Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

PDF

University of South Carolina

Theses/Dissertations

2015

Discipline
Keyword
Publication

Articles 1 - 30 of 68

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Building Capacity Through The Use Of A Strategic Prevention Framework System In Communities, Duncan Meyers Dec 2015

Building Capacity Through The Use Of A Strategic Prevention Framework System In Communities, Duncan Meyers

Theses and Dissertations

The Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) is a planning and implementation model that mobilizes communities to collaborate on developing and implementing an evidence-based prevention system. This model follows a structured five-step process with two cross-cutting elements (cultural competence and sustainability) that emphasizes building capacity of coalitions to strategically plan, implement, and sustain evidence-based prevention services to reduce adolescent substance use. This study utilized a repeated cross-sectional design. Participating youth were in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12 and lived in one of 27 counties in a Southeastern state that was funded through the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention’s SPF State Incentive …

Go to article

The Impact Of Sports Dropout On Adolescent Functioning, Brittany Skiles Cook Dec 2015

The Impact Of Sports Dropout On Adolescent Functioning, Brittany Skiles Cook

Theses and Dissertations

Sports is the most commonly participated in extracurricular activity during adolescence. Aligned with the Positive Youth Development theoretical framework, previous research has shown that sports participation offers youth a context rich in resources found to promote positive adjustment into adulthood. However, around one third of the youth participating in sports drop out each year, and little research has examined the impact of sports dropout on indicators of youth adjustment. This study examines the relation between sports dropout and academic achievement, self-esteem, depression, perceived school climate, perceived support from adults in school, and alcohol use. The moderating effect of sports engagement …

Go to article

Postmodernism And Budhism: A Postmodern Woman In A Modernizing Land, Ruthanne Joy Wenger Hughes Dec 2015

Postmodernism And Budhism: A Postmodern Woman In A Modernizing Land, Ruthanne Joy Wenger Hughes

Senior Theses

Religion and postmodernism are two paradigms that guide my experience of life. Although it is not necessarily intuitive, these two paradigms do intersect and inform each other, shaping the way I engage with the world. With this understanding, I spent the Spring 2015 semester in the Kingdom of Bhutan and examined my time through a postmodern lens, writing a travel blog at www.bhutanbricolage.weebly.com that mediates my experiences there and my thoughts about Buddhism and postmodernism.

Go to article

Investigating Construct Validity Of The Cyber--Peer Experiences Questionnaire, Kendall Moore Dec 2015

Investigating Construct Validity Of The Cyber--Peer Experiences Questionnaire, Kendall Moore

Theses and Dissertations

With electronic technology becoming increasingly important in all aspects of modern life, traditional forms of relating with others have crossed into the cyber realm. Within that context, both positive and negative aspects of relational behavior have advanced in ways still largely underexplored in the research literature. One such area, termed “cyberaggression,” has recently gained momentum as a research focus. Given the numerous mental health sequelae from being involved in cyberaggression, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, there is a clear and compelling need for more research in this area. To date, however, there remains little consensus on the conceptualization …

Go to article

Do Discipline Style And Parenting Self-Efficacy Interact To Predict Observed Child Behavior? Outcomes From A Representative Sample Of Mothers With Young Chilren, Emily Noel Neger Dec 2015

Do Discipline Style And Parenting Self-Efficacy Interact To Predict Observed Child Behavior? Outcomes From A Representative Sample Of Mothers With Young Chilren, Emily Noel Neger

Theses and Dissertations

Both parenting style and parents’ sense of their own parenting self-efficacy (PSE) have been found to predict child behavior outcomes in young children. Parents who engage in lax or overreactive parenting practices or who lack confidence in their parenting abilities are more likely to have children who display disruptive and noncompliant behavior. Until now, very little research has examined whether an interaction exits between these two constructs in predicting child behavior outcomes. The current study looked to fill this gap and assess whether a significant moderation relationship exists between parents’ parenting style and PSE in predicting observed child behavior. A …

Go to article

Redneckaissance: Honey Boo Boo, Tumblr, And The Stereotype Of Poor White Trash, Ashley F. Miller Dec 2015

Redneckaissance: Honey Boo Boo, Tumblr, And The Stereotype Of Poor White Trash, Ashley F. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Tumblr is an understudied social media site with a young, progressive, and queer user base of content creators. This study examines Tumblr posts about Here Comes Honey Boo Boo to understand the nature of Tumblr and the way a convergent culture that includes non-viewers negotiates a television show dependent on stereotypes. Discourses around authenticity, LGBTQ issues, and body acceptance resist the negative white trash connotations of the show, but this resistance is embedded in stereotypes around race, class, gender, sexuality, and geography. The result is a continuum in which users negotiate what the show means in how they use that …

Go to article

Promoting Hpv Vaccination For Male Young Adults: Effects Of Social Influence, Wan Chi Leung Dec 2015

Promoting Hpv Vaccination For Male Young Adults: Effects Of Social Influence, Wan Chi Leung

Theses and Dissertations

HPV vaccination is an important public health issue, but past research has mostly been done on the HPV vaccination for females. This study explores promotions of the HPV vaccination for men, focusing on how social influence plays a role in influencing young male adults’ attitudes toward the HPV vaccine. An online survey was conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk, and responses from 656 males aged 18-26 in the United States were analyzed. Results indicated that exposure to messages were associated with perceived effects of the messages on others, which related to the perceived descriptive norm of vaccine uptake among other males. …

Go to article

Beyond Ideals: Proslavery Reforms On A Nineteenth-Century Cotton Plantation, Kevin R. Fogle Dec 2015

Beyond Ideals: Proslavery Reforms On A Nineteenth-Century Cotton Plantation, Kevin R. Fogle

Theses and Dissertations

The last four decades of the antebellum period witnessed the rise of a proslavery plantation reform movement aimed at preserving slavery in the face of increasing abolitionist pressure. Reformers promoted the image of ideal enslaved households operating as part of efficient modern plantations ruled by reason, benevolent management techniques, and scientific agriculture. Where implemented, reforms resulted in numerous changes to plantation life both around the home and in the fields. Slaves who bore the brunt of these changes struggled to resist plantation reforms or grudgingly accepted them depending on the impact upon established daily routines and any potential benefits bondsmen …

Go to article

Framing Death: Politics, Meaning, And The Strategic Communication Of Organ Donation Messages In South Carolina, Jeremy T. Vanderknyff Dec 2015

Framing Death: Politics, Meaning, And The Strategic Communication Of Organ Donation Messages In South Carolina, Jeremy T. Vanderknyff

Theses and Dissertations

This study applies framing theory within a critical-interpretive anthropological context to understand how organ procurement organizations (OPOs) design messages to promote organ donation registration and how cultural factors including notions of embodiment and structural inequalities influence audiences’ processing of those messages. The first part of the study employs content analysis to deductively identify OPO-produced message frames. The second part of the study uses focus groups across South Carolina to explore audience reactions to different message frames. Themes from donors and non-donors alike reflected a mistrust of the medical establishment, a keen awareness of structural inequality, and complex notions of embodiment …

Go to article

General Strain Theory And Bullying Victimization: Do Parental Support And Control Alleviate The Negative Effects Of Bullying, Jonathon Thompson Dec 2015

General Strain Theory And Bullying Victimization: Do Parental Support And Control Alleviate The Negative Effects Of Bullying, Jonathon Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

With growing reports of bullying victimization ranging from 8 percent to 46 percent in many countries, bullying victimization has been declared an international problem often affecting youth in or near one’s school with poor parental supervision. While there has been a growing body of research concerning bullying victimization, few studies have examined the collateral consequences of bullying victimization and the mediating role of family processes through the theoretical lens of general strain theory. This thesis attempts to shed light on such a complex social phenomena and contribute to the bullying and stress literature. This study posits that bullying victimization is …

Go to article

The Effects Of Mindfulness On Verbal Distress Disclosure, Sara Fleming Dec 2015

The Effects Of Mindfulness On Verbal Distress Disclosure, Sara Fleming

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a mindfulness induction on participants’ verbal distress disclosure (as measured by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count and State Disclosure Questionnaire). Participants were 86 undergraduate students enrolled in an Introduction to Psychology course and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a mindfulness condition or a control condition. Participants in the mindfulness condition engaged in a 15-minute mindfulness induction prior to disclosing about a stressful experience, while participants in the control condition listened to a neutrally valenced audio excerpt from a podcast about emotions before speaking about a …

Go to article

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Psychological Distress And Risky Sexual Behaviors Among A Treatment-Seeking Opioid-Dependent Population, Hayley M. Smith Dec 2015

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Psychological Distress And Risky Sexual Behaviors Among A Treatment-Seeking Opioid-Dependent Population, Hayley M. Smith

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Substance abusing populations are at an increased risk for disease transmission and have higher rates of psychological comorbidity compared to the general population (e.g., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2012a; Chaudhury & Singh, 2009; Des Jarlais, Semaan, & Arasteh, 2011; Goodwin & Stein, 2013). Numerous studies have implicated the interaction of psychological distress and risky sexual behaviors in the increased risk of disease transmission, however, several studies have not found this association. It has been suggested that there may be curvilinear relationship between psychological distress and risky sexual behaviors but this theory has yet to be tested. The …

Go to article

Grandiose And Vulnerable Narcissism: Where Do The Emotional Differences Lie?, Katherine E. Wolven Dec 2015

Grandiose And Vulnerable Narcissism: Where Do The Emotional Differences Lie?, Katherine E. Wolven

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Narcissism can be conceptualized as existing on a continuum between grandiose and vulnerable phenotypes (Pincus & Lukowitsky, 2010). Previous studies found differences between narcissistic phenotypes in terms of behavioral task performance (Wallace & Baumeister, 2002) and emotional reactions to threatening conditions (Besser & Priel, 2010; Zeigler-Hill, Clark, & Pickard, 2008); however, research on emotion dysregulation was lacking in narcissistic populations. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to explore the subjective and objective emotional differences between the grandiose and vulnerable phenotypes of narcissism. In a laboratory manipulation, participants (N=63) completed self-report questionnaires, read emotionally-evocative vignettes describing achievement failure and …

Go to article

Adult Attachment Styles And Psychopathic Traits: A Relationship Mediated By Empathy And Emotional Regulation?, Chelsea Heim Aug 2015

Adult Attachment Styles And Psychopathic Traits: A Relationship Mediated By Empathy And Emotional Regulation?, Chelsea Heim

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Psychopathic personality traits encompass an array of characteristics that emerge early in life and are influenced by insecure attachments between children and their parents. Disruptions in parent-child interactions also affect the development of empathy (Panfile & Laible, 2010) and emotion regulation (Waters, S. F., Virmani, E. A., Thompson, R. A., Meyer, S., Raikes, H. A. & Jochem, R., 2010), which contributes to lasting impairments in interpersonal working models about the self and others (Mack, Hackney & Pile, 2010). The interactions between psychopathy and insecure attachment, low levels of empathy, and the ability to regulate one’s emotions have been separately investigated …

Go to article

Hiv-1 And Cocaine: Motivation And Synaptic Function, Sarah J. Bertrand May 2015

Hiv-1 And Cocaine: Motivation And Synaptic Function, Sarah J. Bertrand

Theses and Dissertations

Molecular and behavioral assays were used to examine the effects of HIV-1 on synaptodendritic integrity, motivated behavior and the therapeutic potential of natural isoflavones in ameliorating both synaptodendritic injury in vitro and changes in motivation in vivo. The overarching hypothesis of the present dissertation is twofold: 1. HIV-1 causes a decrease in motivation for sucrose and cocaine and the change in motivational state is driven by compromised synaptic integrity as evaluated by F-actin and DAT function and, 2. Treatment with phytoestrogens will prevent synaptodendritic damage, normalize the internal motivational state of the HIV-1 Tg rat for sucrose and cocaine, and …

Go to article

The Impact Of Childhood Trauma As Moderated By Ptsd, Relationship With Caregiver, And Rumination, Aislyn M. Allen May 2015

The Impact Of Childhood Trauma As Moderated By Ptsd, Relationship With Caregiver, And Rumination, Aislyn M. Allen

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

The current study explored the relationship between childhood trauma and deliberate rumination, as well as PTSD symptomology, psychological and physiological functioning. Participants consisted of 55 undergraduate students, ages 18-23; who completed measures about a specific traumatic event, psychological functioning, parental attachment, PTSD symptoms, deliberate rumination, childhood maltreatment, and a demographics questionnaire. Reported childhood trauma was a specifically identified traumatic life event, child maltreatment, or having a parent with a substance abuse or mental disorder. Following completion of measures, participants were asked to answer questions while heart rate, heart rate variability, and electrodermal activity were monitored. Results indicated there was relation …

Go to article

The Effects Of Deficits In Emotional Self-Regulation On Relationship Satisfaction In Young Adults, Murphy Harrell May 2015

The Effects Of Deficits In Emotional Self-Regulation On Relationship Satisfaction In Young Adults, Murphy Harrell

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Effective emotional self-regulation is essential for evaluating a situation, giving meaning to the experience and to regulate emotions in order to achieve a desired goal. Emotional selfregulation is an essential feature of executive functioning, which affects a number of functional domains across the lifespan and is specifically important for sustaining healthy interpersonal relationships. Research to date shows that adults with ADHD and emotional dysregulation have poor social relationships, due to a variety of problems such as: not following social norms, missing nonverbal cues, interrupting conversations, not following through with promises, appearing inpatient or rude, and not thinking before speaking. Despite …

Go to article

Reacting To Microaggressions: Do Individual Identity Processing Styles Play A Role?, Suraj Patel May 2015

Reacting To Microaggressions: Do Individual Identity Processing Styles Play A Role?, Suraj Patel

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

The majority of literature on the impact of microaggressions focuses on ethnic minority stereotypes with little research on how microaggressions and negative stereotypes affect other types of minority groups, such as minorities based on social group. Additionally, within the literature on general group membership, it has been found that social disapproval results in the typical, global response of negative affect. However, the behaviors that are evoked by the negative affect differ considerably among individuals whether the response is to strengthen, maintain, or avoid interpersonal conflict (Richman & Leary, 2009). Moreover, there is no single model that can conceptualize the complexity …

Go to article

Does Self-Compassion Protect Against Emotional Dysregulation, Anxiety, And Other Negative Emotions?, Elizabeth Willits Jan 2015

Does Self-Compassion Protect Against Emotional Dysregulation, Anxiety, And Other Negative Emotions?, Elizabeth Willits

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Self-compassion is a multifaceted construct meant to allow individuals to treat themselves with kindness, have a balanced perspective on their experiences, and feel connected to others (Neff, 2003a). Emotion regulation is related to higher levels of self-compassion (Diedrich et al., 2013; Vettese et al., 2011), and Neff (2003a) proposes that self-compassion can be viewed as a superior emotion regulation strategy. Self-compassion is negatively correlated with many forms of psychopathology, including anxiety (Neff, 2003b; Neff et al., 2007; Neff & McGehee, 2010). Based on prior research, it appears that self-compassion may increase the ability to regulation emotions, therefore increasing an individual’s …

Go to article

Authentic Relationship Management To Heighten Control Mutuality In Social Media, Diana Catherine Sisson Jan 2015

Authentic Relationship Management To Heighten Control Mutuality In Social Media, Diana Catherine Sisson

Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on literature from public relations, marketing, interpersonal communication, and organizational communication, this dissertation focused on the effects of authenticity on relationship management outcomes in nonprofit organizations’ social media efforts. There is significant need for relationship management rooted in authenticity with the rise in inauthentic communication online. This dissertation aims to contribute to relationship management theory by highlighting the role of control mutuality in analyses of authenticity in organization-public relationships in social media for nonprofit organizations like local animal welfare organizations. This dissertation proposes that control mutuality is an ethical outcome of authentic relationship management. This dissertation also proposes that …

Go to article

The Liberal Commercial Peace, Regional Considerations: International Relations Of Southeast Asia, Latin America, And The European Union Countries, Chienwu Hsueh Jan 2015

The Liberal Commercial Peace, Regional Considerations: International Relations Of Southeast Asia, Latin America, And The European Union Countries, Chienwu Hsueh

Theses and Dissertations

Most of the large-N empirical studies on the liberal commercial peace theory demonstrate that, in general, trade has a robust pacifying effect in reducing the probability of dyadical militarized interstate disputes. However, why trade’s pacifying effect varies across time and space remains a puzzle that previous research has not yet solved. The liberal commercial peace literature suggests the following questions are in need of answers: Why does trade promote peace mainly in inter-region dyads but not in intra-region dyads? What are the preconditions that make trade’s pacifying effect work or not work? In this research, I argue that there are …

Go to article

Processing Of Garden-Path Sentences Containing Silent And Filled Pauses In Stuttered Speech: Evidence From A Comprehensive Study, Elena Galkina Jan 2015

Processing Of Garden-Path Sentences Containing Silent And Filled Pauses In Stuttered Speech: Evidence From A Comprehensive Study, Elena Galkina

Theses and Dissertations

Disfluency is common in spontaneous speech. Self-correction is a type of disfluency that consists of reparandum, filler, and repair (Levelt, 1989). Little is known about the processing of self-corrections in a normally disfluent speech, and even less is known about its processing in atypically disfluent speech (e.g. speech in patients with autism spectrum disorder, hearing impaired, patients with brain damage, and stuttered speech; see: Lake, Humphreys, & Cardy, 2011; Lind, Hickson, & Erber, 2004; Plexico et al., 2010; Rossi et al., 2011; Yairi, Gintautas, & Avent, 1981). This study focuses on self-correction disfluencies in garden-path sentences and employs a behavioral …

Go to article

Profiles Of African American College Students’ Risky Behaviors: General And Culturally-Specific Stress And Social Support As Factors Of Risk And Resilience?, Isha Walwina Metzger Jan 2015

Profiles Of African American College Students’ Risky Behaviors: General And Culturally-Specific Stress And Social Support As Factors Of Risk And Resilience?, Isha Walwina Metzger

Theses and Dissertations

Studies show that, while alcohol use and risky sexual activities increase during emerging adulthood, college students are more likely to engage in these behaviors than their non-student counterparts (Slutske et al., 2004). Researchers should explore risk behavior participation among African American youth, as they often face health disparities and more severe consequences of engaging in these acts than their White American counterparts (Sharma & Atri, 2006; Jackson, Hodge, & Vaughn, 2010). Although epidemiological and variable-centered studies often examine the drinking and sexual behavior of African American college students, there is a need for research utilizing a profile-oriented approach to explore …

Go to article

A Longitudinal Examination Of The Mediating Role Of Social Problem Solving Between Parental Attachment And Early Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction, Xu Jiang Jan 2015

A Longitudinal Examination Of The Mediating Role Of Social Problem Solving Between Parental Attachment And Early Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction, Xu Jiang

Theses and Dissertations

Both attachment theory and empirical evidence indicate that the quality of parental attachment profoundly influences many different aspects of adolescent life. However, one area that has been somewhat neglected in the literature is the discovery of the psychosocial mechanisms that account for the link between parental attachment and important adolescent developmental outcomes, such as social problem solving (D’Zurilla & Goldfried, 1971) and life satisfaction (LS: Diener, 1994). Driven by the conceptual framework of development of LS proposed by Evans (1994), Attachment Theory and Social Problem Solving Theory, a mediation model was hypothesized to explore the link between parental attachment and …

Go to article

Pathways Thinking As A Mediator Between Positive Emotions And General Life Satisfaction In Middle School Students, Kathleen B. Franke Jan 2015

Pathways Thinking As A Mediator Between Positive Emotions And General Life Satisfaction In Middle School Students, Kathleen B. Franke

Theses and Dissertations

Informed by the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, we tested a model of the origins of life satisfaction with a sample of 567 middle school students from the Southeastern United States. The pathways thinking domain of hope was proposed to mediate the relation between positive emotions and general life satisfaction at a single time point, as well as over one year. At Time 1, pathways thinking was a significant mediator of positive emotions and life satisfaction. In the longitudinal model, pathways thinking did not significantly mediate this relation between positive emotions and later life satisfaction. These findings have implications for …

Go to article

In The Eye Of The Beholder: Exploring The Dialogic Approach To Police Legitimacy, Justin Nix Jan 2015

In The Eye Of The Beholder: Exploring The Dialogic Approach To Police Legitimacy, Justin Nix

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, police legitimacy has generated a great deal of scholarly attention. Numerous studies carried out in a variety of settings have demonstrated that citizens are more likely to perceive the police as a legitimate authority when they interact with citizens in a procedurally fair way. In turn, citizens become more likely to accept police decisions, comply with the law, and cooperate with the police. Yet until very recently, scholars have only focused on citizen perceptions of legitimacy while neglecting the perspective of the police themselves. It may very well be that the police believe other ideals are more …

Go to article

Working Memory In Children With Neurocognitive Effects From Sickle Cell Disease: Contributions Of The Central Executive And Processing Efficiency, Kelsey Erin Smith Jan 2015

Working Memory In Children With Neurocognitive Effects From Sickle Cell Disease: Contributions Of The Central Executive And Processing Efficiency, Kelsey Erin Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Children with sickle cell disease (SCD) are at risk for neurocognitive impairment due to disease effects including stroke, sleep disordered breathing, anemia-induced hypoxia, and small vessel occlusion. In particular, problems in working memory are an area of concern due to the importance of this construct in determining intelligence and academic functioning. According to Baddely’s model, working memory is composed of verbal and spatial working memory, but it is unclear whether one aspect of working memory is more impacted than another in children with SCD. In addition, little is known about the role of two key components in SCD-related working memory …

Go to article

Using Geographical Information Systems To Investigate Access To School Mental Heath Services, Heather L. Mcdaniel Jan 2015

Using Geographical Information Systems To Investigate Access To School Mental Heath Services, Heather L. Mcdaniel

Theses and Dissertations

Many youth present emotional or behavioral difficulties at levels that necessitate mental health services, yet few receive these needed services. However, school mental health services are thought to improve access to mental health services for youth and families over and above traditional community mental health centers. The purpose of the current study was to expand on existing research by examining community-level and geographic predictors of the utilization of school mental health or community mental health services. Within the context of a large, federally funded trial, I examined how community rurality, ethnic/racial makeup and drive time predicted the use of either …

Go to article

Behavioral And Heart-Defined Attention In Infants At High Genetic Risk For Autism, Bridgette L. Tonnsen Jan 2015

Behavioral And Heart-Defined Attention In Infants At High Genetic Risk For Autism, Bridgette L. Tonnsen

Theses and Dissertations

Characterizing early predictors of autism facilitates earlier identification, diagnosis and treatment. Although aberrant visual attention is one of the earliest identified predictors of autism and may play an integral role in developmental cascades that contribute to associated impairments, the emergence of atypical attention in infancy is poorly understood. The present dissertation includes three related manuscripts examining early patterns of visual attention in two infant samples at elevated risk for autism: infant siblings of children with autism (ASIBs) and infants with fragile X syndrome (FXS). Together, these manuscripts identify patterns of abnormal heart defined attention among ASIBs (Study 1), investigate the …

Go to article

Ammonium Concentrations Above A Louisiana Sugarcane Field, Wesley Robert Skeeter Jan 2015

Ammonium Concentrations Above A Louisiana Sugarcane Field, Wesley Robert Skeeter

Theses and Dissertations

High concentrations of ammonium (NH4+) aerosols can lead to acidification of soils, forest decline, and eutrophication of water ways (Aneja et al. 2003). NH4+ along with its precursor ammonia (NH3) forms a complicated gas aerosol system that is poorly understood and requires further research. Rotating annular denuder systems actively sampled NH4+ from the northern corner of a sugarcane field at 2.89 m and 5.18 m above the northern corner of a sugarcane field in St. Gabriel, Louisiana over 31 days and 31 nights between May 25th and July 27th of 2011. These data were used to calculate the average NH4+ …

Go to article

Next Last