Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Interpreting Settler Infrastructure In Stevens County, Minnesota: Gager's Station And The Post Dakota-Us War Of 1862 Frontier, Mitchell Kane Hancock

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2022

Gager's Station is a little known, but formative settler infrastructure project from the 1860s in west-central Minnesota. Gager's Station was situated along both an important military supply route, and lands of significant importance to the Indigenous people of the area. Gager's Station bears several similarities to the scout camps and civilian defense forts in the broader Fort Wadsworth network that provided civilian defense to new homesteaders following the Dakota-US War of 1862. Fort Wadsworth served as another goal post in western expansion of the United States. Further, the networks of forts that supported it appeased the anxious settlers who feared …

Celebrating Faculty And Staff Of The Year, Mark D. Weinstein

News Releases

For the fourth time in 50 years, Cedarville University honored two women with the faculty and staff member of the year awards. Dr. Kris DeWitt, professor of psychology, and Brenda Reid, director of international student services, received the awards at a Cedarville chapel service on April 6.

“Satan’S Minions” And “True Believers”: How Criminal Defense Attorneys Employ Quasi-Religious Rhetoric And What It Suggests About Lawyering Culture, Elizabeth H. Webster, Kathleen Powell, Sarah E. Lageson, Valerio Baćak

Criminal Justice & Criminology: Faculty Publications & Other Works

The notion of law as sacred, and lawyers as righteous saviors, may seem anachronistic in the current context of heavy caseloads and expedited processing in the criminal justice system. Nevertheless, language reflecting these ideals still permeates defense attorneys’ descriptions of their roles, their legal practice, and their relationships to their colleagues and adversaries. We examine this language – specifically, attorneys’ quasi-religious rhetoric – to better understand courtroom dynamics: how attorneys see themselves, their work, their colleagues, and their legal adversaries. In this analysis of semi-structured interviews with 30 defense attorneys, we find that attorneys use of quasi-religious rhetoric manifests as …

Perceptions Of Trauma-Informed Care In An Intimate Partner Violence Resource Center, Kailyn Alderman

Honors Theses

Every year, an estimated 10 million people experience intimate partner violence (IPV) in the United States (Huecker et al., 2021). The long-term implications of surviving IPV can be debilitating and limited community resources influence the likeliness of physical and psychological recovery. Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a set of practices that may produce improvements in the quality of life for IPV survivors. There are a variety of definitions of TIC and empowerment, which may serve as a barrier to implementing these practices. The present study examined employee and volunteer perceptions of trauma-informed practices and empowerment at a domestic violence agency. The …

Comparing Behavioral Activation With And Without A Values Component: A Systematic Review, Natalie Komoll

Honors Theses

Major depressive disorder is one of the most prevalent psychological disorders within the global population and has been for many years. Over the years, numerous interventions have been developed to treat major depressive disorder, including cognitive-behavioral therapy. One form of cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression, known as behavioral activation, focuses on increasing contact with pleasant activities that are reinforcing. Many modifications of behavioral activation have been made over the years, including the version Martell and colleagues (2010) created which modified the traditional approach by decreasing the number of sessions. This new approach, known as brief behavioral activation, also asks clients to …

Young Children’S Tv Show Preferences And Perceptions Of Women In Stem, Lauren Berck

Undergraduate Theses

Women are joining STEM fields at higher rates, yet the stereotype of math and science being for men is still reinforced to children by their parents, their teachers, and especially what they watch. Children tend to trust characters of their same gender and are more likely to retain the lessons from the characters they trust. Since most of the shows children watch tend to display gender stereotypes, especially the stereotype of men being good in STEM, children are likely to enforce these stereotypes. The increase of women in STEM has increased interest in STEM for girls, but boys still tend …

The Political Economy Of Border Wall Construction, Molly Rovinski

Undergraduate Theses

During the 2016 presidential election, the construction of a border wall along the United States – Mexico border came to the forefront of the political sphere in America. Since then, state governments along the border have continued the call for increased border security through increased fencing. However, the ideation of a border wall was not a new one for American border security, with most of the wall having been constructed following the Secure Fence Act of 2006. The purpose of this paper is to explore the political economy of wall construction along the border. The argument is made that the …

Comparing Operant Discrimination Training And Response Contingent Pairing For Eliciting Vocalizations, Jade Grimes

Thesis Projects

Delays to language acquisition can have negative impacts to a child’s academic and social interactions. Stimulus-stimulus pairing (SSP) is a clinical procedure used to increase vocalizations by early language learners. Alternative interventions to SSP include response contingent pairing (RCP) and operant discrimination training (ODT). The results from previous research in RCP and ODT have limited benefit to clinical applications because verbal approximations were not reinforced, and they did not bring the vocalizations under stimulus control. The present study sought to evaluate the use of RCP and ODT to determine which intervention increased vocalizations. Two children aged 2- and 6-years-old, diagnosed …

Twitter's Role In An Increasingly Polarized Political Climate; A Look Into The 2020 Us Elections, Leanne Kendall

Honors Projects in Data Science

Amidst politically strained times, one might wonder what has cause such an exaggerated gap between the views of democrats and republicans. For years, research has suggested the US’s voting population is becoming increasingly politically polarized, with one of the causes being social media. This study's purpose is to understand more about the role that social media plays in the polarization of parties in the US. The study is comprised of the analysis of over 3,000,000 tweets from 9/22/2020 through 11/10/2020 that mention or are written by senate and presidential candidates. Natural language processing, network graphing, and sentiment analyses were utilized …

The Impact Of Female Leadership On Lgbtq-Supportive Policies, Samantha Bove

Honors Projects in Finance

In the past two decades, gender inequality in c-suites has received a large amount of attention. Thus, the number of women in top management roles has increased substantially. However, the corporate sector has also neglected other marginalized groups, specifically, members of the LGBTQ community. These individuals are important employees and previous literature has established the benefits, both financial and otherwise, that the presence of LGBTQ supportive policies have on American corporations. In this paper, I examine if the presence of women CEOs influences the LGBTQ policies that are implemented in that firm. This will be analyzed using an OLS regression …

Reading The Traumatic Moment: The Role Of Socioeconomic Systems In The Color Purple And The Bluest Eye, Andrea Doll

Undergraduate Theses

There are many points of sameness between Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Both novels occur in the mid-20th century and focus on protagonists within the same race, gender, and relative class. Of all the similarities between the texts, the most influential is the trauma, sexual and otherwise, shared between Pecola Breedlove and Celie. Most notably, both characters experience incestuous rape resulting in pregnancy shortly after their first menstruation. Despite their numerous shared events and attributes, what occurs after their sexual trauma differs drastically for each character. At the end of The Color Purple …

Stress And Social Support Of Foster Parents During Covid-19, Carlie Mcniff

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

Foster parents provide crucial care to hundreds of thousands of children in the U.S., and with their role comes a variety of challenges. They face a great amount of stress which is why the turnover rate is high, and there is a critical need for more foster parents. Uncertainty is a large component of the foster care system, and the COVID-19 pandemic heightened this. It is unknown how stress that foster parents have experienced during this time was affected, and this study seeks to explore that. Additionally, this study focuses on types and sources of social support of foster parents …

Visual Attention Across Language Development, Ayanna Bailey, Chloe Swanson, Meriya L. Zalma

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

Would you consider yourself a visual learner? Many of us have a sense that what we learn depends on what we see. But how exactly does visual learning happen? How does that change as we grow older? We examined how visual attention changes across development and how that relates to word learning. Previous research on word learning has proposed various ways that people may learn words. However, there is a gap in understanding how visual attention might be crucial for this task, despite the fact that many words are labels for things we see. Previous literature highlights connections between higher …

Mental Health And Homelessness, Makayla Wilson

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, one area tragically impacted has been access to secure housing. The huge economic impacts of the shutdowns and job losses of the pandemic prompted the federal as well as state governments to provide emergency resources for help keep people housed as well as to help those without housing to secure a place to live. These interventions have had many important impacts. They have not, however, reduced or ended the rising levels of homelessness nationally since 2016. The result is an increasingly visible epidemic of unsheltered homelessness, affecting both individuals and families. When analyzing …

Social Support And Change In Empathy In Undergraduate Pre-Health Students, Merrik Campagna

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

Many medical education studies show that medical students often lose empathy throughout their time in medical school, but thus far we do not know whether these trends have their roots in earlier educational experiences. This research begins to fill this gap, exploring whether indications of these changes in empathy start in undergraduate programs. This is important because patients who feel more empathy from their doctors tend to listen to and trust their doctors more. If we can better understand what factors lead to a loss of empathy we can adjust programs to help negate this effect. Our data comes from …

Analysis Of Disability Rights Policy In American Charter Schools, Lily Kate Pritchard

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 explicitly states that any individual with a disability–physical, emotional, cognitive, or otherwise–is to be protected from discrimination regarding public services, including education. This paper will examine how American charter schools often do not provide such inclusive education. Data indicate that charter schools frequently manipulate requirements in order to avoid serving students with special needs. This paper will look at the problems that exist within charter schools–notably in the Midwest–and explore potential policy solutions to address the discrimination against students meant to be served by special education programs. Many of these schools work around …

Analysis Of United States National Security Policy On Cyberterrorism From China, Megan Mead

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

Cyberterrorism is a relatively new threat globally but has increased rapidly in recent years due to the development of more sophisticated and advanced computer-based technology. Many people question the existence of a substantial threat from the Chinese government in terms of their use of cyber technology on the United States. Intelligence shows China has continuously used their cyber technology capabilities as a way to exploit other countries, businesses, and local populations. Scholarly research, news outlets, and official government documents all conclude that Chinese cyberterrorism is a large security threat to the United States. China has used their technology to infiltrate …

Poetic Politics: Renewing The Black Jeremiad On The Inaugural Stage, Rachel Johnson

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman stunned the United States with her captivating performance of “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” during the 2021 inaugural ceremony for President Biden and Vice President Harris. Analyzing this political poem, we contribute to the rhetorical scholarship of inaugural ceremonies and demonstrate how Gorman’s performance renews the tradition of Black jeremiads. Specifically, we argue that Gorman’s performance creates a “double play” on white expectations, thereby crafting a rival version of democratic unity as she poetically envisions a “We, the people” that does not center on white men and is not …

Wgs 200: Introduction To Gender Studies Oer Curation, Chealsye Bowley

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of prospective OER for the GVSU course WGS 200: Introduction to Gender Studies, assembled by request from the instructor.

Mov 300: Kinesiology Oer Curation, Chealsye Bowley

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of prospective OER for the GVSU course MOV 300: Kinesiology, assembled by request from the instructor.

Phi 102: Ethics Oer Curation, Chealsye Bowley

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of prospective OER for the GVSU course PHI 102: Ethics OER Curation.

The Impact Of Career And Interpersonal Relationships On Subjective Well-Being, Melissa Lomuscio

Honors Projects in Applied Psychology

My thesis explores the concepts of career and interpersonal relationships and their impact on subjective well-being. Career and interpersonal relationships are two of the most time-consuming and important aspects of human life. Given this, they have some of the largest influences on our well-being and levels of happiness. In order to understand how to use these two variables to positively impact our well-being, we must first understand their role in our well-being in general and how they affect it. For this thesis, I explore this relationship through a series of 32 interviews, where interviewees are asked about their career paths …

Variation In Compensatory Strategies As A Function Of Target Constriction Degree In Post-Glossectomy Speech, Christina Hagedorn, Yijing Lu, Asterios Toutios, Uttam Sinha, Louis Goldstein, Shrikanth Narayanan

Publications and Research

Individuals who have undergone treatment for oral cancer oftentimes exhibit compensatory behavior in consonant production. This pilot study investigates whether compensatory mechanisms utilized in the production of speech sounds with a given target constriction location vary systematically depending on target manner of articulation. The data reveal that compensatory strategies used to produce target alveolar segments vary systematically as a function of target manner of articulation in subtle yet meaningful ways. When target constriction degree at a particular constriction location cannot be preserved, individuals may leverage their ability to finely modulate constriction degree at multiple constriction locations along the vocal tract.

Looking In The Mirror: Does Representation In Marketing Impact The Consumer?, Alyssa Collins

Honors Projects in Marketing

This study explores the implications of fitness apparel marketing on consumer self-esteem, attitude towards brands and ads, and purchase intention. Furthermore, this study explores the relationship between a diverse, inclusive (body size and ethnicity) model and consumer attitudes. Female participants were recruited to share their feelings towards their own personal body satisfaction, how they perceive advertisements, how they feel about the brand based on the advertisement that they view, and their intentions to buy the product. The study found that while the original hypotheses were not statistically significant, that there was a positive correlation of customers being more likely to …

Motherhood And Me (Mom-Me): The Development Of An Acceptance-Based Group For Women With Postpartum Mood And Anxiety Symptoms, Victoria A Grunberg, Pamela A Geller, Kelley Durham, Alexa Bonacquisti, Jennifer L Barkin

PCOM Scholarly Works

Untreated postpartum mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) place women and their families at risk for negative biopsychosocial sequelae. Innovative and tailored treatments are needed to address potential disruptions in maternal functioning. Third-wave cognitive-behavioral approaches, including acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), hold promise for optimizing functioning given the focus on values-based living, rather than symptom reduction.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of an innovative psychotherapy group for women with symptoms of PMADs.

Methods: This seven-session group, Motherhood and Me (Mom-Me), includes selected skills training from ACT, DBT, and Emotion-Centered …

Developing Ethical Training Curriculum For University Short-Term Missions, Elizabeth P. Sutphin

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

This thesis addresses common problems associated with short-term mission (STM) trips and the gaps in existing training materials for these trips. The research throughout this project is designed to inspire community-specific training materials for college students participating in domestic STM trips through their universities. The final chapter of this thesis includes the framework for a sample curriculum to promote sustainable STM work — providing cross-cultural communication techniques and relationship-building tools to avoid harming the communities students seek to serve.

Bystanders Without An Excuse: On The Moral Duty To Revolt, Meghna Melkote

Honors Theses

Che Guevara, an Argentine revolutionary who served as a key player in the Cuban Revolution, was known for his forceful rhetoric calling people to action to engage in revolution. His language was the language of duty - when he called on people to act, he did so with moral force behind his words. In the face of nascent revolution and discontent, he called upon those aggrieved to “tremble with indignation every time that an injustice is committed in the world” and act accordingly1. Guevara is appealing to a common intuition many leaders in social justice seem to have; there is …

Information Needs And Sources Of Information For Pregnant Women In Jos South Local Government Area Of Plateau State, Nigeria., Eneojo Emmanuel Jacob, Esther Bulus Dalyop

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study discusses the Information needs and sources of information for Pregnant Women in Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State. Three (3) objectives were formulated to guide the study. Descriptive research design was adopted for this study, 259 pregnant women in Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State was used as the population for this study with the sample of 152 pregnant women. The sampling technique used was the simple random sampling technique. The instrument for data collection adopted was Questionnaire (both open-ended and close-ended). The method adopted for data analysis was the frequency count and simple …

Factors Influencing Selection And Acquisition Of Legal Information Resources In University Law Libraries: A Case Study Of University Of Jos Law Library, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria., Lilian Ene Ujah, Eneojo Emmanuel Jacob

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The Research was conducted on Factors Influencing Selection and Acquisition of legal information resources in university Law libraries: A case study of University of Jos Law Library, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. Four (4) objectives were formulated to guide the study which are to: Determine how often University of Jos Law Library acquire Legal Materials; Find out the criteria used in Selection of Legal Materials in University of Jos Law Library; Find out the methods used in Acquisition of Legal Materials in University of Jos Law Library and ascertain the challenges faced by Law Library in acquiring Legal Materials. Survey research …

Social Justice And The Us Food System: A Critical Course On The Human Dimensions Of Food, Ali Brooks

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Our world is made up of overlapping political, environmental, and economic spheres that engender social injustice and inequality. Though separate societal issues can seem divergent and unconnected, they are all linked together by one universal necessity: food. Because everyone eats, everyone is connected to—and dependent on—food and the systems that govern it. However, the impacts of our industrial food system are not felt equally among people who hold different positions of power within it.

Today’s industrial food complex operates on the capitalist principle of profit accumulation through exploitation, commodification, and extraction. This set of relations is not defined by scale …