Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Testing Resilience As A Moderator Of The Torture-Mental Health Relationship In Refugee Survivors Of Torture, Phyu Pannu Khin

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

There may be as many as 1.3 million refugee survivors of torture currently living in the United States (Center for Victims of Torture, 2015). Torture is a unique predictor of various debilitating mental health conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety (Quiroga & Jaranson, 2005). The current study focuses on a clinical sample of refugee survivors of torture to examine resilience-promoting factors including external protective factors, community engagement, employment, and English fluency, and an internal protective factor, psychological flexibility. This study conducted moderation analyses utilizing the PROCESS program in SPSS (Hayes, 2013) to better understand the moderating impacts …

Healthcare Provider Communication In Teens With Type 1 Diabetes: Parental Overprotection And Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills, Tori Humiston

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a complex chronic illness requiring both complex daily treatments and ongoing healthcare provider interactions to support optimal glycemic levels necessary for long-term health and quality of life. Adolescents do not manage their T1D by themselves but rather in collaboration with parents who often help in health tasks and navigating healthcare provider interactions. Although parental support is critical for the adolescent’s development of disease-management skills, it requires parents maintain a delicate balance of allowing adolescent autonomy and providing parent support. When parental support shifts to parental overprotection, i.e., restricting and limiting an adolescent’s activity engagement, it …

Black Resilience And Empowerment Through Self-Affirming Self-Care At Predominately White Institutions Of Higher Education, Vicki L. Garrison

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The institution of higher education, especially predominately white institutions of higher education (PWIHE), perpetuates the subjugation of Black people through the existence of traditional societal ideologies, values, and practices that function with and reinforce racism as the norm. Limited research exists about self-care strategies that assist Black students with navigating PWIHE. The purpose of this study is to explore strategies of self-care that can assist Black students to more healthily and successfully navigate a PWIHE. This qualitative narrative study illuminates Black experiences, empowers Black voices, and validates Black truth while extracting and capitalizing on Black agency to generate knowledge for …

Associative Structures Underlying Discriminated Three-Response Behavior Chains, Noelle Loren Michaud

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Instrumental behavior often consists of sequences of responses, or chains, that lead to a primary reinforcing outcome. These responses often differ in terms of both topography and the discriminative stimuli that set the occasion for them. Previous studies have focused on two response chains. They have shown that extinction of R1 weakens the associated R2, and conversely that extinction of R2 also weakens R1. To expand what little we know about discriminated instrumental chains, as well as the associative structure that underlies them, in the present experiments we test the effects of separately extinguishing individual responses on other target responses …

Estimating Aviation And Passenger Vehicle Emissions For Surveyed Long-Distance, Intercity Trips, Elizabeth Duffy

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Transportation in the United States is the largest sector contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) (EPA, 2020). The proportion of passenger miles for long-distance, intercity travel is estimated to be 30% of the total for air, on-road passenger vehicle, and other modes. Methods for estimating and mitigating these emissions have received limited focus and there is a need to evaluate if a reduction in long-distance travel emissions is feasible through behavior change including modal shift, vehicle occupancy, or destination choice. The focus of this research is the design and implementation of a carbon calculator that estimates the CO2 emissions of …

Implications Of Attitudes On Environmental Challenges: Understanding The Human Dimensions Of Invasive Insects In New England Landowners, Ariana Margarita Cano Gomez

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Many scientists argue that the threat of invasive insects is one of the most pressingenvironmental issues of our time. Decades of research quantify the threat and risk invasive species pose to the New England Forest, yet there is little research combining both the ecological impacts of invasive insects and human attitudes of the potential threats they pose. This dissertation aims to understand the current attitude of landowners in the New England region that are experiencing the threat of hemlock woolly adelgid, emerald ash borer, or Asian longhorned beetle. This dissertation includes three different studies focusing on social psychology frameworks and …

Examining Antepartum Quit Attempts Using A Latent Factor Model Of A Hypothetical Cigarette Purchase Task, Carolyn Grace Evemy

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Previous research has validated the use of hypothetical purchase tasks to measure smoking demand among pregnant women. This study extends that research by (1) examining the factor loading pattern of a hypothetical cigarette purchase task (CPT) in a sample of pregnant women who smoke, and (2) comparing the ability of the latent factor solution to predict antepartum quit attempts relative to more conventional predictors. Participants were 665 pregnant women seeking enrollment in a smartphone-based smoking-cessation trial. Data were taken from an intake assessment that included the CPT, the Kirby delayed discounting task, sociodemographic and smoking-history questionnaires, and assessment of antepartum …

Quantifying Language Changes Surrounding Mental Health On Twitter, Anne Marie Stupinski

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Mental health challenges are thought to afflict around 10% of the global population each year, with many going untreated due to stigma and limited access to services. Here, we explore trends in words and phrases related to mental health through a collection of 1- , 2-, and 3-grams parsed from a data stream of roughly 10% of all English tweets since 2012. We examine temporal dynamics of mental health language, finding that the popularity of the phrase ‘mental health’ increased by nearly two orders of magnitude between 2012 and 2018. We observe that mentions of ‘mental health’ spike annually and …

Quantifying Proverb Dynamics In Books, News Articles, And Tweets, Ethan Davis

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Proverbs are an essential component of language and culture, and though much attention has been paid to their history and currency, there has been comparatively little quantitative work on the frequency with which they are used, and the dynamics of their use over time. With wider availability of large corpora reflecting many diverse genres of documents, it is now possible to take a wider view of the importance of the proverb. Can a corpus linguistic approach to phraseology support existing histories, and what further insight can be gained from a quantitative approach? This study measures temporal changes in the relevance …

Policy And Economic Variables Influencing Adoption Of Sustainable Electrification In Rural Sub-Saharan Africa, Payne William Morgan

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Limited access to electricity remains a primary constraint to economic growth and the improvement of livelihoods throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In rural areas, electricity access is especially sparse. The reasons for the scarcity of electricity supply in the region are well documented, with low population density, limited household incomes, and poor regulatory institutions compounding to often make the investment of expanding electricity access result in poor or risky economic returns. However, the declining cost of solar PV and mandates for clean energy development throughout the region have created new channels for bringing electricity supply in potentially more cost-effective ways.Despite these macro …

Shaped And Structured Fields For Underground Remote Sensing And Communication, Daniel Jerome Orfeo

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

There is an urgent and longstanding need for non-contact subsurface imaging for the detection and identification of buried objects. This dissertation investigates the use of specialized electromagnetic (EM) remote sensing techniques for the detection of subsurface objects with little or no metal content, such as utility pipes, landmines, and improvised explosive devices. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a well-established remote sensing technology with widespread use [58]; despite this, significant performance limitations remain. First, a high degree of sensitivity is necessary to detect and locate nonmetallic targets. Second, target geometries and congested target configurations are difficult to identify and resolve. Third, …

Vermont Special Educators’ Perceptions On The Inclusion Of Students With Disabilities In Universal Positive Behavioral Interventions And Supports (Pbis), Cassandra L. Townshend

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

AbstractOver the last 25 years, there has been an increased body of research on best practices to address the social, emotional, and behavioral well-being of all students in schools. Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) has consistently demonstrated effectiveness in attending to all students’ social, emotional, and behavioral wellbeing – including students with disabilities (Simonsen et al., Feb., 2020). Despite PBIS being implemented in over 27,000 schools in the United States (Horner & Sugai, 2015) and in over 50% of schools Vermont, minimal research has been conducted on the experiences of special educators and their perceptions of PBIS practices on …

The Developmental Course Of Adhd In The Preschool Classroom: Toward A Prevention Treatment Framework, Caroline Martin

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The objective of this study was to examine the developmental trajectories of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity symptom levels during preschool among a majority Head Start sample of 261 three- to five-year-old children (87% Head Start; 59% Caucasian; 53% boys; Mage = 3.97 years). Teacher ratings of ADHD symptom levels across four time points within the academic year demonstrated, on average, a course of increasing inattention that decelerated over time and a course of steadily increasing hyperactivity/impulsivity. When accounting for the clustering of children within classrooms, both inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity showed an average increasing trajectory over the year with no deceleration. Group-based …

The Incel Lexicon: Deciphering The Emergent Cryptolect Of A Global Misogynistic Community, Kelly Caroline Gothard

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Evolving out of a gender-neutral framing ofan involuntary celibate identity, the concept of `incels' has come to refer to an online community of men who bear antipathy towards themselves, women, and society-at-large for their perceived inability to find and maintain sexual relationships. By exploring incel language use on Reddit, a global online message board, we contextualize the incel community's online expressions of misogyny and real-world acts of violence perpetrated against women. After assembling around three million comments from incel-themed Reddit channels, we analyze the temporal dynamics of a data driven rank ordering of the glossary of phrases belonging to an …

How And Why Do People Value Nature? An Examination Of Nonmaterial Aspects Of Human-Nature Interactions., Tatiana Marquina

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Nonmaterial benefits from nature, often labeled as cultural ecosystem services, represent a core dimension of human well-being. Yet despite their importance, these benefits and associated values remain overlooked in environmental assessments and decisions.

This dissertation applies insights from multiple disciplines to document nonmaterial dimensions of human-nature interactions across geographic contexts and user groups. As nonmaterial benefits can be hard to elicit and measure, this work uses multiple existing data collection methods and tests a novel data collection tool. First, I use a qualitative study design to explore values and stewardship practices associated with urban foraging in New York City, NY. …

Exploring Hidden Networks Yields Important Insights In Disparate Fields Of Study, Laurence Clarfeld

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Network science captures a broad range of problems related to things (nodes) and relationships between them (edges). This dissertation explores real-world network problems in disparate domain applications where exploring less obvious "hidden networks" reveals important dynamics of the original network.

The power grid is an explicit network of buses (e.g., generators) connected by branches (e.g., transmission lines). In rare cases, if k branches (a k-set) fail simultaneously, a cascading blackout may ensue; we refer to such k-sets as "defective". We calculate system risk of cascading failure due to defective 2-sets and 3-sets in synthetic test cases of the Polish and …

The Feasibility Of Over-Summer Snow Storage At The Craftsbury Outdoor Center, Craftsbury Vt, Hannah Sarah Weiss

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Climate change increases the unpredictability of winter weather and threatens the future of nordic skiing. Ski centers at high elevation and high latitude have employed over-summer snow storage, a climate change adaptation strategy, to ensure a consistent start-date to their winter ski season. Over-summer snow storage involves making a large pile of snow during winter and storing the snow beneath protective layers, such as wood chips or foam panels, to impede melt throughout the summer and fall. When ready to open the ski season, the ski center uncovers the pile and spreads the snow to create trails. Though many nordic …

The Food-Energy-Water Nexus, Embodied Injustices, And Transboundary Sustainability, Sonya Ahamed

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Intersections of food, energy, and water systems (the FEW nexus) pose many sustainability and governance challenges, including risks to ecosystems, inequitable distribution of benefits and harms across populations, and reliance on distant sources for food, energy, and water. Nexus-based approaches can offer more holistic pathways for societal transitions to FEW systems that are just and sustainable, but tend to focus narrowly on inputs (e.g. water ‘for’ energy) in ways that do little to address the historical roots and structural underpinnings of current system inadequacies, thus risking their perpetuation.

This dissertation widens the FEW nexus in two contexts in which the …

Food From Somewhere: Envisioning And Practicing Aspirational Food Systems, Caitlin Morgan

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This transdisciplinary dissertation explores the connections between material conditions, human engagements, and the social, economic, and ecological contexts in which they exist. It investigates imaginations of a better food system, projects people have already undertaken, and what happens when their visions meet reality.

Chapter 1 weaves together diverse literature: a justification for action-oriented research and a blending of ecofeminist scholarship, agroecology and sustainable agriculture, ecological economics, systems theory and food systems scholarship, and sensory studies. These disciplines tie together through notions of embeddedness, embodiment, and the context for action, which all translate to the dissertation’s methodological approach of mixed qualitative …

Predictors Of Suicidal Ideation Among Formerly Incarcerated People During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Rachel Matthes Gehman

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Background and purpose: Formerly incarcerated people die by suicide at a rate 6.75 times higher than the general population, but previous research has not identified factors that contribute to this heightened risk. The conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic may exacerbate both suicide risk factors and the stressors of reentry. In the framework of stress proliferation theory, this study uses path analysis to identify paths from incarceration history to environmental factors (i.e., financial stress), interpersonal factors (i.e., social support and conflict), psychological factors (i.e., depression and existential isolation, the feeling of being alone in one’s subjective experience), and their subsequent relationship …

Birth Registration And Educational Access In Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case For An Explanatory Spatial Research Design, Thomas Edward Griffin

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In 2019, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated the global number of children under the age of 5 without birth registrations at 166 million, with the largest share being present in Sub-Saharan Africa. As the author witnessed firsthand while working in Cameroon, the lack of birth registration documentation (i.e. birth certificates) precluded students from progressing from primary to secondary education. Struck by this example of social exclusion, the purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which birth registration acted as a barrier to educational access in primary and secondary education systems elsewhere across Sub-Saharan Africa. An …

Autonomic Reactivity In Emerging Adulthood : Relationships Between Cyberbullying , The Autonomic Nervous System, And Clinical Outcomes., Aya Cheaito

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, online environments have become critical ways of connecting among college students. With the increase in online interactions, cybervictimization has been identified as a public health issue. This study aims to examine whether cybervictimization among college students is associated with clinical adjustment outcomes such as depression and alcohol consumption. This study also aims to examine whether reactivity in the two branches of the autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic) jointly moderate the relationship between cyberbullying and depression/alcohol consumption, indicating sensitivity to the environment. Participants (n =164, 69% female, M age = 19.92, SD = …

The Development And Validation Of The Supportive Other Experiences Questionnaire: Integrating The Perspectives Of The Social Support Provider After Traumatic Injury, Katherine Ann Van Stolk-Cooke

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Social support is considered to be a protective factor against the development of PTSD after trauma. However, examinations of the social support-PTSD relationship have relied primarily on the self-reports of trauma-exposed individuals to the exclusion of their support providers. A new measure, the Supportive Other Experiences Questionnaire (SOEQ) was developed based on social support theory, prior research and psychometrics in order to capture important components of social support from the perspective of the support provider. Concerned Significant Others (CSOs) recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform who served as support providers to a traumatically injured romantic partner were recruited to …

Language Problems And Adhd Behaviors: Associations With School Readiness In An At-Risk Preschool Sample, Marissa Dennis

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the unique and interactive effects of preschoolers’ receptive language ability and ADHD behavior levels on social-emotional, physical, language, cognitive, literacy, and mathematics school readiness, over and above the effects of socioeconomic status (SES). At the start of the preschool year, 49 predominantly low-SES preschool children completed a receptive language task and teachers rated their ADHD behavior levels. School readiness data were collected approximately three months after the start of the school year. First, hierarchical regression analyses indicated that, after controlling for covariates and the non-focal predictor (i.e., ADHD behaviors or receptive language ability), higher levels of receptive …

Adhd Behaviors And Social Functioning In Preschool Children: The Moderating Roles Of Inhibitory Control And Emotion Recognition, Allison Krasner

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the moderating roles of inhibitory control and emotion recognition on the association between preschoolers’ ADHD behaviors and social functioning outcomes. Fifty-six preschoolers were recruited from Head Start-affiliated classrooms. Teacher-rated ADHD behaviors and objective measures of children’s inhibitory control and emotion recognition were assessed at the beginning of the school year. Teacher ratings of social functioning outcomes were obtained approximately three months after the start of school. Hierarchical regressions examined the unique and interactive effects of ADHD behaviors and each focal moderator (i.e., inhibitory control or emotion recognition) on preschoolers’ social functioning outcomes (i.e., oppositional behaviors, peer behavior …

Enhancing Ecosystem Services And Climate Resilience In Agriculture: A Transdisciplinary Approach, Alissa White

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A complex of social, economic and environmental factors influences agricultural management in the northeastern US. Farmers often balance goals of farm viability, environmental stewardship, and resilience to climate change, while also under public pressure to enhance the provisioning of ecosystem services from their landscapes. Changes in farm management have been identified as cost-effective ways to address both local water quality issues, and global anthropogenic influences on greenhouse gas concentrations. Individual decision-making on the part of farmers that determines the fate of ecosystem service provisioning from agroecosystems, placing increasing importance on understanding how policy, outreach and research can support farmers’ capacity …

The Relationship Between Dominant And Submissive Sexual Fantasies And Behaviors And Sexual Satisfaction, Lilian Rae Dalton

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Sexual fantasies of dominance and submission are commonly reported as preferred fantasies in healthy women, yet little is understood regarding whether these fantasies affect other aspects of sexuality (Leitenberg et al., 1995). Even less research exists regarding associations between dominant and submissive fantasies, dominant and submissive sexual behavior, and resulting sexual satisfaction. It is not well understood how sexual fantasy may translate into sexual behavior in non-clinical populations, and what factors might facilitate or inhibit individuals’ engagement in sexual behavior that matches their sexual fantasies.

The current study measured the relationship between dominant and submissive sexual fantasies, dominant and submissive …

Capturing The Experiences Of Gender Non-Conforming Children Through The Minority Stress Model, Hannah Loso

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Gender non-conforming (GNC) adolescents experience staggering rates of peer and family victimization and discrimination. Recent research suggests children who present as GNC are more likely to experience distress regardless of their gender identity (e.g. Wilson et al., 2017). Increased mental health issues experienced by GNC youth can be conceptualized using Ilan Meyer’s Minority Stress model (Meyer, 1995; Meyer, 2003). This model posits three major processes related to minority stress: (1) distal - external and objective stressful conditions, (2) proximal - the expectation of victimization or discrimination and (3) internalization of negative societal attitudes related to one’s minority status. Although minority …

An International Pilot Study Of Volunteer Stream Monitoring Groups: The Role Of Place Attachment In Volunteer Motivations, Rachel Pierson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Engaging the public in scientific research through volunteer monitoring (a form of community science) has potential to expand knowledge of conditions and to improve collaborative decision-making. Many studies have sought to understand motivations for participation and potential resulting actions or behaviors that benefit the environment. Place-based connections have been demonstrated to lead people to adopt environmentally responsible behaviors. However, few studies have considered possible differences in motivations across countries or the role place attachment may play as a driver of initial or sustained participation.

The aim of this research was to determine the extent to which place attachment influences people’s …

“The Soul Is Symphonic”: Lessons On Practicing Music As Ecological Philosophy From Hildegard Of Bingen, Daniel Cottle

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In this thesis I seek to understand how music may be practiced as an embodied form of ecological philosophy; that is, how it might help us attain ecological wisdom and lead sustainable lives. In the first chapter, I explore the concept of askesis: the spiritual exercises by which ancient Greek and Roman thinkers practiced philosophy as a way of life. I introduce a simple model for the practice of askesis which is taken from accounts of ancient Stoic spiritual exercise. I also consider evidence for art as a form of askesis. In the second chapter, I describe the influence of …