Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Leadership And Intergroup Relations : Which Leader Is More Favorable Or More Effective While Leading Distinct Subgroups?, Jieyi Ding

Honors Theses

While leading distinct subgroups nowadays, leaders need to address intergroup bias and establish beneficial intergroup relations. They could do so by promoting a collective identity that emphasizes commonality between subgroups or an intergroup relational identity that recognizes distinct characteristics of both subgroups and focuses on their dependency on each other as part of the identity. The research investigated the influence of leader's rhetoric and race interacting with moderators like identity distinctiveness threat on leader evaluation and intergroup bias. The results showed a complicated relationship between how much a leader was liked and how effective a leader could be.

"It's Part Of My Responsibility To Help" : Developing A Measure Of Motivations For Extrinsic Emotion Regulation, Sara Cloonan

Honors Theses

Previous research in the field of emotion regulation has largely focused on the ways in which we regulate our own emotions, but not as much work has been done to examine the processes by which we regulate the emotions of others. The current research aims to develop a measure of motivations for engaging in extrinsic emotion regulation (EER), with a focus on why we attempt to down-regulate negative emotional experiences of those around us. Study 1 used narrative responses to formulate and validate a qualitative coding schema for categorizing motives for engaging in EER. The wide variety of EER motivations …

Who Runs The World: The Impact Of The Gender Of Clerks On The Legal Profession, Taylor Bernstein

Honors Theses

This paper investigates the role of gender on law clerks from the federal appellate clerks. There has been significant scholarship on the importance of the gender of judges and on the role and influence of law clerks; however, to this date there has been no analysis of how the gender of law clerks may or may not influence the clerkship experience. This honors thesis seeks to address that question and shed light on important aspects of the federal judiciary and the legal profession. I have approached this inquiry through descriptive and qualitative analysis, focusing on law clerks from this millennium. …

A Comparative Analysis Of Counterhegemonic Environmental-Economic Projects In Latin America And The United States, Dominic Scicchitano

Honors Theses

The objective of this study is to perform a comparative analysis of counterhegemonic environmental-economic projects in the United States and in Latin America. The work builds on research that I conducted throughout my time at Bucknell University concerning a site known as Better Farm, which distinguishes itself as “a 65-acre sustainability campus, artists' colony, animal sanctuary, and organic farm” located in Redwood, New York (www.betterfarm.org). Better Farm functions as a locus for the surrounding community of roughly 700 residents, connecting a variety of persons interested in both formal sustainability education and informal systems whereby community members support each …

Exhibiting Class: Art Exhibition And The New Chinese Middle Class, Ziwei Chen

Honors Theses

Kanzhan, translated at “going to exhibitions,” has emerged as one of the most popular leisure activities in urban China. Contemporary art exhibitions cover a wide range of subjects, including world-renown artists, jewelry and fashion brands, and pop-up museums. More and more visitors are taking art exhibitions experience as a way to exhibit their personal taste, which reflect the rise of middle-class values such as individuality and self-development in China. This paper is an anthropological exploration of the relationship between visitors and art exhibits and what those art exhibitions tell about the new middle class in China.

My research is based …

Analyzing The Impact Of Home Locales On Access To Tertiary Education; Trends In Students’ Access To Bucknell University, Emily Tevebaugh

Honors Theses

Access to postsecondary education has been found in previous studies to be correlated with socioeconomic status as well as with various other indicators, such as parents’ education levels and cultural expectations. However, addressing the impact of home locales and geographical proximity to colleges in addition to these individual characteristics is a crucial part of understanding college access. In this honors thesis, the following questions will be examined: how has access to college and the decision to matriculate changed in recent years? How does distance from colleges and differing characteristics of home locales influence acceptance to a university and the decision …

Nationalism And Multi-Dimensional Identities: Ba'ath Propaganda During The Iran-Iraq War, Jennie Matuschak

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I examine the content of and mechanisms of disseminating propaganda originating from Saddam Hussein’s regime during the Iran-Iraq War. This research specifically looks at how and why the regime targeted Iraqi Shi’as during the war, and how that contributed to the ways in which the regime engaged with rhetoric. Moreover, this thesis attempts to make sense of the diverse, and sometimes seemingly opposing, amalgam of the rhetoric’s subject matter and methods of circulation. More broadly, it speaks to the difficulty of fostering an environment that can produce patriotism and lead to the construction of a strong national …

The Effect Of Religion On Trait Priority In Potential Partners In Short And Long Term Relationships, Sara K. Glass

Honors Theses

This study builds upon previous research that demonstrates how various demographic characteristics, as well as relationship type, affects trait preferences for potential mate partners. This study also explores the potential effects of religious affiliation and religiosity on trait preferences, as no previous research explicitly tests how individuals’ religious affiliation or strength of religiosity influences their rank ordering of potential partner traits. Seven hypotheses were proposed, as well as four points of exploration regarding sexuality, relationship status, religious affiliation, and race were proposed. Hypotheses 1, which predicted that women will rank financial stability higher than men and that men will rank …

Bridging Act-R And Project Malmo, Developing Models Of Behavior In Complex Environments, David M. Schwartz

Honors Theses

Cognitive architectures such as ACT-R provide a system for simulating the mind and human behavior. On their own they model decision making of an isolated agent. However, applying a cognitive architecture to a complex environment yields more interesting results about how people make decisions in more realistic scenarios. Furthermore, cognitive architectures enable researchers to study human behavior in dangerous tasks which cannot be tested because they would harm participants. Nonetheless, these architectures aren’t commonly applied to such environments as they don’t come with one. It is left to the researcher to develop a task environment for their model. The difficulty …

Els Catalans Són Diferents: Catalan Independence Through A Cultural Lens, Maren Burling

Honors Theses

With a focus on Catalan independence, this thesis looks at how Catalans create and perform their regional identity, and how cultural symbols of Catalan society – food, sports, language, and others – are uniquely situated within the wider Spanish society. Both linguistic anthropology and symbolic/interpretive anthropology inform my writing and support my argument for the importance of language and other cultural symbols to Catalan identity, which are key to understanding Catalan separatism. My research contributes to current conversations in anthropology about the role of cultural identity in creating community. I argue that, in the Catalan case, cultural identity both shapes …

Tmi : An Examination Of Excess Returns Surrounding Phase Iii Fda Approvals, Luke Chiotelis

Honors Theses

Over the past three decades, the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical industry has had the largest growth rate of any sector in the U.S. economy. Currently, the largest 10 companies have a market cap of over 700 billion dollars. In the past 20 years, Biotech has outperformed the Standard and Poor’s 500 index earning superior returns for those willing to invest in this risky, high growth industry (Bloomberg L.P.). This upward trend is expected to continue as both institutional and private investment in biotech continues to soar.

A better understanding of the FDA approval process and the way a company’s stock price …

The Effect Of Health Literacy On Chronic Kidney Disease Patient Health Outcomes, Mia Castagnero

Honors Theses

The current study seeks to enhance knowledge of health literacy among patients diagnosed with CKD. Identifying gaps in kidney-specific health literacy may help direct specific interventions to improve patient education and support. The goal of the current study is to investigate the associations between health literacy (general health literacy and kidney-specific health literacy) and patient health outcomes, such as medication adherence and barriers in access to care.

Marketing Disability : Navigating The Ethics Of Nonprofit Development And Marketing, Peyton F. Carter

Honors Theses

In this paper, I explore how nonprofit organizations arrived at their current model, which often include a heavy emphasis on the need for private donations, and the resulting need of organizations to assert their value and be competitive in the marketplace.By attending to the specific marketing practices of one disability services nonprofit, I show how the complexities of power relations and issues of representation manifest themselves in the non profit sector.

Rationality, Revisions, And Real-Time Data, Jason Hall

Honors Theses

Revisions to macroeconomic variables are a significant part of the process by which researchers, the general public, and the government get information about the state of the United States' economy. They are also substantial: this can have large implications for forecasting, macroeconomic research, business decisions, and monetary and fiscal policy. In this paper, I examine the cyclicality of various aggregate variables in U.S.data, and determine that of the major NIPA variables analyzed, only consumption andreal imports revisions display a large degree of cyclicality. I also examine the rationalityof the same set of variables under different definitions of the final value, …

Gender And Sport Inequities : Perceiving Injustices And Galvanizing Change, Ashey E. Gross

Honors Theses

We examined the effect of procedural and distributive justice on activism intent and donation. We did not find a direct effect from the justice messages on either activism intent or donation, however we also looked at moderators such as belief in a just world. We found that belief in a just world moderated activism intent, that is, people who scored low on the BJW scale had higher activism intent after reading the messages, and the messages had an inverse effect on those who scored high on the BJW scale. We did not find any effect on donation from either message.

It's Written All Over Your Face : Examining The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status And Empathic Accuracy, Megan Roherbeck Wirtz

Honors Theses

What, exactly, is the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and emotional intelligence? Is it possible that emotional intelligence can explain the well-established positive relationship between SES and wellbeing? The purpose of this study was to investigate a) a potential mediational pathwaybetween SES, emotional intelligence, and wellbeing and b) conflicting research in the relationship between SES and emotional intelligence. This study was conducted using avariety of measures of socioeconomic status and wellbeing, as well as a performance-based measure of empathic accuracy.

When Does The Positivity Effect Emerge? : Age-Related Emotional Biases At Encoding And Retrieval, Hannah Wolfe

Honors Theses

The Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) posits that as their future time perspective shrinks, older adults tend to be more motivated by emotionally meaningful goals and therefore experience what is called the “positivity effect” with age (Carstensen, 2006). The positivity effect had been studied in both attention biases (Isaacowitz et al., 2006a) and memory biases (Kensinger, 2008), with older adults dwelling longer on and better remembering the positive stimuli over the negative. Yet, few studies have measured emotional biases at both the encoding and retrieval phases, which is why this study uses eye-tracking to determine whether any biases in gaze patterns …

Self-Interest Versus Social-Interest Policy Framing : The Case Of School Choice, Benedict Roemer

Honors Theses

This study examines the role of self-interest and social-interest framing in determining support for school choice policies. I make a new contribution to the field of political psychology and policy framing by comparing the effects of self-interest and social-interest. My research focuses on the domain of education policy and school choice in an original experimental study and a case study of newspaper editorials. I find evidence that the self-interest frame garners significantly mores upport for school choice policies among certain population, but policy advocates most commonly use social-interest framing when arguing for school choice policies.

Driving Anxiety In Young People With Autism Spectrum Disorder : A Driving Simulator Pilot Study, Rebecca Pasch

Honors Theses

The goal of this project was to investigate how driving anxiety changes overtime in young people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) when using a driving simulator technology. Additional exploratory measures were collected on duration of participation,. stopping distance, and reaction time.

Draw Some Awesome : The Effect Of Art And Awe On Grief And Giving, Jamie Katz

Honors Theses

Prior research has shown that awe can have positive psychological effects on people who experience it. We conducted two experimental trials to test whether awe can be evoked by art and whether this art induced awe can increase people's charitable donations and decrease their grief in the face of losing an important relationship. We concluded that spectacular videos of art production were significant evokers of awe compared to their mundane control counterparts. We also found that the awe videos increased charitable donations through a mediating variable of feeling the "presence of something greater than oneself." Lastly, we found that there …

Re-Imagining Student Achievement : The Egalitarian Failure Of The Carrot-Stick Model In K-12 Public Education, Michael Johnson

Honors Theses

Achievementgaps between low-income and minority students and their counterparts are among the most pressing education policy issues today. Cash incentivization to students has gained momentum as a potential remedy to reduce disparities in studentachievementoutcomes. Grading incentive schemes function identically as objections to cash-incentives positioning both within the broader carrot-stick motivation model. Rather than eliminate the widely used grading scheme, however, I conclude that efforts should be redirected towards reducing the saliency of standardized evaluative benchmarks to which incentives are aimed as opposed to reforming the incentives themselves which I refer to as the Revisionary Proposal.

Preparation Of A Perylenebisimide Acceptor With Serinol And Nonadecyl-Swallowtail Imides For Use In Molecular Rectification, Tarrah Frederick

Honors Theses

Several attempts were made to add 2-amino-1,3-propanediol to the acceptor perylene monoanhydride (PMA). The theoretical product, N-(10-nonadecyl)-N'-(1,3-dihydroxypropan-2-yl)perylene-3,4,9,10-bis(dicarboximide), is intended for use in unimolecular rectification because the perylenebisimide core is classified as a good acceptor due to its high electron affinity. Rectification usually utilizes donor-σ-acceptor molecules, whose localized orbitals permit electron transfer when placed between metal electrodes of asymmetric voltages. However, according to an “asymmetric rectification” analysis, an electron can pass from one electrode, through the LUMO of the acceptor, and then to the other electrode when said electrodes are held at certain voltages, and result in rectification if the acceptor …

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: A Critical Analysis Of The Resistance To Vaccine Utilization, Katherine Coleman Sistrunk

Honors Theses

Vaccines have provided humans protection from infectious diseases for centuries, yet the vaccination rate in the United States fails to come near one-hundred percent, allowing vaccine-preventable diseases to re-emerge in communities across the nation. Vaccines have proven to be a safe and effective method in preventing the spread of infectious disease, but vaccine resistance remains high due to false information perpetuated by anti-vaxxers, greatly impacting the vaccination rate in our country. This thesis, by means of a literature review, provides a critical analysis the resistance to vaccine utilization in the United States to determine what policy recommendations and interventions can …

Code-Switching Practices In The Foreign-Language Classroom: Instructor Nativeness And Students' Perceptions, Zachary Ty Gill

Honors Theses

In this study we investigated code-switching practices in the foreign language classroom among instructors who are native speakers of the target language (Spanish) and instructors who are non-native speakers of the target language, as well as students’ perceptions of L1 use. Participants were three college instructors of Spanish and 38 college students in an intermediate level Spanish course. The participants were observed and recorded during two hour-long classes involving group work. After the observations, the instructors completed an interview, and the students completed an online questionnaire. This study found that native instructors use less English than non-native instructors and the …

Regionalism And Reform: The Consequences Of Consociationalism In Belgium, Elizabeth L. Brown

Honors Theses

With the success of the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA), a Flemish regionalist party, in recent federal and regional elections, the continued role of regionalism in Belgian politics has been made clear. This has occurred despite significant efforts by Belgian politicians to counteract this tendency. By analyzing the impact of the six state reforms that have drastically affected the political system within the country, this paper outlines how the reforms themselves have unintentionally incentivized the political parties to pursue regionalism as a winning political strategy, which laid the groundwork for the current success of the N-VA. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates how the …

A Marketing Campaign For Hunters’ Home: A Home Of Hope Through Integrated Marketing Communications: Secondary And Primary Research Studying The Target Audience, The Hunting And Conservation Community, To Create An Imc Campaign Focused On Fundraising And Awareness, Josie Corinna Slaughter

Honors Theses

Through research and evaluation of current and experimental nonprofit marketing methodologies and practices designed to raise awareness and attract donors, this project’s purpose is to define and create a marketing campaign for a children’s home, named Hunters’ Home: A Home of Hope, in Namibia. Adopted and unique strategies will be identified to target the audience of hunters to help meet the specific needs of the home, which was founded by Marina Lamprecht, a person widely known and respected by participants in hunting and conservation. To create the marketing campaign, secondary and primary research was conducted. Secondary research was done through …

Conflict Or Cooperation: How Climate Change Is Transforming Geopolitics In The Arctic, Mcrae E. Mayfield

Honors Theses

The purpose of this project was to show how climate change is transforming geopolitics in the Arctic by creating new economic opportunities leading to the increased militarization of Arctic nations. This thesis triangulates the current Arctic policy of member nations, economic resources and opportunities in the region, and the increased military presence in the region to demonstrate how a potential conflict may occur in the region if the current trend continues. This thesis aims to show how resource greed over non-contiguous territory and an increased military presence escalated tensions in the Arctic.

Medicaid Expansion Under The Affordable Care Act: A Case For Mississippi, Coulter Holland

Honors Theses

For decades, Medicaid has been the largest public health insurance program for low-income individuals in the United States. The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, significantly changed eligibility requirements for Medicaid, expanding coverage to all low-income adults at or below 138% of the Federal Poverty Level. On June 28, 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius that the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion was unconstitutionally coercive but ruled that states remain eligible for expansion if they so choose. Thirty-seven states including Washington …

Commodity Fetishism And Performative Identity: Studying The Effects Of Neoliberal Reform On The Work Of Non-Governmental Organizations In Cairo, Cynthia N. Bauer

Honors Theses

This paper explores the economic dimension of identity politics, exemplified in the case study of the NGO Safarni in Cairo, Egypt. In doing so, I argue that neoliberal economic reform has led to an expansion of the capitalist mindset to include new subjectivities, one of which is the categorization of identity. By teaching values of "diversity" and "openness," and getting significant international funding to do so, Safarni is participating in a system that is creating a new type of labor and laborer, and where this labor is one in which the self objectifies itself.

Social Media And Collegiate Athletic Recruitment: Friends Or Foes?, Brittney Nicole Jackson

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to better understand the effects of social media on college athletic recruitment through student-athlete exposure, the transition from a coach-controlled recruitment process to a player-controlled recruitment process, student-athlete and collegiate athletic program reputation management, and overall increased revenue. The effects will be examined through a review of nineteen published literature sources and the qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with high-school senior student-athletes, university recruitment and media relations staff, and college freshmen student-athletes. Qualitative research will be conducted with interviews of high-school seniors who are at least 18 years of age who are currently going …