Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Factors Impacting Mothers' Decision To Breastfeed: Mothers Attitudes In Kuwait, Ala Hussdain Al-Hawwaj

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Relationship Among Membership In Recognized Student Organizations On Body Image Satisfaction And Eating Behaviors Of University Students, Beth G. Cavallero

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Social Acceptance Of Adolescents With Tourette Syndrome, Rebekah M. Craig

Modern Psychological Studies

Sixty college students from two Biopsychology classes at Central Connecticut State University were presented with one of three scenarios. Scenario one described an adolescent with Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome (TS) with complex tics, in which he was making obscene gestures, yelling, and screaming out curses in the middle of class. Scenario two described an adolescent with TS with simple tics, in which he was tapping his foot and making loud honking sounds in the middle of class. Scenario three described an adolescent without TS, in which he was not portraying a motor movement or a vocal sound. Students responded …

The Effect Of Group Size On Social Facilitation And Social Loafing As Measured In Productivity, Anissa Adams, Jenny Counard

Modern Psychological Studies

In recent years, there has been increased awareness in the apparent change of individual behavior when placed in a group. This study was designed to examine the relationship between group size and productivity. All 48 participants took part in each of the three trials. In each trial they were given a word (duct tape, knife or water) and worked as an individual, pair, or group of four to generate uses for that word. It was a prediction of this experiment that individual productivity would increase when the participant worked as a pair. However, it was also expected that the individuals' …

Using The Development Of And Differences On Self-Report Measures To Learn Data Analysis, Jonathan W. Amburgey, Donald A. Saucier

Modern Psychological Studies

The purpose of the current study was to collect data from self-report measures (happiness, extraversion, depression, self-image, and self-esteem) created by laboratory students in conjunction with validated measures of state self-esteem, sensation seeking, and demographic variables that would allow for the reasonable application of a variety of descriptive and inferential statistical techniques to learn data analysis. An undergraduate under faculty supervision performed reliability analysis, correlational analysis, independent samples t tests, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and created a multiple regression model to better understand the application and conceptual logic underlying many of the statistical tests …

Communication Of Where An Event Occurred By A Gorilla (Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla), Megan L. Hoffman

Modern Psychological Studies

Episodic-like memory for the "where" component of unique events was examined in an adult gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). The gorilla witnessed a unique event, performed by an experimenter (e.g. watching an experimenter blow bubbles) at one of three locations surrounding his enclosure. After a 4 to 17 minute retention interval, a tester presented the gorilla with photographs of the three locations, which were mounted on wooden cards, and asked the gorilla where the event had occurred. The gorilla communicated his choice by handing a card to the tester and was rewarded if correct. The gorilla was significantly above chance at …

Integrating Adolescent Livelihood Activities Within A Reproductive Health Program For Urban Slum Dwellers In India, Dale Huntington, Mary Philip Sebastian, Barbara Mensch, Wesley H. Clark, Aditya Narain Singh, Sohini Roychowdhury, M.E. Khan, Nirmala Selvam, Bella C. Patel, Sandhya Barge, Y.P. Gupta, Lovleen Johri, Gita Biswas, Manohar Shenoy

Reproductive Health

The Population Council’s Frontiers in Reproductive Health (FRONTIERS) program and Policy Research Division, in collaboration with CARE India, conducted an operations research study in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh to examine the feasibility and impact of adding livelihood counseling and training, savings formation activities, and follow-up support to an ongoing reproductive health program for adolescents. The short-term objective of the study was to foster development of alternative socialization processes for adolescent girls that encourage positive sexual and reproductive health behaviors. The study also aimed to produce a replicable model for CARE and other agencies to use in adding livelihood activities to adolescent …

Involving Men In Maternity Care: South Africa, Busi Kunene, Mags Beksinska, Simphiwe Zondi, Nobuhle Mthembu, Saiqa Mullick, Emma Ottolenghi, Immo Kleinschmidt, Susan E. Adamchak, Barbara Janowitz, Carmen Cuthbertson

Reproductive Health

The Reproductive Health Research Unit University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, in partnership with the FRONTIERS Program of the Population Council, and the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health conducted a three-year operations research study titled “Men in Maternity” in the Ethekwini district. The intervention was clinic-based and included two broad strategies: improving antenatal care services by strengthening the existing antenatal package and service monitoring and supervision; and introducing couple counseling by providing training to health providers, inviting partners of antenatal women to attend counseling twice during pregnancy and once post delivery, and providing information to couples with a new antenatal booklet. …

Risk Premiums On Government Bonds: A Cointegration Approach And Error Correction Model, Onisiforos Iordanou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis we investigated the long-run relationships among risk premiums for long-run government bonds of seventeen countries from four regions (East Europe, East Asia, Africa and Latin America). To do this I applied the cointegration test determining the long-run dynamics among the risk premiums, while also employing a vector error correction model that abstracts simultaneously the short-run and long-run information about the relationships. Causality tests were also performed to determine the influence of each risk premium on others.

The results indicated that there is a strong long-run relationship among the risk premiums for each region. In other words, the …

Research Training In The Wheaton College Psy.D. Program In Clinical Psychology, Robert J. Gregory, Mark R. Mcminn

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

This article describes research and scholarship training in the Wheaton College Psy.D. program. Essential elements mclude faculty members as strong role models, relevant coursework, collaborative research opportumtJes, and a s1gmficant clinical dissertation research project. The authors' personal views on strengths and weaknesses in training are provided.

Olanzapine Attenuates Cue-Elicited Craving For Tobacco, Kent E. Hutchinson, Marie-Christine Rutter Goodworth, Raymond Niaura, Robert Swift, Wallace B. Pickworth, Laura Sobik

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

Rationale: Recent biological conceptualizations of craving and addiction have implicated mesolimbic dopamine activity as a central feature of the process of addiction. Imaging, and pharmacological studies have supported a role for dopaminergic structures in cue-elicited craving for tobacco.

Objective: If mesolimbic dopamine activity is associated with cue-elicited craving for tobacco, a dopamine antagonist should attenuate cueelicited craving for tobacco. Thus, the aim of the present study was to determine whether an atypical antipsychotic (olanzapine, 5 mg) decreased cue-elicited craving for tobacco.

Method: Participants were randomly assigned to 5 days of pretreatment with olanzapine (5 mg; n=31) or were randomly assigned …

Boletín De El Iucn/Birdlife/Wpa Grupo De Especialistas En Crácidos 18-22 (2004-2006), Iucn, Birdlife International, Wpa Cracid Specialist Group

Galliformes Specialist Group and Affiliated Societies: Newsletters

Volume 18 (March 2004)

Estatus de Crax rubra en Punta de Manabique, Guatemala: Habitat, tamaño de poblacion, y impacto humano, Knut Eisermann

Status de Crax rubra em Punta de manabique, Guatemala: Habitat, tamanho populacional, e impacto humano, Knut Eisermann

Status of great curassow (Crax rubra) in Punta de Manabique, Guatemala: Habitat, population size, and human impact, Knut Eisermann

Atacan las pavas a las rapaces? Un caso entre Chamaepetes goudotii y Buteo magnirostris en el norte de la cordillera central, Colombia, Paulo C. Pulgarin-R.

Jacus atacam aves de rapina? Um caso entre Chamaepetes goudotii e Buteo magnirostris no norte …

Empirical Characteristic Function Estimation And Its Applications, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper reviews the method of model-fitting via the empirical characteristic function. The advantage of using this procedure is that one can avoid difficulties inherent in calculating or maximizing the likelihood function. Thus it is a desirable estimation method when the maximum likelihood approach encounters difficulties but the characteristic function has a tractable expression. The basic idea of the empirical characteristic function method is to match the characteristic function derived from the model and the empirical characteristic function obtained from data. Ideas are illustrated by using the methodology to estimate a diffusion model that includes a self-exciting jump component. A …

A Small-Sample Overlapping Variance-Ratio Test, Yiu Kuen Tse, K. W. Ng, Xibin Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The null distribution of the overlapping variance-ratio (OVR) test of the random-walk hypothesis is known to be downward biased and skewed to the right in small samples. As shown by , the test under-rejects the null on the left tail seriously when the sample size is small. This property adversely affects the applicability of the OVR test to macroeconomic time series, which usually have rather small samples. In this paper, we propose a modified overlapping variance-ratio statistic and derive its exact mean under the normality assumption. We propose to approximate the small-sample distribution of the modified statistic using a beta …

Deviance Information Criterion For Comparing Stochastic Volatility Models, Andreas Berg, Renate Meyer, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Bayesian methods have been efficient in estimating parameters of stochastic volatility models for analyzing financial time series. Recent advances made it possible to fit stochastic volatility models of increasing complexity, including covariates, leverage effects, jump components, and heavy-tailed distributions. However, a formal model comparison via Bayes factors remains difficult. The main objective of this article is to demonstrate that model selection is more easily performed using the deviance information criterion (DIC). It combines a Bayesian measure of fit with a measure of model complexity. We illustrate the performance of DIC in discriminating between various different stochastic volatility models using simulated …

Selection Correction And Sensitivity Analysis For Ordered Treatment Effect On Count Response, Myoung-Jae Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

In estimating the effect of an ordered treatment [tau] on a count response y with an observational data where [tau] is self-selected (not randomized), observed variables x and unobserved variables [epsilon] can be unbalanced across the control group ([tau] = 0) and the treatment groups ([tau] = 1, . . . , J). While the imbalance in x causes 'overt bias' which can be removed by controlling for x, the imbalance in [epsilon] causes 'covert (hidden or selection) bias' which cannot be easily removed. This paper makes three contributions. First, a proper counter-factual causal framework for ordered treatment effect on …

Social Trust, Cooperation, And Human Capital, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The importance of social trust on economic growth has been suggested by many empirical works. This paper formalizes the concept of social trust and studies its formation process in a game theoretic setting. It provides plausible explanations for a wide range of empirical and experimental findings. The main results of the paper are as follows. For utility-maximizing players, cooperation arises in one-period prisoner’s dilemmas if and only if there is social trust. The amount of social trust in a given game is determined by the distribution of players’ cooperative tendency. Cooperative tendency is in essence a component of human capital …

The Structuralist Perspective On Real Exchange Rate, Share Price Level And Employment Path: What Room Is Left For Money?, Edmund S. Phelps, Hian Teck Hoon, Gylfi Zoega

Research Collection School Of Economics

The current sluggish performance of the US economy follows one of the more remarkable booms in modern history. The late 1990s was a period of simultaneous output and productivity growth,1 low unemployment and stable inflation, culminating in an unemployment rate of only 3.9% in the fourth quarter of the year 2000. The absence of rising inflation during this period came as a surprise to many since the level of the natural rate of unemployment was commonly estimated to be in the range of 5-6% by the mid 1990s. The non-inflationary boom, however, reminds one of another episode where non-monetary forces …

Congestion Control And Vehicle Ownership Restriction: The Choice Of An Optimal Quota Policy, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore introduced a vehicle quota system (VQS) in 1990 as part of its overall policy to control urban congestion. While the VQS has reduced the annual growth rate of the vehicle population to about 3 per cent, it has created uncertainty in the cost of vehicle ownership due to the fluctuations in licence prices. This paper discusses three issues relating to the optimal design of a VQS: licence transferability, sub-categorisation, and the choice of an auction format. The analysis shows that licence transferability is not unambiguously desirable, sub-categorisation is highly regressive, and an open auction format results in less aggressive …

Forecasting The Global Electronics Cycle With Leading Indicators: A Var Approach, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy

Research Collection School Of Economics

Developments in the global electronics industry are typically monitored by tracking indicators that span a whole spectrum of activities in the sector. However, these indicators invariably give mixed signals at each point in time, thereby hampering attempts at prediction. In this paper, we propose a unified framework for forecasting the global electronics cycle by constructing a VAR model that captures the economic interactions between putative leading indicators representing expectations, orders, inventories and prices. The ability of the indicators to presage world semiconductor sales is first examined by Granger causality tests. Subsequently, an impulse response analysis confirms the leading qualities of …

Utilizing A Structuration Perspective To Examine Perceptions Of Labor Market Opportunities & Constraints In A Distressed Urban Neighborhood, Sharon M. Mcdonald

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to understand how members of an urban extreme poverty neighborhood experience the labor market and how they perceive the role of social policies and institutions that attempt to facilitate or mediate employment opportunities.

Residents of extreme poverty neighborhoods have been the subject of numerous public policy efforts designed to ameliorate the geographic concentration of poverty as well as strategies to promote work participation based on existing theoretical models of how work participation can be induced. It is argued that the predominant theoretical models that shape inquiry and the development of policy recommendations are incomplete …

The Social Network And Attachment Bases Of Loneliness, David M. Ouellette

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis tests Robert S. Weiss's 1973 theory of loneliness, which claims two types of loneliness: emotional and social. Emotional loneliness is the affective reaction to the absence of a close attachment bond. Social loneliness stems from inadequate integration into a social network. Undergraduate residents of a university dormitory completed questionnaires on loneliness, attachment, personality, and relationships with other dorm residents. Patterns of relational ties among participants were evaluated using social network analysis, specifically density, tie strength, and four forms of centrality. Results reveal that, while controlling for neuroticism, the network measure of outdegree and the two attachment dimensions accounted …

Evaluating A Day Treatment Program For Children With Serious Emotional Disorders, Nicole Lynn Lee

Theses and Dissertations

The current study used a longitudinal design to evaluate a day treatment program for children with serious emotional disorder located in Richmond, Virginia (N = 101). Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (Hodges, 1984, 1999) results were analyzed from children who had attended the program for at least six months. Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance tests indicated that children attending YDT for nine months improved their overall functioning F(2, 217) = 26.23, p = .01 as well as their functioning at school F(3,279)= 10.822, p =.01, home F(3, 244) = 6.120, p = .01, and in the community F(3, 238) …

Development Of A New Measure Of Men's Objectification Of Women: Factor Structure Test Retest Validity, Paul Curran '04

Honors Projects

Objectification involves treating individuals on the basis of their external rather than internal features. This study focused on the continued construction and development of an individual difference measure of men's objectification of women. Our measure was meant to quantify and define the idea of objectification. The first part of this study (Zolot, 2003), completed last year, created the initial item pool of 66 items and a four-factor structure for our measure. In this study we refined our measure based on previous factor analysis and added new items in order to extend and clarify these factors and test ideas about sexual …

Father Versus Stranger Face Discrimination By The Human Infant: A Case Study, Erin L. White '04

Honors Projects

The ability of infants to discriminate and recognize faces gained recent attention; however, much of the research focused on discrimination of the mother's face from a female stranger's face. This study examined father versus stranger face discrimination using an operant sucking procedure, in which images of fathers and strangers were presented on a computer monitor contingent upon the sucking responses of the infant. Discrimination was determined by computing the difference in the number of responses for each face. Results indicated that 3 infants under the age of 4 months discriminated the father's image from the image of a stranger, consistent …

Behavioral Theory Of Timing Applied To A Drl-Limited Hold Procedure, Jill Skarvan '04

Honors Projects

The behavioral theory of timing (Killeen & Fetterman, 1988) holds that animals use behavioral tasks, called adjunctive behaviors, to aid them in timing intervals. Several studies have supported this theory, however the majority of these studies have been correlational. The present study used an experimental approach to manipulate the presence of adjunctive behavior. Rats responded on two DRL limited-hold procedures in which subjects must wait a certain time interval before responding; early responses were not reinforced and reset the clock. In addition, the animal had a specific interval of time in which to make a response; late responses were not …

The Sibling Study: How Does Having A Sibling With A Mental Disorder Affect The Lives Of College Students, Anna Czipri '04

Honors Projects

Although there are many positive outcomes of growing up with a sibling having a psychological or behavioral disorder, typical siblings can potentially experience harmful effects of managing and coping with the special demands and stresses of having a sibling with these kinds of difficulties. The college years are often a time to restructure sibling relationships. It is a time when young adults experience what it is like to be away from home for the first time, develop new groups of friends, and start new behavior patterns, attitudes, goals, and relationships that call for a more mature individual. The current study …

Classroom Structure As An Environmental Effect On Creative Production Of College Students, Krista A. Coulter '04

Honors Projects

Little research has been done to explore creativity in the classroom environment. The present study investigated the effects of three classroom settings (formal, intermediate, and informal) on the creative production of college students. Ninety students were tested using Sternberg and Lubart's (1995) Creativity Assessments both before and after participation in a teaching session. No significant changes were found between classes mean creativity scores after the experimental session. In the intermediate classroom, there was a significant decrease in scores before and after the session; however, in the other two classrooms, formal and informal, there was no significant change found.

Positive Feedback On Appearance, Value Placed On Appearance, And Need For Disordered Eating Behavior Among Undergraduate Females, Amanda R. Conley '04

Honors Projects

Negative feedback about appearance is often cited as a major contributor to unhealthy eating behavior among women. The present study examined whether positive feedback about appearance may also be associated with disordered eating behavior, particularly among women who place a high value on physical appearance. One hundred and nine female undergraduates at Illinois Wesleyan University completed surveys regarding positive appearance-related feedback received, value placed on physical appearance, need for approval, and eating attitudes. Analyses revealed that amount of positive feedback on physical appearance and value placed on appearance were both significantly positively correlated with disordered eating behavior. Further, body mass …

Redefining Participation: Towards The Creation And Understanding Of An Inclusive Definition, Amy K. Atwood '04

Honors Projects

Although a great deal of research has been conducted regarding class participation, researchers have systematically disregarded those students who participate best through means other than vocal contribution to class discussion. This exploratory study examined definitions of participation, as well as participation behaviors and beliefs, in the hope of gaining a better understanding of the culture of participation. Participants included 17 professors and 101 students. Cluster analysis was conducted and showed the existence of at least three distinct groups of participators. Independent samples t-tests showed only one significant difference between student and professor beliefs of how likely students would be to …