Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Essays On The All-Pay Auction, Henk Schouten

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Three all-pay auction models are examined. The first is a symmetric two-player binary-signal all-pay auction with correlated signals and interdependent valuations. The first chapter provides a complete characterization of each form of equilibrium and gives conditions for their existence. The main finding is that there generically exists a unique equilibrium. The unique equilibrium can only be one of four forms of equilibria. I apply my all-pay auction model to elections, where a candidate that receives good news from the polls behaves in a rationally overconfident manner and reduces her equilibrium effort. Consequently, the other candidate can win the election in …

Foster Parents Experiences With Conflict And Grief, Nadine L. Bilawski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Abstract

The study explored foster parent experiences of completing an online training program about the challenges of foster parenting in order to gain a greater understanding of how these challenges affect foster parent mental health and retention, and how they could be aided though online training. Thirty foster parents completed the four modules of the training program, and then completed a telephone interview about their experience of completing the course, and their experience with fostering in general. This study focused on two of the modules, the ‘Four Tools for Conflict Resolution” and “Reactions to Grief and Loss”.

The results suggest …

Theorizing An Online Politics: How The Internet Is Reconfiguring Political Space, Subjectivity, Participation, And Conflict, Trevor G. Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This work considers how politics can be reinvigorated through the use of the internet. The argument consists of two parts, the first of which develops a theoretical understanding of politics, meant to differentiate it from the anti-political status quo, which draws on the theories of participatory and agonistic democracy. It then precedes to develop and adapt this understanding of politics to the context of the internet. This is done by breaking politics up into four terrains of contestation which can be configured to be more or less political.

Politics requires, first of all, a common place to gather. Drawing on …