Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Happiness And Time Preference: The Effect Of Positive Affect In A Random-Assignment Experiment, John Ifcher, Homa Zarghamee

Economics

We conduct a random-assignment experiment to investigate whether positive affect impacts time preference, where time preference denotes a preference for present over future utility. Our result indicates that, compared to neutral affect, mild positive affect significantly reduces time preference over money. This result is robust to various specification checks, and alternative interpretations of the result are considered. Our result has implications for the effect of happiness on time preference and the role of emotions in economic decision making, in general. Finally, we reconfirm the ubiquity of time preference and start to explore its determinants. (JEL D12, D83, I31)

Some Things Are Better Left Not Unsaid: An Exploratory Study Of The Communicatively-Restricted Organizational Stressor, Justin P. Boren, Alice E. Veksler

Communication

In organizations, individuals seek the support of others to manage their day-to-day stress. Researchers within a social support paradigm have found that individuals who have communicative outlets to discuss their stressors are healthier psychologically and physiologically. To the extent that those outlets are restricted, individuals may suffer the deleterious effects of stress. Therefore, this manuscript conceptualizes and explores one such stressor, the Communicatively-Restricted Organizational Stressor (CROS). Based on a sample of 405 organizational members, we identified the existence and explicated the nature of this stressor. Results were generally inconclusive. Discussion focused on significant findings and the need for better operationalization …

The Impact Of An Enacted Social Support Training Intervention On Worklife Interaction And Stress In A Sample Of Working Adults, Justin P. Boren, Jess K. Alberts

Communication

The present investigation explores utilizes an enacted social support intervention among a group of working adults. Reductions in psychological and physiological stress were hypothesized to occur following the experimental intervention. Participants (N = 46) were all full time staff members at a large university and were randomly assigned to treatment or wait-list control groups. Treatment group members attended two 90 minute enacted social support meetings over the course of four weeks. Psychological (perceived stress and worklife conflict) and physiological (salivary cortisol) data were collected at both pretest and posttest periods. Results did not support the research hypotheses; however, a research …

Mcluhan, Religion, Ground, And Cause, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

This paper explores the new environment generated by the convergence-television-internet social networks. To this end, we look to characterize the “environment” in concept proposed by Marshall McLuhan. Second, we seek a characterization of the first social networking as a means hot and cold, with the conclusion that each social network generates its own environment and that, according to the contents thereof, can be cold or hot. Finally, we propose a set of lines of work to follow the purpose of exploring the contribution oh McLuhan around the environments, over all the electronic age, since it is an important path to …

Anthropology & Open Access: An Interview With Jason Baird Jackson, Ryan B. Anderson

Faculty Publications

During the last few weeks I had the chance to conduct an email based interview with Jason Baird Jackson about Open Access (OA), academic publishing, and anthropology...

Continual Evolution: The Experience Over Three Semesters Of A Librarian Embedded In An Online Evidence-Based Medicine Course For Physician Assistant Students, Shannon Kealey

Staff publications, research, and presentations

This column examines the experience, over three years, of a librarian embedded in an online Epidemiology and Evidence-based Medicine course, which is a requirement for students pursing a Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies at Pace University. Student learning outcomes were determined, a video lecture was created, and student learning was assessed via a five-point test during year one. For years two and three, the course instructor asked the librarian to be responsible for two weeks of the course instruction and a total of 15 out of 100 possible points for the course. This gave the librarian flexibility to …

Landscapes Of Wealth & Desire, Ryan B. Anderson

Faculty Publications

This paper explores the historical background to a proposed study of political disputes over the value of large-scale tourism development in Baja California Sur. The paper starts with a review of anthropological discussions of value — focusing on the work of Kluckhohn, Graeber, Elyachar and Appadurai. The aim is to use an anthropological approach to value to place current conflicts over land and resources arising from recent developments within a historical perspective. The paper then investigates how actors in different time periods have contributed to collective and often contradictory constructions of the area as a place of subsistence, adventure, possibilities, …

Franz Boas: Geographer/Anthropologist, Ryan B. Anderson

Faculty Publications

The separation between anthropology and geography is a factor of time, and the divergent meanderings of disciplinary histories. As Larry Grossman once argued, “Cultural geographers and anthropologists are like brothers separated in infancy and taught to speak different languages” (1977:126). In many ways, this is quite true. Anthropology and geography actually do share many roots and intellectual origins, even if these connections aren't exactly emphasized in the respective disciplinary histories. Interestingly, if there is one crucial common ancestor that American geographers and anthropologists share, it is none other than one of the icons of North American anthropology: Franz Boas.

La Follette’S Autobiography: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, And The Glorious, Nancy Unger

History

La Follette's Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences is a remarkable primary document of the Progressive Era. Originally published in 1913, it remains in print today and has the dubious honor of being one of Richard Nixon's three favorite books. It illuminates the crucial role that La Follette's home state of Wisconsin played in molding La Follette as a man and as a politician, thereby influencing his national progressive agenda; but it also reveals much more.

Buying Racial Capital: Skin-Bleaching And Cosmetic Surgery In A Globalized World, Margaret Hunter

Sociology

The merging of new technologies with old colonial ideologies has created a context where consumers can purchase "racial capital" through skin-bleaching creams or cosmetic surgeries. The use of skin-bleaching creams is on the rise throughout Africa and the African Diaspora and cosmetic surgery has increased dramatically among people of color in wealthy countries. Public discourse, however, is fraught with tension over these manipulations of the body. This paper examines three competing discourses: 1) the beauty discourse, based on the mass-marketing of cosmetic whitening products, 2) the public health discourse, designed to dissuade potential skin-bleachers by exposing health risks and 3) …

Negotiating History And Attending To The Future: Perceptions Among And Of Malaiyaha Tamils In Sri Lanka, Mythri Jegathesan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Episcopal Applicants To Ordained Ministry: Are They Psychological Healthy?, Thomas G. Plante, Christopher Apodaca

Psychology

The current investigation evaluated psychological and personality profiles of applicants to the diaconate and priesthood for several Episcopal dioceses. Applicants included both genders and their ages ranged from 29 to 67 years. A psychological testing battery including the MMPI-2, 16PF, and MCMI-III was administered to 42 applicants between 2008 and 2009 who subsequently entered the diaconate or priestly formation program in the Episcopal Church. Results indicate that these applicants were generally well-adjusted. Findings also suggest some tendency for defensiveness, repression, naïveté, and a strong need for affection, as well as for being emotionally stable, intelligent, trusting, and open to change. …

Homelessness And The Mobile Shelter System: Public Transportation As Shelter, Laura Nichols, Fernando Cázares

Sociology

Those without housing often use public space differently than those who are housed. This can cause dilemmas for and conflicts among public officials as guardians of public space and goods. In this paper, we look at one such utilisation of space from the perspective of those who board 24-hour public transportation routes and ride the bus all night for shelter. We describe the results of a preliminary survey, observations and informal conversations with unhoused riders on the bus over three nights in one county in the United States. We found that a substantial number of the unhoused riders we surveyed …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 52 Number 4, Winter 2011, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

16 - LIFE CYCLE A Photo Essay By Susan Middleton '70. Luminous beauty drawn from two remarkable projects-Evidence of Evolution and Spineless. And a sneak peek at a show by this Guggenheim fellow opening in April at SCU's de Saisset Museum.

20 - CAN NEWSPAPERS & JOURNALISM SURVIVE THE DIGITAL AGE? DOES IT MATTER? By Jeff Brazil '85. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist goes looking for answers, talking to industry veterans, and taking stock of the new forms of journalism arising.

30 - REVEALED! THE TRUTH BEHIND NO NAME! By Sam Scott '96. On today's Rock Report: the story (and real …

New Fieldsites, New Methods: New Ethnographic Opportunities, Laura Robinson, Jeremy Schulz

Sociology

As the rapid rate of the adoption and normative use of information technologies accelerates, sociologists must expand the sociological imagination to explore a host of questions related to mediated communication. From Twitter to YouTube, the media convergence anticipated at the close of the millennium is coming into being. Blogs, vlogs, Web browsing, e-mail, and old time television, radio, and phone are all increasingly accessible via digital technologies. Furthermore, not only can we consume these digital media, but we can now produce them easily and quickly. Yet, sociological methods have not kept pace with the profound changes in communication ensuing from …

A Decade Of Research Exploring Biology And Communication, Justin P. Boren, Alice E. Veksler

Communication

The study of communication has come a long way since Aristotle's conceptualization of persuasion in Rhetoric from the 4th century B.C. Today, scholars conceptualize communication in much more comprehensive ways than did those Greek Aristotelian philosophers. Still, much of the discipline of communication focuses on the way that messages have an impact on individuals or societies. Since the late 1970s a small group of communication scholars, greatly influenced by their peers in other social-science disciplines (i.e., psychology) began to direct their attention to the way that communication influences and is influenced by processes in the human body. During the early …

Communication Technology And Education, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

Probably as far back as people can remember, education has drawn on communication technologies, either to teach students how to use them effectively or to make use of those technologies in the educational process itself. In the former instance, the educational sector typically follows a cultural valuation that regards a given technology as so essential that people cannot leave its use or teaching to chance—reading and writing provide the clearest examples here, with schools teaching both the mechanics of writing and reading (forming or deciphering letters, spelling properly, adhering to a common grammar, and so on) and the composition of …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 53 Number 2, Fall 2011, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

18 - CHANGE THE WORLD. OR AT LEAST HOW YOU SEE IT. Edited by John Deever and Steven Boyd Saum. The U.S. Peace Corps turned 50 this year, with more than 340 Santa Clara grads (and faculty and staff) having served as volunteers over the years. A few of them recount their time in-country-and where it's taken them.

26 - HOW CAN YOU DEFEND THOSE PEOPLE? by Steven Boyd Saum. Public defenders on the Homicide Task Force in Chicago have heard that question time and again. Between them, Robert Strunck '76 and Crystal Marchigiani '78 have some 40 years on …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 52, Number 3, Winter 2010, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

14 - GOOD LIT By Alicia K. Gonzales '09 and Steven Boyd Saum. It's time to light 10 candles on the birthday cake for SCU's California Legacy Series. To date: 43 books, 500 radio broadcasts, and a handful of movies. What's next? Something big.

16 - SHAPING THE FUTURE by Adolfo Nicolas, S.J. What can Jesuit universities do-together-to make the world a more humane, just, and sustainable place? It starts with imagination, an unequaled global network, and a conference in Mexico City- where Jesuit Superior General Adolfo Nicolas takes stock of challenges to Jesuit higher education today.

24 - A …

European Jewish Cultural Reconstruction: Jcr Books In The Bhi Rare Books Collection, Nadia Nasr

Staff publications, research, and presentations

Marginalized, seized, branded as outcasts, forced into hiding, coerced to do the will of their captors, and destroyed: millions of pieces of European Jewry – artifacts, art, religious objects, and books – endured a sort of cultural holocaust that mirrored the plight of six million European Jews. When Allied forces moved across German-occupied territories in 1945 they discovered looted Jewish cultural works squirreled away into various storehouses in Germany and across Europe. Some items had been seized by the Nazis and set aside for special research institutes established to study “the Jewish Question.” Others had been concealed by those who …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 53 Number 1, Summer 2011, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

18 - WHAT DO INVESTORS REALLY WANT? By Meir Statman. A renowned behavioral finance expert reveals how our desires shape our actions when it comes to investing. (Hint: It's not just money that we're after.)

20 - LAW AT 100. A century of legal education at SCU. See snapshots from across the years-and look at the big picture of how the legal landscape has changed

22 - THE BIG IDEA!: Michael S. Malone '75, MBA '77 on Silicon Valley high tech gold and a brief history of intellectual property law.

24 - WOMEN'S WORK: Stephanie M. Wildman on jobs, the …

The Poetics Of Professionalism Among Dialysis Technicians, Laura L. Ellingson

Women's and Gender Studies

The vast majority of care for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients is provided by skilled (but not formally educated) paraprofessional technicians. Using Goffman's (1959) framing of the performance of self in everyday discourse, this study examines discourse from dialysis technicians and technical aides to explore these paraprofessionals' construction and performance of professional identity and professional communication within the context of an outpatient dialysis clinic. Themes of professionalism—individualized care, vigilance, teamwork, and emotion management—are illustrated via poetic transcription of interviews with technicians. I contend that such representation offers validity equal to that of traditional research accounts while embodying alternative representational strengths.

A'S From Zzzz's? The Causal Effect Of School Start Time On The Academic Achievement Of Adolescents, Scott E. Carrell, Teny Maghakian, James E. West

Economics

Recent sleep research finds that many adolescents are sleep-deprived because of both early school start times and changing sleep patterns during the teen years. This study identifies the causal effect of school start time on academic achievement by using two policy changes in the daily schedule at the US Air Force Academy along with the randomized placement of freshman students to courses and instructors. Results show that starting the school day 50 minutes later has a significant positive effect on student achievement, which is roughly equivalent to raising teacher quality by one standard deviation. (JEL I23, J13)

The Happiness Of Single Mothers After Welfare Reform, John Ifcher

Economics

U.S. welfare and tax policies targeting single mothers were transformed over a decade ago. What was the impact on single mothers' happiness? Using data from the General Social Survey, difference in difference estimators are calculated. The results appear to indicate that the package of welfare and tax policy changes increased happiness. The results are largely consistent across three comparison groups and robust to various specification checks. This research nicely complements the literature by examining the impact of the welfare and tax policy changes on a novel outcome measure, self-reported happiness.

Dim Delobsom, Michael Kevane

Economics

Delobsom, Dim (1897-1940), Burkinan author, canton chief, and civil servant, was born in Sao village, about 60 kilometers northwest of Ouagadougou, in the Mossi region of the presentday country of Burkina Faso. His mother was Datoumi Yaare, from the village of Kaonghin; and his father, Gueta Wagdogo, was the son of Yiougo, the naba (Mossi chief) of Sao. Naba Yiougo supported Mogho Naba Wobgo (Boukary Koutu), the principal king of the four Mossi kingdoms, against a rebelling vassal, the naba ofLalle. In 1896, Mogho Naba Wobgo supported Gueta Wagdogo to attain the chieftaincy (whereupon he assumed the name "Naba Piiga") …

Impact Of Exercise Partner Attractiveness On Mood, Enjoyment, And Exertion, Thomas G. Plante, Sarah Gregg, Jaclyn Rubbo, Thomas Favero, Ashley Morisako, Jessica Cuadra

Psychology

Social comparison theory was used to examine if males exercising with a female research confederate posing as either attractive or unattractive would alter their exercise mood, exertion, and enjoyment. A total of 101 college students (51 males and 51 females) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: biking alone, biking with an attractive female confederate, or biking with the same female confederate appearing unattractive. All participants were instructed to complete 20 minutes of exercise at 60%-70% of their maximum target heart rate. Standard exercise mood measures (e.g., Activation-Deactivation Adjective Check List) were administered immediately prior to and immediately following …