Gender Differences Associated With The Evolution Of Attributes Sought In Sports Apparel, Jami Adler

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Since the turn of the century, many things have changed around the world, with a focus on the athletic apparel and fashion industries. Using Fowler’s (1999) research regarding the attributes sought in sports apparel, this study serves as a replication to determine how attributes sought in sports apparel have evolved. Online surveying through Qualtrics was utilized for data collection. The research explored the trend of Athleisure and the rising demand for versatile clothing. The role of gender and its associated differences significantly influenced the attributes sought in sports apparel. In addition, this study explored three additional attributes that consumers evaluate …

The Effect Of The Similarity Of Events On Change Deafness, Caroline Cole

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Change deafness is a perceptual phenomenon that occurs when an observer fails to rapidly detect an above-threshold change in a sound source. The present research represented an initial investigation into one stimulus factor, the perceived similarity between array events, that potentially gives rise to change deafness to continuously moving target events. Participants (N=13) were presented with arrays of three simultaneous tones of inharmonic, synthetic /a/ and /i/ vowels. Each array event had a distinct pitch [low (A₂), middle (D^#₃), high (B₄)] and starting location in perceived space on the azimuth (-40°, …

Coding For Infant Vocalizations Amongst Mid And Low Socioeconomic Status Families, Lera Young

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Many studies have been conducted to examine the various effects on infant and toddler speech development. Numerous studies have proven that there are a myriad of factors that impact the production of speech. Some of these factors include family dynamics, physical ability, health, socioeconomic status, etc. This Honors Project investigated the differences in infant vocalizations from low and mid SES families. We first developed a classification system to define and categorize intentional vocalizations; and then applied this classification system to determine differences in the low and mid SES recordings. A comparison of five recordings from both low and mid SES …

A Cross-Cultural Examination Of The Effect Of Employer Support On Employee Productivity, Shawn Tuman, Haley Lipton

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this creative, collaborative, capstone project is to conduct a cross-cultural examination of the effect of employer support on employee productivity by compiling, examining, and synthesizing conclusions from existing research. In a world of growing globalization and technological innovation, the speed of productivity is often the cornerstone that differentiates successful businesses from unsuccessful businesses, providing a competitive advantage to the quick while the others fall behind. Often this increased level of efficiency comes at a cost beyond the price of the product and the salary of employees, a deeper, psychological cost. By reviewing research focused in the United …

The Role Of Leadership In Student Organizations, Samantha Mcanallen

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the extent to which the leaders of the Eta Delta chapter of Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) and the JMU Women’s Rugby club embody the characteristics of the leaders of successful organizations by examining these two organizations in the context of the characteristics of successful organizational cultures. In order to conduct an appropriate examination of the cultures of these two organizations, I chose to compare them to the characteristics of successful group cultures presented in Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. Throughout his book, Coyle highlights the …

Climate Communication Through A Community Perspective, Kathryn Mcgee

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This project utilized psychology and science communication strategies to develop creative, locally framed climate change messaging. Through an online survey of 300 Gloucester County, VA residents, community themes of place attachment, environmental connection, risk assessment and climate change acceptance were recorded. Using the results from the survey I created a website, https://guidinggloucester.wixsite.com/home, which serves as an avenue for communicating with Gloucester residents. The website displays the results of the survey, explains climate change information that is relevant to Gloucester County, and gives examples of local actions to help increase engagement in climate solutions. In addition to the website, I …

The Effect Of A Stage Of Change Tailored Intervention On Physical Activity And Psychological States Of Older Adults, Emilee Blosser

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Abstract

The Effect of a Stage of Change Tailored Intervention on Physical Activity and Psychological States of Older Adults

Introduction: As life expectancy increases in the United States, activity promotion programs aim to help older adults continue to remain happy, healthy, and productive. Programs that facilitate exercise and lifestyle changes can offset regular age-related declines and improve participation in regular fitness programs. Developing more active lifestyles can help the elderly maintain independence in their everyday activities.

Purpose: The goal of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a physical activity intervention tailored to participants’ stage of change on attitudes …

El Viaje Desde Centroamérica A Los Estados Unidos: How Us Foreign Policy Impacts Migration From Central America To The United States, Cecilia Cerja

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

In the face of ever increasing civil conflict in Central America, the United States is attempting to grapple with immigration reform as the number of refugees continues to rise. Though the dominant narrative seems to indicate that people are flocking to the United States for economic opportunity, upon further analysis it seems that there are a variety of push and pull factors for migration to the United States. In this thesis three case studies of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala are analyzed to determine the push and pull factors causing migration to the United States. After examining the push and …

The Effects Of Speaking Rate Manipulations On The Perception Of Voicing Contrasts, Sarah M. Howell

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Phoneme-level research involving speaking rate has typically relied on a single method of synthetically manipulating rate of speech by compressing the vowel portion of a syllable. This does not mimic what occurs during natural speech production, and therefore could be influencing the perception of voicing contrasts. An experiment was conducted to address this problem by constructing a continuum of voice onset times for the velar place of articulation and then subsequently altering the rate of speech using three methods of manipulation: compressing the vowel, compressing the consonant and vowel proportionate to what occurs naturally, and compressing the total duration of …

Study Abroad And Track Ii Diplomacy, Makena Rafferty-Lewis

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Track II diplomacy, or person-to-person diplomacy is one of the most basic, but also most important types of international relations. Track II diplomacy requires not just effective legislature to be in place, but also requires individuals to have cross-cultural competency. One question that arises is how is this type of connectivity between cultures is formed. One of the most direct links can be found in students. As the political environment changes, young minds and rising experts will be the people who need to handle future international problems, that are possibly different from what we have seen in the past. How …

Interactions Between Anxiety Subtypes, Personality Characteristics, And Emotional Regulation Skills As Predictors Of Future Career Outcomes, Cerella Chandra

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Trait anxiety, anxious arousal, rejection sensitivity, and implicit feelings of rejection in adolescence were examined as predictors of long-term career performance, satisfaction, success, and ambition. Personality traits such as conscientiousness and grit, as well as coping and emotion regulation skills were analyzed as potential moderating variables. Anxious arousal and rejection sensitivity were predicted to be more strongly associated with negative career outcomes, and coping skills were predicted to be more effective in diminishing negative consequences of anxiety. Multi-reporter data were obtained from 184 teens at ages 17-19 and 26-27, and 27-29. Trait anxiety was the only anxiety variable to correlate …

Documentation Of Cultural Landscape Alteration At The Heritage Mounds Site, Georgia, Shannon Sullivan

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This project used geoarchaeological techniques to examine how humans impacted the landscape at the middle Mississippian archaeological site Heritage Mounds (9DU2), in Dougherty County, Georgia, specifically looking at a borrow pit and a plaza. The site was the civic and ceremonial capital of the Capachequi territory, occupied at two separate times between AD 1250 – 1700. At the site soil samples were collected from two excavation units and two wetland cores. The units were for analysis of the plaza, and the cores were for analysis of the Mound A borrow pit. The samples were used for particle size and chemical …

Handedness And The Oldowan Tool Industry: Is Preferential Right-Handedness A Relic From Our Evolutionary Past?, Jessica Dymon

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Although there is literature on psychological, anthropological, and biological reasons for global preferential right-handedness, there has yet to be literature studying the connection among these three disciplines. The goal of this pilot study is to shed light on the correlation of handedness and Oldowan tool manufacturing in order to provide direction for future study. By taking a cross-disciplinary perspective on evolutionary advantages, genetics, and brain lateralization, it is believed researchers may be able to understand why 90% of the human population is preferentially right-handed. This study concludes that there is a correlation between handedness and toolmaking efficiency, and that further …

Effects Of Mental Health Campaigns, Susan Schott

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This project examines the effects of a mental health campaign on college students. This is important to research because universities and colleges alike need to understand the effects that campaigns about mental health on campus can have on students. I researched this by conducting an online experimental study on a sample of 511 students at a university in the Mid-Atlantic region. Qualtrics randomly assigned the participants into two groups, where one group viewed an experimental campaign and the other a control ad. The participants were measured using a post- test questionnaire which tested their self-perceptions of anxiety and level of …

Explaining Anthropophagy And Social Violence In The Mesa Verde Region Of The American Southwest, Riley Smith

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This thesis is an examination of a controversial problem in anthropology and archaeology – the motives and cultural context of anthropophagy, or cannibalism. Views that the practice was a reflection of a primitive state of humanity have given way to a more ethnographically-informed appreciation of the practice as culturally situated with a diverse set of potential motives. Claims of anthropophagy in the ancient past influence perceptions of both prehistoric and modern groups. Because of the wealth of information gathered from recent excavations, it is now possible to explore the context of, motives for, and consequences of anthropophagy in the American …

Associations Between Grit And Academic Factors, Alexandra Bowen

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Grit has been identified as a promising area of research in social psychology for its association with various success outcomes. Given the connection between grit and success, researchers have begun to investigate factors associated with grit to better understand how gritty people achieve their goals. Other researchers have questioned if grit is unique from other related traits, like conscientiousness and self-control. This project sought to explore both of these questions: the factors associated with grit and the discriminant validity of grit. Specifically, this project looked at grit in relation to cognitive failures, fear of failure, and growth mindset to inquire …

International Post-Conflict Peacebuilding In Bosnia And Herzegovina And Cambodia, Mia Fisher

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The end of the Cold War brought many changes to the international system, including a rise in intrastate armed conflict and violence against civilians. Consequently, the international community performed increasingly complex and multidimensional peace support operations, and peacebuilding advanced onto the international agenda during the 1990s. Despite the increased attention on peacebuilding in recent decades, most operations have been relatively unsuccessful, and local and international actors continue to struggle with how to implement effective policies to rebuild post-conflict states. The purpose of this research paper is to examine how the international community contributes to post-conflict peacebuilding efforts and to better …

“So How Reaganesque Exactly Are These Republicans?”: Strategic Invocations Of Collective Memory About Ronald Reagan During The 2015-2016 Republican Primary Presidential Debates, Rachel Moss

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

My thesis explores the implications of the references to President Ronald Reagan in the 2015-2016 Republican presidential primary debates. I conducted a rhetorical analysis of the references to Reagan throughout these debates, while also considering their relation to public and collective memory theory. In order to analyze the different ways in which Reagan was mentioned, I divided the analysis into the undercard debates, mainstage debates, and the mainstage debate that occurred at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. In the undercard debates, candidates often utilized attention-grabbing strategies in order to aid their chances of moving up to …

Envisioning A Future For Professional Counseling: A Qualitative Study Of Counselor Educator Perspectives On Professional Distinction, Michael Horst

Dissertations, 2014-2019

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how counselor educators in Virginia define and describe Counseling as a distinct profession in light of the ACA’s 20/20 consensus definition. This research focused on directors and core faculty members (n=8) of eight separate counseling programs in Virginia. Participants engaged one 60-minute semistructured interview with the researcher. Member checking and bracketing were used to bolster the study’s trustworthiness. A priori coding using codes from the ACA’s 20/20 project (Kaplan, Tarvydas, & Gladding, 2014) and emergent coding processes were used separately to see if the data that emerged from the interviews mirrored …

Diverse Students’ Perceptions Of The Proactive Circle Process In A Restorative Practice Intervention, Shana M. Little

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Restorative practices have been introduced as a school wide intervention to reduce the cultural disparity in school discipline. The purpose of this intervention is to promote healthy student-teacher relationships. The research on restorative practices as an intervention for minority students has shown to be effective, through school discipline data and teacher report. The current study used individual interviews with high school students to explore their perception of restorative practices, specifically proactive circles, and its effectiveness. Results showed cultural differences in student’s understanding or perception of proactive circles. Additionally, participants believed proactive circles helped or improved their communication skills and social …

Mental Health Literacy: Investigating Adolescents’ Knowledge Of Depression And Professional Sources Of Help, Jessica A. Meeks

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Depression is one of the most common mental health disorders affecting adolescents, and there is evidence suggesting that there are adolescents suffering from depression who are not receiving treatment (Mojtabai, Offson, & Han, 2016). The increasing presence of mental health professionals and mental health services in public schools is one solution to the treatment gap. However, less is known about adolescents’ understanding of depression and treatment options. The current study utilized an online survey to examine the mental health literacy of 38 ninth grade students. Results indicated that adolescents have a moderate ability to recognize and label depression from brief …

Beyond Motivation: Differences In Score Meaning Between Assessment Conditions, Nikole Gregg

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Written communication is a skill necessary for not only the success of undergraduate students, but for post-graduates in the workplace. Furthermore, according to employers the writing skills of post-graduates tend to be below expectations. Therefore, the assessment of such skills within higher education is in high demand. Written communication assessments tend to be administered in one of two conditions: 1) course embedded and 2) a low-stakes, non-embedded condition. The current study investigated possible construct-irrelevant variance in writing assessment scores by using data from a mid-sized public university in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Specifically, 157 student products were …

Staying With And Telling Different Stories: Toward A Theory Of Environmental Advocacy That Bridges The Scholarly And Political Selves, Michael Clay

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

As human agents, narratives allow us to make sense of the world. They weave together lived experiences into meaningful webs of understanding. One such web of understanding is the way we narratively make sense of our relationship with the environment in which we find ourselves. The aim of this project is take a closer look at how many current environmental narratives establish an understanding that places the human agent as superior to, and thus master of, the environment within that relationship. This project works to articulate different ways of changing those narratives so that the agency of non-human actants is …

The Confirmation Of Betsy Devos: Polarization, Populism, And Moral Foundations In U.S. Political Rhetoric, Jacob William Wrasse

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The political communication behaviors from both the U.S. voting public and elected representatives contribute to a political discourse that is typified by hyper partisanship and extreme polarization (Hibbing, Smith, & Alford, 2013). Existing research (e.g., Feinberg & Willer, 2015; Haidt, 2012; Westen, 2007) suggested that this is potentially because U.S. Americans tend to craft persuasive messages that they themselves would find logically and morally impactful, rather than critically analyzing the positionality and belief system of their intended audience. Research on Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) suggested that, for a contemporary rhetor, understanding the moral, ontological, and ethical precepts that support their …

Discounting In The Pigeon: Food-Specified Conditioned Reinforcers, Matthew Wolf

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Discounting has been observed across a wide range of species, procedures, and reinforcers. One of the main differences in the literature is that studies with humans use money (conditioned reinforcer) as the reinforcer being discounted. This is in contrast to studies with non-human animals where the discounted outcomes are usually directly consumable like food and water (primary reinforcers). At present, there is no non-human animal equivalent to money that has been identified in the discounting literature. To further bridge the remaining gaps in the methodology, a common currency is needed to study conditioned reinforcers in the discounting paradigm. An adjusting-amount …

Posterior Predictive Model Checking Of Local Misfit For Bayesian Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Chi Hang Au

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Posterior predictive model checks (PPMC) are one Bayesian model-data fit approach. Thus far, PPMC for Confirmatory Factor Analytic applications focused primarily on global fit evaluation, ignoring the nuanced information in local misfit diagnostics. This study developed a PPMC approach for local misfit and applied it to a test-taking motivation scale. If the PPMC approach is effective, fit conclusions derived from the PPMC approach should be congruent with the fit conclusions derived from the Frequentist approach. Number of item-pairs flagged as misfitting and number of disagreements were computed to evaluate congruence. Congruence is achieved if the number of item-pairs flagged as …

The Influence Of Covariate Measurement Error On Treatment Effect Estimates And Numeric Balance Diagnostics Following Several Common Methods Of Propensity Score Matching: A Simulation Study, Heather D. Harris

Dissertations, 2014-2019

In applied intervention studies, researchers frequently aim to make inferences about the impact of a treatment program on participants. However, applied researchers are often faced with threats to the internal validity of their studies, or the extent to which changes in participants’ outcomes can be attributed to the intervention. When researchers are unable to randomly assign study participants to treatment conditions, changes in the intervention outcome might be confounded with systematic differences in participants’ baseline characteristics. Propensity score matching is one technique that allows researchers to account for threats to the internal validity of a study. Specifically, using propensity score …

An Exploration Of The Collegiate Coach-Athlete Relationship And Its Impact On Female Athlete Attitudes And Behaviors Toward Disordered Eating And Body Image, Bridget E. Smith

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Collegiate female athletes face the challenges of conflicting feminine body ideals in society and in their sport all while striving for athletic success. Coaches are believed to play a significant role in an athlete’s development, and thus have potential to (knowing or unknowingly) reinforce, or even introduce, eating pathology as a means to achieve athletic performance and/or a body ideal. Previous research has found a link between insecure attachment and subsequent eating pathology in athletes and non-athletes alike. The coach can be viewed as an important attachment figure in an athlete’s life and development and thus serve a mediating role …

Gratitude In Relationships: A Study On Gratitude, Attachment, And Relationship Satisfaction, Brittany D. Dioszeghy

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

This study utilized Pearson correlations to assess for relationships between dispositional gratitude, attachment type, and relationship satisfaction. The survey was completed by 599 participants (77.57% female; 21.64% male; 0.63% other; 0.16% decline to state). Three separate instruments were used to assess for dispositional gratitude, attachment type (anxious/avoidant), and relationship satisfaction, respectively. First, it was hypothesized that anxious attachment would be negatively correlated with dispositional gratitude. Second, it was hypothesized that avoidant attachment types would be negatively correlated with dispositional gratitude. Third, it was hypothesized that anxious attachment would be negatively correlated with relationship satisfaction. Fourth, it was hypothesized that avoidant …

The Power Of One: How Promoting Positive Student-Teacher Relationships In The Classroom Can Impact Teacher Wellness And Burnout, Alexis Morse

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Previous research has offered understanding of resiliency factors in the classroom setting to create and enhance student-teacher relationships (STR). Additionally, numerous studies have examined public school teachers’ burnout across the three areas of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment. Few studies, however, have combined these two research areas to better understand the relationship between them. This study uses intervention methods to provide 2^nd-grade to 5^th-grade teachers in one elementary school in Central Virginia applicable and efficient ways to build student-teacher relationships in the classroom and reduce their job-related stress. Pre- and post-intervention data was collected …