Digital Commons Network^™

Nothing Monstrous Existed Here: Uncanny Nature In The Southern Reach Trilogy, Morgan Mundy

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the relationships between humans and their environments in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach series. VanderMeer, throughout the trilogy, uses the horror aesthetics of the New Weird genre to break down the barriers between human and nonhuman, natural and unnatural. By showing the characters as more aware of their status as human and the agency of the natural world around them as a result of the novels’ plot, The Southern Reach forces characters and readers alike to confront a world in which becoming something more than human might be possible and even necessary …

Examination Of Communication And Social Media Usage Among Socially Anxious Individuals, Greyson K. Young

Honors Theses

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) affects between 6.8% and 12.1% of the U.S. population. At the core of SAD is the fear of social situations, and in particular, the fear of others’ positive (FPE) and negative (FNE) evaluation. Studies have found that social media and online/indirect communication are commonly used to minimize the experience of stress, anxiety, evaluation, and rejection commonly associated with face-to-face interactions. As such, the aims of the current study were 1) to characterize communication and social media use among socially anxious college students, and 2) to examine associations between social media use and FNE and FPE. The …

Investigating The Response Criteria Shift Account For The Verbal Overshadowing Effect, Matthew C. Dean

Honors Theses

The present study investigated the impact of response criteria shift effects within the verbal overshadowing effect (VOE). Participants watched a video recording of a burglary and were then given one of two tasks: either 1.) a recall task or 2.) a non- recall task (Tetris). Participants were then shown a two-person lineup and forced to identify the burglar. The results of the experiment indicated that participants who engage in the recall task demonstrate verbal overshadowing, despite being forced to identify from a lineup. Essentially, verbal overshadowing occurs without a shift in response criteria.

A Marketing Campaign For Hunters’ Home: A Home Of Hope Through Integrated Marketing Communications: Secondary And Primary Research Studying The Target Audience, The Hunting And Conservation Community, To Create An Imc Campaign Focused On Fundraising And Awareness, Josie Corinna Slaughter

Honors Theses

Through research and evaluation of current and experimental nonprofit marketing methodologies and practices designed to raise awareness and attract donors, this project’s purpose is to define and create a marketing campaign for a children’s home, named Hunters’ Home: A Home of Hope, in Namibia. Adopted and unique strategies will be identified to target the audience of hunters to help meet the specific needs of the home, which was founded by Marina Lamprecht, a person widely known and respected by participants in hunting and conservation. To create the marketing campaign, secondary and primary research was conducted. Secondary research was done through …

The Water Changed Me As A Person: How Childhood Experiences With Water Affect Behavior And Attitudes Towards Water As An Adult, Victoria Heim

Honors Theses

This research serves to identify how childhood experiences with water impact a person’s attitudes and behaviors towards water issues later in life. Current research looks at more one-dimensional studies, such as only attitudes and behaviors from childhood, or not exploring multiple variables such as gender and community type and childhood experiences. By interviewing two distinct groups of students in terms of typical environmental attitudes and behaviors expressed by members of each group or political party, the College Republicans and the Office of Sustainability, we can see how the individual respondents from each group may have had childhood experiences that shaped …

When Words Are Not Enough: The Development Of Human Trafficking In Venezuela Under The Maduro Administration, Holly Prather

Honors Theses

This thesis discusses the role the Maduro administration has played in the development of human trafficking in Venezuela. It does so by employing a qualitative analysis of primary sources such as governmental and NGO reports to determine the links between the Maduro administration and the increase of human trafficking. I argue that the Maduro administration has chosen to employ social policy, the Misiones (Misiones), as the state’s approach to human trafficking instead of enforcing anti-trafficking laws. This, in conjunction with unsound economic policy in response to the 2014 decline in oil prices, gives the Maduro administration a substantial role in …

A Reciprocal Reaction: The Ussr Chemical Weapons Program And Its Influence On Soviet Society Through Three Civilian Groups, Yun Zhang

Honors Theses

Since its first mass application in 1915, chemical weapons (CW) have tolled thousands of lives both on and off the battle field. The USSR, despite its weak industrial basis and a late-starter in the field of chemical weaponry, held the largest stockpile of CW by the conclusion of the twentieth century. While the military and political implications of the USSR CW stockpiles have been relatively well-studied, its domestic and internal effect also deserve thorough investigations. Through diaries, letters, and memoirs of the USSR civilians who had suffered from, worked for, and/or supported the CW program, this research looked into the …

Electoral Dysfunction: Assessing State Electoral Laws And Turnout In Presidential Elections, Ellie S. Krossa

Honors Theses

Due to the United States’ shockingly low turnout in comparison to other Western democracies, many states around the country have enacted laws to increase the number of people who participate in presidential elections. Scholars have found mixed results when testing the effects of specific electoral reforms in individual states, but few have looked at comprehensive models to test the overall effects of these reforms on turnout. This thesis examines the ways in which electoral reforms across all fifty states have led to increases or decreases of turnout in presidential elections. It utilizes a comprehensive longitudinal model accounting for electoral reform …

The Enbridge Line 3 Replacement Pipeline: Attitudes, Symbolism, And Geography, Catherine W. Fraser

Honors Theses

Oil pipelines, such as the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, are increasingly controversial and contested in the United States. Since its proposal in 2015, the Enbridge Line 3 Replacement (L3R) pipeline in Minnesota has also generated considerable debate. People who support and oppose oil pipeline projects are influenced by their ideologies, core values, partisan learnings, age, identity, and place attachment, as well as their proximity to new energy projects. However, the ability of any one variable, like spatial proximity or age, to predict attitudes towards new energy projects is debated. I conducted a literature review on attitudes towards energy …

The Impacts Of Discrimination On Mental And Physical Health, Mahal Alvarez-Backus

Honors Theses

The present studies investigated the role of campus climate and discrimination on college students’ mental and physical health. Young adults completed measures that assessed their perceptions of campus climate, sense of belonging, depressive symptoms, anxiety levels, sleep quality, physical health symptoms, and experiences with discrimination. Despite the fact that there were not any differences in physical health or sleep quality, there were significant differences in phycological health, specifically with depressive symptoms. Across both studies, there were significant group differences in mental health, particularly that students of color reported higher levels of depressive symptoms than white students. Having empathetic faculty was …

A Rethinking Of Gray Asexuality: What Do We Learn From An Undefinable Identity?, Jason M. Gurevitch

Honors Theses

Gray-Asexuality offers us a paradox in understanding sexuality, since while it is posed as a middle ground between Asexual and Allosexual, it is also solidly a category of Asexuality. This poses the question of when does someone become Asexual and if they are ever interested in sex why are they not just Allosexual? While understandings of Asexuality that have excluded the Gray-Asexuality can ignore this question, including it requires asking this question, which not only requires defining Asexuality, but also more importantly requires a naming of what normative sexuality is. Within these contexts people who are Gray-Asexual engage in a …

Addressing Local Food Inequity: A Youth Participatory Action Research Project In The Alternative High School In Waterville, Maine, Aanavi Patodia

Honors Theses

Food security is a global issue. As food insecurity increases, it is continually important to find solutions. Food insecurity in the United States in children is visible is partially addressed via school programs, like the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP). This project explores food inequity in the Alternative High School in Waterville, Maine, which participates in the NSLP and SBP to reduce food insecurity. This project used a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) process to explore school meals and, to a larger extent, food equity from the Alternative High School students’ perspectives as co-researchers. Through …

Something Punny To Precede The Colon: Marking Whiteness And Exploring Blackness In Standup Comedy, Andrew Destaebler

Honors Theses

The general goal of this project is to investigate strategies and approaches used by comedians who rely heavily on racial humor in their acts. To do so, I consider the work of Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, and Dave Chappelle, all African American male comedians. The first chapter focuses on a strategy employed by all three of these comedians called “marking whiteness.” Greta Fowler Snyder coined this term in her essay, “‘Marking Whiteness’ For Cross-Racial Solidarity” (2015), and uses it to describe strategies that force the “hyper-visibility” of whiteness. This happens through the portrayal of “average” white behavior, with the understanding …

Developing A Predictive And Dynamic Moose-Vehicle Collisions Model In Maine, Yue Yu

Honors Theses

Wildlife-vehicle collisions are a major form of human-wildlife conflict. Predictive animal-vehicle collision models have been developed to identify collision hotspots in Maine and guide mitigation strategies. However, most current models are static and unable to produce dynamic forecasts that incorporate changing climate and weather. The goal of my study was to develop a predictive and dynamic model of animal-vehicle collisions in Maine, USA. More than 6,700 moose-vehicle collisions (MVC) occurred from 2003 to 2017 in Maine, raising road safety, socio-economic, and wildlife conservation concerns. I sought to identify factors that contribute to a higher probability of MVCs by comparing two …

The Read Scare: Reading Stereotype Threat In College Aged Males, Rachel A. Booth

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Neuroscience And You: A Look Into Societal Interaction With Neuroscience Both Internally And Online, Ciarra Smith

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Health Literacy On Treatment Adherence And Health Optimism In Chronic Kidney Disease Patients, Heather Gardiner

Honors Theses

Health literacy is a very critical aspect of a patient's recovery, and low levels of it have been correlated to a large range of negative health outcomes. Health literacy's effects on treatment adherence and health optimism was examined in a sample of 32 Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients who were recruited from a transplant center in the southeastern section of the United States. Participants had a mean age of 47.55, with 45.2% (n=14) of the participants being female and 54.8% (n=17) being Caucasian.The participants completed a survey, which incorporated the tools of Health Literacy Questionnaire, Life Orientation Tool, and the …

Leadership And Intergroup Relations : Which Leader Is More Favorable Or More Effective While Leading Distinct Subgroups?, Jieyi Ding

Honors Theses

While leading distinct subgroups nowadays, leaders need to address intergroup bias and establish beneficial intergroup relations. They could do so by promoting a collective identity that emphasizes commonality between subgroups or an intergroup relational identity that recognizes distinct characteristics of both subgroups and focuses on their dependency on each other as part of the identity. The research investigated the influence of leader's rhetoric and race interacting with moderators like identity distinctiveness threat on leader evaluation and intergroup bias. The results showed a complicated relationship between how much a leader was liked and how effective a leader could be.

"It's Part Of My Responsibility To Help" : Developing A Measure Of Motivations For Extrinsic Emotion Regulation, Sara Cloonan

Honors Theses

Previous research in the field of emotion regulation has largely focused on the ways in which we regulate our own emotions, but not as much work has been done to examine the processes by which we regulate the emotions of others. The current research aims to develop a measure of motivations for engaging in extrinsic emotion regulation (EER), with a focus on why we attempt to down-regulate negative emotional experiences of those around us. Study 1 used narrative responses to formulate and validate a qualitative coding schema for categorizing motives for engaging in EER. The wide variety of EER motivations …

Contextualizing Sexual Assault Data Collection On College Campuses: A Socio-Technical Approach, Anushikha Sharma

Honors Theses

Sexual assault is a rampant issue on college campuses in the United States. Colleges and universities use a variety of survey instruments to collect data regarding sexual assault as a means to improve campus culture, policies, and resources. These instruments contain a wealth of associated information in the form of metadata, that is, data about data.

This project takes a human-centered socio-technical approach to understanding the data collection processes associated with sexual assault, specifically, on the campus of Bucknell University. By identifying the underlying metadata within the data collection processes, this research contextualizes and critiques the process of data collection, …

The Effect Of Religion On Trait Priority In Potential Partners In Short And Long Term Relationships, Sara K. Glass

Honors Theses

This study builds upon previous research that demonstrates how various demographic characteristics, as well as relationship type, affects trait preferences for potential mate partners. This study also explores the potential effects of religious affiliation and religiosity on trait preferences, as no previous research explicitly tests how individuals’ religious affiliation or strength of religiosity influences their rank ordering of potential partner traits. Seven hypotheses were proposed, as well as four points of exploration regarding sexuality, relationship status, religious affiliation, and race were proposed. Hypotheses 1, which predicted that women will rank financial stability higher than men and that men will rank …

Bridging Act-R And Project Malmo, Developing Models Of Behavior In Complex Environments, David M. Schwartz

Honors Theses

Cognitive architectures such as ACT-R provide a system for simulating the mind and human behavior. On their own they model decision making of an isolated agent. However, applying a cognitive architecture to a complex environment yields more interesting results about how people make decisions in more realistic scenarios. Furthermore, cognitive architectures enable researchers to study human behavior in dangerous tasks which cannot be tested because they would harm participants. Nonetheless, these architectures aren’t commonly applied to such environments as they don’t come with one. It is left to the researcher to develop a task environment for their model. The difficulty …

Els Catalans Són Diferents: Catalan Independence Through A Cultural Lens, Maren Burling

Honors Theses

With a focus on Catalan independence, this thesis looks at how Catalans create and perform their regional identity, and how cultural symbols of Catalan society – food, sports, language, and others – are uniquely situated within the wider Spanish society. Both linguistic anthropology and symbolic/interpretive anthropology inform my writing and support my argument for the importance of language and other cultural symbols to Catalan identity, which are key to understanding Catalan separatism. My research contributes to current conversations in anthropology about the role of cultural identity in creating community. I argue that, in the Catalan case, cultural identity both shapes …

Analysis Of Dunc-13 And Its Role In The Formation Of Ethanol Tolerance In Drosophila Melanogaster, Charles Cook

Honors Theses

Alcoholism is a costly disease that is responsible for a significant portion of the global disease burden, yet there is much is left to know about how this disease develops. Tolerance plays a critical role in predisposing an individual to alcohol abuse. Recently, the active zone of presynaptic neurons has been implicated as an ethanol effector. In this study, we examined the role that a presynaptic active zone protein, Dunc13, plays in the formation of tolerance to alcohol. Dunc13 is an ortholog of mammalian Unc13-1, and through the use of Drosophila as a model system, we show that genetic reduction …

The End Times, Gunnar Ohberg

Honors Theses

The End Times is a collection of apocalyptic short stories set within the same universe. The stories employ elements of magical realism and grit lit. It is the author's hope that each story deal with at least one external societal issue (such as digital discourse and sexual aggression) and one internal psychological issue (such as depression, obsession/compulsion, and survivor's guilt). Each story is told in the first-person in an effort to best demonstrate the various psychologies of its protagonist. In these stories, God has decided to punish humanity for their transgressions. The devices of this God are fantastic: limbs disappear, …

Understanding Factors Of Sexual Behaviors In Teenagers In Mississippi, Jackson Colburn

Honors Theses

The primary purpose of this study is to determine the associations between socio-demographic factors and sexual behaviors in teens based on bivariate analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System survey for 2015. In conducting a comparative analysis of survey data for both the United States and the state of Mississippi, this study aims to depict a picture of the state of teen sexual behaviors both nationally and in Mississippi. A secondary quantitative analysis of the Mississippi survey dataset also sets out to highlight any possible significant relationships between teen sexual behaviors and certain …

Ethics In 21st Century Art Conservation: Confederate Monuments, Kate L. Hoffman

Honors Theses

This paper explores the ethics surrounding the conservation of damaged confederate monuments, specifically as educational tools for understanding their place in society and memory over time. Much of this research has been conducted through the use of contemporary news sources and memory studies scholarship on account of the recent influx of interest towards the monuments and their controversies in the 21st century. The ultimate purpose of this paper is to provide an unbiased source of material for future scholarship in memory studies towards confederate monuments, for if damages dealt to the monuments are repaired, that portion of their physical history …

Parents’ Perspectives On Early Intervention For Children With Speech And Language Delays, Alissa Ann Williams

Honors Theses

Parents play an important role in the success of a child’s language development. Further, research on early intervention has documented that parents can successfully learn and implement at-home therapy that results in positive language development of children with developmental disabilities. While the effectiveness of early intervention has been well-documented, there is little research exploring parents’ perspectives on early intervention and their involvement in therapy at home. The purpose of this study is to fill that gap by examining: 1) how informed and involved parents report feeling regarding their child’s therapy, 2) how parents perceive their relationship with their child’s speech-language …

Descriptive Study Of Reading Comprehension Skills In Individuals With Down Syndrome, Katherine Hubbard

Honors Theses

Problem Statement: Previous research has documented that individuals with Down syndrome are able to read and have identified strengths and weakness demonstrated within the reading domain, but research on their reading comprehension abilities is scarce. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze strengths and weaknesses of reading comprehension in individuals with Down syndrome, including within the word identification and language comprehension subdomains. Methods: Reading comprehension, word identification, phonological decoding, language comprehension, vocabulary, and syntax were the dependent variables in this study. Nine standardized assessments/subtests were used to measure these variables in 11 adolescents and adults with Down syndrome. …

It's Not Just "Skin Deep": Social Anxiety And Anxiety Sensitivity In Adults With Psychodermatological Disorders, Lauren E. Ellison

Honors Theses

Anxiety contributes to dermatological conditions and, due to the visible nature of skin conditions, social anxiety is particularly salient to dermatology patients. Although many dermatology outpatients report clinically significant social anxiety symptoms, there is little understanding of social anxiety among dermatology patients. Anxiety sensitivity (AS), or the fear of the consequences of anxiety, has been implicated in both social anxiety and dermatological symptoms. To this end, this study aimed to further elucidate the relation of social anxiety and AS among skin disease in two separate samples of individuals with psychodermatological conditions. We hypothesized that AS social, but not physical or …