Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Research Brief: "Do Homeless Veterans Have The Same Needs And Outcomes As Non-Veterans?", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief summarizes an observational study considering the needs of veterans experiencing homelessness compared to how non-veterans experience homelessness.

Estimating Technical Efficiency In Micro Panels, Qu Feng, William C. Horrace

Economics - All Scholarship

Bootstrap confidence intervals on fixed-effects efficiency estimates in micro panels exhibit low coverage probabilities. We propose an alternative efficiency measure involving the mean of the firm effects. With the same estimated efficiency ranks as the traditional measure, its corresponding bootstrap confidence intervals have better coverage probabilities.

Research Brief: "Do Normative Perceptions Of Drinking Relate To Alcohol Use In U.S. Military Veterans Presenting To Primary Care?", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about the relation between perceptions of veterans' use of alcohol and their actual consumption and dependence upon alcohol. In policy and practice, health professionals should offer resources to veterans for alcohol misuse, such as interventions, and the VHA should continue its alcohol misuse screening. Policymakers should work with healthcare providers to create alcohol misuse screenings for veterans. Suggestions for future research include studying the sample over time, studying a broader and more representative sample, and studying the effectiveness of brief alcohol interventions across different groups within the population.

Research Brief: "First Degree Earns: The Impact Of College Quality On College Completion Rates", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief summarizes a scholarly article of the same name. It reviews research which evaluates the impact of the quality of a college on whether or not students complete their college careers.

Research Brief: "Challenges And Opportunities Of Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom Veterans With Disabilities Transitioning Into Learning And Workplace Environments", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief discusses the transition difficulties of Veterans with PTSD or TBI into civilian employment or academic environments. In practices and policy, implementing some programs and constructing policies with veterans advocacies have been found to provide successful and engaging campuses for veterans. Suggestions for future research include focusing on gender specific outcomes for veterans readjusting to civilian life, including both employment and education outcomes.

Exploring The International Union For The Conservation Of Nature (Iucn's) National Program Development In Biodiversity Conservation: A Comparative Study Of India, Pakistan, Nepal, And Bangladesh, Medani Prasad Bhandari

Sociology - Dissertations

This dissertation investigates IUCN's role in global biodiversity conservation policy as well as in national program development in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. It explores how nature protection priorities and approaches are promoted or addressed by IUCN, an international organization, and how environment conservation policies are created and maintained in states with different capacities of South Asia. This study is the first detailed scholarly study on the IUCN as an organization as well as on its efforts in biodiversity conservation.

This research adds to our knowledge firstly by contributing to a small but growing body of work on the sociology …

Generality Of Treatment Effects: Evaluating Elementary-Aged Students' Abilities To Generalize And Maintain Fluency Gains Of A Performance Feedback Writing Intervention, Bridget Hier

Psychology - Theses

Although writing ability is a skill that has been argued to be equally important as reading skills in the development of early literacy and is necessary for academic success (Berninger et al., 2006; Graham, MacArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2007), national estimates of students' writing ability in the United States indicate that in 2002, 72% of elementary-aged students were unable to write with grade-level proficiency (Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003). This finding presents a clear need for empirical, evidence-based interventions that aim to improve students' writing skills, and performance feedback is one type of intervention that has been shown to do so …

Exploring Policies Of Spirituality Among College Students, Afton N. Kapuscinski

Psychology - Dissertations

Though psychologists' interest in the empirical study of spirituality has resurfaced, diverging opinions regarding the meaning of the construct among both researchers and the general public pose a serious challenge to research. To expand knowledge regarding how individuals implicitly define the term, an idiographic, experimental approach called policy-capturing was utilized to determine what factors college students take into consideration when making determinations about others' spirituality. Participants were exposed to a series of 50 profiles describing hypothetical people, each of which contained a unique combination of different levels of five factors believed to characterize spirituality by researchers. Participants rated each profile …

Hiv-Related Stigmatization In Treatment Settings: Effects On Patient Comfort, Risk Disclosure, And Treatment Decisions, Jessica Deanne Naughton

Psychology - Dissertations

The major focus for the present study was to examine the effects of provider stigmatization on the medical care of HIV+ patients, by using an experimental paradigm and examining a conceptual framework to clarify the relationship between provider stigmatization and negative treatment outcomes. Initial qualitative findings from focus groups (n = 18) indicated that several key elements of stigmatizing treatment experiences included judgmental and condescending language, patient avoidance, increased physical distance between patient and provider during conversations and procedures, and use of extra, unnecessary precautions (e.g. use of extra gloves, masks). These provider behaviors were experimentally manipulated and incorporated into …

How Much Does This Tick You Off? Online Rejection And Criticism Lead To Negative Affect And Retaliatory Aggression, Gina Masullo Chen

Mass Communications - Dissertations

A three-condition (rejection, criticism, control) single-factor experiment (N = 77) on a mock social-networking site similar to Facebook reveals that even a slight rejection - not being allowed to join groups on the site - lead to increases in self-reported negative affect and retaliation against the site and the rejecting groups compared to a control. Subjects who were accepted into the groups but then criticized experienced the same increases in negative affect and retaliatory aggression, as those who were not allowed to join. In addition, men showed heightened retaliatory aggression compared to women and responded differently to criticism than women. …

Court Of Public Opinion: How The Convicted Perceive Mass Media Have Affected Their Criminal Trials And Personal Lives, Marti Cecilia Howell-Collins

Mass Communications - Dissertations

This paper is designed to provide insights into a neglected aspect of crime news effects. This mixed-qualitative methods study explores what effects convicted criminals report experiencing in the wake of media coverage of their alleged crimes and trials. There are two primary areas of focus in this study: What effects inmates perceive media coverage has had on their cases and how they feel they have been personally affected by media coverage of their alleged crimes and subsequent trials.

Community Interest As An Indicator For Ranking, Xiaozhong Liu

School of Information Studies - Dissertations

Ranking documents in response to users' information needs is a challenging task, due, in part, to the dynamic nature of users' interests with respect to a query. We hypothesize that the interests of a given user are similar to the interests of the broader community of which he or she is a part and propose an innovative method that uses social media to characterize the interests of the community and use this characterization to improve future rankings. By generating a community interest vector (CIV) and community interest language model (CILM) for a given query, we use community interest to alter …

Technosexuality: Technology, Sexuality, And Convergence, John M. Wolf

Mass Communications - Dissertations

Convergence refers to a phenomenon where multiple communication technologies are integrated into a single device. Technosexuality proposes a convergence between sexuality as a social phenomenon and technologically mediated modes of interpersonal communication and sexual information consumption. The findings of this study indicate that though there is not a complete convergence between technology and sexuality, there nonetheless exists a relationship between the two constructs. Consistent with extant literature about computer-mediated sexuality, the technosexual behaviors in this study were organized primarily by arousal type; however, subsequent degrees of classification suggest that technology also plays a decisive role in the ways in which …

Exploring Distinct Aspects Of Shame And Guilt: Can Startle Reflex Modification Differentiate Shame From Guilt?, Sangmoon Kim

Psychology - Dissertations

Despite the similarities between shame and guilt, there is a growing body of evidence that shame and guilt are distinct emotional constructs. Guilt, despite its negative valence, is frequently associated with approach motivation, whereas shame is associated with withdrawal motivation. Research shows that engagement of the approach motivational system yields attenuation of the defensive startle reflex, but that activation of the withdrawal motivation system augments the startle reflex. Thus, approach-related guilt and withdrawal-related shame should attenuate and augment the startle magnitude, respectively. To test this prediction, 68 participants imagined scripts of four different affective conditions (i.e., shame, guilt, neutral, positive). …

Screening And Brief Intervention For Hazardous Alcohol Use: A Pilot Study In A College Counseling Center, Danielle Terry Lynnette

Psychology - Dissertations

In the United States, college drinking has been identified as a public health concern. The pervasive and detrimental use of alcohol on college campuses inspired calls for wider implementation of empirically supported interventions in college settings. Despite strong evidence of the efficacy of brief interventions, no studies have examined the efficacy and feasibility of integrating a screening and brief intervention (SBI) into college mental health services. The aims of the following study were to (a) to determine the feasibility and acceptability of implementation and, (b) to examine the short-term impact of SBI on alcohol use, treatment utilization, client satisfaction, and …

Thank You For Being A Friend: Women's Self-Disclosures And Social Support On Facebook, Emily A. Dolan

Media Studies - Theses

This study focused on women's self-disclosures on Facebook and how they functioned to both gain and give support on the site. After employing 17 textual analyses of participants' Facebook pages and 17 in-depth interviews, a variety of themes emerged in regards to how and why women give and seek support on the site, the types of information disclosed, and the benefits of self-disclosing to gain support on the site. More specifically, results indicate that gender role expectations, which for women include exhibiting behaviors that convey warmth, kindness and politeness, play a large role in giving and receiving support on the …

Diversity, Networks And Performance: An Empirical Analysis Of Metropolitan Planning Organizations In The United States, Yujin Choi

Public Administration - Dissertations

Achieving network performance is a vital goal in response to the increase of inter-organizational networks public organizations involve. The primary aim of this research is to examine the factors that predict performance in public management networks by disentangling the idea that collaboration requires both diversity and unity. Drawing upon diversity theories, social capital theory and management literature as theoretical lenses, this dissertation serves to investigate the following questions:

1. What is the collaborative decision-making process in inter-organizational networks?

2. How does social capital mediate the relationship between network member diversity and performance?

3. How does network management strategy moderate the …

Lawyers Need Law: A Study Of Constitutional Arguments Made To State Supreme Courts, Richard S. Price

Political Science - Dissertations

Dismayed over the increasing conservatism of the U.S. Supreme Court, state judges, lawyers, and scholars in the 1970s argued for a new judicial federalism. State courts, using state constitutions, may provide protections exceeding the federal minimum. In addition to allowing states to experiment with solutions to rights disputes, and recognizing unique state traditions, judicial federalism had instrumental value in ensuring state level protections that were protected from review at the federal level. While supporters saw judicial federalism as a means of realizing the principle of dual constitutional rights protection through principled development of a body of state law, the reality …

How Did Nike Get The Swoosh Into Skateboarding? A Study Of Authenticity And Nike Sb, Brandon Gomez

Media Studies - Theses

Skateboarding is widely regarded as a subculture that is highly resistant to any type of integration or co-option from large, mainstream companies. In 2002 Nike entered the skateboarding market with its Nike SB line of shoes, and since 2004 has experienced tremendous success within the skateboarding culture. During its early years Nike experienced a great deal of backlash from the skateboarding community, but has recently gained wider acceptance as a legitimate company within this culture. The purpose of this study is to examine the specific aspects of authenticity Nike was able achieve in order to successfully integrate into skateboarding. In …

Terra Nova, An Experiment In Creating Cult Televison For A Mass Audience, Laura Osur

Media Studies - Theses

When it aired in Fall 2011 on Fox, Terra Nova was an experiment in creating a cult television program that appealed to a mass audience. This thesis is a case study of that experiment. I conclude that the show failed because of its attempts to maintain the sophistication, complexity and innovative nature of the cult genre while simultaneously employing an overly simplistic narrative structure that resembles that of mass audience programming. Terra Nova was unique in its transmedia approach to marketing and storytelling, its advanced special effects, and its dystopian speculative fiction premise. Terra Nova's narrative, on the other hand, …

Social Comparison Theory In The Context Of Chronic Illness: Predictors And Consequences Of Target Selection Among Individuals With Type 2 Diabetes, Danielle Arigo

Psychology - Dissertations

Individuals often compare themselves to others (i.e., social comparisons) in order to determine their status in a given domain. Social comparisons may be particularly important for patients with chronic illness; patients often experience uncertainty and anxiety about their health, which increase the likelihood and utility of social comparisons. Among patients, social comparisons can have both positive and negative health-related consequences (for affect, motivation to improve one's health care behaviors, etc.), depending upon several contextual features. Various steps in the social comparison process have been proposed, but not tested directly. The present study is an examination of the social comparison process …

Evaluation Of A Web-Based Intervention For College Marijuana Use, Jennifer Christine Elliott

Psychology - Dissertations

Young adults in college have high rates of marijuana use, abuse, and dependence. Web-based interventions have been growing in popularity, but their dissemination currently exceeds empirical support. One especially popular (but understudied) program is The Marijuana eCHECKUP TO GO (e-TOKE) for Universities & Colleges (San Diego State University Research Foundation, 2009). The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether this program is effective in changing marijuana involvement and perceived norms in undergraduates. Participants were 317 undergraduates (52% female, 78% White) who reported marijuana use within the month preceding baseline. Conditions were the e-TOKE program or assessment only, crossed …

Teaching Children To Fluently Decode Nonsense Words In Lists: Generalized Effects To Oral Reading Fluency Of Connected Text, Candace Susan Werder

Psychology - Dissertations

The present study examined the generalized effects of training children to fluently blend nonsense words containing target vowel teams on their reading of untrained real words in lists and passages. Eight second-grade students participated. Nonsense words containing each of 3 target vowel teams (aw, oi, and au) were trained in lists, and generalization was assessed to untrained real words in lists, untrained real words in target passages, and novel real words in generalization passages. A multiple probe design across vowel teams revealed a) generalized increases in accuracy and fluency on all trained word list for all eight students and these …

Output Interference And Strength Based Mirror Effect In Recognition Memory, Asli Kilic

Psychology - Dissertations

The strength based mirror effect (SBME) refers to higher hit rates and lower false alarm rates for strongly encoded items. The SBME has been explained by two alternative mechanisms: differentiation and criterion shift. The differentiation account posits that as the memory traces are strengthened, the memory for the items is less noisy and therefore are less confusable with the stored memory traces. The criterion shift account, on the other hand, suggests that the tendency to endorse a test item differs between strong and weak test lists. When participants receive a test after studying a strong list of items, they require …

Quality Of Life For All Ages, By Design. A Conversation With Patricia Moore, Patricia Moore

Center for Policy Research

On November 3, 2011, Patricia Moore presented the Syracuse Seminar on Aging to a packed audience of over 250 faculty, students, and community members. She delivered an engaging lecture on “Quality of life for all ages, by design”. Afterwards Janet Wilmoth, Director of the Syracuse University Aging Studies Institute, and Patricia Moore had a chance to sit down and talk about her path-breaking career, ability-based design, and aging in America.

Four Flaws In New York State’S Property Taxes And How To Fix Them: Small Assessment Units, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

Standardized Lm Test For Spatial Error Dependence In Linear Or Panel Regressions, Badi Baltagi, Zhenlin Yankg

Center for Policy Research

The robustness of the LM tests for spatial error dependence of Burridge (1980) and Born and Breitung (2011) for the linear regression model, and Anselin (1988) and Debarsy and Ertur (2010) for the panel regression model with random or fixed effects are examined. While all tests are asymptotically robust against distributional misspecification, their finite sample behavior may be sensitive to the spatial layout. To overcome this shortcoming, standardized LM tests are suggested. Monte Carlo results show that the new tests possess good finite sample properties. An important observation made throughout this study is that the LM tests for spatial dependence …

Small Sample Properties And Pretest Estimation Of A Spatial Hausman-Taylor Model, Badi Baltagi, Peter H. Egger, Michaela Kesina

Center for Policy Research

This paper considers a Hausman and Taylor (1981) panel data model that exhibits a Cliff and Ord (1973) spatial error structure. We analyze the small sample properties of a generalized moments estimation approach for that model. This spatial Hausman-Taylor estimator allows for endogeneity of the time-varying and time-invariant variables with the individual effects. For this model, the spatial effects estimator is known to be consistent, but its disadvantage is that it wipes out the effects of time-invariant variables, which are important for most empirical studies. Monte Carlo results show that the spatial Hausman-Taylor estimator performs well in small samples.

Family Structure And The Economic Wellbeing Of Children, Leonard M. Lopoo, Thomas Deleire

Center for Policy Research

An extensive literature that examines the relationship between family structure and children’s outcomes consistently shows that living with a single parent is associated with negative outcomes. Few studies, however, directly test the relationship between family structure and outcomes for the child once he/she reaches adulthood. We directly examine, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, whether family structure during childhood is related to the child’s economic wellbeing both during childhood as well as adulthood. Our findings suggest that the economic wellbeing of children of mothers who experience a marital dissolution and remarry are no different from the children of mothers …

Integrating Care: Improving Overall Health By Integrating Behavioral/Mental Health Care Into Primary Care, Macaran A. Baird

Center for Policy Research

Hippocrates noted that the patient must be attended in light of “his” diet, work, home, and community setting. Since that time, we have struggled with the dilemma of how to put the patient’s presenting problems in the context of the patient’s life circumstances. That goal has proven elusive. So how do we sort out where to put the emphasis with our healing arts?