Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Photography And Mourning: Excavating Memories Of My Great-Grandmother, Eva Weiner

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper explores how photographs have affected mourning processes in the past and how photo-technology may be able to change the way in which we mourn in the future. It includes an overview of the history of post-mortem photography and discusses the perspectives of well-known media theorists such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag. It engages with psychologists by including their perspectives on the effect that photographs have on the mourning process. A project was created to investigate how photo-technology can affect the bereaved. The project places photographs of a mother into pictures of her children taken after she had …

Digesting The Disaster: Understanding The Boom Of Refugee Food Entrepreneurship In The Face Of Increasing Xenophobia, Sonia De Mello

Scripps Senior Theses

Over the last few years, we are seeing an emergence of new food entrepreneurship across the globe. In the context of the Syrian refugee crisis, these food-related social enterprises are not only providing job opportunities to refugees but they are also increasing awareness about their cause and creating new narratives surrounding their arrival. This present study seeks to contribute to the knowledge surrounding refugees and entrepreneurship by explaining how several refugee food enterprises have gained great popularity despite greater nationalism and xenophobia. In the analysis of food entrepreneurship, one finds that this phenomenon is able to partly fill the void …

Voices Of Women: The Impact Of Women's Political Reservations On Female Child Mortality In India, Kohsheen Sharma

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper uses state-level variation in the implementation of the 73rd amendment in India to observe the relationship between political reservations for women in local government and female child mortality. Nationally, reservations for women are not associated with a statistically significant difference in female child mortality. However, a state by state analysis shows variations in the level of impact of reservations on the topic of female child mortality. This paper examines the constraints on female representatives and their level of effectiveness in executing pro-female policies given the political and social environment. The two case studies on Kerala and Haryana explore …

Gigs And Grub: How The Gig Economy Impacts Restaurant Industry Performance, Laura Broderick

Scripps Senior Theses

In the last ten years, the gig economy has become a significant part of the labor market. Consumers depend on the services provided by people performing gig work, particularly as on-demand services are increasingly desired. Another trend that has developed is the rise of fast casual restaurants due to their relatively inexpensive and quick service while simultaneously providing unique and interesting cuisine options. I examined if there was a relationship between the rise of these emerging sectors of the economy through looking at the performance of limited service eating place establishments using a panel data regression model at the Metropolitan …

Adolescent Political Development, Rachel Miller

Scripps Senior Theses

The present research is on parent influence on adolescent political development. The study surveys parent political behavior, parent warmth and quality of relationship with their child, and adolescent knowledge of parent political behavior to understand how these factors affect a match in party affiliation in parent and adolescent. 547 family groups are included in the study. I hypothesized that an adolescent’s politics would be more likely to match that of their parent when the parent is politically involved and warm and the adolescent is aware of the parent’s political behavior. This study is important because individuals’ party affiliation determines their …

Everyone Knows I Had An Abortion: Fighting Abortion Stigma Through Narrative Collection And Mutual Aid, Sabrina Gunter

Scripps Senior Theses

According to a 2017 study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, roughly one in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime. Despite how incredibly common of an experience it is, one almost never hears abortion talked about on an individual basis. This study seeks to find out why people who’ve had abortions do or don’t talk about them, and why, as well as what, if anything, can and needs to be done to change the conversational landscape around abortion. I used qualitative methods to conduct seven participant-led interviews with different people who have had abortions. My findings show that …

Men's Receptivity To Mental Health Help Seeking Intervention Messages: The Effects Of Message Sender Gender And Message Content, Faye Lafond

Scripps Senior Theses

Men are much less likely to seek out mental health care services than women, despite having equally significant mental health related needs. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of the construction and delivery of intervention messages designed to encourage men to seek help for mental health concerns. 225 men in the United States were randomly assigned to one of 4 vignette conditions featuring a pro-mental health help seeking message, varying based on the gender of the sender of the message (male vs. female) and based on the inclusion of information concerning misconceptions about therapy (inclusion vs. …

Unveil The Mysterious Reality Of Management Healthcare In China: A Case Study On Institutional Arrangement, Yasha Zhang

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis identifies and analyzes current problems in the healthcare market in China. Although many health indicators of China such as life expectancy and child mortality rates have improved significantly and suggest that the healthcare reform in China is successful, there have been many more reports of patient's violent attack towards the doctor, the sudden death of doctors, and decreasing doctor supplies that suggest otherwise. I observed that the relationship between doctors and patients are intense, doctors experience enormous working pressure, and many doctors are leaving the market. It makes me wonder how did government fail to improve its healthcare …

Coal-To-Liquid Technology: A Look At The Geopolitical Tension Behind China's Energy Strategy, Kaela Cote-Stemmermann

Scripps Senior Theses

As interest in renewable energy development continues to rise around the globe, the alignment of China’s capabilities and incentive to invest in the green energy sector position the country in a leading role. However, China’s recent investment in coal-to-liquid (CTL) technology raises questions as to the direction of China’s energy policy and reflects broader geopolitical tensions within the Chinese government. Although CTL technology has been widely criticized as being environmentally unfriendly and economically unsustainable, China continues to invest in it at an astounding pace. Research proposes several possible explanations, such as corruption or local conflicts of interest, however, a critical …

When Malbec Became Argentine: An Analysis Of The Quality Wine Revolution In Mendoza, Dominique Lee

Scripps Senior Theses

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Argentine wine industry experienced a shift from quantity to quality production which occurred while economic policies in Argentina opened economic opportunities for investment in the country. With these new opportunities, the industry began to focus on producing quality wine because of the desire to export and compete in the international market. As foreign investment entered Mendoza, the heart of Argentine wine country, new ideas and knowledge about wine production began to disseminate into the region and everyday practices. The shift from quantity to quality production was a paradigm shift in that it ushered …

The Criminalization Of Poverty: The Impact Of Cash Bail System On Black Women In New Orleans, Salome Kushindana

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Research on bail practices has shown that most of the people are in jail because of their inability to pay bail set by the court. A 2016 study by the Vera Institute of Justice concluded that the use of the cash bail system disproportionately impacts poor black people in Orleans Parish Prison, the entity that serves as the principal driver of the mass incarceration. With a focus on poor black people in Orleans Parish Prison, the experiences of the impact of the cash bail system on poor black women are still missing.

Using semi-structured interviews and qualitative method of data …

Rape Culture In Disney Animated Princess Movies, Patricia Paulson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Gender stereotypes, rape myths, and rape culture are perpetuated in U.S. media, including media aimed at young people. Previous research in the areas of gender, gender stereotypes, portrayals of gender in movies, Disney movies, rape myths, and rape culture are all examined. Prior to this research, no study had been conducted to determine if the characteristics of rape culture are portrayed in Disney animated princess movies. For this research, an ethnographic content analysis is conducted on all thirteen of the Disney animated princess movies to determine if the characteristics associated with rape culture are portrayed in these movies. The findings …

Symptomatic Leadership In Business Instruction: How To Finally Teach Diversity And Inclusion For Lasting Change, Linda L. Ridley

Publications and Research

Are business faculty complicit in mythologizing business concepts by ignoring historical precedence?

The refusal to examine in totality the history of discrimination and racism allows us to perpetuate a mythology of white supremacy that is enhanced through impotent diversity programs repeated throughout corporate America. This paper examines the importance of demythologizing the business curriculum through symptomatic thinking, which allows faculty and students to untangle the quagmire of diversity and inclusion in corporate America. Students are thereby equipped with tools for behavior transformation in the workplace that uses a symptomatic, rather than symbolic approach, to decision making and problem solving.

Social Relationships And Self-Directed Behavior In Hamadryas Baboons (Papio Hamadryas Hamadryas), Melissa C. Painter

Master’s Theses

Self-directed behavior, such as self-scratching and self-grooming, is a behavioral indicator of anxiety in nonhuman primates. Patterns of self-directed behavior are used to identify social and environmental factors related to primate anxiety. This study explored the social context in which individuals in a captive group of hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas hamadryas) exhibited self-directed behavior. Self-directed behavior in a partner’s presence was predicted to increase with relationship insecurity. More than 130 hours of behavioral observations were conducted on 12 baboons. Self-directed and social behavior were recorded with focal sampling to determine each animal’s self-directed behavior rate in the presence …

Representing Wilderness In The Shaping Of America's National Parks: Aesthetics, Boundaries, And Cultures In The Works Of James Fenimore Cooper, John Muir, And Their Artistic Contemporaries, Alana Jajko

Master’s Theses

This project studies the works of James Fenimore Cooper, John Muir, and their artistic contemporaries in relation to the shaping of America’s national parks and what it means for the parks and their attending wilderness to be symbolic of the nation. It seeks to reveal the national parks as artistic representations of a constructed wilderness, while also emphasizing the physical experience of the natural world as a means of supplementing our subjective views. Through the lenses of aesthetics, boundaries, and cultures, I narrow my study to focus on three distinct perspectives by which we can understand the national parks and …

Components Of Auditory Imagery In Healthy Aging, Arley K. Schenker

Master’s Theses

Mental imagery, a complex cognitive task that can be conceptualized into separable components, has been seldom studied in older adults. Auditory imagery is a particularly good modality to study throughout the lifespan, given that sounds can be both highly familiar and unfamiliar and that they inherently take place over a period of time. We tested for age differences in each of the four components of auditory imagery: generation, maintenance, inspection, and transformation. Furthermore, we investigated the degree to which certain cognitive measures that vary among individuals, such as musical background, self-reported auditory imagery, and working memory, predict performance differences. Across …

“When One Shingle Sends Up Smoke”: The Summit Beacon Advises Akron About The Epidemic Cholera, 1849, Elizabeth Hall

Nineteenth-Century Ohio Literature

Elizabeth Hall explains the American cholera epidemic of 1849, with special attention to how cholera afflicted Akron, a booming canal town in Northeast Ohio. The article presents the full text of 1849 Akron newspaper articles on cholera and explains how their mix of good and bad information was published right before scientific breakthroughs in cholera research.

Seismicity Spikes And Earthquakes In Oklahoma: 2009-Present, Josh Bowser

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Since 2009 the state of Oklahoma has experienced seismicity spikes pushing yearly totals of significant earthquakes from around 2 per year (in years prior) into the hundreds. The purpose of this paper is to present the history of Oklahoma’s problem with seismicity spikes, the science around the issue, and the governmental approaches to solving the problem. Experts in the field of seismology and geophysics have arrived at a consensus regarding induced seismicity in Oklahoma, but regulating associated industrial activity is an on-going political hot topic on which representatives and the public are divided. This project examines the regulatory approach of …

Marianismo And Mental Health: A Cross-Sectional Study On Latina Perspectives, Sara Tilisky

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the correlational relationships between help seeking attitudes, marianismo, and mental health symptoms in a sample of Latinas. Marianismo is a Latina-specific value system based on the idea that women are to be self-sacrificing, chaste, and family oriented. Data from self-identified Latinas (N=77) were used to determine how degrees of adherence to marianista values correlate with various mental health symptoms and reported instances of professional help seeking attitudes. Results yielded a weak positive relationship between adherence to marianismo-like values and prevalence of mental health symptoms, and no relationship between adherence to …

Evaluating Stigmatizing Attitudes Among Clinicians Toward People With Abdl And Pedophilic Interests, Katlyn Hanson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Because child sexual abuse continues to be covered by mainstream media, the public has become more aware of the paraphilic interest pedophilia. While there is no definitive correlation between an individual with pedophilic interests and offenses against a child, strong public stigmatization toward these individuals remain. Additionally, stigmatizing attitudes have been found toward other paraphilic interests such as fetishes. This is the first study to evaluate and compare clinicians' attitudes toward the paraphilic interest pedophilia and the fetish interest community of Adult Baby/Diaper Lovers (ABDL). Clinicians were randomly assigned to one of three survey conditions assessing their attitudes toward people …

Car-Less Cities, Maryam Moeinian

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The rapid growth of world population along with the sprawl growth of towns and suburbanization, has affected the human life and its surrounding nature dramatically. The fact is this level of growth is not sustainable with the current patterns of development. Most cities all around the world are designed in a way that encourages car dependency which is harming the environment and human health.

During the past decade, urban planners formulate new principles of land use development to preserve the environment and protect public health, safety and general welfare of the citizens. These concepts are characterized by some movements such …

Understanding The Process Of Selling, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel

Cornhusker Economics

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and then the countdown to Christmas… tis the season for buying! But if you work in the retail environment, it is also the season for selling. The act of “selling” is obvious in face-to-face retail environments but the steps of the selling process are also embedded in all sorts of product and service settings.

University Students' Willingness To Assist Fellow Students Who Experience Alcohol-Related Facial Flushing To Reduce Their Drinking, Lanyan Ding, Lok-Wa Yuen, Ian M. Newman, Duane F. Shell

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

This study explored bystanders’ willingness to help a friend who flushes when drinking to reduce his/her drinking. Alcohol-related facial flushing is an indicator of an inherited variant enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), that impairs alcohol metabolism and increases drinkers’ lifetime risk of certain aerodigestive cancers. Individuals who flush should reduce their alcohol exposure, but they may continue to drink if social pressures and rules of etiquette make not drinking socially risky. The analysis used data from 2912 undergraduate students from 13 universities in southwestern, central and northeastern China from a survey asking how they respond to someone’s flushing in various scenarios. …

Partners In School: An Innovative Parent-Teacher Consultation Model For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Gazi F. Azad Phd, Steven C. Marcus Phdd, Susan Sheridan Phd, David S. Mandell

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Little research examines the best ways to improve communication between parents and teachers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and its effect on child outcomes. The present study tests an innovative parent-teacher consultation model, entitled Partners in School. The goal of Partners in School is to improve parent-teacher communication aboutevidence-based practices (EBPs), and subsequently, outcomes for children with ASD. Participants were 26 teachers and 49 parents of children with ASD from a large urban public school district. Parents and teachers completed measures of their communication and child outcomes prior to and after receiving consultation through Partners in School. Results …

Unemployment Insurance Reform: Fixing A Broken System, Stephen A. Wandner Editor

Upjohn Press

The Unemployment Insurance (UI) system is a lasting piece of the Social Security Act which was enacted in 1935. But like most things that are over 80 years old, it occasionally needs maintenance to keep it operating smoothly while keeping up with the changing demands placed upon it. However, the UI system has been ignored by policymakers for decades and, say the authors, it is broken, out of date, and badly in need of repair.

Stephen A. Wandner pulls together a group of UI researchers, each with decades of experience, who describe the weaknesses in the current system and propose …

Female Cyclists: Two Essays From The 1869 Hancock Jeffersonian, Paige Zenovic

Nineteenth-Century Ohio Literature

Paige Zenovic introduces and explains two nineteenth-century essays from the Findley, Ohio Hancock Jeffersonian on the subject of women riding bicycles from the time when they were first being introduced to Ohio.

Radicalization And The Internet, Dustin Covert

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

How extremist groups use the internet has recently become a major national security issue. This paper discusses the role that the internet plays in the radicalization process. It will review recent research that analyzes how extremist groups use the internet and properties of the internet that may help to radicalize an individual. This paper will lay a foundation for future research to establish relationships between the internet and the radicalization process.

An Electrophysiological Study On Sex-Related Differences In Emotion Perception, Natalie Wiswesser, James Houston Phd, Philip Allen Phd

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this research project was examine the following question: Do men and women respond differently, on a neurophysiological level, to stimuli that elicit an emotional valence? Participants completed an emotional expression face identification task in which participants made speeded responses to angry, happy, and neutral emotional faces. Behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) methods were utilized to examine emotion processing differences between females and males and whether those differences were associated with emotional arousal or emotion regulation differences. Results indicated that females and males did not differ in accuracy or response time. Furthermore, there were no observable differences in …

Using A Coupled Bio-Economic Model To Find The Optimal Phosphorus Load In Lake Tainter, Wi, Mackenzie Jones

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In Dunn County, Wisconsin the lakes suffer from algae blooms due to excess phosphorus runoff. A coupled bio-economic model is studied with the intent of finding the optimal level of phosphorus that should be allowed into the lake depending on certain biologic and economic parameters. We model the algae and phosphorus concentration in the lake over time based off the phosphorus input. Community welfare is modeled by comparing the costs and benefits of phosphorus fertilizer. This model is proposed to find the phosphorus level that maximizes community welfare and then determine how certain environmental and social change initiatives will affect …

Organizational Pursuit Of A Beloved Community, Christina Aronhalt

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The following paper is an examination of three organizations, Vamos Puerto Rico, The Well CDC, and the Karen Community of Akron, who are working towards the betterment of their community by fighting the injustices that their communities face. In this paper, I argue that the choices made by each of these three organizations, reflected in their organizational structure and the initiatives they focus on, can be understood as linked to the common goal of the beloved community when examined through the framework of the six steps of nonviolent social change. The steps of nonviolent social change are information gathering, education, …