Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Attachment, Social Support, And Perceived Mental Health Of Adult Dog Walkers: What Does Age Have To Do With It?, F. Ellen Netting, Cindy C. Wilson, Jeffrey L. Goodie, Mark B. Stephens, Christopher G. Byers, Cara H. Olsen

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In part of a larger pilot study of dog walking as a physical activity intervention we assessed levels of attachment, social supports, and perceived mental health of 75 dog owners, identified through a tertiary- care veterinary hospital. Owners completed the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) Social Support Survey, mental health component of the Short-Form-12 (SF-12) Health Survey, and the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale (LAPS). Of particular interest was that younger owners had stronger attachments to their dogs (r = -.488;p <.001) and less social support (r = .269;p =.021). Our study suggests the importance of companion animals for social support, particularly for those without close friends/relatives. For younger owners, our study reveals vulnerabilities in support networks that may warrant referrals to human helping professionals. We suggest the use of Carstensen's Socioemotional Selectivity Theory as an interpretive framework to underscore the importance of including companion animals as part of the human social convoy, especially in terms of providing affectionate and interactional social support.

Expanding The Ecological Lens In Child Welfare Practice To Include Other Animals, Christina Risley-Curtiss

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Sixty-nine million U.S. households have companion animals and most of these families consider these animals to be family members. Research shows that children have powerful emotional connections with animals that can be both beneficial and harmful. Considerable research findings report that violence against animals often co-occurs with, indicates, or predicts other forms of family violence, including child abuse. A companion animal may be an abused child's confidante, and separation from that animal through foster care may be a source of stress and grief for that child. Child welfare agencies are slowly acknowledging some animal-human relationships, especially in regard to animal …

Pedagogical Development Of Zen Buddhism And Taoism For Taos Ed. Ventures, Kelsey Tyler

Social Sciences

Taos Ed. Ventures is an outdoor guiding company that will be offering backpacking trips in Taos, New Mexico to high school and college students, with ages ranging from 16 – 29, starting the summer of 2015. Along with backpacking skills, the philosophies of Zen Buddhism and Taoism will be taught while on the trail. To teach these philosophies, a pedagogy was created, combining aspects of Sentipensante and Contemplative pedagogies that seeks to teach the daily applications of Zen Buddhism and Taoism through experiential and innovative learning methods, such as journaling, meditation, and mindfulness practices. The benefits of these alternative learning …

Addressing Trans-Boundary Challenges Through Collaboration: How Organizations "Harmonize" Actions And Decisions Across Problem Landscapes, Rachel Fleishman

Dissertations - ALL

Collaborative governance- or collaboration- has become increasingly important for the design and implementation of public policy in the United States. This dissertation explores concrete and unique policy-related benefits emerging from collaboration, and the processes by which they emerge.

Collaboration is defined broadly as "any interaction between two or more organizations undertaken with the intention to cooperate." This definition is applied in the context of water quality management, where the physical nature of watersheds and the lack of regulatory authority available to policy-makers leads to a variety of collaborative arrangements.

A survey of literatures addressing collaboration from different theoretical angles revealed …

Perceived Barriers And Facilitators To Mental And Behavioral Health Screening And Treatment In Primary Care For Women In Northeast Tennessee, Sarah K. Hill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Between one quarter and one third of all primary care patients meet criteria for at least one mental disorder. However, many women are not screened for mental disorders as recommended by the literature. Some studies suggest even lower rates of screening and treatment in rural areas. This researcher sought to identify barriers and facilitators to mental and behavioral health screening and treatment for women in primary care and solicit feedback on how to ameliorate perceived barriers. Given the limited extant data describing rural Appalachian women’s perceptions of barriers and facilitators to receiving mental health services an exploratory qualitative analysis was …

Becoming The Best Mom Or The Best Doctor? Gender Inequality And Medical Students’ Specialty Choice, Casey L. Lawson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In anticipation of an expected national shortage of primary care physicians, 24 medical students from the East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine were selected through a snowball sample and participated in in-depth interviews. A major aim of the study was to explore the social and economic factors influencing students’ specialty choice and career interests. Students’ perceptions of “rural” environments, student debt, professional obligations, specialties, and preceptorship experiences were analyzed. Students’ gender heavily influenced their feelings about choosing a medical specialty, as did their stereotypes of physicians in particular medical fields. The thesis concludes with recommendations for challenging negative …

The Effects Of Family Structure On Juvenile Delinquency, Alisha B. Parks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Studies show that family structure is an important factor in explaining delinquency among adolescents (Price & Kunz, 2003). There is a lack of research, however, pertaining to cohabitation. The main goals of this study are to determine if there are variations in delinquency between cohabitating and other family types, and to examine the extent to which parental social control measures account for the variation in delinquency by family structure. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) are used for the purposes of this study (n = 4,389). While there are no significant differences in violent delinquency …

Technology Use In Rural Appalachia: A Pilot Study Of The Implications For Pediatric Behavioral Health, Courtney E. Lilly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Technology is a promising means for increasing rural individuals’ access to behavioral healthcare. However, the range of technology use in rural areas is currently unknown. The aims of this study were to examine the use of technology in rural areas, the relationship between technology use and willingness to access pediatric mental health services via videoconferencing, and this relationship within the context of other critical variables linked to service uptake. Data were collected at 2 pediatric primary care clinics. While no significant relationship was found between technology use and willingness to use videoconferencing, a significant relationship emerged between previous service seeking …

Who Done It? Rurality Vs. Ses As Critical Factors In Evaluating The Prevalence Of Child Psychosocial Concerns In Primary Care, Robert M. Tolliver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of child psychosocial concerns in rural primary care, hypothesized to be greater than national averages due to lacking mental health services in rural areas. This study was an examination of the role of SES, various definitions of “rural,” and the interaction of SES and rurality, in predicting parent-reported child psychosocial concerns in Appalachian primary care clinics. Caregivers presenting with their child at one of 8 pediatric primary care sites (n=2,672) were recruited to complete a measure assessing demographics and the Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC). Results showed that while rural status …

Examining Juvenile Delinquency Contributors Through Life-Course And Strain Theory, Caitlin E. Burns

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For years the causes of juvenile delinquency have drawn a lot of attention from the scientific community and have become a widely studied concept in research literature. Causes of juvenile delinquency have become an important aspect of criminological study because with the knowledge of what contributes to delinquency, the scientific community can possibly slow down the continuous act of offending, also known as continuity, through implementation of prevention strategies. Criminological theory is used to define and help understand why certain contributors are the foundation for juvenile delinquency, along with the continuity of crime for an adolescent but also what factors …

Comparison Of Temperamental Rating Bilingually In Ukraine Using Child Behavioral Questionnaire (Cbq): Short Form, Nelly Ostrovsky

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The 2 goals of the present investigation were to 1) examine the reliability of the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire: Short Form (CBQ) in a sample of 4-7 year-old children from the Ukraine and 2) compare those children’s temperament profiles to a) one another when the form was administered in 2 different languages and b) their American counterparts from the CBQ standardization sample. Three waves of data were collected from the parents of 167 children residing in Kiev, Ukraine. Internal reliability analyses showed good internal consistency of the instrument. Comparative analyses conducted both within and between cultures showed similarities and differences across …

The True Tragedy Of American Power, Isaiah Wilson Iii

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Is The Law Of Armed Conflict Outdated?, Sibylle Scheipers

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Confronting Africa's Sobels, Robert L. Feldman, Michel Ben Arrous

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

The Coming Financial Wars, Juan C. Zarate

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Economic Statecraft: China In Africa, Douglas W. Winton

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

A War Examined: Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003, Usawc Press

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Perceived Servant Leadership Constructs And Collective Self-Esteem, Leann D. Howell

Dissertations

Following Greenleaf’s (1977) seminal work in servant leadership, much has been written on the definition of servant leadership, but very little written on what it does. At the center of this research is a focus on how followers perceive servant leadership constructs/attributes, and the relationship between that perception and collective selfesteem as it relates to organizational membership. The central question guiding this research is: “Is there a relationship between perceived servant leadership constructs and collective self-esteem?” Followers’ perceptions of servant leadership constructs as defined by Patterson (2003) were investigated utilizing the Servant Leadership Assessment Instrument (SLAI) developed by Dennis (2004). …

Predictive Admission Criteria In Graduate Programs In Speech-Language Pathology, Mary Lloyd Moore

Dissertations

Speech-language pathology is a profession for which there is increasing demand as well as being one of the most desirable career paths in the United States. Graduation of qualified persons who can pass the Praxis exam is an essential outcome of all graduate programs in speech-language pathology. If predictors of competence could be identified before admission, graduate programs would be better able to select students who would maximize the expenditure of materials, energy, and expertise, thereby decreasing the potential failure for both students and universities. Therefore, this research addresses the extent to which selected variables may serve to predict success …

Alan Ryan: On Politics, Book One Study Guide, 2013, Steven Alan Samson

Steven Alan Samson

No abstract provided.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- December 2013, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Hedonic Housing Prices In Paris: An Unbalanced Spatial Lag Pseudo-Panel Model With Nested Random Effects, Badi H. Baltagi, Georges Bresson, Jean-Michel Etienne

Center for Policy Research

This paper estimates a hedonic housing model based on flats sold in the city of Paris over the period 1990-2003. This is done using maximum likelihood estimation taking into account the nested structure of the data. Paris is historically divided into 20 arrondissements, each divided into four quartiers (quarters), which in turn contain between 15 and 169 blocks (îlot, in French) per quartier. This is an unbalanced pseudo-panel data containing 156,896 transactions. Despite the richness of the data, many neighborhood characteristics are not observed, and we attempt to capture these neighborhood spill-over effects using a spatial lag model. Using Likelihood …

Do Market Incentives Crowd Out Charitable Giving?, Cary Deck, Erik O. Kimbrough

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Donations and volunteerism can be conceived as market transactions with a zero explicit price. However, evidence suggests people may not view zero as just another price when it comes to pro-social behavior. Thus, while markets might be expected to increase the supply of assets available to those in need, some worry such financial incentives will crowd out altruistic giving. This paper reports laboratory experiments directly investigating the degree to which market incentives crowd out large, discrete charitable donations in a setting related to deceased organ donation. The results suggest markets increase the supply of assets available to those in need. …

Combining Attentional Control And Semantic Memory Retrieval: A Sensitive Marker For Early Stage Ad And Ad-Related Biomarkers In Healthy Older Adults, Andrew Jacob Aschenbrenner

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Past studies have shown that measures of attentional control and semantic memory retrieval are sensitive markers of Alzheimer disease: AD). The present study examined the utility of combining measures of attentional control and semantic retrieval within a single task to discriminate healthy aging from early stage AD and show sensitivity to AD biomarkers in healthy control individuals. On each trial of the present task, participants viewed a category: e.g. “a unit of time”) and verified whether a subsequent target item was an exemplar of the category: “hour”) or not: “clock”). Importantly, the nonmembers of the category were associatively related: e.g., …

The Effect Of Age-Related Declines In Inhibitory Control On Audiovisual Speech Intelligibility, Avanti Dey

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Audiovisual: AV) speech perception is perception in which both auditory and visual information is available in order to understand a talker, compared to an auditory signal alone, during face-to-face communication. This form of communication yields significantly higher word recognition performance as compared to either sensory modality alone, constituting a general AV advantage for speech perception. Despite an overall AV advantage, older adults seem to receive less benefit from this bimodal presentation than do younger adults. However, there is evidence to suggest that not all age-related deficits in AV speech perception are of a sensory nature, but are also influenced by …

Tests, Tests, And More Tests: A New Era For Dementia Diagnosis, Jonathan Gooblar

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Cerebrospinal fluid: CSF) proteins correlate with pathological changes that are hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease: AD). CSF biomarkers have been used in research settings to predict AD diagnosis and rate of cognitive decline, however their use in clinical settings is limited. Given their potential utility in identifying preclinical AD and in increasing diagnostic confidence in clinical settings, we sought to understand how clinicians use CSF biomarkers in conjunction with other clinical details to diagnose AD. Participants: N = 193) were physicians and other medical professionals who routinely evaluate older adults for neurodegenerative disease. In a within-subjects factorial design, participants were randomized …

Landscape Ecological Analysis Of Patterns Influencing Bat Activity In Southeast Glacial Plains Of Wisconsin, Angela Leckie Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Nearly half of the world's bat species are threatened by anthropogenic land use. To contribute to the conservation of these cryptic mammals, it is imperative to understand bat habitat selection in human-dominated landscapes. Bat activity was calculated using active acoustic surveys conducted June and July for three years along river and lake transects in an agricultural matrix. Using multiple logistic regression and ANOVA regression tree analyses, I examined the relationship between bat activity of four species and habitat structure at multiple scales.

Aquatic features were determined to be the greatest predictor of bat activity with rivers supporting greater amount of …

Invisible Minority: People Incarcerated With Mental Illness, Developmental Disabilities, And Traumatic Brain Injury In Washington's Jails And Prisons, Bette Michelle Fleishman

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

An Inconsistent Invitation: Am I Invited To Be A Party? How Not Affording Party Status To Youth In Washington Dependency Hearings Can Be A Violation Of Due Process, Laura Baird

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Pilates, Mindfulness And Somatic Education, Karen Caldwell, Marianne Adams, Rebecca Quinn, Mandy Harrison, Jeffrey M. Greeson

College of Science & Mathematics Departmental Research

The Pilates Method is a form of somatic education with the potential to cultivate mindfulness – a mental quality associated with overall well-being. However, controlled studies are needed to determine whether changes in mindfulness are specific to the Pilates Method or also result from other forms of exercise. This quasi-experimental study compared Pilates Method mat classes and recreational exercise classes on measures of mindfulness and well-being at the beginning, middle and end of a 15 week semester. Total mindfulness scores increased overall for the Pilates Method group but not for the exercise control group, and these increases were directly related …