Digital Commons Network^™

Truth, Justice, Boobs? Analyzing Female Empowerment And Objectification In The Graphic Novel Genre, Trisha L. Crawshaw

Research Papers

Female representation is a problem within the graphic novel genre. Positioned to sell as profitable commodities, women in this genre are grossly misrepresented, sexualized, and objectified. While many scholars acknowledge a problem with these debasing marketing techniques, few have critically analyzed the ways in which we sell the female body in graphic form. My project addresses the issue of female representation with special attention to body commodification. Capitalizing on my time spent working at a local comic bookstore and a series of twenty in-depth interviews that I conducted with comic book readers; I draw from a series of personal field …

Genetic Influences On Peer And Family Relationships Across Adolescent Development: Introduction To The Special Issue, Lisabeth Fisher Dilalla, Paula Y. Mullineaux

Articles

Nearly all aspects of human development are influenced by genetic and environmental factors, which conjointly shape development through several gene-environment interplay mechanisms. More recently, researchers have begun to examine the influence of genetic factors on peer and family relationships across the pre-adolescent and adolescent time periods. This article introduces the special issue by providing a critical overview of behavior genetic methodology and existing research demonstrating gene-environment processes operating on the link between peer and family relationships and adolescent adjustment. The overview is followed by a summary of new research studies, which use genetically informed samples to examine how peer and …

Scholarly Program Notes On The Graduate Recital Of Richard Lisenby, Richard Lisenby

Research Papers

This is a broad study of the repertoire preformed at the Graduate Recital of Richard Lisenby on April 19^th 2015. The research in this paper covers biographical information for each composer as well as a general look at larger works and musical analysis of the individual pieces.

A Comparison Of Weekly Physical Activity Levels Of Cancer Survivors And Caregivers, Jordan D. Kurth

Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Physical Activity And It's Effects On Sensory Processing In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Houston D. Walker

Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Examining The Influence Of Goal Clarity And Contingent Rewards On Job Satisfaction, Benjamin J. Koehn

Research Papers

Improving the performance of public organizations has been, and continues to be, a central concern in public management. However, relative to the private sector, the tools available to the public manager for enhancing performance are somewhat limited. This paper examines two techniques for enhancing individual performance, setting clear goals and offering contingent rewards. I use data collected by the United States Office of Personnel Management to test two hypotheses. The results indicate that setting clear goals and offering contingent rewards both increase job satisfaction, an important attitude linked to job performance. However, setting clear goals more prominently influences job satisfaction …

Teaching Professional Networking: Students Building Contacts Outside The Classroom, Jeffery D. Kaufman, Malar Hirudayaraj, Barbara Hagler

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

This pilot study implemented a method for teaching professional networking to college business communication students. The method introduced students to data on new college graduate unemployment and underemployment, research on methods for filling open positions, and the concept of six degrees of separation. Where most examples of professional networking instruction in prior research took place exclusively in the classroom, this method required students to make and track contacts in their chosen professional fields. Student reactions were captured in reflection papers and an open response survey and analyzed qualitatively using coding and similarity comparison (Boeije, 2010). Responses were not overly surprising …

2014-2015 Annual Report, Southern Illinois University Board Of Trustees

Annual Report Archive

No abstract provided.

Siu Alumni, Siu Alumni Association

SIU Alumni Magazine

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Pretend Play Processes And Anxiety, Ashlee L. Weaver

Honors Theses

The current research was designed to examine how pretend play is related to anxiety. This relationship with pretend play needs more investigation in order to be able to assess and identify those with anxiety. This is important because pretend play could be used as an intervention to reduce anxiety. It was hypothesized that pretend play is correlated with anxiety; if a child has better pretend play skills, parents are more likely to rate their child’s anxiety lower than parents of children with poorer pretend play skills. The current study examined cognitive and affective play processes, which include organization, imagination, comfort …

Women In Medicine: Past, Present, & Future, Ryleigh S. Livingston

Honors Theses

Women have been healers throughout history, even dating back to ancient Egypt and Greece, but it is only recently that they have been accepted into mainstream Western medicine. This research examines women and their role in healing and healthcare from ancient Egypt and through the Middle Ages, focusing mostly on Western medicine, but also looking at Eastern traditions in medicine in the world of Islam and China. The second part of this project details the creation and execution of an event hosted by the author and her co-chair La'Mayah Hodges for Women's History Month and the research that was presented …

An Examination Of The Moderators To The Effect Of A Brief Mindfulness Intervention For Acute Pain, Daniel J. Pineau

Honors Theses

Mindfulness interventions are becoming used more often in numerous therapy protocols for people suffering from mental illness as well as physical stressors. The current study aims to assess the effectiveness of a brief (15 minute) mindfulness intervention, and its effect on how tolerant participants can become of a cold-pressor task. We aim to look at not only the effectiveness of the treatment itself, but also possible moderators to the effectiveness of said treatment. Two moderators that will be analyzed are general levels of distress intolerance and emotion regulation skills. Our hypothesis firstly will analyze whether or not brief mindfulness interventions …

Examining The Genetic And Environmental Relationship Between Parent Personality And Childhood Deviance, Alexandra B. Willis

Honors Theses

The purpose of this project was to examine the relations between parent personality and child externalizing behaviors (e.g., acting out, aggression). To do this, parent personality, child temperament, and externalizing behaviors in children were examined. To further understand the role of genetics vs. environmental influences, identical (MZ; monozygotic) twins and fraternal (DZ; dizygotic) twins were compared. This allowed the percentage of the relation that was due to shared environment between the parent and the child versus the percentage of the relation that was due to genetic commonalities between the parent and child to be examined. For this study, archival data …

The Relation Between Self-Reported Alcohol And Cannabis Use And Prospective Memory In College Students, Emily Koberstein

Honors Theses

Emily Koberstein, Stephanie Clancy Dollinger, Ph.d, & Sherrie Parks, M.A.

Department of Psychology

The Relation between Self-Reported Alcohol and Cannabis Use and Prospective Memory in College Students

The aim of this study is to see if there is a relation between drug use and prospective memory performance. Prospective memory is the ability to remember to do something in the future and is a vital aspect of everyday living. Prospective memory can be broken down into short-term, long-term and event-based or time-based components. Most research on prospective memory has primarily examined differences between young and old adults (e.g., Einstein & McDaniel, …

Development Of A Novel Portable Signal Acquisition Device For Use In Local Mining Industrial Applications, Jacob Walker

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Pre-Service Teacher Perspectives On Bullying By Middle School Girls, Nicole Lyn Stoodley

Honors Theses

The present study focuses on pre-service teacher perspectives of bullying in schools, specifically on the prevalence, characteristics, and interventions of bullying by middle school girls. Participants in the Teacher Education Program of Southern Illinois University Carbondale completed a questionnaire that asked them to estimate the prevalence of bullying by girls compared to that of boys and to identify the specific behaviors that characterize bullying by girls. They described their obligations to address bullying in school and provided identification and intervention strategies. The results show that female pre-service teachers overwhelmingly report that bullying by girls is more common or considered crueler. …

An Overview Of Cancer Care And Survivorship: Advocacy For The Strong Survivors Program, Hollis Johnson

Honors Theses

With many lives affected by cancer every day, research and resources are used extensively to enhance patient quality of life. With medical advancements continuing to develop, attention to the psycho-social needs of cancer survivors is often neglected. Survivorship programs aid cancer survivors and their loved ones in creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. These organizations drastically improve quality of life and create a community of understanding among survivors. In particular, the Strong Survivors program utilizes community resources and student involvement to offer nutrition information and exercise guidance to cancer survivors and their caregivers. This program has greatly impacted the Southern …

Landscapes From The Road, Darren B. Schroeder

Theses

LANDSCAPES FROM THE ROAD In this paper I will discuss the images from Landscapes From The Road and how they function within a canon of landscape. I will discuss these images in relation to traditional romantic and pastoral constructs of landscape as well as the ways in which the images formulate landscape as uniquely and materialistically contemporary. I will discuss landscape as a concept related to the contemplation of the Sublime, renewed individuality, and its contemporary treatment as a location of transactional and material interest. I will contextualize the images of Landscapes From the Road as representing a more inclusive …

Causes Of The Decline In The Loss Of Vegetated Palustrine Wetlands In The U.S. 1955 - 2009, Roger Kent Wiebusch

Dissertations

By 1980, the United States had lost over 50 percent of its original wetland resources. The U.S. National Wetland Inventory estimates that 95 percent of annual wetland losses since 1955 occurred to palustrine wetlands. The majority of these losses occurred to the three types of palustrine vegetated wetlands: emergent, forested, and shrub. The primary cause for wetland losses from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s was agricultural conversion supported by federal agricultural policies, especially the Agricultural Conservation Program that provided significant direct and indirect support for wetland conversions. The rate of converting wetland to agriculture has declined since the mid-1950's with …

Race, Socialization, And Civility: Interrogating The Communicative Construction Of The White Habitus, Charles Kyle Rudick

Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation project was to understand how institutions of higher education, through both punishments and rewards, ensure that dominant cultural codes are "taught" to students of color in ways that normalize whiteness ideologies. I wanted to understand racism in higher education through the lens of socialization to show the ways in which institutional members (un)intentionally conflate dominant cultural codes with the "correct" or "normal" way to think, act, or speak. Furthermore, I was interested in the ways that students of color take up, defer, resist, adapt, mix, subvert, and/or accommodate the institutional practices that (re)produce racial power …

Transgender Identity And Media In Historical Perspective, Melanie L. Bilbrey

Honors Theses

Despite recent advances in the public sphere, the transgender community remains vulnerable and underrepresented in daily life. While the media has been fascinated with transgender stories since the 1930s, these stories have been skewed in ways that undermine what it truly means to be a transgender person living in the contemporary United States. The disconnect between dominant media narratives and the daily lives of transgendered people is harmful, because it shields the mainstream from the harsh realities of every day life for these individuals and allows violence, discrimination, and transphobia to continue. This study analyzes the growing visibility of the …

The Effects Of Parental Divorce On Young Adults Attitudes Towards Divorce, Cierra Branch-Harris, Amber Cox

Honors Theses

Participants will be students taking an Introduction Psychology course at a large Midwestern University ages 18-25 years. Participants will be evaluated on their attitudes towards marriage based on their parents' marital status. The measures being used in this study are the Attitudes toward Marriage Scale (Kinnard & Gerrard, 1986), Attitudes towards Divorce Scale (Kinnard & Gerrard 1986), Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale (Seid & Fincham 1992), Couples Satisfaction Index (Funk & Rogge 2007), Commitment Scale (Rusbult, Kusashiro, Kubabcka & Finkel 2009), and Adult Romantic Attachment Questionnaire (Frayler, Waller & Brenan 2000) . We hypothesize that parental divorce will have …

The Production Of Arabic Geminate Stops By English Learners Of Arabic, Ahmed Saad Almutiri

Theses

This study aims to investigate the developmental ability of beginning and advance L1 English learners of Arabic to pronounce standard Arabic geminate consonants when enrolled in a full time L2 program. The results showed that English learners produced shorter closure duration when pronouncing geminates. In particular, the beginners lengthened singletons more than the advanced learners did, while both groups of learners shortened geminates much more so than native speakers of Arabic. The advanced L1 English learners of Arabic produced longer geminate duration than beginners. The ultimate result was a smaller ratio between singleton and geminate consonants in comparison to native …

Coeffects Of Experience And Professional Interest On Slps' Assessment Of Chronic Aphasia: A Correlational Survey Study, Alivia Rachelle Berry

Theses

Abstract Background: Aphasia is a commonly treated language disorder; however there is discrepancy among professionals regarding classification and assessment practices (Code & Petheram, 2011; McNeil & Pratt, 2001). Current research focuses heavily on acute treatment; chronic aphasia is severely under-represented. A review of the literature revealed a wide array of standardized and non-standardized tests used to evaluate both acute and chronic aphasia cases. Overall, there appears to be variance in evaluation practices, especially among SLPs (Bland et al., 2013). Aims: The present study aims to quantify two variables that may account for this inconsistency in evaluation procedures: 1) years of …

Can Distractibility Facilitate Recall In Older Adults? The Role Of Affect And Hyper-Binding, Cassandra Dinius

Theses

As people age, they attend to and recall positive stimuli at a higher frequency than stimuli that is negative in valence. This `positivity effect' of older adults has been repeatedly demonstrated in the fields of human attention and memory. Studies have yet to examine the positivity effect within the realm of attentional inhibition, which was the focus of the current study. In the current study, both young and older adults were shown emotional images. These images varied in valence (negative, neutral, positive) and were superimposed with emotional words (also varying in valence). In the Adaptive condition of the study, participants …

Should Hate Speech Be Constitutionally Protected?, Leonard C. Simpson Ii

Research Papers

This research examines why hate speech towards minority groups, or individuals is constitutionally protected, while defamatory speech towards individuals is not protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. There are laws prohibiting racial and sexual harassment in an education setting or workplace environment, as well as libel and slander laws that punish defamation of someone’s character. Defamation, like hate speech, can originate from a place of hate. Why isn't hate speech automatically considered unprotected speech under the First Amendment, just like defamation?

Lexical Knowledge Of Verb-Particle By Saudi English Learners, Fadwi Waleed Alturki

Theses

Verb-particle constructions are one of the most complex components of the English language. Understanding and producing such difficult constructs in a second language (L2) is a challenge for L2 learners of English. This research was based on the study by Blais and Gonnerman (2013). The purpose of the current study was to measure American and Saudi participants' sensitivity to the degree of semantic similarity between verb/verb-particle constructions. The survey of similarity ratings was administered to 107 American native English speakers and 67 Saudi English learners. The participants were asked to rate 78 items based on their knowledge of the semantic …

Harlem In Shakespeare And Shakespeare In Harlem: The Sonnets Of Claude Mckay, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, And Gwendolyn Brooks, David J. Leitner

Dissertations

This study responds to the need for an understanding of the relation of form and political critique within the sonnet form, and hopes to demonstrate that the sonnet can be used to effectively articulate the experience of racism, especially the Du Boisian concept of "double- consciousness," a sense of two-ness born of being both black and American. The fundamental structure of the sonnet (octave, volta, sestet) is dialectical; it "contests the idea it just introduced" (Caplan, Poetic Form: An Introduction 75). The sonnet's self-reflexive structure has been adopted and adapted by poets such as McKay, Cullen, Hughes, and Brooks. The …

Romantic Recultivating Of Self And Environment, David R. Schrappe

Dissertations

My project discusses the important philosophical role that interacting with nature (as opposed to having limited access to nature preserves and the like) plays in the life of an individual. As such I discuss the biological implications for experiences of real (as contrasted with simulated) nature and, in so doing, also discuss the connection of biology to philosophy. I go on to discuss the sociological and psychological ramifications of this interactive relationship through notions such as love and community and their ties to philosophy. I then close with a discussion of the necessity of artistic expression and how those endeavors …

Effect Of Conflict On Team Performance And Satisfaction Among Health Profession Students, Jeffery D. Kaufman Ph.D

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

Objective: This study continues prior research investigating the relationships between task conflict, relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction within teams of students in programs that tend to matriculate to healthcare professions. Background: As the use of teams both in practice and education continues to increase, understanding how conflict impacts team processes becomes ever more important. Methods: Student teams (n = 47) completed two different decision tasks as well as instruments that measured their individual levels of perceived task conflict, relationship conflict and satisfaction with their team. Results: No significant relationship was identified between either types of conflict …