Digital Commons Network^™

The Social Capital Of Decision-Making Groups, John J. Schibler

Open Access Dissertations

The manuscripts that follow explore various aspects of bonding social capital--how it is formed, how it influences performance, and how it can be measured. The first manuscript examines bonding social capital as a dependent variable. I review the underlying theory of social capital and explore the concept in the context of Top Management Teams (TMTs) including how bonding social capital emerges from the relationships among group members. Based on this theoretical foundation, I advance propositions on how organizational, team, individual and temporal factors influence its formation. The second manuscript explores group bonding social capital as the independent variable. Using the …

Older Adult Alcohol Misuse: Attitudes, Knowledge, And Support For Prevention Policies And Practices Among Aging Services Practitioners, Crystelle A. Egan

Open Access Dissertations

Alcohol misuse is prevalent among older adults and is projected to increase. Alcohol misuse includes: 1) at risk consumption patterns and 2) problem use already resulting in negative consequences. An increase in alcohol misuse prevention efforts targeted to adults 65 and older is necessary to address this public health issue. Aging services practitioners are key gatekeepers to the older population, yet anecdotal discussion in the research literature suggests that negative attitudes about older adult alcohol misuse (denial, fatalism, and therapeutic nihilism) may decrease their likelihood of supporting prevention efforts. A national sample of 136 Resident Service Coordinators completed an online …

Cambodian And Laotian Americans' Cultural Values And Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Services, Manivone Thikeo

Open Access Dissertations

Several studies have reported that Asian Americans, including Cambodian and Laotian Americans, tend to under utilize mental health services, both inpatient and outpatient although they display high levels of psychological problems related to significant psychological trauma experienced in their native land or while living in refugee camps. Underutilization may not be related to the lack of need but it may relate to cultural factors such as shame and stigma as well as acculturation and lack of health insurance. Although some Asian American research about help seeking exists, no previous research has specifically addressed this question with a Cambodian and Laotian …

Extreme Group Comparisons: Nature, Prevalence, And Impact On Psychological Research, David C. Ahern

Open Access Dissertations

Normative comparisons for psychological and neuropsychological measures, as well as predictions made from studies of specific populations, suffer when such groups are improperly constructed. It was posited such inappropriate group formation is common in psychological science, partly from a between-group failure to identify the clinical distinction of interest, and in part from a within-group failure to mirror the characteristics of the overall population by placing undue emphasis on group purity (that is, exclusion of participants with comorbid conditions). Furthermore, participants are often selected for group membership due to the extremity of the condition, eliminating diagnostic ambiguity but sacrificing generalizability to …

The Role Of Pedagogical Documentation In Developing Young Children's Thinking Processes, Leslie A. Sevey

Open Access Dissertations

This study examines the role of pedagogical documentation on young children's thinking processes. Pedagogical documentation is utilized as part of the Reggio Emilia Approach for several purposes, such as assessment, curriculum planning, and instructional accountability. This study was conducted in a kindergarten classroom that utilizes the Reggio Emilia Approach, at a laboratory school on a college campus. Acting in the role of participant observer I spent nine weeks observing and at times interacting with the students as they engaged in activities involving science kits. I specifically looked at the experiences of the children as they interacted with the pedagogical documentation, …

Flight Of The Mind: Reading Virginia Woolf Reading, Maria Chiancola Glade

Open Access Dissertations

Virginia Woolf was always a voracious reader, and the act of reading was for her both labor and pleasure, both an act of understanding and an act of production, and it was always already entangled with the act of writing. A record of her notes taken while reading exists, though unpublished and understudied, and these notebooks offer Woolf scholars access into the mind of the author at the moment of creative inception. Arguably, the extant sixty-seven notebooks, available at the Sussex University Library and the New York City Library's Berg Collection, offer a vast collection of material and a rich …

Taking Stock Of The Warehouse Cooperative School: A Personal Inventory Of The Formation Of Adolescent Subjectivity In The Context Of 1970s Alternative Education, Theo Greenblatt

Open Access Dissertations

Constructed according the conventions of a subgenre the author defines as "formation text," this creative non-fiction work is an experiment in form that addresses the experimental coming of age of a subject within an experimental era and within the more specific context of an experimental education. Playing off the name of a school the author attended in the 1970s, The Warehouse Cooperative School, its structure employs a series of lists, both organizationally--as a textual version of inventorying, and as metaphor for storage and retrieval of memory. As an overt challenge to the bildungsroman, and its unacknowledged influence on contemporary memoir, …

The Effect Of Perinatal Morbidity, Child Health And Maternal Influences On Social Competence At Age 12 Years In Formerly Preterm Infants, Nicole C. Smith

Open Access Dissertations

Prematurity is a national problem with rates climbing to the highest levels in four decades. Social competence is a critically important skill for children to master in order to become socially competent adults. Social competence is not fully studied in children born prematurely. Yet they are at risk for poorer social competence due to their physical, cognitive, motor and developmental difficulties. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of perinatal morbidity, child health, and maternal influences on social competence at age 12 in a sample of formerly preterm infants and a full term comparison group. Two hypotheses …

The Moving West: The Formation Of The American Midwest Through Westward Expansion, Erin Presson

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

An Environment For Stroke Therapy Game Authoring, Simon Tam

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Stroke is the leading cause of disability in the industrialized world. The disabilities caused by stroke can significantly impact the quality of daily life for stroke survivors. Studies show that a high number of daily body movement repetitions can help recover lost motor functionality. However, many stroke patients do not perform the home exercises needed to reach this high number of repetitions. Games for rehabilitation have been shown to provide motivation to perform home exercises. However, because stroke can leave survivors with different levels of disability, custom games are required. Creating custom games, though, is time consuming and requires advanced …

O Corpo Do Brasil: The Role Of The Brazilian Body In The Art Of Ernesto Neto, Samantha Wilson

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

An Image Never Reaching The Perfect, Yuanyuan Wang

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

My thesis seeks to take several concrete texts to examine this ΓÇ£new womenΓÇ¥ genealogy in modern Chinese literature, analyze the differences and development of such an image, and argue that because all the new women images in modern Chinese literature are created with the writersΓÇÖ certain purpose, they can never be ideal or perfect. They all have some drawbacks, and we could not even find one till today.

Textural Functions In Schoenberg's Second Chamber Symphony, Zachary Colonius

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

Envisioning Morality In Times Of Dynastic Change, Huan Jin

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The emphasis placed on morality became increasingly remarkable during late imperial China, especially at the junctures of dynastic change. This thesis explores the problem of the construction of morality, and I focus on two plays in which the idea of morality is presented in complicated ways: the late Yuan play Pipa ji τÉ╡τÉ╢Φ«░: The Lute) which primarily circulated during Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the early Qing play Taohua shan µíâΦè▒µëç: The Peach Blossom Fan) which deals with the late Ming period. In this thesis, I primarily treat these two plays as texts, and I try to answer how ideas …

The Pursuit Of Accreditation In Children's Mental Health Care: Motivations, Experiences, And Perceptions, Madeline Lee

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Accreditation is a growing, worldwide phenomenon and thousands of mental health organizations spend considerable amounts of money and resources towards achieving and maintaining accreditation. Despite its widespread use, the empirical and theoretical literature on accreditation is sparse. This study is the first step towards examining accreditation's potential as an organizational intervention to improve the quality of mental health services. Using a mixed methods multiple case study design, this exploratory study aimed to 1) understand agencies' motivations to pursue accreditation, 2) explore agencies' experiences with the accreditation process, 3) identify mental health care workers' perceptions of how the accreditation process may …

Predictors Of Intercultural Competence Among International Volunteers, Benjamin Lough

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

International volunteering and service: IVS) has the potential to promote intercultural competence, or "the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based on one's intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes": Deardorff, 2008: 33). Although conditions of IVS vary greatly across program models, nearly all claim that volunteering will increase intercultural competence. Contact theory, transformative learning theory, and various stage theories of intercultural learning all suggest, however, that cultural contact will only improve a volunteer's intercultural competence under certain conditions. This dissertation builds on previous scholarship by isolating four characteristics that vary across institutional models, and testing how these variations …

Cultural Anxieties And Institutional Regulation: "Specialized" Mental Healthcare And "Immigrant Suffering" In Paris, France, Stéphanie Larchanché

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This dissertation looks at "specialized" mental healthcare expertise in France as a lens through which to address the institutional management and representations of cultural difference in France today. By "specialized" mental healthcare centers, I refer structures that provide culturally-sensitive mental health services to immigrants specifically. I identify and explore three contemporary expert approaches: namely, transcultural psychiatry, clinical medical anthropology, and ethnoclinical mediation. By providing a genealogy of specialized mental healthcare institutions, and by construing them as "meta-discursive nodes"--that is, as points of encounter between state, institutional, and individual ideologies--I provide an analysis of the cultural anxieties, contradictions and double-binds that …

An Investigation Of The Cognitive And Perceptual Mechanisms Involved In Mania-Proneness, Kimberly Mercer

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The present research investigates the cognitive and perceptual mechanisms involved in mania-proneness. Building on the work of Depue and colleagues: Depue & Iacono, 1989; Depue & Zald, 1993) and Gray: 1994), which identifies links between the Behavioral Activation System: BAS) and the symptoms observed in mania, this research investigates the hypothesis that people who are prone to mania exhibit cognitive and perceptual biases in information processing when presented with achievement-oriented stimuli both at baseline, and after the receipt of a reward. These hypothesized biases were measured via an affective flanker task, a suboptimal priming task, and a judgment task about …

Reducing False Hearing In The Elderly: Variability Training In Meta-Audition, Chad Rogers

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

A large body of work supports the conclusion that older adults derive more benefit than young adults from the addition of contextual information in speech perception: Hutchinson, 1989; Pichora-Fuller, Schneider, & Daneman, 1995; Pichora-Fuller, 2008). More recent work by Rogers, Jacoby, and Sommers: in prep) showed that when contextual information and sensory information favored competing responses, older adults were more likely to falsely "hear" the word favored by context. The current research describes two experiments that attempt to mitigate this age-related increase on contextual reliance. Experiment 1 assessed whether the effects of context in Rogers, Jacoby, & Sommers: in prep) …

A Processing Approach To The Working Memory/Long-Term Memory Distinction: Evidence From A Levels-Of-Processing Span Task, Nathan Rose

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Recent studies have raised questions about the extent to which working memory: WM) is dissociable from secondary or long-term memory: LTM). Although many similarities may exist between immediate retrieval on WM span tasks and delayed retrieval on LTM tests, important differences exist as well. To illustrate this point, Craik and Tulving's classic levels-of-processing paradigm was adapted for use in a WM span task: Participants made visual, phonological, or semantic judgments about 33 words using the same stimuli and instructions as Craik and Tulving: 1975), but were to recall words immediately after every 3 or 8 words: rather than after all …

Response Mapping In Evaluative Priming, Laura Scherer

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Recently, Scherer and Lambert: 2009) proposed a new model of priming, which they called the Response Mapping: RM) Model. That model assumes that under some circumstances, priming effects are the result of an unintentional tendency for participants to impose the target categorization task onto the primes: which they are supposed to ignore). In the present dissertation, the RM model is reviewed, and the implications and boundary conditions of the model are explored. In Experiments 1 and 2, it was predicted and found that response mapping processes can result in evaluative conditioning effects. That is, priming tasks do not always simply …

Implementation Of Hypertension Treatment Recommendations, Veronica Shead

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

There are currently lifestyle modifications and medications that are highly successful in controlling hypertension. Nevertheless, many hypertensive individuals do not implement lifestyle changes and fail to adhere to medication regimens. The current study sought to understand both sociodemographic and intrinsic factors associated with the implementation of recommended lifestyle modifications for treatment of hypertension. The study represents the first step in the application of the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills: IMB) model of health behavior and health promotion to hypertension. The primary goal was to provide a profile of the variables relevant for adherence to the multifaceted treatment recommendations for the hypertensive population. 151 …

The Ethics Of Forcible Democratization, David Speetzen

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Recent wars have led many to believe that the promotion of democracy cannot justify foreign intervention, but this is rash. A government's right to non-intervention should hinge on whether it adequately: 1) protects its subjects' human rights and: 2) represents their collective political will. I argue that when and where the international legal system's ability to enforce human rights matures and the social conditions for better representation emerge, the standards for adequate protection and representation should rise. Since democracy significantly augments both functions of government, eventually the right to non-intervention should depend on maintaining democratic institutions. Failure to do so …

Implicit And Explicit Racial Attitudes: Moderation Of Racial Typicality Evaluations, Elena Stepanova

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Previous research has shown that racial images representing more typical Afrocentric phenotypic characteristics result in more negative evaluations, whether assessed by explicit or implicit attitudes measures. However, the factors that define and moderate the perception of racial typicality have not been sufficiently explored. The current research investigated additive and interactive influences of skin tone and facial physiognomy on racial typicality evaluations, as well as the degree to which those effects were moderated by explicit and implicit racial attitudes, ethnicity of participants, and availability of cognitive resources. Using a 6-point scale ranging from very African American to very Caucasian, participants: N …

Accounting For Mysteries: Narratives Of Intuition And Empiricism In The Victorian Novel, Brooke Taylor

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This dissertation explores the tensions between an empirical epistemology and an intuitive method of knowing the world as depicted in popular Victorian novels. These narratives attempt to assimilate alternate modes of understanding; however, the uneasiness of the relationship between empiricism and intuition speaks to larger cultural tensions about the possibility of reconciling fact and feeling in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. I argue that intuitive and imaginative modes of cognition are continually privileged in novels that explicitly claim to adhere to empirical forms of knowledge. As I examine the work of Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, and George …

Organizational Processes Contribute To The Testing Effect In Free Recall, Franklin Zaromb

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

In educational contexts, tests not only assess what students know, they can also directly improve long-term retention of subject matter relative to restudying it. More importantly, the memorial advantage of testing is not limited to select information that was tested earlier. Research has shown that testing can serve as a versatile learning tool by enhancing the long-term retention of non-tested information that is conceptually related to previously tested information; stimulating the subsequent learning of new information; and permitting better transfer of learning to new knowledge domains. We further investigated the potential benefits of testing on learning by asking whether testing …

The Healthy Emotional Reliance Scale And Deconstruction Of Dependency: A Latent Variable Model Of Relationship Functioning In Female Couples, A. Cassandra Golding

Open Access Dissertations

The current study was designed to meet two overarching goals. The first goal was to test an empirical and theoretically driven structural model of dyadic dependency and relationship functioning for female couples. This model tested mediating pathways between early life experiences: negative family environment and childhood sexual abuse (CSA), outcome variables: relationship functioning (i.e. communication style, power equality, relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and domestic violence) and psychological symptoms (i.e. depression, anxiety and somatization). Mediating latent variables included adult sexual victimization, dyadic dependency, social support and identity. The second goal was to establish support for construct validity of the Healthy Emotional …

Relationship Between Psychosocial And Interpersonal Factors And Implicit Sex-Submission Associations In Hispanic/Latina And White Women, Myriel Rodríguez Boissén

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate implicit sex-submission associations for Hispanic /Latina and White women. Furthermore, this study examined how childhood sexual abuse, anticipated negative partner reaction-refusal, psychosexual functioning, sexual assertiveness-refusal and communication, and hyperfemininity are associated with women's implicit sex-submission associations. These interpersonal and psychosocial factors were analyzed for Hispanic/Latina and White women to help us determine if these associations are found for two different groups of women.

Previous research has demonstrated that individuals associate sex with power and aggression at an unconscious level (Bargh et al., 1995; Mussweiler & Forster, 2000; Zurbriggen, 2000). For men, implicit …

Effects Of Attention Allocation On Habituation To Food Cues In Normal Weight And Overweight Children, Vandana Aspen

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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Effects of Attention Allocation on Habituation to Food Cues in Normal weight and Overweight Children by Vandana Passi Aspen Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology Washington University in St. Louis, 2010 Professor Denise Wilfley, Chairperson Despite the rising prevalence of pediatric overweight, minimal research has been conducted to understand the basic biological processes underlying overweight in children. The present study assesses changes in physiological response: i.e., salivation) to food over time. The primary aims were to examine whether salivation patterns in children vary based on weight status and/or allocating attention to a distracter task. It was hypothesized …

Now That's Promising: A Social Influence Model Of Innovation Evaluation, Peter Boumgarden

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Identifying and investing in innovative initiatives is a fundamental challenge for individuals in the contemporary organization. And yet, while we know a good deal about the psychology of innovation evaluation, we know decidedly less about how such processes are influenced by the formal and informal structures within which individuals in this setting operate. To address these limitations, I first draw from work on the psychology of idea evaluation to identify and develop a heuristic of evaluation relevant to the evaluation of innovation--that of an initiative's promise. I then suggest that such promise evaluations will be simultaneously influenced by the formal …