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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Explaining Nuclear Rollback: Examining The Cessation Of Nuclear Weaponization In Argentina And Brazil From 1964 - 1994, Billy Michael Douglas Jan 2018

Explaining Nuclear Rollback: Examining The Cessation Of Nuclear Weaponization In Argentina And Brazil From 1964 - 1994, Billy Michael Douglas

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Seventy years after the first use of nuclear weapons in World War II, the proliferation of these apocalyptic munitions remains a key policy issue on the international stage. The available literature on nuclear proliferation suggests a strong correlation between the threat of rival a state seeking nuclear weapons and a state's own decision to pursue its own nuclear weapons. Regional rivals Argentina and Brazil both initiated nuclear weapons programs and were also developing nuclear delivery systems; however, these countries were able to step out of this dyadic proliferation spiral and renounced their nuclear weapons programs. Often assumed a success of …


Abandoned By Home And Burden Of Host: Evaluating States' Economic Ability And Refugee Acceptance Through Panel Data Analysis, Ummey Hanney Tabassum Jan 2018

Abandoned By Home And Burden Of Host: Evaluating States' Economic Ability And Refugee Acceptance Through Panel Data Analysis, Ummey Hanney Tabassum

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This research examines the relationship between the number of refugees hosted by states and the economic ability of host states by using UNHCR’s refugee data and World Bank’s GNI per capita data. To identify the relationship between these two variables, this study uses two sets of panel data covering 145-178 countries, around 43-55 years and 3000-5000 observations. For the two sets of panel data, four models are produced to test the null and alternative hypotheses. In all four cases, results show that there is a statistically significant negative correlation between the number of refugees hosted by states and GNI per …


Semantic And Structural Influences On Spatial Knowledge Acquisition, Robert B. May Jan 2018

Semantic And Structural Influences On Spatial Knowledge Acquisition, Robert B. May

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Spatial memory for the layout of large-scale environments, configural spatial memory, has typically been construed as being very structured, using something like a metric coordinate system and using environmental objects to define that coordinate system. Inside of buildings, rectangular rooms have walls at right angles that have been considered to fulfill this role. However, the influence of non-spatial factors and considerations of relatively unstructured environments have not received much attention. Semantic organization was found to improve configural spatial memory for landmark objects in rooms with walls and it was independent of the structural relations among landmark objects (Colle & Reid, …


Exploring The Social Construction Of Masculinity And Its Differential Expression In Culturally Different Populations Using A Mixed Method Approach, Bryan Davis Jan 2018

Exploring The Social Construction Of Masculinity And Its Differential Expression In Culturally Different Populations Using A Mixed Method Approach, Bryan Davis

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Previous research on gender conflict and strain quantitatively measured traditional masculinity ideology from western societal norms. The current study added to the previous research and qualitatively studied masculinity performance in men from different cultures: Black, Asian, Latino. Results from this study added to masculinity research due to the mixed method approach of both quantitative and qualitative research in males from diverse groups. Information gained from this study enabled masculinity to be operationally defined by different cultural focus groups and compared in order to explore distinct masculinity expression. Information was gained by measuring traditional masculinity ideology quantitatively on the Male Role …


Chinese Satellite Diplomacy: China's Strategic Weapon For Soft And Hard Power Gains, Nicholas Jackman Jan 2018

Chinese Satellite Diplomacy: China's Strategic Weapon For Soft And Hard Power Gains, Nicholas Jackman

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China signed its first turn-key communication satellite contract with Nigeria in 2004. The contract stipulated that China would design, build, integrate, launch, and complete in-orbit checkout for the Nigcomsat-1 communication satellite and then transfer control over to Nigeria. By 2018, China had contracted and launched another six communication satellites for various foreign customers. The customers, who are foreign governments, are geographically dispersed throughout South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The satellite sales have occurred during China's unprecedented economic growth, a time in which China has been granted additional foreign policy options as its power increases relative to others. This thesis …


With Liberty And Justice For All: An Examination Of The United States' Compliance With Rule Of Law As It Relates To Domestic And International Terrorism, Jonathan William Maze Jan 2018

With Liberty And Justice For All: An Examination Of The United States' Compliance With Rule Of Law As It Relates To Domestic And International Terrorism, Jonathan William Maze

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This study examines what factors contribute to United States' compliance with rule of law in response to terrorism. A qualitative analysis utilizing a comparative case study approach to examine the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations' response to domestic and international terrorism. This study tests what impact the location of terrorist attacks, nationality of terrorist actors, and presidential ideology have upon rule of law compliance. Results from this study illustrate the causal relationship between rule of law compliance and presidential ideology, while taking into account the impact of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.


Europe's Parallel Media Universe: Cross-National Analysis Of Populist Media Oppression In The Eu, Csongor Bajnoczki Jan 2018

Europe's Parallel Media Universe: Cross-National Analysis Of Populist Media Oppression In The Eu, Csongor Bajnoczki

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This research is to show that populist parties in the European Union attempt to oppress the traditional established media as soon as they come in to power. The multiple regressions test the hypothesis of a negative relationship between the political power of populist parties and degree of media freedom. For the assessment and clarification of the relationship between the level of media freedom and the political power of populist parties, political rights and civil liberties country scores from Freedom House's Freedom in the World reports, GDP per capita from World Bank, corruption perception indexes from Transparency International, and Grigorii V. …


Exploring The Influence Of Meditation Experience On Stress Responses And Empathy: The Mediating Role Of Self-Expansion, Jennifer N. Baumgartner Jan 2018

Exploring The Influence Of Meditation Experience On Stress Responses And Empathy: The Mediating Role Of Self-Expansion, Jennifer N. Baumgartner

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The purpose of the present research was to examine the influence of meditation experience on biopsychosocial responses to stress, empathy, and sense of self. An expanded sense of self was examined as a pathway through which meditation experience influences appraisals, affect, and empathy. It was expected that meditation experience would predict greater challenge stressor appraisals in response to an acute psychosocial stressor and associated affective, behavioral, and psychophysiological stress outcomes. In addition, it was expected that greater meditation experience would predict higher trait empathy and empathic accuracy. Participants (N = 110) included experienced meditators from a variety of practices and …


A Study Of Dementia Assessment Practices In Ohio Prisons, Elizabeth Kate Turner Jan 2018

A Study Of Dementia Assessment Practices In Ohio Prisons, Elizabeth Kate Turner

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Dementia is a chronic disorder of the mental processes generated by brain injury or disease, and is characterized by gradual, irreversible loss of memory, judgment, functional abilities, health, and identity. While dementia can occur in individuals that would not be considered "aging" it primarily occurs in people over 60 (Christodoulou, 2012). Dementia recognition and assessment in prison is currently an overlooked issue in the United States. There are few examples of research regarding best practices for addressing dementia in corrections, including the standard protocols, policies, and procedures for screening and managing the needs of inmates with dementia. This qualitative study …


The Biobehavioral Model Of Persuasion: The Role Of Cognitive Processing In Challenge And Threat Message Framing, August Capiola Jan 2018

The Biobehavioral Model Of Persuasion: The Role Of Cognitive Processing In Challenge And Threat Message Framing, August Capiola

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Persuasive messages are meant to influence people towards endorsing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors suggested in the message. However, describing the kinds of messages that are persuasive is not as helpful as understanding why certain messages are persuasive, yet others are not. The biobehavioral model of persuasion suggests that challenge-framed messages (messages that evoke low/moderate concern and high efficacy) are persuasive because they facilitate greater message elaboration leading to outcomes aligned with message suggestions. The following paragraphs outline the BMP and describe two experiments that tested the postulate that challenge-framed messages evoke greater message elaboration. In the first experiment (N = …


Politics Of International Recognition: The Case Of Aspirant States, Wais Mehrabi Jan 2018

Politics Of International Recognition: The Case Of Aspirant States, Wais Mehrabi

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Separatist polities that have managed to break away from their parent states and meet the basic criteria for statehood seek other states’ formal recognition to achieve full statehood and membership of the international society. There is no established pattern to explain external recognition of statehood empirically and theoretically. Kosovo declared independence and attained widespread recognition while Somaliland, despite successful separation from Somalia, has not. What factors explain states’ recognition decisions, or the selective conferring of recognition? The existing literature indicates that national interests, domestic politics, systematic level factors, international legal and normative standards, regime type, and identity politics shape recognition …


Revisiting Afghanistan's Modern History: The Role Of Ethnic Inclusion On Regime Stability, Rahimullah Akrami Jan 2018

Revisiting Afghanistan's Modern History: The Role Of Ethnic Inclusion On Regime Stability, Rahimullah Akrami

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This study examines the role of ethnic inclusion as a factor of regime stability in Afghanistan through an historical case analysis from 1880 until 2009. By utilizing case study research methods, the goal of the study is to examine all the past regimes in order to show whether there is a relationship between the dependent variable regime stability and the independent variable ethnic inclusion. The study assumes the hypothesis that an ethnically inclusive regime will be stable while an ethnically exclusive regime will be unstable. Five indicators are used to measure each variable respectively. Each indicator is assigned a score …


How Do Voters Decide? A Study Of The Determinants Of Voting Behavior In Ghana, Richard Boateng Antwi Jan 2018

How Do Voters Decide? A Study Of The Determinants Of Voting Behavior In Ghana, Richard Boateng Antwi

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What factors influence voting behavior in Ghana? This thesis investigates this question using a survey data conducted in four regions in Ghana. A descriptive analyses and logistic regression of the data show that candidate personality and campaign promises are the most important predictors of vote choice. The study further found that ethnic and economic variables are minor features of voting behavior in Ghana: they do not influence how the majority of the electorate make voting decisions. This finding challenges the conventional view on Ghana’s elections that presume that elections are simply an ethnic census. Additionally, the finding suggests that majority …


Too Long And Too Boring: The Effects Of Survey Length And Interest On Careless Responding, Cheyna Katherine Brower Jan 2018

Too Long And Too Boring: The Effects Of Survey Length And Interest On Careless Responding, Cheyna Katherine Brower

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Careless responding (CR), also called insufficient effort responding (IER), occurs when survey participants respond to items without regard to item content. The presence of careless responding threatens the validity of inferences made from self-report data (Huang et al., 2012; Huang et al., 2015). This study examines the effects of two proposed causes of careless responding (Mead & Craig, 2012): questionnaire length and participant disinterest. Specifically, I hypothesized that (a) questionnaire length is positively related to careless responding, (b) participant interest is negatively related to careless responding, and (c) questionnaire length has a weaker relationship with careless responding among participants who …


Japan's Article 9 And Japanese Public Opinion: Implications For Japanese Defense Policy And Security In The Asia Pacific, Julie Jo Tollefson Jan 2018

Japan's Article 9 And Japanese Public Opinion: Implications For Japanese Defense Policy And Security In The Asia Pacific, Julie Jo Tollefson

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The Asia Pacific power structure is facing numerous challenges. Scholarship demonstrates Japan has encountered arduous obstacles as it balances Chinese and North Korean activity. As Japan attempts to expand its military capabilities, polling data shows that defense policy has conflicted with Japan's citizens and neighboring countries. The focal point of these contentions is Article 9 of the Japanese constitution which restrains the Japanese military to self-defense purposes. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to revise Article 9 by 2020. However, revising Article 9 is no simple task. Research demonstrates that for decades Japanese public opinion has been opposed to the …


Comparison Of Cyber Network Defense Visual Displays, Christen Elizabeth Lopez Sushereba Jan 2018

Comparison Of Cyber Network Defense Visual Displays, Christen Elizabeth Lopez Sushereba

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This work describes an Ecological Interface Design (EID) comparison of five displays (Alphanumeric, 2D and 3D Aggregate, Radial, and Treemap) on accuracy and latency performance for simple cyber network data analysis tasks. Twenty students from the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Wright State University participated for compensation. Questions (n = 12) ranged from global to specific aspects of the data and required two types of responses: numerical estimates and binary visual judgments. EID principles of attunement and specificity (Bennett & Flach, 2011) guided the interpretation of results. Participants answered faster when the display's visual forms (vertical extent, area, or …


Red Skies: The Impact Of Environmental Protests In The People's Republic Of China, 2004-2016, Porter Lyons Jan 2018

Red Skies: The Impact Of Environmental Protests In The People's Republic Of China, 2004-2016, Porter Lyons

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How do increases in environmental protests in China impact increases in the implementation of environmental policies? Environmental protests in China are gaining traction. By examining these protests, this study analyzes forty-one protests and their impact on government enforcement of environmental regulations. Stratifying this study according to five areas (Beijing, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangsu, and Sichuan), patterns began to emerge according to each area. Employing a framework William Gamson introduced (2009), this study analyzes the outcomes of environmental contention, including the use of co-optation and preemptive measures. It finds that the success or failure of a protest has much to do with …


Symbol Grounding In Social Media Communications, Andrew J. Hampton Jan 2018

Symbol Grounding In Social Media Communications, Andrew J. Hampton

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Social media data promise to inform the disaster response community, but effective mining remains elusive. To assist in the analysis of community reports on disaster from social media, I draw on an integrated model of psycholinguistic theory to investigate the patterns by which language use changes as a function of environmental influence. Using social media corpora from several disasters and non-disasters, I examine variations in patterns of lexical choice between domain independent paired antonyms with respect to an Internet-specific base rate to determine generic sentinels of breach of canonicity. I examine social media content with respect to disaster proximity and …


Recurrence Quantification Models Of Human Conversational Grounding Processes: Informing Natural Language Human-Computer Interaction, Clayton D. Rothwell Jan 2018

Recurrence Quantification Models Of Human Conversational Grounding Processes: Informing Natural Language Human-Computer Interaction, Clayton D. Rothwell

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Human-human communication is a coordinated dance (Clark, 1996) that requires each participant to consider the other participants. The majority of this coordination centers on the conversational grounding process that develops and maintains the common ground, or shared understanding between the individuals (Clark and Schaefer, 1989). Conversational grounding is also a crucial process for human-computer interaction using language-based methods, such as spoken dialogue systems. Previous work has tied grounding processes to the performance outcomes in collaborative tasks (Reitter and Moore, 2014; Gergle et al., 2013, 2004; Clark and Krych, 2004), making it a high priority for increasing capabilities of spoken dialogue …


Safety-Net Medical Clinic Behavioral Health Integration, Melanie K. Stephenson Jan 2018

Safety-Net Medical Clinic Behavioral Health Integration, Melanie K. Stephenson

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The purpose of the study is to obtain an improved understanding of behavioral health needs and social determinants of health among the patient population at the safety-net clinic Reach Out of Montgomery County (ROMC). The aims of the study include: 1) identify valid and reliable screening tools that are appropriate for use in primary care to measure behavioral health concerns, 2) identify valid and reliable screening tools that are appropriate for use in primary care to measure social determinants of health, 3) administer the developed survey to a representative sample of patients served by ROMC, 4) conduct statistical analysis of …


Economic Statecraft And Ethnicity In China, James Bell Jan 2018

Economic Statecraft And Ethnicity In China, James Bell

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How do authoritarian states prioritize between economic growth and territorial integrity? China, as an authoritarian state, is growing in political and economic capacity. By examining challenges to China’s territorial integrity, this study examines Chinese responses to visits by the Dalai Lama with government officials in Germany and Austria, as well as official visits by Uyghur dissidents to Germany and Turkey. Analyzing quarterly trade data and specific trade sectors with author created rating schema, patterns emerge. Employing a hybrid framework introduced by Sverdrup-Thygeson (2015), this study analyzes Chinese actions against perceived offending states. This study finds that levels of threshold are …


Nationalism And Regional Relations In Democratic Transitions: Comparing Nepal And Bhutan, Deki Peldon Jan 2018

Nationalism And Regional Relations In Democratic Transitions: Comparing Nepal And Bhutan, Deki Peldon

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Democracy is facing crisis as its values including political rights and civil liberties are declining around the world. If democracy is to prevail, the reasons for the decline need to be addressed. To this end, the research question is: how nationalism and regional influences affect the political transitions of Bhutan and Nepal. The research question is answered by analyzing leadership stability, ethnicity and the caste system, as well as the roles of regional giants India and China in Bhutan's and Nepal's political transitions. The findings show that the contested conceptions of nationalism in Nepal and strong internal nationalism in Bhutan …


Sport Factors, Body Image, And Eating Behaviors In College Student Athletes, Kelsey Moran Jan 2018

Sport Factors, Body Image, And Eating Behaviors In College Student Athletes, Kelsey Moran

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Eating disorders are a common psychological disorder with athletes being at a higher risk. The rates of clinical and subclinical (i.e. subthreshold, partial diagnosis, or other specified feeding and eating disorder in DSM-5). There are several sport-specific risk factors that increase the prevalence rate of clinical and subclinical eating disorders and body image concerns. Several eating disorder development models exist for the general population, but one specific sport specific factor: coaches, has been left out, despite their significant impact on athletes. This study examined the relationship between coaching behaviors, eating disorder symptomology, and body image concerns. Potential moderators of teammate …


Development Of A Psychoeducational Parenting Group For Mothers Addicted To Opioids With Infants With Neonatal Abstinance Syndrome, Kaitlyn Marie Eichinger Jan 2018

Development Of A Psychoeducational Parenting Group For Mothers Addicted To Opioids With Infants With Neonatal Abstinance Syndrome, Kaitlyn Marie Eichinger

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Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome occurs when an infant is exposed to opioids in utero and has many associated health concerns post-partum. In the US in 2012, approximately 22,000 infants were born with NAS. Mothers of these infants have a unique set of needs that affect their ability to adequately care for their infants as they transition home with their infant after giving birth. However, few programs specifically address the needs of this population. The program described in this dissertation is based upon a thorough review of the literature and seeks to fill the gap in the available programming for women with …


The Impact Of Feminist Identity Development On The Internalization Of Sociocultural Pressures And Body Dissatisfaction, Jill R. Klotzman Jan 2018

The Impact Of Feminist Identity Development On The Internalization Of Sociocultural Pressures And Body Dissatisfaction, Jill R. Klotzman

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The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between perceived sociocultural pressures and internalization of the thin ideal and to determine whether or not high levels of feminist identity development moderate this relationship. The study also investigated the relationship between internalization of the thin ideal and body dissatisfaction and whether or not high levels of feminist identity development moderated the relationship. Two multiple hierarchical regression analyses were performed using data collected from a female undergraduate student sample (N=403) from Wright State University. These data were derived from a survey containing the Perceived Sociocultural Pressure Scale (PSPS; Stice …


A Therapeutic Storybook For Adjustment And Acculturation In Middle Eastern Refugee Children, Christina E. Zawalski Jan 2018

A Therapeutic Storybook For Adjustment And Acculturation In Middle Eastern Refugee Children, Christina E. Zawalski

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The current global sociopolitical climate has resulted in the influx of refugees to the United States from all over the world. Those coming from the Middle East represent a large portion of refugees in the U.S., and children within this group make up a large percentage. The refugee process is characterized by stressful experiences in the premigration, migration, and resettlement stages. These experiences put refugee children at risk for distress and other mental health difficulties. Refugees must learn how to adjust and acculturate once in the host country, which can be a difficult task. Teachers are in a unique position …


Determining Cutoffs For The Psychometric Synonym Analysis To Detect Ier, Tyler Barnes Jan 2018

Determining Cutoffs For The Psychometric Synonym Analysis To Detect Ier, Tyler Barnes

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The validity of individual responses is required for valid inferences drawn from data. Insufficient Effort Responding (IER; Huang, Curran, Keeney, Poposki, & DeShon, 2012) is one possible threat to individual response validity. There are many methods to detect IER, but the Psychometric Synonyms Index, despite its practical utility, is understudied. The purpose of this study is to provide recommendations for its use that are empirically grounded. Using a simulation, I found that the strength of the within-pair correlations used for inclusion into the index, the number of pairs, the type of random responding, the correlation between the pairs, the skewness …


Self-Efficacy - Performance Discrepancies: Examining How Over- And Underestimations Of Ability Progress Over Time, Kent Cooper Etherton Jan 2018

Self-Efficacy - Performance Discrepancies: Examining How Over- And Underestimations Of Ability Progress Over Time, Kent Cooper Etherton

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The current study examined how over- and underestimations of ability progress with increasing experience completing a task. Prior research has demonstrated inconsistent effects when investigating the relationship between self-efficacy and performance at the within-person level of analysis, often theorizing distinct effects of over- versus underestimating one's ability level. Thus, the current study investigated the discrepancy between self-efficacy, one's belief in their capability to accomplish some task, and actual performance levels. The current study replicated findings that self-efficacy converges on performance over time and extended prior research by demonstrating the rate of convergence might be affected by the size of initial …


Measurement Of The Propensity To Trust Automation, Sarah Ann Jessup Jan 2018

Measurement Of The Propensity To Trust Automation, Sarah Ann Jessup

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Few studies have examined how propensity to trust in automation influences trust behaviors, those which indicate users are relying on automation. Of the published studies, there are inconsistencies in how propensity to trust automation is conceptualized and thus measured. Research on attitudes and intentions has discerned that reliability and validity of measures can be increased by using more direct and specific language, which reduces ambiguity and increases the ability to predict behavior. This study examined how traditional measures of propensity to trust automation could be adapted to predict whether automation is deemed as trustworthy (perceived trustworthiness) and whether people behave …