Social and Behavioral Sciences | Open Access Articles

Division Of Inclusion And Community Engagement Newsletter, Vol. 1 No. 2, March 2023, Dice Staff

Division of Inclusion and Community Engagement Newsletters

Student mixer • DICE Awards • Black History Month recap • In our offices • DICE in the community • Read across America • Student spotlight: Blanca Andrade • Also of note • Our offices • Get involved

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Division Of Inclusion And Community Engagement Newsletter, Vol. 1 No. 1, February 2023, Heather Lobban-Viravong, Dice Staff

Division of Inclusion and Community Engagement Newsletters

A word from our Vice-President • MLK Week • MLK Week in pictures • What's new? • In our offices • DICE in the community • Student spotlight: Maia Peele '23 • Who are we? • How can I get involved?

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Can Health Outcomes And Inequalities Be Improved While Containing Costs? The Role Of Voluntary Health Insurance In Universal Health Care Systems In The Oecd, Paige Bristow

International Relations Honors Papers

While European countries have improved health outcomes through universal healthcare systems (UHC), they also face pressures to contain the high cost of these systems. In order to control expenses, governments have reduced services covered under UHC and increased co-payments. Voluntary health insurance (VHI) can help cover gaps in publicly financed health coverage, but this is not affordable for all. Since people with higher socioeconomic status are more likely to have VHI and medical providers are incentivized to prioritize people with VHI, VHI tends to exacerbate inequalities in access to health care. Similarly, high out-of-pocket costs worsen healthcare. This research focuses …

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An Analysis Of Decolonization Efforts In Urban Agriculture: A Pathway To Indigenous Food Sovereignty And Cultural Revitalization, Sarah Fisher

Environment and Sustainability Summer Fellows

My research focuses on applications of urban agriculture, relationships between Indigenous peoples and community-based agriculture projects, and decolonizing food systems. I provide insight on colonialist tendencies, or ways in which the marginalization of Indigenous peoples is deeply entrenched within government, educational, and other leadership settings, as a way to evaluate and restructure urban agriculture projects to serve, represent and heal Native communities. Conventional urban agriculture has many known benefits, including its capacity for food production; however, the extent to which Indigenous communities participate in and benefit from urban agriculture has not been widely studied. Ongoing exclusion of Indigenous peoples from …

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Diversity Casting Within Reality Tv Competitions, Maximus Moore

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

When it comes to casting in reality TV competition shows, many of the casts suffer from an imbalance in diversity, allowing majority white players to stick together and eliminate the few minority players every season. This paper deals with deconstructing how casting works as well as offering up solutions for change to the broken system.

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Let The Monsters Out Of The Closet: Overt Queer Depictions In Hollywood Horror Films, Miles D. Noecker

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

According to Harry M. Benshoff in his book Monsters in the Closet, Hollywood has a long history of demonizing queer people in horror films with what he refers to as the “monster queer.” The monster queer can be read as a key fixture of most horror narratives as a destabilizing force to heteronormative society which must be vanquished. As a gay man and avid horror enthusiast, I find myself drawn to overt (rather than connotative) examples of monster queers, from Norman Bates to Buffalo Bill to Megan Fox’s Jennifer Check. I seek to analyze Hollywood horror films for the …

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The Weaponization Of Rape: Military Culture, Tactical Warfare, And Legal Justice, Claire Velte

International Relations Summer Fellows

The long-accepted narrative of wartime rape is one of inevitability, with sexual violence committed at the hands of soldiers during conflict being written off as an unavoidable side-effect of war. In reality, however, wartime rape can be systematically and tactically employed by military forces to terrorize the bodies of their enemies, often as an attempt to physically and psychologically destroy certain populations. The act itself, when employed tactically, is legally recognized as a weapon of war—and the rape of civilians by military forces was legally designated as a crime against humanity in 1993—yet rape continues to be utilized in conflict …

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What Is Fast Fashion?, Morgan Laster

Sociology Summer Fellows

When most people think of fast fashion, they probably picture a company like Shein or Forever21. But what exactly is fast fashion? And when did it first emerge as a term? I tracked the evolution of what is called fast fashion by examining different sources in which the term has been mentioned. Many have accepted that the New York Times coined the term in 1989, but I discovered even earlier mentions, suggesting the importance of fact-checking widely accepted attributions. In total, I gathered 75 definitions of fast fashion and combined them into a composite definition: fast fashion is when designers …

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Feed-In Tariffs And Sustainable Energy: Why Different Oecd Governments Support Sustainable Energy At Different Rates Through Feed-In Tariffs, Joshua M. Grahame

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Why is it that different governments in the OECD support sustainable energy at different rates? In the effort to explain this difference, Feed-in-Tariffs (FITs) will be closely examined to see if it can explain the significant portion of the variation among countries. This project serves as a continuation of previous scholars' works, to better understand the variation between countries in adopting renewable energy, even though all members of the OECD have pledged that by 2030 half of their energy will come from sustainable energy. Whereas previous research considered data ending in 2012 and looked at countries outside of the OECD, …

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What Role Do Women In Politics Play For Democratic Erosion?, Emelyn Rodriguez

Politics Honors Papers

Research has found that women in politics are important for representation and women’s rights, but can women’s increasing involvement in politics also stabilize fragile democracies? This research analyzes the relationship between women in politics and democratic consolidation, asking whether and how women help consolidate democracies and prevent the erosion of democratic institutions. I show initial quantitative evidence suggesting that under some conditions, women in politics reduce the probability of democratic erosion. In the main part of the project, using a case study of the Dominican Republic, I take a closer look at the work women have done for a newly …

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Miracles Happen: An Exploration Of Girlhood And Celebrity, Sarah Thompson

Media and Communication Studies Honors Papers

Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, many children’s programs were about fame and featured female protagonists while being written and produced by men. Despite being written by men, these shows clearly interpellate a young female audience. “Miracles Happen” explores this media and considers what girlhood is and what this media is teaching its audience. The first chapter looks at Disney’s studio and its history on how it inserts itself into the private lives of children. This chapter also analyzes this history and makes connections to how these traditions are carried into shows meant for girls on the Disney Channel. It …

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Classical Conditioning Of Cognitive States, Arthur Burns

Neuroscience Honors Papers

Classical conditioning has been a fundamental concept and practice throughout the history of psychology. While classical conditioning traditionally seeks to elicit target behaviors in correlation to specific stimuli, we sought to do the same with cognitive states in place of behaviors. Specifically, we wanted to determine the effectiveness of conditioning states of cognitive arousal in human participants in conjunction with cues presented in a designed learning task. We designed a cognitive task specifically for this research, referred to as “the Tone Pitching Task”, which utilized a combination of working memory and mental processing in order to elicit cognitive arousal and …

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Fighting Food Insecurity In New York City: What Role For Street Trees?, Kristen Cooney

Environment and Sustainability Honors Papers

There is growing recognition that urban forests have the potential to combat food insecurity via their edible parts, namely fruits, berries, and nuts. I researched New York City’s street trees, by locating trees with edible parts within food insecure communities, to analyze this potential.

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Urban Forests And Their Potential To Combat Food Insecurity: Analyzing Street Trees In Baltimore, Md For Their Edibility, Victoria Bearden

Environment and Sustainability Honors Papers

Food insecure environments, in which residents lack consistent access to nutritious food materials, can occur in urban settings. Literature on urban forests suggests that trees can provide a range of provisioning ecosystem services, including edible uses. We consider this to determine if street trees in Baltimore, Maryland have the potential to provide nutritious food materials to address food insecurity in Healthy Food Priority Areas (HFPA), designated by Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Our analysis utilizes the Plants For a Future database and the geospatial hotspot analysis tool in Esri’s ArcMap to determine the edible quality ratings (EQR) of …

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Candidate Emergence Among Women: Responsibility To Run, Abigail Peabody

Politics Honors Papers

Since women make competitive candidates, what explains the fact that fewer women run for political office? This paper analyzes women's emergence as candidates and finds that expectations of gender discrimination, women's tendency to underestimate their own abilities, a lack of encouragement and role models, and greater party support and funding for male candidates have discouraged many women from running for political office. Interviews with women who have actually run for office reveal that they were motivated by a powerful sense of personal responsibility, whether as a reflection of deep values that they feel responsible to uphold, due to relationally embedded …

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Self-Efficacy & Perception Of Mental Well-Being, Sarah L. Capen-Becerra, Sophie K. Louis, Abigail Danzig, Olimpia Sansone

Psychology Presentations

When young adults have high self-efficacy, they tend to exhibit more resilience to stress and other mental health problems. Additionally, women are reported to experience depression at higher rates than men, which might be explained by potential gender bias in current diagnostic criteria. Our study examined the influence of gender and mental health self-efficacy on depression symptoms as well as the interaction of these two variables on depression outcomes in college aged-students. Participants (N = 58) were tasked to fill out an anonymous Qualtrics survey based on the Gender Inclusive Depression Scale (GIDS; Martin et al. (2013), and an additional …

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Developmental, Personality, And Family Influences On Risk-Taking During Young Adulthood, Jessica Leach

Psychology Presentations

The aim of this research was to identify relationships between narcissism and likely risk-taking behaviors in young adult students, as well as to assess possible developmental and family influences over this personality trait and these behaviors. Evaluations of the severity of a range of criminal activity were also assessed through this study as predicted by narcissism and as a predictor of risk behaviors. The data was collected through the use of anonymous online surveys, which included a total of five measurement instruments. Since young adulthood is a time of engaging in more risk behaviors than later periods of life, the …

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Shifting Weight Attitudes? A Look At Stigma And Implicit Bias, Carolyn H. Decicco, Sarah L. Capen-Becerra, Sophie K. Louis

Psychology Presentations

The goal of the current study is to investigate students’ perceptions of controllability and biases against individuals who smoke and individuals who present as ‘overweight’ in the workplace. Participants (N = 69) were randomly assigned to read an article describing either weight-based (n = 35) or smoking-based discrimination in the workplace (n = 34). Participants were tasked with writing open-ended responses to the articles. Participants in the smoking group were more likely to endorse (n = 16; 47.1%) discriminatory workplace practices than those in the weight group (n = 4; 11.4%), who showed more conflicted justification responses (weight n = …

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An Exploration Of A Year At The Ursinus Food Forest, Victoria Bearden

Environment and Sustainability Presentations

The Ursinus Food Forest began a commitment to a new form of sustainable land management at Whittaker Environmental Research Station. This management integrates lessons from urban agriculture, urban forestry, and agroforestry (see Clark & Nichols 2013) with principles of permaculture (Jacke et al 2005). Begun in 2017, and this past fall marked 2 years since the planting of phase one in 2019. In the fall of 2021 students, faculty, facilities, and volunteers planted the second phase of the food forest site, which added 7 new food producing species. Including this, many projects were created to enhance the site throughout the …

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Persistence In The North Pacific: The Makah People And Their Fight To Protect Their Cultural Heritage, Jeff Cocci

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

In the Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of North America a whale swims blissfully unaware of its own significance. It is a Gray Whale; scientists would call it Eschrichtius robustus and at nearly forty feet long, it is large enough that it does not have to worry about sharks or other carnivorous animals. Yet there are those that are brave enough to hunt the whale. They are the Makah People of the Olympian Peninsula, in upper Washington state. By doing so, they place themselves at the center of a complex ethical debate amongst activists, scientists, and the general public. …

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Unlovable Labour: Rejecting The "Do What You Love" Ideology, Trey Dykeman

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Miya Tokumitsu’s article ‘In the Name of Love’ is polemic against what she refers to as the DWYL (Do What You Love) movement that has been most recognisably popularised and transformed by Steve Jobs. She denounces this movement as an insidious ideology cleverly disguised as an uplifting lifestyle which has as its tenets labour, profit, and individualism; through her analysis of these tenets, she unveils them as alienation, erasure, and precarity, respectively. Her insights aid her in her aim to demonstrate that these ideological pillars do not support the wellbeing of the proletariat but rather reinforce the rugged structure of …

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When Economic And Political Interests Collide: The Cases Of Defense Procurement And Microfinance In India, Mackenzie Owens

Politics and International Relations Research Papers

India is a growing democracy with an abundant population that seeks economic development; India is a democracy in an ever more important, strategic location. It is essential to better understand India, its politics, and its policies as geopolitical tensions rise in our world. India will be explored via a political economy approach through three sections in this paper: (1) The Political System of India; (2) India’s Trade Policy toward Defense Procurement; (3) The Microfinance Crisis of 2010. India looks to develop its domestic industries, grow investment, while defending its interests and sovereignty.

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Ucimco Stock Selection Semi-Annual Presentation, Fall 2021, Michael Buck, Stevie Benson, Walker Hamilton, Mason Jolivette, Harrison Lorenc, Devin Molina, Stephen Schoenborn, Jack Shimer, Mohammad Sufyan, John Wagner, Riley Yee

Business and Economics Presentations

The Ursinus College Investment Management Company (UCIMCO) consists of groups of student analysts who manage endowment-style and stock selection funds on behalf of the college endowment. This presentation, by the stock selection team, examines quarterly performance and strategy while discussing the most recent selections in the portfolio: Agios Pharmaceuticals, CubeSmart, Splunk and Nexstar Media Group.

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Ucimco Endowment Semi-Annual Presentation, Fall 2021, Kareem Elghawy, Kyle Blaze, Jeremy Calabro, Ryan Carkhuff, Jacob Connelly, Christopher Craven, Zachary Crebbin, Olivia Defusco, Colin Holtzman, Brooke Hurley, Matthew Mcmahon, Jared Minnichbach, Zoey Nikolaou, Jared O'Connell, Erik Ojert, Thomas Pancheri, Christopher Porzelt, Tyler Sargent, Scott Sloan, Storm Snape, Matthew Snyder, Matthew Tuley

Business and Economics Presentations

The Ursinus College Investment Management Company (UCIMCO) consists of groups of student analysts who manage endowment-style and stock selection funds on behalf of the college endowment. This presentation, by the endowment team, examines performance and investment philosophy while discussing selections in the portfolio including: developed and emerging market equities, U.S. equities, corporate bonds, U.S. treasuries and U.S. real estate.

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Ursinus College Women's Investment Management Company, Fall 2021, Maddy Sorokanych, Taylor Beaumont, Shelby Boyle, Laura Bradley, Olivia Defusco, Rachel Grossbauer, Jess Gutekunst, Rebecca Lewis, Alice Nathanson, Madelyn Nau, Ketlee Staz, Marcella Thanh-Guyet, Theodora Zeibekis

Business and Economics Presentations

The Ursinus College Investment Management Company (UCIMCO) consists of groups of student analysts who manage endowment-style and stock selection funds on behalf of the college endowment. In 2020, a group of women students began to manage their own fund. This presentation reviews activities of the Fall 2021 semester and analyzes the stock performance of various companies including: Anthem, Inc., American Well Corporation, Netflix, Travel and Leisure Company, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Oshkosh and the Hershey Company.

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The Selfless Voter: Altruism And Irrationality In Economic Voting, John Byrne

Politics Summer Fellows

Traditionally, we have assumed that voters choose the candidates and policy platforms that benefit them the most. So why can we observe people doing the exact opposite and acting, seemingly, irrationally by voting their money away? This project examines the power of altruism in voting and whether or not voters actually place the needs of others over themselves at the polls.

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Us Bilateral Relations With China And Their Effects On Us-Japan And Us-India Relations, Mackenzie Owens

International Relations Summer Fellows

How do US-China relations impact US relations with other Asian nations, specifically with India and Japan? US-China relations can be seen as the main driver in US relations with Japan and India following rapprochement with the United States. The inverse relationship that exists between US-China and US-Japan/US-India relations signals the importance of the US’ bilateral relationship with China. While there are significant differences between the US-India and US-Japan relations, both are similarly affected by US-China relations. The critical time period explored in this paper is the Sino-Soviet Border Conflict of 1969. This time period explores the impact of US-China relations …

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Urban Forests And Their Potential To Combat Food Insecurity: Analyzing Foods From Street Trees In New York City, Ny, Kristen Cooney

Environment and Sustainability Summer Fellows

There is growing recognition that urban forests have the potential to combat food insecurity via their edible parts, namely fruits, berries, and nuts. Many tree species commonly planted in urban spaces have edible parts that may fulfill the nutritional needs of city residents that are food insecure, but no one has analyzed the value of city street trees to understand this potential. I analyzed New York City’s street trees by each species and their edible parts to measure this potential.

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A Silent Voice (Koe No Katachi): The Intersection Of Gender And Disability In Japanese Society, Amanda Weber

East Asian Studies Summer Fellows

Nishimiya Shōko is the female protagonist in the hit Japanese manga and anime film adaptation, A Silent Voice. She is introduced as a transfer student to a sixth-grade classroom and is immediately ‘othered’ for her deafness. Nishimiya goes on to suffer from relentless bullying at the hands of classmates she tries to befriend with little to no intervention from the homeroom teacher. Doing her best to participate in everyday classroom and extra-curricular activities proves fruitless, and her mother pulls her from school. Seven years later, several former classmates attempt to reconcile with Nishimiya and seek redemption and forgiveness for their …

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Classical Conditioning Of Cognitive States, Arthur Burns

Neuroscience Presentations

This research sought out to do preliminary testing to prepare for honors research in the 2021 academic year. This research focuses on attempting to classically condition cognitive states. Learning tasks were designed to elicit relaxation or arousal in partisans and a combination of EEG data, pupil dilation data, performance on cognitive tasks, and self-report were used to evaluate the level of cognitive states in participants.

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Division Of Inclusion And Community Engagement Newsletter, Vol. 1 No. 2, March 2023, Dice Staff

Division of Inclusion and Community Engagement Newsletters

Division Of Inclusion And Community Engagement Newsletter, Vol. 1 No. 1, February 2023, Heather Lobban-Viravong, Dice Staff

Division of Inclusion and Community Engagement Newsletters

Can Health Outcomes And Inequalities Be Improved While Containing Costs? The Role Of Voluntary Health Insurance In Universal Health Care Systems In The Oecd, Paige Bristow

International Relations Honors Papers

An Analysis Of Decolonization Efforts In Urban Agriculture: A Pathway To Indigenous Food Sovereignty And Cultural Revitalization, Sarah Fisher

Environment and Sustainability Summer Fellows

Diversity Casting Within Reality Tv Competitions, Maximus Moore

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Let The Monsters Out Of The Closet: Overt Queer Depictions In Hollywood Horror Films, Miles D. Noecker

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

The Weaponization Of Rape: Military Culture, Tactical Warfare, And Legal Justice, Claire Velte

International Relations Summer Fellows

What Is Fast Fashion?, Morgan Laster

Sociology Summer Fellows

Feed-In Tariffs And Sustainable Energy: Why Different Oecd Governments Support Sustainable Energy At Different Rates Through Feed-In Tariffs, Joshua M. Grahame

Business and Economics Honors Papers

What Role Do Women In Politics Play For Democratic Erosion?, Emelyn Rodriguez

Politics Honors Papers

Miracles Happen: An Exploration Of Girlhood And Celebrity, Sarah Thompson

Media and Communication Studies Honors Papers

Classical Conditioning Of Cognitive States, Arthur Burns

Neuroscience Honors Papers

Fighting Food Insecurity In New York City: What Role For Street Trees?, Kristen Cooney

Environment and Sustainability Honors Papers

Urban Forests And Their Potential To Combat Food Insecurity: Analyzing Street Trees In Baltimore, Md For Their Edibility, Victoria Bearden

Environment and Sustainability Honors Papers

Candidate Emergence Among Women: Responsibility To Run, Abigail Peabody

Politics Honors Papers

Self-Efficacy & Perception Of Mental Well-Being, Sarah L. Capen-Becerra, Sophie K. Louis, Abigail Danzig, Olimpia Sansone

Psychology Presentations

Developmental, Personality, And Family Influences On Risk-Taking During Young Adulthood, Jessica Leach

Psychology Presentations

Shifting Weight Attitudes? A Look At Stigma And Implicit Bias, Carolyn H. Decicco, Sarah L. Capen-Becerra, Sophie K. Louis

Psychology Presentations

An Exploration Of A Year At The Ursinus Food Forest, Victoria Bearden

Environment and Sustainability Presentations

Persistence In The North Pacific: The Makah People And Their Fight To Protect Their Cultural Heritage, Jeff Cocci

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Unlovable Labour: Rejecting The "Do What You Love" Ideology, Trey Dykeman

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

When Economic And Political Interests Collide: The Cases Of Defense Procurement And Microfinance In India, Mackenzie Owens

Politics and International Relations Research Papers

Ucimco Stock Selection Semi-Annual Presentation, Fall 2021, Michael Buck, Stevie Benson, Walker Hamilton, Mason Jolivette, Harrison Lorenc, Devin Molina, Stephen Schoenborn, Jack Shimer, Mohammad Sufyan, John Wagner, Riley Yee

Business and Economics Presentations

Business and Economics Presentations

Ursinus College Women's Investment Management Company, Fall 2021, Maddy Sorokanych, Taylor Beaumont, Shelby Boyle, Laura Bradley, Olivia Defusco, Rachel Grossbauer, Jess Gutekunst, Rebecca Lewis, Alice Nathanson, Madelyn Nau, Ketlee Staz, Marcella Thanh-Guyet, Theodora Zeibekis

Business and Economics Presentations

The Selfless Voter: Altruism And Irrationality In Economic Voting, John Byrne

Politics Summer Fellows

Us Bilateral Relations With China And Their Effects On Us-Japan And Us-India Relations, Mackenzie Owens

International Relations Summer Fellows

Urban Forests And Their Potential To Combat Food Insecurity: Analyzing Foods From Street Trees In New York City, Ny, Kristen Cooney

Environment and Sustainability Summer Fellows

A Silent Voice (Koe No Katachi): The Intersection Of Gender And Disability In Japanese Society, Amanda Weber

East Asian Studies Summer Fellows

Classical Conditioning Of Cognitive States, Arthur Burns

Neuroscience Presentations