Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Environmental Transmission Of Career Interests Through A Genetic Lens: Understanding The Confounding Around Parental Occupation, Tyler Allan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has established that parents can influence the career interests of their children through both their shared genetics and the household environment they create. However, most studies look at these parental influences in isolation either focusing on the environmental influences or the genetic influences. As such, the results of these studies fail to account for potential confounding in their results do to the nature of career interests. This study used a genetically informative twin sample to address the issue of shared genetics while looking at the measured environmental influence a parent’s occupation has on their child’s career interests. A …

Addressing Intersectional Stigma: Lgbtq+ Individuals Living With A Mental Illness, Jennifer T. Tran

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The stigma process (i.e., stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination) has profound and lasting effects on individuals within marginalized identities. Research has indicated that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer, or questioning (LGBTQ+) individuals’ experiences of stigma have contributed to the development of mental illness. Therefore, LGBTQ+ individuals living with mental illness experience a unique and challenging type of stigma, intersectional stigma, due to identification within multiple marginalized communities. Populations most vulnerable to stigma include individuals who identify with more than one stigmatized identity, such as LGBTQ+ individuals living with mental illness. Therefore, there is a need to explore strategies to address intersectional …

Using Behavioral Skills Training With Self-Monitoring To Increase Conversation Skills In Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Laura De Zayas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

One of the major skill deficits found in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lack of social skills. These socials skills range from having conversations, interpreting nonverbal behavior, understanding emotions, and understanding the perspective of others. Behavior skills training (BST) and self-monitoring have generally been shown to be effective in improving social skills for individuals with ASD. However, there is limited research that used BST with self-monitoring as an intervention package to improve social skills, particularly communication skills of adolescents with ASD in the school setting. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to extend the current literature …

Evaluating Behavioral Skills Training To Teach Identification Of Choking Hazards To Substitute Caregivers, Madison L. Molve

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Choking is a leading cause of mortality in children (Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention, 2010). Over half of choking injuries occur due to food, and the remaining injuries involve common household objects (Chapin et al., 2013). Although studies have been conducted assessing the use of Behavioral Skills Training (BST) to teach hazard identification in substitute caregivers (Abarca, 2021), no studies have evaluated utilizing BST to identify choking hazards specifically. Thus, this study evaluated the efficacy of using BST to teach edible and non-edible choking hazard identification to substitute caregivers following guidelines from the Home Accident Prevention Inventory Revised …

Outcomes Of A Telehealth Adaptation Of A Trauma-Based Parent Training Program, Holland Hayford

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Approximately 25% of children will experience a traumatic event by the age of four. If trauma symptoms remain untreated, these traumatic experiences during early childhood can negatively impact a child’s executive functioning skills, mental health, social interactions, and relational attachments to other individuals. Due to the harmful impact of untreated trauma symptoms on children’s wellbeing and development, several evidence-based interventions have been developed. One such intervention is Smart Start: Parenting Tools for Children with Developmental Delay, Social-Emotional Concerns, and Trauma (version 5), which targets children’s disruptive behaviors and trauma symptoms, caregivers’ parenting stress, and the caregiver-child relationship. This study utilized …

Analysis Of Prescription Drug Brand Mentions In Music: Prevalence And Consumer Perceptions, Lisa A. Blake

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Music is not only a lucrative mass reach media (Stassen, 2021) but also a deeply personal tool for self-expression (Hallam, 2019). Music listeners are exposed to a slew of branded messages within music promoting a variety of product types such as apparel, automotive, and alcohol (Craig, Flynn & Holody, 2017). Promotion in music has been proven to be an effective vehicle for building brand awareness when listeners are interested in the music (Delattre & Colovic, 2009, Hoyer & Brown, 1990; Macdonald & Sharp, 2000; Thoma & Williams, 2013). Brands promoted within music enjoy some of the benefits of promotional tactics …

Inaugural Addresses, Framing Theory, And The Impact On American Perceptions Of The Presidency, Kalin Meagan Velez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study uses the inaugural addresses given by both Donald Trump and Joseph Biden as the source texts by which to examine the sentiment portrayed by particular framed messages. Framing theory stands as the central framework in which this study was conducted. The objective was to identify how political speeches like that of the presidential inaugural address frame messages to citizens and inform the audience on what their presidency may look like. This study utilizes a quantitative analysis using LIWC software followed by a qualitative discourse analysis. A thorough examination of the history of inaugural addresses, preceding presidencies, and each …

Testing The Effects Of Social Exclusion On Emotional Arousal: An Examination Of The Effects Of Psychological Pain And Rumination, Amanda L. Peterson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The examination of social exclusion and its impact on future emotional responding may prove to be a fruitful area of research in the prevention of suicide. Additionally, there may be other factors (such as the experience of psychological pain and rumination) that may influence how one responds to social exclusion. However, little research has explored individual differences in reactions to social exclusion. As such, the present study explored how social exclusion influences emotional responding to other environmental stimuli, as well as examining how a history of psychological pain and rumination affected how one responds to social exclusion. 503 undergraduate students …

Outside The Boundaries Of Biomedicine: A Culture-Centered Approach To Female Patients Living Undiagnosed And Chronically Ill, Bianca Siegenthaler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As a community who voices feeling misunderstood, unheard, and uncared for by the medical system, female patients who live undiagnosed and chronically ill and their health narratives lie beyond biomedical boundaries. To examine how chronically ill and undiagnosed female patients narrate their experiences in and with the biomedical system and how these narratives resist biomedical health standards, I employ semi-structured interviews with 20 female patients living undiagnosed and chronically ill as well as engage in critical autoethnography to recount my own health experiences living a part of this community. In utilizing the culture-centered approach to health communication as a theoretical …

Boredom, Interoceptive Ability, And Emotional Eating, Erica Ahlich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emotional eating is a commonly described phenomenon reported by individuals across the weight spectrum. Not only does existing evidence suggest it is not an effective emotion regulation strategy, but emotional eating is also associated with difficulty losing weight during weight loss interventions and other negative health outcomes. The majority of existing work in the area of emotional eating has focused on the broad dimensions of negative and positive affect. Yet, there are data suggesting that different emotions appear to produce different changes in eating behaviors, suggesting the importance of investigating the influence of discrete emotions on eating. The lack of …

A Comparison Of Accumulated And Distributed Reinforcer Arrangements In A Classroom, Alexandra Gingras

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Though effective classroom management can increase student academic achievement and decrease disruptive behavior (e.g., Beaman & Wheldall, 2000; Marzano et al., 2003), many classroom teachers receive inadequate training on effective classroom management strategies (Reinke et al., 2011; U.S. Department of education 2000). Reinforcement-based interventions using differing reinforcer arrangements (e.g., accumulated, distributed) have been shown to be effective at reducing disruptive behavior (Fulton et al., 2019; Robinson & St. Peter, 2019); however, previous studies have not evaluated the relative efficacy of different reinforcer arrangements as teacher implemented classroom management strategies. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy …

Measuring Sustainable Development Through Tax Increment Financed Brownfield Redevelopment Statutes: A Florida Case Study, Jeff Burton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research measures the theoretically sustainable development synergy of United States’ redevelopment, tax increment, and brownfield statutes and questions local redevelopment professionals on this combination’s implementation. This policy’s integration and application measurements guide increased knowledge and best practice methods in the path of America’s population migration into urbanized areas, thus managing the economic, environmental, and social impacts for future generations.

This examination used a pragmatic, qualitative, and quantitative mixed-method approach to identify, collect, code, and analyze redevelopment, tax increment, and state brownfields laws. An exhaustive literature review of the laws’ histories explained when and why they exist. In addition, a …

Implementing The Break Pass Intervention With Differential Reinforcement To Improve Engagement In Play With Siblings For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Shannon R. Shafmaster

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This report describes the results from a study that examined the use of the break pass intervention to increase engagement in play with siblings for children with autism spectrum disorder. Two male children with ASD aged 6-years old, who had difficulty engaging in play activities with siblings participated in the study. The intervention used break passes to teach mands for breaks by providing the children with breaks throughout the play activity and to provide reinforcement for engaging in play with siblings in the absence of problem behavior. The impact of the intervention on engagement in play with siblings and disruptive …

Using Prevent-Teach-Reinforce For A High School Student With Emotional And Behavioral Disorder: A Case Study, Alexis Lopez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the school setting school-based professionals have difficulty using function-based approaches to support students engaging in consistent problem behaviors, specifically in students with emotional and behavioral disorder (EBD). This study evaluated the use of the Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (PTR), an individualized function-based intervention model for a 16-year-old high school student with EBD who was served in an alternative education setting. Through a team-based planning process that included the student and his classroom teacher, a function-based PTR intervention plan was implemented to address the student’s disruptive behavior and teach replacement behaviors of academic engagement and asking for help. An A-B design was used …

Applied Anthropology Of Addiction In Clinical Spaces: Co-Developing And Assessing A Novel Opioid Treatment Pathway, Heather Diane Henderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Historically, there has been no clear treatment pathway for opioid use disorder (OUD) patients who seek emergency care. Utilizing a trajectories of addiction framework, this dissertation presents insights from an applied anthropology of addiction study in an acute care setting to build a medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) treatment pathway, aiming to break down the stigma related to opioid use disorder (OUD) and mitigate a lack of treatment options. This dissertation took place in an urban trauma center in Florida, from 2018 to 2021. With almost 1500 hours of participant observation, hundreds of informal interviews, and 30 formal interviews, …

Passion To Purpose: An Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry Into The Development Of The Summer Ace Program, Owen Hooper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Students transitioning from high school to college are met with many challenges beyond academics including social acclimation, campus culture integration, and holistic wellness. Researchers agree that a successful and purposeful transition for incoming college students requires involvement and engagement with peers to help students adapt and increase their likelihood to graduate (Astin, 1999; Kuh, 2009; Tinto, 1998). This autobiographical narrative inquiry reflects on past experiences in assessing the needs of transitioning students at the University of South Florida and developing a purposeful programming model to support students. I aim to help the reader understand my personal commitment to these programs …

Informal Communication, Sensemaking, And Relational Precarity: Constituting Resilience In Remote Work During Covid, Tanya R.M. Vomacka

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 global pandemic disrupted every corner of the globe, impacting our personal and professional lives with intensity and scope that have yet to be fully comprehended. One such disruption has been to the workplace and organizational culture as businesses, non-governmental agencies, governments, and other organizations worldwide rapidly moved face-to-face operations to remote work. Two years into the pandemic, with vaccines available and the immediate health threat for most healthy individuals waning, businesses still find themselves confronting a changing paradigm as remote work becomes more of a permanent and competitive fixture.

This study explores the impact of remote work on …

Qualitative Examination Of Sex Therapists' Perspectives Regarding Women With Low Sexual Desire, Tatiana C. Bryan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Female sexual desire disorder is often discussed in the literature, but there is a paucity of data on how sex therapists conceptualize and treat this disorder. To address a gap in the current literature, this study collected the perspectives and attitudes of clinicians working with patients presenting with low sexual desire. This qualitative study aimed to understand how sex therapists’ conceptualization of female sexual desire disorder is used to make decisions about diagnosis, treatment, and assessing patient progress. Grounded theory methodology was used to examine the attitudes and beliefs held by sex therapists. Results were used to generate a framework …

Training Board Certified Behavior Analysts Via Telehealth To Conduct The Trial-Based Functional Analysis, Karie S. John

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although many behavior analysts recognize the value of conducting a functional analysis (FA), some report being hesitant to conduct the assessment (Oliver et al., 2015). Two potential barriers to conducting FAs include setting limitations (Roscoe et al., 2015) and lack of trained staff (Deochand et al., 2020). Researchers have addressed these limitations by developing variations of the traditional FA and demonstrating that those procedures could be taught across various populations. Perhaps the issue related to training has less to do with the ability to train FA procedures, and more to do with the accessibility of such trainings. Study 1 addressed …

Re-Centering And De-Centering ‘Race’: An Analysis Of Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Testing Organizational Websites, Beatriz Nieto-Fernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing technologies become an ever-expanding business in the United States, this dissertation project investigates the ways in which two leading organizations, AncestryDNA and 23andMe, utilize discourses of ‘race’ to connect with their customers. This study is particularly significant because it opens up new avenues of research in the field of organizational communication by engaging with a new genre of organizations and the complexities of biocapitalism, in which genetic data is commodified for consumption. Blending computational scraping of data and manual qualitative analysis of organizational texts and videos available on the corporate websites, while using postcolonial studies …

Individual Differences In Response To Hostile And Benevolent Sexism In A Stem Interview Context: The Moderating Role Of Behavioral Activation, Elizabeth Kiebel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Women continue to face sexism in workplace contexts, especially those that are male dominated, such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Yet, women often fail to confront the sexism they experience, despite confrontation being an effective way to cope with and prevent future harassment (Fitzgerald et al., 1995; Magley, 2002). To date, no one has assessed the potential moderating role of personality differences related to approach motivation on women’s confrontation of sexism. In this study, women were exposed to either a hostilely sexist or benevolently sexist question during a mock job interview that was purportedly being conducted as part …

Black Cemeteries Matter: The Erasure Of Historic Black Cemeteries In Polk County, Florida, Juliana C. Waters

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the past several years, the Tampa Bay area has experienced a reckoning with regard to the intentional erasure, destruction, and abandonment of historic African American cemeteries such as Zion Cemetery in Tampa or St. Matthews Baptist Church Cemetery in Clearwater. Scholars, journalists, community members, archaeologists, and others have contributed to a growing movement that aims to identify and document these sacred sites in an effort to prevent further destruction. In this vein, this project aimed to identify and record cemeteries in Polk County, examine the processes leading to the erasure of historic Black cemeteries, the history surrounding erasure on …

Designing Control Strategies For Connected And Automated Vehicles (Cavs) At Transportation Conflict Areas, Saeid Soleimaniamiri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Scheduling vehicles to pass a general conflict area is a common problem in traffic operations at various facilities, such as intersections, work-zones, and merging ramps. The advent of connected automated vehicle (CAV) technology provides unique opportunities for improving the traffic system performance and riding comfort at conflict areas. With the opportunities introduced by the emerging CAV technologies, this dissertation envisions building computationally efficient and applicable CAV-based control frameworks that can optimally serve traffic streams from different approaches while simultaneously or sequentially optimize CAV trajectories at conflict areas.

In our first study, we focus on a joint vehicle trajectories and signal …

Oral Narrative Interventions Implemented By Teachers, Speech-Language Pathologists, And Parents, Megan S. Kirby

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children’s oral language skills in preschool through early elementary grades can predict reading, writing, and social outcomes ten years into the future. Oral narrative language, which includes storytelling, is a long-established cultural practice in communities around the world. Narratives are the monologic re/telling of a real of fictitious event and people have used them for centuries to entertain, make sense of current and past events, and provide instruction. Oral storytelling does not require physical materials and can be tailored to the cultural and linguistic values of the community in which they are used. Thus, the portability, utility, and ubiquitous nature …

Breast Health Esteem To Motivate Breast Health Behavioral Intentions: An Application Of The Terror Management Health Model, Emily P. Courtney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer is a pervasive disease affecting millions of people, and a family history of the disease can put individuals at a significantly higher risk of developing breast cancer over the course of one’s lifetime. In turn, women with a family history often perceive themselves as more susceptible to breast cancer. Further, women who have lost family members to breast cancer likely associate the disease itself with death to a greater extent. In addition to this increased risk perception, women with a family history might intertwine breast health with feelings of esteem. It follows that those feelings of esteem should …

Geothermal Development In Kenya: Gender Based Socio-Cultural And Socio-Economic Implications, Faye N. Ricker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an ethnographic case study that analyzes the gendered socio-cultural and socio-economic implications for a community that was displaced in order to develop a geothermal energy system in Kenya. The implications are rendered particularly interesting because the displaced community is also one of the communities served by the geothermal power grid. The analysis employs a composite framework of Feminist Political Ecology and the Political Ecology of Climate Change Mitigation. This work explores gendered perceptions and control of energy, livelihood activities, place attachment, and the cultural/spiritual significance of geothermal energy.

Geothermal energy is a potentially promising source of low-carbon …

A Statistical Method For Quantifying Animal Interaction; Combining Time Geography And Simulation, Zachary J. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Dynamic interaction (DI) describes the synchronous interaction of one or more individual animals over time. Current methods to quantify DI from tracking data are lacking. They typically require synchronized tracking data which limits their applicability to most studies. They also often do not have built-in tests of significance to evaluate interaction, and if so, rely on random walk models that lack biological realism. This research aimed to develop and evaluate a new way of measuring animal interaction that overcomes these limitations. The goal was to create a statistical method for quantifying and evaluating interaction that is relevant across computational, behavioural, …

Why Don’T They Just Ask?: Barriers To Directly Requesting Affirmative Sexual Consent By Gender And Sexual Orientation, Jessica A. Jordan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Most young adults report a discomfort with verbally and explicitly asking for sexual consent from a partner. Social scientists have theorized this discomfort is driven by conformity to rigid gender roles, sexual scripts, and peer norms, although little research has directly examined the relationship between these barriers and consent behaviors. Most consent research has focused on heterosexual individuals, and even fewer studies have compared the sexual consent attitudes and behaviors of heterosexual and sexual minority individuals. Through a series of three studies, I examined the reasons heterosexual and sexual minority young adults hesitate to ask a new partner for sexual …

Distributed Leadership: Formal Leadership, Barriers, And Facilitators For Multi-Tiered Systems Of Support, Joseph D. Latimer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Currently, educators are exposed to an increased environment of accountability, which prioritizes student academic achievement. That environment of accountability is reinforced by multiple pieces of legislation that also call attention to the implementation of multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS). Even with these federal mandates, educators are continuously overwhelmed implementing MTSS and often leverage distributed leadership practices such as school leadership teams to carry out school improvement tasks. Both distributed leadership practices and MTSS are directly impacted by the practices of formal leadership (i.e., principals). In addition, enablers of and barriers to distributed leadership for MTSS should be investigated. This current …

The Labors Of Professional Wrestling: The Dream, The Drive, And Debility, Brooks Oglesby

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study centers and examines the laboring body of the professional wrestler as it moves and works through professional wrestling training. I put forth debility as a theoretical framework to naming and understanding the ways that long-term bodily wear and early death becomes an acceptable cost of doing business for the wrestling industry. Dreams of achieving wealth, fame, and stability while escaping precarity and obscurity draw fans toward joining the industry, and these dreams work to maintain a working culture that takes for granted the ways that the wrestler’s body is marked for disposability, wearing down, and early death. I …