them less effective at achieving their true purpose, i.e. cultivating what Martha Nussbaum (2010) calls the democratic citizen. I argue that Nussbaum’s narrative …

Risk Preferences Impact On Cattle Producers’ Use Of Price Risk Management, Sourav Barua

Masters Theses

The first chapter of the thesis delves into the adoption of price risk management tolls among beef cattle producers in the United States (US), namely options contracts, futures contracts, and livestock risk protection (LRP). However, use of price risk management tools among beef cattle producers has historically been limited despite price risk being one of the primary sources of risk to the United States (US) cattle industry. The purpose of this research is to determine factors associated with the use of options contracts, futures contracts, and LRP insurance. We conducted a survey of US cattle producers and estimated a multivariate …