Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Understanding Struggles And Triumphs Of Widows In Central Nigeria: A Path To Communication And Economic Empowerment, Meredith Annette Garrison

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

One in ten African women age 15 or older are widows. Approximately 8 million widows live in Nigeria with many living in extreme poverty. Throughout the nation, widows are subjected to physical and psychological harm from their families and communities following the deaths of their husbands. Women are marginalized across Nigeria, but widowed women often experience ostracization and oppression that leads to poverty. Most widows rely on informal business and petty trading to survive but these ventures typically only bring in less than a $1 a day for a family. This dissertation critically examined the situation of widows in a …

Integrating Persuasive Messaging Strategies Into Higher Education Early Alert Interventions To Improve Student Academic Behaviors, Joseph Gayheart

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Higher Education is at a critical juncture as both public and private institutions seek to attract, retain, and graduate students. Institutions of higher education have traditionally developed communication and engagement strategies that become part of early warning/alert systems intended to increase student positive academic behaviors and improve student success. Persuasion can be a powerful tool in improving communication—especially when persuasive messages are deployed within the complex and ever-changing media landscape. Communication and persuasion scholars, for example, have applied persuasive messaging interventions in a variety of contexts but have yet to substantially apply these persuasive tactics in a higher education setting. …

The Consent Of Man: An Examination Of Privacy Awareness, Surveillance, And Privacy Policy (Mis)Use, Will Reilley Silberman

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The problem of privacy is nuanced, pervasive, and requires an elevated approach. Given the lack of consistency with regard to privacy’s conceptualization and operationalization, research is needed that examines variables related to privacy to better understand how privacy operates in the present day. This dissertation aims to better understand nuances of privacy by gauging knowledge of online privacy, technological affordances related to privacy, and knowledge of surveillance. In this study, human subjects from a large southern University were presented with an opportunity to use a privacy-invasive smartphone application. After doing so, they viewed one of three privacy policies. Finally, they …

Meeting Their Expectations: Student Expectations And Perceptions Of Instructor Clarity, Credibility, Rapport, And Climate In Online Courses, Nikki Kowalski

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Continued advancements in technology have steadily increased accessibility to online learning and have provided more tools with which instructors can communicate with their students. As our technology evolves, so too does the students’ expectations for how course content will be communicated. It is important to understand students’ expectations for their online learning experiences so that those expectations can be met. The field of instructional communication has demonstrated the importance of behaviors that establish an instructor’s credibility, clarity, rapport, and climate in the classroom finding these constructs contribute to student cognitive and affective learning. The significance of these constructs has been …

The Persuasive Power Of Instagram Metrics: Examining How User-Generated Cues Affect Consumer’S Perception Of Influencer Credibility, Madison Lea Wallace

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Since 2019, Instagram has been testing the removal of a visible like count on posts. This change particularly pertains to social media influencers whose popularity is visibly displayed through the number of likes and comments their posts receive. Therefore, the present study experimentally investigated how varying levels of the like (i.e. hidden, approximate, and exact) and comment (hidden and exact) display on Instagram’s Explore page affect user’s credibility evaluations of unknown influencers. Guided by the Heuristic Systematic Model, MAIN Model and Warranting Principle, this study conducted a 3 (like display: hidden likes, approximated number of likes, and exact number of …

Transforming Outcomes To Increase Participation In The Independent Living Program Sponsored By Sunrise Children’S Services, Richard R. Burslem

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Research demonstrates the transition for aging-out foster youth evidences they are not equipped with the necessary tools to live a self-sufficient adult life. Many children who age-out of the foster system have encountered trauma at multiple levels. Sunrise Children’s Services is an agency in Kentucky committed to changing negative outcomes for this population of individuals.

The optimum goal for children and youth is for them to grow up within their biological family where they receive guidance and support as they mature. For some individuals that is not an option, and the government along with agencies like Sunrise are focused on …

Statelessness And Contested Sovereignty In The Middle East: The United States, Palestinian Refugees, The Muslim Brotherhood, Syrian Ethnic Minorities, And The Early Cold War, 1945 – 1954, John Perry

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation examines the significance of America’s interactions with stateless actors. It argues that it was groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestine’s refugees, and ethnic minorities, not the U.S. and Soviet governments, nor the state governments of the region, which dictated how the Cold War unfolded in the Middle East. These groups transformed the policy decisions, strategies, and alliances of both native regimes and the superpowers. Traditionally, historians have looked at the global politics of the Cold War through the lens of state-to-state relations. How have state governments interacted with each other and how did this influence the strategies …

Helping The Have-Nots: Examining The Relationship Between Rehabilitation Adherence And Self-Efficacy Beliefs In Acl Reconstructed Naia And Ncaa Dii And Diii Female Athletes, Myles Tutin Englis

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Anterior cruciate ligament injuries are among the most common and traumatic sport-related injuries, and often negatively impact one’s quality of life during and post-rehabilitation. For many NCAA Division I and professional female athletes, rehabilitation is streamlined with a multidisciplinary team, including sport psychology. For others (e.g., NAIA, NCAA Division II, III athletes) this may not always be the case, as many of these athletic programs may not have the resources to meet the various needs of injured and rehabilitating female student-athletes. In these instances, rehabilitation motivation, adherence, and success may be more dependent on the athletes’ individual resources and personalities, …

Farm Level Impact Of Adopting Multiple Component Pricing In The Appalachian Fmmo And Evaluating The Usmca Canadian Cream Trq: A Gsim Approach, Luke Gregory Cummings

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This thesis is composed of two essays regarding the dairy industry of North America. The first essay aims to evaluate the adoption of an MCP pricing system in the Appalachian FMMO. Producers in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina have formally voiced concern about adopting MCP due to concerns over reduced milk value. Using cow-level production data from Kentucky, the effect on farm level prices can be estimated. It is determined Jersey cow herd’s milk value under MCP appreciates 9% in Kentucky, while the impact on Holstein herds is dependent on many factors. The second essay evaluates the potential impact …

Kentucky Forest Sector: Structural Changes And Economic Impacts, Domena Attafuah Agyeman

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

The Kentucky forest sector plays a key role in ensuring economic stability and enhanced livelihood for both rural and urban communities in the state. Therefore, it is important to implement policies and measures to sustain and improve the sector. One way to attract attention and engage policy makers in discussions on the need for measures to sustain the sector is to undertake comprehensive assessments that would enhance understanding of economic contributions and impacts associated with activities of the sector. To this end, appropriate analytical tools and techniques must be employed for detailed and accurate estimates. This dissertation has applied input-output …

The Global Issue Of Immigration: A Focus On Illegal Immigrants For U.S. Agriculture, Refugee Immigrants For Germany’S Trade And The Climate-Induced Diaspora From Least Developed Countries, Yunzhe Zhu

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Nowadays, the large scale of migratory movements caused by violence, poverty or climate change have made topics related to this worldwide diaspora a vanguard of research on international development. For one thing, the so-called “caravan migrants” that traveled from Central America in search for a better life in the U.S. have been blocked at the U.S.-Mexico border while U.S. agricultural sectors that are labor-intensive, such as the sectors of fruits and vegetables where most illegal immigrant farmworkers are hired, have been suffering from the shortage of farm labors for years. Such a situation calls for a development of U.S. immigration …

Three Essays On Grocery Sales Taxes, Lingxiao Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Grocery sales taxes represent a stable tax revenue stream for state and municipal government, but there is rare empirical evidence suggesting grocery taxes may adversely affect health. In addition, the how governments set grocery sales taxes is still unclear. Therefore, based on a novel national dataset of annual county and state-level grocery taxes from 2009 through 2016, the following three essays in the dissertation investigate the health impacts of grocery sales taxes and the causes of grocery sales taxes in a framework of tax competition.

In the first essay, we document the spatial and temporal variation in grocery taxes and …

Three Essays On Price Analysis And International Trade, Wei Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

The first chapter of this dissertation examines price discovery and volatility spillovers in the coffee spot-futures commodity market over the post-ICA period by employing the PT-IS and bivariate EGARCH models. This research covers two actively traded coffee types, Arabica and Robusta, and utilizes daily time-series price data over 1990:01-2020:04 for Arabica and over 2008:01-2020:04 for Robusta. The empirical results indicate that coffee spot markets play a dominant role in the coffee price discovery for both Arabica and Robusta. The results also show volatility spillovers take place from the coffee spot market to the futures markets. This study helps small-scale coffee …

A Case Study To Explore The Perception Of A Woman Participant In Drug Court Of A Community-Based Arts Program On Substance Use Recovery Outcomes, Catherine L. Troop

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

Addiction to drugs is a complex, chronic, and multi-faceted disease that often involves cycles of relapse and remission. The lifetime prevalence of alcohol and drug use disorders in women in the United States is 19.5 percent and 7.1 percent, respectively (McHugh, Wigderson, & Greenfield, 2014) yet there is a significant dearth of efficacious substance abuse treatment services tailored specifically to women. In addition, literature suggests that the third aspect of Bandura’s Social Cognitive theory (self-efficacy) potentially plays a significant role in abstinence of drug use. The role of art interventions on recovery outcomes for a woman enrolled in the Franklin …

A Within-Session Analysis Of The Interview Informed Synthesized Contingency Analysis In A University Clinic Setting, Jenna M. Venuto

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

In this study, a within-session analysis of the interview informed synthesized contingency analysis (IISCA) was conducted to determine if the function of challenging behavior could be determined within the first 5 min test session and the extent that results from the first 5 min test session aligned with results from the full IISCA. An alternating treatment design was used to evaluate differentiated rates of challenging behavior during a full IISCA and the within-session analysis for four clients in a clinic setting. Results indicated that contingencies maintaining challenging behavior could be identified within the first 5 min test session and align …

The Relationship Between Stress And Quality Of Life In People With Multiple Sclerosis: The Mediating Role Of Resilience, Byung Jin Kim

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease of the central nervous system encompassing the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerve, in which the patient’s immune system attacks healthy cells and tissues. Due to the unpredictable characteristics of the disease, MS can lead to an unusually high level of stress and may negatively impact the individual’s QoL. Resilience is a psychological structure that shows positive coping and adaptive ability from difficult or stressful situations. Resilience also indicates a buffering effect on the stressors of individuals with disabilities and serves to protect psychological health and function from disability. The purpose of this …

Himpathy? The Impact Of Defendant Social Status On Perceptions Of A Rape Legal Case, Andrea Pals

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

There is limited work regarding multiple indicators of social status in the legal system (e.g., power and SES). The present study investigated the influence of defendant social status on case judgments in a first-degree rape case. The experiment used a 2 (defendant power: high vs. low) x 2 (defendant SES: high vs. low) x 2 (participant gender) between-subjects design. A sample of 282 community members were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Participants were presented with a case summary, asked to make guilt and credibility judgments, complete the system justification gender scale (gender SJ: Jost & Kay, 2005), and answer standard …

Religious Beliefs And Behaviors As Predictors Of Substance Use In First-Year College Students: A Longitudinal Study, Hannah B. Mcgee

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Substance use is prevalent on college campuses (e.g., Douglas et al., 1997) and can create significant negative consequences (Kodjo & Klein, 2002; NIAAA, 2006). Research suggests that religious beliefs and religious behaviors interact to predict risky substance use in first-year undergraduate students, such that students with religious beliefs but no corresponding behaviors are at risk for significant alcohol use and related problems (Brechting et al., 2010; Cole et al., 2020). However, these studies have only been cross-sectional in nature.

The current study assessed longitudinally if the interaction of religious beliefs/behaviors influenced first-year undergraduate student substance use across the early adjustment …

The Effects Of Escalated Cocaine Intake On Decision-Making Dynamics, Mcallister Stephens

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Cocaine Use Disorder (CUD) is characterized partly by the use of cocaine at the expense of other alternatives, in other words, it is a decision-making pathology (Kalivas & Volkow, 2005). Concurrent choice tasks assess decision-making in a dynamic scenario that more closely resembles real life. Value-based decision-making is an important facet of understanding the addictive properties of drugs of abuse. In order to compare two value-based theories of addiction (habit theory and relative value theory), a concurrent choice task was run in tandem with an escalation procedure. First, animals were trained on a choice task until stable, then trained on …

Pharmacokinetics And Reward-Related Behaviors Of Ethanol In Male And Female Japanese Quail (Coturnix Japonica), Shannon Eaton

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Ethanol is one of the most widely used and abused drugs. Problem use is associated with many different health problems and the economic burden is in the billions of dollars. Additionally, many people have difficulty controlling their ethanol consumption and about 5% of adults end up with an alcohol use disorder (AUD). Many people with an AUD often find themselves in a cycle of binge, remission, and relapse.

Following ethanol consumption ethanol enters the bloodstream from the small intestine where it gets distributed to peripheral tissues. Ethanol in the bloodstream is cleared from the system by the liver. The primary …

A Test Of The “Teachable Moment” Heuristic’S Relevance For Understanding Cancer Survivors’ Health Behavior Motivation And Performance: A Cross-Sectional Study, Gabriella Puleo

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Cancer diagnosis has potential to motivate health behavior changes to promote better health outcomes. The Teachable Moment Heuristic is a parsimonious, transtheoretical framework for understanding the conditions under which behavior change might occur, with constructs that include affective, cognitive, and social factors. This exploratory study aimed to measure the three primary constructs of the Teachable Moment, evaluate the extent to which they are associated with cancer survivors’ motivation to adopt favorable health behaviors, and explore their potential as a model for health behavior performance. Participants (n = 93) in this cross-sectional study were adult breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, and …

Toward An Understanding Of Treatment Moderators Based On Etiological Models Of Disruptive Behavior Disorders, Tess E. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Extant research suggests negative outcomes associated with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) can be avoided with early intervention, with the most efficacious being behavioral parent training. However, parent training suffers from limitations including high drop-out rates, adherence, and long-term maintenance. Yet, consistent predictors of differential outcomes among individuals have not been identified. Etiological work suggests traits may be an early marker of disruptive behaviors. The goal of the current study is to examine child traits as a moderator of treatment outcomes for ADHD and ODD, using an efficacious short parent training treatment, Brief Behavioral Intervention (BBI). Twenty-six …

How I Can Be Me: Associations Between Presentation Discrepancy And Mental Health Outcomes Among Lgbtq Adults, Samuel Bruun

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

One’s perception of their own personal appearance, and how one is viewed by others has been previously shown to have an impact on one’s mental health. Whether it be dealing with unrealistic body expectations depicted in the media, or attempting to appear sufficiently masculine, there are a multitude of ways in which one’s appearance can cause distress. Some appearance challenges are more identity specific, such as the struggles that some transgender people experience when attempting to achieve affirming gender presentation. Although these different concerns have been addressed individually in past research, there has not been an attempt to determine how …

The Interactive Effects Of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (Bdnf) Polymorphisms And Posttraumatic Stress Disorder On Neurocognitive Functioning In U.S. Military Veterans, Colton Shafer Rippey

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is associated with mild-to-moderate deficits in neurocognitive functioning. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene, namely, the Met allele, may also be associated with mild deficits in neurocognitive functioning. However, findings are inconsistent and may be sensitive to environmental epigenetic moderators such as psychopathology.

The current study analyzed data from European-American U.S. military veterans (n = 1,244) who participated in the 2011 National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study (NHRVS). Multivariate analyses of covariances were conducted to evaluate the unique and interactive effects of the Met allele and probable PTSD on …

Impact Of Ptsd On Hcv/Hiv Risk-Reduction Interventions Among Incarcerated Drug-Using Women In Rural Appalachia, Caitlyn Hood

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Justice-involved women in rural Appalachian Kentucky are a particularly vulnerable group in need of targeted risk-reduction interventions for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Compared to women in the general U.S. population, justice-involved women in rural Appalachia report dramatically higher rates of HCV/HIV risk behaviors (e.g., injection drug use and risky sex), interpersonal violence (IV; e.g., physical, sexual, or emotional abuse), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). IV and PTSD may exacerbate rural Appalachian women’s risk for contracting and transmitting HIV/HCV, indicating a need to approach HCV/HIV risk-reduction interventions from a trauma-informed perspective.

Brief motivational interviewing and psychoeducation …

Associations Between Identity And Future Parenthood Among Lgbtq+ Asian/Pacific Islander Americans, Kay Simon

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

In recent years, the number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (and additional identities; LGBTQ+) identified people and the number of Asian Pacific Islander Americans (APIA) have been increasing in the United States (Movement Advancement Project 2019; Newport, 2018). As the individuals in these demographic groups develop over their lifespan, many will become parents and form families, but little work is currently available on the experiences of LGBTQ+ APIA individuals and future parenthood. Here, I report findings on the perceptions and importance of future parenthood, identity development, identity integration, and microaggressions and/or discrimination (as they relate to racial-ethnic and …

The Utility Of The Unified Protocol In Treating Borderline Personality Disorder, Martina Fruhbauerova

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by maladaptive levels across three personality domains: Neuroticism, (low) Agreeableness, and (low) Conscientiousness. The Unified Protocol (UP) is a transdiagnostic treatment that targets neuroticism and has demonstrated promising effects with BPD. However, not all individuals with BPD respond to UP treatment. The aim of the current study was to explore the extent to which the UP is an efficacious treatment for BPD symptoms. This study represents a secondary analysis of a clinical trial in which the UP was the study treatment; data from the full sample and a subset of nine participants who likely …

Trauma-Related Shame And Guilt As Prospective Predictors Of Daily Mental Contamination And Ptsd Symptoms In Survivors Of Sexual Trauma, Jesse P. Mccann

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Mental contamination–the experience of dirtiness or pollution in the absence of a physical contaminant–has established links with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Emotions such as shame and guilt have well-documented relationships with PTSD symptoms and are suggested to play a role in the development and maintenance of mental contamination. The goal of the present study was to examine whether trauma-related shame and guilt prospectively predicted daily experiences of mental contamination and PTSD symptoms among women with sexual trauma history. Forty-one women with a history of sexual trauma completed baseline and twice-daily assessments of mental contamination and PTSD symptoms over a two-week …