Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Facebook And Value Congruence, Andrew James Eyberg

Masters Theses

"The current discussion on the use of social networking sites (SNS) in personnel selection is mixed at best. The present research utilized participant's Facebook profiles to determine if raters can correctly - and accurately evaluate work value dimensions as a measure of person-organization fit. Similar research was successful in capturing personality dimensions via SNS (Buffardi & Campbell, 2009). Additionally, the value dimensions of the current measure used -- the Organizational Culture Profile (OCP) (O'Reilly et al., 1991) has been correlated with aspects of personality. Rater participants (N=105). Every five raters were randomly assigned five profiles to rate, for a total …

Development Of A Variogram Approach To Spatial Outlier Detection Using A Supplemental Digital Elevation Model Dataset, Zane Daniel Helwig

Masters Theses

"When developing a ground water model, the quality of the dataset should first be evaluated. Spatial outliers can lead to predictions which are not representative of actual conditions. In order to isolate misrepresentative points, a method is presented which examines the experimental variogram of a ground water elevation dataset. To define a threshold variance between pairs of ground water elevation measures, ground elevation values from a digital elevation model (DEM) are used to determine a maximum reasonable variance expected to occur on the experimental variogram. To determine appropriate DEM parameters, a separate study was also done which observed characteristic behavior …

Communicating With Customers On Social Media In The United States And South Korea: An Analysis Of Four Companies' Practices, Yeonkyung Lee

Masters Theses

"In this study, I analyzed four companies' Facebook and Twitter posts to study the similarities and differences of American and Korean businesses' communication practices on social media. The study used a qualitative research method: each Facebook and Twitter post was assigned as a unit and coded. Southwest Airlines, General Electric, Asiana Airlines, and Samsung Electronics were selected, and a total of 402 Facebook posts and 465 Tweets from July 6 to September 5, 2016, were collected. Each post was coded by two coders under three coding categories: post-content, medium, and Aristotle's pisteis. After the data was coded, I analyzed each …

Framing And Moral Motives: The Interaction Between Moral Foundations And Political Identity In Predicting Motives, Joshua A. Thompson

WWU Graduate School Collection

Current research suggests that there are differences in the moral foundations of liberals and conservatives. Liberals’ moral foundations tend to focus on issues of fairness, equality, and social justice while conservatives’ focus on issues of authority, purity, and social order. Framing political issues in the context of moral foundations such as harm or purity can cause a change in political attitudes. The current study examines whether framing issues in the context of harm or purity affects approach (social justice, self-reliance) and avoidance (social order, self-restraint) moral motives, and examines the role of high activation negative emotions in this process. It …

A Legacy Of Supremacy: Prison, Power, And The Carceral Nation, Luke J. Hickey

WWU Graduate School Collection

This thesis focuses on the relationship between the prison system and the history of institutionalized racism in the United States. It begins with a detailed historical and political analysis of the criminal justice system in relation to race/ethnicity from the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century into a modern day context. The ideologies birthed from the abolition of slavery that contributed to the structure of the United States penal system are paired with practices of contemporary mass incarceration. The examination of the historical in conjunction with the present shows a clear trajectory of how the U.S. private and public …

Let Me Show You I’M Not Biased! Demonstrating Non-Prejudiced Opinions While Navigating The Topic Of Race, Emily R. Stafford

WWU Graduate School Collection

Research suggests that during interracial interactions, it is effective for both people to foster commonalities in order to form positive impressions of one another. However, when the topic of race and race-related issues are brought up in a cross-group setting, research indicates that Whites who have a strong desire to appear non-biased and non-prejudiced to others tend to avoid mentioning race. Other research suggests that when interacting with a Black individual, Whites may claim to understand the Black person’s racial experiences (thus attempting to establish similarities) in order to demonstrate that they are non-prejudiced. This study examines how Whites’ concern …

Community Within Single-Site Permanent Supportive Housing: Perspectives And Experiences From Staff And Residents At St. Mary’S House, Peter Miterko

WWU Graduate School Collection

This thesis examines how community develops and is experienced among staff and residents of St. Mary’s House, a single-site permanent supportive housing program modeled in the Housing First approach. Supportive housing modeled in the Housing First approach has been gaining prominence in recent decades as an effective resource for managing chronic homelessness nationwide. Despite this, limited attention has been given to the experiences of those being housed. In particular, there is a dearth of research on the experiences of community within single-site supportive housing and the perspectives of residents remain marginalized in the policy discourse.

My thesis begins with …

Veil Of Resilience: How The Concept Of Honor Affects Female Education In Afghanistan, Fereshta Ullah

WWU Graduate School Collection

There are women all over the world who are unable to attend school or enter the work force because of cultural barriers. Women in Afghanistan have difficult obstacles that prevent them from seeking education. In this thesis I look at a specific cultural practice that affects female attendance in school. This thesis explores how the concept of namus, or honor, in southeast Afghanistan, encourages female seclusion from schools. Additionally, according to my research, these regions have historically low education attendance rates for women and a more definitive concept of honor. According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, …

Carrying The Seeds: Adaptations And Transitions Of Hmong American Food Producers In Missoula County, Montana, Rachel Cramer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Forty years after the initial resettlement of Hmong refugees in Missoula County, Montana, the Hmong American community has undergone significant agricultural and cultural adaptations. Today, there are about 200 Hmong Americans in the county, less than 2% of the population (US Census Bureau 2010), but they make up around 40% of the farmers’ market produce vendors. The thesis demonstrates that, while agriculture has played a central role in helping Hmong refugees adapt, its role is becoming more symbolic as the second generation develops an identity less connected to growing and selling food. Through a qualitative research approach using 19 in-depth …

Rhetoric Of Typography: Cross-Cultural Perceptions Of Typefaces For Technical And Visual Communication, Michael Peterson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Since the early 2000s, scholars have been conducting research to determine whether typefaces influence a reader's response to a document. Some areas of research have included the role of gender, age, or other demographics on typeface perception. However, the role of culture in academic discourse on the rhetoric of typography has been largely underexplored, and this is concerning given the ease with which technical documents can be delivered to cultures around the world with a couple of clicks on a computer.

I developed my research topic to explore whether Koreans perceive typefaces differently from non-Koreans and to discover what typefaces …

The Typology Of Community: A Case Study Analysis Of Three Intentional Communities, Caleb Kalinowski

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Typological schemes like those produced by Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies have been used to classify human groups in an evolutionary spectrum ranging from the simple to the complex. Though the typological approach was foundational to further development of the western social sciences it is seldom used to examine what might be termed "simple" societies in the modern day. This study aims to apply the contributions of the two theorists listed above to the concept of the modern intentional community. Although these communities comprise an eclectic and diverse social phenomenon, their characteristic small populations and other features make them intriguing …

How Do The Trans-Pacific Economies Affect The Usa? An Industrial Sector Approach, Takeshi Yagihashi, David D. Selover

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper studies how the Trans-Pacific region affects the US economy in terms of business cycle transmission. We use a large data set consisting of disaggregated sectoral industrial production indexes from selected countries in the region and employ a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) approach to analyze the transmission of shocks in different industries. We find that a positive output shock in the entire Trans-Pacific region has positive effects on the majority of US manufacturing sectors. We also find that sectoral shocks in five sectors of the Trans-Pacific region have a large impact on the overall US economy. Three of the …

The Long Term Effects Of An Aging Fleet On Operational Availability And Cost: Evidence From The Us Coast Guard, Christopher W. Lavin, Robert M. Mcnab, Ryan S. Sullivan

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper empirically examines whether the aging of a fleet affects operational availability and operating cost using a unique data-set on the 117 47-foot Motor Lifeboats (MLBs) of the United States Coast Guard (USCG). Procured from 1997 to 2003, the 47-foot MLB is the standard lifeboat of the USCG and all 117 MLBs remain in service. The aging of the MLB fleet has resulted in higher annual operating costs and lower operational availability, although the nature of this relationship remains unclear. Our estimation strategy utilizes an error components estimator to examine these issues. We employ three variants of the dependent …

Health Capital Investment And Time Spent On Health Related Activities, Juan Du, Takeshi Yagihashi

Economics Faculty Publications

One key component in the health capital investment model in (Grossman, M. Journal of Political Economy, 80: 223–255, 1972) is time spent on improving health. However, few empirical studies have examined how time spent on health investment is determined. In this paper, we fill this void in the literature by investigating how people allocate their time for different types of health-related activities in response to economic variables. Using the American Time Use Survey, we distinguish health-enhancing and health-deteriorating leisure activities, with the rationale that these activities may respond differently to socioeconomic environment. We find that health-enhancing and health-deteriorating time respond …

Frontmatter, Paul B. Mojzes

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Mojzes, Paul (2017) "Frontmatter," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 37 : Iss. 1 , Article 1.

Kazakhstan: Is Sharing Faith A State Security Issue?, Felix Corley

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Announcement And Call For Papers For “Modern State And Religious ‘Dissent,’” A Conference To Be Held At Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg, Russia, September 25-26, 2017

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Gender And Gmos: Understanding Floridians Attitudes Toward Gmos Through The Lens Of Social Judgment Theory, Joy N. Rumble, Lisa K. Lundy, Brittany Martin, Sandra Anderson

Journal of Applied Communications

Social judgement theory was utilized to determine if men and women showed different acceptance of messages about genetically modified (GM) foods. The primary objective was to determine if females and males had a different latitude of acceptance toward statements about GM foods. Researchers found significant differences between males and females with more males accepting messages about GM foods than females. Additionally, there were several statements with wide latitudes of acceptance across genders. These statements represent a common ground and are a good starting point for conversations about GM food.

Improving Biosecurity Through Instructional Crisis Communication: Lessons Learned From The Pedv Outbreak, Timothy L. Sellnow, Jason S. Parker, Deanna D. Sellnow, Robert S. Littlefield, Emily M. Helsel, Morgan C. Getchell, Julia M. Smith, Scott C. Merrill

Journal of Applied Communications

Crises, by their nature, demand effectively designed and quickly delivered instructional messages that compel stakeholders to take appropriate actions to protect themselves and their assets. The challenges of crisis communication are intensified in crises involving unanticipated and relatively unknown disease outbreaks with the potential to spread exponentially. This study assesses the communication challenges and opportunities in such volatile crises through an analysis of the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) outbreak that severely threatened the United States pork industry in 2013 and 2014. Interviews were conducted with 13 individuals directly involved in developing and distributing risk and crisis biosecurity messages during …

The Risk Of Risk: An Exploration Of The Impact Of “Risk” On Child Welfare Decision-Making, Jill K. Stoddart

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Objective: In this paper, child welfare decision-making is critically assessed in relation to Beck’s (1992) concept of ‘risk society’. Three key decisions made by child welfare workers during the initial investigation are examined in order to illustrate how risk influences the type of investigative approach used, the determinations about child maltreatment, and the services provided to children and families and to link theory with policy and practice.

Methods: The three exploratory studies all utilize secondary data from several cycles of the Ontario Incidence Study, which collects information directly from frontline child protection workers about incidence of reported maltreatment. Two studies …

Appreciation And Respect: Understanding The Decision To Join The Caf After Black Bear Program Using Four Directions And Mixed Methods, Anna Harpe

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this study is to better understand the wholistic meaning that the Canadian Armed Forces embody for graduates of Black Bear Aboriginal Summer Training Program and the factors involved in the graduates’ decision to join the CAF after graduating Black Bear. This was done using an Indigenous Four Directions framework supported by a mixed methods cross-sectional online survey. Out of respect for the cultures involved, Elders and Cultural Advisors were consulted throughout all stages of the process. The findings suggest that perceptions formed within the Spiritual Direction are important indicators of CAF membership. Wholistically, the CAF maintains a …

Young Children's Source Monitoring: Exploring The Contexts Of Task Difficulty And Repeated Events, Becky Earhart

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation had two over-arching goals. The first was to study the cognitive mechanisms underlying effective source monitoring by clarifying the role that developing executive function skills play in children’s increasing ability to monitor sources. The second goal was to examine whether a particular interview technique called “source-monitoring training” could help children to recall the sources of their memories more accurately. These two separate lines of research were furthered by the same methodology, and thus, these separate research questions were examined simultaneously within both of the experiments conducted for this dissertation.

In the first study, the difficulty of the source-monitoring …

Desiring To Appear Moral Versus Being Moral: Development Of Moral Hypocrisy And Moral Integrity, Kathleen Tamming

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Moral hypocrisy has been defined as “the motivation to appear moral while acting in one’s self interest, and therefore avoiding the cost of actually being moral” (Batson, Kobrynowicz, Dinnerstein, Kampf, & Wilson, 1997). This is in contrast with moral integrity, or the motivation to actually be moral. Experimental research with adults has indicated that people are more highly motivated by moral hypocrisy than by moral integrity (Batson, Thompson, & Chen, 2002). However, this research has yet to be conducted with a variety of age groups. The present study investigated whether there are age differences in individuals’ tendency to engage in …

Adverse Childhood Experiences And Health Risk Behaviors Among College Students, Morgan Thompson

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with social, emotional, and cognitive impairments resulting from disrupted neurodevelopment. These impairments manifest as health risk behaviors (HRBs) including tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, illicit drug use, and sexual risk behaviors. The current study assessed the relation between ACEs and HRBs by examining the cognitive abilities of 144 college students (M = 18.92 years; 56.3% female; 63.9% White; M = .078 ACEs). Participants completed an interview (parental incarceration, Criminogenic Cognitions Scale), surveys (Youth Risk Behavior Survey, ACE Questionnaire), delay discounting task, the Tower of Hanoi, and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Results revealed a graded relationship …

The Archaeology Of Enslavement In Plantation Jamaica: A Study Of Community Dynamics Among The Enslaved People Of Good Hope Estate, 1775-1838, Hayden Frith Bassett

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The “slave village” occupies an important place in New World plantation archaeology, though one in which the variation of experience and the internal social organization have yet to be thoroughly addressed. Through archaeological investigation, this dissertation explores the social dynamics and institutions created by enslaved people to negotiate their domestic circumstances. In many plantation settings, enslaved people lived in dedicated villages or the rear-yards of plantation houses. their domestic boundaries were prescribed, but the life they created within those boundaries was by and large a product of their own sense of sociability, domesticity, and ingenuity. The ways in which people …

Law Library: 1859-2017, Barbara H. Garavaglia

Book Chapters

The Law Library was established in 1859 as part of the Law Department and continues to be "maintained and administered as a part of the instruction and research operation of the Law School." The library has been considered the "apparatus" of the Law Department and "the lawyer's laboratory." Indeed, this underlying view led the library to build a comprehensive collection that would provide "the means necessary for original investigation" and "permit scholars to do research work in any field of law, regardless of country or period." The collection development policy--to collect primary sources of law: statutes, civil law codes, court …

Probation In The United States: A Historical And Modern Perspective, Ryan M. Labrecque

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Probation is a court order through which a criminal defendant is placed under the control, supervision, and care of a probation officer in lieu of imprisonment; so long as the probationer maintains certain standards of conduct. This chapter reviews the historical development of probation in the United States, and highlights how the practice is used in the 21st century. Probation has many advantages over imprisonment, including lower operational costs, increased opportunities for rehabilitation, and reduced risk of criminal socialization. However, there is increasing evidence to suggest probation strategies that focus on compliance monitoring and other law enforcement aspects of supervision …

Adaptation To Climate Change: Historical Evidence From The Indian Monsoon, Vis Taraz

Economics: Faculty Publications

Estimating the potential impacts of climate change requires understanding the ability of agents to adapt to changes in their climate. This paper uses panel data from India spanning from 1956 to 1999 to investigate the ability of farmers to adapt. To identify adaptation, the author exploits persistent, multidecadal monsoon regimes during which droughts or floods are more common. These regimes generate medium-run variation in average rainfall, and there is spatial variation in the timing of the regimes. Using a fixed-effects strategy, she tests whether farmers have adapted to the medium-run rainfall variation induced by the monsoon regimes. The author finds …

Gender Differences In Sexual Assault And Ptsd Stigma, Megan Kennedy

Honors Program Theses

Sexual assault is a significant problem in our society, and is experienced differently by male and female sexual assault victims. Stigma, or blame and negative attitudes toward an individual or group, is frequently experienced by sexual assault victims and reinforced through media, culture, and rape/sexual assault myths. Sexual assault and experiences of stigma influence the mental health problems victims face after assault, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Overall, insufficient research has been conducted on the differing experiences of stigma related to male and female sexual assault victims. In order to separate stigma attributions based on sexual assault status and PTSD, …

Gestalt Therapists' Perspectives On Gender In The Therapeutic Relationship : Implications For Anti-Oppressive Practice, Benjamin Philip Borkan

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This study seeks to explore How does Gestalt therapy training influence therapists in navigating clinical encounters involving gender identity? Gestalt therapists’ responses noted the importance of authenticity, contact, ability to question biases, self-examination, personal responsibility, and the therapist’s sense of their own gender identity privilege and oppression. Gestalt therapy is contrasted with anti-oppressive practice principles, in which there are congruent philosophies between Gestalt therapy and anti-oppressive practice principles. Participants’ and this author’s recommendations for future research include further research on the efficacy of Gestalt therapy training in working with varying identities, as well as gathering perspectives from people of marginalized …