Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Presidential Popularity And The Linear Model, April Gosser

Honors Theses

Since the 1970's, much research has been done in an attempt to determine variables that cause decline of the president's popularity. Although there are different studies that give various reasons for the decline of the president's popularity, all agree that there is a trend of decline over the president's term. To represent the decline, James Stimson suggested a parabola model, whereas John Mueller suggested a linear-regression model. This paper attempts to show that a linear-regression model is more effective in explaining decline of the presidents from Truman to Johnson, than from Nixon to Bush. The findings show that a linear …

The Paths To Democracy In The Czech Republic, Allison Allred

Honors Theses

All of Europe strains for unity, yet Czechoslovakia willingly and peacefully divided itself into two nations on January 1, 1993. Czech Republic and Slovakia share many common interests and a powerful kinship that promotes alliance even under separate flags. The following quote demonstrates the unique history of Czechoslovakia from the perspective of an 80 year-old Czech citizen:

"Look, I was born in Austro-Hungary. I grew up in Czechoslovakia, suffered from Germans, spent 50 years in a colony of Russia--without ever leaving Prague! Now, we're Czechs again, like we've been for a thousand years. What's so bad about that?"

In sociological, …

Identifying Chaos In Human Interactive Decision-Making, Susan E. Rhoads

Honors Theses

Human subjects played two computer versions of the Prisoner's Dilemma (Poundstone, 1992). By varying the payoff scales and instructions, one version of the game encouraged competition whereas the other encouraged cooperation. The data were entered into a computer program capable of generating a Sierpinski carpet with strings of random variables. The completion percentage of the resulting carpets indicated the degree to which the game-specific interactions approached chaos. The Sierpinski carpets resulting from the cooperation games showed significantly higher completion percentages than the carpets resulting from the competition games. Because chaotic behavior is unpredictable in the stream of its occurrence, research …