Digital Commons Network^™

Religion, Language, Gender, And Culture: Challenges Experienced By Saudi International Students In Humboldt County, Dafer Sahab Alqarni

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The effects of culture shock on individuals living abroad are well known. Less well known, however, are the specific experiences, needs, and challenges of Saudi Arabian students studying internationally, especially in Western nations. In this study, I used qualitative research to explore the needs and difficulties of Saudi international students in Humboldt County and at Humboldt State University (HSU). Using semi-structured interviews with eight participants, diversified by gender and marital status, I provide a holistic view of HSU Saudi international students’ experiences and challenges which could help to understand Saudi students’ experiences abroad generally, and in Humboldt County specifically. I …

Fall Risk Behaviors And Intrinsic Risk Factors For Falls In Indigenous And Non-Indigenous Rural Older Adults, Andre Gallegos Bouweraerts

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The purpose of this study was to examine fall risk behaviors and intrinsic risk factors for falls in rural dwelling indigenous and non-indigenous older adults in California. Methods: Participants included 157 adults 60+ years of age (89 indigenous and 68 non- indigenous) and were recruited from advertisements in local newspapers, senior centers, and health clinics in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. Fall risk behaviors and intrinsic risk factors for falls were identified through administration of a demographic, fall risk, and physical activity questionnaire as well as the chair stand, functional reach, timed up and go, four-meter walk, and modified clinical …

And Then They Boned: An Analysis Of Fanfiction And Its Influence On Sexual Development, Lindsay M. Mixer

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The purpose of this research is to demonstrate how young adults come to understand their sexuality (from sexual and gender identities to sexual likes and dislikes) through reading and writing fanfiction. Previous studies show that fanfiction promotes non-heterosexual orientations, but little research has been done on how it contributes to overall sexual development. In conducting an online survey of fanfiction readers, I explore how fans use these works to generate an understanding of themselves as sexual beings. Explicit stories make up a sizable portion of the fanfiction available, and there is a wide range of sexual acts depicted in those …

Children's Mental Health Care Needs Assessment In Six Rural Northern California Counties, Brandi L. Goodspeed

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Mental health problems affect millions of children and adolescents each year. Furthermore, the prevalence of these difficulties may be higher among children living in rural communities. Primary care providers are playing a larger role in the treatment of mental health challenges in youth. The present study examined the experiences and knowledge of rural parents and primary care providers regarding children’s mental health care.

While providers practicing in six counties were invited, all respondents (N = 19) practiced in Humboldt County. Parents were recruited through schools which agreed to distribute the survey. Ten principals in four counties agreed, including Del …

The Entangled Student: Identity Control Theory And Student Identity, Joshua Smith

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This study examines the strengths and opportunities in applying the frame of Identity Control Theory (ICT) to understanding the first-year experiences of students in higher education. Through thirty-one semi-structured interviews with undergraduate and graduate students during their first term in the program of study, different components of the ICT model are explored and tested. Results indicate ICT is modestly effective in explaining the first term experience for these students, but could be enhanced through further development in the areas of identity connectedness, identity exploration and resources/resilience. Recommendations for higher education programming and suggestions for a potential research agenda for ICT …

Leadership And Identity Disruption, Lily Syfers

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Given that leaders have the ability to create, modify and reinforce group identity, it is important to understand the effect of leader prototype violation on the group identity, and subsequent leader preferences. An experiment (N = 191), examined the effect of leader prototype violation and self-conceptual uncertainty on evaluations of subsequent leadership. Although results did not support the primary hypotheses that the leader who was removed would be evaluated more harshly than the leader who completed term, and that under high uncertainty support for the non-prototypical candidate would increase the most when the previous leader was removed, exploratory analyses …

Differences In Hair Significance Among Black And White Women: An Exploratory Study On Black Hair, Yasmine S. Keen

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In Western culture, standards of beauty are often based on European characteristics that Black women are inherently unable to meet. African American history and anecdotal accounts suggest that hair in particular can have a significant impact on the perception and body image of Black women, though whether that impact is positive or negative is not clear. The current study takes a quantitative approach to examining women’s relationship with their hair. Black women (n = 146) and White women (n = 1,116) participated in an anonymous online survey regarding time devoted to hair maintenance, money spent on hair upkeep, …

Chicana Feminist Participatory Action Research: Collaborative Environmental Justice In The Imperial Valley And The Identifying Violations Affecting Neighborhoods Community Development Project, Kristian Michelle Salgado

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In 2007 in Imperial County, a community-based organization called Comite Civico del Valle (CCV), along with the Department of Toxic Substances, and concerned residents, created the Identifying Violations Affecting Neighborhoods (IVAN). IVAN is a community-based environmental reporting and monitoring system that is built on the idea that residents are the most knowledgeable about their environment and therefore should have a place at the table alongside environmental regulation agencies. For more than a decade, this has allowed residents to better report environmental concerns. However, for many residents there is still a lack of knowledge about how to properly utilize the IVAN …

Evaluation Of A Family Fitness Program: The Fit Fam Program, Steven Childs

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Background: One method to increase physical activity levels and overall health of children with disabilities is to involve entire families in physical activity programs. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the seven-week self-directed fitness program, the Fit Fam program. Methods: Six parents of children aged six to 20 with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) participated in a one week in-person educational fitness program prior to participating in a seven-week self-directed family fitness program in which participants utilized skills learned and a provided, individually-tailored physical activity program for their family and tracked each family members physical activity on …

Sleep Disturbances And Depression Severity In Patients With Parkinson’S Disease, Daniel Kay, Jared J. Tanner, Dawn Bowers

Faculty Publications

Objectives: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a multisystem movement disorder associated with sleep disturbance and depression. Sleep disturbances and depression severity share a bidirectional association. This association may be greater in individuals who are more vulnerable to the deleterious consequences of sleep disturbance and depression severity. We investigated whether the association between sleep disturbances and depression severity is greater in patients with PD than in matched controls (MC).

Materials and Methods: The study sample (N = 98) included 50 patients with idiopathic PD and 48 age-, race-, sex-, and education-matched controls. Sleep disturbances were assessed using self-reported total sleep time (TST) …

Black Males, Trauma, And Mental Health Service Use: A Systematic Review., Robert Motley, Andrae Banks

Brown School Faculty Publications

Objective: To systematically review the evidence of and synthesize results from relevant studies that have examined barriers and facilitators to professional mental health service use for Black male trauma survivors ages 18 and older.

Methods: A thorough search of selected databases that included EBSCO, ProQuest, and Web of Science Core Collection and careful consideration of inclusion and exclusion criteria yielded a final six studies for detailed review.

Results: Black male trauma survivors were significantly less likely to be utilizing mental health services than other sex-ethnic groups. High levels of daily crises, a lack of knowledge of steps to …

The Economics Of Entrepreneurship, Leticia Camacho

Faculty Publications

Parker (Univ. of Western Ontario, Canada) analyzes the connection between economics and entrepreneurship. Specifically, he shows how academic studies such as economics, policy, and social issues relate to entrepreneurship. The book is organized in four parts: selection (theories, empirical methods, determinants, and evidence), finance (debt, venture capital, angel finance, crowd-funding, wealth, etc.), performance (growth, job creation, innovation, survival, etc.), and public policy (policies, regulation, taxation, etc.). At the end of each, a concluding section provides a summary, a list of opportunities for future research, an extensive reference section, and an index.

You R Cute: The Influence Of Societal Perception On The Search For Online Romantic Partners, Samantha Dipiero

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

While online dating is very convenient, it causes an evolutionary mismatch, our ancestors did not have websites to search for partners. However, there are some similarities that can be seen between current and ancestral times in relation to societal perception, especially in relation to parental investment theory. Using an OkCupid dataset of 2620 questions, 166 were selected in order to evaluate how much of an influence societal perception ( the influence of family and friends, substance use, education, stigma, religion, appearance, and morals) has on searching for a romantic partner. The data was evaluated in four separate stages: Initially just …

Anarchist Identity During The Spanish Civil War, Joseph Elmo

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), anarchist groups were able to exert a significant influence in revolutionary politics through agricultural and industrial collectivization, communes, militia resistance, and participation in government. Many historians have explained anarchism through the lens of ideology, a doctrine based upon a structure of authority. This thesis, however, explains anarchist power and unity during the Spanish Civil War as a matter of identity, as a meaningful sense of self. Spanish anarchists defined themselves through the process of negation – the act of defining who you are by defining what you are not – by their opposition to …

Love, Lust, And Loss: Attachment Style And Relationship Preferences Of Okcupid Users, Sonia Figueroa

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

In this exploratory study, the responses of nearly 70,000 OKCupid users to a series of questions on the website are assessed to determine a relationship between romantic relationship preferences and attachment style. Specifically, the romantic relationship preferences were monogamy and long-term relationship preference. Four types of attachment styles are looked at in this study: secure, anxious, avoidant, and fearful. Five scales are created from the original 2,600 questions to assess relationship preferences and attachment style, with scores ranging from 0 to 1. Users were then classified into one of the four attachment styles. Attachment style of users was predicted using …

Should The U.S Organ Donation System Be Revised?, Namrata Gadela

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

In this thesis, I will explore the current organ donation process including organ matching, pre-transplant assessments and allocation of organs. In addition, I will discuss ethical principles that can be used to aid transplant teams in the difficult task of allocating of organs. I will also evaluate alternative options to the current transplant process such as an opt-out vs. an opt-in system and controlled financial payment for organs. Finally, I will analyze current policies regarding living donors and suggest avenues for future research into alternative resources for organs.

The Effect Of Mindfulness Meditation On Recognition Memory For Positive, Negative, & Neutral Stimuli, Grace Halstead

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

This study aimed to investigate whether mindfulness meditation has an effect on memory. We used free recall and recognition memory tests based on positive, negative, and neutral images to measure memory performance, and compared results between experimental and control conditions. This paper focuses on the recognition memory portion of the study. Our experimental group underwent a brief, single-session mindfulness meditation, and our control group underwent a brief, single-session mind-wandering meditation prior to being presented with the stimuli images. After being presented with the stimuli, participants underwent a distractor task, and then took the free recall and recognition memory tests. We …

To Be Decided An Animated Graphic Novel, Madison T. Hackett

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

To Be Decided begins where most stories end, with the death of a young man named Zander. The story follows his journey into the afterlife where he meets a goddess of death, a young girl who is more than she seems and some other colorful characters along the way. The story addresses ideas of grief, what it means to be alive and what comes after. Heavy moments in the story are broken up by lighthearted comedy and moments of friendship between characters. The main character of the story Zander must decide if he wishes to rest peacefully after his sudden …

Development From Cupid To Evolution: Empirical Support For Life History And Ecobiodevelopmental Frameworks, Karly E. Hauser

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Life history theory (LHT) explains behavioral, motivational, and biological variations among individuals as adaptive trade-offs between somatic and reproductive efforts. Utilizing data containing OkCupid user responses (N = 68,371) to 2,620 compatibility and demographic questions such as, “How clear to you are your goals in life?” 16 scales were constructed to measure psychological and behavioral characteristics related to the life history strategy (LHS) employed. The scales were initially examined within a ‘training’ subset of the data (n = 2,000) and factor-analyzed to determine whether they form a common underlying life history (LH) factor. Preliminary factor analytic results show support for …

Supressing Igf-R1 Signaling Pathway Rescues Neuronal Overgrowth Of Pten +/- Mice, Dalina Laffita

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Macrocephaly is a well-replicated phenotype in a subset of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Heterozygous mutation in PTEN, which encode a negative regulator of the PI3K-mTR signaling pathway, causes the macrocephaly/autism syndrome. Mice with germline heterozygous Pten deletion (Pten+/-) exhibit both brain overgrowth and social behavioral deficits. Here, we showed that reduction of Igf-1 receptor (Igf-1r), which is an upstream receptor of PI3K-mTOR pathway, in Pten+/- mice rescues the neuronal overgrowth of cortical layer V neurons, which is associated with social behavior deficits shown in the Pten+/- mice. These are promising results shows that a pharmacological agent, one that …

The Scientific And Religious Construction Of Female Sexuality, Stephanie Lazo

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

The field of biology predominantly studies the structure and function of living entities, such as the human body, while women’s studies perspectives help to show the influence of culture and power on biological knowledge and principles. This thesis analyzes the scientific construction of female sexuality through the lenses of feminist science studies. The approach provides an understanding of how such ideas are imposed on Western women in particular, and the role that such women are expected to play in demonstrating that they are virginal, chaste, and faithful/trustworthy to men. I explore both scientific and religious documents that discuss female sexuality …

Visualizing The Connections Between Three Fields Of Psychology Using Network Analysis, Randhikaa Neelavannan

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

The purpose of this research is to create a visual representation of the relationships and interactions between the fields of personality, industrial/organizational, and human factors psychology. References were pulled from select chapters of two different handbooks, the forthcoming SAGE Handbook of Personality and Individual Differences and the Oxford Handbook of Organizational Psychology, in order to create a network structure that graphically illustrated the connections between the authors and their specific topics. This structure was then compared to a pre-prepared network that was created by hand of the expectations for what the network should look like based solely on the chapter …

La Práctica De Parrhesia En Las Memorias De Prisión: Un Estudio Comparativo De La “Respuesta A La Muy Ilustre Sor Filotea” (1691) De Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz Y Detained: A Writer’S Prison Diary (1982) De Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’O, Mumbi Ngugi

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz join a world-wide tradition of authors throughout history such as Boëthius of Rome, Louis de Althusser of France, Fyodor Dostoyevsky of Russia, and Angela Davis of the United States, who have been imprisoned for their political writings, or better said, imprisoned for the subversive political implications of their writings. Sor Juana wrote in New Spain in the 1600s, during the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834). In the literary calendar relevant to this project, Ngũgĩ wrote during the 1970s in Kenya, under the scrutiny of a neocolonial state and its Vicepresident, Daniel Arap …

“Out Of Fixed Proportion, Beauty Rises”: A Review Of Mathematics In Formal Poetic Constraint, Nielander Tiffany

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

As Bertrand Russel once said, “The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry” (Russel 60). Poetry and mathematics are recognizably linked through aesthetics and counting at the most fundamental level, but these basic connections can be further extended to formal constraints in poetry. The link between mathematics and poetry, as well as formal poetic constraint based on mathematical structures and principles is inherently organic. The sestina and the sonnet are traditional poetic forms that contain intrinsic …

Effects Of Mission Trip Participation On Social Justice Attitudes And Behaviors, Courtney Noya

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Research on the effects of mission trips on social awareness, attitudes, and behaviors towards social justice has been limited. In the current study, we examined whether volunteers going on a weeklong art camp in Guatemala with a non-profit, Athentikos, would show positive changes in their social justice attitudes and behaviors. Current trip participants (n=6) completed questionnaires before and immediately following their trip, whereas trip alumni (n=10) completed questionnaires regarding one previous trip. We hypothesized that participants will report an increase in social awareness as well as feelings about and plans for social action immediately following the trip. On average, all …

Dental Fear In Adults, Meera Patel

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Many people suffer a certain degree of dental fear, commonly brought on by an earlier negative experience or by anticipated pain. Dental fear may prevent people from receiving necessary treatment, ultimately worsening their health. To investigate how dental fear is related to age, the origin of dental fear, and preference of treatment options, a self-administered research survey was conducted. The results indicate younger participants claim a lower degree of dental fear in comparison to older participants. Results also showed both negative experience and anticipated pain as origins of dental fear for individuals. Participants also responded positively to music therapy in …

Eyewitness Memory: Manner Of Motion In Perpetrator Identification, Jonathan Perry

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Eyewitness testimony is a common form of evidence in the legal system. People generally identify suspects based on characteristics such as their appearance, clothes, voice, and even writing style. But what if you could identify someone based on the way they move (e.g., the way in which they walk)? To determine if identification based on movement would be practical and legally allowed, I examined the legal implications of identification that pertain to the Fifth Amendment, as well as the appropriate scientific applicability test based on movement. I also conducted an experiment to evaluate the reliability of such identifications based on …

Immoral But Not Illegal: A Defense For Michelle Carter, Kahlil Ricketts

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Charged with involuntary manslaughter, Michelle Carter was said to have used text exchanges and phone conversations to “coerce” her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, into committing suicide. But is Ms. Carter to blame for Mr. Roy’s death? By delving into the moral concepts of duty and coercion, and theories and case law concerning manslaughter and free speech, I argue that although Ms. Carter’s actions were not morally sound that does not mean that they were illegal and worthy of punishment.

“The Poetic Ground Of Physiology”: Aesthetic And Biological Unity In British Romantic Poetry, Anna Riso

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

British Romantic poets adapted the natural-philosophical idea of “organicism”, a framework that explained life as a formative, generative power that pervades all organisms and provides unity to the parts that make the whole, as a way to judge art. The uniquely Romantic idea of organicism was defined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge as “unity in multeity” (Theory of Life, 42), which was the aesthetic ideal many poets strove to meet. I will explore how certain works in the Romantic era exemplify various aspects of organic theory, specifically: The Sensitive Plant, by P. B. Shelley, describes a personified organic force; The Botanic …

Decision-Making Games: Effects On Future Decisions Of Adolescents, Dalian K. Rivera

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

I propose research that examines whether decision making video games have positive effects on the everyday decision of adolescents. The research will be conducted on 30 adolescents/young adults, ages 18-24, who have very little gaming experience. Subjects will complete a survey examining their decision-making capabilities, problem-solving ability, and their mental speed. They will be randomly placed into two groups of 15, the experimental and the control. The experimental group will participate in an online decision-making game, Imprisoned and Alter Ego, for a total of five hours over a three-week period. The control group will not play any online games. I …