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What The Tortoise Said To Kripke: The Adoption Problem And The Epistemology Of Logic, Romina Padro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In chapter 1 I introduce the main topics to be addressed and provide a summary of the dissertation. In chapter 2 I summarize Lewis Carroll's famous note "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" and briefly review some of its most influential interpretations. The rest of the chapter is devoted to Kripke's unpublished interpretation of Carroll's note and the moral he draws from it: in section 2.2 I present and discuss what I call the "adoption problem" and in section 2.3 I clarify certain aspects of it. In chapter 3 I consider a modification of the original set up of the …

Risk Factors And Costs Influencing Hospitalizations Due To Heat-Related Illnesses: Patterns Of Hospitalization, Michael T. Schmeltz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The objective of this dissertation was to identify individual and environmental risk factors, investigate outcomes and hospital resource use, including costs, and document the pattern of heat-related illness hospitalizations in the United States. The main data source for the study population was the 2001-2010 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS). The study population for heat-related illnesses (HRIs) consists of patients in the NIS with at least one diagnosis of a heat-related illness (ICD-9 codes 992.0 - 992.9) from 2001 to 2010. Outcome analysis included a study population of patients who had primary or secondary diagnoses of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory illnesses, nephritic …

Unhappy Together: Chinese Diaspora In Film, Jo Hsin Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The lives of people who move from one culture to another are similar in the range of experiences they encounter and different in how they interact with their particular circumstances. Cinematic representations of diaspora, accurately enough, also show general similarities and specific differences. In light of the concept of "accented cinema," we can compare and contrast film descriptions of Chinese immigrants in New York City. We view day to day events as they are interpreted by the host culture and we also understand that immigrants define their own experiences in terms of their home culture.

Two directors who are veterans …

Reflective Functioning In Patients With Panic Disorder With Or Without Agoraphobia: An Examination Of The Effects Of Comorbid Personality Disorders, Tempe Watts

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined reflective functioning (RF) in patients who experience a combination of panic and personality disorders (PD). Despite broadly accepted beliefs that comorbid personality and Axis I disorders indicate poor prognosis, limited research has examined how these two axes interact within a panic disorder population. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders typifies personality disorders as fitting different clusters categorization: cluster A referring to "odd" personality disorders, including schizoid, schizotypal and paranoid PDs; cluster B referring to "dramatic" personality disorders, including borderline, narcissistic, histrionic and antisocial PDs; and cluster C referring to "anxious" personality disorders, including avoidant, dependent …

"I Shall Not Fear:" Secure Attachment To G-D As A Buffer Against Anxiety, Peryl Agishtein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Religion has a long and mixed history in the field of psychology. Historically, some leading figures in the field viewed religion as a source of neuroses and poor mental health; others saw a more positive spiritual resource. Recently, empirical data on religion and mental health has proliferated. There is now consensus that religion is associated with lower depression. However, the link between religion and anxiety is less clear-cut. This paper proposes that a) religion can have exacerbating or alleviating effects on anxiety depending on which aspect of religion is being studied and b) the primary religious variable that affects anxiety …

Street Code Adherence, Callous-Unemotional Traits And The Capacity Of Violent Offending Versus Non-Offending Urban Youth To Mentalize About Disrespect Murder, Zoe A. Berko

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

National statistics are not available on the proportion of violent juvenile offenses driven by the experience of being disrespected. However, the New York Police Department estimates that about 40% of the city's shootings involve members of violent crews of 12 to 20 year olds with most of this gun violence driven by incidents of disrespect. Mentalization, defined as the ability to envision mental states (i.e., feelings, beliefs and intentions) in oneself and others, is viewed as underlying affect regulation, impulse control, self-monitoring, and the experience of self-agency, all of which are implicated in interpersonal violence (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, & Target, …

The Philosophical Side Of Contemporary Art Forms, Kristina Bodetti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this project is to show that contemporary art forms, specifically popular music, film and comics/graphic novels, are capable of, and do in many cases work as philosophical pieces. I believe that an analysis of these mediums will reveal instances in which the works of art explicate established philosophical theories, expand upon them, and in some cases invent new theories.

Each new medium of art gets examined by philosophy in its turn and its merits as a unique art form are debated. From these arguments it is possible to extrapolate the ways in which these works can become …

The Sadistic Reader: Gender And The Pleasures Of Violence In The Novel, Pamela Burger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project seeks to explain the prevalence of narratives that feature sexual violence against women in the tradition of the Anglophone novel. To this end, it posits the existence of a sadistic reading practice that coincides with readers' sympathetic identification. A sadistic reader takes pleasure in the bodily violation of the woman at the center of a novel; such a reader enters the text expecting violence, and experiences a sense of narrative gratification when the inevitable violation plays out. These expectations emerge from repeated interactions with a literary tradition in which victimized heroines are routine. To explore such sadism, I …

Use Of The Modified Emotional Stroop Task To Detect Suicide Risk In College Students, Yeunjoo Chung

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It is a challenge to detect those who are at potential risk for suicide because the base rate of suicidal behaviors in non-clinical samples is low. The aim of the present study was to investigate the concurrent and predictive validity of the emotional Stroop task (EST) as a behavioral marker for suicidal behaviors in a college population. Eight hundred and twenty students were asked to perform the EST and to respond to suicide-related self-report measures and were followed up with18 months later. The results indicated that participants with past suicide attempts had longer response latencies to the word "suicide" as …

The Contributions Of Earl "Bud" Powell To The Modern Jazz Style, David Joseph Demotta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an analytical study of pianist and composer Bud Powell's contributions to modern jazz (a.k.a. bebop or "bop"), focusing especially on the rhythmic and harmonic implications of Powell's improvisations. The analysis is informed by a series of interviews with professional jazz musicians and is supported by original notated transcriptions of Powell recordings. The aim of this project is to present a cogent technical and theoretical account of Powell's musical style that is grounded in the values of the contemporary jazz community and reflects that community's continued passion for and engagement with Powell.

Chapter One, "Contemporary Pianists and Bud Powell's …

Telework And Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: The Underexplored Roles Of Social Identity And Professional Isolation, Lauren Mondo Kane

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although telework--a flexible work arrangement in which employees work from a remote location at least some of the time--has been increasing in practice, little research has investigated its implications for employee behaviors and performance. The main focus of this study was to identify the mediating processes that explain the relationship between telework frequency and OCB performance, and to determine whether personality moderates the psychological consequences of teleworking. Survey data were collected from 286 teleworkers and 62 of their coworkers across organizations from a range of industries, jobs, and locations. Coworkers were recruited in order to assess teleworkers' OCBs, but OCBs …

Mental Representations, Social Exclusion, And Neurobiological Processes In Borderline Personality Disorder: A Multi-Level Study, Jeffrey K. Erbe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is an ongoing public health crisis. Poor developmental quality of differentiation-relatedness of object representations and attachment insecurity have been clinically and empirically demonstrated as core patterns of intrapsychic and interpersonal dysfunction in this particular form of personality pathology. Differentiation-relatedness (D-R), which involves a complementary relationship between intrapsychic autonomy and interpersonal relatedness, has been shown to be a significant aspect of internal psychic experience that relates directly to external relationship patterns, including characteristic response to interpersonal interactions and has been a specific target for treatment of BPD. Specifically, individuals with BPD have shown lower developmental quality of …

Depressives And The Scenes Of Queer Writing, Allen Durgin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation attempts to answer the question: What exactly does a reparative reading look like? The question refers to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's provocative essay on paranoid and reparative reading practices, in which Sedgwick describes how the hermeneutics of suspicion has become central to a whole range of intellectual projects across the humanities and social sciences. Criticizing this dominant critical mode for its political blindness and unintended replication of repressive social structures, Sedgwick looks for an alternative in what she calls reparative reading . Past attempts to expand on Sedgwick's brief yet suggestive remarks regarding reparative reading have foundered due to …

Re-Considering Female Sexual Desire: Internalized Representations Of Parental Relationships And Sexual Self-Concept In Women With Inhibited And Heightened Sexual Desire, Eugenia Cherkasskaya

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Psychoanalytic and sociocultural thinkers and researchers suggest that the etiology of low female sexual desire, the most prevalent sexual complaint in women, is multi-determined, implicating biological and psychological factors, including women's early relational experiences and sexual self-concept that stem from gender dynamics of a patriarchal culture. Further, recent studies indicate that highly sexual women exhibit heightened sexual desire, and high levels of sexual agency and sexual esteem. The study evaluated a model that hypothesized that sexual self-concept (sexual subjectivity, self-objectification, genital self-image) explains (i.e., mediates) the relations between internalized representations of parental relationships (attachment, separation/individuation, parental identification) and sexual …

Characterization Of Somatosensory Processing In Relation To Schizotypal Traits In A Sample Of Nonclinical Young Adults, Maureen Patricia Daly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A core feature of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) is a basic sensory (e.g., visual, auditory) processing disruption, yet few studies have examined somatosensation. The current dissertation project examined somatosensory processes among individuals at varying degrees of psychometric risk for psychosis using tactile texture and spatial discrimination and letter recognition tasks. Differential patterns of associations of somatosensory abilities with schizotypal trait dimensions (positive, negative, disorganized), independent of anxiety and depressive symptoms, and the relative contributions of bottom-up (peripheral and morphologic features) versus top-down (error types) processing were examined. It was hypothesized that: 1) performance on somatosensory tasks would account for significant …

'Like Iron To A Magnet': Moses Hayim Luzzatto's Quest For Providence, David Sclar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a biographical study of Moses Hayim Luzzatto (1707-1746 or 1747). It presents the social and religious context in which Luzzatto was variously celebrated as the leader of a kabbalistic-messianic confraternity in Padua, condemned as a deviant threat by rabbis in Venice and central and eastern Europe, and accepted by the Portuguese Jewish community after relocating to Amsterdam. Using unpublished archival documents and manuscripts, as well as rare printed books, I seek to reconcile the seemingly incompatible aspects of Luzzatto as 'heretic' and 'hero.'

Chapter one sets the tone for the dissertation by analyzing the original version of …

Dynamics And Divisions At The Salons Of The Rose-Croix: Statistics, Aesthetic Theories, Practices, And Subjects, Mary Slavkin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A variety of alternative Salons arose in France following the demise of the official Salon. Within this phrenetic climate for alternative exhibition venue creation, Joséphin Péladan founded the Salons of the Rose + Croix (1892-1897). He framed the Salons as ideologically unified exhibitions at which idealized works focusing on spirituality, tradition, and beauty would engender social reform by encouraging a decadent society to focus on timeless poetic and mystical ideas. Nevertheless, in practice the Rose + Croix functioned mainly as an exhibition venue for artists whose work only loosely responded to the established platform. The exhibited works reveal some overlap …

Psychic Collapse And Traumatic Defense: How The Mind Mediates Trauma Living In The Body, Patricia Kim Yoon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this exploratory study was to link psychoanalytic theories of trauma and its impact on the mind with psychobiological research of how trauma lives in the body. The study has expanded on prior research (Cramer, 2003) to evidence that defense mechanisms do in fact moderate the relationship between stress and physiological response, and that there are likely individual differences in physiological response to traumatic stress. This study goes further to identify the psychological concomitants of these individual differences within an adult population exposed to potentially traumatic events (PTEs), and their proclivity for using different defense mechanisms. Defense use …

A Behavioral And Biopsychological Investigation Of The Role Of The Illusion Of Control And Perseverative Chasing Between Problem And Non-Problem Gamblers, Brett Evan Bauchner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The illusion of control is associated with problem gambling. The perception that one is in control of a random event, when in reality there is no control, can facilitate problem gambling behaviors. The degree or extent of control may activate physiological mechanism of increased excitation and reward that reinforce gambling. In the studies presented here, performance on simulated gambling tasks that provided varying levels gambling participation were compared to physiological measures of behavioral activation in problem gambler and nongamblers. Participants watched video clips of three horseraces scenarios that permitted different degrees of participation and control over wagering. Concurrently saliva samples …

Exploring The Illusion Of Transparency When Lying And Truth-Telling: The Impact Of Age, Self-Consciousness, And Framing, Jason Mandelbaum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Individuals often overestimate the ability of others to accurately determine their internal states. This illusion of transparency has been shown to manifest itself in everyday scenarios, including when people are asked to estimate if others can tell when they are lying. Yet it has not been observed when truth-telling, nor investigated developmentally. The current experiments tested for an illusion of transparency when individuals were truth-telling and lying and investigated how a participant's age, dispositional self-consciousness, situational self-awareness and how questions were framed impacted the strength and prevalence of the illusion of transparency.

In Experiments 1 and 2, children and adolescents …

The Effects Of Environmental Enrichment On Abstinence And Relapse Using An Animal Conflict Model, Joshua Alan Peck

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Heroin addiction is a significant health and societal problem for which there is no effective and well-accepted long-term behavioral or pharmacological treatment. Therefore, strategies that prolong heroin abstinence should be the primary focus of heroin treatment research. There is promising evidence that environmental enrichment may indeed support drug abstinence in animals using the reinstatement model of abstinence and relapse. The current studies used an animal conflict model that captures the aversive consequences of drug seeking (as are typical in humans, e.g., arrest, incarceration, job loss, and strained social relationships) to test the effects of environmental enrichment on heroin abstinence, prolonged …

The Relationship Of Adaptive And Pathological Narcissism To Attachment Style And Reflective Functioning, Petra Vospernik

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined the relationship of adaptive and pathological (grandiose and vulnerable) expressions of narcissism to attachment style and the capacity for reflective functioning (RF). Narcissism serves a relevant personality construct in clinical theory, social psychology and psychiatry but remains inconsistently defined across these disciplines. Theoretical accounts support the notion that attachment difficulties and maladaptive patterns of mentally representing self and others serve as the substrates for narcissistic pathology but are less pronounced in adaptive narcissism. A multiple regression analysis was conducted in a college student sample of 345 participants applying a cross-sectional, survey design. It was hypothesized that pathological …

A Gift We Can't Keep Giving: An Analysis Of The Prevalence And Consequence Of Educators' Unpaid Labor, Jared Martin Hanneman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Unpaid labor by educators is an important topic of social inquiry. With over half of all urban teachers leaving the profession within five years, it is of vital importance to examine the current U.S. educational system and take steps in minimizing the teacher burnout and attrition that is so costly to both students and the educational institutions. Most of the previous literature on unpaid labor focuses on domestic labor in the home rather than work performed by an employee above and beyond their ordinary contractual obligations - either by arriving early, staying late, or bringing work into the home. With …

Work-Life Experiences For People With Mobility Disabilities In New York City, Jessica A. Murray

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Work-family (or work-life) studies aim to measure interactions between the realms of work and home. It is necessary to examine these interactions within a broad context to understand external sources of tension on the work-life dynamic, including environmental, economic, and political factors. Exploratory interviews were conducted with participants of working age with a mobility disability, and when applicable, their significant others. Questions focused on work, home and transportation environments. Using Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, a model of contextual issues was constructed as the basis for an in-depth analysis of work-life issues for people with a mobility disability. Contextual research and …

Implicit Bias About Disabilities: Does It Exist For Forensic Interviewers And Could It Affect Child Credibility Decisions In Child Abuse Investigations: An Exploratory Study, Elizabeth Reiman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research project considered two questions regarding forensic interviewers: Do forensic interviewers hold implicit biases toward people with disabilities? If so, could this influence whether a forensic interviewer finds a child with a disability believable? To examine these questions, a quantitative exploratory study was conducted. Using an online survey, participants were randomly assigned to read a scenario about a child's disclosure of sexual abuse (children with and without a disability), and respond to questions about the believability of the child. Participants then completed an adapted version of the Disability Attitude Implicit Association Test (DA-IAT). The results yielded four significant findings. …

Intra- And Intergenerational Effects Of Migration And The Role Of The Psychosocial Environment In The Development Of Perinatal Depression, Hannah R. Simons

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Perinatal depression is a significant public health issue that affects women and their families. Studies conducted outside of the United States (US) have found a higher prevalence of perinatal depression in immigrant compared to native-born women. US studies have been less consistent but have relied on convenience samples and lacked appropriate comparison groups.

Objectives: To characterize the relationship between migration to the US and risk for perinatal depressive symptomatology and to examine the role of the post-migration psychosocial environment on the occurrence of perinatal depressive symptoms.

Methods: The dissertation used two data sources, the NYC Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring …

Constitutively Embodied Emotions, Daniel Shargel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My primary thesis is that emotions are partially constituted by bodily states. My view derives from the James-Lange tradition, but contrary to Neo-Jamesian theories, I claim that emotions are partially constituted by integrated peripheral bodily states and brain states, rather than bodily perceptions. This view may seem vulnerable to two obvious critiques: emotions, unlike bodily states, have intentional objects, and neuroscientists have already identified the neural basis of emotions, so there is no reason to look for constituents outside of the brain. I argue on the basis of social psychology research that emotions are not intentional states, since they do …

Public Space--Urban Spaces Of Multiple And Diverse Publics, Antti Moelsae

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Shopping centers, hotel lobbies and - as was recently reported - McDonald's restaurants have been appropriated as social and political spaces by the public, but then encounter resistance by the owners of those spaces. Shopping centers, which have come to replace urban public space around the world, are notorious for limiting the modes of use and actively prohibiting forms of political expression. The legal status of commercial spaces that substitute for traditional public spaces is still unclear. Much of the critique of privatization of public space has been directed towards these enclosed spaces, the ownership of which is unambiguously private. …

Moral Inscriptions: Politics And The Rhetoric Of Responsibility, Steven Pludwin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation advances two interrelated claims. First, I examine the concept of responsibility and show how it operates as a rhetorical form that mediates a large segment of political life. Framing responsibility as a distinctly political problem, I argue that it functions to produce, discipline and govern subjects as well as legislate forms of identity, difference and community. Second, I argue that the definitional space of responsibility is not sacred, but contested. It is within this contested space that political battles regarding how we ought to understand the world and what it means to live in common with others plays …

Essays On Savings Behavior Of Low-Income Households In Colombia, Luz M. Salas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I designed and implemented a Randomized Controlled Trial to study whether relatively simple modifications to how a commitment savings product was framed and labeled could affect savings accumulations and other outcomes of low-income individuals in newly formed Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) in Colombia. Motivated by hypotheses from behavioral economics, the experiment tests hypotheses that behavioral responses should vary depending on whether subjects are led to label and create `mental savings accounts' in private or public ways. Individuals in the private-labeling treatment groups were led to label their savings as earmarked for a particular purpose and to state savings …