Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Does Climate Change Invoke Conditions That Create Conflict? Lessons Learned From Syria And Beyond, Mara A. O'Connell

Senior Projects Fall 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

Private Lives Of Public Figures, Charlotte Miriam Albert

Senior Projects Fall 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

A Theoretical And Empirical Analysis Of The Wage Effects Of Marriage In Same-Sex Households, Peyton Nash

Senior Projects Fall 2019

This Senior Project analyzes the wage effects of marriage for same-sex couples from a theoretical and empirical perspective using data from the 2012-2017 American Community Survey. I present the first empirical evidence of a wage effect to marriage for same-sex couples. I find strong evidence that this premium is driven by an increased degree of household specialization in married gay and lesbian couples. For both gay and lesbian couples, my results show a large and statistically significant return to marriage for the primary earner in same-sex couples. This raises several questions for future research and potential issues for the more …

Deconstructing Hikikomori: From Literature To Reality, Lydia Perry

Senior Projects Fall 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

This work explores the growing trend of socially withdrawn individuals in Japanese society known as "hikikomori." Through the lenses of philosophy, literature, anthropology, economics, and more, I deconstruct the common perceptions of hikikomori and expand upon the cultural critiques inherent in choosing a life of solitude.

An Eventful Contextualization Of The Maple Avenue Parsonage & Germantown's Former African American Neighborhood, Ethan P. Dickerman

Senior Projects Fall 2019

An Eventful Contextualization of the Maple Avenue Parsonage & Germantown’s Former African American Neighborhood is a three-tiered study of the Maple Avenue community, which existed from around 1840 until 1911. Chapters one through three look at the Mid-Hudson Valley’s historic demography, the genealogies of Maple Avenue’s families, and then the recent archaeological discovery at the Maple Avenue Parsonage of several West African ritual emplacements. Chapter four calls upon the theoretical perspectives of the historical sociologist, William H. Sewell and the historical archaeologist, Douglas J. Bolender, to refute the archaeologist Christopher N. Matthews’s claim that the end of slavery in New …

Cooking Up The Kampung Spirit: Ngiam Su-Lin, Ishan Singh

Social Space

Meet Ngiam Su-Lin, 44, Co-founder and Executive Director of ArtsWok Collaborative, an arts- based NPO that engages the general public via community-based arts projects, research and advocacy. The ArtsWok team partners with organisations and groups to put up participatory performances and public art installations examining various social issues, presents plays by young people on social issues in an annual theatre festival, and trains and mentors practitioners in arts and community work. Su-Lin herself is no stranger to the local arts scene—she’s worked in this space for almost two decades, producing community theatre and festivals—but she’s also a trained counsellor and …

Plan D: Design And Social Responsibility, Harah Chon

Social Space

Most are familiar withthe use of this term as a noun, in which design refers to finished objects, forms, services and solutions. Design is often used as an adjective to describeaesthetic qualities or the utility and function of things. As a pronoun, however, design emphasises the networks or systems involved in the industry as a whole. But what sets design apart from all other human activities is in its useas a verb, denoting its many approaches, perspectives, actions, processes, ideations, interpretations and implementations.

Now You Seaweed, Now You Don't: Photographing Rongcheng's Disappearing Seaweed Houses, Yanjing Liu

Social Space

This county-level city is known not only for its picturesque beauty, but also for being the site of seaweed houses— traditional homes built from natural seaweed and stones. Inhabited mainly by local fishermen, these structures are a reflection of northern Chinese marine culture and fishery customs.

Growth And Sectoral Development: A Stock-Flow-Consistent Model Of The Effects Of Trade Liberalization In Ghana, Harrison J. Karlewicz

Theses - Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy

The dawn of neoliberalism brought with it a litany of trade policies for developing nations, including recommendations to liberalize trade barriers, remove capital controls, and develop in relative comparative advantages in the global economy. These policies were buttressed with Computable General Equilibrium models that showed positive welfare gains for liberalizing nations. This paper reviews the historical record around trade policy, theories of trade, as well as the methodological approaches used to examine the effects of trade liberalization in the neoliberal era. It posits an alternative using Stock-Flow-Consistent modeling methods, looking particularly at the case of Ghana and its own tariff …

Aspects Of Institutional Finance In Sustainable Development, Jordan Fanelli

Theses - Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy

Since the establishment of the Post–2015 Development Agenda and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the international community has considerably maintained that private sector leadership will be a crucial factor in supporting sustainable development, especially in emerging and developing economies. Since 2008 many traditional commercial banks who are crucial financial actors have retreated from the capital markets due to increased regulations and mandatory capital ratios. Additionally, government expenditure has also decreased due to budget constraints in the post-crisis years. This retraction of traditional sources of finance, combined with a significant increase in the demand for capital has created multiple financing …

Financial Innovation And The Implications For Monetary Policy And Portfolio Hedging, John Flynn

Theses - Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy

The focus of this thesis will be on three main components, namely, monetary transmission mechanisms, financial innovation and portfolio hedging. It will first discuss the different channels of monetary policy and how they affect economic and financial variables. Then, financial innovation will be analyzed from the perspective of Hyman P. Minsky and the effects on the financial system. Next, the relation of regulation to the changing financial landscape of the economy will be discussed. Finally, the use of financial derivatives will be reviewed, presenting their hedging function and speculative risks. Then, the impact of too big to fail banks and …

The Correctional Officer-Inmate Relationship: Evaluating Job Functionality To Enhance Rehabilitation, Maya Stern

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

The relationship between correctional officers (COs) and the prison populations they survey is vastly understudied in the field of criminal justice. Currently, reports on correctional officers focus on the officers' indispensable role in the prison system as well as their subjectivity to high turnover rates. Studies assessing this relationship would be of great use to prison administrations and the criminal justice system as a whole, because creating effective relationships between COs and inmates may correlate with incidences of job stress and turnover. Utilizing a shift in research would also promote rehabilitative attitudes as the correctional officer and inmate relationship is …

Media Effects And Criminal Profiling: How Fiction Influences Perception And Profile Accuracy, Asha Bolton

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation was to investigate whether media and fictional information that is observed daily can influence perception to build a criminal psychological profile. Staggering between a distinguished art and science, the term profiling has been known by several different names – including criminal profiling, psychological profiling, offender profiling and more. Bandura (2009) believed that exposure to television and other media feeds into a socially constructed reality, where the audience is inevitably influenced by the beliefs and cognitions of observed media. The researcher believed that exposure to media can either influence criminal profiling and investigations with increasing accuracy …

Teachers` Dual Commitment To The Organization And Occupation: A Person-Centered Investigation, John P. Meyer, Alexandre J. S. Morin, Laura J. Stanley, Elyse R. Maltin

Psychology Publications

This study extends previous commitment research by applying person-centered analytic techniques to identify and compare profiles of affective, normative, and continuance commitment to the organization and occupation. Latent profile analyses applied to data from 336 Canadian teachers revealed five profiles with unique combinations of the three commitment mindsets across the two targets. Differences observed across profiles in teachers’ turnover intention and physical and psychological well-being are used to illustrate the benefits of taking a more holistic approach to the investigation of commitment compared to analyses involving individual targets and/or mindsets. Implications for commitment theory, future research, and practice are discussed.

Respect And The Role It Plays In Explaining The Disproportionate Number Of African-Americans Incarcerated, Tina B. Craddock

Theses and Dissertations

This was a quantitative research study that examined the roles respect and self-esteem play within the African American population. There is no disagreement among social scientists that there is a disproportionate number of African Americans incarcerated. This study attempts to offer one possible explanation. This was a quasi-replication of a study conducted nearly two decades ago using African American adolescent males between the ages of 14 to 18. This research study identified a sample population consisting of African American males and females between the ages of 18 and 50. A cross-sectional analysis was utilized using convenience sampling. The research instruments …

Multimodal Event Knowledge In Online Sentence Comprehension: The Influence Of Visual Context On Anticipatory Eye Movements, Valentina Benedettini, Pier Marco Bertinetto, Alessandro Lenci, Ken Mcrae

Psychology Publications

People predict incoming words during online sentence comprehension based on their knowledge of real-world events that is cued by preceding linguistic contexts. We used the visual world paradigm to investigate how event knowledge activated by an agent-verb pair is integrated with perceptual information about the referent that fits the patient role. During the verb time window participants looked significantly more at the referents that are expected given the agent-verb pair. Results are consistent with the assumption that event-based knowledge involves perceptual properties of typical participants. The knowledge activated by the agent is compositionally integrated with knowledge cued by the verb …

A Randomized Controlled Trial Of Internet-Delivered Cbt And Attention Bias Modification For Early Intervention Of Depression, R. Mcdermott, David J. A. Dozois

Psychology Publications

Abstract

The conceptualization and empirical knowledge base related to major depression has increased dramatically in recent years. We now have well-developed and validated models of depression from a range of theoretical perspectives. These models have significantly enhanced the development of effective treatments and preventative interventions. Although various prevention programs are available, Web-based protocols can enhance accessibility to evidence-based prevention programs. The current study involved a randomized controlled trial focused on the prevention and treatment of depression in high-risk first- and second-year undergraduate students. Three Internet-delivered preventative programs were compared: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT; MoodGym), attentional bias modification, and an active …

Older Adult Caregivers’ Lived Experiences With Debilitated Chronically Ill Relatives In A Rural Southern County, Nancy J. Dameron

Theses and Dissertations

By 2030, the last of the baby boomer generation will reach the age of 65, which will expand the older adult population to more than 70 million in the United States. Based on the inflated numbers of the older adult population and the noted decreased birth rate in the younger population, fewer health-care providers will be available to teach, prepare, train, and assist caregivers in the ongoing care of their ill relatives.

The problem investigated in the study involved the present upsurge of the older adult population living longer and contributing to a shortage of health-care providers for older adults. …

Exploring The Buffering Effects Of Holding Behaviors On The Negative Consequences Of Workplace Discrimination For People Of Color, Heather A. Kohlman Olsen

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Previous research suggests that discrimination is still a prevalent problem within organizations even with the current laws and policies in place in the United States to ensure equality of opportunity for minority groups. Therefore, people of color continue to report experiencing inequality and exclusion in the workplace. The broad purpose of the current investigation is to provide guidance to organizations regarding proactive strategies for mollifying the deleterious consequences that people of color often experience as a result of enduring numerous incidences of subtle discrimination in the workplace. Specifically, I proposed that when people of color report having trusting, supportive relationships …

How Improving Prison Systems In The United States Will Positively Impact The Economy, Jordan Laube

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper examines the causes of high recidivism in the United States and offers a solution to theoretically bring these numbers down. This study is compiled of data over the past twenty years (1998-2018) as there have been spikes in recidivism rates during this time period. Some of the independent variables that this paper will take into account are economic and labor market freedom, race, cost, sentence length, and prison population under discretionary review. A one percent increase in state economic freedom is associated with a 0.47 % decrease in parolee recidivism. The relationship is stronger and more statistically significant …

Economic Growth As It Relates To Women’S Labor Force Participation In The Lac, John Esher

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the dependence of economic growth in the LAC and the relationship between Women’s Labor Force Participation and growth in production and total GDP. This study is the incorporation of information and data from the LAC into a Solow Growth Model to examine the influence of participation on the GDP per capita of the region. Increases in GDP per capita are modeled by using the differences in current GDP per capita against the GDP after women’s participation is increase to the same level to men’s. The results show that if women were to actively participate in the labor …

Effects Of Private And Public Health Expenditure On Health Outcome, Hyungue Lim

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

The current level of health spending in the U.S. is the highest in the world. However, the outcomes of the health spending are among the lowest for developed countries. Therefore, for policy development purpose, it is necessary to determine which direction of healthcare spending results in better output, private or public. This paper investigates the effect of private and public health expenditure on life expectancy, infant mortality at birth, and infant mortality under age 5 among 11 OECD countries. Hausman test is performed to confirm the fixed effects models. Fixed effects GLS and GMM are used for data analysis. We …

The Glass-Cliff And Usa Politics: Are Women Set Up For Failure?, Amber Marin

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This study investigates the hypothesis that the glass cliff exists in Senate races for the United States in 1998, 2004, 2010, and 2016. It compares the effects to anecdotal situations focusing on Brexit. The results of the study find validity in glass cliff hypothesis.

Does Growth Have A Price Tag? Foreign Aid’S Effect On Economic Growth In Africa, Andrew Berghahn

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the linkage between Official Development Assistance (ODA) received by African countries and the growth of GDP per capita within those nations. This study uses fixed and random effects to explore to ascertain the effects of increasing the amount of ODA received in relation to the country’s GDP. The results from this analysis show that there is a clear negative impact on country’s GDP per capita as ODA increases in relation to total GDP.

Esg Scores Impact On The Market Value Of The Stock, Michelle Quinn

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the effects of the ESG scores on a firm’s stock valuation, using the Tobin’s Q ratio. This study will incorporate both the ESG index as a whole and the individual factors: environmental, social and governance to consider the firm’s corporate social responsibility. This model uses the Tobin’s Q measurement to evaluate if the stock is over or undervalued while including the size, risk, and development within the firm. The paper found that there is little significant evidence to prove that there is a relationship between the ESG scores and the valuation of the stock, but there is …

Salary Dispersion And Team Performance In Major League Baseball: A Quantile Regression Analysis, Shane Vyskocil

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the relationship between salary dispersion and team performance in Major League Baseball. Player salary data is collected to calculate each team’s annual Gini coefficient from 1998-2016, which is used to represent a team’s level of wage inequality in a given year. The study incorporates a fixed and random effects model, and distinguishes itself from previous research by employing multiple quantile regressions to analyze how the impact of salary dispersion differs depending on a team’s performance level. The results find that the fixed effects model is preferred, and that there is consistently a negative relationship between wage differentials …

Causality Relationship Between Income Inequality And Life Satisfaction In European Countries: Does Income Inequality Affect Life Satisfaction?, Rodrigue Beleho Balemaken

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper examines the interaction between life satisfaction and income inequality in European nations from 2006 to 2016. The keys finding of the analysis and the results show that countries that promote collectivism tend to have people with higher life satisfaction than countries which promote individualism. In general, individuals prefer to live in a country where they have stable disposable income, freedom in the way they are thinking, trust in their government and policies, a healthy life expectancy, and social support and generosity from peers. With this in mind, it raises the question, “where does income inequality fit into this?” …

Determinants Of Life Expectancy In The Central African Republic, Taylor Rizzo

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the determinants of life expectancy in the Central African Republic. The study uses economic, social, and environmental factors to estimate a health production function. The study aims to offer suggestions on ways to target life expectancy as a method for increasing economic growth. The results show that the best way to increase longevity in the CAR and solve the mortality crisis are to increase sanitation facilities and regulation, solve the hunger/malnutrition problem, and to reduce the deadly spread of HIV. Aid was determined to be significant in improving the well-being of citizens in the CAR.

Figuring Out Aid: The Determinants Of Foreign Aid To Subsaharan Africa In The Post-Cold War Era, Soala Ekine

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

I investigate the determinants of foreign aid to Sub – Sahara African countries. I look at the post – Cold War era following Bandyopadhyay and Wall (2007). The independent variables of interest are GDP per capita, infant mortality, population, civil and political rights and also government effectiveness. I control for fixed effects to allow for political, strategic and other reasons donors have and use data from the World Bank from 1995. My results show that in the post-Cold War era, government effectiveness and population are statistically significant in explaining net official and development aid and assistance. A population bias is …

Guide To The Marjorie Bates Collection, Bulk 1917-1928, Olivia Corey, Orson Kingsley

Archives & Special Collections Finding Aids

Biographical Sketch

Marjorie Bates was born in Cambridge, MA on July 31, 1897. During her childhood her family moved to Braintree, MA, and in September of 1915 she entered the two-year teaching program at Bridgewater State Normal School. She graduated in June of 1917 and the following September started her fist teaching job in Falmouth, MA. Bates taught in Falmouth for one year before attending Burdett College in 1918. It is unclear whether she finished the program there. In March of 1920 she began teaching fifth grade at the John Hancock School in Quincy, MA, but it is unclear how …