Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Media And The Shooter Bias: Investigating The Relationship Between Implicit Racial Biases And News Coverage, Matthew Charles Phelps

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Abstract

Past research has suggested that the media is likely to depict Black individuals in a more negative and/or threatening manner than White individuals (Dixon & Linz, 2000; Sommers et al., 2006). Additionally, past research investigating the effect of race on the decision to shoot or not shoot in a simple shooter videogame suggests that people are both faster and more accurate when deciding to shoot armed Black targets and when deciding to not shoot unarmed White targets (Correll et al., 2002). This phenomenon is known as shooter bias. This study investigated the effect of media exposure, specifically exposure to …

The Effects Of Autobiographical Growth Narratives On Math Performance In Women, Eva Briana Frishberg

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Women suffer from the negative stereotype that they are innately worse at math compared to men, which contributes to a gender gap in math fields (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999). However, this stereotype has a greater negative impact on women with fixed mindsets, who believe that intelligence is inflexible and innate (Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002). Mindset interventions thus far have sought to shift fixed mindset to growth mindset, characterized by the belief that effort can increase intelligence, through in-class workshops or lectures about the plasticity of the brain and the malleability of intelligence (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Dweck, 2000; …

All The World's Ashamed, Peter David Lane

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

This project is an analysis of three Shakespeare plays through three different ways of understanding shame. Othello, Coriolanus, and Measure for Measure are inspected through a social, bodily, and religious understanding of shame, respectively. The purpose of this tripartite view of shame is to reveal the many different ways in which shame makes itself a part of our lives. The first paradigm is based off of Erving Goffman’s 1956 sociology text, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, and explores how the ways social …

Excluded From Humanity: The Effects Of Implicit Dehumanizing Views Toward Black Individuals In The Media, Joshua Velette

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Dehumanization—a process by which certain individuals and/or social groups are denied complete human status—has been researched extensively in psychology. Previous research on dehumanization has identified several social groups such as the poor (Haslam & Loughnan, 2014), immigrants, refugees (Esses, Medianu, & Lawson, 2013), women (Rudman & Mescher, 2012) and Black people (Goff, Eberhardt, Williams, & Jackson, 2008). Through frameworks such as the Infrahumanization theory (Leyens et al., 2003) and the dual model for dehumanization (Haslam, 2006), it has been found that out-groups may be implicitly dehumanized. The social group of interest to the present study is Black individuals. This groups …

An Obsession Matched Intervention Improves The Facial/Emotional Recognition Deficit In Children With Asperger’S Syndrome, Aurora Claire Hoffman

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) falls on the high-functioning end of the Autism Spectrum. AS is often characterized by a deficit in social/emotional/facial processing, resistance to change, and routine and repetitive behaviors and interests. Prior research has uncovered that AS individuals process faces in a detail-oriented piecemeal fashion, rather than holistically. They are also found to pay less visual attention to faces and social stimuli. Theoretical explanations that account for this particular functioning and processing style include Weak Central Coherence Theory (WCC) and Hyper-Systemizing Theory. WCC implies that AS individuals do not process instances within context, which contributes to their inability to …

Remnants Of The Bodice Ripper: How Consent Is Characterized In Heterosexual And Lesbian Erotic Romance Novels, Audrey Miles Malloy

Senior Projects Spring 2017

The present study aims to better understand the relationship between gender role representation and characterization of sexual consent in erotic romance novels. To test this, two coders read the current best-selling heterosexual and lesbian romance novels listed on Barnes & Noble’s website and coded for both adherence to the Western Sexual Script and clarity of sexual consent. Western Sexual Script is the pervasive set of typical gender roles perpetuated in contemporary media. Statistical analyses found that there was a main effect of character’s gender identity on “gender typical traits” for wealth, sexual experience, dominance, and passivity, meaning that masculine characters …

Combatting The Core Of Sexual Assault: Training Youth To Become Transformational Leaders In Sexual Assault Perpetration Prevention, Sage Marissa Warner

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Sexual assaulters develop from a culture of learned norms, misunderstanding of consent, and inefficacy in bystander intervention. The most significant sexual assault prevention programs teach individuals to dissociate from this culture, by changing their perceptions, knowledge, and behaviors. However, the lack of long-term effects in these programs depicts a vital loophole in their design. In order to change the culture that breeds sexual assaulters, a program cannot focus solely on individuals’ growth, but must ensure a movement of change in the culture itself. Transformational Leadership (Bass, 1985), a style of leadership in which leaders inspire their followers to become leaders, …