Digital Commons Network^™

Estimation Of The Number Of Days Required To Determine Usual Antioxidant Intakes And Assessment Of The Prevalence Of Nutrient Inadequacy Among College Students, Catherine G. Davis

Master's Theses

High intake of antioxidant rich foods has been shown to decrease risk factors of chronic disease.  Young adulthood may be crucial in establishing healthy lifestyles including adequate nutrient consumption.

The present study was designed 1) to estimate usual nutrient intakes, 2) to calculate the number of days required to estimate usual antioxidant intake, and 3) to assess intake adequacy from diet and diet + supplement sources by using the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR).  The USDA Flavonoid and Proanthocyanidin databases, food consumption data, and dietary supplement use data from 60 students aged 18-25 years at the University of Connecticut were utilized. …

'Better Make It A Double': Perceived Relatedness Increases Reported Attractiveness, Benjamin R. Ainley

Master's Theses

Sexual selection shaped psychological mechanisms in both sexes to assess potential mates for evidence of mate quality (Buss, 2005). Attraction preferences are one such mechanism (Sugiyama, 2005) and physical attraction preferences are sensitive to fitness-promoting traits present in a potential mate. Physically attractive traits are thought to act as signals of good genetic quality (Neff & Pitcher, 2005) and are preferred because of the advantage such quality bestows towards reproductive success. Specifically, genetic quality is proposed to be a biological requirement necessary for physically attractive traits to develop and be maintained (Johnstone & Grafen, 1993). Furthermore, genetic quality is heritable …

Losing The Colonies: How Differing Interpretations Of The British Constitution Caused The American Revolution, Brian M. Flint

Master's Theses

Faced with an economic crisis following the French and Indian War, the British Parliament, along with a young and inexperienced King George III changed its longstanding policy towards the North American colonies.  Prior to 1763, Parliament allowed the colonies to generally govern themselves.  After 1763, Parliament began to pass legislation aimed at increasing revenue received from the colonies.  As the colonies protested these new taxes on constitutional grounds Parliament began a process of implementing and repealing different attempts at controlling the economic system in the colonies.  Due to differing interpretations of the British Constitution regarding Parliament's authority over the colonies, …

Kickin' It With God: Clerical Behavior, Denominational Meaning, And The Expression Of Emotion In Ritual, Christopher M. Donnelly

Master's Theses

In the contemporary West, religious worship is very much a collective, guided phenomenon. Based upon interviews and participant observation in Catholic, Congregationalist, and Evangelical services, this paper examines congregant emotional displays influenced via micro behavioral techniques utilized by church officials versus macro denominational meanings during religious ceremony. In particular, the argument is made that while performance acts used by church officials do have some impact upon the emotional expression of the congregation, it is the shared meanings expressed through the denominational tradition that exercise a significant influence upon emotional displays in rituals. Therefore, while ritual is guided, it is more …

Adolescent Adjustment In Affluent Communities: The Role Of Goal Orientation And Motivational Climate, Lea Ventura Travers

Master's Theses

The goal of the present study was to evaluate potential sources of affluent adolescents' adjustment problems (i.e., depressive symptoms, anxiety, substance use, and life satisfaction). Specifically, two mediational models were proposed to evaluate how (1) parental 'goal orientation' and (2) adolescents' perceptions of 'motivational climate' in school lead to adolescent `goal orientation' and subsequent adjustment among adolescents from affluent communities. Participants were recruited from 10th grades at three schools (suburbs of Chicago, New York, Boston) located in communities where the median annual income is at least $100,000 and at least 30% of parents had a graduate degree. Participants and their …

The Highest Good And The Best Activity: Aristotle On The Well-Lived Life, Philip William Bauchan

Master's Theses

The question of how Aristotle characterizes eudaimonia, or living-well, in the Nicomachean Ethics has long been a contentious issue amongst Aristotelian scholars. The secondary literature has been roughly divided between inclusivist readers, who argue that Aristotle designates both theoria, or contemplation, and the practical virtues, and exclusivist readers, who argue that Aristotle singles out theoria alone. This thesis seeks to forge a middle ground between these two perspectives by focusing on the central claim of Book I that the eudaimonia is virtuous activity. Reading Book X in light of Book I's claim then allows one to show that both the …

Exploring The Mortality Salience Paradox: The Effects Of High-Risk Employment On Interpersonal Decision Making, Bella Etingen

Master's Theses

Past research concerning Terror Management Theory (TMT) has displayed self-esteem bolstering and cultural worldview validation to be the foundation of subconscious defense mechanisms against mortality salience (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991). Recent studies have also identified intimacy and romantic commitment as form of such defense (Florian, Mikulincer & Hirschberger, 2002). The present study examines the effects of existential terror on people's intimacy-related milestone time frames, as well as the distinction between naturally occurring mortality salience (in a sample of soldiers) and the more standard form of laboratory induced mortality salience. It was hypothesized

that employees of high-risk fields will have …

For All Time: An Examination Of Romantic Love Through Curse Tablets, Alicia Deadrick

Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the Greco-Roman amatory defixiones, or curse tablets, and binding spells from the fourth century BCE to the fourth century CE in order to investigate the existence of romantic love in the Mediterranean Basin. Binding spells provide a unique opportunity for cultural analysis, for they were popular with all levels of society, both genders and all sexualities. Three categories of amatory spells prevalent in ancient society (agoge, separation, and philia) undergo examination to establish romantic love as a sentiment separate from eros and philia and in opposition of the currently prevailing relationship theory of …

The Impact Of Instructor-Provided Lecture Notes And Learning Interventions On Student Note Taking And Generative Processing, Karen Lynn Gee

Master's Theses

While the review (memory storage) function of student lecture notes is well established, research findings on the learning benefits of actually taking these notes (memory encoding) has been mixed. The current study provided all students with a complete content outline for use in studying, so the effects of taking personal notes could be isolated. Students who received the complete outline before the lecture took significantly fewer personal notes than did students who received the outline after lecture, though both groups performed similarly on factual and application tests. Students who were directed to generate novel examples for each topic also performed …

Social Support And Gender Effects On Academic Confidence In Foster Youth, Carolyn Suzanne Gillard

Master's Theses

Finding the predictors for academic success is critical for foster youth to become productive citizens as adults. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of social support in the academic confidence of transitional foster youth. Because the literature suggests men and women benefit from social support differentially, I also examined gender as the moderating variable for social support and academic confidence. A sample of 82 foster youth (15-18 years old) from San Joaquin County's Human Service Agency volunteered to participate. Participants were given the Student Perceived Availability of Social Support Questionnaire (SPASSQ) to assess their perceptions of …

Dangerous Decor: Consumer Knowledge Of Health Risks Within Interior Spaces, Kaitlin Keith

Master's Theses

Interior décor is an ever-present part of people's daily lives. The furnishings and finishes with which people surround themselves are part of their personal expression, but these components in people's homes and work spaces can negatively affect their health. Products such as furniture and paints can contain harmful chemicals, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) so toxic they are pollutants regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. With the rise in the "green" movement, healthy and environmentally safe alternatives such as low or zero-VOC paints are becoming more available. This study assessed how aware consumers and design professionals are of environmentally …

Dialectical Tensions: Drunk Driving-Related Loss Among Emerging Adult Siblings, Krista Nilsen

Master's Theses

The longest relationship many of us will share in our lifetime is that with our siblings. Siblings sometimes experience the loss of their brothers and sisters to drunk drivers. Despite the risks associated with drinking and driving, this behavior continues to occur. This study explores drunk driving, sibling loss, and loss during emerging adulthood. This study explores the ways in which dialectical tensions and liminality take shape across educational and professional contexts when emergent adults lose her/his siblings to drunk drivers.

Two dialectical tensions emerged in this work: openness-closedness and connectedness-autonomy. Surviving siblings engage in four patterns of praxis in …

African American Community College Student Perceptions Of Mathematics Instructor Immediacy Behaviors And Perceived Cognitive Learning, Georgia Lynne Toland

Master's Theses

The purpose of this research is to examine what instructor immediacy behaviors are perceived to most positively affect the perceived cognitive learning of African American community college mathematics students. Data were provided via voluntary student surveys collected in various mathematics classrooms at two community colleges. The survey instrument was modeled from the works of Gorham (1988) and Sanders and Wiseman (1990) and included an experimental survey method of direct questioning. The perceptions of African American community college students regarding the behaviors of their mathematics instructors, along with their stated preferred instructor behaviors, produced a subset of effective strategies similar to …

Can't Sing, Can't Dance, Can't Draw: How Leisure Constraints And Negotiations Impact Midlife Women's Participation In The Creative Arts, Debra Ann Ullmann

Master's Theses

This qualitative, exploratory study involving semi-structured interviews of 12 midlife women, ages 45 to 65, sought insight into how intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural constraints, constraint negotiations, and motivations facilitate or impede midlife women's active participation in the creative arts. The data were analyzed within a socio-cultural context using grounded theory. Findings indicate that dynamic interactions involving social comparison result in judgment by others, of others, and of self. This spiraling effect is often initiated in childhood or adolescence. Once a woman internalizes the notion that she "can't sing, can't dance, can"t draw," there is seldom any attempt to negotiate constraints …

John Bell Hood: Extracting Truth From History, Thomas John Brown

Master's Theses

The year 2011 brings us the Sesquicentennial celebration of the American Civil War. Surprisingly, one hundred and fifty years later, students continue to find themselves asking many of the same questions about the great national tragedy faced during the Centennial in 1961. For example, did slavery cause the great conflict, or did constitutional questions act as the catalyst? Does the Battle of Gettysburg represent the turning point of the War, or did that occur elsewhere?

In connection with the last question, Lost Cause advocates, those great pro-Confederacy propagandists, found convenient villains to blame for the southern defeat. One of these, …

An Existential Phenomenological Examination Of Parkour And Freerunning, Jennifer L. Clegg

Master's Theses

Recently, there has been growing interest among scholars in the concept of edgework to examine voluntary risk-taking behavior. Parkour is an emerging sport that finds a nexus between transgression, risk, and accessibility that may represent a unique form of edgework. Few scholars have examined sport as an edgework pursuit, and fewer still have attempted to portray the lived and embodied experiences of edgeworkers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to expand sport and edgework research by qualitatively examining the lived, sporting experiences of parkour practitioners.

Phenomenological interviews were conducted with 11 (9 male, 2 female) intermediate-to-advanced traceurs (parkour practioners) …

Can The Fear Of Death Inspire Creativity?, Michelle Murphy

Master's Theses

The current study examined whether participant's creative performance changed after they became aware of their mortality. The main hypotheses predicted that (1) participants who have highly creative personalities would show an increase in creative performance following mortality salience, (2) participants with less creative personalities would show a decrease in creative performance following mortality salience. Highly creative individuals were distinguished from less creative individuals based on their personality composition. The Consequences Test (Guilford, 1970) was used to measure creative performance. To examine whether creative performance changed after mortality salience, participants completed Form 1A of the Consequences Test, a mortality salience manipulation, …

Polytasking And Job Stress Across Cultures, Ashwini Palekar

Master's Theses

The current study explored the relationship between country of origin and personal and organizational polytasking in relation to stressors and strains. The study also investigated how temporal incongruence could be a source of stress. A total of 440 surveys were collected from full-time employees, including Asian Indians in the USA (n= 67), Asian Indians in India (n=253), and non-Asian Indians in the USA (n= 120). Results indicate that non-Asian Indians in the USA perceive significantly greater levels of personal and organizational polytasking than Asian Indians. There were no significant differences in perceptions of personal and organizational polytasking for Asian Indians …

Understanding The Relationship Between Hyper-Violence And Educational Disparity: Listening To The Voices Of Latina Youth From Oakland, Yanira Madrigal-Garcia

Master's Theses

The hyper-violence that exists in Oakland, California, has persistently made national headlines. When examining the violence that exists in low-income urban cities, studies usually overemphasize the male experience. The studies that center on female experience usually focus on extreme cases such as gang-involved and incarcerated girls. This study foregrounds the experiences of Latina high school girls from Oakland who are "in the middle," neither gang-involved nor academic high-achievers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate: 1) how the participants make sense of and understand the violence that is present in their communities; 2) how violence impacts their everyday lives …

Performing Asexuality Through Narratives Of Sexual Identity, Janet Sundrud

Master's Theses

This thesis explores the social construction of asexual identities through everyday narrative performances and critically examines the marginalizing effects of heteronormative discourses. This thesis posits narrative performance as a framework for understanding asexual identities within a heteronormative society. Drawing upon oral history and ethnographic methodologies, this thesis examines the narrative performances of three self-identified asexuals and explores four themes within each narrative: 1) the breach of heteronormative expectations, 2) the creation of commonality among individuals within the asexual community, 3) the negotiation of heteronormative discourses within the family, and 4) the construction of future-oriented liminoid narratives of asexuality. This thesis …

The Relationship Between Diversity And Performance In Major League Baseball Teams: Conflict's Mediating Effect, Michelle Maureen Campion

Master's Theses

Diversity in the workplace is a growing reality around the world as the globalizing economy has prompted the growth of work teams comprised of individuals from diverse backgrounds with different values, experiences, knowledge, and skills. Researchers have been investigating the way diversity impacts organizational outcomes, including performance. However, it is not clearly understood how diversity impacts performance. Using data from 30 Major League Baseball teams over a two-year period, this research proposed that conflict might mediate the relationship between diversity and performance. Both diversity and performance were measured using multiple indicators. Although results did not indicate that conflict mediated the …

Exploring The Relationship Between Organizational Citizenship Behavior And Organizational Climates For Creativity, Michael Joseph Cilla

Master's Theses

Technology is growing exponentially, and there is no time to waste for organizations in designing and implementing a creative climate strategy. This study was conducted to explore the relationship between organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and organizational climates that promote creativity. By collecting data from working undergraduate and MBA students (N=201), multiple significant positive relationships were found between several of the dimensions making up both of these constructs. The results of this study show that employee perceptions of creative climates are moderately related to pro-social behaviors. For employees, working in organizations that promote a creative climate relates to having supportive social-exchange …

The Effects Of Self-Referencing On Mood And Information Processing, Michael Mehler

Master's Theses

Research in the area of attitude change has demonstrated that people can process a persuasive message in a systematic or heuristic manner. It has been shown that positive mood increases heuristic processing, whereas negative mood increases systematic processing. In the current study, we were interested in examining one factor that may increase happy people's ability or desire to systematically process a persuasive message, self-referencing. Self-referencing occurs when information is processed by relating it to oneself or one's personal experience. After a happy, neutral, or sad mood was induced, participants were exposed to a message with either self-referencing or no self-referencing …

Empathic Embarrassment Responses While Viewing Romantic-Rejection And General Embarrassment Situations, Giuliana Louise Garbini

Master's Theses

Empathic embarrassment occurs when an observer experiences embarrassment while viewing another person in an embarrassing situation. It was hypothesized that the type of embarrassment situation, the prior information provided about an embarrassed protagonist, perceived similarity to an embarrassed protagonist, ability to relate to an embarrassed protagonist, and embarrassability would influence empathic embarrassment responses. Participants (N = 208) either read a vignette containing general or specific information about a female embarrassed protagonist or received no prior information about her. They watched an embarrassment situation (romantic-rejection or general) featuring this protagonist and reported their empathic embarrassment responses. They then rated how similar …

Examination Of The Relationship Between User Participation And Technology Acceptance In Post-Implementation, Ekta Menghrajani Makhijani

Master's Theses

Implementing information technology (IT) systems to support organizational effectiveness and enhance efficiencies is increasingly costly, challenging, and has a low success rate. Many researchers have explored user technology acceptance as a key to successful implementation of IT systems. Research on characteristics inherent to the implementation process can aid interventions designed to enhance user technology acceptance. User participation is a process characteristic that has been linked to IT system success and user satisfaction before and during implementation.

Using data from 131 survey respondents, the current study investigated the relationship between user participation and technology acceptance in the post-implementation phase of an …

Moderating Role Of Justice Perception In The Relationships Between Stressors And Strains, Jashaswini Rath

Master's Theses

Various studies indicate the workplace to be an important source of stress. Researchers analyzing the relationship between stressors and strains in the workplace have urged for the need to explore various moderators that influence this relationship. The purpose of the present study was to explore whether justice perception (perceived procedural justice and interactional justice) moderates the relationship of role stressors and strains. Role stressors included role overload, role conflict, and role ambiguity. Strains were measured in terms of anxiety, general health, affective commitment, intention to leave, and job satisfaction. One hundred and fifty-five employees from three government-owned organizations in India …

Emancipatory Pedagogy Through Serialized Heuristic Reflection: Fostering Self-Awareness Of Dental Students' Prejudicial Beliefs, Deborah Narcisso

Master's Theses

This study investigated dental students' prejudicial beliefs towards underserved patient populations as an upstream constituent of provider attitudinal barriers to care. The objectives were to explore the nature of prejudicial beliefs, to assess the value of critical reflection as essential preparation for patient care, and to identify insights that would inform the preclinical curriculum that, ultimately, reduce oral health disparity.

An original reflection assignment was introduced into the preclinical curriculum of first year dental students to journal about the legitimacy of their prejudicial beliefs. Results indicated dental students identified a range of prejudicial beliefs and, through self-direction, experienced awareness and …

Evaluating Trademark Design, Katherine L. Spencer

Master's Theses

Trademarks serve as visual representations of a company's name, product, or values. This research sought to determine the effect of the application of human factors principles and graphic design principles on trademark design. A computerized questionnaire was employed to investigate the emotional impact, comprehension, and recall of trademarks based on their type (typographic elements or graphic elements), their subject-content compatibility, and their adherence to human factors and graphic design principles. Trademark type had a significant effect on comprehension of trademarks but no significant effect on emotional impact or recall. Trademarks with high subject-content compatibility and trademarks that use visual metaphor …

The Influence Of Neuroticism On Stress Perception And Its Resultant Negative Affect, Irum Saeed Abbasi

Master's Theses

There is contemporary literature reporting the role of the neuroticism (N) personality type in the stress process. People with elevated neuroticism experience more interpersonal stressors, perceive daily events as more negative, and use maladaptive ways to combat stressors. This thesis explores the influence of neuroticism on stress perception and the associated negative affect. In the current study, mood and stress perception of pre-screened college students who scored high and low on the neuroticism subscale were manipulated, with a laboratory psycho-social stressor, after their moods were initially neutralized to their respective base levels. Later, their mood and stress perception were manipulated …

The Effects Of Mere Exposure On Responses To Foreign-Accented Speech, Lea Grossman

Master's Theses

The present study examined the effects of repeated exposure to the accent (standard American English vs. Asian Indian) of a prospective college professor on participants' cognitive reactions, affective reactions, and passage comprehension. Based on data collected from 115 undergraduate students, results showed that an Asian Indian-accented professor was perceived as being less competent, less likable, but more motivated than a standard American English speaking professor. In addition, the trustworthiness of the Asian Indian-accented professor decreased over time as well as participants' negative opinions of the professor. Finally, the results of the study indicate that when listening to the professor's foreign …