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A Dance Of Resistance: The Puerto Rican Bomba As A Means To Challenge Intersections Of Discrimination On The Island, Daniel Loving

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the Puerto Rican Bomba as a multifaceted cultural and political phenomenon, focusing on its pivotal role in challenging and subverting the enduring issues of racial and gender discrimination on the Island. Drawing from an interdisciplinary framework that encompasses cultural studies, anthropology, history, performance and film studies, this research elucidates the complex interplay between Bomba's rhythmic and choreographic elements, its historical evolution, and its contemporary significance in the context of Puerto Rico's sociopolitical landscape. By analyzing Bomba's historical roots in African and indigenous traditions, its adaptation during colonial and post-colonial eras, and its ongoing relevance in the struggle …

Investing In Farmland And Farmland Derivatives, Damilola Stephen Adebayo

LSU Master's Theses

Investing in farmland has evolved from the traditional ownership of farmland for farming to alternatives such as direct farmland purchases for rental income, farmland real estate investment trusts (Farmland REITs), investing in farmland stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, and crowdfunding platforms. This study analyzes the dynamic relationship between physical farmland values, farmland derivative prices, and the S&P 500 using annual data from 1970 to 2021. Cointegration methods are used to analyze dynamics and the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and Sharpe ratios to measure risk-return properties of farmland assets. It is found that real farmland values, derivatives prices, and the S&P …

A Descriptive Study Of Louisiana 4-H 8th Through 12th Graders' Perceptions Of Career And College Readiness, Carrie M. Lane

LSU Master's Theses

As youth leave primary education and enter college or a career path, preparing those youth to ensure success has fallen, in large part, upon formal and non-formal youth educators. Encouraging students to apply and complete college has been a focus of education professionals for many years. Historically, gauging college and career readiness (CCR), academic institutions have relied on academic performance in areas of English Language Arts and Mathematics (Mattern, et. al, 2014). The use of academic focused measures instead of student-based evaluation had its drawbacks. While core education is important, measuring soft skills needed for the workforce and college environment …

Work Hard For The Money: Performance-Based Funding In The State Of Louisiana, Victoria C. Lloyd

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine in what ways, if any, the introduction of the equity incentive portion of Louisiana’s performance-based funding model impacted the underserved student groups it was designed to support. I employed a quantitative quasi-experimental design for this study by running three outcome variables (Adult Learner Enrollment, First-Time Enrollment for Racially Minoritized Students, and Low-Income Student Enrollment) by sector (two- and four-year public institutions) and employing a differences-in-differences regression with panel data. In my analysis I uncovered two main findings: 1) Louisiana’s equity incentive is showing early signs of success for all three underserved groups …

Do Fishery Meeting Attendees Represent The Fishing Industries?, Dominique Seibert

LSU Master's Theses

Public meetings are a highly utilized tool for disseminating important or useful information. Many agencies rely on them to reach various stakeholders and community representation at these meetings is important. A substantial amount of research has been conducted on various aspects of public meetings including different techniques, factors impacting attendance, and representativeness, that is attendees’ opinions representing the opinions at-large. A noticeable gap in the research includes information on public fishery meetings, commercial fishing industries, and their members’ participation. With the U.S. commercial fishing industries supporting more than a million jobs and providing more than a 200-billion-dollar economic impact annually, …

Building Solidarity Between Minority Groups, Seonwoo Kim

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Although a considerable number of scholars agree that an intergroup coalition among minorities will be more powerful in changing biased perceptions, regulations, and policies (e.g., Burson & Godfrey, 2020; Lane et al., 2019), cross-minority solidarity is challenging due to the inherent difficulties in establishing a shared goal and reaching a consensus on methods and tactics (Gawerc, 2021; Rogers, 2004) and competing policy stances and stereotypes (Hope, 2019; Nopper, 2006). Numerous instances of social movements that failed due to the failure of coalitions to form have been documented in the literature (e.g., Almeida, 2010; Ferree & Roth, 1998; Gelb & Shogan, …

Influences On Participation In The National Flood Insurance Program’S Community Rating System In Coastal Counties In Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, And Florida, Jennifer E. Argote

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The National Flood Insurance Program provides an incentive-based program, the Community Rating System (“CRS”), to encourage communities to improve their hazard mitigation protocols to better protect against and prevent flood-related hazards. This dissertation analyzes factors that influence participation and points scored within the CRS to gain an understanding of the conditions under which communities are willing and able to take advantage of an incentive-based flood hazard mitigation program. It also includes an analysis of survey responses from 41 coastal county floodplain and CRS managers to gauge their opinions on the CRS and how it can be improved to better serve …

Narrative Infidelity And White Resentment In The Rhetorical Mobilization Of The Anti-Crt Movement, Julien Burns

LSU Master's Theses

Beginning in the summer of 2020, an activist movement has arisen in opposition to Critical Race Theory (CRT). This movement has mobilized tens of thousands of Americans and passed policy curtailing the discussion of race in classrooms despite a lack of evidence that CRT has any meaningful presence in many of the public institutions targeted. This movement challenges logic-based conceptions of rhetorical persuasion and demands an alternative model. In this thesis, I propose that a narrative conception of rhetoric provides a framework for understanding how this movement is rational, despite the falsifiability of its foundation. Specifically, I respond to Walter …

Successful But Exhausted: The Effect Of Tokenism On Black Employees, Sydney Green

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Despite organizations' efforts to reduce racial inequality in the workplace, White employees continue to outnumber Black employees in many organizations and workgroups. The present research investigates the cognitive performance of Black and White men experiencing different degrees of group racial representation and explores whether keeping their performance private reduces the effect of group racial representation. A sample recruited via Prolific included 491 men, (50.50% White and 49.50% Black), aged 18 to 65 years (M = 39.3, SD = 10.4) working in the U.S. at least 31 hours per week (M = 42.2, SD = 6.7). Using an online …

Defeat, Entrapment, And Suicide Desire: Analyzing The Role Of Mindfulness Using Ecological Momentary Assessment., Emma H. Moscardini

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Extant literature has indicated that the experience of defeat confers risk for experiencing conceptions of entrapment, which in turns increases one’s risk of experiencing suicidal ideation. In addition, certain cognitive processes are hypothesized to increase or decrease the likelihood of feelings of entrapment emerging when one feels defeated. One such cognitive process is mindfulness, defined as present moment awareness with an orientation of openness and acceptance. Better understanding the interplay of defeat, entrapment, mindfulness, and suicidal thinking will contribute to intervention strategies aimed at reducing the severity of suicidal thinking; however, said research should be conducted with consideration that one’s …

Managing Student Behavior: Occupational And Discrimination-Related Stress As Moderated By Coping Resources, Madeline S. Blocker

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Student behavior management is a critical component of efficacious teaching and a leading contributor to teachers’ stress. Prior research has shown that teachers experiencing greater levels of workplace stress may utilize more punitive and exclusionary disciplinary techniques. However, these strategies often do not effectively manage student problem behavior and are associated with adverse student outcomes. In contrast, positive behavior management techniques have shown efficacy in managing student behavior while promoting students’ success and wellbeing. This study explored the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of workplace stress (i.e., work-related and discrimination-related) and their use of positive or punitive behavior management techniques. Additionally, …

Cultural Expression And Relevancy Communicated Through Marching Band Performance In Louisiana, Nicholas Ashton

LSU Master's Theses

This study explored the use of marching band membership as a medium of mass communication through in-depth interviews with Louisiana collegiate marching band participants and subsequent analysis. Since these groups tend to serve as their school’s face and brand ambassadors in many cases, this study will look to their constituent members to explore what it is truly like to be a small cog that makes the whole run effectively and efficiently. Intersections of a marching band’s outward-facing image and its members’ personally held values, beliefs, and preferences are of specific interest in an effort to understand the effects of mass …

Integrating Behavioral Research Findings With A Liberal Arts Paradigm, Jonathan Peterson

LSU Master's Theses

This paper explores the role of behavioral research in understanding the complexity and relevance of creativity. A brief history of the liberal arts and its current application is followed by a discussion of the importance of variability in generating novel and diverse responses, challenging the notion that creativity is solely a product of innate talent. The effects of reinforcement on variability, and how it relates to a complex relationship between reinforcement and the probability of variable responding leads to a discussion of how the combination of previously trained behaviors can lead to creative problem-solving, emphasizing the role of combinatory behavior …

Implicit Bias In School-Based Suicide Risk Assessment, Jessie Munson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Suicide remains a leading cause of death for youth, and the prevalence of suicidal behaviors continues to increase while demographic trends shift. Despite the considerable scope and impact of this global public health issue and robust evidence that cultural minority and gender-diverse youth are at particular risk, there is a significant dearth in the literature with respect to nonrandom variance or possible systematic error in suicide risk assessment practices. Moreover, studies related to school-based risk assessment are scarce despite the ethical and legal imperative to identify and serve at-risk youth as well as the unique ecological position of schools to …

“Why We Play The Game”: An Exploration Of Sport Employees’ Conceptualizations Of Meaningful Work, Nathan Baer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Modern sport management scholars have looked to pair the fields of positive organizational behavior (POB) and human resource development (HRD) with sport management to enhance the productivity of sport organizations through their employees (see Kim et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2023a; Kim et al., 2023b; Kim et al., 2017; Oja et al., 2015, 2020; Oja et al., 2022; Schuetz et al., 2022; Zvosec et al., 2021). One area of study that has received recent attention amongst sport management scholars is meaningful work (Baer et al., 2021; Oja et al., 2022), an emerging employee well-being metric whose definition is often …

What Happens Online Doesn't Stay Online: Female Elected Officials' Experiences With Online Harassment, Sarah M. Carpenter

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Online harassment towards female elected officials is a prevalent problem that threatens women’s parity in local and state government. It is used for the purpose of diminishing women’s efficacy in government by stifling their voices in public spaces through behaviors that aim to belittle, embarrass and abuse women for existing in traditional masculine spaces that reify a white patriarchal social hierarchy. Female elected officials at all levels of government are susceptible to harassment on- and offline. The aim of this study expands current understandings of how online harassment affects female elected officials by focusing on online harassment experiences of women …

Autism, Comorbidities, And Adaptive Functioning: A Potential Moderator, Joshua J. Montrenes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Deficits in adaptive functioning and the presence of comorbid symptomatology are both commonly associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous research has identified relationships between functional level (e.g., intellectual quotient [IQ], adaptive functioning [AF]) and comorbid symptomatology in ASD. However, further insight into the relationship between AF, comorbid psychopathology, and ASD is unclear. Specifically, how AF affects the relationship between ASD and comorbid conditions is not well understood. Whether AF moderates the relationship between autism symptom severity and comorbid symptom severity in toddlers with ASD was examined. ASD symptom severity positively correlated with comorbid symptom severity across domains and negatively …

Communicating Nature-Society Relationships In Coastal Louisiana: An Evaluation Of The Ecosystem Services Framework, Vanessa Van Heerden

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The ecosystem services (ES) framework is a tool to communicate the value of natural environments to human well-being by monetizing services that natural environments provide to humans. The Louisiana Coastal Master Plan uses the ecosystem services provided by the Mississippi River Delta as rationale for why coastal Louisiana should be protected. Here, I am interested in determining how the ecosystem services framework is used to communicate nature-society relationships in coastal Louisiana. I conducted a meta-analysis and spatial analysis to understand the spatial relationships of ecosystem services in the wetlands of coastal Louisiana. I then conducted a survey of residents of …

Rethinking Attention Control: An Individual Differences Approach, Vincent A. Medina

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

While there is extensive literature on visual spatial attention, less is known about auditory spatial attention, especially in terms of attention control. There is also a growing literature highlighting the importance of considering individual differences in attention control ability. Given these points, the purpose of this study was twofold. The first was to understand how auditory attention control is influenced by spatial location as well as vision. The second was to examine whether individual differences in attention control ability can predict task performance in that context. We utilized two tasks for these purposes. Experiment 1a consisted of a cross-modal Stroop …

Further Refinement Of An Asd-Subscale For The Childhood Behavior Checklist, Kimberly Ellison

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is tied to receiving the earliest possible intervention services that can influence a child’s development (Filipek et al., 1999). There are different measurement tools utilized to aid in the diagnostic assessment process, including broadband behavioral rating scales. The Childhood Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) is a parent/caregiver completed questionnaire about one’s child (typically or atypically developing). The CBCL is one of the most utilized broadband measures at the initial stages of a diagnostic assessment or screening to aid in understanding the symptom presentation (Hyman et al., 2020). Currently, there …

Pathways To Blunted Facial Affect In Negative Schizotypy: Social Motivation And Online Cognitive Resources, Tovah M.D. Cowan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Schizotypy, a range of personality traits which confer liability for schizophrenia, is associated with significantly diminished social functioning and quality of life. Social dysfunction in all forms of schizotypy, including schizophrenia, is connected to blunted affect, or diminished expressivity, particularly facial expressions which are less frequent, intense, or long than typical. However, the mechanisms and treatments for blunted affect are, as yet, poorly understood and underdeveloped. In this project, two putative mechanisms of blunted affect were explored. The first involves cognitive load capacities, which are diminished in schizotypy, causing blunted affect – individuals do not have the cognitive resources to …

Voting In The Mall - Understanding Political Consumerism In The United States And Europe, Kwadwo Poku-Agyemang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the various traits that predispose individuals or groups to participate in political boycotts by refraining from purchasing goods and services from companies with the goal of promoting their political beliefs and goals. Specifically, this research considers the effects of political ideology, attitudes toward historically-marginalized groups, and identification with grievance groups shape self-reported participation in political consumerism in the United States and Europe. Using data from the 2016 and 2020 American National Election Survey and the eighth, nineth and tenth rounds of the European Social Survey, I find that although political consumerism has been seen as a liberal …

Confirmatory Factor Analysis Of The Adult Coping Inventory, Kristen Ashley Hollas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

There are few psychometrically sound measures that assess coping in adults. For example, a widely used measure of coping, the COPE, has highly unstable sub-scales and was developed using a homogenous sample (Lyne & Roger, 2000). Because of these limitations, the Adult Coping Inventory (ACI) was developed. The ACI is a 57-item measure that contains five factors including Problem Solving, Mindfulness, Maladaptive Coping, Social Support and Avoidance. Initial reliability and validity analyses demonstrate good construct, concurrent and incremental validity. The current study involved conducting a confirmatory factor analysis to confirm the factor structure of the ACI. The participant sample consisted …

Reducing Recycling Contamination Using An Information Nudge, Mimi Rivette

LSU Master's Theses

Recycling contamination is a central challenge to recycling programs but is infrequently studied due to the difficulty of measuring contents and the inconvenience of sorting through recycling bags by hand. We conducted two simultaneous experiments to address both the issue of recycling contamination and the infrequency of its study at Louisiana State University in Fall 2021. We implemented two signage treatments, the first explicitly instructing passersby not to recycle a short list of common recycling contaminants, including Styrofoam, food wrappers, plastic bags, and face masks, and the second generally encouraging recycling but excluding specific instructions on what to recycle. To …

Plato's Republics: A Dramatic Interpretation Of The Early Cities In Plato's "Republic", Simeon Burns

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation will demonstrate a new methodological approach to reading Plato’s Republic. I develop and apply a dramatic, dynamic hermeneutic to Book II and part of Book III in the text. This method holds that each speech is the product of a preceding agreement or disagreement between two speakers. Agreements lead to the argument’s advancement and disagreements result in a regression to a previous agreement from which to restart the exchange. The focus section is largely on the early exchange Socrates has with Adeimantus. I argue that Socrates is an unwilling participant in the famous discussion on the meaning …

An Evaluation Of Procedures To Increase Medical Device Compliance, Sarah Christian Holmes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Behavioral interventions have been implemented to increase compliance with medical devices across patient populations and target devices. Intervention to increase medical device compliance (MDC) can involve a variety of components, including different reinforcement, graduated exposure, extinction, and punishment with varying degrees of acceptability and feasibility. In the current study, we compared the effects of noncontingent (NCR) versus synchronous reinforcement schedules on the duration of MDC and latency to device removal with KN95 face masks with 2 patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Following an initial baseline phase demonstrating that both participants engaged in compliance for less than 5 min, we used …

Don't Forget Me: A Discussion On Social Memory And Commemoration, Anfernee Murray

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between social memory and social identity development among groups who share contested interpretations of their shared social memory. With social memories being a collaborative process that requires consensus and compromise, there arises conflict when groups are divided in deciding on what event of their shared history is relevant to remember - for it is these memories that influence and shape how a group identifies itself.

For Black Americans, this contention arises in the conversations surrounding the difficult and traumatic histories of their enslaved ancestors by the ancestors of their white counterparts. This is further complicated …

The Psychological Impact Of Adolescent Violence Exposure: The Roles Of Coping And Social Support, Kelsey Gnade Coulthard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Research demonstrates that children and adolescents experience a wide range of exposure to violence with rates ranging from 20% and 50% (Finkelhor & Dziuba-Leatherman, 1994; Finkelhor et al., 2005; Zimmerman & Posick, 2016). Violence exposure has been associated with several negative outcomes including biological, psychological, family-based, and academic problems. Further, studies have examined potential protective factors that may buffer against these consequences, with inconsistent results surrounding the roles of coping and social support. However, many of these studies use either an overly generalized definition of both violence exposure and/or social support or use very specific type of violence within a …

Sucrose Demand And Essential Value In Mice With Early-Life Exposure To Risperidone, Megan Federoff

LSU Master's Theses

Second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs), such as risperidone, are widely prescribed to children, but the long-term effects of SGA treatment are not well understood. This study investigated the impact of early-life risperidone treatment on sucrose demand in mice in adulthood. Mice were administered risperidone or vehicle from postnatal day (PND) 33 to 60 and trained in adulthood (>PND 120) to nose poke for a sucrose solution reinforcer. The fixed ratio (FR) value (the number of responses required to produce sucrose delivery; the “price” of sucrose) was varied from 1 to 45, and the resulting consumption versus FR value data were analyzed …

Division I Softball Athletes' Perceptions On Stress, Coping, Performance, And Mental Health, Rhianna Weall

LSU Master's Theses

Collegiate athletes face numerous stressors in both athletic and academic areas of performance. Their perceptions of situations dictate coping responses and their ability to enact behavior or implement strategies to manage stress levels. This study investigated perceived stress and coping strategies using semi-structured in-person interviews with five current NCAA Division I softball players. Three main themes emerged from the interviews: (a) Pressure is Privilege, (b) Team Dynamic and Identity Development, (c) Softball-Centrism. In the first theme, pressure is viewed as a positive aspect and as an opportunity to perform in areas of high and low levels of confidence. Within the …