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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Pakistan's Contribution To The Global Rise In Conventional Pollution, Emily Warner Jan 2023

Pakistan's Contribution To The Global Rise In Conventional Pollution, Emily Warner

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the impact of conventional pollutants on the environment, communities, and individuals in Pakistan. It begins by investigating the causes of conventional pollutants and exploring Pakistan’s agricultural industry, domestic practices, non-renewable energy sources, and industrial practices (the brick industry, leather tanning industry, and textile industry). It then analyzes factors that continue to contribute to conventional pollution in Pakistan such as economic incentives, politics, and traditional practices within industries. Exploring the measures that have been taken by Pakistan and other organizations to decrease conventional pollutants, it then suggests potential opportunities for improvement.


A Network Pandemic: Exploring The Effects Of Social Connectedness On The Spread Of Covid-19 In The United States, Mrinalini Bhushan Jan 2021

A Network Pandemic: Exploring The Effects Of Social Connectedness On The Spread Of Covid-19 In The United States, Mrinalini Bhushan

CMC Senior Theses

Social interactions influence the way we think and act. Recent literature on COVID-19 and social connectedness explores how social interactions influence people’s perceptions of the risk from COVID-19 and their behaviors. This paper seeks to investigate how social connectedness, political ideologies, and physical interaction are associated with local COVID-19 case and death rates at the US county level. Social connectedness, as defined by (Bailey et al, 2018) measures connectedness between US counties based on Facebook friendship links. I examine whether a county’s average social connectedness to other counties, as determined by the Facebook index, has an impact on its own …


It Is Time To Kill The Economic Theory Of Suicide, Gary N. Smith Jan 2019

It Is Time To Kill The Economic Theory Of Suicide, Gary N. Smith

Pomona Economics

A seminal paper by Hamermesh and Soss modeled suicide as a rational economic decision based on a comparison of the financial costs and benefits of staying alive. Their model is fundamentally flawed and their prediction that suicide rates increase with age is wrong.


Alleviating Poverty In Sub-Saharan Africa, Owen Dubeck Jan 2019

Alleviating Poverty In Sub-Saharan Africa, Owen Dubeck

CMC Senior Theses

While most of the world has been able to dramatically reduce extreme poverty rates, Sub-Saharan Africa has failed to do so and is the only region in the world with more people living in extreme poverty than thirty years ago. This thesis will develop a policy framework for alleviating poverty by drawing from countries that are performing surprisingly well and poorly in the region. The thesis concludes with an analysis of whether education, health, or agricultural sectors should be receiving more or less funding based on expected rates of return and the feasibility of policy successes.


Persuasion In The Health Field: Framing The Message For Attitude Change, Kelley Ogami Jan 2016

Persuasion In The Health Field: Framing The Message For Attitude Change, Kelley Ogami

Scripps Senior Theses

The process of persuasion, the changing of a person’s attitudes, has often been applied to health communications designed to promote healthy behavior. Manipulation of aspects of the persuasive message can influence persuasion and the likelihood of attitude change. For a long time, the existing persuasion research had yet to examine how different types of message framing and intervention targets directly and in interaction with one another act as predictors of health attitude change. Therefore, this thesis addressed this lapse using an online survey to assess participants’ attitude towards the health issue of hypertension after reading a health message. This health …


The Relationship Between Self-Regulation And Stress, Sleep, And Behavioral Health, Clayton I. Brock Jan 2016

The Relationship Between Self-Regulation And Stress, Sleep, And Behavioral Health, Clayton I. Brock

CMC Senior Theses

The goal of this research was to investigate multiple aspects of self-regulation and their relationship to stress, sleep, and behavioral health. Participants (N=89, 55 females, 29 males, and 5 did not list their sex) were recruited from a high-risk Midwest high school. Participants reported their own self-regulatory ability, sleep, stress, and behavioral problems. Nail samples were also collected from a subset of the participants to assay for cortisol and DHEA. Several measures of self-regulation were found to correlate with sleep quality, behavioral problems, and perceived stress. The natural log of the ratio of cortisol to DHEA was positively correlated with …


Untold Narratives: Refugee Experiences From Laos To Richmond, California, Laiseng Saechao Jan 2015

Untold Narratives: Refugee Experiences From Laos To Richmond, California, Laiseng Saechao

Scripps Senior Theses

Untold Narratives: A Refugee Experience from Laos to Richmond, California is focused on the Mien refugee experience from Laos to Richmond, California. This thesis highlights the ways Cold War politics, the Secret War, and heavy industrialization have impacted Mien communities who have been displaced from their homelands into refugee camps, and again through sponsorship into the United States. This thesis looks at political theories that discuss inequalities that exist, particularly through environmental degradation and negative health impacts that Mien refugees are experiencing in their resettlement into Richmond, California. Due to the limited scholarly articles and documented narratives that are available …


The Impact Of Fitness Technology On Health Outcomes, Megan C. Kelley Jan 2014

The Impact Of Fitness Technology On Health Outcomes, Megan C. Kelley

CMC Senior Theses

Using 2014 data compiled from a sample of Claremont McKenna undergraduate students, I examine the effect that fitness technology (i.e., mobile and wearable technology) has on users' health outcomes. Specifically, I find no effect of mobile or wearable use on self-reported health. However, I do find some evidence of mobile use on weight but not wearable. Applying a basic OLS regression analysis, I show that mobile users tend to be heavier than non-mobile users irrespective of gender. Furthermore, I find that contemporaneous health on prior mobile use show higher weight levels compared to non- mobile prior users. Such findings provide …


Conditional Cash Transfers And Child Health: The Case Of Malawi, Ryan F. Boone Jan 2013

Conditional Cash Transfers And Child Health: The Case Of Malawi, Ryan F. Boone

CMC Senior Theses

This paper analyzes the impacts of the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme. The goal of this paper is to help improve the design of cash transfers. First of all, I analyze whether the cash transfer positively affects child health variables despite occurring in a region with poor supply side health institutions. I find significant results for many child level variables, such as frequency of illnesses, but insignificant improvements in anthropometric measurements. Secondly, I examine whether female-headed households invest more in child health than male-headed households. The results show that the impacts of the cash transfer did not depend on the …


The Impact Of A Video Game Intervention On The Cognitive Functioning, Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, And Video Game Attitudes Of Older Adults, Giovanni W. Sosa Jan 2012

The Impact Of A Video Game Intervention On The Cognitive Functioning, Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, And Video Game Attitudes Of Older Adults, Giovanni W. Sosa

CGU Theses & Dissertations

While a well-established body of empirical work indicates that engaging in mentally stimulating activities is linked to positive physical and mental health outcomes, relatively few studies have specifically examined the impact that video game training can have on cognitive functioning and well-being. Given the substantial implications that such work has for an ever-growing older adult population, this area of research has begun to pique the interest of researchers world-wide. The present study employed an experimental paradigm to explore the impact of a Nintendo DS video game, Brain Age, on the cognitive functioning, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and video game attitudes of …