Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sexual Orientation And Bullying: How Experience Affects Perception, Ryan Rollins

Theses and Dissertations

Harassment, intimidation, and bullying (HIB) are a pervasive problem in society. Individuals are bullied for many different reasons including sexual orientation (actual or perceived), social group or status, and ethnicity. All individuals perceive HIB differently and it is important to notice these differences. This study proposes a difference in perception among those who have been victims of HIB and those who have not as well as a correlation between sexual orientation and experience with bullying. Findings show a heightened sensitivity among all subjects to incidents of HIB and a positive correlation between LGBT youth and being a victim of incidents …

Ruqual: A System For Assessing Post-Editing, Jason K. Housley

Theses and Dissertations

Post-editing machine translation has become more common in recent years due to the increase in materials requiring translation and the effectiveness of machine translation systems. This project presents a system for formalizing structured translation specifications that facilitates the assessment of the performance of a post-editor. This report provides details concerning two software applications: the Ruqual Specifications Writer, which aids in the authoring of post-editing project specifications, and the Ruqual Rubric Viewer which provides a graphical user interface for filling out a machine readable rubric file. The project as a whole relies on a definition of translation quality based on the …

I Just Can't Do It! The Effects Of Social Withdrawal On Prosocial Behavior, Ashley Michelle Fraser

Theses and Dissertations

While there has been research published on social withdrawal during childhood, little work has been done on the effects of social withdrawal during emerging adulthood. Since emerging adulthood is a time of transition and initiation to new environments and social contexts, it would be expected to be a time of great anxiety for individuals predisposed to social withdrawal (shyness). Shyer emerging adults are at risk for internalizing behaviors, lowered self-concept, and delayed entry into romantic relationships, therefore, they may also be more challenged when it comes to enacting prosocial behaviors. In addition, the inability to self-regulate emotions may mediate this …

Multidimensional Item Response Theory In Clinical Measurement: A Bifactor Graded-Response Model Analysis Of The Outcome-Questionnaire-45.2, Arjan Berkeljon

Theses and Dissertations

Bifactor Item Response Theory (IRT) models are presented as a plausible structure for psychological measures with a primary scale and two or more subscales. A bifactor graded response model, appropriate for polytomous categorical data, was fit to two university counseling center datasets (N=4,679 and N=4,500) of Outcome-Questionnaire-45.2 (OQ) psychotherapy intake data. The bifactor model showed superior fit compared to a unidimensional IRT model. IRT item parameters derived from the bifactor model show that items discriminate well on the primary scale. Items on the OQ's subscales maintain some discrimination ability over and above the primary scale. However, reliability estimates for the …

The Effect Of Legal Status On Responses To Brief Motivational Interviewing With Substance Users, Thomas Moore

Theses and Dissertations

The effectiveness of drug abuse treatment for clients coerced into care remains controversial. Some studies find clients with legal pressure do better than those without legal pressure, while others report the exact opposite. Opposing views are often fueled by the wide-ranging models that guide delivery of addiction treatment. The present study examined how participants with and without legal pressure to attend treatment responded to a motivational (MET) vs. traditional (TAU) form of addiction treatment. Additionally, the predictive value of the Readiness to Change (RTC) score, from the URICA, was assessed across days of substance use and treatment retention. Legal status …

Relationship Between Observed Parental Optimism And Adolescent Optimism With Parental Involvement As A Mediating Variable: Two Wave Panel Study, Allison Ellsworth

Theses and Dissertations

Using coded data from parent-child interaction tasks and questionnaires, this longitudinal study examined the relationship between observed mother and father optimism and self-reported and observed optimism of their adolescent child one year later with mother and father involvement as mediators. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that while there was not a direct association between maternal optimism and child optimism, that father involvement mediated that relationship, and that father involvement further mediated the relationship between father involvement and child optimism.

Measuring Growth: The Reliability And Validity Of The Utah Recovery Scale, Ray J. Katzenbach

Theses and Dissertations

Recently the direction of consumer mental health care in the United States has shifted in terms of its approach to recovery. In this sense recovery is not thought to be a complete amelioration of symptoms, but rather the acquisition of meaningful relationships, independent living, and fulfilling work. In response to these changes, the Utah division of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI-Utah) conducted consumer focus groups for the purpose of developing a tool to monitor this new conceptualization of recovery. The focus groups generated 10 recovery indicators based on recovery as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services …

Racial Socialization In A Black-White Interracial Family In Virginia, Rebecca Hubbard

Theses and Dissertations

The Black-White biracial population is the largest and fastest growing subgroup of multiracial individuals in the United States. Despite substantial research literature on the positive relationship between Black racial identity and psychological wellbeing, Black-White biracial individuals are underrepresented in studies that provide evidence for this relationship. Root (1998) put forward an Ecological Metamodel of Biracial Identity, comprised of several factors related to contextual (e.g. class, regional history of race-relations, parental identity, extended family) and intra-psychic processes (e.g. social skills, coping skills). The ecological metamodel served as the theoretical framework for the current study. This study is a comprehensive investigation of …

Going International: The Development And Operations Of Al Qaãida In The Islamic Maghreb, Sarah Faye Mangrem

Theses and Dissertations

Since 2006 there has been a uniquely independent and autonomous branch of al Qa’ida operating in the Sahel and Sahara region of North and West Africa. Relative to associated movements elsewhere, al Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb is geographically and financially isolated, dependent on its own members to mobilize both human and financial resources. Yet at this they have been particularly successful; smuggling contraband across African borders, kidnapping Europeans for ransom and playing middleman for Latin American cartels transporting huge amounts of drugs to Europe. The 2012 Tuareg rebellion and subsequent military coup in Mali has provided opportune timing as …

The Role And Impact Of Bullying Bystanders In An Urban School Setting, Courtney Casey

Theses and Dissertations

The current study focused on bystander interventions in hypothetical real world and cyber world bullying scenarios. Participants included 87 5th-8th grade students living in an urban community in southern New Jersey. The intervention of bystanders, taking into account their cultural awareness of snitching was explored. The bystanders' relationship with the bully and victim, and the bystanders' method of intervention were examined. An original survey of bullying scenarios was administered to collect data. Results showed the majority of bystander intervention levels as moderate (50.57%) or high (35.63%). The cultural relevance of snitching yielded no significant impact on bystander intervention. Future research …

Parental And Family Predictors Of Adolescent Weight Loss And Health Change In A Multidisciplinary Obesity Intervention, Jacqueline Woods

Theses and Dissertations

The home environment, parental health attitudes, and parental diet and exercise behaviors have been associated with childhood obesity. The current study utilized a family systems framework to examine the effect of these variables on weight and health changes in a primarily Black sample of 530 parent-adolescent dyads enrolled in a multidisciplinary weight loss intervention. Parent-reported psychosocial variables and demographic information were used to test models predicting changes in adolescents’ body mass index, cholesterol, and percentage body fat over the first six months of the intervention. The effect of parent participation in a psycho-education parent group on adolescent health outcomes was …

The Need For Collaboration In Planning Efforts During Natural Disasters: An Evaluation Of The City Of Richmond, Virginia, Jocelyn Leitch

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis evaluates whether or not information data sharing is effectively used between federal, state, and local government agencies and non-governmental agencies in a metropolitan area during and immediately after a major natural disaster. Also, whether vulnerable populations were identified and considered during emergency management. The chosen study area is the City of Richmond, VA, and the disaster response is based on flooding episodes that occurred in the city over the last decade following hurricanes and tropical depressions. Questionnaires were administered to representatives of federal, state, and local agencies and NGOs. The questionnaires consisted of a Likert-style series of 10 …

The Relationship Between Aggression And Communication In Students With Developmental Disabilities, Emily Peel

Theses and Dissertations

This purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between aggression and communication in students with developmental disabilities. Previous research examining the relationship between aggression and communication found a significant correlation between physical aggression and expressive vocabulary in language (Dionne, Tremblay, Boivin, Laplante, & Perusse, 2003). The current study investigated a link between high intensity behaviors (aggression) and the degree of impairment within the communication domain. Archival data was obtained from a sample of students living in a residential facility for stabilization of behaviors in Southern New Jersey. Communication was measured by the communication goals and objectives listed in …

Identification Of Latent Subgroups Of Obese Adolescents Enrolled In A Healthy Weight Management Program, Cassie Brode

Theses and Dissertations

In obesity research, it is assumed that the population is homogeneous. While this approach has yielded important insights, testing this supposition might reveal information that could impact our understanding of the phenomena and its treatment. In this study, data from obese teenagers (N = 248, Mean BMI percentile = 99%; Mean age = 13.9, SD = 1.8) who were predominantly minority (n = 182), female (n = 169), and enrolled in a weight loss intervention were analyzed. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to segment patients into groups based on their scores on PedsQL 4.0 scales (physical-, emotional-, social-, and …

Efficacy Of Reach Forgiveness For Foreign And Virginia Students, Yin Lin

Theses and Dissertations

People agree that forgiveness is a virtue in essentially all countries. However, different cultures have different ideas about how willing one should forgive and under what circumstances. Although the study occurred in the USA, I recruited both foreign-extraction and Virginia born-and-raised female college students (N=102) to participate a six-hour REACH forgiveness intervention, promoting their forgiveness through psychoeducational groups. In my thesis, I investigated whether students of foreign extraction and Virginia-born students would respond similarly to the intervention. I operationalized culture in two ways—by country and by individual self-reported self-construal. I measured forgiveness using two measures—decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness. I …

Unavailable And Inaccessible: An Analysis Of Urban Food Insecurity, Stephen Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored food insecurity by examining the ways in which residents of low-income, urban communities access food. The primary elements of this thesis are an analysis of the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the populations surrounding food retailers, and a survey of the availability, cost, and quality of fresh fruits and vegetables in food stores commonly found in the urban environment. Overall, this study found that low-income, minority communities are largely served by independent supermarkets, small grocers and convenience stores that charge higher prices for staple foods. Conversely, it was found that wealthy areas enjoy easy access to corporate …

Blurring The Lines Of Traditional Gender Roles: Beliefs Of African American Women, Jasmine Abrams

Theses and Dissertations

Gender role beliefs of African American women in the United States should be investigated in a manner that considers their unique experiences and the distinct background of her cultural sharing group. In this study, gender role beliefs of African American women were examined by addressing the research question: What are the gender role beliefs of African American women for African American men and women? Eight focus groups comprising 44 African American women were conducted. Women were diverse in terms of age, religion, and socio-economic status. An ethnographic phenomenological approach was used to explore views related to gender roles among African …

Evaluation Of Psychological Services Provied In A University-Based Primary Care Clinic, Elizabeth Sadock

Theses and Dissertations

Primary care clinics are increasingly integrating psychological services into their service programs; however few studies have provided quantitative data to support these services. This study served as a program evaluation of the psychological services provided at the Ambulatory Care Clinic at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. It includes: 1) a description of the program, including types of patients served, their presenting problems, and treatments administered and 2) evidence of the impact of mental health services on primary care patients’ emotional adjustment and progress on behavioral goals. Data on exposure to stressful life events and intake and …

Opportunities And Challenges Of Citywide Main Street Programs: Examining The Urban Environment, Coordinating Structures And Political Realities In The Application Of The Four Point Approach, Ryan Rinn

Theses and Dissertations

The Main Street Four Point Approach to commercial revitalization has been applied successfully in thousands of communities across the U.S. Starting in 1995, citywide coordinated programs began applying the balanced points of organization, design, economic restructuring and promotion to urban environments. This thesis focuses on the opportunities and challenges present in five citywide Main Street programs in Boston, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Orlando and Portland through quantitative inquiry and interviews with program administrators. This thesis discusses density, capacity, volunteerism, vernacular culture, and politics as emergent themes of the urban application of the Main Street Approach and recommends expanding the breadth of …

Mapping Women's Movement In Medieval England, Claire Clement

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates women’s geographical movement in medieval England from the perspective of mobility and freedom. It uses pilgrimage accounts from medieval miracle story collections and to gather information about individual travel patterns. The study uses GIS to analyze gendered mobility patterns, and to investigate whether there were noticeable differences in the distance which men and women traveled and the geographical area of the country they originated. It also analyzes the nearness of men’s and women’s respective origin towns to alternative pilgrimage locations, as a means of examining the factors determining gendered travel mobility. The study finds that women’s travel …

The Co-Operative Spirit: Bridging Social Capital In Mixed-Income Housing Developments Through Resident Empowerment, Involvement And Cooperation, Alecia Houston

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to identify strategies that promote resident empowerment, involvement and cooperation in housing co-operatives that can be applied to mixed-income developments in order to bridge social capital. Numerous American policy makers, housing professionals and planners support the development of mixed-income housing to address the social and economic isolation of low-income, urban citizens living in public housing. Social capital, or social relationships developed from social networks, is an anticipated result of physically integrating individuals of varying income levels in the same housing environment. Despite efforts for integration, numerous studies have found that limited interaction occurs across …

The Reciprocal Relation Between Maternal Depressive Symptomatology And Adolescents’ Aggression: The Role Of Parenting Practices And Family Functioning, Kelly Pugh

Theses and Dissertations

Research on family influences on adolescents’ aggression has revealed a relation between maternal depressive symptoms and adolescents’ frequency of aggression. A recent cross-sectional study of these relations (Pugh & Farrell, 2011) indicated that maternal depressive symptoms had a significant relation with teachers,’ students,’ and mothers’ reports of adolescents’ aggression. This effect was mediated by parenting practices and family functioning. The cross-sectional designs used in previous studies examining relations between maternal depressive symptoms and adolescents’ aggression make it difficult to draw clear inferences regarding the causal nature of this association. The present study used longitudinal data across five waves of data …

Comparing The Environmental Attitudes And Behaviors Of Native Americans And Non-Native Americans, Franklin Sage

Theses and Dissertations

Are Native Americans different from non-Native Americans when it comes to environmental attitudes and behaviors? Historically and traditionally, Native American preservation of the environment has been interwoven into cultural practice, which led to a special relationship between the environment and Native people. This thesis presents results from a comparative, quantitative study that focuses on Native Americans’ environmental attitudes and behaviors using data from the 1993, 1994, 2000, and 2010 waves of the General Social Survey. The study is framed using multicultural theory, which values the unique standpoint and perspectives of traditionally marginalized groups. This thesis focuses on the standpoints of …

A Phonological Analysis Of Mro Khimi, Christina Scotte Hornéy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides an overview of the phonology of Mro Khimi, particularly with regard to tone. Mro Khimi is a Southern Chin language, belonging to the Kuki-Chin-Naga branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family (Lewis 2009).

Mro Khimi is distinct from other Chin languages in that it has a voiceless velar fricative and that, like Burmese, it distinguishes between an aspirated and unaspirated voiceless sibilant. Furthermore, the velar nasal /ŋ/ is conspicuously absent, except as a rare variant of /n/.

Mro Khimi also has three front round vowels /y ʏ ø/ that are not found in the vowel inventories of Proto-Chin …

Persuasion And Manipulation: Relevance Across Multiple Audiences, Kevin Sparks

Theses and Dissertations

A speaker who is addressing multiple audiences has split intentions. In order to derive the optimal benefit toward accomplishing her intentions, the speaker crafts her utterance to be relevant to her various audiences in different ways and to differing degrees. Similarly, the hearer will infer meaning based largely on how much he thinks that the speaker intended her utterance to be relevant to him, while also considering how the utterance may have been intended to be relevant to others. The goal of this paper is to describe how the presence of multiple audiences affects both the speaker's formation of an …

Post-Conflict Governance In Nahr El Bared Palestinian Refugee Camp: The State's Technologies Of Control And Shifts In Unrwa Practices, Sheeraz Moujally

Theses and Dissertations

On the fifth anniversary of the Nahr El Bared War, this thesis seeks to historicize the re-establishment mechanisms of the post-conflict governance of the Nahr El Bared Palestinian refugee camp, almost razed to the ground following a fierce battle between the Lebanese Army and the Salafi multinational militia Fatah Al Islam in May-September 2007. In Lebanon, Palestinian camps are deprived of classical state-like governance, as Palestinian refugees are excluded from legal protection and civil rights and their spaces have been de-domesticated since 1969. In this context, this thesis captures the interplay of the competing sovereignties, each trying to impose its …

Determining An Optimum Cropping Pattern For Egypt, Loujaina M. El Sayed

Theses and Dissertations

Agriculture is considered to be the major economic activity in Egypt despite the government policies that favored other sectors since the second half of the 20^th century. However, Egypt currently faces a food security challenge that stems from the increasing demand for food in light of huge population growth and the inability of the agricultural sector to fulfill the abovementioned increasing demand.

This research focuses on the vertical expansion of the agricultural sector through attempting to determine the optimum cropping mix for Egypt in the year 2017. A fuzzy goal programming (FGP) approach for optimal land allocation is utilized. …

Law Enforcement Intelligence Recruiting Confidential Informants Within “Religion-Abusing Terrorist Networks”, Hursit Ucak

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the motivation factors that make some individuals (terrorists) confidential informants. The study is based on the assumptions of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theories. Accordingly, main assumption of the present study is that some individuals with unsatisfied needs in religion-abusing terrorist (RAT) networks choose to become confidential informants to satisfy their predominant needs. The main hypothesis for the purpose of this study is “The individuals’ decision-making processes to cooperate with law enforcement intelligence (LEI) as a confidential informant is affected by some motivation factors during recruitment process.” The present study tests 27 hypotheses in order …

Filling The Halls With English: Creating Self-Regulated Learners Through Co-Curricular Activities, Sharon Lynn Tavares

Theses and Dissertations

This project investigates the benefits and practicality of applying Zimmerman's (1994) dimensions of self-regulated learning to co-curricular activities so as to increase students' willingness and opportunities to communicate in English in the hallways of intensive English programs. Three of these dimensions (social environment, motivation, and physical environment) work together to create a semi-structured liaison between in and out of class communicative environments and give students an occasion, location, and motivation to speak English with one another. To evaluate the effectiveness of such activities and conceptualize a means in which to assist intensive English programs effectively incorporate co-curricular activities in their …

Improving Nutrition In Toddlers And Preschool Children With Cystic Fibrosis: Behavioral Parent Training Intervention, Shannon Estelle Hourigan

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this single-case study was to pilot a developmentally sensitive adaptation of an evidence-based intervention aimed at improving nutrition in children with cystic fibrosis (CF). Children with CF must adhere to a high-calorie diet to prevent malnutrition and maintain health. Toddler and preschool age children present a unique feeding challenge to parents as they begin to exert independence and exhibit a variety of challenging behaviors. Parents trying to adhere to CF nutrition guidelines often use ineffective strategies that inadvertently encourage children not to eat. This six-week group parent-training intervention combined nutrition and behavior elements to provide parents with …