Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The “Reasonableness” Of Poverty: Progress And Pitfalls In South Africa’S Socio-Economic Jurisprudence, Benajmin Oliver Powers

Senior Projects Spring 2014

The Constitutional Court of South Africa is perhaps the strongest institution in the country today. It is one of the few places for people to pursue institutional redress. In light of this, this thesis critically examines the reasonableness standard, the depoliticizing rhetoric around poverty the Court uses, as well as the practical obstacles for individuals or groups pursuing public interest litigation through the judiciary. It has found that for the Court to be more effective institution in light of the failings of other bodies conceived of by the Constitution, a number of the Court’s approaches must be altered slightly. The …

Exp(A/E)Ndable (Fall), Stella Rose(N)Fell (Spring), Re-Envisioning The Fourth Wall: The Production Of A Fluid And Mobile Stage An Investigation Of The Placement Of Experimental Dance In Museums (Paper), Julia E Meyer

Senior Projects Spring 2014

Artist Statement:

I’m interested in the bizarre, the dark, the disturbing, and the messy. I collaborate with my dancers to make movement that falls outside the pedestrian, yet remains human in the most peculiar and sometimes virtuosic ways. Exploring site specificity, with a particular focus on transforming spaces to create distinct experiences for viewers and dancers alike. Finding new ways to understand and engage with dance by re-situating the audience and giving them the opportunity to move with dancers, thereby creating their own frame of view and cultivating a personal experience with the bizarre world that they have entered. Right …

Reaching New Heights: An Examination Of Cognitive Dissonance And The Attitude Toward Height And Leadership, Emily Faith Harris

Senior Projects Spring 2014

Cognitive dissonance is the theory that when someone holds two conflicting cognitions they will feel internal discomfort and will be motivated to reduce this discomfort. They reduce the discomfort by changing one of the cognitions, either by intensifying the original cognition or by diminishing the original cognition, making the new cognition the dominant cognition. The present experiment examines the role that cognitive dissonance plays in intensifying or diminishing prejudices within the attitude domain of the association between height and leadership. I attempted to induce dissonance by showing 20 Bard College students the discrepancy between their explicit and implicit attitudes about …

The Embattlement Of Reproduction: Exploring The Contemporary Pro-Life Movement As Embodied In Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Madeline Marie Mcquail

Senior Projects Spring 2014

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Incidental Emotions And Trust Decisions: Visceral Influences On Economic Behavior, Idan Aviv Elmelech

Senior Projects Spring 2014

In recent years, trust has emerged as a key concept in the understanding of cooperation between individuals and organizations. It has been implicated as an important variable in topics ranging from individual decision-making in finance, to macroeconomic growth and stability in developing countries. This thesis employs an experimental design to investigate the impact of emotions on trust behavior. In the experiment, emotion was induced in participants who then played a basic trust game originally proposed by Berg, Dickhaut, & McCabe (1995). Results indicate that emotions do impact trust, with anger decreasing trust behavior. However, the data also reveal that individual …

Omnilegitimacy: From Representative Democracy Toward Emerging Alternatives, Hans Rosso Kern

Senior Projects Spring 2014

As citizenries around the world become increasingly dissatisfied with the traditionally accepted model of governance, the challenge is to look to forms that better meet a demand for rule by the people. Individuals have largely lost their ability to influence decision-makers within bureaucratic and administrative governments, whose interests are increasingly felt to be divergent from their own. Within "western democracies," it is held that power derives from the people, who appoint their leaders through the majoritarian approval of a voting constituency. Though an imperfect claim to the ideal of "government by the people," it is this system of representative democracy …

Cyber Power Restrained: How Strategic Culture Inhibits The Integration Of Cyber Weapons By The United States Military, David Matthew Bisson

Senior Projects Spring 2014

This article seeks to reconcile the support status of cyber power in the United States military with the seriousness of the cyber threat confronting the nation. It rejects the argument that cyber weapons are not useful and are not traditional “weapons” by drawing parallels between cyber power and military force in the physical domains, as well as revealing how some of the most prominent issues in cybersecurity are political and not technological in nature. The article proposes strategic culture as an alternative explanation for U.S. cyber power’s current status. By studying the case studies of American air and space power, …

“Am I Math Compatible?”: How Stereotype Threat Relates To Gender And Math Identification In Women, Elyse Murphy Neubauer

Senior Projects Spring 2014

The current study investigates the relationship between stereotype threat (i.e. adverse effects of stereotypes on stereotyped individuals’ performance in stereotype-relevant tasks), gender identification, and math identification in women completing a mathematics test. Prior to test-completion, stereotype threat was induced by telling female participants that men had previously out-performed women on the test. Unthreatened women were told that both men and women had performed equally. Participants completed measures of implicit and explicit gender and math identification and rated traits on how typical they were of “male” or “female.” I hypothesized that stereotype threat would increase both gender and math identification, but …

"Bushwick Was Mine," "Bushwick Es Mio:" Gentrification And The Emotional Displacement Of Latinas, Rosemary Ferreira

Senior Projects Spring 2014

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

“Human Betterment”: The Fight For And Against 50 Years Of Sterilization In North Carolina, Kay Bielak Schaffer

Senior Projects Spring 2014

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.