Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Introduction To The Special Issue: Towards A Theoretical Understanding Of Innovation And Entrepreneurship In India, Sanjay Jain, Anil Nair, David Ahlstrom

Management Faculty Publications

Over the past few decades, India has become one of the world’s most vibrant economies (Chari & Banalieva, 2015). While the first forty years after India’s independence in 1947 was characterized by a sluggish annual growth rate (of approximately 3%), economic reforms initiated in 1991 have resulted in the GDP growing at a rate of around 6.8% in the last quarter century (Chari & Banalieva, 2015;McCloskey, 2010). Conversely, while the pre-reform institutional environment generally underemphasized and undermined entrepreneurial and innovative activity (Bardhan, 1994; Baumol, Litan, & Schramm, 2009;Sivaraman, 1991), the post-reform period has been characterized by a much wider acceptance …

Standardization Of Highway Construction Delay Claim Analysis: A Highway Bridge Case Study, Mohammed S. Hashem M. Mehany, Neil S. Grigg

Journal of Transportation Management

Highway construction efficiency is critical to highway users such as the trucking industry given today’s era of shortages in funding, and given the need for major re-investments in the highway system. One topic that can add to project costs relates to delays and how contractors are reimbursed for such delays. Delays are common in construction, especially in complex heavy highway and other infrastructure projects, and the claims they generate have negative effects on project schedules and costs. In spite of this, the analysis of claims is hindered due to the variety of methods and analysis techniques in use and lack …

A New Approach To Speaker Relevence Using A Logistics Executive In Residence Course, Stephen M. Rutner, Scott R. Cox, Maria E. Aviles

Journal of Transportation Management

This article addresses a new method to bring real world relevance into the Logistics, Transportation and Supply Chain Management classroom. A different type of Executive in Residence course focuses on using multiple industry speakers to provide a unique learning environment for today’s Millennial majors. While the majority of the paper is a thought based overview, a statistical analysis of student responses was used to compare various types of relevant courses. A simple comparison of various appropriate items was examined to identify if the Executive in Residence course increased learning. Both the anecdotal and statistical evidence suggests that the Executive in …

Predictors Of Readmission In Shelters And Other Services Among Homeless Adults In Detroit, Devin Michael Hanson

Wayne State University Theses

Admission to an emergency shelter reflects an important outcome in a person's life, and many admissions to an emergency shelter reflects a human and financial cost. This article discusses the evolution of the measurement and understanding of homelessness. It looks at characteristics of people who make use of shelter in a chronic fashion to better understand what might predict risk for future continued use. This includes an analysis of a large dataset of emergency shelter utilization in Detroit Michigan collected between 2008 and 2012. Analysis reveals that fundamental demographic information, individual's interactions with the shelter system (good or bad), and …

Secure Base Scriptedness, Psychological Health And Wellbeing In Urban Youth, Patricia Richardson

Wayne State University Theses

This study examined the empirical utility of the Attachment Script Assessment (ASA), a novel indicator of adolescent secure base script knowledge, with socioeconomically disadvantaged, African-American youth. It was hypothesized that secure base knowledge would buffer the effect of trauma exposure on youth emotional and behavioral problems. The sample included 83 adolescent (ages 13-18) caregiver dyads that participated in a larger study examining adolescent health behaviors. Results revealed preliminary empirical support for the utility of the ASA with this sample, as evidenced by expected inverse correlations with another well-established measure of attachment. Results indicated that there was not sufficient evidence to …

Sexual Assault Severity And Health Outcomes Among African American And Caucasian Victims, Sheri Elizabeth Pegram

Wayne State University Theses

Although they share many similarities in their recovery outcomes, African American and Caucasian victims likely differ in their conceptualizations of and responses to sexual assault. However, few studies have examined post-assault health outcomes based on ethnicity. Using Neville and Heppner's (1999) culturally inclusive ecological model, this study contributes to this gap in the literature with a community sample of 221 sexual assault victims. Although the path model was generally similar for African American and Caucasian women, there were notable differences. Multi-group comparison analysis indicated that ethnicity moderated the relationship between assault severity and depressive symptoms, such that the relationship was …

Attitudes Toward Breastfeeding: A Content Analysis Of Responses To Public Breastfeeding On Internet News Stories, Christina M. Miller-Bellor

Wayne State University Theses

Leading medical organizations recommend breastfeeding for at least a year. The Center for Disease Control (CDC 2011) estimates that 74% of women initiate breastfeeding, while only 23.8% of infants are breastfed until age 1 in the United States. These statistics indicate that while there is an increase in women trying to breastfeed, there are barriers to sustained breastfeeding. Some studies indicate that negative experiences while breastfeeding in public creates a barrier to breastfeeding (Boyer 2010; McIntyre et al. 1999; Smyth 2008). This research contributes to existent literature on breastfeeding. I used a different type of analysis to explore attitudes and …

Race And Student's Perception Of School Counseling, Nicole Antoinette Little

Wayne State University Theses

In the United States there is still a race gap in education. Black students tend to perform less well in school on standardized tests and grades. Many black students come from low income families and do not have the same resources as middle and upper class Caucasian students. High school counselors can assist in providing support to these students by referring them to tutoring, giving them college and career advice, assisting them in applying for scholarships and to colleges. This study looks at how Black and White students feel about their high counseling experience. This research examined the Monitoring The …

African American Grandparents Residing In A Nursing Facility: Perceptions Of Influence With Their Grandchildren, Family, And Community, Monica Bester

Wayne State University Theses

African American older adults have historically been identified as vital members of the African American family and community (Hill, 1972; Cox, 2002; Waites, 2008). Unfortunately, research has shown an increasing number of older African Americans are being admitted into nursing facilities (Paul, 2004; Feng et al., 2011). Between the years of 1998-2008, it was projected African Americans living in nursing homes increased by 10.8% (Feng et al., 2011).

This study explores the intergenerational relationships of older African American adults with their grandchildren, family, and community through the lens of Intergenerational Family Systems Theory. By viewing this qualitative study through the …

Maternal Emotion Regulation And Expressivity As Predictors Of Positive Parenting In Low-Income Families, Laura Michelle Crespo

Wayne State University Theses

Positive parenting has been associated with various adaptive childhood outcomes involving healthy cognitive, social, and emotional development (Fuligni & Brooks-Gunn, 2013; Roggman, Cook, Innocenti, Jump, & Christiansen, 2013). There is less research, however, on which factors contribute to the parents' use of positive parenting strategies. Some evidence suggests that factors such as the parents' emotional competencies, along with the child's temperament and the family environment, influence parenting behaviors (Belsky, 1984). This study explored predictors of positive parenting, including maternal emotion expressivity and emotion regulation, child temperament traits, maternal cognitive ability, maternal perception of social support, and single parenting. Participants were …

Similarities And Differences Between Heterosexual And Homosexual Couples Based On Marq Data, Kraig S. Shattuck

Wayne State University Theses

There has been a lack of comparative research on homosexual couples, comparing them to heterosexual couples, which is also grounded in solid theory. In order to remedy this, evolutionary theory is used to make predictions on similarities and differences between heterosexual and homosexual couples within three domains, relationship satisfaction, jealousy, and mate guarding. It was predicted that 1) homosexual couples would not differ from heterosexual couples in relationship satisfaction; 2) some gender differences relating to jealousy would be the same and some would be reversed in homosexual individuals; 3) mate guarding would be present, but lower, in homosexual individuals as …

Shifting Perspectives On Intimate Partner Violence? Perceptions Of 2nd Generation Arab American Women, Salam Aboulhassan

Wayne State University Theses

In the Arab world, individual stories of intimate partner violence are often hidden and cultural narratives frame intimate partner violence as a personal problem to be solved by the family, an extremely private and protective unit. As second-generation immigrants, Arab American women experience new pathways to navigate gender inequalities within U.S. culture, creating new accounts and attitudes of intimate partner violence. This study adds to the conversation on intimate partner violence by including voices of a marginalized group and contributes a unique interpretation of intimate partner violence by uncovering how these women interpret their experiences.

Stress Exposure, Secure Base Scriptedness, Psychosocial Needs Satisfaction And Behavioral Problems Among At-Risk Urban Adolescents, Kelsey Sala-Hamrick

Wayne State University Theses

The adolescent period of development is associated with increases in internalizing, externalizing, and other problem behaviors which are thought to be exacerbated by cumulative risk factors associated with environmental disadvantage. Previous research has demonstrated the associations between both secure attachment and psychosocial needs satisfaction with decreases in behavior problems; however, few studies have examined the relative effects of environmental stress exposure, attachment security and psychosocial needs satisfaction on adolescent behavioral problems. Therefore, this study recruited 106 environmentally at-risk, socioeconomically disadvantaged sample of urban adolescents and their caregivers from Detroit, MI in order to: (1) describe the levels of environmental disadvantage …

Race Ethnicity & Youth Perception Of School Safety, Sterling Jose Jackson

Wayne State University Theses

This study investigates how race/ethnicity, sex, and age influence students' perceptions of school safety. Students' perception of being safe and their concerns about violence while attending school are paramount to academic and social development. In a national survey teens were queried regarding various subject matters. The type of school attended was important within the survey being private, public, and parochial. The findings of this investigation purport that blacks are more likely than whites to be concerned about school violence and safety. Schools with an inability to provide a safe learning environment for students may experience adverse outcomes regarding students' academic …

Effectiveness Of Different Corticosterone Administration Methods To Alter Corticosterone Levels In Serum And Depressive-Like Behavior In Female Rats, Jennifer Marie Kott

Wayne State University Theses

There is wide variation in the current literature on rodent models of high levels of chronic stress. This study aims to reduce these discrepancies by investigating the effects of 3 different administration methods of corticosterone (CORT; the endogenous stress hormone in rodents) and the differential effects it has in the female sex. The majority of studies utilize male rodents, while research in female rodents is largely under-investigated. This study will utilize female rats and 3 different administration routes: a) subcutaneous implantation of a CORT pellet, b) CORT in the drinking water, and c) CORT by a daily subcutaneous injection, and …

Efficacy And Voting In The Obama Era, Christian Eli Genesky

Wayne State University Theses

In the past 50 years political science and sociological scholarship has demonstrated a consistent white-minority gap in political attitudes and behaviors. However, recent developments in the national political scene have introduced a new element that likely impacts these well-established trends, and must be taken into account: Barak Obama, an individual identifying with a minority group, ran for the office of the president of the United States. To explore the impact of Obama’s presence on the political behavior of minorities, I performed a secondary data analysis of variables from both the pre-election and post-election modules of the ANES 2008 Time-Series study, …

Acoustic Cues Of Physical Formidability In Cage Fighters, Stefan Mattias-Maria Goetz

Wayne State University Theses

Across the animal kingdom, the sex that experiences the most reproductive variance tends to evolve sexually dimorphic traits—both behavioral and morphological—which aid in reproduction. Human evolution has been marked by greater male intrasexual selection and as a result, men display a variety of secondary sexual characteristics, putatively serving to enhance biological fitness. Among these, fundamental frequency, closely related to perception of pitch, among men is half that of women. Likewise, monotonicity, that is, variance in pitch across an utterance, is higher in men (i.e., women show greater variance in pitch) while formant dispersion, which gives the voice its timbre, is …

Mediated Mate Selection And Courtship: The Lived Experience Of Muslim American Women In Using Online Matchmaking Websites, Annisa M. P. Rochadiat

Wayne State University Theses

This thesis examines how technology affects two major components of courtship among Muslim American women: (1) mate selection and (2) cross-gender interactions between Muslim men and women. Sixteen individuals who self-identify as Muslim American women who are active users of online matchmaking websites participated in interviews conducted through Skype about their online dating experience. Qualitative data analysis suggests that these women balance the perceived advantages of online dating (e.g., increased individual agency in initiating romantic relationships) with their desire to maintain traditional cultural and religious courtship practices. This study contributes towards a deeper understanding of CMC and online dating among …

Neural Correlates Of Episodic Memory Formation In Children And Adults, Lingfei Tang

Wayne State University Theses

The medial temporal lobe (MTL) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) are two key brain regions that support episodic memory formation in both children and adults, but the functional developmental of these regions remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the development of neural correlates of episodic memory formation using functional MRI with a subsequent memory paradigm, administered to a cross-sectional sample of 83 children and adults. We found that MTL subregions showed an age-related increase in activation supporting memory formation of complex scenes. In addition, a functionally defined scene-sensitive region in the posterior MTL also showed similar increase and predicted better …

Pets In The Family, Jason Brown

Wayne State University Theses

Recent cultural shifts have found more people identifying their pets as members of their family. However, little research has examined how families create this identity that pets have. Using narrative performance theory, this study examined the stories that families tell about their pets and how their pets fit into the family. Fifteen dog owning families were interviewed about their dog and how it interacts with and fits within the family. Results of the study indicate that there were two main behaviors that are important to the development of the identity of the pet as a family member. First, the family …

Exploring Community Gardening: Motivations And Impacts, Kathleen Marie Gersky

Wayne State University Theses

Research shows the emergence of community gardens in urban areas serves to address issues such as food scarcity and community cohesion, creating positive implications at the neighborhood and city wide level. However, the research does not adequately address the impact it may have on a micro level in middle-upper class areas, potentially hindering the gardening movement. Understanding community gardens in all socioeconomic settings will be important to the broader sustainable food movement’s current and future success. In this thesis, I ask: what are the motivations and impacts of community gardening? The objectives are to understand how motivations and impacts may …

Twin Gestation And Neuropsychological Outcome Of Preschool Age Children Born Prematurely, Jamie Christine Piercy

Wayne State University Theses

Multiples are thought to be at increased risk for developmental outcome deficits in the preschool years, following preterm birth. However, little research has been conducted to determine whether this group remains at higher risk in the age of artificial reproductive techniques and the modern NICU. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether multiplicity is a risk factor for neuropsychological outcome deficits in a sample of 118 preschoolers (49 multiples, 75 singletons) born prematurely (<34 weeks gestation). As predicted, there were significant relationships between multiplicity and outcome measures, however, the direction of the effects were opposite to our prediction, with multiplies demonstrating superior performance. Additionally, significant multiplicity by sex interactions revealed a female twin advantage over male twin and singleton performance. In this preschool age sample, preterm multiples were not at a disadvantage when compared to singleton counterparts, demonstrating either equivalent or superior neuropsychological performance.

Communication And Identity: The Paternity Leave Decision, Scott Sellnow-Richmond

Wayne State University Dissertations

Paternity leave has remained an under-studied phenomenon in the United States. The US stands in contrast to countries such as Sweden and Norway, which have a history of government-regulated paid time off for fathers of new children. Therefore new fathers in the US face a unique situation regarding their decision of whether or not to take whatever form of paternity leave may be available to them. This study explores what aspects of new fathers’ identities are salient regarding the paternity leave decision. The Communication Theory of Identity (CTI) is used as a theoretical framework to explore how these identities correspond …

Escape Velocity: What We Built (Digital Collections Infrastructure), Graham Hukill, Cole Hudson

Library Scholarly Publications

A poster outlining the Library's current Python-based digital collections infrastructure, with an eye towards a potential Hydra-based infrastructure in the future.

Where Are All The Librarians Of Color? The Experiences Of People Of Color In Academia, Miguel Juarez, Rebecca Hankins

Departmental Papers (History)

Where Are All the Librarians of Color? The Experiences of People of Color in Academia (2015, Library Juice Press, Sacramento, CA). Table of Contents, Preface by Dr. Loreine Roy, Introduction to book (with Rebecca Hankins, co-editor).

Treasure Hunt Without A Map: Archival Research At The University Of Pennsylvania, Meghan Strong

English and Creative Writing Independent Study Projects

Under the supervision of Meredith Goldsmith in the English Department, I spent this semester developing archival research projects for lower level students in the humanities. My project corresponded with the aims of the Council for Undergraduate Research, which works to develop undergraduate research skills throughout the disciplines. The Kislak Center is a nearby resource that has the potential to provide students with opportunities to develop crucial research skills while discovering little pieces of history that are hidden away in the archives. The final exercises presented here focus on the subjects of Walt Whitman, Marian Anderson, and Michel de Montaigne.

What Makes A Man: Physical Attraction Among Young Homosexuals, Aaron Mccauley

Undergraduate Research Journal

Little research is available when examining homosexual attraction, particularly physical attraction. Existing research approaches the topic through a heterosexual bias or an evolutionary stance. This study was designed to provide a base for further research. Five participants completed the interview process of the research design. The interviews consisted of open-ended, opinion style questions and with participants rating the attractiveness of a series of photos to further explore homosexual physical attraction. The results suggest that homosexual attraction may be based both in evolutionary processes and societal factors. More research is needed, however, for a better understanding of physical characteristics within homosexual …

Women’S Involvement In The Sandinistas And The Farc, Derek Comba

Undergraduate Research Journal

Historically, women have been constantly excluded from combat in war except in times of dire need. Even today women are not allowed in the overwhelming majority of armies from around the world, and the ones that do allow women do not allow them on the front lines. Women have always been seen as not capable of war or as not needing to fight since the men can fight for them. Yet, time and time again it appears that guerrilla, insurgent, and terrorist groups have let women into their ranks. While large numbers of women fought in both the Sandinista National …

Library Annual Report

Library Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Modern Psychological Studies

No abstract provided.