Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Mediating Role Of Post-Event Processing In The Relationship Between Shyness Mindset And Social Interaction Anxiety, Sebastian Szollos

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Social anxiety severely limits an individual’s ability to develop and maintain relationships and often stifles an individual’s ambition and growth in both occupational and academic settings. Post-event processing occurs when an individual engages in a detailed, repetitive, and negative review of a previous social interaction and often results in feelings of guilt, shame, and embarrassment for how the individual appeared to others in the social interaction. Shyness mindset is the degree to which an individual believes their own shyness is capable of change. A fixed shyness mindset is the belief that shyness is unmalleable and cannot be changed. Previous research …

Understanding Subtle Age Discrimination: Investigations Into The Daily Effects Of Selective Incivility Based On Age, Courtney L. Thomas

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Incivility can be selectively targeted at employees with minority group memberships, undermining attempts to mitigate diversity initiatives. Thus, selective incivility can target older workers and lead to negative repercussions for the employee. In this dissertation, I theoretically discern between selective incivility toward older workers and age discrimination. This study explored the experience of daily selective incivility for older workers. The study found evidence that the relationship between age and incivility was not linear, suggesting that both older and younger workers experience incivility more often than middle-aged workers. Further, there is evidence that incivility is associated with the affective reactions of …

The Influence Of Defendants' Nonverbal Behaviors On Juror Liking, Sympathy, And Sentencing, Joseph Thomas

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Jurors are highly susceptible to influence, especially in the form of emotional manipulation. Totest this, the present study applies Burgoon’s (1993) expectancy violation theory to affective defendant behaviors (i.e., remorse, immediacy). In an attempt to manipulate the perceived rewardingness of the defendant, these behaviors are coupled with a description of either a major or minor crime. The results indicate that remorse behaviors evoke sympathy, thereby leading to a more lenient sentencing recommendation by mock jurors. Though the likeability of the defendant also impacted juror sentencing recommendations, immediacy behaviors failed to produce such an effect. Implications of these results are discussed.

Becoming A Stimulant User, Emily Wagner

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

A large and growing number of college students use stimulants such as Adderall, Vyvanse, or Ritalin through their college careers, despite not having a prescription themselves. Using in-depth interviews, the current study provides an understanding of undergraduate student’s career stimulant use. Specifically, this research provides the stages necessary for becoming a stimulant user. These stages are: having a predisposition to trying stimulants, learning about stimulants, watching people use them without experiencing negative consequences, experiencing various personal struggles, convincing themselves that using stimulants is their best or only option to overcome these struggles, and lastly, upon trying stimulants, learning to enjoy …

Understanding Prosocial Teasing In Early Adolescence, Kristina Wiemer

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Prosocial teasing is not well known or understood by educators. Prosocial teasing is intentional but playful verbal and non-verbal provocation meant to be taken non-literally by the target of the tease (Keltner et al., 2001) and is not an uncommon experience for students to have (Barnett et al., 2004). While much research has been conducted on social and emotional skills (Nix et al., 2013; Smith & Low, 2013), there is still a gap in the literature looking at how these skills relate to prosocial teasing. The current study examined and described middle school students’ use of prosocial teasing and their …

The Role Of Parent Inattentive Symptoms On Parent Involvement In Child Education, Moira Wendel

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

ADHD is a disorder that effects executive functioning and has a profound impact on the quality of life of both children and adults (Shaw et al., 2012). To understand the development of ADHD symptoms and the variables associated with the academic trajectories of children with symptoms of ADHD, a large body of research has examined parenting variables, which has provided strong evidence for the associations between child ADHD and negative parenting practices (Johnson & Mash, 2001). A facet of this research has examined parent involvement in education, with some evidence suggesting that child ADHD is associated with parents’ perceptions of …

Interest On Reserves In A Partial Two-Sector Banking Model, Shawn A. Osell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The Federal Reserve implemented a new monetary tool policy as it simultaneously conducted the first round of quantitative easing in 2008. At that time, the Fed began paying interest on a commercial bank's required and excess reserves in order to prevent the federal funds rate from falling to zero. Before quantitative easing, reserves were scarce enough for the federal funds rate to be determined by the supply and the demand for reserves. Consequently, the Fed would use open market operations to manipulate the federal funds rate, and thereby influence other market interest rates. When the Federal Open Market Committee decided …

Views From The Retail Apocalypse: Store Closures, Spatial Accessibility, And Last Mile Delivery Via Drone, Joseph Tokosh

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines important activity occurring in the retail industry related to the widespread transformation occurring throughout it. Specifically, it analyzes store closures, spatial accessibility’s role in retail decision making, and the potential market that could be served by a drone delivery system. Store closures of the movie rental chain Family Video, and three department store chains (Macy’s, Sears, and JCPenney) are analyzed through a binary logistic regression. Findings show that the contributory impact of variables toward store closures are different for small businesses like Family Video compared to the large scale department stores. Some of the major differences include …

Regaining Inbox Control: Information And Communication Technology (Ict) Demands, Work Rumination, And Well-Being, Xinyu Hu

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Information and communication technology (ICT) use has been an essential part of knowledge work, which creates ICT demands that lead to negative psychological experiences. Drawing from the job demands-resources model, this dissertation examined how ICT demands (i.e., expectation of being available and responsive via ICTs during nonwork time and perceived ICT workloads) could be associated with increased work exhaustion and decreased work engagement. The study also examined the mediating role of negative work rumination (i.e., heightened cognition about work demands) in the association between demands and well-being outcomes. Driven by the resource allocation framework, an email management intervention was proposed …

Covid-19 Effects On Instructor Behavior: Instructor Self-Efficacy And Self-Disclosures Through Communication Privacy Management Theory, Rebekah Melanie Chiasson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The goal of this investigation was to examine how college and university instructors’ teaching self-efficacy and self-disclosures have been influenced by the switch in teaching modality from face-to-face to online due to the pandemic. This study found that experience designing online courses influences instructors online teaching self-efficacy (i.e., virtual interactions self-efficacy, course content mitigation self-efficacy, and general online teaching self-efficacy). Instructors that were required to teach online during the pandemic reported greater levels of three constructs of online teaching self-efficacy if they had taken professional development prior to the pandemic but taking professional development after the pandemic was not associated …

Three Essays In Applied Econometrics, Milivoje Davidovic

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The doctoral dissertation entitled Three Essays in Applied Econometrics is based on the application of modern techniques of applied econometrics in order to infer main interrelations and causalities in various fields of quantitative economics. It includes an eclectic mix of both frequentist and Bayesian approaches, with the main goal to quantify and estimate a set of variables that significantly determine certain economic outcomes, in this case NBA efficiency scores, per capita growth rates, and Covid-19-induced risk exposure, market volatility, and cross-market integration. These topics are, at the sametime, at the core of the research interest in the following three independent …

Bidirectional Associations Between Parenting Practices And Child Conduct Problems: The Moderating Role Of Callous-Unemotional Behavior, Elizabeth R. Corning

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

A growing body of research has evidenced bidirectional associations between parenting practices and the development of conduct problems in children. However, studies examining the effect of child callous-unemotional (CU) behavior in the context of these reciprocal associations have produced mixed findings. This study used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N= 4,898) to investigate bidirectional associations between parenting practices (i.e., positive and harsh) and child conduct problems across ages 3, 5, and 9 and determine if these associations are moderated by child CU behavior. Cross-lagged panel analyses revealed that higher positive parenting at age 5 was associated …

The Political Utility Of Poetry In Aristotle’S Thought, Stephen Eugene Clouse

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Aristotle’s political thought asks the serious student of politics to examine critically the way we use our leisure (σχολη) in the life of the city. This project aims at such a critical examination by exploring the relationship between poetry and the city. The task here is not to understand the political commentary of a specific poetic work but to understand the way that poetry has a use in the life of the city. Traditionally this relationship is explored through piety but I argue that Aristotle rejects this foundation and grounds the usefulness of poetry in how we learn mimetically. Because …

Coparenting Among Families Of Treatment-Seeking Adolescents: Associations With Coping Behaviors And Psychological Adjustment, Andrew Joseph Flannery

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In recent decades, the family literature has demonstrated that the influences of coparenting spread through the entire family system and also uniquely affect child and adolescent psychosocial outcomes. For example, extant evidence shows that coparenting influences the connection between marital conflict and adolescent psychosocial outcomes. However, the period of adolescence is underscored by novel stressors, as teenagers experience biological, psychological, social, and cognitive transformations. Moreover, the median age of onset for mood, anxiety, substance use, and impulse-control disorders is before 25 years of age and most frequently during adolescence. Additionally, the manner in which adolescents cope with stressors may buffer …

The Relevance Of Credit Risk In The Determination Of Commercial Banks’ Profitability: Evidence From Ghana, Godwin Kwabla Ekpe

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Existing empirical literature on the relationship between credit risk and bank’s profitability is replete with mixed results. This research investigates the probable effect of credit risk on banks’ profitability by examining the nature of the relationship between two measures of credit risk (Loss provisioning rate and Actual provisioning charge rate) and two measures ofprofitability (Return on assets and Return on Equity). The investigation is conducted using data on the Ghanaian banking industry. Various modeling techniques are used to fit the data, including frequentist beta regression and Bayesian beta regression models. The results across all models suggest negative linear relationship between …

Medical Cannabis And Counselor Education: Examining The Relationship Between Counselor Education Curriculum And The Incorporation Of Medical Cannabis, Anne Catherine Adrian

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The focus of this study was to examine the status of medical cannabis instruction in counselor education curriculum programs. There is evidence to indicate that medical cannabis use may be beneficial in mental health care. However, there is limited research on medical cannabis in counselor education. The following research questions provided a framework of investigation for this study: What is the status of the inclusion of medical cannabis content in counselor education curriculum programs and what are the plans to incorporate this content in the future?

In this study, a non-experimental design was used to describe or examine associations between …

Pumping Fees And Spillovers In The Groundwater Commons: An Evaluation Of A Conservation Tool And Irrigator Competitive Behavior, Godwin Kwabla Ekpe

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

My dissertation examines the effectiveness of pumping fees in groundwater commons agricultural irrigation as a conservation tool in the presence of varying water scarcity levels and spatial interdependence among irrigators. The first chapter provides a brief overview of three important areas of groundwater commons irrigation addressed in this dissertation. The second chapter’s objectives are two-fold. First, I review the common-pool resources literature relative to concerns of sustainable extraction and implementation of conservation policies focusing on pricing incentives in the management of groundwater commons where irrigators share the same underlying aquifer. Second, I introduce a theoretical model involving incorporating a non-constant …

Stability Of Emotion Regulation Behaviors Between Infancy And Toddlerhood: Bidirectional Effects Of Overcontrolling Parenting, Meghan Justina Kanya

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Though emotion regulation has been heavily studied for the last several decades, much of the research to this point has neglected to examine the development of specific strategies across time, particularly across infancy and toddlerhood when such behaviors are first emerging and increasing in complexity. Previous work has shown these early emotion regulation abilities to be easily influenced by external factors and, given young children’s heavy reliance on caregivers during this period of time, parenting is often studied as one such factor. Though positive parenting has been consistently shown to promote normal development, overcontrolling parenting has been less readily studied …

Longitudinal And Concurrent Contributions Of Verbal And Physical Scaffolding To Toddlers’ Inhibitory Control, Anton Petrenko

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Executive function (EF) is crucial to lifespan development and environmental factors have been found to impact its development. Previous research has shown that parenting can make meaningful impacts on children’s EF, with scaffolding receiving broad support. Scaffolding refers to an adult’s ability to guide a child through a challenging task without providing too much or too little support. However, many of the studies which have examined scaffolding have been done in preschool- and school-aged samples, with limited research conducted in younger samples. Very few studies have separately examined verbal and physical components of scaffolding, which may differentially contribute to children’s …

Clinical Applications And Feasibility Of Proton Ct And Proton Radiography, Christina Marie Sarosiek

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Proton therapy is a form of radiation treatment for cancer that utilizes the Bragg peak to create conformal high dose regions around the tumor volume. However, the use of x-ray computed tomography (CT) and x-ray radiography for treatment planning and pre-treatment quality assurance procedures improves the achievable effectiveness of proton treatment plans (using proton CT) and the pretreatment verification (using proton radiography). Errors in the conversion from x-ray Hounsfield units (HU) to proton relative stopping powers (RSP) leads to errors in the predicted proton range. To account for the errors, 3.5% margins are included in the treatment plan. This means …

Asean's Ineffective Response To The South China Sea Disputes, Rithiya Serey

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Since 1992, five ASEAN member states (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam) have been involved in territorial disputes with China at the South China Sea (SCS). China’s presence in the SCS has prevented the populations of the five ASEAN member states from getting safe and productive access to the lucrative natural resources and trade routes to the outside regions. Even though the SCS disputes have caused economic and security problems for at least half of ASEAN member states, it is puzzling that ASEAN has been suboptimal and ineffective in responding to the disputes. To answer this puzzle, I argue …

A Select Group: When Do Parties In Consensual Democracies Expand Their Leadership Selectorates?, James Godowic

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to answer the question of when do parties in consensual parliamentary systems expand the group of people who can pick the party leader? Previous literature has offered two opposing theories of change. One is rooted in the exogenous factor of electoral performance as a catalyst for parties to change. The other focuses on the endogenous factor of internal party struggles between the party leadership and ideological activists occupying positions in the mid-level of the party. Using a regression analysis of six consensual parliamentary democracies and process tracing of six political parties in the previously unexamined case of …

Remote Sensing Applications In Population Estimation, Regression Analysis, And Urban Growth Simulation Modeling For A Middle Eastern City, Elaf Amer Alyasiri

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Due to a change in government regime and population migration, the City of Hillah in Iraq has been facing several urban issues, particularly population estimating and urban growth planning. Since the last census conducted in 1997, population in Iraq has been estimated based on the annual growth, without considering migration as factor of the population growth. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation study was to develop a population estimation method and an urban growth simulation method for the City of Hillah. Population data were estimated for Hillah, using the Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) derived from Remote Sensing (RS) and …

Essays On U.S. Narrative Tax Changes And Volatility In Housing Market, Masud Alam

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three independent but methodologically similar chapters focusing on the impact of U.S. tax policy changes and understanding the risk-return examination of the U.S. real estate investment trusts (REIT) equity returns. The first and second chapters examine how the U.S. federal and state level economies are likely to react to narrative personal and corporate income tax changes. The third chapter investigates the responses of the U.S. real estate investment trusts (REIT) equity returns to volatility in the U.S. housing market as measured by a newly constructed risk index.

The first chapter examines the short- and long-run effects …

Widening The Pathway To A Degree: The Impact Of Accepting Credit For Prior Learning At A Community College, Jessica Berek

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Credit for prior learning is a way to recognize previous experiences and knowledge as an equivalent to college level learning. Determining effective ways to accept credit for prior learning experiences can have a positive impact on students, including community college students, as they work to reach academic goals. This qualitative study aimed to understand the experiences of community colleges students who have received credit for prior learning on their academic transcript. Through interviews with students, benefits and barriers of credit for prior learning were discussed. Barriers to credit for prior learning included a lack of overall knowledge on the types …

A "Warm" Or "Cold" Early Mars: Evidence From Valley Networks, Xuezhi Cang

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Although Mars is cold and dry today, many lines of evidence suggest that ancient Mars had large amount of water and surface fluvial processes. However, climate modelers have encountered difficulties in modeling such early warm and wet conditions with an above freezing temperature, mainly due to the Martian orbit being further away from the Sun and the faintness of the young Sun. The main purpose of this dissertation is to test the ancient Martian climate hypotheses by investigating the spatial pattern of valley network (VN) properties that can survive post-formational modification (i.e., the robust characteristics) and by analogizing the Earth …

My Writing Technique (2021-2022), Samantha Spencer

Critical Evaluation

This critical evaluation essay considers Spencer’s writing process, her strengths, and her assessment of her own writing. Throughout, Spencer offers specific examples that she cites from her papers in relation to the point she is making about her writing. She thinks in detail about how prewriting and organization contribute to her writing confidence and her writing strengths. She also spends time presenting comments that she has received on her writing from teachers and what she does with that feedback.

Amjambo Africa! (January 2021), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue

COVID and women......................2/3

Reza Jalali..........................................4

Editorial............................................6

Translations

French ............................................7

Swahili............................................8

Somali ............................................9

Kinyarwanda...............................20

Portuguese..................................21

News from Africa..........................10

Scholarship.....................................11

Year in Review..........................12/13

Celebrating Diversity....................16

Finance .............................................9

Insurance........................................22

Roseline Souebele.........................22

Rupal Shah.....................................23

Dora Mills.......................................23

Long Hungry Winter.....................24

Education Academy ................26/27

Islamic Bussiness Concept In Facing Moral Hazard Of Mudharabah Financing In Indonesia Islamic Banking (Perspective: Asymetric Information Theory), Ummu Sholihah, Nur Fatwa

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

In the contract of financing much-needed information asymmetry between the owners of capital (shahibul mall) and the manager of the capital (mudharib) in order to achieve common interests. One of the indicators that lead to moral hazard is due to asymmetric information or dissimilarity of information provided, and influential in the contract of financing. In a Mudharabah financing contract, between shahibul mall and mudharib provide information asymmetry in favor of the creation of a common interest. This study is a literature with an approach that combines the philosophical and phenomenological approach to look deeply about the …

The Torch (Winter 2021-2022), Crtp

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

The Maine Office of the Attorney General administers the Civil Rights Team Project (CRTP). The CRTP’s mission is to increase the safety of elementary, middle school, and high school students by reducing bias-motivated behaviors and harassment in our schools. CRTP accomplishes this by supporting student civil rights teams in Maine schools. The CRTP and student teams are active in engaging school communities in thinking and talking about issues related to:

• Race and skin color
• National origin and ancestry
• Religion
• Disabilities
• Gender (including gender identify and expression)
• Sexual orientation

The Attorney General’s Office created the CRTP in 1996 as a pilot …