Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Trading Fat For Forests: On Palm Oil, Tropical Forest Conservation, And Rational Consumption, Cindy Isenhour

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

The longstanding butter vs margarine debate has recently become more complex as the links between margarine, industrial palm oil plantations, and tropical deforestation are made increasingly clear. Yet despite calls for consumers to get informed and take responsibility for tropical deforestation by boycotting margarine or purchasing buttery spreads made with sustainably-sourced palm oil, research in multiple contexts demonstrates that even the most aware, engaged, and rational consumers run into significant barriers when trying to reduce their environmental impacts. This paper supplements important critiques of neoliberal conservation at the site of extraction or intended conservation (Carrier and West 2009; Igoe and …

Trading Fat For Forests: On Palm Oil, Tropical Forest Conservation, And Rational Consumption, Cindy Isenhour

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

The longstanding butter vs margarine debate has recently become more complex as the links between margarine, industrial palm oil plantations, and tropical deforestation are made increasingly clear. Yet despite calls for consumers to get informed and take responsibility for tropical deforestation by boycotting margarine or purchasing buttery spreads made with sustainably-sourced palm oil, research in multiple contexts demonstrates that even the most aware, engaged, and rational consumers run into significant barriers when trying to reduce their environmental impacts. This paper supplements important critiques of neoliberal conservation at the site of extraction or intended conservation (Carrier and West 2009; Igoe and …

A Holistic Approach To The Management Of Human Consumption Towards An Economics Of Well-Being, Gandolfo Dominici, Vasja Roblek

Vasja Roblek

The goal of this conceptual paper is to draw attention to the problems caused by the rapid growth of the global economy, coupled with high population growth and excessive exploitation of natural resources. It is necessary to be aware that the global economy will not be able to grow at the actual speed in the long term. A paradigm shift in production and consumption is therefore necessary to avoid the collapse of ecosystems and the concurrent reduction of stocks of natural resources. This is the reason why capitalism has to take a new direction towards a sustainable and naturally harmonized …

Op-Ed: The Influence Of New Technologies, Foods, And Print Media On Local Material Culture Remains In Nineteenth-Century America, Marie-Lorraine Pipes, Meta F. Janowitz

Northeast Historical Archaeology

This opinion piece is a brief discussion of documentary and graphic sources, such as cookbooks, works of fiction, advertisements, and genre paintings, available to archaeologists for use in interpreting food-related artifacts and faunal materials from 19th-century domestic deposits. At that time American society experienced a surge in print and visual media that shaped the consumption and preparation of new foods. The scale of influence a particular form of media has on consumers varies in relation to the time sensitivity of the media.This article considers the range of sources that exist and suggest a comprehensive approach to the analysis of archaeological …

Automatically Measuring Individual Consumption Events During Natural Eating Using A Table Embedded Scale, Ryan Mattfeld

All Theses

This thesis is motivated to improve the tools available for tracking energy intake. The goal of this work is to develop a table-embedded scale capable of measuring the weight of individual consumption events during unrestricted eating. The method was tested on a data set gathered from 276 subjects eating 518 courses consisting of 22,383 marked individual consumption events in a cafeteria environment. Approximately 30% of the consumption events can be detected and weighed. The remaining 70% of the events occur without participants interacting with the scale or when noisy interactions with the scale prevent weight measurement. The relationship between bite …

Affluent Populations And Their Effect On Biological Diversity Through The Consumption Of Meat, Electronics, And Motor Vehicles, Melody Flores

Honors College Theses

The human has caused a far greater impact on the planet's biodiversity than any other species in existence, due to the impact of population, afflluence, and technology. This thesis will argue the importance of biological diversity and how affluent populations are reducing biodiversity through the consumption of meat, electronics, and motor vehicles. Aldo Leopold's "The Land Ethic" and Herman Daly's "The Impossibility Theorem", among others, create a rubric evaluating human activities and provide alternative views on economic impossibilities. Consumption is reviewed from an ecocentric perspective, a holistic outlook placing emphasis on the ecosystem. The reader will become cognizant of their …

Satisficing Decision Procedure And Optimal Consumption-Leisure Choice, Sergey V. Malakhov

Sergey Malakhov

The Impact Of Retirement On Subjective Well-Being, Emily Rider

Honors Theses

Using cross-sectional data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and the American Time Use Survey Well-Being Module, this paper looks at how retirement affects one’s subjective well-being. The retirement-consumption puzzle indicates that at retirement individuals discover they have fewer economic resources than they had anticipated prior to retirement. As a consequence they reduce consumption, which contradicts the prediction of consumption smoothing based on the life-cycle model of consumption. But at the same time people have more time for leisure and home production after retirement. How does this tradeoff between consumption and leisure after retirement affect an individual’s subjective well-being, …

Connecting The Dots: An Economic Study Of Parental Factors Shaping Early Childhood Cognitive Development, Bryn Alexandra O'Neill

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This study investigates how maternal and paternal employment status and educational attainment, coupled with parental time and educational inputs such as toys, books, etc. devoted to children, have impacted young children's cognitive development in the U.S. Cognitive development comprises the intellectual and conscious thinking growth that begins in infancy. It involves problem solving, reasoning and memory aptitudes and is tested for throughout each year of childhood in various ways. The impact of the use of external childcare in lieu of parental time on development is also evaluated. This paper will outline reviewed literature, a theoretical model, data discussion, model construction …

Nature Writing, American Exceptionalism, And Philosophical Thoughts In Edward Bliss Emerson's Caribbean Journal, Raúl Mayo-Santana

The Qualitative Report

Through the use of qualitative content analysis (Patton, 2002), this essay examines the philosophical thoughts presented in the journal and family letters of Edward B. Emerson for 1831-1834, written in the Caribbean while he was seeking relief from consumption (tuberculosis). The analysis focused on the themes of nature writing, American Exceptionalism, and the journal as evidence of a liminal life-death event. Edward was actively engaged in the genres of travel and nature writing, where Transcendentalist ideas were not evident. In contrast, important elements of that movement emerged in his philosophical expressions. Edward evinced an acute and creative mind until the …

Middle Class, Middle Class Women And The Meaning Of Consumption In Urban China, Dorcas Chang Ping

Dorcas Chang Ping

No abstract provided.

A Theory Of Aggregate Consumption, Yun K. Kim, Mark Setterfield, Yuan Mei

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a Keynesian model of aggregate consumption. Our theory emphasizes the importance of the relative income hypothesis and debt finance for understanding household consumption behavior. It is shown that particular importance attaches to how net debtor households service their debts, and that the treatment of debt-servicing commitments as a substitute for savings by these households creates the potential for 'sudden stops' in consumption spending (and hence aggregate demand).

Distribution And Debt: How Consumption And Household Debt Can Affect Economic Growth, Jeremy Rees

Senior Theses and Projects

Over the past 30-40 years, consumer debt has grown substantially faster than income in the United States. As a result, consumption has grown fast relative to national income. The economic growth that we have experienced in the US economy has shown to be unreliable as demonstrated by the Great Recession in 2007-2008. By creating unstable growth, consumer behavior could be an explanation behind the recession as well as the cause of future economic downturns. This paper implements a new theory of consumption practices and tests for the stability of economic growth and sustainability of consumer debt by using a neo-Kaleckian …

Exploring Customer Contexts: How A Communitarian Business Model Enables Meaningful Customer Relationships, Deirdre Duffy

Conference papers

Broadly this study explores the individual’s constructions of identity as situated within historically and locally particular cultural practices. Following this approach facilitates a better understanding of how consumers negotiate the world around them. In turn this provides marketers with valuable insights that better equip them to engage with their customers. The subject matter is the male consumer engaging in bodywork practices to construct a desired body type. The subjects are situated within two discursive regimes: practices of self-presentation and national sport. Moreover, looking across these contexts reveals situational differences that contribute further to managerial decision-making, helping build stronger customer relationships.

Reconstructing 830 Simpson Avenue; An Archaeological Investigation Of Household Life Cycles In A 19th And 20th Century Working-Class Neighborhood, Arianna C. Elm

Departmental Honors Projects

The Simpson Avenue site is a household site dating to the 19th and 20th centuries. It is located on Hamline University’s current campus in the ‘backyard’ of the White House. The site was discovered during the fall of 2013 by the Excavating Hamline History class. While our original intention was to find a shed structure pictured on an 1886 plat map, we discovered a post-hole and an intact cultural deposit. A 2x1 meter test unit and six shovel tests were conducted on the property that determined site boundaries and the vertical and horizontal distribution of artifacts and features. The excavation …

A Proposed Method To Determine Fumonisin Exposure From Maize Consumption In A Rural South African Population Using A Culturally Appropriate Ffq, Martani Lombard, Nelia Steyn, H Burger, Karen Charlton, Wentzel Gelderblom

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

To develop an FFQ for estimating culture-specific maize intake that can distinguish between home-grown and commercial maize. Home-grown maize is more likely to be contaminated with fumonisins, mycotoxins that are associated with increased risk of oesophageal cancer. An existing FFQ developed for use in urban Xhosa populations was used as the initial framework for the maize-specific FFQ (M-FFQ). The existing questionnaire contained 126 food items divided into ten food groups (bread, cereals, vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy, snacks, condiments, beverages and fat). The M-FFQ was developed based on additional data obtained from a literature search, 24 h recalls (n 159), in-depth …

Effects Of Vegetable Consumption On Weight Loss: A Review Of The Evidence With Implications For Design Of Randomised Controlled Trials, Linda Tapsell, Alicia Dunning, Eva Warensjo, Philippa Lyons-Wall, Kate Dehlsen

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Vegetable consumption is a key strategy in many weight loss programs but establishing the evidence that vegetable consumption per se assists with weight loss may be difficult. Creating a dietary energy deficit involves the whole diet, so research on the effects of vegetables may need to consider the whole-dietary model. The aims of this review were to examine the evidence on whether a higher vegetable consumption resulted in greater weight loss in overweight adults (compared to lower intakes) in view of a critique study designs with respect to their potential impact on outcomes. Using the PubMed search engine, a systematic …

Consumption Of Dairy Products And The 15-Year Incidence Of Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Bamini Gopinath, Victoria Flood, Jimmy Chun Yu Louie, Jie Wang, George Burlutsky, Elena Rochtchina, Paul Mitchell

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Habitual consumption of dairy products has been shown to play an important role in the prevention of several chronic diseases. We aimed to prospectively assess the relationship between the change in dairy product consumption (both regular fat and low/reduced fat) and the 15-year incidence of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). In the Blue Mountains Eye Study, 2037 participants aged 49 years or above at baseline were re-examined at follow-up in 1997–9, 2002–4 and/or 2007–9. AMD was assessed from retinal photographs. Dietary data were collected using a semi-quantitative FFQ, and servings of dairy product consumption calculated. Over the 15-year follow-up, there were …

Can The Chinese Economy Affect The Us Stock Market? The Case Of The 2008 Chinese Stimulus Package, Jacqueline M. Lee

CMC Senior Theses

The Chinese stimulus package of 2008 was a response by the government to rebound the second largest economy from the effects of the Global Financial Crisis. The package was one of the largest, and arguably one of the most successful, in boosting demand and spurring growth through targeting infrastructure projects and consumer spending. This paper investigates whether the package had any spillover effects on the US industrial and consumption companies with large markets in China through the time series multiple regression technique. This paper found that Chinese net exports had some explanatory power over the consumption companies, and the US …

Three Essays On Consumption, Portfolio Choice And Retirement Accounts, Pu Li

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation is mainly trying to address discrepancies between theoretical predictions and empirical stylized facts in terms of what is the optimal stock share households should hold throughout the life cycle.

Material Agency In The Urban Material Culture Initiative, Robert Rotenberg

Robert Rotenberg

This contribution to the discussion of collecting contemporary objects reviews the implications of taking seriously how and what objects communicate, especially how we can identify the ways messages are coded in the forms of familiar objects. Of special interest are the conceptual tools that are available to differentiate these messages when objects are arranged in assemblages, including emergent implicit messages, the messages implicit in sets of objects. I advocate an approach to collecting in museums based on the tactics people use to create these assemblages at home. What theorizing about material agency offers to our collection program is a focus …