Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

(Re)Making Worlds Together: Rooster Teeth, Community, And Sites Of Engagement, Andrea M. M. Fortin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My research examines the communicative practices by which fans of the entertainment brand Rooster Teeth (RT)—with millions of members around the world engaged with one another through in-person meetups, as well as a variety of digital spaces — constitute community. I study these moments in communication in terms of sites of engagement, or real-time windows where actions occur through the intersection of people, mediational means, and social practices. My research is important for a contemporary understanding of communities, as well as being critical in considering how our online and offline practices are inextricably tied in ways we have only begun …

Assessing The Effects Of Observational Conditioning And Response-Contingent Pairing On Increasing Vocalizations In Children With Asd, Sydni Chance

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often display impairments in communication. More specifically, children with ASD may have difficulty developing language skills, for e.g., delay in verbal behavior, limited echoic skills, and/or lack of functional communication. A common way to combat this deficit is by increasing vocalizations in these children. Previous research has used various procedures to attempt to condition vocalizations as reinforcers, such as stimulus-stimulus pairing, response-contingent pairing (RCP), and operant discrimination training. Another procedure for conditioning stimuli is observational conditioning (OC), which is a type of observational learning. However, OC has not been assessed as a procedure …

Measurement Of Changes In Forest Fragmentation Caused By Road Construction Between 2000 And 2014 Using Gis In St. Johns County, Florida, Ahmet Karatas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Forests play a crucial role in maintaining the natural balance. They have essential features and structures used in the protection of flora and fauna. Human activities such as road construction disrupt ecosystems and negatively impact natural habitats. Roads cause forest fragmentation, and as a result of this, fragmentation has various negative effects on the natural habitat. These effects lead to loss of biological diversity, road mortality, habitat loss, fragmentation, and air pollution. The major goal of this study was to analyze changes in forest area, forest fragmentation, and forest road impacts using GIS for St. Johns County, Florida, between the …

The Hostile Media Effect And Its Potential Consequences: Examining The Influence Of Presumed Influence Of International Media Coverage, Zhennan Liu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore American and Chinese's perception towards foreign media's coverage about their own country, as well as the main influencing factors and its consequences of this phenomenon. We designed an online survey based on the existing literature on hostile media perception. The sample included 301 American participants and 300 Chinese participants (N=601).

The current study used paired sample T test, Pearson correlation coefficient and SEM model test. Three important results were found. First, hostile media perception is widespread. In the study, both American and Chinese participants were biased to varying degrees against foreign media …

Using Video Modeling To Teach Trial-Based Functional Analysis, Breana A. Pauline

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The trial-based functional analysis (Trial-based FA) was adapted from the traditional functional analysis (FA) to make FA methodology more feasible to conduct in situations where controlled settings are unavailable. Additionally, teachers and paraprofessionals have been trained to conduct trial-based FAs with high fidelity (Kunnavatana, Bloom, Samaha, & Dayton, 2013). Behavioral analytic procedures such as video modeling are available to teach these skills to behavior analysts that do not have access to these training. This procedure is effective, well-liked, and can be used remotely. Video modeling may be used to train behavior analysts to conduct trial-based functional analysis remotely, which could …

Interventions To Improve Older Driver Safety, Bernadette A. Fausto

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increased longevity coupled with age-related declines that compromise driving safety and fragility render older adults as vulnerable road users (Oxley & Whelan, 2008). To address this public health concern, researchers continue to investigate interventions to improve older driver safety. The current dissertation consists of two papers examining: a) the state of the literature on older driver interventions and b) the efficacy of one approach, Useful Field of View cognitive training, to reduce at-fault crash involvement. The first paper sought to identify and quantify the effects of different interventions among older adults on outcomes of crashes, on-road driving performance, self-reported outcomes …

Life As A Reluctant Immigrant: An Autoethnographic Inquiry, Dionel Cotanda

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I draw on memories inspired and heightened by compassionate interviews in order to produce a unifying narrative of interactions with family and friends prior to and following my exile from Cuba in 1960. I use autoethnography and narrative inquiry to understand how I made the decision to leave Cuba and the life I have lived in exile for almost sixty years. My dissertation focuses on what it means to live as a reluctant immigrant and how historically constituted power relations define the identity of many Cuban exiles. I discuss and contrast the politics of passion and the …

Job Crafting And Individual Management Of Work-Family Balance Across Family Stages, Victor S. Mancini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Past research often viewed work-family balance as static and has rarely explored how perceptions may differ across stages of life. This study adopted a family life course developmental theoretical framework to test for mean differences in work-family balance across unique family stage groups. Results indicated that mean work-family balance varied across groups, but not according to the specific patterns that were predicted. In addition, this study proposed that job crafting was a cognitive-behavioral strategy that individuals can use to alter their own levels of work-family balance. Correlational, time-lagged, and change-to-change effects provide initial support for the relationship between job crafting …

A Research On Esports Users’ Motives And Satisfaction In China The Case Of League Of Legends, Qianyin Sun

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research mainly explores the motives and satisfaction of Chinese eSports users. Due to the changing role of eSports in China this year, the attitude of Chinese society towards eSports has changed from depreciation to praise, and the identity of belonging sense of game players has become one of the motives for them to continue playing League of Legends (LOL). In addition, as a milestone in eSports field, the playability of LOL itself and its pastime and social functions as a mass media will affect the motives and satisfaction of players. This survey used online survey to investigate the satisfaction …

Energy Transition Modeling: Social And Technical Dynamics Of Moving To Renewable Energy, Lawrence Gottschamer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The majority of global electricity is generated using fossil fuels as an energy source, and the science linking fossil fuel combustion with negative environmental impacts is clear. Recognizing this link, decarbonizing the electricity system is a critical component of climate change mitigation. However, moving electricity generation, distribution, and end-use behavior patterns to renewable energy is a complex socio-technical energy transition challenge with a number of economic, policy, technological, societal and environmental barriers. Energy transition work tends to be siloed within these topics; ignoring complex socio-technical interdependencies impacting electricity system transition dynamics. This work fills the knowledge gap with a ‘systems …

Pathways To Parenthood: Attitudes And Preferences Of Eight Self-Identified Queer Women Living In Tampa Bay, Fl, Emily Noelle Baker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This small-scale ethnographic study looks at the how queer women living in Florida imagine navigating family building decisions under the current climate of policies such as a lack of federal non-discrimination protections and the largely unregulated use of assisted reproductive technologies. Despite the federal legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States in 2015, state and county legislations continue to vary greatly on the extent of support they will provide for LGBTQ families. The goal of this research is to evaluate parenting desire, intentions, and preferences for queer women living in Tampa Bay since the passage of the Marriage Equality …

Sundaas Story: A Mixed-Methods Study Of Household Sanitation Provisioning In Urban Informal Housing In India, Sarita Vijay Panchang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aims of this research were to examine sanitation insecurity in urban informal housing through the lens of the built environment, social disparities, and health implications. While the Millennium Development Goals for halving the global proportion of people without access to safe drinking water were met ahead of schedule, progress fell short for sanitation, creating new objectives for the Sustainable Development Goals to be met in 2030. Much research in the Global South is dedicated to community-level sanitation promotion, but often presumes a rural rather than urban setting. Urban informal housing settings constitute a unique challenge due to the range …

Exploring The Equity Performance Of Bike-Sharing Systems With Disaggregated Data: A Story Of Southern Tampa, Zhiwei Chen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The rising adoption of bike-sharing systems brings significant benefits to individuals and society as a whole. However, whether these benefits are distributed throughout society in a fair manner is still an open question. This study presents a methodological framework for assessing the equity performance of bike-sharing systems, with Coast Bike Share system in southern Tampa as a case study. The framework integrates three different datasets: bike-sharing infrastructure, individual travel itineraries and individual sociodemographic attribute data. With these datasets, we model individual accessibility to activity locations using bike-sharing as the mode of transportation by analyzing the “walking-cycling-walking” process of a bike-sharing …

The Research On The Determinants Of Users' Willingness To Pay For Chinese Paid Sports Model Based On Use And Gratification Theory, Jing Li

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study adopted use and gratification theory as a theoretical guide to explores the impact of individual needs, product variables, and copyright consciousness on audience’s willingness to pay in paid sports media in China. The most important part of this study was tested whether product variables act as a mediating factor and whether copyright consciousness plays as a moderating factor to influence the relationship between individual needs and willingness to pay. This quantitative study collects the data from a sample of 679 (valid N=568) Chinese adults who have some exposure or understanding of the paid sports model in mainland China. …

Restoring International Justice: Exposing The Limitations Of Retributive Justice And Proposing A Restorative Dimension, Nazek Jawad

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation exposes the limitation of international retributive justice in realizing interstate reconciliation and proposes including a restorative dimension into the existing international criminal justice system. I maintain that justice within the international criminal system is conceptualized purely on a punitive notion influenced by the liberal institutionalist understanding of the state and the international system. Hence, the current retributive structure does not engage rival stakeholders, who experience interstate wars, in the process of international justice, as it is centered on upholding international law and punishing states that violate the law. To this end, the current process is not equipped to …

An Analysis Of The Language And The Relationship Of The President Of The Usa Related Twitter Accounts Toward The National Media, Sait Serif Turhan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on the language tone of the United State of America’s presidentrelated Twitter accounts and the ways of the interaction with the national media with their tweets. The literature provides how politicians utilize and for what purposes they use Twitter. Framing theory was applied to conceptualize the manner of conveying messages and impressions of politicians toward the national media. Content analysis was utilized to analyze 902 mediarelated tweets to find out the ways of the interactions and language tone and the level of emotions in tweets of US president-related Twitter accounts with the national media during the period …

Structure Of Turkey-Usa Bilateral Relations And Analysis Of Factors Affecting Bilateral Relations, Hanifi Ozkarakaya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on understanding and explaining the factors affecting Turkey-US bilateral relations, which have been on a fluctuating course in recent years. Turkish foreign policy had a Western-centric foreign policy approach in line with Turkey’s westernization goal in previous years. However, Turkish foreign policy has undergone a major change since it became clear that the long-lasting European Union accession process would not reach a result. Therefore, Turkey's new foreign policy, which is not Western oriented and closely associated with the former Ottoman Empire geography, has also affected the bilateral relations between Turkey and the United States.

The most important …

2018 China-United States Trade War: Framing Analysis Of Online News Coverage In The United States And China As Portrayed By The New York Times And The People’S Daily, Jiangling Huang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Grounded in framing theory, this thesis explores a differential study by content analysis. The 2018 China-United States trade dispute is a major event that was officially launched by the United States and attracted worldwide attention. The ongoing trade disputes have had a huge impact on the economies of the two countries and the world economy, and a large number of news media have reported and commented on the incident. The purpose of the study was to determine the differences between news reports in the two countries depicted in the New York Times and the People’s Daily. The sample comes from …

Probabilistic Modeling Of Democracy, Corruption, Hemophilia A And Prediabetes Data, A. K. M. Raquibul Bashar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Parametric analysis of any real-world data is the most powerful tool to characterize the probabilistic behavior in social, economic, medical, epidemiological, and other areas of study. In the present study, we identify the theoretical Probability Distribution Function(PDF) for Democracy Index Scores (DIS) from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) database and estimate the maximum likelihood estimates of the theoretical PDFS. We also identify the individual PDFs for each of the clusters, Full Democracy, Flawed Democracy, Hybrid Regime, and Authoritarian Regime defined by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

A statistical model is a convenient instrument to predict the future value of any …

From C++ To Conscientiousness: Modeling The Psychosocial Characteristics Influencing Cybersecurity Personnel Performance, Rachel C. Dreibelbis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study drew upon several theoretical frameworks of cybersecurity performance to evaluate distal and proximal individual attributes that may predict cyber performance in a variety of cybersecurity work roles. The proposed models in this study predicted that cognitive ability, personality (conscientiousness and openness to experience), and motivational factors like learning orientation would work through proximal attributes like technical knowledge, communication, and problem solving to influence performance. Hypotheses were tested using 139 employee responses to predictor variables and performance ratings from their supervisors across two industries and several cybersecurity work roles. Correlational analyses and path models supported that several individual …

Human Rights, Emotion, And Critical Realism: Proposing An Emotional Ontology Of International Human Rights, Ben Luongo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes a critical realist framework of human rights and argues that emotion plays a foundational role in constituting a human rights ontology. I build this framework as a critical response to other IR human rights theories which have largely been developed in accordance with either empiricist or rationalist paradigms. Both empiricist and rationalist theories fail to articulate a firm ontological foundation which can support their human rights claims.

This ontological concern may not seem too important for human rights scholars interested in more substantive political issues, but it does lead to problems because no human rights theory is …

Selling White Masculinity: An Analysis Of Cultural Intermediaries In The Craft Beverage Industry, Erik Tyler Withers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to use the craft beverage industry as a case study in which to investigate how white masculinity is reproduced within consumer spaces. This study explores the roles that cultural intermediaries in the craft beverage industry play in the reproduction and contestation of white masculinity. Cultural intermediaries can be understood as tastemakers who play a large role in assigning value and legitimacy to products, practices and people within consumer industries. Intermediaries such as marketing and advertising firms, industry writers, and critics have been widely studied in the past. However, the day to day interactional work …

Making A Case For Equity Planning In Transportation Development: Identifying Indicators And Building A Framework For Hillsborough County, Fl, Dayna J. Lazarus

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The idea that planners should work toward an equitable society has been part of the profession since the 1960s, largely based on the work of planning theorists like Paul Davidoff, Sherry Arnstein and Norman Krumholz. Transportation planning, however, has been slower than other sectors of the profession, such as housing, to embrace equity planning concepts. That has begun to change as concerns about income inequality, environmental justice and climate change have become more salient. This thesis makes the case that in order to improve social equity outcomes, transportation planners must make social equity an explicit goal and add social equity …

Character Strengths Of Ninth Grade Students In Accelerated Curricula: A Mixed-Methods Investigation, Hannah L. Gilfix

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Students in accelerated curricula tend to have greater stress when compared to students in general education (Suldo, Shaunessy, & Hardesty, 2008). It is important for stakeholders to be able to help these students reach their goals and attain happiness. One potential method to help these students is to attend to their character strengths. People who effectively utilize their character strengths have achieved numerous positive outcomes including greater levels of well-being, self-esteem, and positive affect (Proctor, Malby, & Linley, 2011; Quinlan, Swain, Cameron, & Vella-Brodrick, 2014; Wood, Linley, Maltby, Kashan, & Hurling, 2011). Unfortunately, there is a lack of research on …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of Antecedent And Consequent Interventions To Enhance Sports Performance, Merritt Schenk

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sports research in behavior analysis is becoming increasingly popular. As the proliferation of research continues, multiple interventions have been shown to help enhance sports-related performance. However, different intervention components are rarely if ever used alone, which has created a limitation with the current body of research. To begin to address this limitation, this study had three experiments to evaluate some different components of video recording procedures and behavioral skills training (BST) to facilitate performance enhancement. Experiment 1 separated video modeling and video feedback to see which component best improved pitching form in Little League baseball players. Experiment 2 evaluated video …

For The Common Defense: The Evolution Of National Security Strategy-Making Institutions & Impact On American Grand Strategy, Nathan D. Barrick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation applies a Neoclassical Realism model to examine how the evolution of United States (U.S.) national security strategy-making institutions has resulted in a path dependent accrual of autonomy and increasing influence over the formulation of American grand strategy. Once U.S. national security strategy-making institutions were created, their existence inexorably led to increasing autonomy, the creation of new strategy-making institutions, and subtle influence in shaping American grand strategy by preferential focus on a militarized foreign policy. Additionally, the more autonomous these strategy-making institutions have become, the further they have strayed from the Constitutional mandate to create a government which provides …

Bystander Intervention, Victimization, And Routine Activities Theory: An Examination Of Feminist Routine Activities Theory In Cyber Space, Jennifer A. Leili

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Routine Activities Theory (RAT) is one of the most widely used theories to explain victimization. It has been applied to a wide range of criminal victimizations, such as property crimes (Miethe, Stafford, & Long, 1987) and urban murder (Messner & Tardiff, 1985). While traditional RAT has been used to explain violence against women, the feminist perspective of RAT developed by Schwartz and Pitts (1995) provides a better explanation by incorporating cultural factors that shape the conditions that give rise to offending. The current study draws on feminist RAT in order to explore three different types of victimization involving women: stalking, …

Understanding The Mechanisms Between Job Stress And Employee Sleep: A Daily Diary Study, Marijana L. Arvan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigated how three job stressors, workload, unfinished tasks, and mistreatment from coworkers and supervisors, manifest in sleep impairment. Using the transactional model of stress, allostatic load model, the cognitive activation theory of stress (CATS), and findings from the sleep medicine literature, each job stressor was predicted to have three distinct pathways to sleep quality: an affective path (anger or anxiety), a cognitive path (anticipatory stress or rumination), and a behavioral path (sleep hygiene behaviors). The proposed models argued for two-stage mediation, in which the cognitive and affective strains of job stressors impact sleep quality both directly and …

Ethnic Identity As A Protective Factor In Early Adolescent Youth Depression: An Investigation Of Differences By Race And Gender, Leah Bonilla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adolescent mental illness is a major concern in the Unites States. The adolescent stage is a critical developmental period of physical and mental changes, thus it is important to understand protective factors associated with positive wellbeing. The current study aimed to explore: (a) the associations among race, gender, ethnic identity, and depressive symptoms among eighth grade adolescents, (b) to what extent are there differences in degree of depressive symptoms among youth based on race and gender, and (c) to what extent a strong sense of ethnic identity serves as a protective factor against the development of depression among youth with …

Validating The Construct Of Resiliency In The Health Literacy And Resiliency Scale (Hlrs-Y) With The Child And Youth Resiliency Measure (Cyrm-28), Mercedes N. Cambric

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chronic health conditions in youth have increased over the last several decades. It is estimated that within the United States there are between 15% to 18% of youth who are living with a chronic health condition (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2010). The CDC defines a chronic health condition as an illness that lasts for three months or longer that can be managed, but not cured (CDC, 2010). Although there is some research on youth living with chronic illnesses, there are minimal studies that assess the constructs of health literacy, resiliency, and support/advocacy within this population. The current …