Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Integrated Model Of Attitude Theory And Applicant Faking Behavior, Matthew Doyle Pita

Theses and Dissertations

Applicant faking behavior (AFB) on personality measures has been a long-standing challenge for both researchers and practitioners. Applicant faking behavior is widely defined as a deceptive act that is intended to create a favorable impression (Goffin & Boyd, 2009). The research in this area has evolved with heightened focus on bolstering its theoretical foundation and establishing a consistent and effective operationalization of AFB. This research utilizes archival data from a within-subject design with a sample of job applicants; a procedure that has been recognized as the “gold standard” of the AFB literature (Ryan & Boyce, 2006). Structural Equation Modelling resulted …

Feedback And Effort: A Translational Study, Andressa Arana Sleiman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate an arrangement to establish feedback as more preferred when delivered after higher effort responding rather than lower effort responding. The study took place in the laboratory settings to simulate a working environment. Participants had to complete a mock medical data entry task, and after either one or 20 responses they received feedback. Participants in this study were 16 undergraduate students. The main dependent variable was the percentage of preference change in paired stimulus preference assessments for two categories of stimuli; shapes that signaled which condition they were in and managers that …

For The Love Of A Game: The Effects Of Pathological Video Game Use On Romantic Relationship Satisfaction, Hailey Elizabeth Holmgren

Theses and Dissertations

Media use may have the potential to influence romantic relationships, depending on the context of media use. For example, pathological media use, which includes symptoms of addiction such as relapse, withdrawal, and conflict with family and friends over media use, may be particularly damaging to romantic relationships. Additionally, research shows that pathological video game use can negatively influence factors of mental health, including depression. The current study includes 183 heterosexual couples from the Eastern United States. Both members of each couple completed online surveys answering questions regarding pathological media use, depression, and relationship satisfaction. Results showed that male pathological video …

The Effects Of Income And Ethnicity On Health Outcomes Of Mexican Immigrant And Anglo Women, Andrea M. Debarros

Theses and Dissertations

The Hispanic Paradox is the finding that Hispanic immigrants living in the United States have better health than Anglo Americans despite being socioeconomically disadvantaged (Crespo et al., 1996; Stern et al., 1999; Sundquist et al., 1999; Dixon et al, 2000; Lariscy et al., 2015; Overton et al., 2015; Thomson et al., 2013). The literature surrounding the Hispanic Paradox has studied these effects primarily in Mexican-American Immigrant populations (Sundquist et al., 1999; Dixon et al, 2000; Lariscy et al.); however, additional research has found similar findings for various other Hispanic countries such as Cuba and Puerto Rico (Abraido-Lanza, A F. et …

Applying Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis To An Unrestricted Corpus: A Case Study In Indonesian And Malay Newspapers, Sara Luanne White

Theses and Dissertations

In 2008, Baker et al. proposed a nine-step method that combines quantitative corpus linguistics with qualitative critical discourse analysis. To date this cycle has only been used to analyze a single language with a restricted corpus. Can this method, originally designed for this narrow focus, be applied cross-culturally to an unrestricted corpus? There are two over-arching goals for this paper, one linguistic and one methodological. The first goal is to learn about language ideologies in Indonesian and Malay newspapers; the second goal is to evaluate the efficacy of a mixed-methods corpus-driven approach to discourse analysis using the methods proposed by …

Family Environments And Children's Cognitive Skills: Accounting For Heritable Influences Through Comparing Adopted And Biological Children, Shelby Mae Mcneill

Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing ECLS-K:2011 data, this study compares adopted and biological children to account for the role of heritable characteristics in explaining the relationship between family environments and children's cognitive skills. I find that cognitive skills do not differ across adopted and biological children after adjusting for the systematic differences between them. I also find that the relationship between family environment and children's cognitive skills does not differ across adopted and biological children. Taken together, these results suggest that the relationship between family environment and children's cognitive skills is not spurious.

Marital Quality And Cardiovascular Risk In Women During The Menopausal Transition, Tracy E. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Marital quality is linked to health benefits for men and women. Although women have less risk factors than men for cardiovascular disease prior to menopause, their risk increases substantially after menopause. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of marital quality and vasomotor symptoms on cardiovascular risk factors including C-reactive protein (CRP) and carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) in women before, during, and after the menopausal transition. The final sample consisted of 92 married women between the ages of 40 and 60 years. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression and general linear modeling. Results suggest that greater marital …

Associations Between Parent-Child Relationship Quality, Parent Feeding Practices, And Child Weight Status In Preadolescent Children, Kristina Marie Duncombe

Theses and Dissertations

The present study evaluated associations between parent-child connectedness and communication, parent perceptions of child weight, parent feeding behaviors (restriction, pressure to eat, and monitoring), and child body mass index percentile among a sample of children aged 8-12 years. To evaluate these associations, this study used a cross-sectional design and maximum likelihood (ML) structural equation modeling to examine a mediation model with parental feeding behaviors mediating the associations between parent-child relationship quality and child body mass index. Furthermore, because of the known associations between parental perceptions of child weight and parent feeding practices, models examining the mediating effects of parent feeding …

A Latent Class Analysis Of American English Dialects, Stephanie Nicole Hedges

Theses and Dissertations

Research on the dialects of English spoken within the United States shows variation regarding lexical, morphological, syntactic, and phonological features. Previous research has tended to focus on one linguistic variable at a time with variation. To incorporate multiple variables in the same analysis, this thesis uses a latent class analysis to perform a cluster analysis on results from the Harvard Dialect Survey (2003) in order to investigate what phonetic variables from the Harvard Dialect Survey are most closely associated with each dialect. This thesis also looks at how closely the latent class analysis results correspond to the Atlas of North …

Survivors' Perceptions Of Support Following A Parent's Suicide, Suzanne Nicole Bennett

Theses and Dissertations

Children who experience a parent's death by suicide are a vulnerable population at risk for emotional and mental health issues as well as suicide attempts (Cerel, Fristad, Weller, & Weller, 1999; Kuramoto et al., 2010; Wilcox et al., 2010). Yet, in spite of the knowledge that effective postvention is in reality prevention (Cerel et al. 2008), relatively little is known about these children and adolescents, particularly regarding their experiences following the suicide. The current research study investigated which resources, assistance, and actions of those around the child were perceived as most helpful and unhelpful following the parental suicide. Through semi-structured …

Feedback Environment Intervention: Changing The Performance Management Paradigm From Systems To People, James R. Gallo

Theses and Dissertations

For years, empirical research has supported the claims that an organization’s feedback environment is related to numerous beneficial outcomes for employees and organizations. While we have a valid and reliable way to measure this feedback environment, we don’t know much about how to intervene in organizations to create a favorable feedback environment. This research study attempted to improve an organization’s feedback environment through a planned change intervention and therefore to create new institutionalized group norms often prevalent in a favorable feedback environment. The goal of the intervention was to train employees on the seven dimensions of the feedback environment and …

Shared Leadership: Enactment, Perception, And The Role Of Power Distance, Mina Milosevic

Theses and Dissertations

Interest in shared leadership stems from the growing evidence that adopting this approach to team management results in enhanced team performance, team effectiveness, and team satisfaction. However, to fully realize the value of shared leadership, we must understand exactly what shared leadership is as well as when and how it evolves in teams. This study used teams’ verbal communication data to identify shared leadership behaviors and to explore the relationship between behaviorally-enacted shared leadership and its perception by the team members. In addition, the study examined the impact of power distance on shared leadership. The results show that, despite behaviorally-enacted …

A Comparison Between Online And In-Vivo Parent Training On Parental Acquisition Of Skills To Promote Appropriate Behaviors In Children Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Abigail L. Blackman

Theses and Dissertations

Individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often receive Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention (EIBI) to acquire skills to live as independently as possible. However, skills learned through EIBI often do not generalize well without the help of the child’s parents (or other caregivers). Therefore, parent training is integral for individuals with ASD to generalize and maintain acquired skills. Research supports Applied Behavior Analysis as being effective in teaching parents to work with their children. Currently, the most common way to provide parent training is through in-vivo training, which can be costly and time consuming. Therefore, the purpose of the current …

An Analysis Of The Role Of Reactivity In The Observer Effect, Allison Hughes King

Theses and Dissertations

Peer observations, which consist of employees observing and scoring their coworkers’ performance of some targeted behavior(s), are often an important component of behavioral safety interventions. Research on peer observations has demonstrated that individuals improve their performance of a task as a result of observing and evaluating their coworkers perform that task, a phenomenon known as the observer effect. Most of the research has demonstrated this effect when the observers were aware that their performance of the task was also being observed, suggesting that reactivity may play an important role. The current study examined this by evaluating the impact that observing …

The Effects Of Feedback Accuracy On Rumor And Performance During An Analogue Task, Joshua Lawrence Lipschultz

Theses and Dissertations

Feedback is the most commonly used intervention in Organizational Behavior Management (OBM). Recent OBM research has examined both the effects of inaccurate feedback (FB) on performance as well as rumors created due to inaccurate rules. The current study expanded upon both of these lines of research by examining the verbal behavior exhibited by dyads of participants during an analogue task as they were exposed to three different levels of FB accuracy (i.e., one-third FB of the actual number of entries completed, accurate FB, and tripled FB of the actual number of entries completed). The study also assessed the relative effects …

The Effects Of Students' Ability To Recall Information Based On Teacher Methods, Keanna Marie Ross

Theses and Dissertations

Technology runs the modern day world. Children whom are born in this generation are highly dependent and easily soothed by the electronics and television. Statistics show that children from ages 6 to 11 spend around 28 hours a week watching television. 71% of adolescents 8-11 have a television in their bedroom. (Television TV and Children: Your Child, n.d). Is it possible that this dependency on electronics have infiltrated our children's awareness in the classroom? Smartboards are very popular in schools today. In some schools, they are used throughout the entire day. Smartboards are used for basic instruction, interactive classroom games, …

Over The Ropes: Boundary Play In Professional Wrestling, Ethan Ingram

Theses and Dissertations

Within the anthropology of performance, scholars have traditionally considered theater, spectacle, sport, and ritual performances in terms of the discrete boundaries of space and time that separate these events from daily life and in terms of the disparate roles that demarcate performers from audience members. Professional wrestling, a popular performance genre in the American Midwest, exhibits features that challenge these boundaries through the collaborative construction of the event by performers and audience members. Audience interaction is an essential part of wrestling performances, characterized by routine and contextually understood behaviors that performers can process as evaluative feedback. Moreover, during wrestling matches, …

An Examination Of Collegiate Extracurricular Activities And Career Aspiration Levels, Chelsey Lynn Ingram

Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to evaluate the career aspiration levels of college students who participated in college-related extracurricular activities compared to students who did not participate in extracurricular activities. Additionally, this study compared each domain of extracurricular activities (e.g., athletics, the arts, service clubs, etc.) to determine which domain has the highest levels of aspirations. Survey responses provided a representation of participants' intended future career achievements and perceptions of participation in collegiate extracurricular activities. Data was collected from a sample of undergraduate students through online survey responses via Rowan University's SONA system. Bivariate correlation tests in SPSS for Windows were utilized …

Experience And Knowledge Of Elementary School Teachers Of Emotionally And Behaviorally Disordered Students, Ashley Lynn Higginbotham

Theses and Dissertations

There is very little and out dated research concerning effective teacher methods for managing emotionally and behaviorally disordered children in educational settings. With growing rates of EBD children, it is important that this population gets the attention of researchers to ensure success for them. This study attempted to evaluate the relationship between experience and knowledge of teachers in regards to managing emotionally and behaviorally disordered students. Variables included number of years of teaching, number of EBD students each teacher had in the past five years, and participation in courses or workshops on EBD students. Seventeen teachers of EBD students responded …

"But She's Snow White, She Would N'T Hurt Anybody": A Critical Analysis Of Gender And Power In Once Upon A Time, Mackenzie Mahler

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines gender performance and its relation to power in the television series Once Upon a Time (OUAT). On the surface, OUAT is a television show that constantly challenges the culturally-ingrained gender norms often found in fairy tales, as it creates new storylines for traditional fairy tales. This warrants a deeper examination of the series to understand if and how it is subverting these typical gender norms. To fully understand how gender operates in OUAT, I examined how gender affects and is affected by hegemony in the show and how this relates to our cultural understanding of gender and …

The Effect Of Therapy Dogs On Children In A Learning Environment, Kimberly Ann Sheckler

Theses and Dissertations

Having a dog in school can seem exciting for many students, but can these furry companions actually help students attain higher levels of academic success? The benefits of therapy dogs in an educational setting can be seen in many research studies. Dogs in the classroom can be used to calm fears, relieve anxiety, and teach skills to students (Lessons Learned from Dogs in the Classroom, 1996). Even though there is much evidence of the positive benefits of therapy dogs in a school, many schools still choose not to have therapy dog programs. This thesis looks at the benefits of therapy …

Narrative In Police Communication: The Art Of Influence And Communication For The Modern Police Organization, Chelsea Fray

Theses and Dissertations

Violence in the City of Rockford, Illinois and surrounding cities has made the Rockford Police Department’s communication vitally important for shaping the future of the community. The primary objective of this project was to gain a greater understanding of how the local police department utilizes one particular communication channel: social media. While some research examining law enforcement’s use of social media exists, this study is unique as it specifically applies Fisher’s (1984) narrative paradigm and key concepts related to public relations functions including relationship building. The analysis revealed that the department does utilize some narrative concepts, but could certainly reevaluate …

Effects Of Mood On Processing In Event-Based Prospective Memory, Rachel A. Workman

Theses and Dissertations

Different moods seem to elicit different processing styles (Hunt & McDaniel, 1993, Storbeck & Clore, 2005) and mood has been shown to affect retrospective memory in many ways. The current research investigated how induced mood affects event-based prospective memory (PM). The current study examined mood effects on focal and non-focal PM retrieval. Participants were induced into either a depressive or elated state using Velten statements directly prior to retrieval of the PM task. A main effect of task type was found, such that those in the focal condition completed the task quicker and more accurately than those in the non-focal …

“They Ate Macaroni-And-Cheese Or Tv Dinners; My Mother Made Curry Instead ”: A Narrative Inquiry Of South Asian American Writers’ Identity Negotiation, Su Yin Khor

Theses and Dissertations

As the demographic and linguistic landscape in the United States is shifting—the Asian population has increased significantly in the last decade, particularly the South Asian population—these changes are reflected in the classrooms all over the country. As such, it becomes imperative to investigate who these multilinguals are, and as several scholars have pointed out, the Asian population has not been studied to the same extent as other minorities. In addition, the notion of a homogenous Asian identity persists and hides the internal differences that exist within the Asian population.

Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to challenge the notion …

The Influence Of Social Media On Teens' Self-Esteem, Shannon Murphy Gallagher

Theses and Dissertations

Social media has made it incredibly easy to connect the world. One can check Twitter and see what their favorite celebrity is up to, log onto Facebook to find out when a friend's birthday is, or use Instagram to advertise a new business. However, is social media doing more harm than good? The purpose of this study was to conclude if there is a relationship between social media and self-esteem, especially among teenagers. 130 participants from two high schools completed two different surveys: one to assess their social media use and the second to measure their self-esteem. Each social media …

The Relationship Between Mindfulness And Stress Among College Students, Elizabeth Marie Vonderheyde

Theses and Dissertations

College students who have high levels of stress have reported difficulties with functioning on a daily basis, whether it be high anxiety due to classes or an increase in unhealthy habits like smoking or overeating. Studies have shown that those who practice mindfulness every day learn how to live with accepting the stresses in their lives (Siegel & Allison, 2016). This study explored the relationship between mindfulness and stress in college students from a medium size public university in the northeast. Two self-report measures were used to collect data though an online survey. Data were subjected to descriptive and inferential …

Sports Involvement And Academic Functioning In College Students, Mikala Connery

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine positive academic behaviors between college student athletes and non-athletes. Over 460,000 students participate in college sports yearly (NCAA, 2016). Early research shows sports involvement has a negative impact on academic achievement; however, current research contradicts those findings. Sports has become a popular extracurricular activity, so it is important to determine the actual relationship between sports involvement and academic functioning. This study examined that relationship by comparing grade point averages, academic self-efficacy, and motivation between student athletes and student non-athletes in a northeast university. An online self-reporting survey was administered to gather the …

An Acoustical Analysis Of The American English /L, R/ Contrast As Produced By Adult Japanese Learners Of English Incorporating Word Position And Task Type, Braden Paul Chase

Theses and Dissertations

Adult Japanese learners of English (JLEs) are often stereotyped as being unable to produce or perceive the English phonemes /l/ and /r/. This study analyzed acoustic samples of /l/ and /r/ obtained from intermediate-level Japanese speakers in two variable contexts: word positions (initial/final) and task type (controlled/free). These tokens were subjected to acoustic analysis which is one way of comparing oral productions of native and non-native English speakers. Previous research has identified a lowered third formant (F3) as the hallmark of an American English /r/ as produced by a native speaker, independent of word position or task type. The results …

Taking The "Foreign" Out Of The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, Jared Benjamin Sell

Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety in the language classroom is an important issue because it affects student performance (Woodrow, 2006). The majority of research conducted has focused on anxiety or apprehension that language learners experience in a foreign language classroom, including students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) context. Only a few studies have been done, however, that address the needs of learners experiencing anxiety in an ESL setting. Data were gathered from 179 students attending a university sponsored intensive English program using a modified version of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986) and focus groups. Initial …

Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status And High School Dropout Retention Plans, Nicholas Sciancalepore

Theses and Dissertations

Different areas in the United States have varying levels of economic hardships. The United States Department of Education states that 4.7% of ninth graders in low socioeconomic areas drop out of school. This means that they may not receive an education strong enough to get a job that can sustain them. We aimed to find out which schools have lower dropout rates as compared to the average we can focus on what these schools are doing correctly as compared to ones where the dropout rate is higher. This study looks at data compiled from 57 schools that teach at least …