Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Single Session Of Acceptance And Commitment Therapy To Promote Health-Related Behavior Change: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Monica Barreto

Dissertations

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified physical activity, nutrition, and sleep as three key health-related behaviors that can help the prevention of chronic disease. Only a fraction of the population met the recommended guidelines across these domains. It is important to develop interventions that can be simultaneously focused, flexible, efficient, and efficacious as a means of impacting population health. This study examined the efficacy of a single 60-minute Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) session targeting health-related behavior change and compared it to an information-only wait-list (WL) control condition. Forty-five collegians (Mage = 22.35 [6.91], 78% female, 56% …

From The Boots On The Ground: A Comparison Of The Attitudes And Beliefs Of Military Members And Mental Health Professionals Regarding The Moral Injury Construct, Karis L. Callaway

Dissertations

An increasing amount of research conducted in recent years indicates that, in addition to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, moral injury is a key concept to recognize when considering the deployment experiences of service members. Although related to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, which is a fear-based mental health diagnosis, moral injury is a distinct concept. It acknowledges the possible prolonged negative psychological, social, and spiritual consequences that may occur after experiences that challenge and transgress one’s deeply held moral beliefs. Events such as perpetration of harm, failing to protect or prevent harm, and witnessing or learning about distressing acts committed by influential others …

Examining The Effects Of Cell Phone Use On Caregiver Supervision And Child Injury Risk, Mckenna Corlis

Dissertations

Unintentional injuries are the leading killer of children in the United States. Research indicates caregiver supervision decreases child injury risk, but has not examined how different distractions may affect this relation. Specifically, research has not considered if and how caregiver cell phone use affects child injury risk. Given the prevalence and distracting effects of cell phones noted in previous studies, it is imperative to examine how caregiver cell phone use and child injury risk relate.

The present study examined how distractions influenced caregivers’ ability to tend to their child and their child’s engagement in risky behavior. Using a within-subjects design, …

Banking Supervisory And Regulatory Policy In Developing Countries: An Analysis Of Determinants And Impacts, Nanda Ayu Wijayanti

Dissertations

A decade after the Great Recession in 2007/2008, many developing countries are still struggling to devise appropriate policy actions that enhance banking supervision and regulation and help mitigate large-scale crises in the future. This uncertainty has also left lingering impacts on economic growth, especially in developing countries that have weak institutional mechanisms. This study examines how banking supervision and regulatory reforms are determined in the cross-national context of advanced and developing countries. Using time series, cross-sectional data on 180 countries over a period of 12 years (1999-2011), the purpose is to explore the roles of exposure of financial crisis, trade …

Pay For Success Financing: Diffusion Dynamics In The U.S., Vanessa R. Fry

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Across the United States (U.S.), communities struggle with numerous social and environmental issues while the funding to provide programmatic services to address these issues continues to diminish. As such, actors both inside and outside of government are seeking new policy solutions that both effectively and efficiently address these issues. Significant hurdles to embarking on a new policy approach exist, however, including a lack of up-front funding and a reluctance to take on the risk inherent in implementing new programs. A recent innovation in the policy domain, Pay for Success (PFS) financing, has been specifically designed to overcome these hurdles. Policy …

People's Self-Reported Encounters Of Perceiving Mind In Artificial Intelligence, Daniel Burton Shank, Alexander Gott

Psychological Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

This article presents the data from two surveys that asked about everyday encounters with artificial intelligence (AI) systems that are perceived to have attributes of mind. In response to specific attribute prompts about an AI, the participants qualitatively described a personally-known encounter with an AI. In survey 1 the prompts asked about an AI planning, having memory, controlling resources, or doing something surprising. In survey 2 the prompts asked about an AI experiencing emotion, expressing desires or beliefs, having human-like physical features, or being mistaken for a human. The original responses were culled based on the ratings of multiple coders …

Update On Electricity Customer Choice In Ohio: Competition Continues To Outperform Traditional Monopoly Regulation (Executive Summary), Andrew R. Thomas, William M. Bowen, Mark Henning, Edward Hill, Adam Kanter

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Key Findings at a Glance:

Deregulated Markets Save Ohio Electricity Consumers Billions

• Since 2011, deregulation has saved Ohio consumers $23.9 billion.
• The Study Team anticipates that savings will continue for the near term to be around $3 billion per year. However, these savings may be lost, in whole or in part, if deregulated energy markets continue to be undermined by cross subsidies.

Competition Outperforms Monopoly Regulation

• Competition has driven down average electricity prices in deregulated Midwestern states while their regulated peers have seen a steady increase in price of generated electricity.

Update On Electricity Customer Choice In Ohio: Competition Continues To Outperform Traditional Monopoly Regulation (Full Report), Andrew R. Thomas, William M. Bowen, Mark Henning, Edward W. Hill, Adam Kanter

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The purpose of this study is to provide an update to the research team’s 2016 report “Electricity Customer Choice in Ohio: How Competition Has Outperformed Traditional Monopoly Regulation” using data for 2016 through 2018.

Key Findings:

1. Since 2011, Ohio consumers have saved $23.9 billion because of deregulation.

2. Competition has driven down average electricity prices in deregulated Midwestern states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois), while their regulated peers (Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin) have seen a steady increase in price of generated electricity.

3. The Study Team anticipates that savings will continue for the near term to be around $3 billion per year. …

Blocks' Network: Redesign Architecture Based On Blockchain Technology, Moataz Hanif

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The Internet is a global network that uses communication protocols. It is considered the most important system reached by humanity, which no one can abandon. However, this technology has become a weapon that threatens the privacy of users, especially in the client-server model, where data is stored and managed privately. Additionally, users have no power over their data that store in a private server, which means users’ data may interrupt by government or might be sold via service provider for-profit purposes. Furthermore, blockchain is a technology that we can rely on to solve issues related to client-server model if appropriately …

Optimization Of Motor Performance, Lee-Kuen Chua

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

According to the OPTIMAL (Optimizing Performance Through Intrinsic Motivation and Attention of Learning) theory of motor learning, enhanced expectancies (EE), autonomy support (AS), and external focus (EF) augment the coupling of a person’s actions to intended movement goals. This goal-action coupling is postulated to boost a person’s focus on goal-related aspects of the motor task while reducing the person’s self-related thoughts, resulting in enhanced performance of skilled movements as well as in improving the acquisition outcomes for the learning of motor skills. The three studies in this compilation report were aimed at providing empirical evidence for the motor performance benefits …

Effects Associated With The Deployment Of Autonomous And Connected Vehicles: Insights From Las Vegas, Nv, Sarah Dennis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Autonomous and connected vehicles (ACVs) are quickly evolving and becoming part of our transportation systems. Adoption of this technology is largely dependent on public perceptions and comfort. The objective of this study was to evaluate public perceptions of ACVs and gain knowledge regarding potential use and important aspects towards acceptance of ACVs. Specifically, the differences in perceptions of people who have ridden an ACV are compared to those who have not. A stated preference approach was utilized, as this is an emerging technology. Two different survey questionnaires were distributed. The first survey was distributed to participants considered to be members …

A Controlled Examination Of Motivational Strategies: Reviewing Positive Consequences For Goal Achievement, Negative Consequences For Undesired Behavior, And A Relaxation Exercise, Yulia Gavrilova

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction: Motivation is an integral part of human life and one of the most fundamental aspects of behavior change. Of interest to the present study are two motivational approaches, Negative Consequences Review (NCR) and Positive Consequences Review (PCR). NCR is an intervention component originally designed as part of Family Behavior Therapy (FBT) to motivate individuals with their goals through a discussion of negative consequences associated with undesired behaviors. PCR was developed as an auxiliary component of FBT to inspire individuals’ motivation to achieve their goals through a discussion about positive consequences of reaching goals. Purpose: The purpose of this study …

Schools And Crime: An Empirical Analysis Of School Safety Measures, Heather Gilmore

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

During the 2015-2016 academic year, more than three-fourths of public schools reported having a violent, property, or other crime on their campuses (Musu-Gillette et al., 2018). While most students do not experience victimization (Musu-Gillette et al., 2018), a large portion schools do report criminal activity on campus. The desire for improved school strategies on crime is warranted, particularly as student populations continue to grow, increasing to 56.6 million students (NCES, 2018). The focus, however, has remained primarily on violence and specific types of school security measures. The purpose of this study is to close the gaps in the literature and …

Healthcare Access And Utilization By Transgender Populations: A United States Transgender Survey Study, Axenya Kachen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Transgender communities in the United States are highly marginalized and have been systematically and infrastructurally ignored due to the widespread fundamental belief that gender exists as a binary classification. The dichotomous theoretical framework of sex and gender prevented public recognition of this community as a population of interest for public health research and targeted intervention. Sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations have fought for basic human rights, including access to affordable healthcare. The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) was founded in 2003 to advocate for the advancement of equality for transgender people. In 2015, the NCTE conducted the United …

Policing Protests: An Exploratory Analysis Of Crowd Management Policies, Logan P. Kennedy

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Several policing strategies have been used to manage protest crowds over the past 50 years. Research suggests that escalated force and command and control strategies were utilized until the 1990’s (Bourne, 2011; Schweingruber, 2000), while negotiated management has emerged as a prominent protest management strategy within recent decades (Gillham, 2011; Gillham & Noakes, 2006). While literature describes the general evolution of protest strategies over time, there has been no systematic documentation of police approaches to crowd management.

This study examines police policies governing protest management to identify current U.S. police practices. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) provides …

Multi-Polygenic Risk Score Prediction Model For Bipolar Disorder, Travis Mize

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Bipolar disorder (BP), a severe mental disorder characterized by recurring manic and depressive episodes, has been shown to have a strong genetic underpinning. Current theory suggests that it is the summation of risk alleles, spread across the entirety of the genome, which contributes to the development of BP, as well as other polygenic traits. The comorbid nature of these polygenic traits are often problematic for diagnosticians as the symptomology of the disorders may vary substantially between individuals and can create diagnostic confusion. To alleviate issues such as these, a more objective measure, to be used alongside current diagnostic procedures, is …

Validating Empathy As Captured By The Meanness In Psychopathy-Self Report, Stephanie Marie Molina

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Psychopathy is a distinctive personality disorder with an array of interpersonal and affective deficits. In particular, deficits in affective and cognitive empathy skills are noted to be a central feature of psychopathy. Specifically, the construct of psychopathic meanness, which is conceptualized as a tendency to act aggressively without regard for others, is preferentially related to deficient empathy. To elucidate the relationship between psychopathic meanness and empathy, three studies were conducted utilizing the Meanness in Psychopathy-Self Report (MiP- SR). The MiP-SR is a new measure that parses apart the construct of psychopathic meanness into three factors: Malice, Coldness, and Imperviousness. MiP-SR …

The Post-Soviet Voter: Evidence From The Caucasus, Rafael Oganesyan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In western liberal democracies, voting behavior is often times characterized by sociological and psychological indicators. Party identification and issues such as the economy dominant the vote function of the electorate. In the post-Soviet space, party volatility and the competitive authoritarian nature of regimes may result in voters failing to act as agents of accountability. In this dissertation, I argue that the socio-psychological theory of voting behavior applies to post-Soviet electorate in the Caucasus. I demonstrate that Armenian and Georgian voters rely on partisanship as well as perceptions of the economy when casting electoral judgment on the incumbent party. This research …

Measuring Contextual Factors Associated With Experiential Avoidance Using A Behavior Analogue Paradigm, Meaghan M. Lewis

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between levels of state and trait experiential avoidance across two different contexts using behavior analogue methodology. Performance on the cold pressor task (threshold, tolerance, endurance, and intensity; Zettle et al., 2012) was compared to performance on a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST; Kirschbaum et al., 1993) to obtain a behavioral measure of experiential avoidance that was standardized across these four behavioral indices. Data were collected from a convenience sample of undergraduate students (N = 133) from college classrooms on the campus of Western Michigan University. …

A Comparison Of The Effects Of Sustained Silent Reading And Reciprocal Reading On Reading Motivation For Middle School Students With Reading Delays, Margaret Uwayo

Dissertations

Research suggests that secondary students with reading delays may lack reading motivation, which can be defined as the temporal reinforcement value of texts for an individual. However, reading motivation may be a critical component of their acquisition of reading proficiency. The purpose of the current study was to compare the effects of two research-based reading interventions - sustained silent reading and modified reciprocal reading - on the reading motivation of middle school students with reading delays. Participants were four 6th-grade students who were grouped into dyads in a reading intervention classroom. The primary dependent variable was book engagement under pairing …

Methodological Advances For Understanding Social Connectivity And Environmental Implications In Multi-Use Landscapes, Matthew Clark

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Integrated social-ecological systems research is challenging; complicated feedback and interactions across scales in multi-use landscapes are difficult to decouple. Novel methods and innovative data sources are needed to advance social-ecological systems research. In this thesis, we use network science as a means of explicitly assessing feedback between social and ecological systems, and internet search data to better predict visitation in protected areas. This thesis seeks to provide empirical examples of emerging social-ecological systems science methods as a precedent for resource managers on-the-ground, as well as extending the line of scientific inquiry on the subject

In the first chapter of this …

Everyday Talk: Perpetuating Cultures Of Sexual Violence On College Campuses, Sara Collins

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

While sexual violence on college campuses has always been present, recently, there has been heightened interest in ways that individuals can resist against this problematic and harmful culture. This study employs a communicative perspective grounded in social construction and relationships between power, language, and subjectivity to gain insights into the everyday talk that perpetuates rape culture. Specifically, four focus groups were conducted to understand how college students talk about dating, relationships, and sex. Qualitative analysis of the focus group transcripts revealed how women and men conceptualize the process of dating and critical analysis reveals how the talk about relationships and …

Novice Therapist Responsiveness: Description And Development, Max B. Wu

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

There is increasing empirical evidence that psychotherapy is very effective when therapists tailor interventions in ways that fit their clients’ difficulties and needs (Kramer, 2009; Snyder & Silberschatz, 2017), a concept that has been named “therapist responsiveness” in the psychotherapy literature (Bacal, 1985; Stiles, Honos-Webb, & Surko, 1998). However, the question of how therapists learn to be responsive rarely has been addressed in research (Hatcher, 2015). The central question of this study was, “How did you learn how to be responsive to clients as a novice therapist, and in what ways are you responsive?” Eleven graduate student therapist trainees were …

Consumers' Awareness And Perceptions Of Luxury Counterfeits, Murphy Aycock

Apparel Merchandising and Product Development Undergraduate Honors Theses

Counterfeiting is a global phenomenon. Because counterfeiting has drastically increased over the past several decades, it is easier for consumers to obtain counterfeited merchandise without any penalties. As the seriousness of the issue increases, companies and scholars suggest that consumer education and awareness may reduce the impact of counterfeit manufacturing.

Recently, the luxury goods industry has become one market that is highly affected by counterfeiting, due to their popularity with consumers (Phau, Teah, & Lee 2009). Based on a thorough analysis of literature, many factors have been examined that influence consumers’ attitudes and purchasing intentions towards luxury counterfeits. Results show …

The Medicalization Of Sleeplessness: Results Of U.S. Office Visit Outcomes, 2008-2015, Mairead Eastin Moloney, Gabriele Ciciurkaite, Robyn Lewis Brown

Sociology Faculty Publications

Previous analysis of U.S. physician office visits (1993–2007) indicated that the medicalization of sleeplessness was on the rise and had potentially negative implications for population health. Our study asks if the medicalization of sleeplessness at the level of patient-physician interaction has persisted over time. Using the most recent years available (2008–2015) of the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey we calculated nationally representative estimates for four sleeplessness-related outcomes of physician office visits: sleeplessness complaint, insomnia diagnosis, and prescription of benzodiazepine and non-benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotics (NBSH). To test for the significance of the linear trajectory, we ran a series of bivariate linear models. …

Machine Translation For Crimean Tatar To Turkish, M. GöKırmak, F. M. Tyers, Jonathan North Washington

Linguistics Faculty Works

In this paper a machine translation system for Crimean Tatar to Turkish is presented. To our knowledge this is the first Machine Translation system made available for public use for Crimean Tatar, and the first such system released as free and open source software. The system was built using Apertium, a free and open source machine translation system, and is currently unidirectional from Crimean Tatar to Turkish. We describe our translation system, evaluate it on parallel corpora and compare its performance with a Neural Machine Translation system, trained on the limited amount of corpora available.

Zika-Related Knowledge, Attitudes, And Practices: Programmatic Implications For Zika Prevention In Honduras, Breakthrough Research

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This brief provides key insights for implementers of social and behavior change activities for Zika prevention in Honduras, based on data from a representative sample of people living in selected USAID Zika program implementation communities, supporting an evidence-based approach to increase Zika and other Aedes aegypti-transmitted virus prevention behaviors.

Do Voucher Students Attain Higher Levels Of Education? Extended Evidence From The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Patrick J. Wolf, John F. Witte, Brian Kisida

School Choice Demonstration Project

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the first modern private school choice program in the United States, has grown from 341 students attending 7 private schools in 1990 to 27,857 students attending 126 private schools in 2019. The MPCP has been subject to extensive study focused largely on student performance on standardized tests. This study presents new data on the college enrollment, persistence, and graduation of MPCP and MPS students who were tracked over 12 years beginning in 2006. MPCP participants are compared with a matched sample of MPS students who lived in the same neighborhood and had similar demographic …

Biosecurity Council Visit To Kununurra August 2019, Biosecurity Council Of Western Australia

Biosecurity published reports

In late 2018, the Biosecurity Council committed to holding regional meetings, possibly annually. The intent of regional meetings are to:

• Engage with local/regional stakeholders on biosecurity matters
• Build networks/relationships with key biosecurity stakeholders
• Provide a conduit to government/agencies for local/regional biosecurity stakeholders.

Council agreed to hold its first regional visit in Kununurra, located in the East Kimberley. The East Kimberley, has a unique set of biosecurity challenges — Kununurra is an important horticulture growing region, there is a large pastoral presence, it adjoins the Northern Territory (NT) border and is in close proximity to Indonesia, it is a hub for …

Enhancing Respectful Maternal Care During Labor And Delivery, Breakthrough Research

Reproductive Health

This brief informs national ministries of Health, health system officials, staff and clients, implementing partners, and donors of innovative ways to improve women's experiences during labor and delivery. ideas42, in partnership with Safe Motherhood 360+ and the Chipata District Health Office in Zambia, under the Breakthrough RESEARCH project, used behavioral design to analyze contextual features and behavioral barriers to respectful maternal care in urban and rural health care settings. Behavioral design revealed new insights into why health care providers may not follow best practices for respectful maternal care, and resulted in a set of simple, adaptable low cost solutions to …