Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Effects Of Personality And Risk Preferences On Effort-Based Behavior: A Game Theoretic Approach, Hannah M. Davidsen

Honors Theses

Our personality and preferences play a major role in the decisions we make in our everyday lives. Drawing from literature exploring how people innovate under different scenarios (Dubina, 2013), the present study expanded this topic to include any scenario where there is incentive to free-ride off of another’s effort. I designed a study in which participants (N=73) were asked to complete the Big 5 personality questionnaire, a cognitive reflection task, an altruism elicitation task, and a risk elicitation task, then were randomly paired with another participant to complete four different rounds of a public goods game. Each round of the …

Dynamic Double Auctions: An Analysis Of Secondary Sneaker Market And Its Future As An Nft Marketplace, Chris Zhu

Honors Theses

A theoretical analysis of a dynamic double auction over time shows that greater market density can result in more aggressive trading strategies from buyers and sellers. In addition, my model suggests a fast price discovery period initially, with impatient investors having a more aggressive approach. I confirm these results using resale sneaker data from the StockX website for five deadstock sneakers. I find that market density is positively correlated with bid prices, and the bid-ask spread decreases over time during the price discovery period. However, the results also indicate that sellers price in additional transaction costs and lags in their …

Bean To Buck: Examining The Effects Of The Global Coffee Commodity Market On Smallholders In Colombia, Alexander Ozols

Honors Theses

Utilizing global coffee commodity prices as an exogenous variable on households' consumption, I examine how global coffee commodity price fluctuations affect the well-being of households in the third-largest coffee-producing nation, Colombia. The results show that rural regions and regions designated as part of the "Coffee Axis" are most affected by fluctuations in prices. While results on other regional distinctions are not significant, the size of a household's farming operation dictates how increases in consumption are affected. Lastly, I show that changes in coffee prices, do not have any effect on whether a small or large farm will switch to growing …

Two Sided Matching: A Study Of Underemployment, Benjamin E. Plevin

Honors Theses

This paper lays out a general equilibrium framework to study and predict the underemployment rate. A heterogeneous labor market in which both workers and firms differ in skill type is considered and calibrated to simulate both unemployment and underemployment rates. Qualitatively, the model’s predictions match the empirical evidence suggesting underemployment decreases with increases to unemployment insurance. Quantitatively, the one-shot foundation limits the model’s predictive capabilities.

St. George’S Food Access Initiatives: Navigating Food Inequalities, Forging A Way To Food Choice Freedom, And Transgressing Culinary Borderlands In Lake County, Colorado, Mannon R. Frykholm

Honors Theses

As guided by ethnographic fieldwork and the interdisciplinary discipline of Global Studies, this thesis works to trace food access inequalities in Lake County, Colorado and how they are felt and confronted both at the individual and communal level. Amidst the failures of global food systems and the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, rural communities, such as the field site of Lake County, Colorado, face additional challenges in accessing food that is culturally relevant, craved, and truly wanted. This thesis traces the dominant food inequalities in Lake County. In the face of these inequalities, I centralize the community food initiatives …

Is Monetary Policy Neutral? The Effectiveness Of Monetary Policy Transmission Across The Income Distribution, Cameron Dyer

Honors Theses

This paper analyzes the role of the interest rate channel of monetary policy on household consumption sensitivities across the income distribution. To study this, I build a heterogenous agent model where households experience interest rate shocks as a proxy for monetary policy in addition to income shocks. I find that the poorest quintile increases consumption by about 4.5% in response to a recessionary interest rate cut, with this effect weakening for each additional quintile. When interest rate shocks differ by income group, the poorest lose about 3.6% of consumption and monetary policy’s effect on aggregate consumption weakens. When the income …

"It’S Just Another Thing”: Perceptions Of Well Water Quality And Barriers In An Arsenic Hot Spot, Linzy Rosen

Honors Theses

Privately owned water is the primary source of drinking water for 43 million Americans. Although residential or private wells are susceptible to a variety of contaminants, the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 positions individuals as responsible for the testing, remediation, and management of this water. Despite the elevated presence of arsenic in Maine, which is linked to various cancers, cardiovascular disease, and neurological damage, little is known about how private well owners perceive the safety and quality of their own water.

This study takes a qualitative approach to understanding concerns and opinions by conducting semi - structured interviews with …

Double Trouble: The Development And Use Of A Novel Spatial Memory Task To Study Depression In A Female Rodent Model, Ekaterina L. Koelliker

Honors Theses

Preclinical rodent models of depression are important for improving our understanding of the behavioral and neurobiological implications of the disorder. However, the current behavioral assays used to assess depressive symptoms in rodents have substantial shortcomings; they are basic, test animals individually, and do not evaluate animals for extended periods. The primary goals of the present study, which was divided into two experiments, were to develop a novel task that could be used to study spatial memory and to apply the task to rodent models of depression. Both experiments used a circular arena with 10 identical jars to analyze the spatial …

“…To Represent The Needs Of The Residents—Not The Needs Of The Outsiders” California’S Housing Crisis And The Dilemma Of Local Control, Ravi S. Joshi-Wander

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the role played by city-level governments in determining the availability of housing within their locale. I propose an overarching hypothesis that features of government which provide greater opportunity for the public to influence their local governments will lead to a decreased availability of housing. This hypothesis is tested over the course of two chapters. First, through an analysis of cities throughout California, the effect of different structural features of government are tested against several dependent variables which measure housing availability in a series of linear regressions. A statistically significant positive correlation is found between the presence of …

The Legislative Branch Revolves Around The White House: A Copernican Understanding Of The Evolving Relationship Between The President And Congress, Lukas K. Alexander

Honors Theses

Executive-centered partisanship is a new scholarly idea that focuses on the growing centrality of the president in party and governmental affairs. Scholars have looked at the president’s growing electoral, administrative, and organizational responsibilities to support the theory. While the evidence is compelling, there is a key aspect of our Federal government that is omitted in their theory - the president’s role in Congress. In this thesis, I look at the effect that the president has on legislative voting behavior between the 107th and 116th Congresses. To analyze the data, I examine the effect of the president on Senator voting behavior …

Signs In Sophocles: Modern Approaches To Ptsd In The Ajax, Charlotte Simon

Honors Theses

This project explores the relationship between ancient Greek tragedy and modern psychology, specifically focusing on instances of PTSD, both through the descriptions of symptoms and the cultural reaction to such trauma responses in both ancient and modern sources. The case study from ancient Greece is Sophocles’ play, Ajax, a dramatic depiction of a post-PTSD soldier who has a mental break and is faced with either living with what he has done or committing suicide. The primary objective of this project is to illustrate what modern psychological theory can reveal about the portrayal of PTSD in Greek tragedy and therefore also …

The Leveling Spirit: Violence And Inequality In Postwar Iraq, Griffin Perrault

Honors Theses

The Iraq War (2003–2011) constitutes by some estimates one of the deadliest and most destructive conflicts of the 21st century (Hagopian et al., 2013). In addition to the disputed figures of excess violent civilian casualties––generally ranging from 180,000 to 210,000 deaths––the war has created one of the major refugee crises of modern times, with 1 in 25 Iraqis estimated to have been displaced from their homes by the 2003 invasion (Costs of War, 2021). While much of this violence has been wrought by American and Iraqi coalition troops, violence against civilians has also been perpetuated by insurgent groups and paramilitary …

Finding Identity In The Intersections: Transnational Feminism And The Non-Human Primate, Kailyn Carr

Honors Theses

This project examines how the conversations among feminism and primatology offers a unique critical lens into how “man” dominates other identities, whether that be woman or non-human primate, specifically within the rigid colonial structures of Western society. Donna Haraway’s landmark post-humanist work joins these conversations, especially with her earlier work Primate Visions and Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. While Haraway has changed the narrative surrounding feminist theory within the biological sciences – what has now become recognized as feminist science and technology studies –, this shift in perspective continues to emphasize Western ideological practices and their attention to primatology. My …

Integration For Integration?: The Implications Of Varying Refugee Integration Strategies On Future European Union Integration, Giuliana Ferrara

Honors Theses

This study explores whether the best practices of refugee integration policies, as supported by scholars, are present in the European Union (EU) and some of its Member States between 2014 and 2021, accounting for the responses of these governments to the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe. In addition, it seeks to reveal the likelihood of future collective governance of refugee integration at the EU level. It claims that there are four central benchmarks to examine the strength of a country’s refugee integration plans as well as two integration theories to consider the possibility of deeper EU decision-making on a policy …

Winner And Loser Effects In Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches (Gromphadorhina Portentosa), Casey Mack

Honors Theses

Winner and loser effects have been documented in many species throughout the animal kingdom, but have yet to be investigated in Madagascar hissing cockroaches. This study seeks to determine if winner or loser effects are present in Madagascar hissing cockroaches. In Experiment 1, three subjects won a training contest and three subjects lost a training contest. Training contest winner and training contest loser subjects were then paired up in test contests. Four of the 6 subjects showed test contest outcomes consistent with their training contest outcomes, but the overall conclusions were ambiguous due to the small sample size. Whether the …

Conditioned Territory Defense In Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches (Gromphadorhina Portentosa), Macy R. Albaitis

Honors Theses

In male blue gourami fish (Trichogaster trichopterus), signaled presentation of a male rival produces an aggressive conditioned response that results in an increased likelihood of the male winning the contest (Hollis, 1984). I replicated this classic study in a species that also shows territorial aggression: the Madagascar hissing cockroach (MHC; Gromphadorhina portentosa). During training, four adult male MHCs were designated as “CS+” animals and received a light (NS) followed by visual access to a rival male (US). Simultaneously, another group of four adult male MHCs designated as “UNC” animals received the light (NS) and visual access to a …

Environmental Racism In Baltimore: A Geographical Study Into The Connections Between Environmental Toxins And Public Health, Genevieve Block

Honors Theses

An investigation into the relationship between environmental toxins and environmental racism in Baltimore City, Maryland.

Blacking Out, Hooking Up, And Sexual Assault On Bucknell's Campus, Lily Shorney

Honors Theses

Sexual assault is a prominent issue on college campuses across the United States with detrimental impacts for individuals as well their surrounding communities. Two prominent risk factors for campus sexual assault (CSA) identified in the literature are alcohol use and partaking in hookup culture. However, existing research fails to address the specific role of alcohol-induced blackouts within hookups and how this phenomenon is related to CSA. The present study explored the prevalence of alcohol-induced blackouts as well as the relationship between blacking out, hooking up, and CSA. Based on quantitative survey data from 445 university students, analyses indicated that alcohol-induced …

The Fifth Vital Sign: An Anthropological Analysis Of Productive And Unproductive Pain, Kathleen Meerscheidt

Honors Theses

Throughout my time as a Division I rower, I have struggled to understand the ways that I understand my own normalization of pain within a broader cultural environment that portrays pain as a mostly negative aspect of life. This moral quandary inspired me to start researching the role of pain in different socio-cultural contexts. For my thesis, I conducted original research, in the form of participant observation and semi-structured interviews, to build on what I found through an extensive literature review. First, I looked at the ways in which pain is understood within Western biomedicine and, subsequently, “Western” culture. Within …

Graduating Greener: Analysis Of A Non-Price Intervention To Encourage Pro-Environmental Behavior Among College Students, Jillie Santos

Honors Theses

According to the Yale Program on Climate Communication, a majority of Americans report worrying about climate change, yet the proportion of Americans who discuss climate change often with friends and family is around half of the worried percentage. This discrepancy illustrates a habit of climate avoidance and climate inaction. Drawing upon psychology and human-centered design, I assisted Dr. Michael A. Smyer in developing Graduating Greener, a workshop aimed at disrupting climate avoidance and promoting pro-environmental behavior through a sequence of social, environmentally-based activities. In this thesis, I investigate concepts from the field of behavioral economics which inform and align with …

Where Girls Rule The World: Lessons For Pakistan In The Bangladeshi Educational Phenomenon, Chanze Ahsan

Honors Theses

In tune with the UN's Sustainable Development Goal and the widespread acceptance of education as a fundamental human right, the deprivation of female education in Pakistan presents an alarming assault on its female population. With this, the historical accident that was the separation of Pakistan and Bangladesh serves as a natural experiment into differences between the countries before and after partition. Despite facing two colonizations, Bangladesh has emerged on the other side of history with promising results regarding the elimination of gender disparities in education. How has it managed to do so? And what can Pakistan learn from its journey? …

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Corporate Financial Fragility In The Vietnamese Manufacturing Industry, Trang Nguyen

Honors Theses

In the past decades, under the government’s export-led growth strategy, the Vietnamese manufacturing sector – the backbone of the whole Vietnamese economy – has established a deep tie with the international market and the reliance on foreign buyers has fueled the growth of this sector before COVID-19. However, during the pandemic, when the global market contracted at -3.5 percent and demand slumped globally, this existing growth model and the manufacturing sector’s reliance on foreign buyers induced significant risks to this sector from both the demand and supply side. Using the firm-level data on 41 manufacturing exporting companies from the Vietstock …

Perceived Stress Of College Students During Covid-19: Adverse Childhood Experiences, Kristina Morreale

Honors Theses

ACEs are adverse childhood experiences experienced in the first 18 years of life. They are present in over a third of the population and lead to adverse health outcomes (Karatekin, 2017). The goal of this study was to examine whether ACEs could be used to identify stress levels of college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data on ACEs and stress levels were collected from students actively enrolled at a college or university (N= 183). Findings indicated that high ACEs were predictive of high stress, specifically considering stressful factors experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of this study suggest the …

Personality Dimensions Of Male And Female Law Enforcement Recruits Related To Academy Success, Chantel Duda

Honors Theses

Research has found that male and female law enforcement recruits complete academy training at different rates, with female recruits typically completing at lower rates than male recruits. While the literature on the topic demonstrates a variety of training characteristics that explain some of the difference, it is possible that typical personality differences between men and women play a role in some of the unexplained disparities in academy passing rates. This study attempted to discern differences between personality characteristics among male and female academy recruits using survey data from two major metropolitan law enforcement academies. It was hypothesized that male cadets …

The Struggle For Self-Determination: A Comparative Analysis Of East Timor And Western Sahara, Emma Baratta

Honors Theses

Self-determination is accepted as an international right of all people, yet in many cases it still takes decades of struggle to achieve it. Through comparative analysis of the selfdetermination and independence struggles of East Timor and Western Sahara, conclusions can be drawn as to why some former colonies are able to achieve these goals while others do not. In order to better understand the challenges associated with self-determination, I evaluate the two cases based on four overarching factors which influence the process: statehood criteria and imagined community status, colonialism and occupation, presence of natural resources, and international recognition. I argue …

More Than An Athlete: A Qualitative Analysis Of How Student-Athletes Develop Self-Authorship Through Their Experiences In Athletics, Haley Kate Webb

Honors Theses

Within the context of the newly instituted NCAA Name, Image and Likeness legislation, student-athletes are able to profit from their personal brands. This legislation presents newfound exposure to student-athletes. In order to assess the preparedness of student-athletes to benefit monetarily from their personal brands, an analysis of student-athlete development provides beneficial insight regarding their cognitive development. Using self-authorship theory as a guide, this qualitative research used long interviews to explore how student-athletes are developing their identities through their journeys with athletics. The research analyzes the lived experiences told by five athletes from a medium-sized faith-based NCAA Division II university. The …

Unpacking Political Identity In First-Time Voting Christian Women: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Mary Grace Golden

Honors Theses

As political science tends to focus on polling and statistical analysis to examine individuals’ voting behaviors, the reasoning behind constituents’ decision-making process is often left in the dark. This is particularly true in first-time voting women who come from religious backgrounds that uphold complementarian gender values. This study focuses on the following research questions: How do women experience their political identity in relation to their gender identity? How do women experience their political identity in relation to their religious or faith identity? How do women experience their political identity in relation to voting for the first time? I answer these …

Covid-19: Coping Strategies Predicting Mental Health Outcomes, Crystal Lim

Honors Theses

The rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths caused are increasing. Studies have been reporting the inclining rate of psychological distress during the pandemic, which calls for attention to how the pandemic has impacted mental health outcomes. Coping strategies are helpful when it comes to predicting mental health outcomes. However, limited studies looked at coping strategies predicting mental health outcomes longitudinally. The study hypothesized that psychological distress would decrease during mid-pandemic and adaptive coping strategies such as active coping, acceptance, positive reframing, instrumental support, emotional support, religion, humor, and planning decrease psychological distress while maladaptive included denial and venting, behavioral disengagements, …

"Incorporating Behavior Analysis To Address Risk Factors For Obesity", Fawzia Khan

Honors Theses

There is a rising prevalence for obesity in the United States. Obesity is associated with health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, and other health complications including worsened mental health. Because of this, it is important to look for effective solutions to address risk factors, such as overeating and a sedentary lifestyle, that are associated with obesity. Applied behavior analysis, the application of learning principles to socially significant issues, has potential in addressing factors that lead to obesity. Functional analysis and the antecedent-behavior-consequence (ABC) model can help explain “cause and effect” relationships between environment and behavior and why and how …

Digital Pulpit: A Thematic Analysis Of Evangelical Leaders’ Statements On Twitter In The Two Weeks Following The January 6 Capitol Riot, Everett Belle Kirkman

Honors Theses

White evangelicals overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. According to the Pew Research Center, 81% voted for him. That support baffled pundits at first but held up throughout his presidency. By the time the 2020 election season was ramping up, White evangelicals who supported Trump held more tightly to their beliefs, many taking to social media to convey their opinions. Since the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, over 600 outspoken Trump supporters have been arrested and charged for inciting violence in dispute of election results. This research is a thematic content analysis of the statements …