Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Urban Youth Reimagine Trauma: Making Meaning Of Experiences With Chronic Community Violence Through The Arts, Stephanie Urso Spina

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The impact of participation in the "Creating Original Opera" (COO) program was investigated among two consecutive (1999 and 2000) cohorts of eighth grade inner-city students living in a context of chronic community violence. Four research questions were posed: (1) What are these students' experiences of violence? (2) What strategies, if any, do they employ to cope with violent events? (3) What, if any, of the above change over the duration of the project? (4) How might those changes relate (or not) to participation in the opera program?

Data collection included a series of three semi-structured interviews with randomly chosen students …

Vigilance Or Tolerance?: Ambivalence And Attitude Accessibility In Response To Terrorist Threats, Julie Tison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research explored the cognitive processes underlying the Response Amplification Effect (RAE), which is ambivalent people's tendency to judge the object of their ambivalence (typically, a stigmatized other) more extremely than a comparable control target. Being in a state of ambivalence is known to be uncomfortable. This discomfort may be dealt with by implementing changes in the accessibility level of attitudinal elements. It is suggested that cognitions compatible with the side of the ambivalence made salient by the current situation will be super-activated and that incompatible elements will be sub-activated, thus leading to amplified reactions congruent with the current context. …