Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sociology (7)
- Gender (3)
- Health (2)
- Identity (2)
- Parenting (2)
-
- Power (2)
- Race (2)
- Racism (2)
- Trust (2)
- Women (2)
- Acquaintance Rape Myths (1)
- Adults (1)
- Affect Control Theory (1)
- American Time (1)
- And Forced Marriage (1)
- Appropriation of stigmatized identities (1)
- Behavioral (1)
- Behavioral options (1)
- Benefits (1)
- Bias (1)
- Birth (1)
- Black (1)
- Black Men (1)
- Black Young Adults (1)
- Black adults (1)
- COVID-19 (1)
- Child (1)
- Childbirth (1)
- Children (1)
- College Preparation (1)
Articles 1 - 30 of 32
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Experimentally Examining Status And Initial Trust, Valerie Kristen Barron
Experimentally Examining Status And Initial Trust, Valerie Kristen Barron
Theses and Dissertations
Trust is a fundamental component of our social relationships. Whether we are interacting with our strong social ties, like family and friends, or complete strangers, there is a degree of trust that we must place in the other person. Because trust is essential to our continued interactions it is important that we learn how this trust forms as well as how it is influenced by various social factors. This paper utilizes an experimental approach to examining the relationship between status and initial trust. Using a two condition experiment with 182 participants, this study found that the presence of a single …
The Parental Well-Being Gap Before And After The Covid-19 Pandemic, Morgan Renee Koziol
The Parental Well-Being Gap Before And After The Covid-19 Pandemic, Morgan Renee Koziol
Theses and Dissertations
Prior research has examined the emotional costs and benefits associated with parenting. In general, this body of literature finds that parents experience lower levels of subjective well-being compared to non-parents—a phenomenon referred to as the parental well-being gap. There is evidence that this parental well-being gap has narrowed or disappeared altogether in more recent years. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges to parents that may have resulted in a widening or reopening of this gap once again. This project aims to test this possibility by drawing on data from The General Social Survey that capture the survey year prior …
Complex Stereotypes: Stereotypes Across The Intersections Of Gender, Sexuality, Age, Race/Ethnicity, And Social Class, Nicholas Heiserman
Complex Stereotypes: Stereotypes Across The Intersections Of Gender, Sexuality, Age, Race/Ethnicity, And Social Class, Nicholas Heiserman
Theses and Dissertations
Research on stereotypes and their consequences often focuses on discrete categorical stereotypes in isolation from each other (e.g. gender or race categories), and rarely centers the fact that people belong to many social categories at once (e.g. gender and race categories). I address this issue using two large factorial experiment (N=1,762 and N=1,481) designed to measure two core aspects of stereotypes, warmth and competence, across the intersections of multiple social categories: Gender, Sexuality, Age, Race/Ethnicity (Chapter 3), and Social Class (Chapter 2). In Chapter 2, I develop a framework for analyzing intersectional complexity in these data, beginning with overall measures …
Perceived Sexual Intent: Power, Relationship Status, And Gender, Joseph Eric Padgett
Perceived Sexual Intent: Power, Relationship Status, And Gender, Joseph Eric Padgett
Theses and Dissertations
Does lacking power cause people to think potential partners are less interested in engaging with them sexually? Do men and women perceive the interests of potential sex partners differently? Does the amount of sexual intent perceived by people who are in a romantic relationship differ from that of singles? Power has been shown to impact perceptions in other contexts, and the way people rate the attractiveness of potential mates is shown to differ depending upon their own relationship status. Similarly, gender differences are a central theme in discussions of sex related perceptions, preferences, and behaviors. In this study, I utilize …
Racism-Related State Policies And The Psychological And Physiological Wellbeing Of Black And White Adults, Calley Elizabeth Fisk
Racism-Related State Policies And The Psychological And Physiological Wellbeing Of Black And White Adults, Calley Elizabeth Fisk
Theses and Dissertations
Recent research on how state-policy affects population health outcomes suggests that state contexts are important sites for producing health disparities. In the United States different domains of state policy are historically linked to the livelihood of Black Americans and enacted within a racist system designed to maintain white supremacy. Despite this history and evidence of racial inequities in health outcomes linked to institutional discrimination for Black and white adults, scholars have yet to examine whether racism-related state policies affect the wellbeing of Black and white Americans. Combining a dataset of racism-related state policies with a nationally representative data of older …
Interpersonal Discrimination And Older Latinx Adults In The United States, Adrianne Dues
Interpersonal Discrimination And Older Latinx Adults In The United States, Adrianne Dues
Theses and Dissertations
Discrimination is a chronic source of stress among Latinx adults in the United States (Lopez et al. 2017; Williams 2012). Limited research, however, considers differences within ethnicity-nativity, the influence of important psychosocial mechanisms such as sense of control, and the ways interpersonal discrimination may extend beyond the individual, known as vicarious effects (Wofford et al. 2019). For my chapters, public data comes from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative longitudinal study of Americans aged 50 and older. My three dissertation chapters proceed in the following manner: Chapter 1 provides information to better understand Latinx adults beyond the …
“Before The World Gets Them”: The Impact Of Racialized Parenting On Black Mothers, Mia Brantley
“Before The World Gets Them”: The Impact Of Racialized Parenting On Black Mothers, Mia Brantley
Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation explores the distinct practices Black women implement to protect their children from both actualized and anticipatory experiences of racism, as well as its effects on their mothering experiences, health and well-being, as well as how they manage the emotional and mental toll of their children’s experiences. Race plays an integral role in shaping mothering practices. More specifically, motherwork examines how Black mothers ensure the physical, mental, and emotional survival of their children in the face of micro-and macro-level structures that perpetuate racism and inequality. However, much is left to explore regarding the interconnectedness between Black women’s motherwork, linked …
Assessing The Power Of Policy: Deconstructing Declines In Child Marriage Around The World, Zackery Butler
Assessing The Power Of Policy: Deconstructing Declines In Child Marriage Around The World, Zackery Butler
Theses and Dissertations
Drawing on research from the fields sociology and demography, this dissertation endeavors to deconstruct the declines in Child, Early and Forced Marriage (CEFM) around the world by assessing the power of international institutions to create and enforce global norms across a wide range of nation-states. I conducted three different studies on CEFM at different levels to better understand how international policy, the cultural composition of countries, macro level demographic trends, and the relationships between national leadership and international governance have effected changes over the last few decades beginning in 1980. I used comparative historical methods in conjunction with demographic techniques …
Morals ‘Trump’ Party: Make America Cooperate Again, Jered Abernathy
Morals ‘Trump’ Party: Make America Cooperate Again, Jered Abernathy
Theses and Dissertations
Conflict between Democrats and Republicans is a central component of the contemporary American political system. Negative feelings and discrimination based on political orientation are at an all-time high, leading otherwise similar Americans to deeply distrust one another. Social identity theory provides a framework for not only understanding how this distrust between partisans persists, but how it may be negated. This study builds on recent work on moral judgments and trust games to create situations to increase trust across party lines. Using an online-experimental design, this study investigates the effects of two types of moral judgments on trust building: 1) moral …
How Self-Sentiments And Personal Networks Impact Political Polarization, Matthew Facciani
How Self-Sentiments And Personal Networks Impact Political Polarization, Matthew Facciani
Theses and Dissertations
This project investigates how identities, self-sentiments, and personal network composition impact political polarization. I apply the framework of Affect Control Theory to capture how Democrats and Republicans feel about their political ingroup and outgroups (through evaluation, potency and activity ratings) and evaluate the likelihood of events involving these groups. In my first experiment, I study if self-uncertainty and self-affirmation primes impact political bias. I also apply Affect Control Theory-Self to measure self-sentiment change (self-evaluation, self-potency, and self-activity) from these primes as well. I predict that priming self-uncertainty should increase political bias (due to inflated self-sentiments) and that priming self-affirmation should …
Thou Shalt Lie: Anticipatory Deflection Management, Victoria L. Money
Thou Shalt Lie: Anticipatory Deflection Management, Victoria L. Money
Theses and Dissertations
As people visualize ongoing or future interactions, do they lie to maintain situational congruency? While visualizing various behavioral options, or the outcomes of such behaviors, people have a unique opportunity to preemptively alter the definition of the situation based on anticipated sentiments. Affect Control Theory emphasizes the salience of deflection management in everyday life. This is otherwise known as an attempted realignment of experiences and expectations in the face of situational incongruency such as the bizarre. Using a vignette experiment, I extend Affect Control Theory by illuminating deflection not yet experienced but instead anticipated. I do so by estimating the …
Appropriation Of The ‘Witch’ Stigma As White Women's Self-Empowerment, Anna S. Rogers
Appropriation Of The ‘Witch’ Stigma As White Women's Self-Empowerment, Anna S. Rogers
Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation uses a grounded theory perspective to uncover the process of white women who find self-empowerment in the appropriation of historically stigmatized identities and rhetoric surrounding a self-described witch identity. The sample in this study included 13 white women who self-identified as witches across varying socioeconomic and geographical lines. The four main research questions that guide this research study are: 1) what sociologically relevant factors lead women choosing to self-identify as a witch?; 2) what components does the process of choosing to identify as a witch entail?; 3) what meanings do self-identified witches attach to their and others’ depictions …
The Terror Pandemic: The International Diffusion Of Terrorism, Stephen Michael Chicoine
The Terror Pandemic: The International Diffusion Of Terrorism, Stephen Michael Chicoine
Theses and Dissertations
The online recruitment efforts of ISIS have raised questions about the new role of the internet in the spread of terrorism. However, the use of the mass media by terrorist groups to recruit and spread is not unique to ISIS or the digital age and has been an aspect of terrorism since its modern conception. To explain the spread of terrorism historically and understand the unique dimensions of terrorism and the internet, a cultural explanation is proposed to explain the process through terrorism spreads as well as the content that inspires violence. This study includes two major parts: a virtual …
Possession Of Status Value: An Extension Of Status Value Theory, Nicolas L. Harder
Possession Of Status Value: An Extension Of Status Value Theory, Nicolas L. Harder
Theses and Dissertations
Through what mediums is it possible to spread status? Prior research shows that status can be inferred from reward states, status and expectations can spread from one valued characteristic to another, and that differences in the status value of an object possessed by an individual can lead to differences in power during exchange interactions. However, it is not known if possession of these objects actually results in increased status and expectations for an individual possessing the status valued object. Building on Status Value Theory, Status Construction Theory, Reward Expectations Theory, and the Status Value Theory of Power, I construct a …
“Hiv Lives With Me”: An Intersectional Analysis Of The Successful Navigation Of Health Care Services By Sex Workers Living With Hiv, Kierra Jones
Theses and Dissertations
Sex workers living with HIV are affected by pervasive stigma across various life domains because they are situated between two stigmatized identities—their HIV status and as someone who exchanges sexual services for pay. Prior research suggests that not only can stigma hinder attempts to initially access health care services, but it can also foster strained and unwelcoming environments. The purpose of the present study is to illuminate the voices and experiences of sex workers living with HIV as they navigate their specific health care needs. Using an intersectional lens, the aim of this study is to understand the health care …
Mental Health And The Relationship Between Parental Divorce And Children’S Higher Degree Acquisition, Brittany V. Pittelli
Mental Health And The Relationship Between Parental Divorce And Children’S Higher Degree Acquisition, Brittany V. Pittelli
Theses and Dissertations
Studies between parental divorce and children’s educational attainment have been extensively observed in family research. However, few studies have attempted to examine the negative relationship of those associations with graduate level attainment. This study suggests that parental divorce is associated with diminished overall mental health (i.e., depressive symptoms) in children, and that this decrease may help explain the connection between parental divorce and lower graduate level academic attainment. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), a nationally representative sample of nearly 9,000 individuals interviewed, this study outlines hypotheses that link parental divorce, mental health, and graduate …
Reevaluating The Parenting Wellbeing Gap: Evidence From The Wellbeing Module Of The American Time Use Survey, Daniela Veronica Negraia
Reevaluating The Parenting Wellbeing Gap: Evidence From The Wellbeing Module Of The American Time Use Survey, Daniela Veronica Negraia
Theses and Dissertations
Both scholars and the public have been intrigued by the question of whether parents experience higher levels of emotional wellbeing than adults who are not raising children. Yet despite decades of research on the topic, the answer to this question remains unclear. Using a novel source of nationally representative data, the Wellbeing Module of the American Time Use Survey (2010, 2012, 2013), this dissertation aims to unpack and extend prior understanding of the parenting wellbeing gap by pursing two studies. The first investigates whether parenthood may have both positive and negative links to adults’ emotional wellbeing; whether the gap varies …
Context Matters: Evaluating Social Judgments Of Acquaintance Rape Myths, Michelle E. Deming
Context Matters: Evaluating Social Judgments Of Acquaintance Rape Myths, Michelle E. Deming
Theses and Dissertations
The objectives of my dissertation are to: 1) determine the social psychological factors affecting rape myth judgments and, 2) develop an instrument that utilizes realistic social contexts to measure acquaintance rape myth adherence among undergraduate students. The Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (IRMA; McMahon and Farmer 2011; Payne et al. 1999) was used to create acquaintance rape vignettes using factorial surveys (Rossi and Anderson 1982). I manipulated factors known to be associated with victim-blame such as alcohol, a previous sexual relationship, if the woman is dressed provocatively, the type of relationship (e.g., acquaintance versus friend), if the woman verbally protested, …
Early Economic Hardship, Maternal Support, And Depressive Symptoms Among Black Young Adults, Mia Brantley
Early Economic Hardship, Maternal Support, And Depressive Symptoms Among Black Young Adults, Mia Brantley
Theses and Dissertations
Substantial associations between childhood economic hardship and adult mental health have been acknowledged within social science research. However, there is a scarcity of research examining this relationship among Black Americans, as well as the sociocultural factors that may assist Black Americans in dealing with the effects of childhood economic hardship. This study suggests that family structure, specifically maternal support, may be a significant resource for Black Americans in the face of early economic adversity and mental health outcomes. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a nationally representative sample of Black Americans, this study outlines …
Framing Perceptions Of Justice In A Public Goods Dilemma, Hatice Atilgan
Framing Perceptions Of Justice In A Public Goods Dilemma, Hatice Atilgan
Theses and Dissertations
Provision of public goods often requires sufficient contributions from group members, and improper contributions are likely to produce feelings of injustice. Building on previous research, I develop a justice theory that explains how framing social comparisons in particular ways will make actors more or less sensitive and reactive to departures from fair contributions. In turn, this is predicted to impact justice-restoring behaviors such as reducing subsequent contributions to a public good, punishing group members, or exiting the group. This integrated theory shows how varying the way key pieces of information are framed affects fairness perceptions and subsequent behaviors in social …
What We See Depends On Where We Stand: Distorted Perception Of Social Income Inequality, Jingwen Zhong
What We See Depends On Where We Stand: Distorted Perception Of Social Income Inequality, Jingwen Zhong
Theses and Dissertations
This research investigates how individuals’ structural positions affect their justice perceptions of income distribution. Several previous studies have found the effect of socio-economic status along with other factors on people’s preference for how much more high-prestige occupations should be paid than low-prestige occupations. However, there is not much effort on exploring theoretical explanations for those empirical findings. To provide explanations for the effect of structural position on perceptions of income inequality, two potential theoretical perspectives are examined: self-interest theory and Wegener’s illusory perception theory. The study uses Chinese General Social Survey data to investigate the impact of individuals’ income on …
The Effects Of Power On The Processing Of Identity Threat, Matthew Facciani
The Effects Of Power On The Processing Of Identity Threat, Matthew Facciani
Theses and Dissertations
Identity theory provides a useful foundation for understanding how social factors influence the acceptance of evidence. This is because identity theory provides a framework of how we process information from other people depending on what social positions we occupy. The current study explored how the perception of power impacts the processing of an identity threat with college student participants (N=217). High power was predicted to decrease acceptance of identity-threatening information, and low power was predicted to increase acceptance of identity-threatening information. However, the study yielded non-significant effects of power on the acceptance of identity-threatening information. Results did show that individuals …
The Effect Of Economic Inequality On Perceptions Of Merit, Nicholas Heiserman
The Effect Of Economic Inequality On Perceptions Of Merit, Nicholas Heiserman
Theses and Dissertations
Previous research has shown that the rewards people receive are often taken as indirect evidence of their competence. Meanwhile, economic inequality has increased in the US over the past several generations. I propose that variation in economic inequality – the distribution of rewards in society – alters perceptions of the merits of people at different strata in society according to an assumption of equity. I use Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mTurk) to experimentally manipulate the level of inequality (high vs low) participants perceive in an anonymized country, and I measure participants’ perceptions of merit for people in that country’s 90th and …
Linking Discrimination To Health: Does Coping Matter For The Mental Health Of Black Men And Women?, Calley Fisk
Linking Discrimination To Health: Does Coping Matter For The Mental Health Of Black Men And Women?, Calley Fisk
Theses and Dissertations
Efforts to explain the negative association between discrimination and mental health have examined psychosocial responses to discrimination, such as coping responses or resources. However, there is limited research on how these coping strategies affect the discrimination-health relationship among Black Americans. Using data from the National Survey of American Life (NSAL), the present study examines the effect of perceived discrimination on depressive symptoms separately for men and women and tests the mediating and moderating influences of five coping strategies on this relationship. Results suggest that social support partially mediates the negative association between discrimination and mental health for men and women. …
The Social Determinants Of Success: The Effect Of Status, Framing, And Group Membership On Test Scores, Jennifer L. Mcleer
The Social Determinants Of Success: The Effect Of Status, Framing, And Group Membership On Test Scores, Jennifer L. Mcleer
Theses and Dissertations
Previous findings have shown that intelligence test scores of members of disadvantaged groups are negatively affected by their relative status in test situations. We explain this by assuming that lower-status actors forego benefits that normally follow from successful performance of a task if they anticipate that there are also costs associated with success. We use an integration of Status Characteristics Theory, Rational Choice Theory, Prospect Theory, and Self-Categorization Theory to argue that compared to high status individuals, those of lower status should be particularly affected by costs associated with high performance. We ran an experiment that manipulated factors such as …
Women In Hypermasculine Environments: An Analysis Of Gender Dynamics In The Heavy Metal Subculture, Anna Sheree Rogers
Women In Hypermasculine Environments: An Analysis Of Gender Dynamics In The Heavy Metal Subculture, Anna Sheree Rogers
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis analyzes gender dynamics in the heavy metal subculture by means of interviews with fans of this musical genre. Based on research that shows that (male) homosocial environments, denoting non-romantic social bonds among people of the same (male) sex, lead to hegemonic masculinity and the possibility of violence against women, this study focused on the heavy metal subculture from the point of view of its members’ experiences related to gender. The theoretical framework of this thesis is based on feminist theories of gender difference and its relevance for the sociology of gender. Specifically, I rely on theories of othering, …
A Theory Of Reward Stability, Justice Evaluations And Group Cooperation, Hyomin Park
A Theory Of Reward Stability, Justice Evaluations And Group Cooperation, Hyomin Park
Theses and Dissertations
The objective of this dissertation is to introduce a theory of the stability of rewards, justice evaluations and group cooperation with the results from three empirical tests of the theory. According to justice theory, rewards from exchange relations produce justice evaluations among individuals, leading to emotional and behavioral reactions. Specifically, unjust rewards cause lower levels of justice evaluations, positive emotions, and cooperative behaviors. Prospect theory and research on negativity bias posit the asymmetry between negative and positive events: negative events have a stronger effect than the same size of positive events on individuals’ perception. Combining the previous arguments, the theory …
Perceptions Of Control In Midwifery Assisted Childbirth: A Qualitative Examination Of The Midwifery Assisted Experience Of Childbearing, Sarah Jordan Keels
Perceptions Of Control In Midwifery Assisted Childbirth: A Qualitative Examination Of The Midwifery Assisted Experience Of Childbearing, Sarah Jordan Keels
Theses and Dissertations
This study looks to uncover some of the reasons that the sub-group of women who give birth outside of a hospital setting, and the midwives who serve them, choose to have an alternative birth plan and are willing to undergo social criticism for their decision. This is a qualitative analysis based on interview data with women who utilized midwifery care and midwives themselves. In-depth interview questions focus on the decision to use a midwife, definitions of control in the prenatal and birthing experience, and any kind of facilitation midwifery is seen to give expectant mothers in relation to these concepts. …
Inequality And Opportunity At Themsa-Level: Investigating Place As A Structure Of Inequality Shaping Mobility And Earnings, Colby R. King
Inequality And Opportunity At Themsa-Level: Investigating Place As A Structure Of Inequality Shaping Mobility And Earnings, Colby R. King
Theses and Dissertations
This study examines how the new urban economy has transformed the structures that impact individual earnings opportunities across place. Using data from the 1990 and 2000 Census, this study is based on two multi-level data sets, each reporting characteristics for approximately 2 million individuals nested within more than 200 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). This study examines how inequality varies across MSAs in the US. Associations between MSA-level characteristics, including proportion of employment in new economy sectors, earnings, educational attainment, and inequality, are tested. Strong evidence is found demonstrating strong and statistically significant correlations between new economy indicators and MSA-level inequality, …
The Body As Wartime Terrain: Social Control And Female Sexuality Under Military Occupation, Frances Choe
The Body As Wartime Terrain: Social Control And Female Sexuality Under Military Occupation, Frances Choe
Theses and Dissertations
This project is a comparative-historical sociological analysis of the informal and formal responses to sexual contact in two WWII period cases: between French women and Nazi troops, and German women and African-American GIs. I focus on the connection between the regulation of women's bodies and cultural expectations of gender, ideas about sexuality, and racial ideology. The results of war and subsequent occupation of the defeated nation - population decline and the acute loss of male life, strained material resources and the daily concern of survival, the social psychological sense of defeat, and intimate relationships between occupiers and the occupied - …