Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Self-Enhancement Bias : A Literature Review, Kelly Anne Jordan

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

When partaking in self-evaluation, individuals tend to engage self-enhancement, rating themselves higher than would be objectively called for. This work reviews the relevant literature on what self-enhancement bias is and when we engage in it. Further, it explores the controversies over the universality of self-enhancement with some contending that East Asians do not engage in self-enhancement and others proclaiming it to be a universal trait. Lastly, the adaptiveness both socially and psychologically of selfenhancement is examined.

Cross-Modal Enhancement Of Sound Detection In Noise, Jack Latona

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The ventriloquist effect refers to the well-documented mislocalization of auditory targets that occurs when a spatially incongruent visual cue is simultaneously presented, generally towards the location of the visual cue. Spatial release from masking refers to the improvement in auditory detection that occurs when an auditory target is moved away from a noise source. The purpose of the present thesis was to induce cross-modal spatial release from masking using a ventriloquized visual cue. Two experiments were conducted to determine whether this visually induced mislocalization can cause spatial release from masking and enhance target detection. In the first experiment, spatial release …

Do The Social-Psychological Dimensions Of The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh Justify The Use Of Interactive Conflict Resolution?, Isabella A. Missakyan

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Using Kelman’s framework of the nature of international intractable conflict, this thesis seeks to examine thoroughly the unrelenting hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The analysis will include the history of the primary parties in context, the root causes, the key issues, the needs, fears and other social-psychological factors driving and perpetuating the conflict. Special attention will be given to the secondary actors of the dispute since they play important roles in the conflict and have their own agendas. The secondary actors include Turkey, Russia, the Armenian Diaspora, the United States, the European Union, Iran, and …

Learning Patterns Relationship To Leadership Development, Brett Vincent Morgan

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Although college faculty and administrators provide many types of leadership development opportunities for college students, there has been little research connecting leadership development in college with adult learning theory. This mixed method descriptive study examines the impact of learning patterns based on information processing preferences on the leadership development “events” experienced by college student leaders. 44 Junior and Senior college student leaders were administered the Learning Connections Inventory (Johnston, 1994) to identify their learning patterns. In addition, the students participated in an interview to assess key events they felt crucial to their leadership development. It was predicted that particular learning …

Linking Communication Competency To Health Care Professionals’ Attitudes And Behaviors: Examining Direct Effects And The Moderating Role Of Organizational Culture And Role Identity, Chelsea Perino

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Communication plays an integral role in the functioning of health care organizations. More specifically, health care professionals’ communication competency may significantly influence work-related outcomes. This study examines the impact of competency on health care professionals’ job satisfaction and tendency to report on-thejob errors. In addition, this study examines whether more collaborative organizational cultures, as well as the extent health care professionals identify with their organizational role, moderates the relationship between communication competency and work-related outcomes.

A cross-sectional online survey addressing these concepts was administered to 145 health care professionals. Results showed that competency was a significant positive predictor of job …

To Build A Nation: An Assessment Of Post-Development Thought And The Example Of Bolivia, Samantha Leuschner

Geography and Planning

No abstract provided.

The Existentialist World Of Murakami Haruki: A Reflection Of Postmodern Japanese Society, Maria Garguilo

East Asian Studies

No abstract provided.

The Power To Say Who’S Human: Politics Of Dehumanization In The Four-Hundred-Year War Between The White Supremacist Caste System And Afrocentrism, Sam Chernikoff Frunkin

Africana Studies

No abstract provided.

Working With Undocumented High School Students: A Psychosocial Guide To Understanding The Daily Life Of Undocumented Youth, Sylvia E. Rusin

Students' Professional Presentations and Publications

This guide is intended for high school principals, teachers, and counselors to enhance their understanding of the range of psychosocial constraints that impact the daily lives and health of their undocumented students. The goal is to create safe zones and effective support net-works and encourage undocumented youth to pursue post-secondary education.

California's 2011 Realignment Legislation Addressing Public Safety And How It Will Impact Local Governments, John Mineau

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

California’s 2011 Realignment Legislation Addressing Public Safety is the most sweeping public safety reform package since shortly after California’s statehood in 1850. Traditionally, any person convicted and confined for a felony has been incarcerated and supervised by the state. Moving forward, realignment will put many convicted felons in local jails instead of state prisons. It will also place paroling offenders under local probation supervision rather than state parole. The change in parole supervision represents a monumental shift of responsibility from the state to local governments. Realignment will have major effects on local government operations and budgets. Realignment has been conceptualized …

A Comparative Analysis Of Free Trade Between The U.S. And The Eu : A Case Study Of The U.S./Chile Fta And The Eu/Chile Fta, Misti Dawn Sharp

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Unlike many studies that assess the impacts of free trade agreements (FTAs), this thesis is a study of the negotiated outcomes in FTAs between the United States (U.S.) and Chile, and the European Union (EU) and Chile. Existing negotiation literature pertains to multilateral trade talks, dispute settlements or bilateral one good trade agreements. Studies regarding the negotiation process and other factors influencing outcomes in comprehensive FTAs are rare. In order to address this gap in the literature, this thesis is an analysis of how and why the FTA between Chile and the U.S. differs from the FTA between Chile and …

The Truth Between The Teeth: An Analysis Of Interproximal Tooth Wear At The Ables Creek Cemetery, Amy Reynolds Warren

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Current archaeological knowledge suggests that, by the Late Mississippian period, inhabitants of the southeastern United States had adopted maize agriculture and that maize was a key component of the normal diet. However, in some regions where wild food resources were easily attainable, there is evidence that the transition to agriculture was delayed or did not occur at all. This thesis examines Late Mississippian skeletal collections from two sites in eastern Arkansas, Ables Creek and Upper Nodena. Analysis of differences in interproximal tooth wear facet size and caries rates between the two populations reveals that the diets at these roughly contemporary …

Geoarchaeology Of The Orontes River Floodplain Surrounding Tell Qarqur, Syria, Anna Flora Wieser

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project combines geoarchaeological soil description and GIS analysis of archaeological site distribution to investigate the history of marsh formation in the northern Ghab Basin, located within the Orontes River Valley of western Syria. Tell Qarqur, the archaeological site around which this project is focused, has a continuous occupational sequence throughout the Holocene. Annual inundation of the site by seasonal marshlands suggests that the marsh was either smaller or non-existent in the past, but its history remains unknown. The objectives of this investigation are to interpret the nature of depositional environments, particularly fluvial action, in the vicinity of Tell Qarqur, …

Trauma At Akhetaten (Tell El-Amarna): Interpersonal Violence Or Occupational Hazard, Rebecca Marie Hodgin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The New Kingdom individuals excavated from the site of Akhetaten, modern day Tell el-Amarna in Middle Egypt, exhibit traumatic injuries relating to construction of the new city. This site is important for Egyptological and bioarchaeological interpretations because the city was only occupied for approximately 15 years. The cemetery provides an archaeological instant in history providing information on the individuals who lived, worked, and died at Akhetaten. A total of 233 individuals have been excavated and analyzed to date. The incidence of forearm fractures as chronic ulnae stress fractures instead of parry fractures are indicated by the presence of Schmorl's nodes, …

The Quantification Of A Forced Convergence Of Similar Texts: The 1870 And The 1875 Okmulgee Constitution And Levenshtein’S Edit Distance Metric - Website Announcement & Link, Charles D. Bernholz

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Government Documents and the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries are pleased to announce the release of a World Wide Web site, entitled The quantification of a forced convergence of similar texts: The 1870 and the 1875 Okmulgee Constitution and Levenshtein’s edit distance metric.

The Okmulgee Constitution, created in the Creek capital of the Indian Territory in December 1870, provided a model for a new full-fledged and federally supported Indian state to replace the Territory. In a previous study, the variants of that document’s text from the official and unofficial record were …

What Is The Optimal Subsidy For Exercise? Informing Health Insurance Companies' Fitness Reimbursement Programs, Molly E. Frean

Economics Honors Projects

Health care costs account for 17% of US GDP and many programs and policies seek to reduce these costs. This paper focuses on exercise as preventive care due to its immense physiological benefits. I model the profit-maximizing choice of health insurance companies to subsidize exercise and the utility-maximizing choice of individuals to engage in exercise using a traditional principal-agent framework. I then use principles from behavioral economics and psychology to critique these models and provide further insight into understanding our underconsumption of such preventive services. I end with an evaluation of current programs and suggestions for improvement using empirical findings.

Players' Performance Index For Major League Soccer, Joel Correll

All Theses

This paper analyzes player compensation and team finances within Major League Soccer's 2007 season by calculating salaries with respect to the player's marginal revenue product and performance parameters. The player's performance index is a calculated overall value which takes into account variations of weighted in-game actions. This performance index is tied together with a player's marginal revenue product to determine their actual economic value with respect to their 2007 rating. The paper concludes that on average, Major League Soccer as a whole compensates players based on the team's marginal revenue product, and not the individuals. The study also finds clear …

Effective Science Teaching In A High Poverty Middle School, Georgette Meyer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This qualitative case study described the characteristics of science teachers in a high poverty urban middle school whose 2010 scores on South Carolina's Palmetto Assessment of State Standards (PASS) ranked second in the state. Data was obtained through classroom observations, open-ended interviews, school documents, and photographs taken inside the school from ten participants, who were seven science teachers, a science coach, and two administrators. Findings revealed a school culture that pursued warm and caring relationships with students while communicating high expectations for achievement, strong central leadership who communicated their vision and continuously checked for its implementation through informal conversations, frequent …

School Change: Adolescents Transitioning From Conventional Schooling To Home-Based Online Education, Harvey Klamm

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This hermeneutic phenomenological research explored the lived experiences of six recently graduated adolescents to extrapolate the valued essence of their transitional encounters in changing from conventional school to home-based online schooling. The homeschool research shifted the emphasis from the outcome-based academic achievement studies prevalent during the past 20 years to a focus on internal and external factors impacting student learning within this technological instructional process. Findings produced from analysis and interpretation of reflective adolescent lived experiences revealed rich truth regarding the internal emotions, environmental adaptations, academic ramifications, and social adaptations encountered when changing from conventional schooling to home-based online school. …

Lean Manufacturing Problem Solving Approach To Journal Access Issues, Linda Matula Schwartz Mde, Ahip, Cm, Kristine A. Petre Mls, Ahip, Cm

Department of Education

No abstract provided.

Underlying Distributions In Loglinear Models Of Discrete Data, Tim Moses

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The implications of loglinear models based on underlying uniform and binomial distribution are assessed with respect to modeling eight distributions. Regarding statistical selection of the loglinear models’ parameterizations, results indicate that better fitting models are obtained when the distribution being modeled is dissimilar to the underlying distribution used. For loglinear models with predetermined numbers of parameters, results suggest that better fitting models can be obtained when the distribution being modeled is similar to the underlying distribution.

Robust Modifications Of The Levene And O’Brien Tests For Spread, Abdul R. Othman, The Sin Yan, H. J. Keselman, Rand R. Wilcox, James Algina

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Variants of Levene’s and O’Brien’s procedures not investigated by Keselman, Wilcox & Algina (2008) were examined. Simulations indicate that a new O’Brien variant provides very good Type I error control and is simpler for applied researchers to compute than the method recommended by Keselman, et al.

An Extension Of The Seasonal Kpss Test, Sami Khedhiri, Ghassen El Montasser

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The limit theory of the seasonal KPSS test is established under the null hypothesis using seasonal dummy variables. Taking these variables into account can result in improved finite sample performance of the test. The seasonal KPSS test can be interpreted as a test of deterministic seasonality and it may be used in addition to seasonal unit root tests to analyze the dynamic properties of time series. The seasonal indicator variables provide the test with an explicit model-based regression that in itself constitutes a support for its limit theory.

Improved Estimator In The Presence Of Multicollinearity, Ghadban Khalaf

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The performances of two biased estimators for the general linear regression model under conditions of collinearity are examined and a new proposed ridge parameter is introduced. Using Mean Square Error (MSE) and Monte Carlo simulation, the resulting estimator’s performance is evaluated and compared with the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) estimator and the Hoerl and Kennard (1970a) estimator. Results of the simulation study indicate that, with respect to MSE criteria, in all cases investigated the proposed estimator outperforms both the OLS and the Hoerl and Kennard estimators.

The Weighted Hellinger Distance For Kernel Distribution Estimator Of Function Of Observations, Abdel-Razzaq Mugdadi

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The asymptotic mean weighted Hellinger distance (AMWHD) is derived for the kernel distribution estimator of a function of observations. In addition, the AMWHD is compared with the asymptotic mean integrated square error (AMISE) of the estimator. A completely data based method is proposed to select the bandwidth in the estimator using the mean weighted Hellinger distance (MWHD).

Here's That Court Rule, Your Honor - On My Kindle (Nook, Iphone, Ipad), Jan B. Bissett, Margi Heinen

Library Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Transitional Justice And The Truth Commission In Nepal, Andrea Russell

Senior Honors Projects

The purpose of this project is to explore the role of transitional justice mechanisms in directing the peace process, constitution making, and power sharing in Nepal. For more than ten years Nepal experienced violent conflict between the national army and an insurgent political movement led by the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist. The conflict claimed more than 13,000 lives and was characterized by widespread cases of disappearance. The families of those who were abducted or killed without a trace remain without answers, and the call for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document past injustices is strong.

In March 2012, I …

Of/By/For: The Rhode Island Student Political Boot Camp, Scott Andrews

Senior Honors Projects

Of/By/For/RI: The Rhode Island Student Political Boot Camp

Scott Andrews

Sponsor: Maureen Moakley, Political Science

“Election? What Election?” The 2011 Princeton Review rankings selected the University of Rhode Island in this category as one of the 20 most apathetic colleges in the country. When I asked students on URI’s campus why they did not engage in activism, the most common answer was they felt they lacked the knowledge and skills to be effective. I wanted to create a community of youth activists at URI and other colleges and high schools throughout Rhode Island who feel empowered to take action on …

The Initiation Of Growth-Focused Relationships Involving Healthy Accountability At The Carbondale Church Of Christ, Stephen Shaffer

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

After several years of transition, the Carbondale Church of Christ is in the early stages of becoming a spiritual growth-focused community. However, the emerging growth community appears to reflect the prevailing cultural assumptions that growth is a personal, private, and an individual task. To shape this emergent growth culture, this project initiated a group of congregational opinion leaders, organized in pairs, into the practice of growth-focused relationships involving healthy accountability. The initiation involved a theological orientation followed by a four-week healthy accountability praxis.

The theological framework of the project involved three main aspects. First, the project used the body image …

Perceptions Of Masculinity And Femininity Of Gamers Playing Violent And Non-Violent Video Games, Amanda M. Mangalavite

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Video games are a popular pastime in today's society for both men and women, as approximately one-half of the United States' population play them. The idea that men and women's masculinity and femininity are perceived differently for the type of video game that they play is a concept that has recently been questioned and confronted in research. In the present study the genre of the video game, skill level, and gender are examined in regards to the ratings of masculinity and femininity of the player. Results found that genre and skill level had no effect, but gender of the player …