Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Baby Blues: Mothers' Experiences After Adoption, Brigette Barno Schupay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

It is not uncommon for new mothers to experience depression. However, depression after the arrival of a child is not limited to biological mothers. The term Post-Adoption Depression Syndrome (PADS) was created to capture the unique type of depression that may occur after adopting a child. The nature and prevalence of depression after adoption is still largely unknown since there is little published research exploring the experiences of mothers in the first year after adopting a child. The characteristics of this disorder are reportedly comparable to postpartum depression in a biological mother. A review of postpartum literature reveals risk …

Blending Work And School: Positives And Negatives Of The Interface, Neha Singla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study draws from the extensive research on work and family, and examined a model of the antecedents and outcomes of work-school conflict and work-school facilitation. As an extension of previous research on the work-school interface, the purpose of this study is two-fold. First, this study aimed to examine the impact of conflict and facilitation on personal health. Second, the study set out to investigate the role of emotional support from friends and family, and self-efficacy as moderators. Data were obtained from 329 full-time students who were also employed part-time. The model was tested using structural equation modeling techniques. One …

Efforts To Engage Parents And Case Outcomes In The Child Welfare System, Patty Sharrock

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The vast majority of child maltreatment in the United States is perpetrated by parents and over half of maltreated children placed in out-of-home care are reunified with the parents from which they were removed. Additional victimization of these children sometimes necessitates their reentry into out-of-home care. These realities emphasize the need to engage parents in assessment, planning, and services throughout the life of a child welfare case. Engagement is a key ingredient in social work practice and is widely accepted in the child protection arena as critical to successful service planning and participation. However, little research has focused on the …

Collecting Stardust: Matter, Memory, And Trauma In Patricio Guzman's Nostalgia For The Light, Nora Szegvari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work situates Patricio Guzmàn's Nostalgia for the Light in the broader field of essay documentary film and unveils it as a locus of discursive resistance and the generative crux of diverse conventionally isolated academic dialogues. In doing so, it addresses the challenging and controversial questions of historical meaning-making, remembrance and oblivion, melancholia and mourning. My thesis also endeavors to detect the dynamic and anxiety-inducing threshold between singularity and collectivity, and the human and the cosmic. I lay the historically unprecedented common ground for trauma theory and the essayistic comportment and argue that bearing the clash of time planes, paradoxicality, …

Turning Water Into Wine: The Political Economy Of The Environment In Southern California's Wine Country, Jason Simms

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines questions of water sustainability in contexts of wine production and state-led neoliberal development in the Temecula Valley, southern California, where wine tourism is at present being harnessed as an engine of economic growth. Natural and anthropogenic forces, such as global climate change, desertification, urban development, and the marketization and commodification of natural resources, affect the distribution and availability of water throughout the globe. As a result, the use of water, and associated political and environmental processes and consequences, in the production of global commodities, including wheat, citrus, and coffee, recently have come under increased scrutiny. Given wine's …

Source Memory And Generation Effects In Parkinson's Disease, Lynn Elizabeth Oelke

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The primary aim of this study was to investigate source memory performance in individuals diagnosed with Parkinson's disease (PD). The secondary goal was to explore how memory was impacted when subjects were asked to generate responses during encoding. Fifty idiopathic PD patients and fifty healthy control subjects completed a task measuring item memory and source memory which also included a generation manipulation. Relative to controls, PD patients exhibited deficits in source memory but not item memory. Both groups demonstrated enhanced memory performance in the generative condition of the item memory task. The PD group displayed a marginally significant trend toward …

"When You Tell Them, Your Secret Is Out There": Experiences Of Sexuality And Intimacy Among Hiv Positive Black Women, Mackenzie Rae Tewell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

HIV/AIDS infections disproportionately impact African Americans within the United States. In 2010, black Americans made up 12 percent of the United States population, yet accounted for 44 percent of new HIV/AIDS infections (Kaiser Family Foundation 2013). The majority of black women (85 percent) are infected with the virus through heterosexual contact, meaning it is critical examine their sexual lives in order to gain insight into this infection within this population (CDC 2011b). Through semi-structured interviews at a Tampa, Florida AIDS service organization, this study presents the experiences of sexuality and intimacy among HIV positive black women. Results demonstrate that HIV …

Refiguring Indexicality: Remediation, Film, & Memory In Contemporary Japanese Visual Media, Janine Marie Villot

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Through an analog between film and memory, I argue contemporary Japanese visual media constantly remediates this relationship in order to develop a more inclusive, plastic indexicality that allows media without direct material contiguity access to an indexicality not typically attributed to it. Amidst the early twenty-first century shift from old, mechanical media to new, electronic media, each Japanese text engages the West through intercultural discourses and intracultural responses, just as Japan has continually encountered the West since its forced opening by Commodore Perry in 1853. The plasticized indexicality figured by contemporary Japanese visual media implies the plastic nature of abstracted …

From Zaire To The Drc: A Case Study Of State Failure, Adam Zachariah Trautman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The issue of state failure within the international system has been a perplexing phenomenon in our increasingly mobile and modern society. The question of why some states succeed in developing into strong states within the international environment and why some fail is a question often overlooked. The focus of this thesis will be on three key factors that contribute towards state failure. The research will show how these three key factors: outdated state infrastructure, lack of economic development, and external intervention contribute to the occurrence of this phenomenon. Analyzing these key factors will highlight how state failure occurs within a …

Interdisciplinary Collaboration For Youth Mental Health: A National Study, Audra St. John Walsh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Collaboration between school- and community-based mental health professionals has the potential to result in early identification of and intervention for youth with mental health problems; however, the limited research in this area suggests that collaboration does not often occur between these professionals (Walsh, 2011). The purpose of this investigation was to collect survey data from a national sample of school psychologists in order to examine the collaborative practices of school psychologists and community-based mental health professionals on behalf of youth with mental health problems. Survey data from 327 members of 11 professional state organizations of school psychology were collected and …

Eco-Epidemiology Of Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus, Patrick Vander Kelen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus (EEEV) is an alphavirus with high pathogenicity in both humans and horses. Florida continues to have the highest occurrence of human cases in the USA, with four fatalities recorded in 2010. Unlike other states, Florida supports year-round EEEV transmission. This research uses Geographic Information Science (GIS) to examine spatial patterns of documented sentinel seroconversions and horse cases in order to understand the relationships between habitat and transmission intensity of EEEV in Florida. Sentinel sites were categorized as enzootic, periodically enzootic, and negative based on the amount of chicken seroconversions to EEEV. Sentinel sites were analyzed …

An Analysis Of How Female Business Owners Construct And Communicate Identity, Allison Dawn Weidhaas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Individuals often get asked: So what do you do? This question can be challenging for those in less traditional work settings, such as stay-at-home-moms and the self-employed. To help women better understand the range of possible responses, this study explores how women in Public Relations respond to identity questions that involve both their work and personal lives. I begin by situating the study within relevant literature on entrepreneurship, female business owners, the history of women in the workplace, work/life issues, Public Relations, the use of language to construct work identity, and structuration theory. I conducted one-on-one qualitative interviews as my …

The Effect Of Visual Search And Audio-Visual Entrainment On Episodic Memory, Holly Anne Westfall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research suggests that larger context effects are observed when participants are required to search a scene in order to find the to-be-remembered stimuli. Similarly, animal research on brain oscillations has shown theta wave activation when animals are searching their environment. These theta wave oscillations are positively correlated with learning. However, theta activation can also occur in response to sensory stimulation, for example, auditory stimulation with binaural beats or visual stimulation with a checkerboard pattern reversal. The results of several studies suggest that while a visual search task seems to reliably improve free recall performance, the effects of passive sensory …

Reaction Formation And Homophobia: An Erp Examination, Krista Grace Yakub

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Homophobia in men may be, in part, due to reaction formation rooted in unacceptable same-sex attraction. Previous studies have not confirmed a covert same-sex attraction in homophobic men, which is necessary for a reaction formation theory of homophobia. This study sought to reveal possible covert same-sex attraction in homophobic men. In this study, heterosexual and homosexual male erotic images were presented in a passive S1/S2 stimulus prediction design to 48 self-identified heterosexual participants, grouped by homophobia. Three event-related potential responses related to valenced emotional processing were examined: the medial frontal negativity (MFN), the late positive potential (LPP), and the positive …

Comparative Political Corruption In The United States: The Florida Perspective, Andrew Jonathon Wilson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Political corruption is a cancer - a malignant phenomenon that affects every political system and every person in the world. Corruption undermines the very fabric of society and the faith of people in their government. It makes goods more expensive, stymies development in developing nations, and it makes both the United States and the world a more dangerous place. Because of its negative effects and universality, corruption should be studied. Its study leads to greater understanding, the discovery of effective approaches to prevention, and restored faith in political systems. Its study also illuminates and breaks down barriers to effective government …

Motivational Interviewing To Promote Physical Activity In Breast Cancer Survivors, Yasmin Asvat Patel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Despite documented health benefits, most breast cancer survivors (BCS) do not meet physical activity (PA) guidelines. Hence, evaluating diverse intervention approaches to promote PA in BCS is imperative. Motivational Interviewing (MI) offers a non-prescriptive, client-centered approach to PA promotion that has not been adequately evaluated in BCS. In this randomized-controlled trial, 66 Stage 0-IIIa BCS within three years post-treatment, insufficiently active and contemplating increasing PA were randomly assigned to a MI intervention or an active control condition. The MI intervention implemented motivational and behavior change strategies consistent with MI principles. The active control condition provided education and prescriptive recommendations …

An Investigation Of Ocb Demands And Workplace Behaviors, Jeremy Allen Bauer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The current study investigated the relationship between demands for organizational citizenship behaviors and future displays of organizational citizenship and counterproductive work behaviors. Such demands are conceptualized as workplace conditions that make it difficult for employees to complete their job (i.e., organizational constraints), performance failures of coworkers such as incomplete or incorrectly done tasks (i.e., coworker failure) and direct or indirect request from the supervisors to commit more organizational citizenship behaviors (i.e., supervisor pressure). Additionally, the effect of negative affectivity, hostile attribution bias, attributions of blame, and target specific scales of workplace behaviors were investigated. The design of the current …

A Model Of Positive Sequential Dependencies In Judgments Of Frequency, Jeffrey Scott Annis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Positive sequential dependencies occur when the response on the current trial n is positively correlated with the response on trial n-1. This was recently observed in a Judgment of Frequency (JOF) task (Malmberg and Annis, 2011). A model of positive sequential dependencies was developed in the REM framework (Shiffrin & Steyvers, 1997) by assuming that features that represent the current test item in a retrieval cue carry over from the previous retrieval cue. To assess the model, we sought a set of data that allows us to distinguish between frequency similarity and item similarity. Therefore, we chose to use a …

Exploring Local Food System Practices And Perceptions: Insights From Florida's Snap-Authorized Farmers' Markets, Leslie Babiak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite heightened interest in creating local food systems that enhance health of ecologies, economies, and all members of communities, the public space of farmers' markets is far less than inherently equitable. This is particularly concerning given America's unprecedented crisis of food hardship and related disease, which disproportionately affects lower income populations. This research addresses the social justice implications of SNAP (food stamp) operations for locally oriented food systems. Pioneering practices of three of Florida's SNAP-authorized farmers' markets, and the attitudes and behaviors of one-hundred-seventy-six market patrons, were explored through customer surveys, market manager interviews, and environmental assessments. Qualitative and quantitative …

Middle And High School Predictors Of Off-Track Status In Early Warning Systems, Amber Brundage

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is important to identify students at-risk for school non-completion as early as possible. Research has demonstrated that data sources such as teacher nomination and individual demographic characteristics are less accurate identification methods of students who are at-risk for not graduating on-time. Instead, the use of early warning systems (EWS) based upon research validated indicators that reliably identify students who are Off-track, or at-risk for not graduating on-time, has been a promising approach. Questions remain though about the relationship of Off-track Status at an earlier time point to Off-track Status at a later time point as well as the relationship …

Disciplinarity, Crisis, And Opportunity In Technical Communication, Jason Robert Carabelli

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I argue that technical communication as an academic curricular entity has struggled to define itself as either a humanities or scientific discipline. I argue that this crisis of identity is due to a larger, institutional flaw first identified by the science studies scholar Bruno Latour as the problem of the "modern constitution." Latour's argument, often referred to as Actor-Network Theory (ANT), suggests that the epistemological arguments about scientific certainty are built on a contradiction. In viewing the problem of technical communication's disciplinarity through the lens of ANT, I argue that technical communication can never be productive if …

The Effect Of Hostile And Benevolent Sexism On Women's Cardiovascular Reactivity To And Recovery From A Laboratory Stressor, Kaleena Dennielle Burgess

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hostile sexism is the antipathetic expression of sexism, in which men are antagonistic towards women who threaten their superiority. Benevolent sexism is the patriarchal expression of sexism, where men express protective, yet restrictive, attitudes towards women. Both forms of sexism originate from the view that women are inferior, frail, and only suited for nurturing or domestic responsibilities. Benevolent sexism may be more harmful to women because coping is thwarted by observers' underestimation of its effects (Bosson, Pinel, & Vandello, 2009). The present study aimed to examine women's responses to and recovery from hostile and benevolent sexism utilizing measures of cardiovascular …

From Upper Volta To Burkina Faso: A Study Of The Politics Of Reaction And Reform In A Post-Colonial African Nation-State, 1960-1987, Bryan J. Williamson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract (from thesis text)

From Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, is the study of the politics of reaction and reform in a post-colonial nation-state of Burkina Faso. Since its independence from France on 5 August 1960 to 15 October 1987, Burkina Faso, the "land of the upright" people, has experience five changes in government. All of the coups that took place in this twenty-seven year period were reactionary and reforming. However, the most memorable reforms arrived after the coup of 4 August 1983 which gave rise to a youthful president in a thirty-three year old Captain Thomas Sankara. As the …

Accidental Detention: A Threat To The Legitimacy Of Venezuelan Democracy, Mabel Gabriela Durán-Sánchez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The main argument of this thesis is that the penitentiary crisis in Venezuela is brought about an inept criminal justice system whose functioning (or lack thereof) further exacerbates overcrowding in penitentiary facilities as well as violates the most basic human rights. More elaborately, I argue that the unintentional (mis)use of pre-trial preventive detention, one of the consequences of the inept criminal justice system, further exacerbates the overcrowding in prisons and creates serious human rights implications. The purpose of this study is to establish a connection between the penitentiary crisis in Venezuela, with a focus on pre-trial preventive detention, and the …

Emotional Invalidation: An Investigation Into Its Definition, Measurement, And Effects, Meredith Brown Elzy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emotional invalidation is a construct closely related to childhood maltreatment, which has been linked theoretically and empirically to the development of psychopathology. This study sought to advance the empirical investigation into emotional invalidation through three primary objectives: 1) to critically review the way emotional invalidation is currently defined and measured in the existing literature, 2) to offer a novel approach at conceptualizing and measuring emotional invalidation as a two part construct comprised of emotionally invalidating behaviors and perceived emotional invalidation, and 3) to experimentally test the effects of invalidating behaviors on a person's perception of emotional invalidation and their level …

Exploring The Motives, Perceptions And Constructed Identities Of The Facilitators For One Regional Council Of A Positive Youth Development Program: Girls On The Run, Ashley Ann Gallentine

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the coaches' perceptions, motives and constructed identities by participating in a regional physical activity-based positive youth development program. There is growing evidence that suggests the success of positive youth development (PYD) programs depend on the environment that is created by caring adult mentors. These coaches are the delivery vehicles for these programs and play an essential role in the development of participating youth. As a result, the characteristics these coaches possess are critical to the success of the PYD implementation. Based on the application of anthropological methods and theory, this study seeks …

African Americans And Hospice: A Culture-Centered Exploration Of Disparities In End-Of-Life Care, Patrick Dillon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the United States' population ages and grows more diverse, scholars and practitioners have grown increasingly concerned about persistent disparities in the cost and quality of end-of-life health care, particularly with regard to African Americans. Although a variety of factors may influence these disparities, most scholars agree that the underutilization of hospice care by this population is an important contributor. Drawing from the culture-centered approach to health communication and narrative theory, the present study explores African American patients and caregivers' experiences with hospice care and takes an initial step toward addressing disparities in end-of-life care. I begin this study, first, …

Variance In Faking In High-Stakes Personality Assessment As An Indication Of Job Knowledge, Timothy Ryan Dullaghan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the personality trait elevation between honest and applicant contexts that has been widely seen throughout the personality and selection research is merely universal, blatant trait elevation, or whether something else is underlying this faking behavior. By obtaining both honest and applicant context personality responses in which respondents were provided with focal job knowledge, this study determined that while there is near-universal trait elevation across seven personality traits, there is, in fact, some trait differentiation between jobs. As such, this study provided some evidence of knowledgeable faking, defined as distortion of personality …

Prevalence, Predictors, And Correlates Of Patient Concealment Of A Lung Cancer Diagnosis, Brian David Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Most cases of lung cancer have a commonly-understood behavioral etiology. Thus, individuals with lung cancer are often blamed for their illness by others and may therefore seek to avoid this blame by concealing their diagnosis from others. This study sought to determine the prevalence of diagnosis concealment, examine potential predictors of concealment, and test parts of a cognitive-affective-behavioral model of the effects of concealing a concealable stigma among individuals receiving treatment for lung cancer. With regard to predictors of concealment, it was hypothesized that concealment would be positively associated with male gender, introversion, and trait social anxiety and would be …

Knowledge, Involvement And Emergency Preparedness, Season Groves

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research formed a descriptive frame of the current levels of emergency preparedness and applied Hallahan's Issues Processes Model to examine the relationship between knowledge, involvement, and emergency preparedness among the participants. The variables were measured in the context of self-perception. The research method involved a survey of students who are just becoming responsible for their personal emergency preparedness. The results suggest that students lack overall emergency preparedness measures and show that self-perceived knowledge is positively related to self-perceived emergency preparedness. Yet, higher self-perceived knowledge is negatively related to actual emergency preparedness actions. Thus, the more knowledgeable the participants believed …