Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Humanitarian Intervention: Great Expectations And Shattered Hopes, Charles W. Peraino

Master's Theses

America faces the moral dilemma of whether to intervene militarily, at great risk, in states which commit massive human rights violations against their own citizens. A systematic look at the intellectual ideas guiding international relations reveals such atrocities to be an established part of international behavior. Ending this structural violence is difficult because of the epistemological and ethical limits of social science, the rule of law, political theory, and moral philosophy. The resulting, insolvable problems of international politics--such as the preference for international order over individual justice, the unlimited aspirations of nationalism and self-determination, the conflicts of cultural relativism, and …

The Racial Gap In Public Opinion Concerning The Persian Gulf War: A Study Of Opinion Leaders In Richmond, Virginia, Ryan Turner Riggs

Master's Theses

The proportion of black Americans serving in the United States military is much larger than their proportion among the general population. This issue came to the forefront· during the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991. While proud that many blacks were serving in uniform, and that the leader of the entire military, General Colin L. Powell, was black, many black Americans expressed dismay at the potential for high black casualty rates and questioned why the high numbers of blacks in the military even existed. In addition, public opinion polls showed that blacks were less supportive of the war than whites. This …

The "Unstinted Effort" Of Social Comparison : Biases In The Retrieval Of Behavior Among Depressives And Nondepressives, Michele Christine Fejfar

Master's Theses

The egocentric bias, peoples' tendency to view themselves as better than others, has been found to exist in many different domains (Messick, Bloom, Boldizar, & Samuelson, 1985). Fejfar, Proudfoot, Allison, and Beggan (1994) uncovered evidence supporting two components to the bias: the motivation to be egocentric and the construction of strategies to fulfill this motivation. In the present research, this model was used to determine the biases inherent in depressive (as opposed to nondepressive) cognitions by having subjects list good and bad behaviors performed by themselves and others. Subjects directly or indirectly compared themselves to others (to test the motivation …

Iran And Turkmenistan : Significant Bilateral Construction And Cooperation In Central Asia?, Craig William Hershberg

Master's Theses

The primary purpose of this thesis is to offer a policy analysis of bilateral agreements, between Iran and Turkmenistan from late 1991 to the summer of 1994, the main focus of which is to identify possible gaps between theory and practice or policy making and policy implemelltation. My hope is to add to our knowledge of the little understood, but nonetheless significant, Central Asian countries and their emerging relationships with neighboring countries. The approach of this paper is based on an extensive chronology, consisting of numerous, detailed examples of cooperation, agreements, contracts, proposals, construction, and other aspects of infrastructure between …

Alienation And Altruism Among Street Level Bureaucrats: A Study Of The Virginia Victim/Witness And Crime Assistance Program, Susan Margaret O'Donnell

Master's Theses

Author Michael Lipsky argues that street-level bureaucrats are unresponsive to clients' needs because of five conditions that characterize the bureaucratic setting. These conditions include a chronic lack of resources, an ever-increasing client load, ambiguous or conflicting agency goal expectations, goal measures that encourage impersonal service, and the lack of a client reference group for workers. One purpose of this paper is to determine if the five conditions of work that frame Lipsky's argument in a street-level bureaucracy exist for the Virginia Victim/Witness and Crime Victim Assistance (V /W-CVA) program. Another objective is to evaluate the implications of these conditions for …

The Hormones Of Pregnancy Alter Somal Size In The Medial Preoptic Area Of The Rat Brain, Lori A. Keyser

Master's Theses

Formerly non-responsive females will display maternal behavior (MB) following pregnancy and parturition. The behavioral alterations are believed to occur in response to hormonal changes that accompany pregnancy. The medical pre optic area (MPOA) regulates hormone-induced MB. The current study examined neuronal changes which might account for the modified behavior. Twenty adult female Sprague-Dawley rats were assigned a hormone condition: ovariectomized (OVX), ovariectomized/hormone-treated (P+E₂), intact diestrus (DI), or pregnant (PREG). Animals were killed, and their brains fixed in Golgi-Cox solution. Somata of the MPOA and related cortex were measured in each group using a Bioquant imaging system. Pregnant females …

Women Leaders : Balancing Professional And Personal Lives, Meredith L. Schalick

Honors Theses

The concept for my Senior Project originated from concerns and questions about my future and observations I have made about women leaders. This project was designed for four purposes: (1) to meet a need for University of Richmond students, (2) examine a subject in which I have vested interest because of my career goals, (3) improve my research skills, and (4) address an issue dealing with women and leadership. The project attempts to illustrate that women, as a result of their role assignment by society to be the primary care-provider for children, face certain challenges when they seek to find …

Reciprocity, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

This is the mutual exchange of similar-in-kind responses among interactants.

Norms, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Consensual standards that describe what behaviors should and should not be performed in a given context are called social norms. They prescribe the socially appropriate way to respond in the situation - the "normal" course of action - as well as proscribing actions to avoid if at all possible. Social norms, in contrast to statistical norms or general expectations based on intuitive base rates for behavior, include an evaluative component. People who do not comply with the norms of a situation and cannot provide an acceptable explanation for their violation are evaluated negatively. This condemnation can include hostility, pressure to …

"Why Don't He Like My Hair?": Constructing African-American Standards Of Beauty In Toni Morrison's "Song Of Solomon" And Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Bertram D. Ashe

English Faculty Publications

African-Americans, with their traditionally African features, have always had an uneasy coexistence with the European (white) ideal of beauty. According to Angela M. Neal and Midge L. Wilson, "Compared to Black males, Black females have been more profoundly affected by the prejudicial fallout surrounding issues of skin color, facial features, and hair. Such impact can be attributed in large part to the importance of physical attractiveness for all women" (328). For black women, the most easily controlled feature is hair. While contemporary black women sometimes opt for cosmetic surgery or colored contact lenses, hair alteration (i.e., hair-straightening "permanents," hair weaves, …

Evaluating Mccallum's Rule For Monetary Policy, Dean D. Croushore, Tom Stark

Economics Faculty Publications

Some economists have proposed that the Federal Reserve follow a rigid rule for conducting monetary policy. A policy rule is a formula that tells the Fed how to set monetary policy. For example, in 1959 Milton Friedman argued that the Fed should increase the money supply a constant 4 percent each year to eliminate inflation and avoid destabilizing the economy. More recently, other economists have identified an additional benefit: a rule can eliminate the inflationary bias that could occur when discretionary monetary policy is used. Under a discretionary policy, decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

But economists don't agree …

[Introduction To] The Leader's Companion: Insights On Leadership Through The Ages, J. Thomas Wren

Bookshelf

This book serves as a guided introduction to the rich a diverse perspectives on leadership throughout the ages and throughout the world. Each of the selections, introduced by the editor, presents enlightening thoughts on a different aspect of leadership. Writings by Plato, Aristotle, Lao-tzu and others demonstrate that the challenges of leadership are as old as civilization. Machiavelli, Tolstoy, Ghandi, and W.E.B. Du Bois provide a wide range of insights into the eternal practice and problems of leadership. Modern masters of leadership such as James MacGregor Burns, John Kotter, and Warren Bennis join such leading practitioners as Max De Pree …

[Introduction To] Our Social World, Donelson R. Forsyth

Bookshelf

Noted by reviewers as being exceptionally well-written and engaging, this text is intended to help students understand how social psychologists view the world, to teach them to recognize the social determinants of human action, and to make use of social psychology in their daily lives. Without watering down the content, Forsyth writes in a style that is consistently clear and conversational, and effectively integrates social psychology with everyday life. Using research findings as demonstrations and evidence (rather than as an exhaustive review of the literature), Forsyth urges students to look at the world from a social psychologist's perspective. Rather than …

[Introduction To] Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo- German Restraint During World War Ii, Jeffrey W. Legro

Bookshelf

Why do nations cooperate even as they try to destroy each other? Jeffrey Legro explores this question in the context of World War II, the "total" war that in fact wasn't. During the war, combatant states attempted to sustain agreements limiting the use of three forms of combat considered barbarous—submarine attacks against civilian ships, strategic bombing of civilian targets, and chemical warfare. Looking at how these restraints worked or failed to work between such fierce enemies as Hitler's Third Reich and Churchill's Britain, Legro offers a new understanding of the dynamics of World War II and the sources of international …

Bidayat Al-Mujtama' Al-Madani Fi Al-Yaman, Sheila Carapico

Political Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

House Leadership, Daniel Palazzolo

Political Science Faculty Publications

In 1959, political scientist David Truman described the complexity of congressional leadership: "Everyone knows something of leaders and leadership of various sorts, but no one knows very much. Leadership, especially in the political realm, unavoidably or by design often is suffused .by an atmosphere of the mystic and the magical, and these have been little penetrated by systematic observation" (Truman, 1959, p. 94). House leadership remains a complex concept, but it has been defined more clearly and more systematically in the years· since Truman's observation.

Intrapersonal Perceptions And Epistemic Rhetoric: Playing Ball With The Neglected Umpire, Scott D. Johnson, Russell F. Proctor Ii

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Positions in the ongoing debate regarding rhetorical epistemology can be typified by a continuum with objectivists at one end and intersubjectivists at the other. This essay suggests that a middle position may better serve the communication discipline. The authors provide an overview of the debate, then present three common uses of the term “reality” (objective reality, social reality, and intrapersonal reality) as guides for understanding the positions of the debaters. New labels for these uses of “reality,” combined with a discussion of the vital role of intrapersonal processes in epistemology, provide a position that emphasizes the significance of both symbols …

The Historical And Contemporary Contexts Of Leadership: A Conceptual Model, J. Thomas Wren

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Stating that leadership is a complex phenomenon repeats a truism that is painfully obvious to all who have ever participated in, observed, or analyzed the process as leaders, followers, students or scholars. Despite its inherent complexity, those who seek an understanding of the nature of leadership and leadership processes are well rewarded by the insights generated thereby. This essay provides an expanded conception of one of the key elements of the leadership process--the context of leadership.

The Influence Of Emotion On Temporal Perspectives, Skye Mims Ochsner

Master's Theses

Recent research suggests that our understanding of the abstract domain of time is dependent on the more concrete domain of space. At once time is measurable and abstract, thus we often think of it both temporally as well as spatially. Boroditsky and Ramscar (2002) find that the spatial domain influences whether people see themselves as moving through time (ego-moving perspective) or as time moving towards them (timemoving perspective). Might there be other factors at work influencing these perspectives other than just representations of spatial experience? The current studies investigate the role that emotion plays in construal of time. Specifically, do …

A Look At Black Youth Unemployment (Sixteen To Nineteen Years Of Age) Focusing On Black Youth In Virginia, Mary Martin Tucker

Master's Theses

This thesis will identify patterns of black youth unemployment in the nation and in Virginia and analyze the problem in Virginia. The analysis involves identifying discrepancies in unemployment rates across counties and cities in Virginia, selecting cases in which black youth unemployment is relatively low, and exploring reasons for lower rates. The ultimate aim is to determine why some areas have lower black youth unemployment than others, and to use that information to suggest courses of action for treating the problem. The case studies of Virginia counties and cities reveal that under certain local environmental conditions, such as strong economies, …

Naming And Knowing: Giving Forms To Things Unknown, David E. Leary

Psychology Faculty Publications

The purpose of this essay is to provide some "forms" and "habitations"—some principles and examples, if you will—of the phenomenon of metaphorical thinking in science. First, I will share some general comments about this phenomenon, and then I will illustrate it with an extended discussion of a recent line of thought, research, and application within behavioral psychology.

"Constructing" Nation Within States: The Quest For Federal Recognition By The Catawba And Lumbee Tribes, Anne Merline Mcculloch, David E. Wilkins

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Creating and in some cases re-creating viable tribal political communities within the construct of modern nation-state has proven to be a troublesome task for indigenous populations worldwide. The task for indigenous governments in the United States has been further complication by federalism's divisions of power between the states and the national government. Native American tribes often find themselves waging a two-front battle in which they must resist state encroachments over their lands and their inherent government authority; while at the same time they must lobby the federal government for protection of those same lands and powers.

History is replete with …

The "De-Selected" Senate Committee On Indian Affairs And Its Legislative Record, 1977-1992, David E. Wilkins

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

This essay has three major sections. In section one, I examine the Congress's constitutional responsibility for administration of the federal government's affairs with tribes. In section two, I describe the history of the various Indian committees from 1820 to 1977. Section three details the legislative record of the Senate Select Committee during its sixteen-year existence (1977-1993) as a "select" entity. Substantive policy content analysis of the committee's legislative activity, which is the next logical step leading to the construction of a theory or theories about congressional committees and their impact on the development of sound federal Indian policy, must await …

Tribal-State Affairs: The Next Proving Ground?, David E. Wilkins

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

While these more profound issues of structure and perception beg for solution, a more immediate problem has arisen with the advent of Republican dominance in the Congress. One of the likely outgrowths of this transference of political power is that Congress, along with the Supreme Court, which has been doing it for some time, may funnel more issues to the States and their subsidiary governments for resolution or administration. Such a transfer does not bode well for tribes. Remember the allotment of Indian lands (1880s-1930s) and the Termination of tribes (1950s-1960s)? Those policies essentially made tribes and their citizens subject …

Reference Group, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Any group, including general social groupings based on demographic similarities (e.g., race or culture), that individuals use as a basis for social comparison.

Making Richmond Greater : A Study Of The Greater Richmond Community Corps, Elizabeth A. Devoss

Honors Theses

The impetus or need for a study of the evolution of a group like the Greater Richmond Community Corps relates to the need for community leadership throughout the country. Many urban areas are facing the same crisis-like problems as Richmond. As a result, this study could provide them with a model in addressing these problems and an in-depth look at Richmond's response.

Greater Richmond Community Corps, Elizabeth Devoss

Honors Theses

The Richmond Community Corps was created by Mayor Leonidas B. Young in September 1994, in response to rising crime and violence in the Richmond community and in direct response to recommendations of the report of the Richmond Regional Crime Commission. Mayor Young, a second term council member, newly elected mayor and pastor in one of Richmond's most crime ridden areas, believes that crime and violence in our neighborhood's can be greatly affected if greater numbers of citizens get involved in making their communities safer places to live. As originally envisioned by Mayor Young, the Richmond Community Corps, would provide citizens …

Leading The Unpopular Cause : Legal Advocacy For Abused Women, Katarine L. Donahue

Honors Theses

I decided to compile research on legal advocacy, specifically representing abused women, and to create a training manual for court advocates. This guide will become a part of the task force's goal to serve the battered women within the community. I have analyzed the purpose and need for legal advocates, including a literature review and my own leadership reflections.

Political Leadership: A Study In The State Government, Chet Clark

Honors Theses

For this study, a member of the House of Delegates, who has been designated as a leader by his peers, has been selected for analysis. Delegate William Howell agreed to be observed during the legislative session of the House of Delegates. Three specific areas of leadership were observed during this time period. The decision making process, leader-constituent interaction, and the influence of values on leadership have been chosen as the three key areas of political leadership study.

Virginia Commonwealth University's Plan For A Diverse Community, Matthew T. Corkern

Honors Theses

Having always been intrigued by academic administration, it is only appropriate that I chose to study leadership perspectives within this traditional, yet ever changing context. Desiring the challenge of intellectual development as well as an opportunity to bring an effective change, I researched and assembled a pilot project. With use of this procedure, the Office of Academic Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), may now analyze the implementation of various directions and components of their Strategic Plan over the next months for the September 1995 deadline.