Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Shopping For Identity: An Economic Explanation For The Post-2003 Violence In Iraq, Alan M. Noory

Dissertations

The American occupation of Iraq revealed intense intra-society violence in Iraq that was not possible to take note of during decades of the state’s systematic practice of violence against society and the organized counter-violence in response to it. The occupation, along with the collapse of a regime without any viable governing alternative, and the historic ethno-sectarian tensions are attractive explanatory factors for the ongoing intra-society violence in Iraq. Yet, they fail to explain another civil war that took place in Iraqi Kurdistan a decade earlier. This forgotten war took place in an almost all Kurd/ all Sunni society, after three …

Planned Parenthood Takes On Live Action: An Analysis Of Media Interplay And Image Restoration Strategies In Strategic Conflict Management, Leslie Lynn Rasmussen

Dissertations

On February 1, 2011 the pro-life organization Live Action released videos that appeared to show Planned Parenthood clinic staff disregarding statutory rape and abortion reporting laws and aiding sex traffickers. The videos posted online quickly garnered over a million views and placed Planned Parenthood at the forefront of national news. The Federal government intervened and threatened to remove funding to the Title X organization. Planned Parenthood launched a campaign to retain funding using social media and controlled online media, and attempted restore its image as a reputable healthcare provider while engaged in conflict with Live Action.

A content analysis was …

An Examination Of Perceived Stress Levels And Coping Styles Among Rural Law Enforcement Officers, Marcos Luis Misis

Dissertations

Policing is a very stressful job. Despite the extensive body of research on police stress, the majority of studies have focused solely on officers within urban police departments. Research on stress within rural law enforcement departments is virtually non-existent even though the majority of police agencies in America serve towns and areas under 50,000 residents.

This study had four main goals: (1) to examine how work-related stress affects the levels of perceived stress, anxiety, and depression for rural law enforcement officers; (2) to explore the specific stressors affecting rural law enforcement officers; (3) to investigate how rural law enforcement officers …

An Examination Of Factors Affecting Information Sharing Among Law Enforcement Agencies, Scott Driskill Bransford

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate using survey data to find factors or barriers which contributed to local law enforcement participation and support of intelligence information sharing. Following the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City and Arlington, Virginia, new homeland security initiatives and directives were created from the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. Several new initiatives and directives provided new communication opportunities for partnerships between all levels of law enforcement to combat the future threat of domestic terrorism.

The evaluation literature indicated that a majority of post-9/11, initiatives, including the creation of …

Impression Rating Via Speed-Dating: How A Single Communication Event Can Alter Perceptions Of Another Individual, Andrew Clayton Dix

Dissertations

The central purpose of this experiment is to scientifically test whether interpersonal communication influences individual perceptions in a dating environment. This study uses interaction appearance theory (IAT) as an empirical foundation for understanding the relationship between communicative outcomes and personal opinions. According to IAT, cognitive impressions of aesthetic appearance are highly fluid and vulnerable to the results of multiple social interactions (Albada, Knapp, & Theune, 2002). While most empirical investigations have provided additional support for this theory, no studies have tested whether IAT applies to various other social constructs. As such, this investigation was designed to address this gap in …

A Comparison Of Institutional Climates In Higher Education In The United States And South Africa, Juanyce Deanna Taylor

Dissertations

Increasing opportunities and access of historically underrepresented populations to higher education in both the United States and South Africa have proved challenging due to institutional climates that are perceived as unwelcoming and unsupportive. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors relating to institutional climates to uncover social constructs that positively and negatively impact the institutional environment. Transformational leadership serves as the theoretical framework for this study.

Data results from institutional climate studies administered higher education institutions in the United States and South Africa were analyzed and compared. Collegiality and collaboration; communication; diversity and equity; governance and strategy; harassment …

Personality Assessment In African Elephants (Loxodonta Africana), Kristina Marie Horback

Dissertations

The following study assessed personality in twelve African elephants using both observational behavior coding and standardized trait rating methods, thus demonstrating consistent individual differences across time and contexts. During the summer of 2010 and 2011, over 640 hours of behavioral data were collected onsite at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido, CA. Four coding-based personality traits were determined after analysis: PLAYFUL, CURIOUS, TOLERANT, and, AGGRESSIVE. This data was then compared to survey ratings completed by the animal keeper staff during both summers. Four rating-based personality traits resulted from this analysis: PLAYFUL, CURIOUS, TIMID, and, AGGRESSIVE. All eight composite …

New Media, New Politics: The Emergence Of The Internet In American Politics, Michael Robert Artime

Dissertations

The Internet is viewed by some as a great tool for democracy. Indeed, if we believe in the value of a marketplace of ideas, there is no greater forum through which individuals can express any and every opinion on a variety of issues than the Internet. However, it is unclear whether this free and unfettered expression of ideas has been helpful or harmful to American democracy. This dissertation demonstrates, through the use of National Election Studies (NES) data that those using the Internet tend to have more negative attitudes toward political leaders and institutions than their counterparts who either do …

Toward An Integrated Self: Making Meaning Of The Multiple Identities Of Gay Men In College, Daniel Weston Tillapaugh Phd

Dissertations

Since the mid-twentieth century, a shift in demographics of those attending higher education institutions has resulted in increased attention to underrepresented students and their development, specifically their social identities, including race (Cross, 1991), gender (Gilligan, 1982), and sexual orientation (Cass, 1979; D'Augelli, 1994; Fassinger, 1998). However, many theories have compartmentalized aspects of one's overall identity with little understanding of how one's social identity may influence the development of other identities. In the past decade, the concept of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1995), which explores the interplay between one's multiple identities and the larger systems of power and privilege within society, has been …

Preparing Global Leaders: A Theoretical Model For Understanding The Development Of Intercultural Competency, Cynthia Ann Martinez Phd

Dissertations

As globalization increases, organizations are seeking individuals that have developed intercultural competency (ICC) and are prepared to lead for the 21st century. Although there are competing definitions among scholars as to what characteristics (ability, attitude, awareness, behaviors, knowledge, skills, or values) make up ICC (Ang & Van Dyne, 2008; Bennett & Bennett, 2004), a considerable body of research has found that studying abroad is one of the best ways for undergraduate students to develop at least one characteristic of ICC (Chieffo & Griffths, 2004; Deardorff, 2006; Sheridan, 2005). The question remains, however, whether or not study abroad programs can contribute …

Tripping With Stephen Gaskin: An Exploration Of A Hippy Adult Educator, Gabriel Patrick Morley

Dissertations

For the last 40 years, Stephen Gaskin has been an adult educator on the fringe, working with tens of thousands of adults in the counterculture movement in pursuit of social change regarding marijuana legalization, women’s rights, environmental justice issues and beyond. Gaskin has written 11 books about his experiences teaching and learning with adults outside the mainstream, yet, he is virtually unknown in the field of adult education. He lists his religion as hippy; he is a member of the Counterculture Hall of Fame (inducted 2004), a convicted felon, a United States Marine, a Korean War combat veteran, and a …

Parenting Stress, Behavior, Treatment Satisfaction, And Hope In Caregivers Of Children With Developmental Disabilities, Paige Cristin Schultz

Dissertations

Parenting stress has been shown to be related to both negative parenting behaviors and child behavior problems in the general population as well as with children with developmental disabilities. With the majority of children with developmental disabilities participating in multiple treatments, little is known about the effect of treatment satisfaction on caregivers. Hope has also been shown to reduce stress in caregivers, yet little research has examined this relationship with respect to parenting stress specifically or in parents with children with developmental disabilities. Treatment satisfaction has also been associated with less parenting stress in other populations; however, no study has …

Determinants Of Tax Effort: A Cross Country Analysis, Mark Alan Mccoon

Dissertations

This paper analyzes the determinants of tax effort. Tax effort is defined as the aggregate tax level of a country divided by its Gross Domestic Product. A country‘s tax effort is an expression of the tax burden the government imposes on the economy. One of the most fundamental issues confronting a society is the size of the governmental sector. How large should the government be relative to the size of the economy? The nations of the world have crafted many different answers to that question as evidenced by the fact that tax effort and the size of government sectors varies …

The Impact Of Celebrity Endorser Type And Source Credibility On The Advertising Attitudes And Purchase Intentions Of Indian Rural Consumers, Sidharth Muralidharan

Dissertations

India is among the fastest growing economies in the world and has the second largest population out of which 70% are considered rural. The rural consumer has witnessed a lifestyle shift wherein they have become brand conscious, consumption of media content has increased and a rising income has opened up possibilities never experienced before. Understanding the love for cinema, celebrity endorsement has become a popular marketing strategy being employed by advertisers in India. The purpose of this study was to find out which celebrity endorser type (national, regional or non-celebrity) was the most effective on rural consumer’s attitude toward the …

Ideological “Smackdown”: A Textual Analysis Of Class, Race And Gender In Wwe Televised Professional Wrestling, Casey Brandon Hart

Dissertations

The focus of this study is an in-depth intertextual examination of how the WWE in 2010 and by extension contemporary professional wrestling in general represents a microcosm of modern cultural ideology. The study examines three major areas in which this occurs. The first of these areas is that of class values. This section focuses on the establishment and extension middle-American values, defined as those values generally shared by the middle-class of the United States. The second section of this study focuses on how the WWE uses racial commodification in the treatment of people of color. Using concepts of Marxist power …

Home-School Collaboration: Concurrent Home And School Reading Interventions Within A Response To Intervention System, Qi Zhou

Dissertations

The current study investigated the effectiveness of reading interventions in the form of home-school collaboration on increasing oral reading fluency in elementary students exhibiting reading fluency deficits. Specifically, student participants were receiving Tier II reading interventions at their school. Additionally, parents were trained to implement an individualized intervention identified by brief experimental analysis with each student at home. Home-school notes were used to facilitate support and communication between the home and school. Results demonstrated that three of four students’ oral reading fluency improved. Furthermore, parents rated the interventions as acceptable. Parent treatment integrity was found to be adequate.

The Motivation Beliefs Inventory: Measuring Motivation Beliefs Using Four Motivation Theories, David C. Facer Jr. Phd

Dissertations

Among organizational consultants, human resources practitioners, and organizational leaders, there has been a resurgence of interest in the subject of employee motivation, in part due to the best-selling book, Drive (Pink, 2009). In this book, the author challenged readers to question their beliefs about what motivates employees; this challenge was based on research that questions the validity of widely used management approaches to employee motivation, particularly those based on reinforcement theory. Answering this challenge was difficult, however, given the lack of instruments designed to measure motivation beliefs at all, much less beliefs from a range of prevalent theories. Using principal …

Graduate Student Experiences: The Impact Of A Mixed-Cohort Format, Kacy Kilner Hayes Phd

Dissertations

Student cohorts have been regaining popularity among graduate programs over the past few decades because they offer numerous advantages for students and can be molded to fit programmatic needs. The format of these cohorts range from open to closed according to the inclusion or exclusion of additional students during the life of the program. Although a number of graduate level programs employ a mixture of closed- and open-cohort formats, there has been a lack of empirical research examining the benefits or consequences of mixing cohort formats within a single academic program. To address this lack of inquiry, this study utilized …

Advising To Promote Self-Authorship: Exploring Advising Strategies And Advisor Characteristics Among New Student Affairs Professionals, Emily Marx Phd

Dissertations

Self-authorship, a theory developed by Robert Kegan (1982) and applied to college students by Marcia Baxter Magolda, is the ability to internally define one's own beliefs, identity, and relationships (Baxter Magolda, 2001). People who self-author have the ability to make career, academic, relationship, and life decisions that take into consideration their own internal voice rather than relying on others' advice. The development of self-authorship has been correlated with gains in key learning outcomes, such as cognitive complexity and independence (Baxter Magolda, 2001; Pizzolato, 2008; Pizzolato & Ozaki, 2007). Achievement of self-authorship does not typically occur until after college, when young …

The Undergraduate Classroom As A Community Of Inquiry, Cara Taylor Miller Phd

Dissertations

This project contributes to the literature on action research and undergraduate pedagogy for leadership development through application and expansion of existing theory on collaborative ways of teaching and learning. I applied a participatory, inquiry-based approach to teaching an undergraduate course in leadership studies over four semesters using the action research process of recursively asking and answering living questions in real time about teaching and learning with students' participating as co-researchers. Reflection on my initial, mostly traditional teaching strategies generated questions about the students' detachment from and resistance to exercising leadership, as well as the challenge of aligning my deepest values …

An Investigation Of The Effects Of Writing Instruction In An Ungraded Informal Learning Environment, Samuel Patterson Edd

Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate and describe the teaching of writing in an informal setting through the voices of teachers and students. The intent of this study was to describe the roles of teachers and students in this learning environment and specifically to describe the role of writing response groups in this environment. Research in both writing instruction and informal education suggests that writing instruction is a good contextual match to camp-style informal education. Both informal education and writer's workshop-style writing instruction put the individual and their choices at the center of the experience. VI This …

Investigating The Impact Of A Mentor Text Inquiry Approach To Narrative Writing Instruction On Attitude, Self-Efficacy, And Writing Processes Of Fourth Grade Students In An Urban Elementary School, Christine Marie Kealoha Kane Edd

Dissertations

Writing in its many forms, is the signature means of communication in the 21st century. Writing is also arguably the most complex and difficult challenge facing all students in school. The purpose of this study was to monitor the narrative writing performance of urban students who received explicit writing instruction using a mentor text inquiry approach. A mentor text is a published piece of writing whose ideas, structure,or written craft can be used to inspire a student to write something original. It is a piece of quality literature text that students can use as an exemplar text to model their …

Decision-Making Following Sexual Assault: Reporting Decisions And Exposure To The Criminal Justice System, Ryan Michael Walsh

Dissertations

Violent crimes represent significant costs to society and survivors; costs which include mental health conditions which may emerge afterward. Victims of sexual assault are at particularly heightened risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Breslau, Davis, Andreski, & Peterson, 1991). Although Crime Victims’ Compensation (CVC) is available to assist with healthcare costs for some individuals who report the event to police (NACVCB, 2009), many crimes are not reported. Theories of crime-reporting behavior suggest that victims decide whether to report crimes to police through the use of a “cost-benefit analysis” (Gottfredson & Gottfredson, 1988, p. 25). Little research, however, has been …

Making Politics Personal: Leadership Programs As A Tool For Developing Political Interest And Efficacy In Young Women, Dayna Marie Stock

Dissertations

Encouraging young women to pursue careers in electoral politics is seen as one strategy for ameliorating the gender disparity that has characterized American political institutions for decades. This multi-method project focuses on outcomes obtained by participants in four "NEW Leadership™" Training Institutes that claim to "educate and empower the next generation of women leaders." Using original survey data from 2011, participant observations, and interviews with program alumnae, I explore the relationship between program participation and political interest and efficacy. The findings suggest that graduates of the NEW Leadership™ program report increased knowledge of women in politics and methods for participating …

Achievement Motivation: Examination Of Explicit And Implicit Measurements In Two Studies, Jessica L. Deslauriers

Dissertations

Two theories that seek to explain personality are explicit traits (Allport, 1937) and implicit motives (Murray, 1938; McClelland, 1951). The present research investigates both implicit and explicit cognitions (specifically cognitions related to achievement motivation). Scores on three implicit measures, one explicit measure, and cognitive ability were obtained (N = 294) as well as performance on an attention task. Study 1 examined the theoretical similarities and differences among the implicit measures, as well as their relationship with an explicit measure. No significant correlations were observed among the implicit measures, and only the IAT correlated with the explicit measure. Factor analysis revealed …

Three Essays On International Banking, Rong Ma

Dissertations

Without question, global financial integration has accelerated in the last two decades. This acceleration is due, in part, to the opening of developing countries' financial markets to foreign banks, prompting many changes to financial systems in developing countries. This dissertation consists of three essays focusing on the impacts and the determinants of international banks' participation in the financial markets of developing countries.

The first essay investigates whether banks with foreign owners are more willing to provide loans in the host country possibly contributing toward greater financial stability for that country. Specifically, I test whether foreign banks' lending behavior is different …

In Their Own Words: The Lived Experiences Of Unemployed African American Men, Kenlana R. Ferguson

Dissertations

Due to staggering unemployment rates, African American men's experience with work in the U.S. has historically received widespread attention in the media and social science literature. Terms such as black male unemployment crisis, puzzle, epidemic and catastrophe have been used to describe the unemployment woes of black. Attempts at explaining why African American men are experiencing such difficulty in the world of work has been undertaken across the disciplines, however much of this work has amounted to nothing more than acknowledgement that isolating independent factors as causes does not suffice and that a more interdisciplinary framework is needed if we …

Faithful Remembering: Constructing Dutch America In The Twentieth Century, David E. Zwart

Dissertations

The people of the Dutch-American community constructed and maintained a strong ethnoreligion identity in the twentieth despite pressures to join the mainstream of the United States. A strong institutional completeness of congregations and schools resulted from and contributed to this identity. The people in these institutions created a shared identity by demanding the loyalty of members as well as constructing narratives that convinced people of the need for the ethnoreligious institutions.

The narratives of the Dutch-American community reflected and reinforced a shared identity, which relied on a collective memory. The framing, maintaining, altering, and remodeling of the collective memory from …

Stop Snitching: Hip Hop's Influence On Crime Reporting In The Inner City, Ladel Lewis

Dissertations

The “stop snitching” phenomenon is a social epidemic that is affecting inner cities from coast to coast. These street politics have an adverse effect on the way individuals in the inner city view cooperation with police. With hip hop culture claiming a larger stake on the global stage, and mainstream artists sparking attention by denouncing cooperation with authorities while reproving others that choose to do so, this research examines if a relationship exists between individuals that adhere to the “code of silence” and self-professed hip hoppers. While much has been written about the significance of hip hop culture on the …

Family Structure And Risk Factors: An Investigation Into Emotional And Behavioural Outcomes For Nine-Year-Olds., Zara Lafferty

Dissertations

This study examined the relationship between family structure and risk factors for children’s emotional and behavioural outcomes at 9 years of age. Family structure in this study is defined as; married, separated, divorced, widowed and never married families. Three risk factors were identified from the literature; economic deprivation, maternal depression and life events. This study is a cross sectional quantitative analysis of the ‘Growing Up in Ireland’s’ child cohort (9 year olds) dataset. This is nationally representative sample of 9 year old children living in Ireland; the sample was collected through a two-stage, stratified random sampling approach. Of the 8,568 …