Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

University of Central Florida

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 4141 - 4170 of 11266

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

How American Student Journalists At A College Newspaper Consume, Perceive, And Disseminate News And Information About China, Xiaohua Wang Jan 2008

How American Student Journalists At A College Newspaper Consume, Perceive, And Disseminate News And Information About China, Xiaohua Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the increase of cooperation between America and China, the average person's perception of the other country could be an important factor that influences the development of the relationship between these countries. This study was designed to explore how Americans student journalists view China and how these student journalists select the news for a campus newspaper that might influence their readers' perceptions of China. Student journalists not only represent American youth but also act as connectors and filters between a huge flow of information outside and students on campus. A convenience census sample of student journalists at a campus newspaper …

Go to article

Outside The Frame: Towards A Phenomenology Of Texts And Technology, Anthony Crisafi Jan 2008

Outside The Frame: Towards A Phenomenology Of Texts And Technology, Anthony Crisafi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The subject of my dissertation is how phenomenology can be used as a tool for understanding the intersection between texts and technology. What I am suggesting here is that, specifically in connection with the focus of our program in Texts and Technology, there are very significant questions concerning how digital communications technology extends our humanity, and more importantly what kind of epistemological and ontological questions are raised because of this. There needs to be a coherent theory for Texts and Technology that will help us to understand this shift, and I feel that this should be the main focus for …

Go to article

Adhd And Stop-Signal Behavioral Inhibition: Is Mean Reaction Time Contaminated By Exposure To Intermittent Stop-Signals?, Robert Alderson Jan 2008

Adhd And Stop-Signal Behavioral Inhibition: Is Mean Reaction Time Contaminated By Exposure To Intermittent Stop-Signals?, Robert Alderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study investigates two recently identified threats to the construct validity of behavioral inhibition as a core deficit of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) based on the Stop-signal task: calculation of mean reaction time from go-trials presented adjacent to intermittent stop-trials, and non-reporting of the stop-signal delay metric. Children with ADHD (n=12) and typically developing children (TD) (n=11) were administered the standard stop-signal task and three variant stop-signal conditions. These included a No-Tone condition administered without the presentation of an auditory tone; an Ignore-Tone condition that presented a neutral (i.e., not associated with stopping) auditory tone; and a second Ignore-Tone condition …

Go to article

Diagnosing Anencephaly In Archaeology: A Comparative Analysis Of Nine Clinical Specimens From The Smithsonian Institution Nation, Stevie Mathews Jan 2008

Diagnosing Anencephaly In Archaeology: A Comparative Analysis Of Nine Clinical Specimens From The Smithsonian Institution Nation, Stevie Mathews

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The inclusion of human fetal skeletons in the archaeological record can reveal much about past cultures' perception of life and death. The preservation of fetal remains in the archaeological record is a rarity, and the discovery of pathological skeletons is even rarer. A fetal skeleton from a Roman period cemetery (c. 31BC - 303AD) in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, displays what are thought to be classic skeletal indicators of the neural tube defect, anencephaly. The published literature concerning the skeletal diagnosis of anencephaly is scant so in order to diagnose this individual it is pertinent to create a diagnostic standard. …

Go to article

Developmental Trajectory Of Aggressive Behavior In Clinically Referred Boys: A Rasch Analysis, Scott Lafond Jan 2008

Developmental Trajectory Of Aggressive Behavior In Clinically Referred Boys: A Rasch Analysis, Scott Lafond

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A majority of research investigating aggression and its development in children has relied upon the use of rating scales such as the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). These scales are typically developed using a conventional factor analytic approach for the selection and retention of scale items, but may not contain sufficient numbers of items to adequately assess the unidimensional construct or developmental trajectory of aggressive behavior in youths. The present study evaluates specific psychometric properties of CBCL Aggressive and Delinquency Problems clinical syndrome scale items to determine the degree to which they reflect the breadth and established developmental trajectory of aggressive …

Go to article

You Scratch My Back And I'Ll Scratch Yours: Mentor-Perceived Costs And Benefits And The Functions They Provide Their Proteges, Julia Fullick Jan 2008

You Scratch My Back And I'Ll Scratch Yours: Mentor-Perceived Costs And Benefits And The Functions They Provide Their Proteges, Julia Fullick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mentoring relationships can have both costs and benefits for mentors and their proteges. The present research examined the degree to which mentors' perceived costs and benefits affect the functional and dysfunctional mentoring they provide to their proteges. Additionally, I investigated whether mentor-perceived costs and benefits were associated with the mentors' own goal orientation and the goal orientation of their proteges. Data were collected from 86 proteges and their current supervisory mentors. Consistent with expectations, when mentors reported greater costs of embarrassment associated with their relationship, the proteges reported receiving greater dysfunctional mentoring. Proteges who reported receiving greater functional mentoring tended …

Go to article

Bent Bones: The Pathological Assessment Of Two Fetal Skeletons From The Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, Darcy Cope Jan 2008

Bent Bones: The Pathological Assessment Of Two Fetal Skeletons From The Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, Darcy Cope

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study evaluates two fetal individuals (B532 and B625) from the Kellis 2 cemetery (Roman period circa A.D. 50 A.D. 450), Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, that display skeletal anomalies that may explain their death. Both individuals exhibit bowing of the long bones in addition to other skeletal deformities unique to each individual. To assess these pathologies a differential diagnosis based on the congenital occurrence of long bone bowing is developed. Long bone bowing is selected because it is the more prevalent abnormality in the paleopathological literature and the other abnormalities are not as easily identifiable in the literature. For the …

Go to article

Learning African-American History In A Synthetic Learning Environment, Adams Greenwood-Ericksen Jan 2008

Learning African-American History In A Synthetic Learning Environment, Adams Greenwood-Ericksen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Synthetic Learning Environments (SLEs) represent a hybrid of simulations and games, and in addition to their pedagogical content, rely on elements of story and interactivity to drive engagement with the learning material. The present work examined the differential impact of varying levels of story and interactivity on learning. The 2x2 between subjects design tested learning and retention among 4 different groups of participants, each receiving one of the 4 possible combinations of low and high levels of story and interactivity. Objective assessments of participant performance yielded the unexpected finding that learners using the SLE performed more poorly than any other …

Go to article

Migrant Workers In South-East Asia:Economic And Social Inequality In Indonesia, Malaysia, And Singapore, Patricia Hajek Jan 2008

Migrant Workers In South-East Asia:Economic And Social Inequality In Indonesia, Malaysia, And Singapore, Patricia Hajek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores migrant labor in South-East Asia by addressing the topic of migration, specifically its causes and consequences. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore are countries that experienced rapid industrialization from the mid-1960s throughout the 1990s. Simultaneously, the migration of people within the region increased. A key focus is how regional development has contributed to migration flows and to the position of migrants in these countries. Using a migration systems framework from Castles' and Miller's The Age of Migration (2003) that draws on theoretical elements from economics, historical-structuralism and transnationalism, this thesis finds that several factors explain the causes of migration …

Go to article

The Relationships Between Leader Behavior, Follower Motivation, And Performance, Melissa Harrell Jan 2008

The Relationships Between Leader Behavior, Follower Motivation, And Performance, Melissa Harrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary goal of this study was to examine ways in which leaders can influence followers motivation. Motivation is a key construct in industrial and organizational psychology due to its impact on employee performance. Modern motivation theories adapt a more sophisticated view of motivation in terms of definition, relationships, and operationalization. In particular, one new theory of motivation is the Pritchard and Ashwood Theory (2008). This theory proposes that motivation is comprised of four perceived relationships that, in combination, reflect the extent to which employees believe that their actions on the job will lead to need satisfaction. These four relationships …

Go to article

The Caspian Sea Region's Key Position In The Rise Of Militant Islam, Graham Cage Jan 2008

The Caspian Sea Region's Key Position In The Rise Of Militant Islam, Graham Cage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Researchers and policy experts point to key issues and groups such as the Palestinian/Arab Israeli Conflict, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Saudi exported Wahhabism, and, in more recent times, the Iraq wars as being the source of militant Islam in this day in age. However, this perspective ignores key issues and ideals in to how this new form of Islam has emerged in recent decades. For instance, with all the conflicts that have occurred in recent decades, except for the 1979 Revolution in Iran, why have they not yielded Shari'a inspired Islamic states in Yemen, Lebanon, the Occupied Territories and …

Go to article

Living And Thriving In The Land Of Milk And Honey: Religion And The Success Of Mexican Immigrants To The United States, Jamie Dodge Jan 2008

Living And Thriving In The Land Of Milk And Honey: Religion And The Success Of Mexican Immigrants To The United States, Jamie Dodge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the role of religion in promoting the success of Mexican immigrants, as measured by typical U.S. standards of success, including income, education, assets (such as homeownership), and health, including access to health insurance, controlling for age, education, gender, and ability to speak English. These measures are analyzed against various indicators of religiosity. The hypothesis driving the research is: religiosity increases an immigrant's success in the United States. This hypothesis was informed by social capital theory, and a distinction is made between bridging and bonding forms of social capital. The results show only a very weak correlation between …

Go to article

Branching Out: Communication And Collaboration Among Librarians At Multi-Campus Institutions, Tim Bottorff, Robbin Glaser, Andrew Todd, Barbara Alderman Jan 2008

Branching Out: Communication And Collaboration Among Librarians At Multi-Campus Institutions, Tim Bottorff, Robbin Glaser, Andrew Todd, Barbara Alderman

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Communication and collaboration are vital aspects of 21st century librarianship, particularly for librarians in branch and regional settings who are often separated from their system colleagues by both physical distance and administrative structures. For this study, the authors conducted an exploratory survey to examine collaboration, communication, and networking behaviors and perceptions among librarians in multi-campus academic library systems. Results of this investigative study will lead to better understanding of these issues within the profession, suggest possible approaches and solutions for better models of communication and collaboration, and lay the groundwork for future research on these topics.

Go to article

Misconceptions About Silence And Passivity: How American Students Perceive Asian International Students' Use Of Passivity Within The Classroom, Audra Nuru Jan 2008

Misconceptions About Silence And Passivity: How American Students Perceive Asian International Students' Use Of Passivity Within The Classroom, Audra Nuru

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Asian international students (AIS) are becoming increasingly more populous in American universities each year. While AIS are enrolled in the same required classes as American students, it has been observed that frequent interaction between AIS and American students is rather uncommon. Due to obvious social hesitation between the two groups of students during classroom discussion, the study presented was initiated in order to unveil possible reasons for this social integration dilemma. Social Attractiveness, Perceived Homophily and Attributional Confidence scales were selected in order to determine possible factors contributing to this dilemma. In order to pursue explanations for the dormant socialization …

Go to article

Philippine Economic And Political Development And Philippine Muslim Unrest, Justin De Leon Jan 2008

Philippine Economic And Political Development And Philippine Muslim Unrest, Justin De Leon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Muslim culture and society has been a part of the Philippine islands in spite of nearly ninety-five percent of the population being Christian (a majority Catholic), yet did not become a separatist movement until the 1970's. Since then, the two main separatist groups the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have been battling the Philippine government. The parties entered truces in 1996 and 2001, yet there has been a cycle of violence continues. The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), linked to Al Qaeda, emerged in 1990 and has launched many attacks on the Christian Philippine …

Go to article

An Analysis Of The Vulnerability To Terrorist Radicalization In Great Britain, Teddy Reynolds Jan 2008

An Analysis Of The Vulnerability To Terrorist Radicalization In Great Britain, Teddy Reynolds

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To understand the conditions and experiences that might make an individual more vulnerable to terrorist radicalization, this study examines a sample group of Muslim's in Great Britain to determine if responses to survey questions on a range of issues and perceptions can provide indications of an individual's vulnerability to terrorist radicalization. Key to this process was the development of a vulnerability to radicalization score that allowed for an analysis of the relationship between this score and different independent variables. The dataset for this study was obtained using the Pew Research Center's Spring 2006 Global Attitudes Project 15 Nation Survey. This …

Go to article

Emotional Evaluation Of A Product/System, Hana Smith Jan 2008

Emotional Evaluation Of A Product/System, Hana Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Technological advances in products and systems have brought emotional design or emotional engineering to the forefront of research. While several measures to assess emotional expression of products have been developed, the source of the emotion rating of a product or system was often unclear. The purpose of this dissertation is to conduct three studies to examine the causes of emotional ratings and to establish if product-specific emotion rating scales are useful for capturing accurate user evaluations. Three studies were conducted using citrus juicers. Juicers were chosen for several reasons: their wide variety of styles, one self-explanatory purpose (to make juice), …

Go to article

Adolescents' Stress And Health: Parental Influences And Cognitive Mediators, Reesa Donnelly Jan 2008

Adolescents' Stress And Health: Parental Influences And Cognitive Mediators, Reesa Donnelly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research to date indicates that parental and cognitive variables play a role in stress responses and health outcomes. Although researchers are beginning to focus on developmental processes in stress/health outcomes, there is little research examining which parental behaviors are most predictive of stress/health and whether cognitive variables mediate this relationship. As a result, the current study examines the self-reports of 160 late adolescents regarding parental behaviors, cognitive variables, and stress/health outcomes. In addition, blood pressure reactivity to a stressful situation was collected as a physiological measure of stress. The results suggest that, among the parental behaviors that are examined, parental …

Go to article

The Perception Of Homeless People: Important Factors In Determining Perceptions Of The Homeless As Dangerous, Amy Donley Jan 2008

The Perception Of Homeless People: Important Factors In Determining Perceptions Of The Homeless As Dangerous, Amy Donley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study uses two quantitative and two qualitative data sources to determine if homeless people are viewed as dangerous and if they are what factors contribute to this perception. Areas examined are respondent's characteristics, media affects and the perceived rights of homeless people to urban space. Actual levels of perpetration among the homeless are examined to allow for comparisons between perception and reality to be made. Findings showed that race plays a major role in the perception of homeless peo-ple among whites, while gender is more influential among blacks. There was no rela-tionship between media and perceptions. A negative relationship …

Go to article

The Legal Status Of The Caspian Sea, Namdar Hosseinzadeh Jan 2008

The Legal Status Of The Caspian Sea, Namdar Hosseinzadeh

HIM 1990-2015

Currently the Caspian is simple described as the world's biggest enclosed body of salt water. The five littoral states of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Iran, have not come to an agreement in regards to the legal status of the Caspian, which means it is not considered to be a lake or a sea. This incident can be explained by the legal consequences of claiming the Caspian as an International Lake or Sea. As one could assume, this two statuses greatly differ in regards to their legal structures. It is of the utmost importance to not that the various national …

Go to article

Change Of Physical Context Impairs Cardiovascular Habituation To Stress, Kevin M. Palmer Jan 2008

Change Of Physical Context Impairs Cardiovascular Habituation To Stress, Kevin M. Palmer

HIM 1990-2015

The present study examined whether cardiovascular habituation to stress is affected by a change in the physical context in which a stressor is encountered. Twenty-five undergraduate students at the University of Central Florida, Palm Bay Campus, were exposed to 4 trials of a stressor consisting of mental arithmetic while under evaluative observation. It was hypothesized that if participants experienced a change in the physical context in which stress was experienced on the final trial, they would demonstrate impaired habituation to stress as indicated by measures of heart rate and blood pressure. Physical context was manipulated by either asking participants to …

Go to article

Exploring The Relationship Between Patients' Health Locus Of Control And Perception Of Physician's Support, Maria F. Ricci Twitchell Jan 2008

Exploring The Relationship Between Patients' Health Locus Of Control And Perception Of Physician's Support, Maria F. Ricci Twitchell

HIM 1990-2015

This study explored the relationship between patients' Health Locus of Control and their perceptions about the nature of their physician-patient relationship. The Locus of Control Scale and the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale were implemented to measure the degree of personal control individuals attribute to their health. The Health Care Climate Questionnaire was used to measure the perceived physician support. The predicted result of the study was that patients who exhibit a higher degree of internal health locus of control would report better relationships with their physicians. This hypothesis was confirmed; there was a positive relationship between Internal health …

Go to article

The Gendered Altar: Wiccan Concepts Of Gender And Ritual Objects, Jesse Sloan Jan 2008

The Gendered Altar: Wiccan Concepts Of Gender And Ritual Objects, Jesse Sloan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many ethnographic accounts within the annals of anthropological literature describe the religious beliefs and magical rituals of peoples throughout the world. Fewer scholars have focused on the relatively young Neo-Pagan religious movement. "Neo-Pagan," explains Helen Berger in Voices from the Pagan Census (2003), "is an umbrella term covering sects of a new religious movement, the largest and most important form of which is…Wicca" (Berger et al. 2003: 1). This thesis examines the relationship between practice and ideology by analyzing the material culture of Wiccan altars as used by Wiccans in Central Florida, USA. Particular attention is paid to beliefs …

Go to article

Discerning Migration In The Archaeological Record: A Case Study At Chichã©N Itzã¡, Andrea Slusser Jan 2008

Discerning Migration In The Archaeological Record: A Case Study At Chichã©N Itzã¡, Andrea Slusser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Migration, as a theory to explain aspects in the archaeological record, has fallen out of favor in Mesoamerican archaeology, possibly due to a lack of a standard definition or description of migration. Migration as an explanation of change in Maya civilizations has been around since the 1950's and the culture-history era of American archaeology. Since the early 1990's, migration has been treated as a process, one that can be discerned in pre-literate cultures as well as historical ones. Models of the migration process are being developed and tested. One type of migration, elite dominance migration, is a particularly suitable process …

Go to article

Collaborative Dispute Resolution In Superfund Enforcement:Does The Resolution Approach Vary By Community-Level Sociodemographic, Mary Collins Jan 2008

Collaborative Dispute Resolution In Superfund Enforcement:Does The Resolution Approach Vary By Community-Level Sociodemographic, Mary Collins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines environmental dispute resolution as applied to Superfund site cleanup and how the use of collaborative dispute resolution approaches, in particular Alternative Dispute Resolution and Community Involvement, are related to a community's socioeconomic and demographic profile. It examines the sociodemographic characteristics of residents living in census tracts containing Superfund sites in relation to the type of dispute resolution technique used. I hypothesize that collaborative dispute resolution techniques, as opposed to traditional settlement and/or litigation, are less likely to occur in Superfund communities with high poverty levels and high minority populations than in those with low poverty levels and …

Go to article

Study Of Symbolic Expressions In Peking Opera'scostumes And Lyrics, Yiman Li Jan 2008

Study Of Symbolic Expressions In Peking Opera'scostumes And Lyrics, Yiman Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis represents an analysis of symbolic expressions used to convey traditional Chinese cultural values in marital relations as expressed through costumes and lyrics in Peking Opera plays and performances. Two symbols, dragon and phoenix, were selected from the costume collection. Four symbols--bird, tiger, wild goose, and dragon--were selected from compilations of lyrics. These symbols were selected because they expressed Chinese core cultural values, an imperial ideology based on Confucian thoughts, which were practiced rigidly during Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Modeling Theory is applied to argue that dragon and phoenix as visual symbols convey ideas about characters' background, marital relationship, social …

Go to article

Attachment Style's Impact On The Perception Of Self-Verifying And Self-Enhancing Comforting Messages, Krista Shellabarger Jan 2008

Attachment Style's Impact On The Perception Of Self-Verifying And Self-Enhancing Comforting Messages, Krista Shellabarger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the connection between one's adult attachment style and one's evaluation of verifying or enhancing comforting messages. Drawing from research by Swann (2005) and Katz and Joiner (2002), the hypothesis predicted that an individual would prefer verifying messages over enhancing messages regardless of attachment style. A research question was also posed: Will an individual's adult attachment style moderate the degree to which a person perceives the communication of verifying or enhancing messages as helpful or effective? In an effort to find these answers, a questionnaire was completed by 251 individuals. Results indicate a preference for verifying messages among …

Go to article

Crossing The Line In Cross-Sex Friendships: Effects Of Past Sexual Contact And Dating Status On Relational Maintenance, Melissa Emmett Jan 2008

Crossing The Line In Cross-Sex Friendships: Effects Of Past Sexual Contact And Dating Status On Relational Maintenance, Melissa Emmett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given that male-female friendships lack institutional guidelines or scripts to guide everyday interactions, sustaining these relationships can be complicated. Although researchers have recently begun to study relational maintenance patterns in cross-sex friendships, no study has yet to investigate sex's and dating status's direct influences on friendship maintenance. This investigation seeks to add to the field's academic understanding of these personal relationships. Specifically, the researcher sought to uncover the associations between 10 friendship maintenance behaviors, past sexual contact, valence of past sexual contact, and cross-sex friends' dating statuses. Quantitative data were collected from 277 participants at a large Southeastern university using …

Go to article

A Genre Of Collective Intelligence: Blogs As Intertextual, Reciprocal, And Pedagogical, Rachel Gramer Jan 2008

A Genre Of Collective Intelligence: Blogs As Intertextual, Reciprocal, And Pedagogical, Rachel Gramer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the rhetorical features of blogs that lend them dialogic strength as an online genre through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of speech genres, utterances, and dialogism. As a relatively new online genre, blogs stem from previous genres (in print and online as well as verbal), but their emergence as a popular form of expression in our current culture demands attention to how blogs also offer us different rhetorical opportunities to meet our changing social exigencies as online subjects in the 21st century. This thesis was inspired by questions about how blogs redefine the rhetorical situation to …

Go to article

Forensic Analysis Of Automobile Paints By Atomic And Molecular Spectroscopic Methods And Statistical Data Analyses, Erin Mcintee Jan 2008

Forensic Analysis Of Automobile Paints By Atomic And Molecular Spectroscopic Methods And Statistical Data Analyses, Erin Mcintee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The analysis of 110 automotive paint samples was conducted for the research presented here. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) was the central instrument utilized for analysis although scanning electron microscopy / energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy - attenuated total reflection (FTIR-ATR) analyses were also performed. Two separate methods of LIBS analysis of samples were used: a cross sectional analysis and a drill down analysis. SEM/EDS analysis focused on the cross section while FTIR-ATR analysis concentrated on the clearcoat layer. Several different data/statistical analyses were evaluated including principal components analysis (PCA), two tailed t-tests based on several …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last