Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Parental Conflict In The Context Of Multiethnoracial Relationships, Christina A. Rowley

Masters Theses

The percent of families with parents from different racial or ethnic backgrounds has risen exponentially in the last decades. Approximately 14% of children were born into multiethnoracial (MER) families in the United States in 2015, more than double the rate from 1980 (Bialik, 2017). Studies show that MER couples are more likely to separate or divorce than their monoethnoracial (MoER) counterparts, perhaps due to greater conflict stemming from differing values, coping strategies, and conflict management styles and decreased access to family and community support (Fu, Tora, & Kendall, 2001; Zhang & Van Hook, 2009). With the growing rates of MER …

Teacher's Discipline Practices And Race: The Effect Of "Fair" And "Unfair" Discipline On Black And White Student's Perceptions And Behaviors, Adrian Rivera-Rodriguez

Masters Theses

Negative stereotypes characterizing Black males as prone to causing trouble can lead teachers to punish misbehaving Black boys more harshly than their White peers. Awareness of unfair discipline practices has been linked to future disciplinary infractions among Black males, hinting that some Black males may engage in defiant behavior in response to unfair discipline. Despite the documented links between awareness of unfair discipline and future disciplinary infractions among Black males, questions remain as to (1) the types of disciplinary practices from teachers that students perceive as fair and unfair; (2) the psychological processes that motivate Black male behavior after experiencing …

Real Fake Fighting: The Aesthetic Of Qualified Realism In Japanese Professional Wrestling, Clara Marino

Masters Theses

Professional wrestling is a performance art in which the line between fact and fiction is often obscured. Much of the existing scholarship on the medium that examines its dynamics regard reality and artifice focuses on the role of the artificial, analyzing pro-wrestling as primarily a form of heightened spectacle akin to passion plays or soap opera. However, professional wrestling in Japan, particularly that found in the country's largest promotion, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, features many elements that resemble real sports much more closely than many American promotions. These elements include fighting styles, wrestler injury, characters that do not fit easily into …

“A Constant Surveillance”: The New York State Police And The Student Peace Movement, 1965-1973, Seth Kershner

Masters Theses

Historians recognize that there was an increase in political repression in the United States during the Vietnam War era. While a number of accounts portray the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the primary driver of repression for many groups and individuals during the 1960s and 1970s, particularly those on the left, historians typically overlook the role played by local and state law enforcement in political intelligence-gathering. This thesis seeks to advance the study of one aspect of this much larger topic by looking at New York State Police surveillance of the Vietnam-era student peace movement. Drawing extensively on State Police …

Homophily, Gender-Typed Behavior, And Cultural Contexts In Adolescent Friendship Segregation, Chen-Shuo Hong

Masters Theses

It is well-documented that adolescents tend to befriend those who share demographic characteristics like gender. Less clear is how culture connects to these homogeneous relationships. This study examines the effects of gender-typed behavior on adolescent friendships at dyadic and school levels. The friendship network data are drawn from the well-known wave 1 ‘saturation school’ component of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. I show that adolescents tend to befriend those who share similar gender-typed behavior, above and beyond simple demographic affiliation. Also, when students in particular schools exhibit more heterogeneous gender-typed behavior, the expression of gender-typed behavior …

The Influence Of Victim Gender And Emotional Expression In Victim Impact Statements On Legal Judgments And Punishment Decisions, Hannah Chimowitz

Masters Theses

Victim impact statements (VISs) are written or oral statements detailing the effects a crime has had on a victim. While the practice of having victims present VISs at sentencing hearings has generated much debate for over 25 years, the effects of this practice on victims, defendants, and legal decision-makers remain poorly understood. Prior research suggests that a victim’s emotional expression can affect how victims are perceived, and the legal judgments made in response to their statements. The current research considers how the effects of victims’ emotional displays on sentencing decisions might be conditioned by victim gender. Using audio-recorded VIS stimuli, …

Dissonant Forms: Landscape, Nature-Love, And Art, Taylor F. Benoit

Masters Theses

As artists continue the long and storied lineage of Landscape, are there aesthetic responsibilities that come with representing the forces that afford you the capacity to do so? As we delineate spaces into places, endless interconnectivity into knowable “systems”, and living matter into thing based taxonomies, who do these delineations serve and with what intentions do we proceed? My studio art practice explores what it means to give form to our Former—the Former being that from which we came, the here and now, our explicit ecological reality, the stuff of what we call nature. …

Firesafe: Designing For Fire-Resilient Communities In The American West, Brenden Baitch

Masters Theses

The perception that wildfires are completely preventable has caused many structures and communities to be built in locations that will inevitably experience an uncontrollable fire event, risking human lives and infrastructure. Modification of built environments into fire-adapted communities has been explored in this thesis, through multiple strategies. Central to this analysis is the idea that sustainable human developments could adopt a form of biomimicry and indigenous design informed by the adaptions of plants, animals, and native groups that endure and even thrive with regular cycles of fire. This possibility has been assessed through the scope of fire adaptation strategies available …

Material Encounters: Making Memory Beyond The Mind, Ariel Wills

Masters Theses

Can acts of making carry the memories of our embeddedness within the world? This thesis explores how making things can nurture a sense of kinship that cuts across the organic and inorganic, erasing the distinction between living and dead, material and spiritual. Through handwork such as art-making, sewing, knitting, cooking, woodworking, and beyond, the burden of remembering and of archiving is shared across human and non-human bodies, cultivated through practices of making, and through the materials themselves. By recounting the stories of my family’s experience as Jewish immigrants in the United States, I aim to reveal how their domestic practices …

Composite Analysis Of Mendenhall Glacier Interannual Glacial Health Decline, Hailey Marie Cantrell

Masters Theses

Glacial health in Alaska, USA is demonstrating an interannual declining trend. Repetitive years have suffered an imbalance between winter seasonal ice accumulation and summer seasonal ice loss. Increased ice loss has commonly been attributed to warmer Arctic summer temperatures, which contribute to greater calving events and amplified ablation. Study of the unique climatic influences by different variables is ongoing and at the forefront of climate-glacier interaction research.

This study is designed to quantitatively evaluate correlations between changes in Alaskan climatic patterns and an interannual trend of declining glacial health for Mendenhall Glacier by combining analysis of Landsat satellite imagery, teleconnection …

Visual, Lexical, And Syntactic Effects On Failure To Notice Word Transpositions: Evidence From Behavioral And Eye Movement Data, Kuan-Jung Huang

Masters Theses

Evidence of systematic misreading has been taken to argue that language processing is noisy, and that readers take noise into consideration and therefore sometimes interpret sentences non-literally (rational inference over a noisy channel). The present study investigates one specific misreading phenomenon: failure to notice word transpositions in a sentence. While this phenomenon can be explained by rational inference, it also has been argued to arise due to parallel lexical processing. The study explored these two accounts. Visual, lexical, and syntactic properties of the two transposed words were manipulated in three experiments. Failure to notice the transposition was more likely when …

The Voice Of The Other: The Influence Of Capitalism On The Representation Of Gender And Race In Western Classical Music, Marie Comuzzo

Masters Theses

This thesis argues that in order to understand the non-representation of women and BIPOC in the Western musical canon, the analysis of their cultural musical production and reception must start in early modern period, a time heavily influenced by the establishment of capitalism. Intertwining political feminist studies, critical race theory and musicology critique, I argue that the witch hunts and the inhumane colonial practices in Africa and the America (fundamental to establish capitalism as a global system), had an important role in shaping Western musical culture as homogeneous and monolithic. Thus, I first trace the change in female customs in …

Assessing The Precision Of Cranial And Mandibular Morphoscopic Traits From 3d Surface Scans, Sarah Thomas Schwing

Masters Theses

Virtual anthropological (VA) methods have been successfully used to capture metric data in the form of standard caliper measurements as well as volumetric data from various human skeletal elements. Virtual anthropological investigations of morphoscopic traits have increased over the past two decades, however, greater attention has been paid to investigations of metric data and to the use of CT technologies. Few studies have focused on morphoscopic data and fewer have employed 3D surface scans in data collection. Morphoscopic VA studies largely pertain to age estimation using the os coxa; fewer pertain to sex estimation and, to the author’s knowledge, no …

Strong Women Breaking Ground: Roles Of Women In Agriculture In Michigan, April L. Shirey

Masters Theses

Agriculture in Michigan is changing. While the number of farms and farmers continue to decrease, women are increasingly taking on the role of farmer instead of the “farmer’s wife”. The number of female producers increased from 8,275 to 26,059 where the number of producers in Michigan decreased from 56,014 to 47,641 from 2007 to 2017 (USDA, 2007, 2017). Women are becoming the face of farming in Michigan, yet little research examines the impacts of these shifts. In this research, I conduct semi-structured interviews with female farmers throughout lower Michigan beginning in the summer of 2020 to learn more about these …

Creaky Voice: Interactional Effects In Production And Perception, Victoria Anita Voorhees

Masters Theses

My thesis investigates creaky voice and how it functions interactionally within social situations, as well as how it is perceived by others. “Creaky voice” happens when a person speaks at their lowest range, also known as their “vocal fry.” This causes “a vocal effect produced by a very slow vibration of only one end of the vocal cords” (Crystal 1997, 98). I am interested in knowing which populations utilize creaky voice most. Additionally, I aim to explore how creaky voice is perceived by others. To conduct this investigation, I have conducted both a production and perception study. Within the production …

Queer Spaces, Religious Places: Sharing Risk And Making Kin Within A Queer Church Amidst A Pandemic, Sadie V. Counts

Masters Theses

This thesis aims to explore the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on a queer, Christian congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church in Knoxville, TN and the impacts of the pandemic queer kinship and intimacy within the church setting. The thesis explores the ways in which queer kinship manifests within the church and how those relationships have been disrupted and altered by COVID. It also compares the long-term effects of the AIDS epidemic on the church congregation and they ways in which they may be experiencing COVID in a similar manner. Finally, the project explores the ways that intimacy has …

The Effect Of Inputs On Poultry Production Output, Ty M. Wolaver

Masters Theses

To combat poverty and malnutrition, Feed the Future Tworore Inkoko, Twunguke (TI) has set out to teach Rwandan farmers how to grow broilers as additional income for the farmers and an additional protein source within the community to combat malnutrition. Throughout this program, the inputs and outputs of the farmers were recorded, and the goal is to determine an efficiency score for each flock raised and use that information to determine what factors contributed to a higher flock efficiency. A data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to determine the efficiency score of each flock. Using these efficiency scores, a regression …

Self-Identity And Risk Mitigation Behavior: Self-Protecting Masks Mandate, Mallory L. Denning

Masters Theses

A nation’s reaction to health risk in the wake of a pandemic reveals ample supply of data potentially highlighting the thematic schemes linking self-identity to risk mitigation behavior. The following thesis proposes an assessment of the self-identify themes motivating the choice to adhere to the self-protection masks mandate, providing discernment for practitioners and academics interested in revealing the diverse idiosyncrasies contributing to health-behavior habits. Literature surrounding risk communication, risk perceptionand self-identity intertwine to form a lens to interpret the gathered data. Seven qualitative interviews gleaned from a purposeful snowball sample conducted at a Southeastern University from individuals at least 18 …

Emotional Labor: Teachers’ Understandings Of Their Emotional Lives In Preschool Classrooms, Kylie B. Larkin

Masters Theses

This study examines how early childhood teachers understand their emotional lives and explores the research question: How do early childhood teachers understand emotional labor in the daily life of the preschool classroom? More specifically, an emotional labor theoretical framework was used to analyze how preschool teachers self-regulate and manage their emotions. This framework suggests that we all do some amount of “acting” or “performance” of emotion in the workplace. A qualitative methodology was used to gather data from three semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. Participants were three preschool lead or assistant teachers and one preschool administrator working in a University …

“There Are Not A Lot Of Providers Who Look Like Me”: Identity And Therapy For Sexual Minority Black, Indigenous, And Other People Of Color, Saumya Arora

Masters Theses

Research suggests that sexual minority Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color (BIPOC) generally experience higher levels of psychological distress and depression, leading to poorer mental health outcomes (e.g., Sutter et al., 2017; Lim & Hewitt, 2018). However, little is known about how sexual minority BIPOC individuals cope and support their mental health. The purpose of this grounded theory study was to understand the various and nuanced narratives of sexual minority BIPOC in seeking mental health support, including any barriers to accessing therapy as well as other identified sources of support. Fifteen sexual minority BIPOC individuals were interviewed about …

Examining The Bidirectional Relationships Between Maternal Intrusiveness And Child Anxiety: A Longitudinal Study From Infancy To Middle Childhood, Hannah Hunter

Masters Theses

Myriad parenting behaviors have been linked to the development of internalizing disorders in children. Intrusive parenting, which is characterized by autonomy-limiting behaviors that hold the parent’s agenda above that of the child, seems to uniquely contribute to the onset of child anxiety. In laboratory tasks, anxious mothers demonstrate greater levels of intrusiveness when compared to nonanxious mothers, suggesting that intrusive behaviors may be one mechanism through which anxiety is transmitted from parent and child. Other studies suggest that parental intrusiveness is evoked in the presence of an anxious child, providing evidence for bidirectionality. The current study investigated the bidirectional effects …

Laugh Until It’S No Longer A Scandal: The Use Of Humorous Apologia To Reframe Crisis Narratives On Saturday Night Live, Vanessa S. Hills

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the role of humor-based apologia as a crisis communication strategy for celebrities. Using a rhetorical method, it explicates the role that humor plays in shaping crisis narratives in response to kategoria within the context of Saturday Night Live. Four case study analyses determine whether the generic parameters of apologia include the use of a humor-based apologia or whether humorous apologiae should be classified as a unique subgenre. These findings further the body of research on apologia and highlight the need for additional research on the effectiveness of humor as a crisis communication strategy.

Evaluation Of Α-Pyrrolidindovalerophenone (Α-Pvp) And Its Isomers In Male And Female Sprague-Dawley Rats Trained To Discriminate Mdpv, Kaley Cargile

Masters Theses

Recreational use of synthetic cathinones, 3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) and α‐pyrrolidinovalerophenone (α‐PVP), has become increasingly popular, thus prompting characterization of their behavioral and neurochemical effects. MDPV has been studied for several years now, though there is still much unknown about α‐PVP, and its isomers. The primary objective of this study was to characterize the discriminative effects of α‐PVP and its isomers in comparison to MDPV. Male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were trained to discriminate 0.5mg/kg MDPV from saline injections under a fixed ratio 20 (FR 20) schedule of food reinforcement. Substitution tests were conducted with MDPV (0.05-0.5mg/kg), α‐PVP (0.05-0.5mg/kg), (S)-α‐PVP (0.05-1mg/kg) and …

Spatiotemporal Distributions Of Sargassum On Grand Cayman, Graeme Timmeney

Masters Theses

This mixed methods research examines individual perceptions of Sargassum on Grand Cayman’s beaches in 2020 using participant mapping, and semi – structured interviews. Results from the participant mapping are compared to satellite detection of sargassum. Sargassum poses health risks to both humans and the natural environment. Decaying Sargassum produces sulfuric gas and prevents young turtle hatchlings from reaching the ocean. Since 2011, Sargassum has diffused beyond the Sargasso Sea into entirely novel locations, spanning from the west African Coast to the Gulf of Mexico. Increased biomass has proven to be overwhelming for many Caribbean Islands, including Grand Cayman where hundreds …

A Systematic Review Of The Literature On The Assessments Used For Social Communication In The Diagnosis Of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Rachel E. Kim

Masters Theses

This review of the literature aims to analyze the current assessments available for clinicians, parents, and other professionals to use during the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) that specifically addresses social communication. Although ASD can be diagnosed as early as the age of 2, children are often not diagnosed until the age of 4-5 years old. Especially for children who would be diagnosed with ASD and require Level 2 and/or Level 3 supports, early diagnosis can lead to early intervention which can help to provide the necessary support for both the child and family. Early intervention can help to …

As Different As Black And White: A Comparison Between Interracial Divorce And Endogamous Divorce, Abigail Constance Lewandowski

Masters Theses

Black and White race relations have been a point of interest in the United States for hundreds of years, and one way to look at these is to examine the similarities and differences between the two groups. Many studies have looked at Black and White interracial marriages to study how members of the two racial groups form and maintain marriages in comparison to endogamous marriages, but only a few studies have looked specifically at Black and White interracial divorce to see what similarities and differences present themselves to aid in understanding the complexity of interracial relations. At the time of …

Extreme Cold Event Perception And Preparedness Of Western Michigan University Students, Connor J. Landeck

Masters Theses

Preparing for disasters at universities differs throughout the country but taking preventative measures is the first step in reducing loss of life and recovery measures. This research examined differences among undergraduate students regarding perceptions when it comes to extreme cold events at Western Michigan University (WMU). The main focus of the thesis was to determine if there is a lack of awareness and/or preparation measures of extreme cold events. Data were collected online using a specially designed questionnaire through Qualtrics. Survey questions were coded and analyzed using SPSS software using standard univariate descriptive statistics and/or multivariate statistical tests deemed appropriate. …

Contemporary Black Civil Rights Activism Strategies In East Tennessee: Gaining Economic And Political Power In The Black Community, Lily Joy Crosby

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the contemporary Black civil rights movement in East Tennessee to gain a better understanding of the strategies being employed to mobilize publics. Though an important aspect of the public relations field, in public relations academia there is a lack of research centering on activism. Little has been explored outside of organizational settings, especially since the rise of technology and increased interconnectedness of the world. To learn more about the movement in East Tennessee, the researcher interviewed eight leaders of the contemporary Black civil rights movement across the East Tennessee region. The researcher …

Association Between Stream Impairment By Mercury And Superfund Sites In The Conterminous Usa, Karessa L. Manning

Masters Theses

Mercury is a natural element that can cause harm to the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system, especially to fetuses developing in the womb. Many natural and anthropogenic factors contribute to mercury in the environment, such as geologic deposits, landfills, gold and silver mining operations, cement production, and atmospheric deposition. Mercury has been identified as a contaminant of concern at many National Priority List (NPL) sites, however, studies on contamination at NPL sites are often only conducted on a local level. This study was to analyze the potential connection between mercury-contaminated NPL sites and the presence of mercury impaired …

The Cadillac, The Camry And Everything In Between: A Qualitative Investigation Of Marital Attitudes Among First-Generation South Asian Immigrants, Zahra Amer

Masters Theses

Previous research suggests that there is a significant generational divide between first- and second-generation South Asian immigrants (henceforth “SAIs”) around the issue of marriage and indicates this divide is causing psychological distress among the SAI population in the domain of marriage (Samuel, 2010; Zaidi & Shuraydi, 2002). The present study explores the current nature of this potential divide and both expands upon and updates the extant literature surrounding first-generation SAIs’ attitudes towards marriage. Analyses were conducted with a sample of ten first-generation SAIs residing in the US. Participants were recruited using the snowball sampling technique and were interviewed individually by …