Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Roles Of Identity And Beliefs About Social Change In Decision Making Processes For Identity-Laden Social Change Efforts, Joel Ginn

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents three investigations into distinct processes that attempt to explain people’s decision making around social change action in three identity-laden domains. Chapter 1 reviews existing literature and theory on how social identity and social change beliefs can impact social change action. Chapter 2 examines identity-based motivated cognition by showing how identification as a meat-eater leads to biased estimates of meat reduction’s climate change impacts. Chapter 3 examines cisgender student reactions to faculty who use gender pronouns as an inclusion strategy for transgender and gender nonconforming students to examine if this action leads to stereotyping and judgement. Chapter 4 …

The Global Impact Of The Antarctic Ice Sheet In A Warming World: Using Numerical Modeling And Critical Physical Geography To Assess Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, And Climate Justice

Doctoral Dissertations

Anthropogenic climate change is causing disruptions in the Earth system with negative ramifications for life on our planet. Increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations lead to accumulated heat content and the cryosphere is one of the earliest places to show changes in response to rising temperatures. The melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet will have myriad effects on global climate due to interconnections and feedbacks between the ice sheet, ocean, and atmosphere. In this dissertation I use numerical modeling and critical geography to assess future climate conditions that occur in response to changes in Antarctic Ice Sheet melt as well as …

Coping With Climate Change, Andrea Yj Mah

Masters Theses

Climate change is a source of anxiety and stress. To be resilient to the changes that are occurring, individuals must cope with that stress. Because there are many ways that people might manage stress we examined variation in coping strategy use among Americans who reported some concern about climate change to understand generally how people cope with such stress, and whether it can be predicted from individual difference factors, namely degree of climate change concern and political ideology. We examined these variables specifically because in the study of responses to climate change, conservatives and liberals often report divergent beliefs, attitudes, …

Three Essays On The Political Economy Of Global Inaction On Climate Change, Tyler A. Hansen

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation contributes three essays exploring the political economy of global inaction on climate change. Chapter 1 asks whether climate stabilization means the end of capitalism. Two influential perspectives within environmental political economy—the “degrowth” perspective from ecological economics and the “revolution” perspective from ecological Marxism—answer in the affirmative. If they are right, climate policy programs within capitalism, like the Green New Deal, are non-solutions. I evaluate their arguments, concluding that while environmental sustainability in general likely requires moving beyond capitalism, climate stabilization in particular does not. Given the urgency of the climate crisis, I conclude the chapter by outlining a …

Getting The Message Across: Flexitarians As Messengers For Meat's Climate Change Impacts, Joel Ginn

Masters Theses

Meat consumption has been a prominent part of humanity’s dietary culture, particularly in modern, Western developed nations. However, recent research has shown that collectively reducing our consumption of animal products can have major benefits for mitigating our environmental footprint. Despite a consensus among climate scientists on its potential impact, the public does not recognize the effectiveness of this behavioral shift. Recent efforts to address this have created movements and organizations that focus on reduction of meat consumption (e.g. flexitarianism, reducetarianism, Meatless Mondays), rather than elimination of meat consumption (e.g. vegetarianism, veganism) with the intent of creating a more acceptable message, …

Ecological Considerations And Application Of Urban Tree Selection In Massachusetts, Ashley Mcelhinney

Masters Theses

Trees provide countless environmental, economic, and societal benefits to the urban environment, and may become increasingly important to maintaining environmental quality and human well-being in the face of increasing urbanization and climate change. However, trees in these urban areas are rapidly diminishing across the United States. Much of this loss can be prevented with proper planning and management, focused on selecting tree species that are both well-suited to the area’s growing conditions and able to survive the many stress factors in an urban setting. Choosing which tree species to plant in Massachusetts is especially challenging considering the lack of resources …

Assessing Adaptive Capacity Of Pioneer Valley Farmers, Angelica Carey

Masters Theses

This thesis explores Pioneer Valley farmers and their agricultural practices, knowledge and resources as they relate to climate change. Adaptive capacity is used throughout scientific literature, and often includes numerous components; for this thesis the measurement of farmers’ adaptive capacity would be assessed according to only three components: knowledge, past experiences and use of resources. Climate change and its impacts on agriculture have been studied but what is unclear is how prepared farmers are to deal with these impacts. Through literature review, survey development and recorded interviews, data was then analyzed both for quantitative and qualitative results to understand farmer’s …

Secondhand Communication Of Risk-Related Information: How Ideology And Relational Motives Affect Interpersonal Risk Communication, Daniel A. Chapman

Masters Theses

This research provides the first experimental investigation of the ways in which ideological and relational motives influence interpersonal risk communication. Drawing on the literatures in social and cognitive psychology, risk communication, and environmental decision making, this research examined whether individuals expressing concerns about tradeoffs between climate change adaptation and prevention were less likely to share climate change information with others if the information discussed adaptation policies. Participants were presented with an article about climate change framed as either relating to adaptation or prevention. Their willingness to share the article with others was measured, as well as their appraisals of how …

Integrated Modeling Of Land Use And Climate Change Impacts On Multiscale Ecosystems Of Central African Watersheds, Simon Nampindo

Doctoral Dissertations

Assessment and management of ecosystem services demands diverse knowledge of the system components. Land use change occurring mainly through deforestation, expansion of agriculture and unregulated extraction of natural resources are the greatest challenges of the Congo basin and yet is central to supporting over 100 million people. This study undertook to implement an integrated modeling of multiscale ecosystems of central African watersheds and model the impact of anthropogenic factors on elephant population in Greater Virunga landscape. The study was conducted at varied scales, regional, landscape, and community. Regional study included watershed analysis and hydrological assessment using remotely sensed data implemented …

Cultivating Communities Of Practice To Develop Local Preparedness For Climate Change, Konda Reddy Chavva

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this research was to study the effectiveness of field facilitators’ (FFs) community of practice in improving ways in which FFs and farmers communicate and work together to strengthen farmers’ climate change preparedness through identifying locally suitable adaptation strategies in drought-prone districts of Andhra Pradesh State in India. In development initiatives like the one studied, FFs are often the key liaison person with each community—farmers in this case. FFs interact regularly with farmers, with whom they establish and sustain critical relationships over time. Further, they take the lead in building farmers’ capacities by contextualizing technical information that professionals …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

In Transition: The Politics Of Place-Based, Prefigurative Social Movements, Emily Hardt

Open Access Dissertations

The Transition movement is a grassroots movement working to build community resilience in response to the challenges of climate change, fossil fuel depletion, and economic insecurity. Rather than focusing on the state as a site for contestation or change, the movement adopts a "do it ourselves" approach, prioritizing autonomy and prefigurative action. It also places importance on relationships and community in the context of local places. It is open-ended and characterized by an ethos of experimentation and learning.

Transition shares these place-based and prefigurative features in common with many other contemporary movements, from the Zapatistas to alternative globalization movements, to …