Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Trapped: A Performance Exploration Of The Illusion Of Confinement, Paul R. Presbrey

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Sometimes we build our own prisons and those prisons go through a crucial stage at which time, outside forces such as other people can help retrieve you from the depths of your own imprisonment. Unfortunately, these outside forces usually end up acting against you, sending a person deeper and deeper into the trap they laid for themselves. These outside forces or people usually do not know that they are contributing to the building of a person’s prison. These people act in direct response to something or even anonymously through things such as surveys. Most of the time people dance around …

Narrating Arcosanti: A Utopian Project Considered Through Its Representations, Duncan William Routh

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Longevity Of Religious Terrorist Organizations, William John Hughes

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Pericles Revived: Proposing Citizen Payments For Social Media Usage, Alexander Jason Breindel

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Blasian And Proud: Examining Racialized Experiences Amongst Half Black And Half Japanese Youth In Japan, Helen Itsel Aracena

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Tainted Ideals: The Rise And Fall Of The Tupamaros, Jennifer Ann Dufau

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Together We’Ll Make Magic: Exploring The Relationship Between Empathy And Literature Using Ruth Ozeki’S “A Tale For The Time Being”, Janet Lindsay Dinozzi-Houser

Senior Projects Spring 2017

My project is devoted to untangling the often-misunderstood and misapplied subject of empathy, particularly as it relates to the reading process. I begin with a brief background of the term’s history and the debate surrounding its use by researchers in the fields of both Psychology and Philosophy of Mind. I then apply this critical understanding of a commonly invoked term to a close reading of contemporary novel A Tale for The Time Being by Japanese-American novelist Ruth Ozeki. Dedicated primarily to the fictional story of Nao Yasutani, a teenage girl struggling with her recent move back to Japan after a …

Distortion In Body Schema: The Influence Of Body Fat And Mass On Perceptions Of Personal Size, Katarina Ann Ferrucci

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Obesity has been linked with a myriad of negative outcomes for both physical and mental health including feeding and eating disorders and cognitive impairments that affect perception of body size. Understanding the cognitive mechanisms and physiological factors that contribute to perception of body size may help us to comprehend how obesity impacts the construction and development of one’s mental body representations. Previous research by Scarpina, Castelnuovo, and Molinari (2014) suggests that, compared to those with a normal Body Mass Index, individuals with a BMI greater than 30 (obese) not only inaccurately estimate tactile and mental distances on their own bodies, …

Media And The Shooter Bias: Investigating The Relationship Between Implicit Racial Biases And News Coverage, Matthew Charles Phelps

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Abstract

Past research has suggested that the media is likely to depict Black individuals in a more negative and/or threatening manner than White individuals (Dixon & Linz, 2000; Sommers et al., 2006). Additionally, past research investigating the effect of race on the decision to shoot or not shoot in a simple shooter videogame suggests that people are both faster and more accurate when deciding to shoot armed Black targets and when deciding to not shoot unarmed White targets (Correll et al., 2002). This phenomenon is known as shooter bias. This study investigated the effect of media exposure, specifically exposure to …

The Effects Of Autobiographical Growth Narratives On Math Performance In Women, Eva Briana Frishberg

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Women suffer from the negative stereotype that they are innately worse at math compared to men, which contributes to a gender gap in math fields (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999). However, this stereotype has a greater negative impact on women with fixed mindsets, who believe that intelligence is inflexible and innate (Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002). Mindset interventions thus far have sought to shift fixed mindset to growth mindset, characterized by the belief that effort can increase intelligence, through in-class workshops or lectures about the plasticity of the brain and the malleability of intelligence (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Dweck, 2000; …

The Long Term Efficacy Of Stimulant Treatment In Executive Functioning And Emotional Regulation In Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Kaitlyn Noel Mock

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is a persistent and pervasive lifelong disorder. Children diagnosed with ADHD have poor predicted life outcomes. Specific impairments of inattention are responsible for poor executive functioning and emotional control within the disorder. These deficits are also predictors of poor life outcomes. Stimulant treatment has only been established as an efficacious form of treatment for ADHD in the short term. In order to mitigate the predicted poor life outcomes, stimulants need to be established as efficacious in the long term improvement of psychosocial functioning in ADHD, in order to be considered a truly efficacious treatment. A five year, double …

U.S. Democracy Promotion In The Middle East: More And Less Than Meets The Eye, Julia Lang Gordon

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Worth Of Aura In The Work Of Fine Art Publishing, Alexander Kunin Bacon

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Are Immigrants The Next Great Appliance? The Effects Of Immigration On Female Labor Force Participation, Logan Daniel Callahan

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This paper argues the burgeoning idea that an inflow of low-skilled immigrants into a receiving country can provide benefits for high-skilled native women. In considering the often increased responsibilities held by women in the household, when compared to men, the introduction of immigrants of certain occupations can help ease these responsibilities. A series of regressions explain that the effect is statistically significant, especially when considering low-skilled female immigrants. Policy implications are discussed as well as areas for future research. The paper concludes with a brief secondary theory and discourse on the labor constraints of women.

A Geography Of Grief: An Exploration Of The Significance Of The Northern New Mexican Landscape In The Grieving Process, Treska Lydia Stein

Senior Projects Spring 2017

I grew up within this landscape, yet I have never tired of the way the elements of stone, dust, and sky seem to writhe and pull away from one another. Alternately piercing through the earth as craggy mountains, or slicing deep canyons into the muted grey green expanses of crumbly earth, this land seems to cower beneath a blisteringly blue sky.

In this land that fills our palms with the spines of tender cacti, and purple afternoon monsoons melt our roads into clay slicks with their deluge—I explore how the same intensity of this place, which forces drivers to relinquish …

Gender Empowerment In The Development Economics Literature: The Language Of Choice, Preferences And Agency, Pranay Panday

Senior Projects Spring 2017

In my project, I try to trace how our present understanding of gender empowerment is formed, and how mainstream economics literature has accommodated feminist contributions to the concept. I look at neoclassical household models, feminist critiques of the same models, foundational ideas on gender empowerment, and finally the current development economics literature on empowerment. I find that the concept of choices and preferences, and in particular the formation of preferences, is central to understanding gender empowerment. I deduce that a) empowerment is both a process and an outcome, b) that the end goal of empowerment is the access to resources …

An Exceptional Nation: Why The United States Lacks Universal Health Insurance, Sebastian Bernard Spitz

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

There And Now, Tinghua Huang

Senior Projects Spring 2017

THERE AND NOW

by Tinghua Huang

History/Observation of Life/Rebellion/Challenge/ Time/(without)Intention

In my exhibition, I have photos, bags, garments, the FIT IN room, and a clock with a second display. I will explain my points for choosing to put them in my show, and it is up to you, the viewers, to take it, expand it, or not. I believe there is never a final answer to art, as long as humans have their own ability to think.

I made the choice of putting the photos in my show to convey a straightforward sense of my personal background: where I am …

“How To Follow Jesus For Life”: Reconstituting Youth As Ideal Christian Subjects In Short-Term Mission, Elizabeth Violet Boyd

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Reframing The Ofrenda, An Analysis Of Material Culture Through The Death Cult Of Mexico, Xochitl Tarcila Salazar

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Black Women Anti-Defamation Coalition: A Proposal For The Remediation Of The Negative, Controlling Images Of Black Women, Shemar Antonio Taylor

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This research sets out to highlight the life-altering degree to which negative, domineering depictions of Black women has had and continues to have on their livelihood and also to argue that due to their systemic inability to control and craft their own reputation, this should be categorized as a human rights violation and enforced on the grounds of defamation law. Although I am not a Black woman myself, as a Black man who was raised by three Black women, I have seen first hand the importance of proving this point. Many Black women scholars, many of whom I will be …

Financial Institutions And The Global Farming Industry: The Impacts Of Large-Scale Agricultural Investments Observed In Ethiopia, George William Goceljak Iii

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Due to the significant deregulation of commodity futures markets in 2000, the presence of index-speculators became increasingly prevalent. The strategies applied by these market participants drastically manipulated global commodity prices. The severe rise in food prices would come to initiate a global concern towards food security. Consequently, developed countries began implementing policies that would secure agricultural production and food supplies. This policy movement facilitated a trend in agricultural investments. Through political influence, investing governments were able augment favorable environments abroad for investors. In such environments, farmland was easily obtainable and regulations of agricultural investments were minimal. The combination of government …

Two Essays On The Stability Of The Auto Lending Market, Sam Martin Grumet

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This project is composed of two essays examining the credit markets for the finance of automobiles. In particular, both chapters focus on subprime loans for the purchase of used cars, often financed by independent finance companies. In the first chapter, I review Hyman P. Minsky’s writing on credit and securitization to create a theoretical framework that explains how auto finance has evolved. This chapter’s analysis primarily compares the current period of subprime auto finance with short boom and bust cycle experienced by the auto finance sector in the 1990s. The second chapter reviews various evidence of discrimination in subprime auto …

Mainstreaming Gender: The Influence Of Women's Networks On Prosecuting Sexual Violence At The International Criminal Court, Jessica Maryanne Zaccagnino

Senior Projects Spring 2017

The fall of the Soviet Union in combination with the failures of the international community to intervene in the genocides of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda spurred a new enthusiasm for human rights as a wholly independent movement, termed the human rights wave. This paradigm shift, identified by Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, was an embrace of human rights rooted in the redemption of past wrongs. This project is structured as a jurisprudential genealogy that will explore the human rights wave in the context of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, a facet of the transnational women’s network, and their quest to mainstream …

Does Globalization Enhance Countries’ Ability To Combat Human Trafficking?, Yewen Zeng

Senior Projects Spring 2017

There is much literature that argues that human trafficking (HT) is actually a down side of globalization since HT increased dramatically with globalization during the mid-1980s. However, it must be acknowledged that globalization is not the inherent cause of HT but an intermediary that helps to achieve it. Although much literature studies the nexus of globalization and human trafficking, there is a lack of publications to analyze the future impact of globalization on combating human trafficking. This project aims to fill the gap by providing an empirical analysis of whether globalization enhances countries’ ability to combat HT or not. This …

All The World's Ashamed, Peter David Lane

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

This project is an analysis of three Shakespeare plays through three different ways of understanding shame. Othello, Coriolanus, and Measure for Measure are inspected through a social, bodily, and religious understanding of shame, respectively. The purpose of this tripartite view of shame is to reveal the many different ways in which shame makes itself a part of our lives. The first paradigm is based off of Erving Goffman’s 1956 sociology text, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, and explores how the ways social …

Field To Feedlot: How Us Policy Promoted Cattle Concentration, Hannah Siegel Conley

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Language Of Dystopia, Sidney Woodson Peery

Senior Projects Spring 2017

The dystopian genre in literature is not a happy genre. We are not drawn to works of dystopian fiction because we expect to be satisfied: there are no “fuzzy feelings” in books like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s 1984, or Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We. Rather, we are fascinated by the thought processes and the questions that these nightmarish societies inspire. This thesis explores one such question, namely: what is the relationship between language, the individual, and society at large? Through an analysis of the three pivotal dystopian books above, I show how this relationship plays a key role in …

Before 'It' Happens Again: Identifying Financial Fragility In The Financial Sector, John Henry Glascock Iii

Senior Projects Spring 2017

The project builds extensively on the theoretical foundations of Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis. A Minskian framework is integrated with both behavioral and human rights theory. The goal is to develop a more holistic view of market dynamics which includes psychological and human rights considerations. In developing this framework, we establish an indicator that can be used to track fragility at the sector and firm levels. This work can be applied to macroprudential policy to more adequately equip regulators whose responsibility it is to tame an unpredictable market.

Excluded From Humanity: The Effects Of Implicit Dehumanizing Views Toward Black Individuals In The Media, Joshua Velette

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Dehumanization—a process by which certain individuals and/or social groups are denied complete human status—has been researched extensively in psychology. Previous research on dehumanization has identified several social groups such as the poor (Haslam & Loughnan, 2014), immigrants, refugees (Esses, Medianu, & Lawson, 2013), women (Rudman & Mescher, 2012) and Black people (Goff, Eberhardt, Williams, & Jackson, 2008). Through frameworks such as the Infrahumanization theory (Leyens et al., 2003) and the dual model for dehumanization (Haslam, 2006), it has been found that out-groups may be implicitly dehumanized. The social group of interest to the present study is Black individuals. This groups …