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A Journey To A Black Woman’S (Read Black Girl’S) Joy And Her Story Of Coming Home, Brittany Lauren Brock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an auto/ethnography about the self-actualizing journey of reclaiming storytelling as my native tongue and my journey to joy. Throughout, using my story and the stories of so many others, I not only lay out the wounds (the pain, the loss, then the hope that comes) within the academy and outside in the world but I also use storytelling as a tool of healing—my tool of healing—to show how I wrote myself free.

When Black women (read Black girls) go through The Reckoning (the moment we realize something isn’t right with how we are perceived by others) …

Juror's Perceptions Of Evidence-Based Suspicion, Nicholas Welter

Student Theses

Eyewitness misidentification is a leading cause of wrongful conviction. Although the prior probability of guilt (i.e., pre-identification evidence strength) is the most important factor for predicting a defendant’s actual guilt status and the accuracy of any subsequent eyewitness identification, no study has examined whether it affects juror decisions. This oversight is problematic because when officers place suspects in lineups when there is little evidence connecting them to the crime, it falls on jurors to examine the probative value of identification evidence. Participants (N = 357) watched a mock trial depicting an armed robbery that varied pre-identification evidence (strong vs. …

The Case Of The Disappearing Owner: Do Dogs Show Behavioral Evidence Of Violation Of Expectation?, Rita Kanagat

Theses and Dissertations

The What the Fluff challenge became a series of viral YouTube videos that started in 2018. In the videos, a person stood behind a blanket in a doorway in front of their dog and lifted and lowered the blanket revealing and obscuring themselves, and finally disappearing with a final blanket drop. The dogs’ reactions were varied but were suggestive of a violation of expectation response. We conducted a community science study that employed methodologies consistent with the What the Fluff Challenge paradigm that were conducted in the owners’ homes with their dogs. Each owner was required to run a control …

Sex Trafficking And Mental Health Treatments, Maria A. Georgescu

Student Theses

Currently there is no agreement amongst professionals on a specific approach for providing for victims of sex trafficking. A two-part study was conducted in order to screen mental health professionals who have experience providing for victims of sex trafficking to participate in a semi-structured qualitative interview. Through a grounded theory approach, light is shed on what mental health providers experienced with providing for victims of sex trafficking find effective.

The main findings highlight how being forced into sex trafficking young (under 18) is impactful for the course of treatment according to 100 % (n=6) of participants, meeting the patient where …

Dream/Reality, Mercedes Llanos

Theses and Dissertations

Mercedes llanos explores the surreal aspect of dreams as they concern with waking life issues, mainly focusing on power-roles in domestic partnerships embedded in a South American patriarchal upbringing. In her dreams, she subconsciously navigates the repression of freedom firsthand experienced, and that of the transgenerational woman collective.

Information Justice: The Histories And Futures Of Technology And Social Categories, Patrick Sweeney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation examines two controversies related to emergent uses of information from social media in psychological research and application. It focuses on controversies surrounding studies of face-based gaydar and the use of psychographic targeting by Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 US presidential election. Each controversy is analyzed in a case study that explores the issues specific to that study in relation to broader patterns across contexts to identify emergent trends in the use of information from social media in psychological research. Qualitative Content Analysis is used to analyze extant texts relevant to each case. In each study, findings related to …

A Quadratic Analysis Of Trait Anxiety And Heart Rate Variability, Katlyn Schroder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Trait anxiety refers to an individual’s sensitivity to perceived threat. Though it is not itself diagnosable according to the DSM-5, trait anxiety scales are often administered in a clinical context and serve as an indicator for anxiety disorders. High levels of trait anxiety can result in prolonged periods of intense worry and dysfunction, even in those who are not diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Previous studies have attempted to understand the relationship between trait anxiety and reactivity of the autonomic nervous system, especially in relation to vagal tone, but have found inconsistent results. One possible explanation for this inconsistency is …

Pre-Report Review Of Body-Worn Camera Footage: An Examination Of Stakeholder Beliefs, Laypeople’S Judgments Of Officer Credibility, And The Consequences For Memory, Kristyn A. Jones

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Aim: This dissertation examines people’s beliefs about police officer access to body-worn camera footage, people’s judgments of officer credibility as it relates to video footage, and the consequences that review of footage has on reporting accuracy.

Rationale: With escalating police-civilian tensions in 2014, American police departments adopted body-worn camera programs. A majority of departments have policies allowing officers unrestricted access to camera footage. Because officers fear that inconsistencies between reports and videos could result in suspicion of officer deceit, they argue that officers should have access to footage before writing their reports to ensure reports match the footage. Yet, because …

The Body. The Art. The Psyche, Anushtha Agrawal

Capstones

The Body. The Art. The Psyche is a series that delves into the psyche behind doing body art. What drives an artist to manipulate another's body whether permanently or impermanently. What drives them? What they gain out of it? What are they seeking? The series has two artists; A tattoo artist who is driven by the demons of the human mind and macabre things around him; another is a henna artist who is driven by the mystical properties of henna and is inspired by the celebration of life. I have tried to draw a contrast between permanence and impermanence in …

Behavioral Hypervigilance In A Normative Population, Karly Weinreb

Theses and Dissertations

Hypervigilance is conceptualized as a symptom of trauma-related disorders, however it can also occur in a normative population. To distinguish normative hypervigilance from trauma-related hypervigilance, 372 participants (123 trauma-exposed and 249 non-trauma-exposed) completed a questionnaire assessing hypervigilance in contexts. Trauma-exposed participants reported greater levels of hypervigilance in 3 contexts.

Constraint And Control, Patricia Ayres

Theses and Dissertations

I have long considered themes of the body. Drawing on my knowledge as a fashion designer, I bring materials and hardware from the fashion industry into my artwork transforming and rendering them non-functional. My sculptures relate to stories of isolation, separation, and confinement. The following pages will analyze how the United States penal system controls, constrains and restricts the body through physical and psychological wounds. Furthermore, they will examine how the Catholic Church controls people’s minds and behavior through a ritualistic belief system.

The Art Of Fortune-Taking, Allison Weintraub

Capstones

People suffering grief or emotional distress turn to many places for comfort, which can make them a target of psychic scam artists. Stigma about falling for scams might prevent victims from seeking help. https://medium.com/@allison.weintraub/the-art-of-fortune-taking-5cdedb6718d0

Polaroid Access, Becky Jane Rosen

Theses and Dissertations

In her thesis statement, Becky Jane Rosen discusses the relationships between photography, family, and the psyche through her recent paintings and artistic influences.

Like What You See? The Influence Of Program Assortment Organization And Viewing Motivation On Video-On-Demand Consumption, Boram Nam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research investigates the effect of program assortment organization and consumers’ viewing motivation on Video-on-Demand (VOD) consumption. In doing so, we examine the formation of viewers’ choice set and product interests in the context of the largely unexplored VOD marketplace. Specifically, we test the interaction between program assortment organization and the specificity of consumers’ motivation toward content for viewing on VOD to show that the size of choice set increases when program assortment is organized by content (genre) vs. a non-content specific alternative (recommendation) among consumers with an activity-focused (vs. content-focused) viewing motivation. We also provide preliminary evidence that consumer …

Ordinary Disorder, Jonathan S. Tracy

Theses and Dissertations

The pictorial spaces in my paintings are found through many drawings, based on memories. In these drawings I use the architectural technique of paraline drawing, in pointed contrast to one or two point perspective. With a fixed point of view unavailable, the viewer or reader becomes the writer too. This is what I intend. The paraline method also engages specific corners of art history to which I relate, including woodblock prints of Japanese interiors, Chinese brush painting landscapes with houses, and the shifting, rotating perspectives found in Baroque painting. My intensely personal memories/drawings are transfused into highly material finished paintings. …

Expecting The Inevitable: Daca And Mental Health, Jade Gardener

Capstones

On September 5, 2017, Attorney General, Jeff Sessions announced that the Trump Administration was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Better known as DACA, the passed into action in 2012 by the administration of former President Obama, was heralded for providing young undocumented adults the ability to do things such as legally work and attend college.

The repeal of DACA is just beginning to affect the mental health of recipients. Researchers contend that the repeal of the DACA is a violent act that thus results in the psychological distress. Citing research published in American Association for the Advancement …

Letter To The President: Longitudinal Critical Discourse Analysis Of Academic And Hip Hop Genres In A Rap Narrative Program, Debangshu Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The objective of this study was to examine an in-school rap narrative workshop through critical discourse theory (Bamberg, 2012; Daiute, 2014). Twelve youth from a public school serving youth in urban Houston, TX were recruited from an in-school and after-school Hip hop/Rap narrative program to participate in a two-year cohort research study. The primary research question guiding the study was “How do young people participating in a school-based Hip hop/Rap program use a wide range of narrative genres for literacy and psycho-social development over two years in the program?”

The data-intensive study involved assessments of literacy and psycho-social development via …

Brief And Extended Experimental Analysis Of Spelling Deficits, Kimberly Reyes-Giordano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Brief Experimental Analyses (BEA) have been primarily used to evaluate the effects of instructional variables on reading deficits with regular education students. The broader utility of BEA’s has been limited in academic scope and population. The current study aimed to expand upon previous research by determining the efficacy of a BEA in identifying effective spelling interventions for students with established spelling deficits. Four different spelling strategies, drawn from the BEA and broader spelling intervention literatures were integrated into the BEA assessment technology and were compared and experimentally analyzed. For all students, effective interventions were identified with clear distinctions between the …

The Psychology Of Single-Sex Classrooms, Jenna E. Bagcal

Capstones

Single-sex classrooms have been a hallmark of Catholic and private schools, but they are gaining popularity in American public schools. Proponents of single-sex classrooms believe that boys' and girls' brains are different and they therefore need specialized teaching methods and classroom conditions. For example, boys are competitive and are better at STEM subjects, while girls are cooperative and thrive in English and the arts. Detractors of single-sex classrooms in public schools like the ACLU say that these classrooms are based on pseudoscience and reinforce gender stereotypes. Follow the story of Jenna Bagcal through an all girls Catholic school and her …

Cognitive And Affective Aspects Of Personality And Academic Procrastination: The Role Of Personal Agency, Flow, And Executive Function, Marc Graff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Academic procrastination is a prevalent issue that affects school-related and other experiences of many students, with some studies identifying as many as a third of college students sampled as‘severe’ procrastinators. This study investigated some of the factors previous studies have identified as potential contributors to procrastinating in the academic arena. In defining procrastination as a self-regulation issue, it is proposed that distinct executive function processes play a role in one’s efforts at academic task engagement and completion and resisting the tendency to procrastinate on these tasks. It is also proposed that the frequency with which one experiences ‘flow’, a state …

You're Only As Good As You Do In School: Asian American Students And The Mental Risks They Face In Higher Education, Asia C. Ewart

Capstones

Anne Cai always joked that, “one of these days,” school was going to drive her to insanity. A snapshot of her life begged to differ. As the oldest of three daughters in her traditional Chinese­ American family, Anne, 23, was the image of success and achievement, not only for her parents and their peers, but for her sisters Jenny, 19, and Vicky, 13. She excelled in elementary, middle and at all three of her high schools—the high school moves were decided by her parents and she never questioned them, lest she burden the family with what she considered complaining.