Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Understanding The Impact Of Adolescent Attachment On Academic Success, Cristina Cortesi

Dissertations

In recent years, studies are citing an increase in adolescent mental health diagnoses and symptomotology related to AD/HD, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, and Conduct Disorders. While the associated behaviors may be the result of several variables, recent neurobiological studies combined with Attachment Theory have pointed to a possible link to attachment issues. Because of the developmental stage of adolescents, these behaviors have been observed in both home and school environments. Schools, in general in the United States, have been experiencing significant struggles in terms of lack of adequate educational success which prompted the implementation of legislation commonly known as No …

Remember The Good Times: Does Savoring A Previous Intergroup Interaction Increase Whites' Positive Intergroup Emotions And Willingness To Develop Future Intergroup Friendships?, Patrick R. Harrison

Dissertations

Although racial prejudice remains a prevalent social phenomenon, research has demonstrated that positive contact - most notably intergroup friendship - predicts decreased prejudice. Whites, however, may be hesitant to develop intergroup friendships because they experience negative emotions like anxiety when faced with the prospect of interacting with outgroup members (i.e., Blacks). Past research has countered this obstacle by relying on manipulations that reframe how individuals feel about intergroup interactions to increase willingness to engage with outgroup members. Building on this framework, I tested whether savoring a previous intergroup interaction could increase friendship willingness by increasing positive intergroup emotions (Study 1) …

Effects Of Cultural Awareness Training In Conjunction With An Established Bullying Prevention Program, Megan Kallie Polanin

Dissertations

While many school bullying prevention programs have been designed to thwart school bullying perpetration, victimization, and physical aggression, empirical support is limited. To date, few researchers have addressed bullying within the context of children's cultural systems, and cultural awareness training has not yet been utilized as a mechanism to decrease bullying behaviors in the context of school bullying prevention programs.

This study examined the utility of incorporating multicultural training aimed at reducing prejudice within the context of school bullying prevention programming efforts within a diverse educational setting. This researcher hypothesized that the addition of meaningful culture curriculum would further reduce …

Life Course Narratives From U.S. Expatriates: Continuity Work, Victoria L. Russo

Dissertations

This qualitative, exploratory research examined the American life course through narrative accounts of twenty, former expatriates. All participants had lived and worked in another country for a minimum of at least one year before returning to the US. In-depth, face-to-face interviews were conducted between April 2011 and June 2012. Interviews were unstructured and lasted between 1-2 hours.

Participants in this study were well-educated, middle class professionals with highly desirable skills. Yet, despite the flexibility that privileged status bestowed, participants maintained normative life course patterns. Families were instrumental in monitoring the life course and distributed sanctions and benefits to family members …

The Affective Consequences Of Expressing Moral Convictions, Lisa Diana Sandberg

Dissertations

This project examined the affective consequences of expressing moral convictions to an opposing majority. It was predicted that moral conviction would function as a buffer to the common negative emotions that occur when speaking out against majority opinion (e.g., fear; Asch, 1956; Berns, et al., 2005). It was also hypothesized that moral conviction would enhance positive feelings among those who speak out (e.g., pride). Two studies were conducting using two different research paradigms. Study 1 used a normative influence paradigm modeled after Hornsey, Smith, and Begg (2007). Participants' opinions and strength of moral conviction about the target issue (torture of …

Expertise, Democratic Values, And Tolerance, Erika D. Price

Dissertations

Political tolerance (the willingness to extend civil liberties to disliked groups) has been disturbingly low among the American public since measurement of tolerance began in the 1950's. The few voters who do exhibit tolerant attitudes tend to be people who know a great deal about politics (i.e. people high in "political expertise"). Researchers have theorized many explanations for why political experts are more tolerant on average; for example, experts may place more value on the legal and normative `rules' of democracy (i.e. "democratic norms"), which guarantee free speech, or they may consider democratic norms to be more important than non-experts …

An Ethnographic Study Of Psychiatric Assistants: The Social Processes Involved In The Subordination Of Workers In A Psychiatric Hospital, Terrence Allison

Dissertations

This research examined how the structure of a modern day psychiatric institution shapes the work experiences of subordinated, non-licensed-workers. I found that that the work experiences of PAs are shaped by their institutional positions. The PA position by default is one of subjugation and servitude, and these carry meanings. PAs are positioned on the ward to service and control patients. In spite of their absolute importance to the day-to-day running of the hospital, frontline PA work is devalued institutionally. This devaluation is internalized rationally (what bureaucracies do) by PAs, who often work understaffed and underappreciated. I found that PAs lack …

He Seems Like A Good Kid Lessons In Informal Social Control From A Midwestern Peer Court Program, Patricia Lee Maddox

Dissertations

This study examines how peer court jurors make meaning out of the sanctioning trials of youth offenders. In particular, it focuses on how peer court jurors understand juvenile delinquency, deterrence and punishment. Data was collected utilizing ethnographic field observation methods while attending a Midwestern County's peer court program between the end of the 2011-2012 school year and the 2012-2013 school year. Thirteen interviews were conducted after the sessions with willing peer court jurors in order to supplement the field work data.

During the peer court sessions the youth jurors tried to understand the nature of the offenses and how to …

When Subcultures Become Careers: Working In Indie Rock, Annmarie Schneider-Edman Van Altena

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the careers of workers within the Indie rock industry in Chicago. Little is known about how workers transition from subculture participants to industry workers. Expanding upon research on workers in culture industries, I conducted twenty-six qualitative interviews with workers in the industry, asking open-ended questions about their careers and experiences to understand how they establish and maintain careers in an industry that relies on a particular subculture whose ethos considers financial success as suspect, and a risk to integrity. I show how workers' early interest in music goes beyond typical teenage fascination and becomes the focus of …

Some Of My Best Dolls Are Black: Colorblind Rhetoric In Online Collecting Communities, Rebecca Joan West

Dissertations

While dolls are beloved play objects, they have also been the subject of social critique for many years. From the generic "baby" to the sexualized Barbie, they have been alternately praised and vilified for their role in forming the behaviors and identities of the children who play with them. However, such criticism overlooks a key component of doll play: the element of the adults who purchase the dolls, for children as well as for themselves, and the ways in which such toys are used to express engagement with larger social structures.

My research focuses on the American Girl Dolls Collection, …

The Hidden Costs Of Success: A Mixed Methods Approach To Examining Achievement Pressures In Affluent Youth, Lea Ventura Travers

Dissertations

Within the last ten years, researchers have begun to recognize that youth from affluent backgrounds report elevated adjustment problems (Csikszentmihalyi & Schneider 2001; Luthar & Lantendresse 2005a), yet contributing factors have rarely been investigated. The present study explored various parenting variables and their influence on adolescents from affluent communities, including two parent-focused parenting variables (i.e., parental perfectionism and parent life satisfaction) and three adolescent-focused parenting variables (i.e., perceived parental pressure, parents' future goals for their children, and parental involvement in their children's lives). Using a mixed methods approach (i.e., quantitative and qualitative data), both linear and curvilinear relations between parenting …

Are Groups More Pro-Self Than Individuals? Individual-Group Comparisons On Social Value Orientation And Ethical Decision Making, Zhenyan Shi

Master's Theses

Research has shown that groups tend to be less cooperative in prisoner's dilemma games compared to individuals. One hypothesis to explain this effect stems from groups' natural tendencies to protect themselves from harm and enhance their relative standing. However, an alternative hypothesis is that groups are more rational in game situations. The current study attempted to distinguish between these two hypotheses by testing whether groups score higher than individuals on measures of competitiveness and pro-self (group) behavior, and lower than individuals on measures of prosocial behavior. The study also attempted to assess whether the pro-self tendencies of groups lead them …

The Perceived Threat Of Secularism And Militancy Among Religious Fundamentalists, Chase Wilson

Master's Theses

Religious fundamentalism has been found to predict endorsement of aggressive counterterrorism techniques, such as the use of severe interrogations and pre-emptive military attacks (e.g. Barnes, Brown & Osterman, 2012). The present study tested whether a perceived increase in secularism constitutes a psychological threat to American religious fundamentalists, and thus increases endorsement of such counterterrorism tactics. Replicating previous research, religious fundamentalism was found to positively predict endorsement of aggressive counterterrorism techniques, even when controlling for ideology and party identification. Contrary to hypothesis, the secularism prime had no effect. An unpredicted finding of this study was that religious fundamentalism only related to …

Drinking To Belong: The Effects Of Friendship Interactions On College Student Drinking, Hannah R. Hamilton

Master's Theses

Previous research shows that college students consume large quantities of alcohol (Fillmore & Jude, 2011; Wechsler et al., 2002). One theory suggests that this may be a means of regulating negative emotions (Cooper, Frone, Russell, & Mudar, 1995), which may include unmet belongingness needs. However, implicit self-esteem has also been found to affect how people respond to relationship interactions (Longua Peterson & DeHart, 2013). Therefore, the current study examines the moderating influence of implicit self-esteem on the relation between belongingness needs and alcohol consumption among college students. A 2 (belongingness threat condition: threat or control) by continuous (implicit self-esteem) between-participants …

Effects Of Instruction And Parent-Child Conversation On Children's Stem Learning And Transfer, Maria Marcus

Master's Theses

This study examined the effects of direct instruction and parent-child conversation on children's STEM learning, transfer abilities, and remembering. A total of forty mothers and their 5- to 6-year-old children (M = 5.87) participated in this study. Mother-child dyads were randomly assigned to one of two conditions that differed in the amount of engineering information they received prior to engaging in a building activity in a museum exhibit. The provision of engineering information fostered dyads building activities and their long-term recall of the museum visit. Implications for museum research and practice are discussed.

Chicago Housing: Understanding How Local Organizations Mobilize To Preserve Public And Affordable Housing, Cameron Williams

Master's Theses

Under the Plan for Transformation section 8 voucher use and mixed-income developments have increased in Chicago. Several developments have been demolished and replaced with mixed-income developments that are argued to provide better conditions and opportunities for public housing residents, but empirically have mixed results. Lathrop Homes is a public housing development that has withstood the mass demolitions and efforts to make it mixed-income because of resident and organizer challenges to the Chicago Housing Authority. Resident and organizer input for this study reveals their strong stance against the mixed-income development Lathrop Homes could become. The interests behind opposition might diverge, but …

Posttraumatic Stress, Family Functioning, And Adjustment In Urban African American Youth Exposed To Violence: A Moderated Mediation Model, Kyle Deane

Master's Theses

Exposure to community violence is a pressing public health issue that disproportionately impacts poor, urban, and ethnic minority youth. It has been associated with a multitude of negative externalizing and internalizing symptoms, most frequently with posttraumatic stress. This study investigates the role that posttraumatic stress has in mediating the relation between exposure to community violence and other adjustment difficulties. Moreover, because not all adolescents experience these difficulties in the face of significant violence exposure, the study examines the moderating role of family cohesion and support in buffering the effect of violence and posttraumatic stress on later adjustment. A sample of …

Domestic Violence And The Legal System: A Case Study Of 10 Mexican Women And The Process Of Seeking Legal Recourse, Martha Cecilia Espinosa

Master's Theses

This study explores the experiences of ten Mexican women currently receiving services with Safe Pathways, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing resources to survivors of domestic violence. In this study, I attend to how these women experience and negotiate gender, intimate relationships, and the legal system, and I explore the strategies that they develop to overcome gendered constraints associated with being undocumented and battered. I find that women's experiences with the legal system are shaped by a variety of factors outside of its auspices, including gendered norms and class constraints. Existing literature on Latinas and battered women in the legal …

Predicting Emotion Regulation In Early Childhood: The Impact Of Maternal Well-Being, Infant Crying, And Dyadic Mutuality, Tiffany Burkhardt

Dissertations

Learning adaptive emotion regulation skills in early childhood has been identified as fundamental to social competence, academic success, and psychological well-being. Because children learn to regulate their emotions through interactions with their caregivers, dyadic mutuality between the mother and infant may influence child emotion regulation capacity more than maternal behavior alone. To better understand the impact of maternal well-being and infant crying on the development of emotion regulation, parenting stress, maternal self-efficacy, maternal depression, and infant crying were examined with dyadic mutuality in the parent-child interaction to predict emotion regulation capacity.

A racially and socioeconomically diverse community sample of 149 …

Sorority Women & Eating Pathology: Communities Of Unhealthy Body Standards?, Ashley Marie Rolnik

Dissertations

The present study examines disordered eating, sorority social norms regarding the body and thinness, personal values regarding the body and thinness, body dissatisfaction, thin ideal internalization, fat talk, negative affect, and positive affect among sorority and non-sorority women. The aims of this study are to discern the underlying factor structures of the sorority/group social norms questionnaires and the personal values regarding the body and thinness questionnaire, investigate disordered eating among sorority and non-sorority women over time, and further examine the impact of social norms on sorority women's body and eating attitudes and behaviors. The results of this research illustrated three …

Self-Objectification And Self-Surveillance In African American And Latina Girls: Links To Body Dissatisfaction And Self-Worth, Kimberly A. Burdette

Master's Theses

Drawing on a sample of low-income African American and Latina girls, the goal of the present investigation was to examine the relevance of self-objectification and self-surveillance to body dissatisfaction and self-worth. Body mass index (BMI), ethnicity, and perceived athletic competence were examined as moderators of these relations. Participants were 10- to 14-year-old African American and Latina girls recruited from a summer camp targeting low-income, urban girls. Surveys that include measures of self-objectification, self-surveillance, body dissatisfaction, self-worth, and perceived athletic competence were individually administered to participants by a research assistant. Height and weight were measured to calculate BMI. Ethnicity information was …

The Influence Of Ideal Similarity On The Relation Between Self-Discrepancy And Attraction, Natalie Jamila Hall

Master's Theses

Some research indicates that individuals with high self-discrepancy (distance between the actual self and the ideal self) are more prone to interpersonal attraction than those with low self-discrepancy and that perceived ideal similarity (how closely a target individual resembles your own ideal self) strongly influences attraction. To test the hypothesis that ideal similarity moderates the relationship between self-discrepancy and attraction, manufactured Facebook profiles were used to manipulate perceived ideal similarity of target before having participants rate the target on measures of liking and respect. This study surveyed 232 college students; 111 from a mid-sized, private Midwestern university and 121 from …

Closing The "Revolving Door": Identifying Predictors Of Time To Rehospitalization In A Sample Of Psychiatric Inpatient Youth, Alison Merri Stoner

Dissertations

Previously a long-term mental health treatment option, inpatient psychiatric care is now an acute service for brief crisis stabilization and psychiatric reconstitution. Although lengths of stay have declined, rehospitalization rates have risen, calling into question the effectiveness of inpatient treatment and the extent to which inpatient and post-discharge, community-based services are working together to promote community tenure for youth. The present study had three aims: (1) evaluate the utility of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS; Lyons, 1999) as an outcome assessment and decision support tool for youth inpatient hospitalization, (2) confirm a social ecological theory-informed factor structure …

Examining The Moderating Role Of Specific Coping Strategies On The Relationship Between Body Image And Eating Disorders In College-Age Women, Alexandra Calvert Kirsch

Master's Theses

A sample of college age women assessed at three time points (Time 1: Baseline, assessed before college, Time 2: End of first semester, Time 3: End of first year of college) completed measures of disordered eating, coping, and body image. Results indicated that neither adaptive (problem-focused coping or social support seeking) nor maladaptive coping styles (active emotional coping or avoidant coping) as measured at Time 1 or Time 2 moderated the significant predictive relationship between body dissatisfaction at Time 1 and disordered eating attitudes at Time 3, when adjusting for disordered eating attitudes and BMI at Time 1. However, significant …

The Effect Of Semantic Clustering On Idea Quality In Individual And Group Ideation, Amanda Christine Egan

Master's Theses

Rietzschel, Nijstad, and Stroebe (2007) have demonstrated the benefits of "deep exploration" on creative idea generation. The current study attempted to refine this understanding by differentiating whether this effect is due simply to the number of ideas generated within a specific semantic category (fluency) or the way in which semantic categories are explored (clustering). Four conditions compared maximum versus minimum clustering crossed with nominal and interacting groups, with total quantity and fluency held constant. The unique effects of these manipulations on the total number of high-quality ideas generated, as well as the specific number of highly original and highly feasible …

Impact Of First Disclosure Experience And Internalized Stigma On Disclosure Patterns In The Hiv+ Community, Mary Elizabeth Talbot

Dissertations

The present study examined possible antecedent factors that contribute to the type of discloser (HIV status) one becomes as well as the relation between discloser type, social support, and CD4 count. This study builds off previous research by Stutterheim et al. (2011) that examined differences between disclosure groups on a variety of variables, but the study did not examine variables that may contribute to the type of discloser a person becomes. The present study examined two variables that previous research suggests may influence the type of discloser (relative non-discloser, selective discloser, full discloser) a person becomes, first-disclosure experience, and internalized …

Practitioners' Evaluations Of Theraplay As An Effective Tool In Serving Foster And Adopted Children And Their Families, Rana Hong

Dissertations

Several studies have shown that foster and adopted children have high risk of developing severe mental health problems (Blome & Steib, 2004; Golden, 2009; Leslie, Hurlburt, Landsverk, Barth, & Slyman, 2004; McMillen. Scott, Zima, Ollie, Munson, & Spitznagel, 2004). On the other hand, evidence-based models are limited and less accessible for practitioners working with foster and adopted children (Dorsey, Kerns, Trupin, Conover, & Berliner, 2012). The goal for this study is to explore the practitioners' evaluations of Theraplay®, which is a relationship based model for meeting the pervasive clinical needs of foster and adopted children and their families. Exploring Theraplay …

Change Is Brewing: The Industrialization Of The London Beer-Brewing Trade, 1400-1750, John R. Krenzke

Dissertations

London's early modern brewing trade was a dynamic one that was constantly in flux throughout the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. This dissertation seeks to better understand how issues of gender, ethnicity, and class changed and shaped London's early modern brewing industry. Women played a vital role in the production and marketing of ale in London's medieval brewing trade. They were displaced from that position of prominence through the introduction of hops by foreign immigrants, known to strangers to their hosts, and the desire of the City of London to more closely regulate the trade in ale and beer. …

Moving Social Spaces: Public Transportation, Material Differences, And The Power Of Mobile Communities In Chicago, Gwendolyn Purifoye

Dissertations

Urban research on stratification in the public terrain has focused on how intentional and unintentional physical arrangements and social conventions limit and enable particular kinds of stratification processes and interactions. This prior research primarily focuses on static places such as plazas, restaurants, sidewalks and train stations and does not give adequate attention to the impact of mobility. As one of the few places where people of different social classes and ethno-racial backgrounds encounter each other, public mobile spaces are sites of the replication of civility and incivility among people of different race, gender, and class positions, and sites of its …

Profiles Of Neuropsychological Functioning In Children And Adolescents With Spina Bifda, Rachel Wasserman

Dissertations

The current study examined neuropsychological performance among children with spina bifida (SB) to determine if there are distinct subgroups or "profiles" of cognitive functioning. 96 children with SB myelomeningocele (ages 8-15) completed a brief assessment battery. Hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analyses were used to identify and confirm a cluster solution. Hypothesized predictors of cluster membership included lesion level, number of shunt surgeries, history of seizures, age, ethnicity, socio-economic status, family stress, and family environment. Outcomes included independence, academic success, expectations for the future, and quality of life.

Ward's cluster method indicated a 3-cluster solution, and was replicated with 2 other …