Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Long-Term Use Of Beta-Blocker Medication In Pediatric Long Qt Syndrome Patients: Neuropsychological Profiles, Kara J. Rudisill

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Long QT syndrome (LQTS) is a heart rhythm disorder characterized by a disruption of the heart’s electrical activity that may cause accelerated and uncontrolled heartbeats referred to as ventricular fibrillation. LQTS is primarily treated with beta-blocker medications, which reduce the risk of experiencing an arrhythmia through regulating the heart rate. However, the potential neuropsychological side-effects associated with the use of beta-blocker medication may impact the executive functioning skills, mental health, and behavior of the affected pediatric population at home. As a result, a child’s academic performance and emotional regulation etiology may be misunderstood by his or her parents, caregivers, and …

Predictors Of Quality Of Life In Lupus Patients: A Study Of Coping, Cognitive Distortions, And Social Support, Kyle Osbourne

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether cognitive distortions, social support, and/or levels of coping skills predict quality of life (QOL) for women with SLE. The total sample consisted of 62 women ranging in age from 18 to 55 years. This study was conducted online via SurveyMonkey in an effort to reach the specialized SLE female population and recruit individuals who otherwise may not have been able to participate due to limitations in mobility and/or lack of transportation. The measures consisted of the Inventory of Cognitive Distortions (ICD), the WHOQOL-BREF (WHOQOL), the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support …

The Relationship Between Health Adherence Behaviors, Level Of Acculturation, Frequency Of Cognitive Distortions, And Psychological Distress In Filipino Americans, Marisa R. Nuñez

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Nonadherence to medical recommendations is a prevalent concern within the U.S health care system, including among many ethnic minority groups, such as Filipino Americans. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between health adherence behaviors, acculturation level, frequency of cognitive distortions, and psychological distress in Filipino Americans. Filipino American participants (N = 121) completed the following measures: the Health Adherence Behavior Inventory, A Short Acculturation Scale for Filipino Americans, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9th edition, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale, and the Inventory of Cognitive Distortions. Results indicated a significant negative relationship between anxiety symptoms and health …

Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy For Blind And Visually Impaired Adults: Acceptance, Problem-Solving, And Cognitive Distortions, Collin D. Mullins

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

This study sought to explore the efficacy of group Problem-Solving Therapy (PST) adapted for individuals living with visual impairment. Specifically, this study investigated changes in quality of life, levels of acceptance, problem-solving, depression, and cognitive distortions following treatment. A group of ten participants (N = 10) were recruited in a large Northeastern city from a non-profit organization providing programming to individuals with visual impairment. Combined pretest-posttest experimental and qualitative study designs were utilized. Individuals were assessed using measures to acquire baseline and outcomes on depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II), acceptance (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II), quality of life (World Health Organization Quality …

Predictors Of Stress In Caregivers Of Family Members With Multiple Sclerosis, Lucy Lubinski

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system that typically results in cognitive and physical impairment. Depending upon the severity of symptoms, persons with MS often need assistance from caregivers in their daily lives. Research has shown that when a family member is diagnosed with the disease, household members become a source of caregiver support. The relationships between caregiver burden and chronic illness and between stress and health are well-documented. The impact of caregiving on individuals with MS remains a continued clinical concern, particularly because depression is highly co-occurring in those with the disease. Understanding the predictors …

The Association Between Body Esteem And Post-Operative Outcomes In Adult Weight-Loss Surgery Patients, Jennifer Rohr Swetkowski

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Bariatric surgery (weight-loss surgery) remains the most effective long-term treatment for obesity, resulting in improved obesity-related comorbidities and increased life expectancy. There remains, however, a limited understanding of predictors and patientlevel factors associated with insufficient weight loss and psychological dysfunction. Body esteem, or feelings of self-worth about one’s body and appearance, is a significant concern for individuals undergoing weight-loss surgery, although the relationship between body esteem and weight loss is complex. Indeed, there is a subset of patients who experience suboptimal weight loss and poor psychological outcomes after undergoing bariatric surgery. This retrospective, longitudinal study examined the relationship between pre-operative …

Using The Power Of Storytelling To Shape Your Institution’S Narrative, Jessica De Perio Wittman

Faculty Articles and Papers

People love stories. For generations, storytelling has been the basis of human communication. Stories capture our attention, and they recount authentic human experience. Stories enable individuals to understand the world around them and to make sense of the who, what, when, where, why, and how of institutional actions. Most importantly, stories enable people to create meaningful connections with one another and with members of their community. The law library has always acted as a community hub that encourages and facilitates scholarly activity and collaboration. By connecting citizens with laws and narratives, the role of the modern law library has evolved …

The Effect Of States Of Emergency On Gubernatorial Approval Ratings, Meghan Steinbeiss

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

To what extent do unexpected, apolitical events affect governors’ popularity? Individuals’ attitudes towards government are often random, and executives at both the state-level and national-level are held accountable for events that they have little control over. In this study, I seek to understand how these unplanned events affect support for elected officials. Specifically, I examine the effect of the declaration of a State of Emergency on gubernatorial approval. I use an ordinary least squares (OLS) model and data from FEMA as well as the United States Officials Job Approval Ratings dataset to answer such questions. The results indicate that not …

Seeds Of Suspicion: The Perpetual Cycle Of Anti-Muslim Stereotypes, Middle East Intervention, And Terrorism, Christopher Ledford

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

The central theory guiding my research is that interstate conflict, at least as covered in mass media, leaves residual cultural attitudes that can shape the political context in which elites formulate policy. Specifically, U.S. interventionism in the Middle East has given rise to fundamental hostilities, founded on misguided biases, that shape involvement in the region today. I focus on one step within that broader theory, to test it empirically: the hypothesis that anti-Muslim stereotypes, when activated, will shape an individual’s foreign-policy preferences. I begin by considering competing accounts that link 1) ethnocentrism or 2) targeted stereotypes with support for the …

Repression And Women’S Dissent: Gender And Protests, Dakota Thomas

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

Why do women protest? Why do women protest “as women”? Why do some women participate in protests but not others? In the wake of the Women’s March of 2017, perhaps the largest single day protest event in history, these questions are particularly timely and deserve scholarly attention. One important but understudied and undertheorized motivation for women’s protests is state sanctioned violence, particularly repression. This dissertation explicitly theorizes about how state perpetration of violence, particularly state use of repression, both motivates and shapes women’s protests on a global scale.

In this dissertation, I argue that one key motivation for women’s protest …

Does A Brief Mindfulness Training Enhance Heartfulness In Students? Results Of A Pilot Study, Myriam Rudaz, Thomas Ledermann, Michael P. Twohig, Michael E. Levin

Psychology Faculty Publications

(1) Background: There is robust evidence that mindfulness trainings enhance mindfulness as operationalized in Western psychology, but evidence about their effect on aspects of heartfulness is sparse. This study seeks to test whether a brief mindfulness training enhances heart qualities, including self-compassion, gratitude, and the generation of feelings of happiness.

(2) Methods: Eighteen students enrolled in a mindfulness training that was offered as part of an interdisciplinary class. The training consisted of five training sessions and four booster sessions of 45 minutes each over the course of nine weeks. Mindfulness was measured with the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire-Short Form (FFMQ-SF) …

Navigating The Library Slopes: Dispositional Shifts In The National School Library Standards, Kathy Cromartie, Elizabeth Burns

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article discusses the impact of the 2018 National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries on library practice. Topics covered include a set of professional dispositions that the school librarian can embody, and the need for school librarians to engage the skills of both educator and information professional in performing their duties.

The Role Of Brand Love: Application Of The Hierarchy Of Effects Model, Dooyoung Choi, Tae-Im Han

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Understanding the attributes that build consumer loyalty is particularly critical to fashion companies due to the prevalence of alternatives in the market with low switching costs. The significance of this study is extending the knowledge on the role of brand love using the hierarchy of effects model in the context of fashion consumer behaviors. A questionnaire in which participants provided self-reported responses was created to measure the constructs. A two-step approach, a measurement and a structural model was used for the statistical analysis. The results indicated that consumers who know more about the fashion brands are more likely to have …

Support For And Behavioral Responses To Tolls: Insights From Hampton Roads, Virginia, Juita-Elena Wie Yusuf, Khairul Azfi Anuar, Lenahan L. O'Connell, David Chapman, Donta Council, Tancy Vandecar-Burdin, Meagan M. Jordan

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

This chapter analyzes the experiences with tolling in the Hampton Roads region of Southeastern Virginia to better understand residents' and drivers' support for tolls and behavioral responses to tolls. The Hampton Roads region, with its population of 1.7 million and extensive network of highways, roads, bridges, and tunnels, has a long history of toll facilities that date back to the 1920s. The most recent tunnel tolls, associated with the Elizabeth River Crossing Project and introduced in February 2014, are the focus of this chapter. This chapter analyzes two sets of survey data to provide insights that have implications for policies …

Just Culture: It's More Than Policy, Linda Paradiso, Nancy Sweeney

Ellmer School of Nursing Faculty Publications

[Description] Paradiso and Sweeney discuss the relationship between trust, just culture, and error reporting in medical care. Errors rarely occur in a vacuum, rather they're a sequence of events with multiple opportunities for correction. Clinical nurses can have a significant impact on reducing errors due to their proximity to patients. Just culture is a safe haven that supports reporting. In a just culture environment, organizations are accountable for systems they design and analysis of the incident, not the individual. The shift to a just culture is a slow process that takes years to develop and hardwire. Hospital-wide policies that incorporate …

The Handbook Of Research On Black Males: Quantitative, Qualitative, And Multidisciplinary, Rob Tench

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

A Hybrid Cognitive Architecture With Primal Affect And Physiology, Christopher L. Dancy

Faculty Journal Articles

Though computational cognitive architectures have been used to study several processes associated with human behavior, the study of integration of affect and emotion in these processes has been relatively sparse. Theory from affective science and affective neuroscience can be used to systematically integrate affect into cognitive architectures, particularly in areas where cognitive system behavior is known to be associated with physiological structure and behavior. I introduce a unified theory and model of human behavior that integrates physiology and primal affect with cognitive processes in a cognitive architecture. This new architecture gives a more tractable, mechanistic way to simulate affect-cognition interactions …

An Extension Of The Savoring Approach To Increasing Help-Seeking For Depression: Reducing Self-Focus Through A Writing Task And Savoring Psa, Tasha Straszewski

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Past depression mass media campaigns have been utilized to increase mental health literacy, decrease stigma, or a combination of the two. However, among these campaigns, some have not been effective, and some have resulted in iatrogenic effects (see Gulliver, Griffiths, & Christensen, 2010, for examples of both). In hopes of improving the effectiveness of depression campaigns, laboratory studies have utilized persuasion approaches to increase help-seeking among individuals with heightened depressive symptomatology. More recently, Siegel and Thomson (2016) turned to the utility of infusing individuals with positive emotion to increase help-seeking intentions (i.e., positive emotion infusions; PEIs) and found initial success …

The Short-Term And Long-Term Relationship Between Public Sentiment And Insurgency Violence In 3 Southern Provinces Of Thailand, Domrongphol Sangmanee

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation is aimed to developing and improving the theory on the intrastate conflict and public sentiment as well as the conventional wisdom on the conflict study as well as developing new analytical framework for studying intrastate conflict and for informing policymakers to deliver or adjust for a better policy to cope with this problem. The empirical case study is an insurgency conflict in three Southern provinces of Thailand. The study employs multivariate time-series analysis, namely Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR) and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), and empirical system dynamics analysis, namely Convergent CrossMapping (CCM). The results show that the …

The Intergenerational Transfer Of Criminal Justice Involvement: Risk And Protective Factors As Moderating Variables, Caitlin Storm

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Previous literature identified evidence of a transfer of criminal justice involvement between generations of family members. This relationship has proven especially strong between parents and children. Different demographic factors slightly alter the strength and significance of the transfer, but the established relationship between the criminal justice involvement of the parent and the increased likelihood of the child’s criminal justice involvement remains consistent. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 was used to analyze the effect of the father’s criminal justice involvement on his child’s. Using binary logistic regression models, predictor variables were included in a step-wise fashion to …

A Tacticians Guide To Conflict, Vol. 1: Advancing Explanations & Predictions Of Intrastate Conflict, Khaled Eid

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Intrastate conflict is an ever-evolving problem – causes, explanation, and predictions are increasingly murky as traditional methods of analysis focus on structural issues as precursors of conflict. Often times these theories do not consider the underlying meso and micro dynamics that can provide vital insights into the phenomena. Tactical decision-makers are left using models that rely on highly aggregated, country level data to create proper courses of actions (COAs) to address or predict conflict. The shortcoming is that conflicts morph quite rapidly and structural variables can struggle capture such dynamic changes. To address this some tacticians are using big data …

Using A Mixed Methods Approach To Study The Evolution Of Party Platforms - 1960-2016, Artour Aslanian

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Every four years, members of political parties convene in order to craft platforms in which they articulate the positions of the parties on a plethora of different issues. While not widely read, the importance of these platforms cannot be understated. They provide a lens for us in order to view the ideological shifts of the parties and often serve as a mechanism by which to guide the legislative agendas of the parties. This dissertation examines Republican and Democratic platforms written between 1960-2016 using a mixed methods approach in order to evaluate the value of using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. …

Knowledge Boundaries Shape The Cognitive And Structural Foundations Of Innovation: Dyad-Level Expertise Exchange In Teams Of Specialists, Daniel Jordan Slyngstad

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Innovation in academia and industry is increasingly achieved via complex problem solving in teams making use of knowledge from multiple areas of expertise. These expertise-diverse teams have proliferated in response to the demands of contemporary knowledge work, and members often possess intellectually distant skillsets that impose novel constraints on the means by which they must collaborate—in particular, they must rely more on distributed taskwork. Yet, research continues to place emphasis on the goal of enabling teams to achieve innovation by increasing knowledge shared in common, overcoming obstacles to cognitive parity, or via sustained periods of problem solving by the team …

Three Essays On Africa, Lisa Jené

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Part 1: Climate Change, Urbanization, and Government Responses in Sub-Saharan Africa This paper examines the relationship between climate change, rising urbanization rates, and regime types in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This project uses the national-level ND-GAIN (Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative) score and a selection of its sub-variables. The ND-GAIN score is a composite index that grades a country’s vulnerability to climatic disruptions (exogenous) as well as its readiness in terms of adaptation investment (endogenous); sub-variables used here include Governance Readiness, Vulnerability, and Adaptive Capacity. Data are used for all 49 SSA countries, over the years 1995-2016, in …

Growing From Doing Good In Later Life: Growth Themes In Narratives Of Prosocial Behavior, Laura Elizabeth Graham

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Contemporary theories consider development to be lifelong, suggesting that although aging entails considerable loss, there is still potential to grow and to remain engaged in meaningful activities. Narrative studies have revealed a host of benefits for narrating one’s life story with themes of growth and have found evidence of growth themes in personal narratives of older adults. Yet there is limited research focusing on specific experiences that elicit growth or development in older age. A significant portion of aging individuals engage in prosocial behavior, and empirical research using scales to measure well-being outcomes have revealed important benefits, but have overlooked …

Island Invasion: The Silent Crisis In Hawaii, Sophia Janssen

Pomona Senior Theses

Keeping out invasive species may, upon first review, seem like a trivial environmental cry from ecologists and deep environmentalists; a belated wish to return to an undeveloped world where nature was pristine. However invasive species create problems that impact all of us and can have far more severe consequences than changing a stunning landscape. These problems are heightened in islands like Hawaii, where the fragile ecosystems have developed over centuries of evolution and adaptation. The introduction of a disease-carrying mosquito can put the people of Hawaii at risk to many vector-born illnesses and create an epidemic, taking human life. The …

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Reforming Organized Dentistry To Address Persistent Oral Health Disparities In The U.S., Aparna Chintapalli

Pomona Senior Theses

The importance of oral health has been largely neglected from the conventional standards of healthcare in terms of public understanding & prioritization, the industrial infrastructure, and the scope of prevention & early-intervention services. Its adjunctive locus to the field of medicine has lead to the bifurcation of the oral cavity from the rest of the human body. As a result of this divide, there have been multiple factors that have allowed socially stratified oral health outcomes to manifest. This thesis examines the determinants of oral health disparities through a multidisciplinary lens (i.e. biology, public policy, infrastructure), and offers evidence of …

The Stability Paradox Of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status Backlogs: Unstable Policy Implementation For A Stability-Aimed Visa, Lanna Seline Sanchez

Pomona Senior Theses

As of May 2016, the U.S. State Department officially declared a priority date for all green cards for applicants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras that capped the number of visas granted to individuals from these three countries to just 10,000 per year. This inherently created a two to three-year backlog for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status applicants from these countries as well, meaning that SIJS petitioners will remain undocumented for periods of up to six years until their petition is adjudicated by USCIS and their priority date arrives. I research whether the increasingly difficult path to obtaining permanent residency through …

Can Uber And Lyft Save Public Transit?, Emily Zheng

Pomona Senior Theses

I examine whether Uber and Lyft are currently complements or substitutes of public transit, and how partnerships between cities and ride sharing companies can increase their complementary relationship and solve parking and mobility issues. The results suggest that transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft do not have a statistically significant effect on public transit ridership overall, but are complements of public transit for certain populations. Policies that give discounts for TNC rides taken to and from transit stops help solve the first mile / last mile problem, which consequently help increase transit ridership.

How Can California Best Promote Electric Vehicle Adoption? The Effect Of Public Charging Station Availability On Ev Adoption, Viraj Singh

Pomona Senior Theses

To promote higher air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Californian government is investing heavily in developing public charging infrastructure to meet its electric vehicle adoption goal of five million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030. This thesis investigates the effect of public charging infrastructure availability on electric vehicle adoption at the zip code level in California. The analysis considers other factors that may influence electric vehicle adoption such as education level, income, commute time, gas prices, and public transportation rate. The findings suggest that public charging infrastructure availability does significantly positively correlate with electric vehicle registrations. Linear …