Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Parasocial Relationships In Variety Live Streaming: How It Can Affect Attitudes And Buying Intention Toward Sponsors, Megan Burroughs, Deborah Diazgranados

Undergraduate Research Posters

Online streaming and video platforms have become a popular form of entertainment as opposed to traditional media like movies and TV shows. Similar to traditional media, viewers often relate to and form one-sided relationships with actors/creators, known as parasocial relationships. Actors and creators can then leverage that relationship to advertise and market products to their audience. The primary objective of this study was to understand if perceived credibility and loyalty towards a streamer fuel parasocial relationships and how perceived credibility and parasocial relationships with an online live streamer influence attitude towards a sponsored brand and purchasing intention. It was predicted …

Black Liberation In Transnational Terms: The Case Of Haiti And The United States, Dulanda F. P. Saintcyr

Undergraduate Research Posters

Haiti made history on January 1st, 1804 when it secured independence from France. Not only did Haiti become a sovereign state, it also earned the title of being the first independent Black nation in the world. The latter accomplishment should not be ignored. The Haitians’ efforts created an impact that transcends their national border, particularly in the context of Black liberation. For example, the United States' history of working towards achieving full freedom for Black people resembles the Haitian struggle. Whether the connection between the two states is widely acknowledged is a point of interest. As a result, this project …

Analysis Of Fiber Uv Degradation Through An Environmental Chamber, Davis A. Eames

Undergraduate Research Posters

Environmentally degraded fibers could impact multiple aspects of a fiber comparison, considering that collected weathered fabrics/fibers may express an altered chemical structure and/or colorimetric property compared to their unexposed counterparts. Depending on the amount of degradation the evidence has suffered, it could be challenging for forensic scientists to make conclusions from their comparative analyses. Observations presented in this study were orchestrated to test the possible outcomes that sunlight has on fabric-based materials. Photodegradation of fabrics was investigated through the use of an environmental chamber for a duration of six weeks, which would be equivalent to three months of real-world UV …

Prevalence Of Nicotine Delivery Systems By Biological Sex In The Spit For Science Study, Ayrton Quiroz, Amy Adkins, S4s Working Group, Elizabeth Prom-Wormley, Elizabeth K. Do, Megan Cooke, James Clifford, Hermine H. Maes

Undergraduate Research Posters

Nicotine intake usage trends have changed over recent decades given the wide variety of nicotine delivery systems including cigarettes, vaping, hookah, and snubs/chewables. These trends also vary by demographic factors, such as race/ethnicity, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES). For example, studies in rat populations, as well as humans, have found that females tend to be more dependent on nicotine products and have a more difficult time quitting than male rats and humans (Pogun et al., 2017). Also, race/ethnicity may impact the frequency of nicotine usage in different populations; in that non-white Hispanics were more susceptible to smoking through adolescence with …

Racial Experiences And Racial Identity Experiences Of “New” African Americans In The United States, Sosna Marshet, Kenna Yadeta

Undergraduate Research Posters

The challenges faced by Black immigrants in the United States are significant, beginning with isolation and loneliness and intensified by pervasive discrimination. This study examines the impact of racism on the racial identity of Black immigrants in the United States. Using the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (MIBI), various dimensions of Black identity were measured among 119 Black first and second-generation immigrants aged 18 to 51. The results showed a positive correlation between experiences of racism and the centrality dimension of Black identity, a negative correlation with the humanist, and a positive correlation with Nationalist dimensions of Black identity. These …

The Intersection Between Harm Reduction And Social Work, Sydney Biondi

Undergraduate Research Posters

This qualitative study explores the intersection of harm reduction and social work. Social workers who practice harm reduction were recruited to participate in interviews. In the field of social work, harm reduction is seen as a promising practice, but we do not know very much about what it looks like in practice. The purpose of this research study is to find out how the perceptions of social workers of harm reduction aid or inhibit community harm reduction efforts. We think that the geographical location of a social worker impacts the perceptions and experiences of harm reduction, because of the resources …

Perspectives Of Middle School Students On Their Engagement And Relevance In Science, Dylan E. Young, Kamil Hankour, Javonti Braxton, Martinique Sealy, Hui Sun, Christine Bae

Undergraduate Research Posters

The purpose of this study is to explore urban middle school students' thoughts and attitudes about engagement, belonging, use of their funds of knowledge (FoK), and discourse in their science classrooms. Historically, students from this population often feel disengaged and alienated from science, which is why it is important to study their point of view; and, there is currently a dearth of literature that does so (Emdin et al., 2021; Fredricks et al., 2018). The engagement model used includes behavioral, cognitive, affective and social dimensions (Wang et al., 2016). The data was collected in a study that involves collaboration between …

The Association Between Survivors’ Guilt And Gratitude In The Belongingness Of Refugee College Students, Mehwish Safdar

Undergraduate Research Posters

Many refugees experience significant stress and trauma before relocating to their host country (Leo, 2021) and often encounter new challenges when adapting to their unfamiliar environment. Refugee college students, who are often the first in their families to attend college, face additional pressure to excel academically to give back to their families and host country (Turjanmaa & Jasinskaja-Lahti, 2020). Despite prior research on refugee individuals, little work has focused on refugee college students. This study aimed to address this gap by examining the relationships between survivors’ guilt, gratitude, indebtedness, and belongingness in 16 refugee university students. Specifically, the study investigated …

Memory Reconsolidation And Alcohol Use Disorder: Intravenous Infusion Of Ketamine To Alleviate Addictive Symptoms In Alcohol Use Disorder Diagnoses, Yasaswi Veera

Undergraduate Research Posters

According to the National Institute of Health, substance use disorder in the United States in 2021 caused nearly 106,000 deaths and an annual healthcare and criminal justice expenditure of roughly $200 billion, however, only 10% of diagnoses receive proper treatment. This is primarily due to the lack of previous research in addictive studies as well as the lack of accessibility to resources and proper treatments. Current treatments for alcohol use disorder range from medications and behavioral therapies, such as acamprosate, naltrexone, and cognitive behavior therapy. Much of these treatments consist of reconditioning the brain to associate alcohol with a negative …

Spanish Translation And Psychometric Validation Of A Measure Of Acculturative Stress Among Latinx Immigrants In The Usa, Ria Grover, Kritzia Merced, Chimdindu Ohayagha, Isis Garcia-Rodriguez,, Oswaldo Moreno, Paul B. Perrin

Undergraduate Research Posters

BACKGROUND: In the U.S., the Latinx community is growing at a faster rate than any other racial and ethnic minority group. Members of this community have been found to experience a number of acculturative stressors after immigrating including xenophobia, racism, and discrimination. Although several scales have been created in recent years to measure acculturative stress in Spanish-speaking immigrants, they are long, do not have nuanced subscales, or have not been validated in an extremely diverse sample of Latinx immigrants.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the current study was to translate and psychometrically validate the Riverside Acculturative Stress Inventory (RASI) in a …

Bringing Swipe Out Hunger To Vcu: Identifying Best Practices And Analyzing Administrative Policies For Future Reform, Jackie Stephens, Anjali Ta

Undergraduate Research Posters

At first glance, a college campus might look like a place of equal opportunity– communal dorms, shared dining halls, and similar course loads. However, arriving on campus is not where the college access conversation ends if students’ basic needs are not met. Food insecure students are at elevated risk of poor academic performance and delayed degree completion, with first-generation students being particularly vulnerable. Swipe Out Hunger is an organization that partners with colleges to reduce food insecurity among students by allowing those with extra dining hall meal swipes to donate them to food insecure peers. If implemented at VCU, Swipe …

The Relationship Between Social Media Use And Depression And Anxiety Symptoms During Covid-19, Tene'sha L. Crews, Christina Sheerin

Undergraduate Research Posters

The rise of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a global surge in exposure to disaster and crisis-related media. Increases in poor mental health outcomes such as anxiety and depression, are associated with increased exposure to such media content (Abbas et al., 2021; Riehm et al., 2020; Zhao & Zhou, 2020). In recent years, social media has become one of the most widely used sources for news; approximately 48% of adult Americans receive their news from social media (Pew Research Center, 2021). During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in social media use due to social distancing and …

College Student Alcohol Use And Engagement In Prevention Programming, Alexis H. Branch, Shimona Kumar, Christina Mcgrath

Undergraduate Research Posters

Social problems and adverse consequences have been associated with risky alcohol use (Paschall et al, 2015). Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF) has been utilized to address these problems (White and Hingson, 2014) by comparing students’ alcohol use to campus or national norms (Butler et al, 2009). The current investigation sought to understand differences in alcohol use behaviors in freshmen who did and did not report completion of a personalized feedback intervention (PFI) in a diverse sample of college students from the Spit for Science (S4S) project. S4S is a campus-wide, longitudinal study on the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to …

Effects Of Nostalgia On Responses To Negative Feedback, Michaela K. Avino, Thomas Cotter, Simron Richard, Athena Cairo, Jeffrey Green

Undergraduate Research Posters

Nostalgia is a bittersweet emotion evoked by memories of cherished personal experiences. Though nostalgia is a self-focused emotion, it has many interpersonal effects as well. Feeling nostalgia increases feelings of social connectedness and self esteem, and may protect against negative effects of existential threat (Wildschut et al., 2006). However, less is known about the extent to which nostalgia relates to anger and aggression. We hypothesized that nostalgia would buffer against the effect of negative feedback on feelings of anger and motivation to aggress. Undergraduate students wrote about a nostalgic or objective memory, and then received negative feedback about another personal …

How Personal Names Shape The Way Society Sees People As Individuals In The United States., Rand Gabriel M. Buenaventura

Undergraduate Research Posters

In a world where people are disadvantaged by first impressions and implicit bias, names factor a lot into a person’s successes in life. Whether it be first names, last names, the number of middle initials, the gender and racial implications of a person’s name, and societal standards surrounding names and naming systems, there are multiple ways names shape a person’s identity. Thus, it is important to ask how personal names shape the way people are seen as individuals in the United States and contribute to their identity. Names are a trait that people are born with, usually determined before anything …

Adolescent Expressive Reluctance Exacerbates Risk For Substance Use Following Daily Hassles, Chad M. Hensberger, David W. Sosnowski M.S., Wendy Kliewer Ph.D, Kristina Mcguire M.S.

Undergraduate Research Posters

Previous research has established a link between adolescent’s perceived daily hassles and subsequent adjustment, but less is known about factors that exacerbate this relationship. The purpose of the present study was to identify if adolescent’s reluctance to express emotions moderated the association between their perceived daily hassles and subsequent substance use (i.e., alcohol, marijuana, tobacco). Cross-sectional data were obtained from a larger study that examined the effects of exposure to community violence among low-income, urban adolescents (N = 260, M_age = 14.14, SD = 1.62 years; 92% African American; 54% female). Linear regression analyses controlling for adolescent age, …

A Comparative Study Of Extreme Religious Nationalist Terrorist Groups In The United States, Colleen Arthur

Undergraduate Research Posters

The aim of this paper is to conduct a comparative study of Radical Right Wing terrorism and Radical Islamic terrorism both of which are categorized under the Religious Nationalism/Extremism typology of terrorism. In order to compare and contrast the two fairly, I broke down the ideology, motives, methods, and the demographic profile of members of both Radical Right Wing and Radical Islamic terrorism then provided examples of different groups that fall within those categories in order to effectively illustrate the striking similarities of the two categories that have been addressed and condemned differently by the United States. Then I had …

Patterns Of Enslavement And Economic Oppression Of Central Virginia, Hannah Bedwell

Undergraduate Research Posters

I address how anthropologists can identify the patterns and development of slavery and economic oppression through archaeology and the visualization of Virginia enslavement. I focus on the enslaved people of James Madison's Montpelier. I use 3D modeling as a foundation for integrating enhanced visuals with the goal of presenting a tangible understanding of the enslaved individuals in relation to the artifacts and history of the archaeological sites. I intend to show a common theme in economic oppression by comparing modern themes in slavery and examining Fraser D. Neiman's synthesis of the evolutionary perspective of slavery, and how little has changed …

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, Colleen Arthur

Undergraduate Research Posters

The aim of this paper is to look into the human rights violations committed by the United States against the black men during the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment as well as touch on the broader concept of racial medicine. In addition, my goal is to dismantle the pretense society may hold about the United States and the moral high ground it claims to stand on. In order to accomplish this goal, I will make parallels about atrocities committed by the United States on the African-American population to those committed by the Nazis on the Jewish population in Germany. I will first …

Ancient Egyptian Figurines: An Investigation Into Manufacture, Use, And Culture., Kristina B. Donnally 2455289

Undergraduate Research Posters

I will analyze the social and religious role of figurines in Egyptian society. I will delve into the differences in the figurines in both manufacture and purpose between the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. I hope to look at religious, political, and other figurines to get a broad spectrum of usage for the artifacts. The main purpose of the research is to identify the time period, purpose, and usage for the figure donated to VCU by Professor Waybright. Questions I have is if the changes in political structure and minute changes in religion between each Kingdom affected the manufacture and …

The Bamboo Ceiling: A Study Of Barriers To Asian American Advancement, Emily Cheng

Undergraduate Research Posters

The idea of cultural diversity in the workplace is a popular one, generating much discussion about the inclusion of and affirmative action toward minorities. However, these conversations rarely involve Asian Americans, who despite above-average levels of educational achievement, household income, and employment, find themselves underrepresented in and shut-out of upper-level management positions. In this project, I investigated the stereotype of East-Asian Americans as a model minority (created by non-Asians) to find out why East-Asian Americans are underrepresented in upper-level management in corporate workplaces, a phenomenon known as the “bamboo ceiling.” I explored a variety of scholarly sources that analyzed the …

Meta-Analysis Of The Origin Of Bimaturism In Orangutan Males, Mina Adnan

Undergraduate Research Posters

Unlike any other primate species, orangutans exhibit extraordinary sexual differences in their facial morphology. Two different strategies are available for males that reach sexual maturity: either become fully “flanged” and develop secondary sexual characteristics, which is knownto be only developed by the dominant male, or remain “unflanged” and not develop secondary sexual characteristics. The mechanism for how this bimaturism evolved and how occurs is poorly understood, but both flanged and unflanged males are reproductively successful.

This project explores the physiological mechanism behind bimaturismin orangutan males; namely, are there genetic differences between flanged and unflanged males such that the strategy is …

Alexithymia Moderates The Association Between Maternal Depressive Symptoms And Perceived Adolescent Adjustment, Hayne Noh

Undergraduate Research Posters

Rates of suicide among African American youth are increasing faster than any other ethnic group (Bridge et al., 2015). With mental illness associated with suicide rates, it is essential to understand how symptoms manifest during adolescence. Although the association between maternal depression and poor adolescent adjustment is well established, there is a dearth of evidence examining the impact of maternal alexithymia on adolescent adjustment, particularly among low-income youth. The goal of the study was to elucidate the role of maternal alexithymia (difficulty understanding and expressing emotion) in the association between maternal depressive symptoms and adolescent adjustment within a sample of …

A Study Of Media Portrayal Of Schizophrenics To Understand How Stigma Associated With Schizophrenia May Be Reversed, Rainielle M. Cua

Undergraduate Research Posters

The news media are one of the most influential sources of information regarding mental illness. Media coverage on schizophrenia, one of the most stigmatized mental illnesses, tends to be negative, focusing on high risks of violence, failure, and unpredictability. Such perceptions may cause a detrimental impact on the mentally ill and cause them to internalize a stigmatizing stereotype and hinder the public’s understanding of mental illness. I studied how media portrayal in newspaper coverage of schizophrenics has evolved to discover how nonfiction media representation has affected people’s perceptions and attitudes towards schizophrenics and to propose an implementable solution to reduce …

The Netflix Effect And Defining Binge-Watching, Brenna C. Davis

Undergraduate Research Posters

With the accessibility of television programs provided by popular streaming platforms, like Netflix, consumers can watch episodes or seasons of their favorite programming in just one sitting. This new practice of watching television has been referred to as binge-watching, and is defined by Netflix as watching two to six episodes of the same show in one sitting. Netflix’s definition is the most widely used definition of binge-watching, but does not account for the varying lengths of episodes for the different types of programming. There is a lack of standardization in what constitutes a television binge, like the standards that exist …

“Doing Time Long After The Crime: How A Prison Sentence Today Is Only The Beginning Of A Felon’S Life-Long Sentence As A Pariah To Society”, Mary C. Pollock

Undergraduate Research Posters

This research seeks to explore the various difficulties in convicted felons’ life after their transition back into society. The research examines how an ex-convict’s finances, interpersonal relationships with friends, family, and romantic partners, lifetime opportunities, mental health, physical health, and living conditions are affected by the offender’s status as such an offender, as well as to consider ways in which these difficulties can be alleviated for future ex-offenders upon reassimilation into society after a prison sentence. Though indeed a broad topic, this particular brand of research seeks to highlight the exaggerated perception of the ex-con as a permanently damned member …

Why The American Superpower Has Mediocre Educational Rankings, Madeline R. Hays

Undergraduate Research Posters

Although education holds implications for economic growth, scientific progress, and political participation, the United States remains on the lower end of educational quality compared to other industrial and first-world nations. Despite substantial efforts by the American government to mend this issue, reforms have yielded minimal improvement in results. Identifying the reasons for the declining nature of US education is essential in understanding how to improve the current academic state. Why has there been a decline in education quality in America compared to other first-world countries since World War II? In order to distinguish the characteristics correlating with low-achievement in the …

Risk Factors Associated With First-Year College Dropout, Tiffany K. Ho, Divya Krishna

Undergraduate Research Posters

Previous research has shown that a variety of factors can impact college student’s academic performance, including healthy nutrition, physical activity, substance use, smoking, early sexual activity, bullying, excessive television watching, internet use, and playing video games. The purpose of the current study was to explore possible predictors of dropout in students after their first year of college. Data came from the Spit for Science sample and were limited to individuals in the first three cohorts that answered the survey during the fall of their freshmen year (N=6105). Logistic regression was used to test a variety of risk factors, including mental/behavior …

Examining The Psychological Adjustments Of Neurotypical Siblings Of Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd) And Determining The Efficiency Of Support Groups, Swathi Deo Sambatha

Undergraduate Research Posters

Neurotypical siblings of individuals with behavioral disorders are reported to have complex, complicated psychological adjustments that vary significantly due to a multitude of sociodemographic factors. In addition, these children are at risk of mental health disorders and negative psychological symptoms. Support groups or extensive social support are known to increase intra-communication and create better sibling dynamics between the neurotypical and autistic siblings. This paper investigates such complications to the psychological adjustment of neurotypical siblings of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and determines the implications of the utilization of support groups/social support. The analyzed trends and reportings of multiple studies …

The Relation Between Infant Construction Strategy And Language Development In Toddlers, Gullnar Syed, Emily C. Marcinowski, Stacey C. Dusing, George F. Michel, Eliza L. Nelson

Undergraduate Research Posters

Infants learn from interaction with physical objects in their environments. Object construction, or merging individual objects into a single structure, has been linked previously to language. Items and toys can be structured and combined with similarity to word combinations (Greenfield, 1991). Infants initially combine 2 objects and then graduate on to combine 3 pieces or more. Words are put together in comparable ways, with each word corresponding to an object, and a sentence corresponding to a single structure. The purpose of this project is to explore how construction ability in infants affects language ability in toddlers. We hypothesize that the …