Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Reasoning With Pseudowords: How Properties Of Novel Verbal Stimuli Influence Item Difficulty And Linguistic-Group Score Differences On Cognitive Ability Assessments, Paul Agnello

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pseudowords (words that are not real but resemble real words in a language) have been used increasingly as a technique to reduce contamination due to construct-irrelevant variance in assessments of verbal fluid reasoning (Gf). However, despite pseudowords being researched heavily in other psychology sub-disciplines, they have received little attention in cognitive ability testing contexts. Thus, there has been an assumption that all pseudowords work equally and work equally well for all test-takers. The current research examined three objectives with the first being whether changes to the pseudoword properties of length and wordlikeness (how much a pseudoword resembles a typical or …

The Relationship Among Reflective Functioning, History Of Childhood Trauma, And Symptoms Of Depersonalization And Derealization In Patients With Panic Disorder, Sarah J. Kay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This exploratory study examined the relationship among reflective functioning (RF), history of childhood trauma, and symptoms of depersonalization and derealization in an attempt to provide a more nuanced clinical picture of panic disorder.

All analyses were conducted using baseline data collected as part of the “Dynamic therapy vs. CBT for Panic Disorder” study at Weill Cornell Medical College and the University of Pennsylvania. The study participants were 201 patients with a primary DSM-IV diagnosis of panic disorder with or without agoraphobia who completed the parent study.

While there was a significant relationship found between trauma and panic severity at one …

Conditions Of Personhood And Property, Zachary James Acree

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper seeks to demonstrate that a more robust understanding of personhood both reveals flaws in the underlying assumptions of modern property law, and orients that law to a more just application. To do this, the law needs not only a better definition of what persons are, but also a better understanding of how persons function in their society. First, in order to provide some context to the issues at stake, there is a brief historical introduction to some of the problems that personhood inquiries have faced. After the introduction, this paper is divided into four sections. Part I summarizes …

The Shari'a Courts Of Mogadishu: Beyond "African Islam" And "Islamic Law", Ahmed Ibrahim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation, based on a year and eight months of fieldwork, is a historical ethnography of a Shari‘a-based movement which appeared in Mogadishu, Somalia within a year after the complete disintegration of the central government in 1991. The movement originated when religious authorities and “traditional” elders established centers in various neighborhoods in Mogadishu to deal with the vacuum of power after the fall of the state. Since Shari‘a structures of authority and discourse were integral to the formation and functioning of the centers, they became known as Shari‘a courts. My work on the Shari‘a courts intervenes in the literature on …

Contemporary Archaeological Looting: A Criminological Analysis Of Italian Tomb Robbers, Marc Balcells Magrans

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Looters (in Italian, tombaroli), whether underground or underwater, have preyed on the Italian archaeology for centuries. The literature on both archaeological looting and, more specifically, the Italian case, has been widely developed by other disciplines, mostly archaeology. In spite of this body of literature, the number of studies discussing issues related to tombaroli is minimal, and the criminological contribution is nonexistent. After examining important gaps in the literature, this study explains the nature of the relationship between tombaroli and organized crime and how organized criminals learn and adapt during their careers. These topics have been both misrepresented and sporadically …

Essays On The Economics Of Driving And Health, Jessica Lynn Peck

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation comprises three essays on the economics of driving and health. The first examines the effect of the ride-hailing service Uber, its launch in New York City in May 2011, and the resulting drunk-driving outcomes in the counties that received service compared with those that did not. The difference-in-differences estimation of this effect implies a 25 to 35 percent decrease in the alcohol-related collision rate for the affected New York City boroughs, or about 40 collisions per month. With differentiated treatment effects for each affected county, the difference-in-differences effect is higher for Manhattan, middling for the Bronx and Brooklyn, …

Female Autistic Perspectives: Limits In Diagnosis And Understanding, Alexandra Helmers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder has increased dramatically within the last two decades, with males being diagnosed, on average, four to five times more than females. Although researchers in the medical community have searched for a biological explanation for this discrepancy, no definitive cause has been found. I argue that our understanding of autism is primarily a social and cultural construction, in addition to a diagnosable medical disorder. The gender disparity in diagnosis reflects cultural narratives surrounding social interaction and the widespread belief in two distinct gender roles. Furthermore, narratives surrounding the topic of autism tend to unintentionally highlight …

Economics, Politics And The Environment, Ron Mandelbaum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Classical economists were interested in macroeconomic issues, i.e. how the economy worked as a whole and how it grew over time. This is opposed to neo-classical economists, which focus on decision-making processes of individuals and individual firms. This thesis sets out to examine how that change occurred and what it means for the way that economics studies the environment. In order to provide a partial answer to this question, this paper describes the different outlooks between classical and neo-classical economists regarding value. It also examines and contrasts the economic approaches of Marx and Mill, whose way of thinking about social …

The Bronx Was Brewing: A Digital Resource Of A Lost Industry, Michelle Zimmer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Bronx: a bucolic oasis laden with history, a suburb within city-limits, an urban warzone, and thanks to the recent renaissance, a phoenix of progress rising from the proverbial ashes of the fires that burned through the borough in the 1970’s. But many people are unaware that the Bronx also brewed.
Uncovering the brewing industry of the Bronx tells not only the story of the lost industry, but it also communicates the narrative of the development of the Bronx. The brewers were German immigrants who developed a thriving industry by introducing lager beer to the United States by taking advantage …

Impact Of Neurodevelopmental Genes On The Trajectory Of Adhd Severity: A Pilot Study, Agnieszka Mlodnicka

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a chronic neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity, and is associated with delays in neural development. To assess the association of genes involved in neurodevelopment with symptoms and trajectory of ADHD, saliva was collected and genotyped from 145 participants from a longitudinal study of preschoolers who were followed annually for 7 years. We examined four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes associated with neurodevelopment: neuregulin-1 (NRG-1; SNP rs3924999), neurotropin-3 (NT-3; SNP rs6489630), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF; rs6265), and regulator of G protein signaling 4 (RGS4; rs951439). Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that neuregulin-1 and …

Libraries And The Missing Narrative: Practitioner Explorations In The Use Of Design Psychology And Environmental Autobiography For Library Buildings And Designs, Amy Beth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Environmental Autobiography as a research method of Environmental Psychology and Design Psychology informs this study of the meaning and experiences of libraries described by six library-building design practitioners. Participants were guided through an adaptation of Toby Israel’s (2010) Design Psychology Toolbox (hereafter known as the DPT or the “Toolbox”) exercises. The research is intended to expand the practice of designing libraries as places and spaces where social and emotional affordance is supported. Emphasizing the significance of libraries as place and space where people often have rich and even transformative experiences serves to augment use-efficiency and evidence-based space planning. Primary goals …

Social Influences On Songbird Behavior: From Song Learning To Motion Coordination, Iva Ljubičić

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Social animals learn during development how to integrate successfully into their group. How do social interactions combine to maintain group cohesion? We first review how social environments can influence the development of vocal learners, such as songbirds and humans (Chapter 1). To bypass the complexity of natural social interactions and gain experimental control, we developed Virtual Social Environments, surrounding the bird with videos of manipulated playbacks. This way we were able to design sensory and social scenarios and test how social zebra finches adjust their behavior (Chapters 2 & 3). A serious challenge is that the color output of a …

The Production Of Space: Indigenous Resistance Movements In The Peruvian Amazon, Christian Calienes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The resistance movement that resulted in the Baguazo in the northern Peruvian Amazon in 2009 was the culmination of a series of social, economic, political and spatial processes that reflected the Peruvian nation’s engagement with global capitalism and democratic consolidation after decades of crippling instability and chaos. The recently discovered oil and natural gas reserves that occupy the subsoil of much the Peruvian Amazon provide the latest natural resource upon which the national project can continue to be implemented. In a context of neo-imperialism and neo-extractivism where through accumulation by dispossession, new markets are introduced into global capitalist structures after …

Essays On Economics Of Inequality, Aboozar Hadavand

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters all around the subject of inequality. The first chapter provides a novel analysis of the trend in income inequality in the United States between 1979--2013. There are two ways in which this chapter contributes to the literature. First, I analyze how much of the existing inequality in the U.S. is due to the demographic changes that happened over this period. Using microdata from Luxembourg Income Study and after decomposing inequality into within- and between-age group components, I find that the within-group share of overall inequality in the U.S. is high and steady compared to …

A Discussion Of Delimitative In Mandarin Chinese, Qi Zhang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis investigates how delimitative marking in Mandarin Chinese is better considered as an instance of verb-phrase modification instead of aspect marking. The study investigates data with verb reduplication cases caused by delimitative marking from both syntactic and semantic points of view. Through observations and analyses, it is found that delimitative marking does not have the same distribution as other aspect markers, but rather shows resemblance to temporal modifiers syntactically. Semantically, instead of providing a viewpoint as other aspect markers do, delimitative indicates the temporal length (shortness) of the event. In addition, it is found that delimitative marking has strict …

The Effects Of Childhood Irritability On Adolescent Outcomes And Treatment Response In Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Estrella Heber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Childhood irritability has received considerable attention in recent research due in part to the highly impairing consequences of severe irritability and its association with poor long-term outcomes (Leibenluft, Cohen, Gorrindo, Brook, & Pine, 2006; Stringaris, Cohen, Pine, & Leibenluft, 2009; Stringaris & Goodman, 2009a). While the frequency and severity of irritability typically declines with age, there are individuals who continue to display irritability at stable or increasing levels (Wiggins, Mitchell, Stringaris, & Leibenluft, 2014). Regardless of whether it persists or remits, the effects of childhood irritability resonate for many years and it remains a potent predictor of poor outcomes across …

The Transgenerational Transmission Of Emotion Regulation: The Effect Of Maternal Coping On Child Executive Functioning, Devon J. Harrison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a recognized link between maternal trauma history and adverse child outcomes, however the mechanisms underlying this intergenerational relationship are less clearly understood. Maternal emotion regulation, as measured by coping style, may help explain this cross-generational transmission, implicating the role of a mother’s coping in her child’s capacity to plan, attend, and self-inhibit. Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine the association between maternal coping style and child executive functioning (EF) in a sample of 188 urban mothers and their pre-adolescent and adolescent children. Data was analyzed from a larger cross-sectional and cross-generational study of maternal difficulties …

Mental Illness Stigma And Community Integration: Linking Perceived Experiences With Reported Behavior, Lauren L. Gonzales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines the relationship between individual and neighborhood characteristics, stigmatizing experiences, and measures of community integration among individuals with mental illness. Surveys were administered to two samples: 608 community member participants and 343 participants with mental health diagnoses. Participants in both samples were recruited from 3 community sites in the New York City metropolitan area: East/Central Harlem in Manhattan, Crown Heights/East Flatbush in Brooklyn, and Yonkers and Mt. Vernon in Southern Westchester. Negative symptoms and perceived level of community microaggressions were strong predictors of community integration for participants with mental illness. Prior contact with mental illness predicted less stigmatizing …

Making A Case For Social Innovation As A Structural Counterpart To Public Participation In Regional Planning, Manju A. Adikesavan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Multi-locational living – working, shopping, playing, learning and commuting across administrative and, sometimes even political boundaries is an essential aspect of metropolitan living. Although it is anticipated that everyday experiences of the physical, social and economic inter-connectedness between urban communities and peri-urban hinterlands would automatically engender a regional outlook in planning and governance, it is currently not the case. In the New York City region, a lived regional experience does not translate into support for a regional governance structure.

While strong legislative support has ensured the public its rightful place within metropolitan regional planning, it has regrettably bred a procedural …

Examining The Concurrent And Predictive Relations Of Working Memory In Childhood Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Ashley N. Simone

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by developmentally inappropriate levels of inattention and/or hyperactivity/impulsivity which lead to impairment in multiple settings (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Childhood ADHD has been concurrently associated with various neurocognitive deficits and one in particular that has been under examination over the past several years is working memory (WM). WM is a temporary storage system that is responsible for maintenance and/or manipulation of information in order to complete complex cognitive and behavioral tasks. Researchers have postulated that WM is one of several potential endophenotypes of ADHD (Castellanos & Tannock, 2002) and/or that WM is …

From Protest Song To Social Song: Music And Politics In Colombia, 1966-2016, Joshua Katz-Rosene

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Based on archival and ethnographic fieldwork in the cities of Bogotá and Medellín, this dissertation documents the development of canción protesta (protest song) in Colombia in the 1960s, and tracks its evolution in subsequent decades. At the turn of the 1970s, songwriters affiliated with a grassroots canción protesta movement in Bogotá used music as a vehicle for disseminating leftist political ideology and extolling the revolutionary guerrilla groups that had formed in the Colombian countryside in the preceding years. However, canción protesta was an urban phenomenon that emerged in tandem with other countercultural currents, and their confluence in the late 1960s …

Women’S Sexual Fantasies In Context: The Emotional Content Of Sexual Fantasies, Psychological And Interpersonal Distress, And Satisfaction In Romantic Relationships, Sarah Constantine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Psychoanalytic thinkers propose that aspects of an individual’s sexual fantasies are related to her psychological and interpersonal functioning. The present study aims to elucidate the significance of sexual fantasies with respect to women’s emotional and interpersonal lives. The study evaluated a model, which hypothesized that internal representations of self and others (e.g. attachment security, maturity of object relations) along with psychological and interpersonal factors would predict both the emotional content (guilt, fear, affection) of written sexual fantasy narratives, and overall romantic satisfaction in heterosexual women. Methods: Five hundred and thirty four women completed self-report questionnaires online. Subsequently, the sexual …

Motivating Morphological Constituents: A Learning-Based Analysis Of Hebrew, Navajo, And Spanish, Ignacio Lorenzo Montoya

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In both description and theory, a variety of linguistic structures have been posited to account for a multitude of linguistic patterns. In the sub-field of morphology, such units include roots, stems, and morphemes. Previous research that has explored the motivation for linguistic structures and constructs in phonology and syntax has raised questions about the nature of these linguistic structures and constructs. Such work, however, has not focused on morphological constituent structure, a gap which the present dissertation addresses through a focused examination of the evidence motivating morphological constituents in Hebrew, Navajo, and Spanish.

The theoretical framework of this dissertation follows …

Essays On Inequality And Macroeconomic Stability, Thomas Hauner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters. . .

Chapter 1: Aggregate Wealth and Its Distribution as Determinants of Financial Crises: Panel Evidence This essay investigates the relationship between wealth inequality and financial crises across a panel of nine advanced economies over the past 100 years. While substantiation of a role for income inequality is ambiguous in the literature, evidence is presented suggesting a unique capacity for the accumulation of assets to increase the likelihood of a future financial crisis episode. Testing long-run panel data with a reduced form, two-way fixed effects model, estimates suggest that increasing wealth inequality, in an …

Hatred Simmering In The Melting Pot: Hate Crime In New York City, 1995-2010, Colleen E. Mills

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hate crime proves prevalent in American society, inflicting a variety of harms on victims as well as society at large. Scholars have long sought to understand the motivations and conditions behind hate crime offending. Green and his colleagues conducted the classic neighborhood studies examining the conditions that foster hate crime (Green, Glaser, & Rich, 1998; Green, Strolovich, & Wong, 1998; Green, Strolovitch, Wong, & Bailey). Using data from the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, the current study replicates and extends Green's neighborhood studies by investigating hate crime in New York City from 1995 to 2010. This study …

Essays On The Impact Of Exchange Rate Movements On Stock Return And Country Output, Junnan Zhao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Exchange rate movements are widely believed to be a major source of uncertainty at both micro- and macro-economic levels. At the microeconomic level, corporate managers controlling risk and investors seeking to hedge their portfolios are both obviously interested in estimates of a firm’s exchange rate exposure ̶ i.e., how much of the value of a firm will be affected by exchange rate movements. At the macroeconomic level, a currency appreciation may have a contractionary effect on a country's output.

Chapter 1 tests whether the launch of the euro around 1999 significantly reduced stock market volatility and exchange rate risk exposure …

Patriarchy And Varieties Of Violence Against Women: A Contextual Analysis, Margaret Schmuhl

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Violence against women (VAW) is a widespread social problem affecting nearly two million women in the United States each year (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). In recent years, feminist criminologists have called for the ‘resurrection’ of patriarchy as a theoretical explanation of VAW women (Hunnicutt, 2009) suggesting that the prior literature’s focus on gender inequality in social institutions must be broadened to include patriarchy’s ideological element. The empirical literature on VAW mostly examines the effects of gender inequality on rape and femicide often neglecting more common forms of violence that women experience. In addition, while there are some exceptions, this literature …

The Relationships Among Different Traits Of Masculinity And Intimate Partner Violence, Jennifer E. Loveland

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research has shown that distinct yet overlapping concepts of dominance, hostility towards women, and sexism—all indices of masculinity—influence the occurrence of intimate partner violence (IPV), although the mechanisms are unclear. This paper seeks to explore the relationship between these individual-level trait measures of masculinity and two aspects of IPV, physical violence and coercive control. With inconsistent findings and the limited study of clinical populations, further examination of these concepts may provide increased understanding of the mechanisms behind IPV perpetration. Results will provide a greater understanding of the complexity of this violence in order to better assist individuals experiencing IPV.

Minding The Baby®: Maternal Adverse Childhood Experiences And Treatment Outcomes In A Mother-Infant Home Visiting Program, Jessica G. Albertson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in a sample of women participating in Minding the Baby® (MTB), a mother-infant home-visiting intervention known to have positive effects on mother-infant attachment. In addition to documenting maternal childhood trauma exposure within the sample, this study explored whether such exposure affected the intervention outcome or service delivery. We looked specifically at whether maternal childhood trauma exposure affected mother-child attachment or frequency of contact with home-visitors. We also examined the relationship between maternal early childhood trauma exposure and reflective functioning capacity (RF), a potential resiliency-promoting factor.

Methods: The study’s participants were 29 first-time …

Physiological Correlates Of Affective Decision-Making In Anxiety And Depression, Louisa I. Thompson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Improving our understanding of cognitive and physiological profiles in anxiety and depression has the potential to reveal novel ways to target and improve treatments for these prevalent mental health conditions. The present study examined the impact of self-reported anxiety and depression symptoms on three established decision-making measures, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994), Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART; Lejuez et al., 2002), and Game of Dice Task (GDT; Brand et al., 2005), in a diverse sample of 100 college students (age 18 to 35). Physiological measures of tonic heart rate variability and galvanic skin response …