Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Effects Of Childhood Sexual Abuse On Parenting, Erin Ann Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a pervasive problem that has been the focus of substantial empirical research. While negative outcomes such as psychiatric diagnoses or health problems have been well documented, the literature regarding the effects of CSA on parenting is sparse and has produced conflicting results. Moreover, the existing research on CSA's effect on later parenting has several methodological limitations (e.g., retrospective data) and has failed to find any consistent explanatory mechanisms/pathways for which CSA is most likely to impede parental success. The present study examined whether a history of CSA leads to negative parental outcomes (i.e., how they …

Carbon Emission Policy In The United States: State Patchwork Vs. National Policy, Samuel T. Frank

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The lack of a national law in the United States to mitigate climate change has prompted many states and cities to take the lead in implementing policies to reduce their carbon emissions and adapt to the threats posed by a warming planet. This project adopts two established systems that classify states by their relative involvement in climate policy (Wheeler 2010; Lutsey et al. 2008) and combines them into a single, six-point ranking scale. States are then cross-tabulated against EPA data showing the amount and trajectory of each state's carbon emissions from the electrical power sector over the period 2005-2010. States …

A Syntactic Treatment Of Adjectival Non-Intersectivity In English, Alexander Funk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Natural language has long been observed to be rife with apparently 'non-intersective' modification constructions (false teeth, huge flea, heavy smoker, etc.), whose apparent non-compositionality poses difficulties for formally-articulated theories of language. Bolinger's (1967) demonstration of the extent and significance of the issue ushered in several lines of investigation, first in semantics (most notably Kamp 1975, Siegel 1976, Partee 2009), but more recently in syntax as well, with the insights of Larson (1998) and Bouchard (2002) informing approaches to the nominal domain such as that in Cinque (2010). However, 'semantics-only' accounts of non-intersectivity phenomena have limited explanatory …

A Gender Approach To Vulnerability And Natural Disasters, Ema Izquierdo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A natural disaster is a major adverse event resulting from natural processes of the earth that overwhelm local response and affect the social and economic development of the affected region. Natural disasters have been seen as situations that create challenges and difficulties mainly of a humanitarian nature. Still, progressively, it has come to be recognized that a gendered approach to humanitarian response is essential for vulnerable populations such as girls and women. Even though information about particular cases is scarce, evidence indicates that women are more likely to die after a natural disaster not because of biological reasons but because …

The Effects Of Mood And Perceived Cost On Self-Disclosure Of Deviant Sexual Fantasies And Behavior, Jordan S. Maile

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study examined the effects of mood state (happy vs. neutral vs. sad) and perceptions of cost (anonymous vs. 'non-anonymous') on self-disclosure of deviant sexual fantasies and behavior (e.g. pedophilic, coercive). Research suggests that mood may affect decision making in 'risky' situations, such that a positive mood state may increase risky decision making. It could be argued that disclosure of deviant sexual fantasies and behavior can be conceptualized as a 'risky' situation; therefore, it is hypothesized that a positive mood state would increase disclosure of deviant sexual fantasies and behavior, but only when doing so is perceived to be …

Super Fun Superfund: Polluted Protection Along The Gowanus Canal, Jessica Ty Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research reflects on the patterns of uneven development occurring in the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, social and physical changes taking place there, and how these elements of the canal relate to the changing purpose of urban waterways. Gowanus has mimicked the development of New York City since the 1600's through several phases: city settlement and development, abandonment, and redevelopment. The redevelopment phase in Gowanus couples environmental clean up with gentrification and displacement. Using an urban political ecology framework, this research attempts to answer the following questions: Why, after many years of pollution, is the area being cleaned up? Will …

Affecting Neoliberal Public Health Care: Interdependent Relationality Between Disabled Care Recipients And Their Care Providers, Akemi Nishida

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I trace the neoliberal turn of a public health-care program, Medicaid, and its effects on those who are involved in it: disabled care recipients and their care providers. Also examined is the emergence of an affective relationality between these individuals through their daily practices of care. In 1993, Medicaid went through a neoliberal turn that accelerated its privatization. I investigate the ways in which this turn--in company with the neoliberal transition of other welfare programs and the rise of a transnational care industry--further deployed a gendered, raced, classed, and immigration-based division of care labor that commodified and …

Obstruent Voicing And Tone In Siklis Gurung, Danielle Ronkos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines proposals for the tone system of Gurung, a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Nepal, in light of data collected from a speaker of Siklis Gurung. Although Gurung is widely acknowledged to be a tonal language, existing descriptions of Gurung disagree as to how these tone categories should be defined and whether word-initial obstruent voicing is phonemic or allophonic. The data presented in this paper suggests that, despite claims otherwise, voicing is phonemic in some dialects of Gurung. It also suggests that Siklis Gurung is best analyzed as having three tone categories: a low tone that occurs with breathy …

Por Uma Vida Sem Catracas: The 'June Uprising' And Recent Movements In Brazil, Matthew Binetti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The protests in Brazil in June 2013 which gained attention after a proposal to raise bus fares or what have come to be referred to as the `June Uprising' and those that have since continued, far exceed the issue of bus fare in their significance. These events are only part of a series of movements and trends that are united by a common desire to create alternatives based on ideas of autonomy, solidarity, and horizontalism. This paper focuses on groups who are at the center of this struggle such as The Free Fare Movement, The Popular Committees for the World …

The Ones Left Behind: Making The Connection Between Poverty And The Achievement Gap, Audrey Davis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The achievement gap has been a major issue plaguing the education system in the United States for decades. There has been much research conducted with the goal of identifying the reasons for the achievement gap. One of the main reasons for the achievement gap is poverty. In fact, I argue that there is a direct correlation between academic achievement and poverty, in other words school and society are inextricably connected. The focus of this paper will be the elementary school level as there is an abundance of information on elementary schools in New York City. To further demonstrate the fact …

Maturation Of Speech Discrimination And Attentional Requirements In Late Childhood, Judith Ann Iannotta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The ability to perceive speech sounds and contrasts continues to be refined throughout the course of development. While emerging models suggest that development is characterized by shifts from an attentionally demanding mode of processing speech sounds to one that occurs relatively automatically, the specific developmental time-course of these changes remains unclear. The present work reports the findings of two experiments that aimed to provide insights into the time-course by which neural processes underlying speech discrimination in children and adolescents becomes automatic. The experiments used event-related potentials (ERP) measures, with a particular focus on mismatch negativity (MMN) - a developmentally-sensitive index …

The Intrinsic And Synaptic Properties Of Inverted Pyramidal Cells Within The Neocortex, Robert Michael Steger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Within the nervous system, the cortex is the area of the brain where higher order sensory, motor and cognitive processing occurs. The cortex contains a diverse array of cell types which form complicated and intricate circuits which gives rise to higher order sensory, motor and cognitive functions. The majority of neurons found in the cortex are pyramidal cells. While pyramidal cells differ based on soma size, dendrite span and cortical position, almost all share a noticeable defining characteristic: their apical dendrite extends toward the pial surface. However, there also exists a class of pyramidal cell where the apical dendrite extends …

Triple Stigma In Forensic Psychiatric Patients: Mental Illness, Race, And Criminality, Michelle Leigh West

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Stigma involves negative beliefs and devaluations of people in socially identified groups (e.g. race, mental illness). Although people have many reactions to social stigma, some labeled people internalize these attitudes. Research has increasingly explored mental illness self-stigma, when people with mental illness begin to believe that society's negative beliefs are true of them (e.g., that they are hopeless due to mental illness). Self-stigma predicts poorer functional and treatment outcomes. Stigma research has typically investigated stigmatized labels individually. Forensic psychiatric patients, people with mental illness with history of criminal conviction, by definition experience multiple stigmas, yet no research has explored how …

Leveraging Capacity: Technical Solutions To Hunger In The Era Of Neoliberalism, Elizabeth Perry Bullock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Leveraging Capacity: Technical Solutions to Hunger in the Era of Neoliberalism takes the Global Seed Vault and the value of "global crop diversity" as a point of departure for raising questions about the influence of digital technology on the seed and about the solution to hunger known as "global food security." Discussions about food security among food studies scholars highlight either the failures of global public health advocates to regulate the food and beverage industry or they view food security, like earlier campaigns against global hunger, as an instrument for U.S. foreign policy. On either side of this debate, the …

The Relationship Between Social-Emotional Development, Academic Achievement And Parenting Practices In Young Children Who Attend Head Start, Emily A. A. Dow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During the preschool years, children develop social-emotional skills -- such as cooperation and self-regulation -- which predict later academic achievement. Research shows that parents play an important role in the development of these skills. However, it remains unclear how specific parenting practices may facilitate the relationship between social-emotional development and academic success. Often, children who grow up in low-income families are at risk for a variety of cognitive and emotional problems. Head Start is a federal program offered to low-income families that provides services, including early childhood education programs, to help offset these risks. Using Bronfenbrenner's bioecological theory, the purpose …

Employee Environmentally Friendly Behaviors In And Out Of Organizations And Across Cultures, Lilia Hayrapetyan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A rising number of organizations are making changes to minimize their impact on the environment. In order to successfully implement such changes for the long term it is important for organizations to not only address operational, structural and process factors, but also their employees' environmentally significant behaviors (e.g., Siero et al., 1996). Unfortunately, there remains a general lack of understanding of factors affecting employees' environmentally friendly behaviors. In an effort to reduce this gap, the present study employed the Values Beliefs Norms theory (Stern et al., 1999, Stern, 2000) to gain a comprehensive understanding of individuals' environmentally friendly behaviors in …

Nepantla And Ubuntu Ethics Para Nosotros: Beyond Scrupulous Adherence Toward Threshold Perspectives Of Participatory/Collaborative Research Ethics, Monique Antoinette Guishard

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Participatory Action Research (PAR) refers less to a method and more to a continuum of approaches to collaborative inquiry. Within PAR, ideally, some phenomenon has been identified as a mutual area of concern to researchers and community members; working together they design, conduct, analyze, and disseminate the findings of a shared piece of research and coordinate action(s) aimed at using research to redress injustice. If PAR is embraced holistically boundaries inevitably blur as research team members become enmeshed in each other's lives. This blurring while momentous can give rise to ethical quandaries that IRB centered research ethics are inadequate to …

Do Cultural And Perceptual Factor Matter?: An Investigation Of Factors Impacting Intelligence Test Scores Of Latinos/Hispanics In The United States, Mary E. Ignagni

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper examined societal and cultural explanations regarding the score differences seen between Latinos/Hispanics and Whites on intelligence tests through focusing specifically on possible explanations for the scores obtained by Latino/Hispanic test-takers. In this paper, it was argued that additional unique factors may impact the test scores of Latino/Hispanic test-takers. Specifically, racial and ethnic self-identification, ethnic centrality, acculturation, cultural distance, test perceptions, and ethnicity were explored as possible unique factors. In addition, an attempt was made to explain within group differences. A non-experimental study was utilized in which a final sample of 194 participants completed an intelligence test and measures …

Psychosocial Sequelae Of Homicide Among Murder Victims' Family Members: An Appraisal Of Depression, Grief, And Posttraumatic Stress, Sarah Kopelovich

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current investigation explored what is known regarding the psychological sequelae of the post-homicide experience for murder victims' family members and friends (MVFM). Participants were also asked about whether they felt they had attained closure, a term which populates anecdotal and theoretical accounts of MVFM's experience. Previous literature guided a theoretical definition of closure as a dimensional construct that represents adaptive functioning following a murder, and includes (1) absence of disabling symptomatology, (2) absence of ruminations about the event or murder victim, and (3) subjective return to baseline functioning. This quasi-experiment consisted of a between-subjects cross-sectional design. The dependent variable …

Rebellion Under The Palm Trees: Memory, Agrarian Reform And Labor In The Aguán, Honduras, Andres Leon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

On December 9, 2009, the Unified Peasant Movement of the Aguán (Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguán; MUCA) occupied over 20,000 hectares of oil palm covered lands in the Aguán region in the Honduran northern coast. This was the latest, and probably most dramatic, chapter in the region's tumultuous recent history. This dissertation explores this history and the process of creation of the Aguán region from the perspective of a set of impoverished peasant families that migrated from different parts of Honduras towards the Aguán from the 1970s onwards, in search of a better present and future.

It asks about the …

Effects Of Job Type And Culture On Relationships Between Job Characteristics And Worker Outcomes: A Multilevel Analysis, Justina Oliveira

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There has been a great deal of research regarding how job characteristics affect workers' perceptions, yet there are very few studies examining how job type (white-, pink-, or blue-collar) and culture impact these relationships. Through the use of data from over 11,000 employees in 24 countries, this project remedies the lack of multilevel study designs to determine how job type and culture each play independent roles in relationships between job characteristics (autonomy, task significance, and skill variety) and the worker outcomes of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and perceptions of the job as stressful and exhausting, as well as …

Protecting The Stranger: The Origins Of Us Immigration Regulation In Nineteenth-Century New York, Brendan P. O'Malley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From 1847 to 1890, a state authority--not a federal one--oversaw the entry of most immigrants arriving in the United States. The New York State Board of the Commissioners of Emigration supervised the landing of over eight million newcomers in nation's busiest entry point, the Port of New York, during the second half of the nineteenth century. Most were processed at the Board's Castle Garden Emigrant Depot in Battery Park, which opened in 1855. This study demonstrates why and how New York State developed a complex regulatory regime well before the federalization of immigration authority in 1882.

The establishment of this …

Object Categorization In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd), Jaime Vitrano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate hierarchical object categorization in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), examining three levels of category inclusiveness (superordinate, basic, subordinate) across three tasks (sequential touching task, generalized imitation task, sorting task) in three domains (animals, tools, kitchen utensils) in the same group of children with ASD. Previous research on the categorization abilities of children with ASD has shown mixed results. This study was designed to clarify past discrepancies in the literature.

Ten children with ASD participated in this study (mean CA = 4 years, 10 months; range 3 to 6 years; mean VMA …

Civil War Incentives, Identities, And Group Allegiances In Syria's Contested Provinces: A Case Study On Civil War, Hilary Weitze

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project seeks to answer the following questions: Why did the 2011 Syrian Revolution transition into a civil war? What contributed to the popularity of rebel efforts in the countryside? This case study on the Syrian Civil War begins by characterizing key events in the current civil war setting in order to characterize the nature of participation on the insurgent side of the conflict. Further, this project sets out to identify key events and actors in their respective geographic and demographic frameworks in order to identify the nature of participants and their respective characteristics. I will ultimately draw a connecting …

College Graduation Rates Of Hispanic Students: A Review Of The Literature, Jessica Hall

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This literature review examines what factors cause Hispanic college students to drop out before completing their bachelor's degrees. Factors include the type of college attended, financial aid, attending college part-time, enrolling in college later in life, stopping-out, taking a gap year, parents' educational levels, whether students are native- or foreign-born, high school academics, SAT and standardized test scores, college academics, the peer group, multiple disadvantages can compound for Hispanic students, sense of belonging on campus, stereotype threat, and a mentoring program. Recommendations are made for how non-college-educated Hispanic parents can be better informed about the college application process, what student …

Sensitizing Jurors To Factors Influencing The Accuracy Of Eyewitness Identification: Assessing The Effectiveness Of The Henderson Instructions, Angela M. Jones

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Recently, the New Jersey Supreme Court determined that jurors may not be able to effectively evaluate eyewitness evidence (New Jersey v. Henderson, 2011). Research generally supports this contention, finding that jurors do not take into account factors surrounding the commission of the crime and identification when determining the reliability of an identification (Devenport et al., 1997). Courts have implemented various safeguards to assist jurors in evaluating eyewitness evidence, including judicial instructions and expert testimony. The New Jersey Supreme Court proposed the use of judicial instructions and suggested their use would reduce the need for expert testimony. The current …

The Impact Of Technology On Consumerism, David Naranjo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

E-commerce is shifting the way people purchase their goods and services and affecting the relationship between technology and society. Consequently, traditional retailers, aware of the inevitable change, have developed strategies to keep up with the continuously evolving marketplace. These strategies vary from creating virtual stores (i.e., websites) and developing digital social networks to data mining and spamming.

Therefore, from a historical point of view, this thesis will analyze the impact of technology on commerce and how the creation of new virtual marketplaces had affected consumers' behavior. This thesis will explore the origins of e-commerce, the technologies that made possible its …

A Spelling Pronunciation Strategy Helps College Students Remember How To Spell Difficult Words, Turkan Ocal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Drake and Ehri (1984) showed that children could utilize a spelling pronunciation strategy in order to remember spellings of words. One purpose of the current study was to determine whether college students could also benefit from a spelling pronunciation strategy in remembering spellings of 20 commonly misspelled words. The second aim of the study was to examine the contribution of decoding skill, exposure to print and vocabulary knowledge in explaining variance in general spelling ability of college students. Based on Share's (1995) self-teaching hypothesis, each of these predictors was expected to explain unique variance in the ability to remember the …

Network Modeling Of The Mental Lexicon: Phonological Links Within And Between Communities, Jennifer Anne Gerometta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Graph theory is a branch of mathematics that is used to study networks. Recently, graph theoretic techniques have been embraced by the cognitive sciences, and used to study the developing lexicon, semantic memory, and first and second language organization (Carlson,et al., 2011, Kennet et al., 2011, Wilks & Meara, 2002, Zareva, 2007) Graph theory can give valuable insight into the underlying phonological structure of language. Studying phonological networks contributes to our understanding of how the mental lexicon develops, and results of experimental studies on lexical processing can be used to test whether the proposed network structure is plausible. The goal …

Three Essays On Income And Wealth Inequality, Damir Cosic

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three essays on income and wealth inequality. The essays examine various aspects of this complex feature of the economic system.

The first essay shows that the distribution of firm sizes in an economy is an important determinant of wage distribution. I use data from the U.S. Current Population Survey and the ExecuComp between 1992 and 2012 to construct a new dataset and estimate wage distribution and various measures of wage inequality. I decompose differences in wage inequality across firm sizes and over time by using semi-parametric methods. In 1992, wages were distributed more unequally in small …