Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

"Where Did Your Christ Come From?", Kamara V. Townes

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This written document is the accompanying thesis for my Master of Fine Arts Exhibition, “WHERE DID YOUR CHRIST COME FROM?”, shown at Gallery 937 in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (displayed April 5th-June 9th, 2024). Through painting, sculpture, and installation, I rely on an intuitive artmaking practice to create work that makes commentary on race, gender and identity. This thesis documents my research on contemporary influences, experimentation with materials and my point of view in conversation with intersectional feminism while navigating institutional racism.

Conceptually the work of my thesis is deeply influenced by womanism and Black culture, which informs my exploration …

Multidisciplinary Approach To Injury Rehabilitation: The D1 College Athlete Perspective, Lindsey Leatherman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Sport injuries continue to be unavoidable disruptions in student-athletes’ athletic careers with over 200,000 injuries estimated to be reported each year in college sport (Kerr et al., 2015). Researchers continue to emphasize the importance of an interprofessional approach to rehabilitation to help athletes manage the adverse psychological and emotional reactions to injury (Appaneal et al., 2009; Gervis et al., 2020; Putukian, 2016). The purpose of this study was to extend and replicate the research of Clement and Arvinen-Barrow (2021) by incorporating perspectives of Division I US student-athletes. The current study describes 321 NCAA Division I collegiate athletes’ experiences of receiving …

Demonstrating The Need For Intergenerational Trauma-Specific Substance Use Treatment For Mothers Receiving Substance Use Treatment And Their Children, Brittany Ti-Esha Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

For decades the United States has faced substance use epidemics that have devastating public health consequences, with the most recent epidemic being the opioid epidemic. While the substance that is the center of the epidemic’s changes over time, one factor that has been found to be positively related to substance use has remained consistent, that preventable risk factor is adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Those who experience ACEs are at elevated risk for developing SUD. If the trauma that is a result of experiencing ACE is not treated it can complicate recovery and impact the individuals’ families. The children of individuals …

Social Coordination Maintained By Progressive Delay Of Coordination-Dependent Reinforcement, Firdavs Khaydarov

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine coordination maintained by the progressive delay of coordination-dependent reinforcement and to compare the effects of unsignaled and signaled delays on coordination maintenance. In Experiment 1, coordination was examined using two multiple schedules in which two components alternated daily. One of the multiple schedules included progressive-delay (Component 1) and a yoked-interval (Component 2) schedule of coordination-dependent reinforcement in the two components. The other multiple schedule contained a progressive-delay (Component 1) and a yoked-interval (Component 2) schedule of coordination-independent reinforcement in the two components. Component 1 always preceded Component 2, and interreinforcer intervals …

Childhood Adversity And Sexual Risk Taking In College: Pathways Through Alcohol Use, Sarah Josephine Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is associated with a host of negative outcomes throughout the lifespan including engagement in health-risk behaviors such as sexual risk taking and alcohol consumption (Dube et al., 2006; Negriff et al., 2015; Zaso et al., 2021). Additionally, sexual risk-taking and alcohol use commonly co-occur (Certain et al., 2009; Downing-Matibag & Geisinger, 2009). This may be especially true during the transition to college, in which many young adults have increased access to substances, increased autonomy, and an expanded network of peers. Thus, the present study examined the relationship between ACEs, alcohol use, and sexual risk …

Navigating Sexual Consent In Japan, Samara Mizutani Cesar

MSU Graduate Theses

Employing an exploratory sequential research design, including focus groups and an online survey, this thesis explores the factors influencing how Japanese people navigate the gray zones of sexual consent. This study not only addresses gaps in the literature on sexual consent but also provides a preliminary understanding of Japanese individuals’ perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, and experiences in ambiguous sexual interactions, which is particularly meaningful given Japan’s recent legal revisions and changing sociocultural landscape. Findings indicated the impact of traditional sexual scripts on consent perceptions, with gender and relationship norms contributing to the dismissal of sexual assaults within specific relationships. It was …

Saudi Arabia's Nuclear Decision-Making In The Era Of Mohammad Bin Salman, Andrew Brown

MSU Graduate Theses

Strategic culture plays a crucial role in shaping countries’ decision-making in regard to security and foreign policy. In the context of nuclear proliferation, strategic culture can significantly impact a country’s willingness to pursue nuclear weapons and how it calculates the risks and benefits of such a decision. This thesis examines Saudi Arabia’s decision-making under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who has brought about significant changes in the country's strategic culture through aggressive top-down reform. While much of Saudi Arabia's traditional strategic culture has remained intact under MBS and his father, King Salman, some elements have shifted …

Changes In Visual Scanning During Stimulus Equivalence Training, Katelyn Jones

MSU Graduate Theses

Stimulus equivalence-based training allows learners to gain new knowledge by deriving novel relations without being directly taught. This is an important skill that some individuals, especially in special populations, have as a deficit. One possible reason individuals may struggle with stimulus equivalence is a deficit in visual experience that promotes selective attention to stimulus properties. With the advancement of technology, visual tracking and visual scanning offers a means to assess visual behavior in detail while learning stimulus associations. Identifying individual differences, and deficits in visual scanning behavior should provide researchers with better means to design interventions, promoting appropriate visual scanning …

Ua12/2/84 Sigma Chi, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Sigma Phi Alpha fraternity and it's forerunner Sigma Chi.

Ua1c11/122 Wku Panhellenic Council Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs removed from Panhellenic Council scrapbooks.

What Explains American Perceptions Of Russia And China?, Shane Stryker

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This undergraduate senior thesis project aims to investigate the question of how Americans perceive the challenges posed by Russia and China comparatively, and which factors have the greatest influence on these perceptions. This is important for many reasons, such as a greater understanding of American public opinion on foreign affairs that may help frame approaches to U.S. foreign policy. Additionally, finding where the American public agrees and disagrees on competitors and challengers provides us with insight that can be used to explain perceptions.

First, there will be a literature review concerning the importance of understanding public opinion, explanations and theories …

Looking Back: Put A Reading Bathtub In The Library, Reinette F. Jones

Library Faculty and Staff Publications

Book lovers may remember when old school librarians warned children not to read library books while in the bathtub. Today those memories are in juxtaposition with the new National Read in the Bathtub Day on February 9th. The unanswered question is when exactly this special day became a thing. While the reference librarians search for a definitive answer, there is a companion question. Who came up with the fun idea to place a reading bathtub in the children’s library? A reading bathtub is just that, a bathtub in the public area of the library, an upholstered piece of library furniture …

“Integrated Library Planning: A New Model For Strategic And Dynamic Planning, Management, And Assessment” [Book Review], Julene L. Jones

Library Faculty and Staff Publications

Review of "Integrated Library Planning: A New Model for Strategic and Dynamic Planning, Management, and Assessment” by Myka Kennedy Stephens.

Trans And Gender Diverse Inclusion In Academic Library Hiring, Keahi Adolpho, Stephen G. Krueger, Luke Sutherland, Adrian Williams

Library Faculty and Staff Publications

We do not know how many trans and gender diverse people work in libraries in the United States. Like the US Census, the American Library Association’s demographic survey of its members (which is by no means a complete or accurate representation of the profession) asks if respondents are male or female (Rosa & Henke, 2017). In addition to erasing anybody who is not one of these two things, this question does not provide information on whether respondents are trans or gender diverse. And yet, we are here: all four of the authors of this chapter are trans people who work …

Looking Back: An International Collaboration: The Life Of Robert M. Johnson From Enslavement In Lexington, Kentucky To A Medical Practice In Sheffield, England, Reinette F. Jones

Library Faculty and Staff Publications

Robert M. Johnson was an African American expatriate who had been enslaved for 24 years in Lexington, KY, to Dorothea D. Christian and her husband the Rev. James Fishback. Johnson escaped and gained his freedom sometime after 1841, thereafter making his way to Canada, where he stayed for several years before leaving North America to become a medical student in Edinburgh, Scotland, and a medical doctor in Sheffield, England.

Mass Political Murder: What And Where Is The Hate?, Clark Mccauley

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

This article explores the meaning and importance of hate in intergroup conflict, especially in conflict that moves to genocide or politicide. Review of controversies in defining hate leads to definition of hate as an extreme form of negative identification that includes perception of bad essence. Negative identification is inverse caring for others, as seen in studies of schadenfreude and gluckschmerz. Studies of dehumanization suggest that two forms of bad essence can be distinguished: evil human (entitativity essentializing) and infrahuman animal (natural kind essentializing). Studies also show that those who essentialize more are more ready to punish indiscriminately all …

State Governance And Less-Skilled Migrant Workers In South Korea, Weejun Park

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation examines the migration governance of South Korea with a focus on the immigration of less-skilled migrant workers. While geographers and broader social scientists have explored this topic, previous studies have two main foci: 1) individual immigrants and their activities; and 2) migration policy development. Despite these studies’ contribution to the scholarship, there seems to be a relative lack of interest in the South Korean state as a potentially crucial actor in governing less-skilled migrant workers. To address this gap, this dissertation draws upon (political) geography, related social sciences, and interdisciplinary fields such as border studies, migration studies, and …

An Exploration Of Affective Influences Of Mediation And Instructional Delivery Styles In The U.S. Adult Media Literacy Learning Context, Joe Huber

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This dissertation explores how varied delivery strategies may influence college student affective learning in a mediated setting. I employed a hybrid-grounded approach to the exploration of student-participant interviews wherein student-participants engaged with one of two online media literacy learning modules. The results of this study illustrate that students at varying points of their epistemological development (Perry, 1968) may face different affective hurdles depending on how media literacy curriculum is presented. We may anticipate that: (1) students who are less epistemologically developed (those featuring dualistic attitudes) may struggle to receive content, especially in the case where a teacher-centric delivery-style is employed; …

Transition To Civilian Life: Exploring That Of The Fewer, The Prouder, And Female Marine, Glenisha Foreman

All Student Theses and Dissertations

Female Marine veterans are a group that intersects two at-risk populations, Marines and female veterans, and the potential struggles associated with them. Marine veterans have among the highest rates of suicide after transition, as well as one of the highest military sexual trauma (MST) rates. Studies indicate that women veterans are at risk for intimate partner violence (IPV), housing instability, and PTSD. Additionally, various social factors impact female veterans, such as a lack of familial support. There are many studies on the overall transitional experiences of the military and even some that evaluate experiences of female service members, but information …

Finding Harmony: The Lived Experiences Of African Americans Who Have Participated In Emotionally Focused Therapy, Jennifer R. Young

All Student Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of African Americans who have participated in emotionally focused therapy (EFT) within the past 2 years. Despite EFT's recognized effectiveness in fostering secure attachments and emotional expressiveness among distressed couples, there is a significant gap in research concerning its application within the African American community. This study addressed this gap by examining the personal narratives of six African American individuals, focusing on how EFT influenced their emotional expression and interpersonal relationships. The research identified four prominent themes: Transformation and Growth, Initial Apprehension and Fear, Cultural Sensitivity and Therapeutic Alliance, and Normalization and …

Keep Charitable Oversight In The Irs, Philip Hackney

Articles

Critics are increasingly calling for Congress to remove charity regulation from the IRS. The critics are wrong. Congress should maintain charity regulation in the IRS. What is at stake is balancing power between the state, charity as civil society, and the economic order. In a well-balanced democracy, civil society maintains its independence from the state and the economic order. Removing charitable jurisdiction from the IRS would blind the IRS to dollars placed in the charitable sector increasing tax and political shelters and wealthy dominance of charities as civil society. A new agency without understanding of, or jurisdiction over, tax cannot …

Differential Impacts Of Weather Anomalies On Household Energy Expenditure Shares: A Comparison Of Clustered Panel Analysis Methods, Jordan Champion

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Recent emphasis on environmental justice has highlighted deficiencies in our energy system that produce disparities in accessibility and affordability for the most vulnerable. Meanwhile, the realities of a gradually warming climate and the onset of a global energy crisis (IEA 2022) have coincidently contributed to spikes in both energy prices and demand. These implications threaten to further exacerbate existing disparities for income-constrained and vulnerable populations, enhancing their risk of falling into prolonged insecurity. To ensure our transition to a just, sustainable future, we must first ensure equitable access to affordable and reliable energy for everyone. Combining household-level panel and state-level …

The Influence Of Anesthesia And Nicotine On Dopamine Signaling In The Rat Dorsal Striatum, Gracie E. Rosenbaum

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

The striatum is highly innervated by dopamine neurons and is involved in movement control (dorsal striatum) reward learning (ventral striatum). Fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV) is a technique that uses microelectrodes (diameter ~5 μm, length ~150 μm) to monitor dopamine signaling in the brain. Although urethane and isoflurane anesthetics are commonly used in in vivo studies, isoflurane’s potential influence on dopamine signaling has not been thoroughly investigated. In addition to this, the addictive nature of nicotine indicates the importance of understanding its impact of dopamine neurotransmission within the different striatal subregions. Male Sprague-Dawley rats (Rattus norvegicus) 300 – 450 grams were …

Limitations Of The “Four-Fifths Rule” And Statistical Parity Tests For Measuring Fairness, Pauline Kim, Manish Raghavan

Scholarship@WashULaw

To ensure the fairness of algorithmic decision systems, such as employment selection tools, computer scientists and practitioners often refer to the so-called “four-fifths rule” as a measure of a tool’s compliance with anti-discrimination law. This reliance is problematic because the “rule” is in fact not a legal rule for establishing discrimination, and it offers a crude test that will often be over- and under-inclusive in identifying practices that warrant further scrutiny. The “four-fifths rule” is one of a broader class of statistical tests, which we call Statistical Parity Tests (SPTs), that compare selection rates across demographic groups. While some SPTs …

Introduction To The Symposium On Digital Evidence, Melinda (M.J.) Durkee, Megiddo Tamar

Scholarship@WashULaw

The past few decades have seen radical advances in the availability and use of digital evidence in multiple areas of international law. Witnesses snap cellphone photos of unfolding atrocities and post them online, while others share updates in real time through messaging apps. Immigration officers search cell phones. Private citizens launch open-source online investigations. Investigators scrape social media posts. Digital experts verify authenticity with satellite geolocation. These new types of evidence and digitally facilitated methods and patterns of evidence gathering and analysis are revolutionizing the everyday practice of international law, drawing in an ever-wider circle of actors who can contribute …

Introduction To The Symposium On Digital Evidence, Melinda (M.J.) Durkee, Tamar Megiddo

Scholarship@WashULaw

The past few decades have seen radical advances in the availability and use of digital evidence in multiple areas of international law. Witnesses snap cellphone photos of unfolding atrocities and post them online, while others share updates in real time through messaging apps. Immigration officers search cell phones. Private citizens launch open-source online investigations. Investigators scrape social media posts. Digital experts verify authenticity with satellite geolocation. These new types of evidence and digitally facilitated methods and patterns of evidence gathering and analysis are revolutionizing the everyday practice of international law, drawing in an ever-wider circle of actors who can contribute …

Against Engagement, Neil M. Richards, Woodrow Hartzog

Scholarship@WashULaw

In this Article, we focus on a key dimension of commercial surveillance by data-intensive digital platforms that is too often treated as a supporting cast member instead of a star of the show: the concept of engagement. Engagement is, simply put, a measure of time, attention, and other interactions with a service. The economic logic of engagement is simple: more engagement equals more ads watched equals more revenue. Engagement is a lucrative digital business model, but it is problematic in several ways that lurk beneath the happy sloganeering of a “free” internet.

Our goal in this Article is to isolate …

Redistributing Justice, Benjamin Levin, Kate Levine

Scholarship@WashULaw

This article surfaces an obstacle to decarceration hiding in plain sight: progressives’ continued support for the carceral system. Despite increasingly prevalent critiques of criminal law from progressives, there hardly is a consensus on the left in opposition to the carceral state. Many left-leaning academics and activists who may critique the criminal system writ large remain enthusiastic about criminal law in certain areas—often areas where defendants are imagined as powerful and victims as particularly vulnerable. In this article, we offer a novel theory for what animates the seemingly conflicted attitude among progressives toward criminal punishment—the hope that the criminal system can …

Private Sector Participants In International Rulemaking: Governance Models, Melinda (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

International organizations seeking to develop a principled approach to stakeholder participation in rulemaking processes should consider for-profit stakeholders, which can be influential participants. This chapter evaluates potential governance models for their effectiveness in facilitating the benefits and restraining the harms of for-profit influence in rulemaking processes, recommending a balanced approach. A successful governance model should also acknowledge that for-profit stakeholders can use a variety of channels to communicate their input, including individual business entities, trade and industry associations, other non-governmental groups, academics and think tanks, and domestic officials. Because of these sometimes invisible links between for-profit actors and other kinds …

The Ambivalent Logics Of Business Representation In International Organizations, Melinda (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

The United Nations and its bodies have 'opened up' to a broad range of non-state actors over the last three decades, including for-profit actors and their representatives. The shift is reflected in the UN's sustainable development goals and the Global Compact, emphasizing public-private partnerships; in greater participation of corporations at treaty conferences; in trade group roles as observers at organizations; and in multi-stakeholder projects. Yet international organizations have generally not developed robust responses to legitimacy concerns about businesses becoming closely involved in lawmaking and governance projects. These concerns focus on interest group capture, entrenchment of western economic elites, creeping privatization, …