Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

War And Video Games, Nicholas A. Perry

Senior Honors Projects

War has been a subject of many different mediums. Through the portrayal of war, great movies have given insights on human conditions in wartime. War has also been the subject of several video games that are incredibly popular in mass culture. The difference between war movies and war games are that war games are interactive, requiring the players to act out violence in a digital form whereas movies are passive and reiterative in outcome.

There have been many criticisms of war video games ranging from their ability to condition players to violence to their role as propaganda for recruitment, but …

The Discriminatory History Of Gun Control, David Babat

Senior Honors Projects

Gun control is an issue that has been ingrained in the societal conscious as a measure to reduce gun violence. Many people, however, are unaware of the discriminatory history on which this legislation is based. The earliest instances of gun control in America can be traced to laws instituted by Southern colonies which explicitly banned African Americans from owning firearms. White slave owners feared an armed uprising and sought to keep weapons away from blacks. This trend continued even after the Civil War. Less explicitly racist laws were enacted, but the goal remained the disarmament of African Americans.

The North …

Rural Outreach Of Little Compton, Jessica Doyle

Senior Honors Projects

This idea for this project came from a semester long internship at the Women’s Resource Center of Newport and Bristol Counties. It was through this internship that I found my passion for promoting awareness about domestic violence. My interest in rural intimate partner violence began when I started preliminary investigation on the barriers rural women face because of their geographic placement. Rural women face many more obstacles when suffering intimate partner violence than their urban counterparts. Isolation and distance are the major issues that plague rural women. The only rural community in Newport and Bristol counties is Little Compton, which …

Analyzing The Effectiveness Of Rehabilitation Programs, Victoria Miceli

Senior Honors Projects

Rehabilitating criminals has become a highly debated topic throughout the U.S. With the majority of criminals being repeat offenders, the correctional institution has made rehabilitation a top priority. Research over the last twenty five years has shown that some programs are more effective than others. After reviewing the body of research, I developed a modification of a widely used assessment instrument, the Correctional Program Assessment Inventory, to make it more suitable for use in Rhode Island. I used this modification together with the State of Michigan’s Program Assessment Tool to assess the degree of which four of the over 100 …

Reel Life Lessons: Using Film To Engage Adolescents In Valuable Discussions About Life, Catherine Collazzo

Senior Honors Projects

Films provide profound reflections and interpretations of the people and the times in which they are made. Because of this, we often feel emotionally connected to certain films. We root for a teen who pursues his talent against his family’s wishes, because we have also been misunderstood by family and friends. We cry with a young girl whose best friend has passed away, because we remember the first time we lost someone we loved. We applaud the couple whom manages to stay together despite their differences, because we still believe in happy endings. Film has had a tremendous social impact …

Time To Die?, Josh Dunn

Senior Honors Projects

The issue of when life begins has inspired heated debate in this country for nearly half of a century. The importance of this issue cannot be overstated; it has played a pivotal role in elections of public officials and in confirmation hearings of federal judges and justices and has dominated legal, political, economic, religious and ethical discussions. While the issue is far from resolved, it will be joined by another contentious issue in the near future. With our society rapidly getting older, and with the rapidly rising cost of health care, including the extremely high cost of end-of-life care, Americans …

The Green Bean Coffee House: An Exploration Of The Specialty Coffee Industry And Sustainable Business Practices, Evan Hunt

Senior Honors Projects

Many Americans are getting sick of the way things have become and the way things are, from the government to the quality of food we put into our bodies. We are upon a new frontier, people are changing the way they live and consume. The days of quantity over quality are fading. Many consumers are making purchases and consumption decisions based on more than a simple cost analysis. How and where a given product was produced, whether or not the trade involved of a given product was truly ethical, and what are the environmental implications of getting that product to …

Exploring The Scientist-Practitioner Model In Clinical Psychology, Jami Halpern

Senior Honors Projects

The Scientist-Practitioner Model is a system of education used by many graduate programs in applied fields of psychology. The goal of this educational model is to help clinicians and other practitioners to learn to use empirical research as a basis for the applied work that they do and also for them to learn to use the experience of applied clinical practice to guide research questions and to advance scientific thinking in the discipline of Psychology. As a student who plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, I felt that it would be beneficial for me to experience the Scientist-Practitioner …

Trade Policy And The Geography Of Fashion, William Doscher

Senior Honors Projects

The textile and apparel (T&A) industries are global and constantly on the move. The mobility of these industries can be seen here in Rhode Island, with abandoned textile mills stretched across the state. In its search for the lowest-cost production, the T&A industries moved from northern to southern New England, and then relocated from New England to the Carolinas, and with record high unemployment currently hitting North and South Carolina, there is evidence that the industries are moving again. There is also reason to believe the relocation of the T&A industries will have an international dimension. As world power shifts …

Persuasion In Contemporary Presidential Campaigns, Dylan Moore

Senior Honors Projects

Persuasion has been the foundation and objective of political campaigns since the first contested presidential election in 1796. While this foundation has not changed, the methods of persuading have undergone many changes over the years. Persuasion tactics of past presidential campaigns have used mediums such as print and television but it was not until the last two presidential elections that voters had the internet to supplement their decision-making process.

It is with the rise of the internet that we can see the greatest shift in contemporary campaigns tactics. Candidates’ websites serve as a “one stop shop” for voters to attain …