Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

'You' Will Always Have 'Me': A Compositional Theory Of Person, Kaden T. Holladay

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the morpho-syntactic makeup of personful expressions
in natural language; special focus is given to referential uses of personal pronouns. The central thesis guiding the inquiry is that utterance contexts, which serve to fix the semantic values of person indexicals, are specifically a kind of centered situation. This treatment of contexts puts restrictions on what kinds of person features are definable, and the resulting inventory of such features (in conjunction with independently-motivated pragmatic constraints on the use of referential expressions) provides a novel explanation for the typology of person systems.

Three Essays On The Financial Returns To Residential Solar Pv Adoption, Emma Grazier

Doctoral Dissertations

As the effects of climate change continue to accelerate, threatening human life and the environment worldwide, the need to decarbonize our energy system is urgent and imperative. Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is an important component of the United States’ decarbonization strategy. Solar diffusion policies like net metering, tax incentives, and renewable energy certificates create financial value for adopters. Evaluations of those policies tend to focus on adoption as the primary metric of success: more households adopting solar means less reliance on fossil fuels and fewer carbon emissions. However, adoption alone as a success metric fails to account for a policy’s …

Long(Er) Object Movement In Turkish, Duygu Göksu

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on long object movement (LOM), which is a type of A-movement from the embedded object position inside an infinitive to the matrix subject position. In the literature, LOM is usually equated with restructuring. The dissertation demonstrates that LOM is not a uniform phenomenon in Turkish. Verbs that allow LOM fall into two types and exhibit distinct behaviors, with only one type counting as restructuring. The infinitival complements of one class of LOM verbs show dependency on the matrix domain for structural case-checking of an embedded object. These verbs are analyzed as restructuring LOM verbs selecting a reduced-size …

Essays On Market Inefficiencies Arising From Information Asymmetry And Market Power, Ming Ge

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation comprises three chapters that empirically investigate various kinds of market inefficiencies arising from seller misbehaviors. The first two chapters focus on physicians' overtreatment in healthcare markets. A standard reputation system falls short of effectively curbing overtreatment due to the credence-good nature of such a market: patients cannot tell whether a high-cost treatment recommendation (versus a less costly and complex treatment) is necessary even after the service is completed. In the first chapter, I propose a novel solution to reinstate the function of reputation by combining a reputation mechanism with patient search for second opinions. I conduct a laboratory …

The Effects Of Acculturation, Marianismo, And Religiosity On Pregnancy Related Anxiety In Latina Women, Jennifer M. Zanoli

Doctoral Dissertations

There is a dearth of information about pregnancy related anxiety (PRA) in Latina women, yet a growing body of literature demonstrates adverse birth outcomes for mother and infant due to PRA. This study examined the association between acculturation, religiosity, marianismo, parity, and a Latina pregnant woman’s relationship with her healthcare provider with PRA in Latina women aged 18 and above. Acculturation was expected to be the more robust factor amongst the independent variables.

Participants in this study (n = 53) were Hispanic, Chicano, Latino or had a Latin or Spanish heritage, over the age of 18, pregnant at the …

Mental Health And Experiences Of Pregnancy Among Black Women And Birthing People With Type 1 Diabetes (T1d), Madeleine E. Marcus

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explored the potential effects of intersections of oppression (i.e., anti-Black racism, diabetes discrimination, and sexism) on mental health and pregnancy experiences among Black women and birthing people with Type 1 diabetes (T1D). Previous studies about pregnancy and T1D have included mainly white, cisgender women. Three participants qualified for inclusion in the present study and participated in semi-structured interviews, which the researcher analyzed using an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) framework. Participants described feeling uncertain about whether aspects of their pregnancy experiences were related to obstetric and/or medical racism. Similarly, participants sometimes seemed uncertain about how racism may affect their …

Working With Other Immigrants Brings The Parts That I Lost Back To Me: The Experiences Of Latin American Immigrant Therapists Working With Latin American Immigrant Populations, Elizabeth P. Rivera

Doctoral Dissertations

Therapists who work with traumatized populations are vulnerable to experiencing trauma indirectly. This experience may be exacerbated for those who have experienced trauma themselves. As LatAm immigrant populations have often experienced trauma at the various migration phases, therapists who are LatAm immigrants and work with LatAm immigrant clients may also experience secondary traumatization as an inherent part of their work. While the research on secondary trauma spans decades, there is a dearth of literature on the experiences of LatAm immigrant therapists specifically. This qualitative dissertation study begins the conversation of what the lived experiences of LatAm immigrant therapists are via …

The Grindr Complex: The Behavioral Health Impact Of Sexual Racism On Latinx Men Who Have Sex With Men, Luisalfredo Plascencia

Doctoral Dissertations

Given the social history surrounding the issue of HIV/AIDS in the LGBTQ+ community and the unique and intersectional experiences that Latinx Men who have Sex Men (MSM) have in their community, this dissertation’s research will contribute to the growing work on sexual racism and how it correlates with various elements of behavioral health. The study investigated the moderation impact of Latinx cultural values of caballerismo and familismo on the relationship between experiences sexual racism to mental health symptoms. The study also examined the moderation of caballerismo and familismo and psychological flexibility on the relationship between experiences of sexual racism to …

The Mental Health Of First-Generation College Students Of Color, Devin Hallquist

Doctoral Dissertations

College students who identify as a person of color and are also the first person in their family to attend college must navigate challenges related to white supremacy, institutional racism, and structural inequality. Though the amount of research on first-generation college students of color is steadily increasing, there remains a lack of research on the mental health of these students. Through an intersectional approach, the current study explored the mental health of first-generation college students of color during their sophomore year of college. Participants in the current study completed questionnaires related to psychological symptoms, experiences of racial/ethnic stress, and ethnic …

Reconfiguring Digital Citizenship: Civic Hacking, Data Activism, And Democracy Platforms In South Korea, Danbi Yoo

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on ‘civic tech’, the global phenomenon of tech-based voluntary action of citizens emerging with the rise of the culture of openness and sharing and initiatives of open government data. What does the ‘civic’ of civic tech mean? And what makes civic tech democratic and democratizing? These questions have been rarely asked or conveniently understood with Western-based theories and cases of tech-oriented civic actions. Combining critical studies of technology and civic engagement with the emerging scholarship of digital citizenship, I use the concept of digital citizenship as a heuristic tool to examine how digital and data technologies intervene …

"The Land That Feminism Forgot": Birthzillas, Madwives, And The Politics Of Chilbirth, Amber Vayo

Doctoral Dissertations

“The Land that Feminism Forgot” is an in-depth exploration of the politics of childbirth that draws together qualitative and quantitative evidence to theorize the connections between treatment in childbirth and maternal mortality. Situating the qualitative research in the larger national context, the second chapter offers a State Reproductive Autonomy Index that provides an overview of the reproductive policy landscape at the national level. The dissertation then explores the role of institutionalized childbirth, medical mistrust, and obstetric violence in the U.S.’s longstanding maternal mortality crisis and offers policy suggestions in key public health areas. Through 120 qualitative interviews with people who …

The Evaluation Of "The Wrong Answer Project" As Validity Evidence For The Social Consequences Of Testing, Darius D. Taylor

Doctoral Dissertations

The use of educational tests for making high stakes decisions has had societal consequences for decades. Parents, teachers, and administrators have been willing to pay off, lie, cheat, and steal so that their children, students, and they themselves would not fall prey to the negative consequences of subpar performance on educational assessments. Respected psychometric scholars have supported Samuel Messick’s claim over the years, but their advocacy has caught minimal traction. I founded an initiative in 2019 – The Wrong Answer Project – that shows promise as a vehicle for collecting validity evidence based on the social consequences of testing and …

Examining Shifts In Racial Attitudes In The Aftermath Of George Floyd’S Death And The 2020 Blm Protests, Se Min Suh

Doctoral Dissertations

The killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 instigated one of the largest social movements in the United States history. Despite the wealth of research that has evaluated the efficacy of social movements using different social outcomes (Andrews, 1997; Biggs & Andrews, 2015; Branton et al., 2015; Enos et al., 2019; Gillion, 2012; Schwartz, 2016), less attention has been given to how social movements that concern racial issues impact racial attitudes (Riley & Peterson, 2020). Thus, the current research aimed to examine how Americans’ racial attitudes shifted in the period immediately following the onset of BLM protests. We …

For The Love Of Teaching: Pre-Service Teachers’ Experience Of Moral Education, Anne Marie Foley Ruiz

Doctoral Dissertations

Moral aspects of teaching arise each and every day, yet we lack information about how prepared teachers feel about this critical aspect of teaching. This multi-case study explores perceptions of five pre-service teachers in an elementary teacher education program in Western Massachusetts. A series of interviews explore their histories prior to the program and their experiences in the program as related to the pre-service teachers’ orientations to the moral work of teaching. Research questions address the awareness and self-efficacy of student teachers in implementing the moral aspects of teaching. Using Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006), this study explores beliefs …

Increasing Teacher-Student Relationships And Classroom Engagement: The Effects Of Modifying Existing Tier Two Intervention On Adolescent Students And Their Teachers, Julia Doherty

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of a Tier II behavior intervention, Check-in/Check-out (CiCo), on student engagement, and if a modification to the intervention that includes teacher use of microaffirmations improves the teacher-student relationship (T-SR) and thus, increases student engagement in class. It utilized multiple baseline design, and the study sample consisted of three fifth grade students from an urban school district in Southeastern Virginia. All three students were paired with one of their teachers to serve as the mentor for the intervention. Student engagement was measured directly using the Behavioral Observation System for Students (BOSS; …

The Role Of Trait Mindfulness, Perceived Stress, And Impulsivity In Understanding The Relationship Between Stress Mindset And Psychological Intimate Partner Aggression, Sarah Joyanna Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations

Perpetration of psychological intimate partner aggression is a pervasive health issue and has been estimated to occur in 60 to 90 percent of relationships. Effects of intimate partner violence on its victims has been demonstrated to have lasting physical and mental health issues. Psychological intimate partner aggression has been demonstrated to have particularly harmful effects, above and beyond those identified in physical intimate partner aggression. Psychological intimate partner aggression has been demonstrated to be impacted by impulsivity, stress-mindset, perceived stress, and mindfulness. The present study proposed to examine a path analysis model of the relation between stress-mindset and psychological intimate …

Sexual Violence And Psychological Distress: The Roles Of Coping Self-Efficacy, Self-Blame, Shame, Activism, And Feminism, Charlotte Strauss Swanson

Doctoral Dissertations

In the current study, we investigated potential direct, indirect, and moderated relations in the links between exposure to sexual violence and PTSD symptom severity and depression among a sample of 440 United States women who had experienced sexual assault in adulthood. We found that sexual violence exposure was both directly and indirectly related to PTSD symptom severity via less trauma coping self-efficacy, greater behavioral and characterological self-blame, and more shame. Sexual violence exposure was also indirectly related to depression via the same explanatory variables, except for behavioral self-blame. Contrary to our hypotheses, results indicated that involvement in anti-sexual activism and …

The Impact Of Guaranteed Income On Political Participation, Daniel Horn

Doctoral Dissertations

This three-paper dissertation examines the impact of guaranteed income (GI) and cash transfer (CT) programs on political participation, aiming to contribute to understanding how social policies can shape civic engagement. The first paper provides a comprehensive literature review on GI and CT programs, focusing on their potential effects on political participation. By analyzing existing studies, this paper identifies key findings and gaps in the literature, setting the stage for further empirical investigation. The second paper develops and tests a new instrument called the Brief Political Participation Scale (BPPS), designed to measure political participation concisely and reliably. The third paper presents …

A Path Model Of Scct Applied To The Rural Appalachian Community, Sean M. Murphy

Doctoral Dissertations

The current study investigates the relationship between variables in the Social Cognitive Career Theory model as applies to rural Appalachia. A path model was conducted in order to see which variables are significantly related, as well as which paths differ from the hypothesized model, in this population. Results suggest that there is a direct effect of college going self-efficacy (CGSES) on college planning behaviors (CPB), as well as direct paths from barriers and postsecondary supports (PSS) to pursuing a education after high school. Indirect effects were also found from PSS and Barriers to CPB through CGSES. Surprisingly, no direct path …

Implementing The Color Wheel System To Improve Individual Student Behavior And Reduce Repeated Teacher Directions, Jade Bennett

Doctoral Dissertations

Researchers have demonstrated the Color Wheel System (CWS) to be a resource-efficient and effective classroom management system within various contexts; however, there is limited research examining the impact of the CWS on teacher behavior (i.e., reducing repeated teacher directions) and individual student in-seat behavior. Using a withdrawal (ABAB) design, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the CWS in decreasing repeated teacher directions and increasing student in-seat behavior. Momentary time sampling was used to record individual student in-seat behavior. Frequency recording over a 20-min time interval was used to record repeated teacher directions and frequencies were …

Domestic Violence Exposure And Legal System Involvement Experiences Of Young Adults: A Retrospective, Intersectional, Qualitative Study, Amie Kahovec

Doctoral Dissertations

Youth perspectives are missing from our understanding of the intersections between childhood interparental domestic violence exposure (CEDV) legal system interactions (e.g., law enforcement). To address this empirical and practical gap, this study applies intersectionality, theoretically and methodologically, to inform recruitment, data collection, and analysis of semi-structured interviews with 10 young adults with CEDV and subsequent legal system interactions. Intersectional multilevel analysis will guide the examination of how interlocking oppressive systems at multiple levels inform CEDV and legal system interaction experiences to inform empirically grounded recommendations for legal system providers, centering the needs and experiences of youth from historically and contemporarily …

An Electronic Validation Of The Test Of Memory Malingering (Tomm), Bonnie M. Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

Within the context of a counterbalanced design, 46 students from a large state university in the southeast were administered the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) and the electronic version of the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM-E). The TOMM was developed by Dr. Tom Tombaugh in 1996 and was originally designed to be administered in a paper and pencil format. The objective of this study was to establish equivalence between the computer-administered TOMM-E and the traditional paper-based TOMM. Each assessment consists of two trials and simple random assignment was used to determine which assessment format was administered to participants first. Time …

The Impact Of Rebel Group Structure On Foreign Fighter Civilian Victimization, Jack Anthony Schwartz

Doctoral Dissertations

The modern foreign fighter (FF) came into prominence following the onset of the wars in Iraq and Syria in the early 2010s. The fact that there was a movement of over 20,000 foreign fighters to Ukraine in 2022 shows that this is a phenomenon that is not going away or slowing down. What makes this phenomenon more serious is the negative impact that FFs have on civilians. FFs have been shown to conduct disproportionate violence against the civilian population in the locations that they inhabit. For that reason, it is vital to not only understand the impact of these individuals …

Juvenile Probation Officers’ Lived Experiences Of Collaboration With Clinical Mental Health Counselors: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis., Henrietta Gantt

Doctoral Dissertations

Juvenile offenders (JO) are at high-risk due to significant mental health challenges. We review the importance of collaboration between the mental health providers and juvenile justice system (JSS) and identify that more research regarding collaboration experiences between clinical mental health counselors (CMHC) and juvenile probation officers (JPO) would be beneficial. Using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) we explored JPO’s lived experiences of collaborating with mental health professionals (MHP). The aim of the study was to unveil more nuance and description of collaboration efforts to better support JO. Our findings offer a systemic understanding of collaboration as well as the catalysts and …

Investigating The Transfer Of Learning, Psychological, And Neural Effects In Immersive Virtual Reality, Logan Taylor Markwell

Doctoral Dissertations

Achieving mastery or expertise requires a substantial amount of quality practice. Recent technological developments have introduced a novel approach to practice, virtual reality. Specifically, virtual reality offers a low-cost, customizable opportunity to practice while minimizing the risk of the individual. Given that some types of practice may not lead to the acquisition of a motor skill, or worse, lead to detriments of that skill, understanding the developing science of motor behavior in relation to virtual reality is imperative. The following literature review will begin with a brief historical account of the evolution of virtual reality. Next, some terms of virtual …

"You're Not Thriving, You're Just Trying To Survive The Environment That You're In:" Mental Performance Consultants' Narratives Of Emotional Abuse In Sport, Victoria Lynn Bradshaw

Doctoral Dissertations

Emotional abuse is defined as “a pattern of deliberate non-contact behaviors by a person with a critical relationship that has the potential to be harmful” (Stirling & Kerr, 2008, p. 178). Specifically, in the context of sport, emotional abuse is one of the more frequently occurring forms of abuse (Kavanagh, Brown & Jones, 2017; Kirby, Greaves & Hankvisky, 2000; Wilson & Kerr, 2021). Years after the termination of those emotionally abusive experiences, athletes are left to try and cope with and manage the short and long-term impacts that tend to develop as a result of repeated exposure to harmful behaviors …

Exploring Wellness Behaviors Following A Non-Death Loss Experience: A Structural Equation Model, Covington Hanley

Doctoral Dissertations

Loss and grief are inevitable aspects of the lifespan. Although non-death loss (NDL) is not a new phenomenon; it has recently entered the public knowledge. The first manuscript is a basic primer on NDL for counselors. I review the types of non-death loss experiences, grief responses, theories, and skills and processes utilized for clinical work with NDL. The second manuscript is the empirical study. In this study, I utilized structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the relationship between reactions to non-death loss (loss of control, avoidant, positive) and wellness behaviors (physical, essential, social, creative, coping), as moderated by resilience. The …

Sexual Evangelism: Youth Activism And The Fight For Comprehensive Sex Education In East Tennessee, Elena Schuch

Doctoral Dissertations

In the face of structural oppression perpetuated in part by a conservative U.S. state that limits their access to comprehensive and accurate information about sexual/reproductive health (SIECUS, 2019), each year high school students (aged 14-18) in East Tennessee are recruited by Family Futures to form a peer education/activism group promoting comprehensive sex education awareness. While youth’s participation in activism is often situated in terms of individual empowerment separate from structural forces (Watts & Flanagan, 2007; Bay-Cheng, 2017), our understanding of how youth negotiate their experiences with sex education activism as situated within larger systems is limited, particularly as youth’s voices …

Understanding Filipino Wellness: Investigating The Effects Of Colonial Mentality And Enculturation, Juliene Grace P. Fresnedi

Doctoral Dissertations

Filipino Americans are the third largest Asian American group within the United States and report significantly worse mental health when compared to other population groups. As a result of colonization by both Spain and the United States, Filipino culture has been perceived as a unique blend of cultural influences. Despite there being over 4.1 million Filipinos residing in the US there is a significant lack of research that directly investigates the well-being of this population and to what extent factors such as colonial mentality, enculturation, and generational status have an impact. The present study seeks to address this gap in …

Greenwashing “Brown Gold”: A Critical Analysis Of Anaerobic Digesters And California’S Neoliberal Environmental Programs In Wisconsin’S Dairyland, Sarah Emily D'Onofrio

Doctoral Dissertations

Large dairy farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), have turned to anaerobic digesters as the industry is increasingly pressured to find ways to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. Digesters are machines that turn animal waste from CAFOs into electricity and fuel which are then sold as “credits” in California’s market based climate change mitigation programs such as cap and trade and the low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) program. However, this dissertation not only challenges the assertion that digesters are “green,” but also that these programs are doing what they claim to do in a deregulated and re-regulated …