Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Economic Analysis Of The Short-Term Rental Market: Local Regulatory Decisions, Joseph L. Kauffman, Harrison D. Hooper

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

In recent years, short-term home rental companies such as Airbnb and Vacation Rentals by Owner (VRBO) have grown in popularity throughout the United States and the world. The lack of regulation of this rapid growth, which stemmed from the legal grey area these rentals fall under, caused some states to adopt specific regulatory policies. These regulatory policies attempt to better monitor this sector, to tax rental earnings, and to reduce perceived negative externalities to this new market. This thesis researches the benefits and costs that short-term rentals (STRs) provide to cities and the regulatory implications on the growing rental market. …

Understanding Issues Of Exclusivity Surrounding Shared Mobility Devices In Harrisonburg, Virginia., Katherine E. Stankard

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This project aims to understand the factors associated with micromobility and shared mobility devices that contribute to inequitable access in local transportation systems. While there are many factors of inequity, I will focus on the intersection of policy and gender in a number of selected cities. The compendium of selected cities should serve as a guide to policymakers and communities that are seeking to add or regulate shared mobility devices into preexisting transportation networks. Through looking at various pilot programs and policy created by these cities, I will outline a number of recommended measures for Harrisonburg, and small cities more …

The Army National Guard: Recruitment, Retention, And The Balance Of Life, Stephanie N. Ashwell

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

The National Guard is an institution with a history older than the United States. Members are drawn to Guard service for a variety of reasons, and they face a range of difficulties as they manage their experiences in the Guard and in their civilian lives. This project offers a small case study, based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews, with six current or former Guard members. Findings highlight that these members experienced a range of frustrations that clustered around issues of recruitment, retention, and the balance of life. The purpose of this study was to gain a better idea of what are …

Memorable Messages And Young Adults’ Sexual Beliefs And Behaviors, Caroline D. Ryan

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This study aimed to understand the relationship between college-aged young adults’ memorable messages from parents about sex and their sexual beliefs and behaviors. Previously studied memorable message themes from Holman and Koenig Kellas (2018) were adapted to collect quantitative data from respondents (N = 420) through an online, self-report questionnaire. Students’ recalled conversations with their parent(s) were widely consistent with Holman and Koenig Kellas’s (2018) six themes. Ultimately, the memorable message theme was found to have no significant relationship with participants’ attitudes, intentions, self-efficacy, or response efficacy for safer sexual behaviors. However, those who recalled messages consistent with the …

The Effects Of Childhood Trauma On Romantic Support And Adult Problem Behavior, Keiva R. Brannigan

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are a common topic in research investigating outcomes of abused or traumatized children. Previous literature on ACEs have established that high levels of ACEs are associated with both higher levels of problem behaviors in adulthood and lower quality of support in romantic relationships in adolescence/early adulthood. However, the potential for high levels of romantic support and other healthy relationship qualities to act as a buffer against the negative effects of ACEs on later problem behaviors has yet to be addressed in the literature. Thus, the present study utilizes data from an ongoing longitudinal study on social …

Engagement Behaviors On Social Media In Higher Education: Content Analysis Study On Facebook Pages Of 12 Universities, Caroline E. Jessup

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This study provides insight into factors that influence audience engagement behaviors on the official Facebook pages of higher education institutions. Many current and prospective students at universities, as well as recent alumni, are looking at Facebook as a way to gather information and build trust with colleges. Similarly, organizations such as universities see social media as the most effective way to reach their publics and build relationships with them. However, there is little literature that illustrates what factors such as inclusion of pictures, hashtags, hyperlink and even size and region of university affect audience engagement on Facebook. A content analysis …

Trump’S 2016 Campaign, The Republican Party, And Trade, John Huebler

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This paper explores the 2016 Trump campaign's position on trade. It starts from the perspective of a Republican Party that has traditionally focused on promoting free trade and an executive branch that had been seemingly designed structurally to promote free trade. The Trump campaign was a drastic change in both standards as it successfully advocated more protectionist positions. The paper looked at all of Trump's 2016 campaign documents and compiled ones focusing on trade. Through a qualitative analysis, this is contrasted against previous Republican presidential campaigns. Ultimately, the Trump administration had pursued a novel strategy of using a protectionist platform …

Place-Based Policy: An Essay In Two Parts, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

Place-based policies that increase jobs in local labor markets can have large benefits, but current policies need reforms. Local job growth can have large benefits by increasing local employment-to-population ratios (employment rates). These employment rate benefits are larger if jobs are created in local labor markets that are distressed, or if new jobs are matched to the local nonemployed. Current place-based policies are mostly business tax incentives, provided by state and local governments. These incentives are costly per job actually created by the incentive. More cost-effective job creation are public services to businesses, such as customized job training or business …

Leading Lad(Y) In Love: Gender And Agency In Two Self-Reflective Romantic Comedies, Cristina Montemorano

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

What can romantic comedies with satirical elements tell us about the romantic comedy genre and romance in general? This senior seminar paper explores two self-reflective films – Isn’t it Romantic (2019) starring Rebel Wilson and Playing it Cool (2014) starring Chris Evans – that simultaneously break and follow this genre’s norms, actively parodying genre conventions and themes. Montemorano’s examination of gender and agency uses a combination of content and comparative analyses in order to study if the gender of main characters impacts how a movie follows or breaks genre conventions, how satire reveals and perpetuates gender and filmic norms, and …

Effects Of Emotional Valence And Depth Of Processing On Memory, Lauren Tyndall, Matthew Murphy

Honors Theses

This study looks at the relationship between emotionally charged words and the depth at which information is processed and how this relationship affects memory. It is predicted that emotional stimuli make the depth of processing process easier, resulting in emotionally charged words being recalled most frequently. Participants were presented with stimuli using a word task and then took a memory test. Responses to the memory test were measured via Qualtrics. Due to small sample size, the results did not conclusively indicate whether or not emotional valence and depth of processing interact to affect memory. There was no significant interaction between …

"We Are Forgotten." Framing Disaster Via Twitter In The Aftermath Of Hurricane Maria: Implications For Social Work Policy Practice, Barbe A. Fogarty

Social Work Doctoral Dissertations

This work presents a comprehensive study of the disaster discourses generated by key social media user groups in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria, the third most destructive hurricane in American history, resulted in billions of dollars in damage and the loss of nearly 3,000 lives. Disasters result in widespread geophysical impacts as well as social, political, and economic upheavals for individuals, families, communities, and nation-states in the storm’s wake. The discourses that emerge on social media are significant in how they frame public narratives in the aftermath of disaster. The social construction of disaster points …

The Perceived Impact Of Basic Need Insecurity On Social Work Student Success, Amy B. Downes

Social Work Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the lived experiences of undergraduate social work students who self-identify with struggling to meet their basic needs. Through individual in-depth semi-structured interviews coupled with photo-elicitation, several important considerations for social work educators and leaders emerged including: how undergraduate social work students define success; academic, social and financial barriers to learning; work-school balance; strategies for coping; messages for social work faculty and college/university administrators about their experience; adverse childhood events; and, the role of the academic advisor. The findings of this study can be utilized to help inform social work faculty …

The Effects Of Acute Exercise And Psychological Stress On Episodic Memory, Lauren Koehler

Honors Theses

Research has suggested that exercise has an effect on memory function. Studies have also shown that exercise mitigates the effects of stress. The relationship between exercise and stress in regard to memory function is noteworthy. There has been little research on this relationship in young adults. This thesis discusses the effects of acute exercise on the episodic memory of young adults when they are exposed to a psychosocial stressor. The results of the research study show that acute aerobic exercise before memory encoding or consolidation was not associated with memory function after exposure to a stressor. Future research in this …

The Collapse Of A Communist Giant: A Study Of Party Unity In The Soviet Union, Jillian Vice

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to analyze the breakdown of the unity of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) over policy disputes through three case studies: the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the cooperative movements, and the concessionist policy towards nationalist movements in the Baltic republics. Through a content analysis of primary sources including meeting minutes, diaries, newspaper sources and interviews, to ascertain the positions and opinions of party members and give insight into the party dialogue and atmosphere, revealing policy disagreements tied to contending values. This thesis finds that there was a breakdown in party unity during the Gorbachev era due …

Feminism And Low Breastfeeding Rates In France, Megan Wadsworth

Honors Theses

Breastfeeding rates in France are among the lowest in high-income countries, indicating that French mothers do not breastfeed for nearly as long as is recommended by healthcare professionals and international health organizations. French government, society and conflicting feminist perspectives all influence the likelihood that mothers will breastfeed. The French government has regulations in place to protect women’s right to breastfeed in public and in the workplace, but it is unclear if these are truly beneficial for French women. French society is a seemingly inhospitable environment in which mothers do not feel safe and secure to breastfeed publicly. Motherhood and feminism …

James Crow Jr., Esquire And Voter Suppression, Samantha Henderson

Honors Theses

This thesis lays out Voter ID laws and the effects they have on minorities. A new era of Jim Crow legislation in the 21st century as referred to by the well-respected, civil activist, Al Sharpton, as James Crow Jr., Esquire, creating laws that negatively impact voting. “Fait accompli,” a term used to describe the plight and pressure put upon the minority who are already at a disadvantage because the laws are established to discriminate against them. How can a silenced group change legislation when they cannot access the ballot? I will explore Supreme Court cases such as Yick Wo v. …

Constitutional War Powers Of The United States: The Founding Prescription And Historical Adherence, Blake Annexstad

Honors Theses

When crafting the United States Constitution, America’s Founders carefully prescribed an institutional balance of the Nation’s war powers between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. To examine the intentions of the Founders regarding the Nation’s war powers as well as how American leadership has adhered to this intent post-ratification, this study carefully analyzes the circumstances which compelled this balance as well as its application throughout the history of the American experiment. Following an examination of these circumstances and the history of the United States, it is clear that American leadership, despite adhering to the Founders’ intentions for …

Creating And Using A Publicly Available Multimodal Transportation Data Archive, Tammy Lee, Kristin A. Tufte

PSU Transportation Seminars

PORTAL provides a centralized, electronic database that facilitates the collection, archiving, and sharing of data and information for public agencies within the region. The data stored in PORTAL includes 20-second granularity loop detector data from freeways in the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region, arterial signal data, travel time data, weather data, incident data, VAS/VMS message data, truck volumes, transit data, and arterial signal data. Many of these data feeds are received by PORTAL in real time or on a daily basis and for most, the retrieval and archiving process is fully automated.

BikePed Portal: Jurisdictions around the country are collecting non-motorized …

Examining Black Art Therapy Graduate Students' Experiences With Racial Battle Fatigue, Marilyn Holmes

Art Therapy Counseling Final Research Projects

ABSTRACT Examining Black Art Therapy Graduate Student’s Experiences with Racial Battle Fatigue by Marilyn Holmes Chairperson: Jayashree George, DA, ATR-BC, LMFT, SEP Racial Battle Fatigue (RBF) is a term used to describe the psychological and physiological symptoms Black students experience after repeated exposure to microaggressions in higher academic settings (Smith, Yosso, & Solorzano, 2006). In this study, I sought to explore the specific experiences with RBF of current and former Black art therapy in their graduate programs and supervision. Supervision is an essential and necessary aspect of art therapy education that involves power dynamics that can be complicated by race. …

St. Ignatius' Quill Pen: Exploring The Orality-Literacy Difficulty In The Spiritual Exercises, Hongchao Qian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Informed by the work of Walter Ong, in the first prelude of the First Week in the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola used an emblematical image, the “prison-cage”, to provide phenomenological accounts for the exercitants to examine the existential situation within. This dissertation explores into the difficulty of being rhetorical in mediating on the existential situation emblematically. I try to understand the orality-literacy dynamic within the Exercises through the theoretical framework of semiotic phenomenology. The Ignatian emblematics can be understood as phenomenological descriptions that asked the exercitants to provide the parts of moral-phenomenological reductions and phenomenological interpretations within …

Supporting Biracial Students Through An Equity Lens: Multicultural Literature And Advocacy In School Libraries, Jacqueline Ahlborn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biracial students make up a substantial allocation of the school population, and their demographics are only expected to increase within the coming years. With this emergence of a larger Biracial community, schools need to consider how they will implement equitable resources and practices to meet the needs for this unique population. School librarians, serving as instructional leaders, can provide the necessary materials and strategies to support their students who are Biracial in order to foster positive racial identity. The purpose of this study is to explore school librarians’ perspectives on the influence of multicultural literature on students’ acceptance and understanding …

Climate Change Impacts On Amazonian And Arctic Indigenous Tribes, Olivia G. Thayer

CHP 218 Exploring North American Indian Societies

This paper aims to touch upon the various climatic impacts on two differing indigenous tribes. The Amazon Rainforest and Arctic is home to a variety of native tribes. As climate change intensifies, these different groups are faced with differing impacts that has had a major impacts on their daily lives.

Adolescent Social Experiences And Anxiety As Predictors Of Adult Romantic Jealousy, Jordan E. Gamache

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Romantic jealousy has been categorized as one of the most destructive emotions in romantic relationships, implicated as a significant predictor of negative relational outcomes such as domestic abuse, depression, and suicide (Pfieffer & Wong, 1989). Despite this, little research has examined the development of romantic jealousy, and, more specifically its connection to adverse social experiences in early adolescence. This study examines peer dislike, number of residential moves, and friend betrayal in early adolescence as predictors of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral jealousy in young adult romantic relationships. Anxiety-related factors of rejection sensitivity, general anxiety, and trust are also analyzed as potential …

Analyzing The Onset And Resolution Of Nonstate Conflict In The Middle East & North Africa, Emily A. Barbaro

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

By applying structural-functionalist theories of deviance and opposition, this thesis deconstructs nonstate mobilization in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Using data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset, the quantitative analysis interpreted both group and leader behavior in conflict situations to determine factors that influenced conflict onset and resolution. The quasipoisson regression analysis of group behavior suggested that polity and state capacity were both significant predictors of violent and nonviolent mobilization. The negative binomial regression of regime behavior suggested that civilian casualties were the most significant predictor of a government response to nonstate mobilization. Ultimately, the …

Naming The Pain: A Model And Method For Therapeutically Assessing The Psychological Impact Of Racism, Connesia Handford

Dissertations, 2020-current

This study is an exploratory applied research project piloting a therapeutic assessment model and method for addressing racial trauma. Therapeutic Assessment for the Psychological Impact of Racial Encounters (TAPIRE) hopes to illuminate the impact of racial trauma, process racial identity and experience, and explore effective intervention techniques to address a client’s particular relationship with racial identity and distress. Four measures, in addition to a clinical interview, were used to assess different aspects of one’s identity structure, racist experiences, and self-treatment. The four-session process concluded with each participant receiving an assessment report that included information gathered as well as an individualized …

Impacts Of An International Professional Development Program: A Qualitative Study, Marijn W. T. De Waal

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This qualitative study with phenomenological components examined the impacts of a U.S. State Department-funded teacher professional development program, hosted at a liberal-arts university on the east coast of the United States in the spring semester of 2018. An initial review of the public literature revealed that it was challenging to find evaluation data pertaining to this particular program or ones of a similar nature. Through semi-structured synchronous online interviews with five program alumni, the researcher probed if—and if so, how—the professional development (PD) program had made the intended impacts on participants’ (1) teaching methods/curriculum, (2) content knowledge in their personal …

The Embeddedness Of Racial Microaggressions In International Student Experiences At The University Of Mississippi, Morgan Blythe

Honors Theses

This study explores the lived experiences of international students at the University of Mississippi (UM). Using a phenomenological approach, the participants’ stories were understood and offered as a counter-narrative to existing literature dominated by White Americans. The interviews were processed through the lens of Critical Race Theory, specifically the microaggressions framework to account for modern-day racism as it evolves alongside culture. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with international students at UM ranging from exchange to PhD candidates. These participants are from various countries around the globe, chosen through convenience sampling. The interviews were coded using NVivo12. The results of this …

An Evaluation Of Community Based Food Intervention: Cooking Matters In Charleston, Ms, Lindsay Fournier

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of Cooking Matters classes in producing improvement in individuals’ cooking skills and confidence, as well as their eating behaviors, shopping skills, and perceptions of cooking in rural Charleston, MS. These classes have reported great success in more urban areas such as Atlanta, GA; Philadelphia, PA; and Washington, DC; however, different challenges may be faced in rural Mississippi. To study the effectiveness of the interventions in a new context, pre- and post-intervention self-report surveys were performed and evaluated using Wilcoxon statistical analysis as well as paired sample t tests, and bootstrap …

The Effects Of Narrative Processing On False Recall, Calista Spears

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to test whether false memory intrusions occur at a greater rate when participants encode words in a narrative processing scenario, as compared to a survival scenario or a pleasantness condition. In each condition, the participants were presented with one list of words related to an unlisted critical word adapted from Stadler, Roediger, and McDermott’s (1999) norms. For each condition (narrative, survival, and pleasantness), participants read a set of instructions and processed words by writing things related to the condition (i.e., writing a story line using the word, listing how the word would be used …

The Roots Of Wellbeing: Positive Effects Of Nature Writing, Grace Turner

Honors Theses

Fostering healthy relationships between humans and the environment is beneficial for people and for the natural world around us. Efforts to foster these relationships are more important now than ever before due to the rapid deterioration of the climate and the growing divide between people and nature. There is abundant research documenting the positive physical, psychological, and social effects of time spent in nature, such as positive mood, life satisfaction, connection to nature, pro-environmental behavior, and feelings of transcendence. However, actual experiences in nature may be inconvenient, inaccessible, or otherwise unavailable. Addressing this concern, researchers are now examining the possible …