Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Examining Boundary Conditions To The Attitude Consistency Effect, Dylan Blaum

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Research on the impact of attitudes on argument processing has found that attitudes and beliefs can impact evaluation and processing, but has not deeply explored boundary conditions to this attitude consistency effect. This dissertation investigates three types of boundary conditions to this effect: whether the quality of the argument matters (argument quality), whether the individual’s strength of that attitude matters (attitude strength), and whether the evaluative nature of the task matters (task).

In Experiment 1, I found some support for argument quality as a boundary condition to the attitude consistency effect. Attitude consistent arguments were rated as higher quality/stronger than …

A Qualitative Study: Black Male College Students’ Perceptions Of Campus Law Enforcement Officers On A College Campus, Junelle M. Bennett

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Black males are often the recipients of police brutality, criminal stereotyping, and inequitable treatment in higher education. This qualitative study examined the experiential narratives of 15 Black male college students’ perception towards law enforcement officers. The data was collected via one-on-one interviews, concluded with a focus group, and then presented in narrative forums. The participants’ feelings, attitudes, or beliefs about themselves as Black males significantly contributed to their inherent identification of the cultural challenges associated with law enforcement officers. The participants’ personal and vicarious life experiences prior to enrolling into higher education were significant to the authentic comprehension of the …

The Influence Of Student Discipline Practices On Students, School Climate And Culture, Matthew J. Clark

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The enactment of Senate Bill 100/Public Act 099-0456 (SB100) in 2016 compelled school districts throughout Illinois to evaluate student discipline policies. This dissertation examines the impact SB100 had on middle and high schools throughout the state and within a large suburban K-12 school district. This dissertation is organized into three separate papers. Paper 1 provides a historical context for disciplinary practices used for students in public schools both in Illinois and throughout the country and explores new discipline practices that have emerged since the passing of SB100. Paper 2 examines the implementation of SB100 through an SDT framework to investigate …

Investigating Achievement And Mental Health Through The Dual-Factor Model, Kelly Clark

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

School professionals are charged not only with advancing students’ content knowledge, but also with developing their social and emotional skills; however, adolescence is a period in which many individuals experience declines in academic performance and mental health. The current study investigated associations between grit, academic grit, and growth mindset with academic achievement, subjective well-being, and psychopathology. Second, this study examined the demographic makeup of mental health groups posited by the dual-factor model of mental health, as well as group-level differences in grit, academic grit, growth mindset, and academic achievement across mental health groups identified through latent profile analysis. Adolescents (N …

Environmental Discriminators For Significant Tornadoes And Hail In The U.S. Using Proximity Soundings, Cody Michael Converse

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Over the last 50 years, the United States has experienced an increase in severe storm events that produced $1 billion in damages or greater. Much of this loss is attributed to significant tornadoes and hail associated with deep, moist convection. Improving forecasts for these significant events assist in mitigating the impacts of these events. Previous work has identified statistically significant environmental parameters associated with severe thunderstorms, but more research is needed in identifying statistically significant ingredients associated with environments that produce significant tornadoes and hail.

This thesis aims to answer the following question: “Can diagnostics commonly used to forecast for …

On The Verge Of Violence: How Bar Staff Manage Trouble Customers, Anthony Paul Cusumano

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

How do bouncers and bartenders utilize interpersonal management scripts to handle routinely encountered trouble customers? My study addresses this question and shows how bar staff remedy trouble behaviors without use of force, as well as demonstrates that bartenders play just as pivotal a role in managing those behaviors as bouncers. The data from in-depth interviewing was analyzed through a framework of trouble sociology and the dramaturgical perspective. Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and coded into thematic categories based on frameworks and emergent themes. From the data, bar staff identified three major types of trouble customers (entitled, inebriated, creepy) and described …

Harsh Parenting And Familism: Examining The Influence Of Cultural Schemata On Parental Reactions To Child Transgressions, America Lizbeth Davila

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Milner’s (1993, 2000) Social Information Processing (SIP) model of child physical abuse proposes that pre-existing schemata (e.g., belief structures, scripts) influence how parents process information during parent-child interactions, which in turn influences parental responses (e.g., corporal punishment). The purpose of the present study was to examine attitudinal familism (beliefs about unity and commitment/duty towards family) as a pre-existing schema that influences parents’ interpretations, attributions, affective, and behavioral responses to child transgressions. Parents (N = 106) were asked to read vignettes describing child transgressions and report their anticipated cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses. In addition, parents reported on their perceived social …

Writing And Well-Being: Comparing Varied Expressive Writing Tasks On Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms And Life Satisfaction, Zena Dadouch

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Frontline treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been extensively researched, and there is significant support for their efficacy in decreasing PTSD symptomatology and improving life quality. However, the treatments seem to be burdensome, as a significant minority does not improve or drops out before the continuation of treatment. This pattern could be explained partially by the time commitment, cost of and access to treatment, and the resulting emotional overload. Therefore, it is useful to explore other avenues that could lead to improvements in symptomatology and well-being and that are more accessible and manageable. One possible direction is expressive writing …

The Roles Of Rumination And Social Support In Victimization And Depression, Nicole Dorio

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Unfortunately, bullying is a common phenomenon many adolescent students experience during middle school (National Center for Education Statistics, 2015). Given the negative outcomes often associated with experiencing victimization, it is important to understand the underlying mechanisms involved in these associations as well as potential protective factors (Nakamoto & Schwartz, 2010). Using 89 students in grades 5 through 8, the current study focused on the negative outcome of depression and it explored rumination as a mediator in this association. Additionally, the roles of gender and social support (from parents, teachers, and close friends) were explored within this mediation model as moderators. …

A Comparison Of Bdsm Sadism And Everyday Sadism In Multiple Adult Populations, Jennifer Erickson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Research has begun to investigate subclinical levels of sadism including “everyday sadism:” an enjoyment of cruelty in normal, everyday situations. Thus far, subclinical sadism has been conceptualized as inherently antisocial, as with Internet trolls. I examined a potentially prosocial manifestation of sadism: self-identified sadists in the BDSM community who cause pain only to consenting partners. 532 BDSM practitioners and nonpractitioners completed measures of everyday sadism with consent explicit, nonconsent explicit, or consent ambiguous, and known correlates of everyday sadism (empathy, HEXACO traits, and Dark Triad traits). Consistent with hypotheses, the general adult sample demonstrated negative correlations between everyday sadism and …

The Emotions Of Science: Using Social Media To Gauge Public Emotions Toward Research Topics, Cole C. Freeman

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Online and in the real world, communities are bonded together by emotional consensus around core issues. Emotional responses to scientific findings often play a pivotal role in these core issues. When there is too much diversity of opinion on topics of science, emotions flare up and give rise to conflict. This conflict threatens positive outcomes for research. Emotions have the power to shape how people process new information. They can color the public's understanding of science, motivate policy positions, even change lives. And yet little work has been done to evaluate the public's emotional response to science using quantitative methods. …

The Influence Of The Type Of Supernatural And Paranormal Media On The Belief In The Various Forms Of Supernatural And Paranormal Phenomena, Mellissa Halsey

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis compares the consumption of the three different types of media: reality, live action fictional, and animated fictional, and the belief in the different types of supernatural and paranormal belief. The various phenomena addressed in this thesis were angels, demons, ghosts, psychics, aliens/UFOS, zombies, and Bigfoot. Models were created to test the belief level of each specific phenomena type against each of the three types of media, if enough media examples existed of each phenomena type. This type of analysis was used so that each media could be considered separately and then compared to each other. The hypotheses were …

The Effect Of Tax Policy On Firm Behavior And Executive Pay Components, Sheikh Touhidul Haque

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The first chapter of this dissertation is motivated by the cross-sectional differences in the willingness of firms to minimize tax based on their financial structure. We investigate whether ”financially constrained” firms increase tax aggressiveness compared to it’s immediate ”less constrained” condition in response to an exogenous state tax increase. We also test whether our prediction holds true for financially distressed firms. Our identification strategy exploits 43 increases in corporate income tax rates staggered across 23 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., between 1989 and 2012. Our results reveal that constrained firms (as ranked by Kaplan & Zingales (1997) index (KZ index …

The Score Of A Lifetime: Women's Amateur League Basketball Players, Arissa I. Harrison

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This research examines a predominately African American women’s professional amateur basketball league located on the Westside of Chicago, known as ASWBL Chicago Pro Am. The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of amateur league team membership on the development and continued support of women players, in particular self-esteem, confidence, and empowerment. This study also presents the common issues women amateur basketball players are faced with, such as stereotypes and analyze how basketball influences their intersectional identities. Through the application of feminist theory and an analysis of ethnography and 15 semi-structured interviews with women from ASWBL, many experiences …

In The Know Or Out Of The Loop: Examining The Impact Of (Not) Knowing High Potential Designation, Elizabeth A. Hanrahan

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The cultivation and development of high potential employees has been a main focus of most talent management sectors of organizations, regardless of field or context. While practitioners have been moving in this space for quite a while, academicians are only recently starting to conduct investigations on high potential employees. There are many critical aspects of best in class high potential programs – the accurate identification of high potential employees being one of the first pivotal steps.

High potential identification can be tricky for several reasons: the very definition of potential is oftentimes unclear, traditional selection decisions made for high potential …

Feminism And Message Alignment Within Girl Scout Camps, Emily Susan Hinrichsen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

There has been a recent move in the United States for individuals and organizations toactively empower girls and women, provide them with equal opportunities, and help them build confidence. One organization that has been pursuing these goals is Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), and Girl Scout camp is a specific setting in which the organization communicates empowerment, leadership, and inclusion to its members. This study utilized a feminist lens to explore message alignment within GSUSA, focusing on Girl Scout campers and Girl Scout camp staff as two important stakeholders who receive messaging from the organization. The researcher evaluated the …

Liberalism And The Problem Of Compassion In Rousseau, Smith, And Tocqueville, Lewis Hoss

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Liberal democracy has historically owed its attractiveness to the promise of a more compassionate society structured around pluralistic and tolerant principles. Yet recent events in western democracies seem to indicate a lack of compassionate social bonds. Why has a politics of compassion failed to materialize and what must be done to make good on the original promise of liberal democracy? To answer these questions, I provide a historically and theoretically grounded account of compassion as a principle of liberalism, with special attention to the political thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Alexis de Tocqueville. In particular, I seek to …

Perceived Dissimilarity And Meeting Interpersonal Engagement: A Within-Person Investigation, Ruth Aniekan Imose

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

I tested a new model of perceived dissimilarity on meeting interpersonal engagement drawing from models of diversity and emotional labor and conceptualizations of interpersonal engagement in the literature. In doing so, this investigation merged the burgeoning meeting science field with more recent focuses and methods from the emotional labor literature to advance our understanding of how diversity impacts the individual experience of dissimilarity in the workplace. Furthering the notion of dynamism in diversity’s effects, the current study investigated meetings as a context that may affect shifts in one’s perception of dissimilarity due to variable attendee composition.

The perception of dissimilarity …

Relative Deprivation And Xenophobia: Patterns Of Anti-Vietnamese Radicalism Among Cambodia's Opposition Parties From 1993 - Present, Ratanak Khun

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Anti-Vietnamese sentiment has been the most highly displayed rhetoric by generations of Cambodian politicians. In contemporary Cambodia, the opposition parties have actively engaged in tirades aimed at the Vietnamese and the ruling CPP which came to power with Vietnamese military support in 1979. How are we to explain the hatred against the Vietnamese in Cambodia? From the examination of the activities of the BLDP, the royalist FUNCINPEC, and the CNRP, we conclude that relative deprivation of a role of power on the political stage emerges as a potential factor that explains why members of Cambodian opposition parties have taken a …

Comparing Modern Day Acquisition Costs Of Trafficked Individuals: Implications For Anti-Trafficking Measures, Chelsea Reneé Dillane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The acquisition process of trafficked individuals varies case by case around the world, with human traffickers using various methods of acquisition and paying a range of costs to obtain these individuals. While research on the acquisition methods of traffickers is expansive, research on acquisition costs is relatively small and is mostly covered by Kevin Bales and Siddharth Kara. This study examined acquisition costs of trafficked individuals around the world in order to identify themes and patterns of acquisition, with the goal of informing preventative anti-trafficking efforts aimed at the acquisition process of human trafficking. The main finding of this research …

Ethnic-Racial Identity And Psychological Adjustment: An Examination Of Identity Coherence And Identity Confusion As Mediators, Cara Allen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The current dissertation project investigated relationships among ethnic-racial identity, identity coherence, identity confusion, and self-esteem in an ethnic minority sample. Consistent with previous research, ethnic-racial identity was related to identity coherence. Also consistent with previous research were the findings that identity coherence and identity confusion are differentially associated with self-esteem. Mediation analysis revealed that the relationship between one form of ethnic-racial identity, ethnic-racial identity commitment, and self-esteem was mediated by identity coherence. This mediated relationship was not moderated by gender, ethnicity, or immigration status. However, the relationship between identity coherence and self-esteem was moderated by college experience.

Shyness Mindset And Sexual Harassment Responses Among Female College Students, Jessica Rose Winder

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Sexual harassment is a common problem that has negative consequences on society as a whole and on individual well-being. Confronting sexual harassers has been shown to be an effective response. Victims of sexual harassment are also encouraged to report harassment. Sexual harassment has been associated with internalizing responses, such as depression and decreased self-esteem. These responses could negatively influence confronting and reporting behaviors. This study draws from previous mindset research. Results from this prior research showed evidence that shyness mindset affects responses to peer victimization among adolescents and college students. This study hypothesized that shyness mindset among female college students …

Pursuing Procedural Justice In Sustainability Policy: Assessing The Linkage Between Political Culture And Municipal Efforts, Meng Yuan

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

How does the political culture of local governments influence the type and extent of procedural justice in sustainability policy processes? Answering this question is important because political culture is potentially a significant influence on local governments that could be better conceptualized and theorized and because public participation in sustainability policy processes is central to the demands of procedural justice in environmental justice (EJ) movements. This dissertation seeks to bring a new conception and new measures of political culture to the study of policy making by local governments as well as to contribute to developing the conceptualization and measurement of public …

An Examination Of Quantity And Quality Of Maternal Consulting Predicting Adolescents' Socio-Emotional Outcomes, Natalie Low

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This observational investigation had two aims. The first aim examined the independent associations of the quantity and quality of maternal consulting and early adolescents’ socio-emotional outcomes. The second aim assessed the moderation effect of the quality of maternal consulting on the relationship between the quantity of maternal consulting and early adolescents’ outcomes. Seventy early adolescents (Mage=12.39 years old) and their mothers participated in the study. The sample was 51.4% girls and 48.6% boys. Mothers and their early adolescents were video recorded discussing typical hypothetical peer-related situations. Conversations were coded for the amount of consulting and four aspects of quality: feasibility, …

Modern Mandala: A Transnational History Of Southeast Asians From Burma, Malaya, And Thailand, 1950-1970., Joann Losavio

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation documents cultural processes of decolonization and nation-building in the mid-twentieth century between 1950 and 1970 between Southeast Asia and the West, specifically between Burma, Malaya, Thailand, and Great Britain and the United States, as they occurred through transnational connections, migrations, spaces, and exchanges. This study proposes transnational factors were critical in such cultural processes, and proves this point through the examination of three case studies.

The first focuses on Malayan students in Great Britain in the early 1950s and how a group of them expressed anti-colonial ideas and desires for their own independent nation in a student journal, …

Gender Differences In The Experience Of Power And The Underlying Mechanism Of Status, Jasmin Martinez

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the differential experiences of men and women with regard to the possession of power. Power—or the unequal control, influence, and access to resources, people, and things—is a byproduct of the hierarchical order that forms in a multitude of social contexts. As well as being unequally held, power is also unequally exercised. This study aims to understand the differences between men’s and women’s experience of power through the lens of another hierarchical variable: social status. One area with large implications for the impact of unequal power is within the workplace. Past literature has found that women and men …

Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia, Behavioral Inhibition/Activation, And Behavioral Response To A Distressed Infant Simulator In Emerging Adults, Erin R. Mckay

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Caregiver sensitivity and intrusiveness during infancy are predictive of the development of self-regulation, joint-attention, and cognitive ability. However, few studies have examined predictors of caregiver responses to infant distress. Of particular note is vagal tone, specifically respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a physiological measure of top-down self-regulation. Previous work has identified a relationship between RSA, as well as other measures of caregiver self-regulation, with caregiver sensitivity and intrusiveness. The current study also examined additional predictors of caregiver responsiveness, behavioral inhibition and activation, which was conceptualized as a bottom-up system of self-regulation due to its influence on motivation and personality. It was …

The Impact Of Attributional Style On Adolescent Stress And Mental Health: Exploring Domain-Specific Stressors, Lauren Therese Mcneela

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The present study examined the relation between domain-specific stressors (i.e., interpersonal versus noninterpersonal) and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms among 118 high school students (Mage = 16.65 years old; 64% female; 79.8% Caucasian). Additionally, this study assessed the impact of negative attributional style on each of these associations, furthering the current literature on the Cognitive Diathesis-Stress model among adolescents. Using the lavaan package of RStudio (Rosseel, 2012), path analyses were run to examine the relationship between domain-specific stressor and adolescent outcomes. The present study found that interpersonal, but not noninterpersonal stressors were associated with internalizing symptoms, while neither interpersonal nor …

Virtual Faces In Virtual Spaces: Generating Social Capital In An Online World, Raymond James Miran

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines how online virtual reality games can generate social capital in the

social video game VRChat. Past research explores the generation of social capital from social

media and video games. These platforms generate social capital through different processes.

These differences are due to the technological differences and divergent purposes of the

platforms. VRChat bridges the computer-mediated-communication platforms as a social video

game. This thesis examines how VRChat as an online virtual reality generates bridging and

bonding online social capital by combining elements of the two platforms.

Results from 21 in-depth interviews showed that players of VRChat generated both …

“I Never Shared My Opinion Again”: Political Communication Apprehension And Conservative College Students, Megan Elise Montgomery

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Higher education faculty have long struggled with getting students to participate meaningfully in classroom and campus dialogues. Some students avoid participating due to fear or anxiety of communicating with others. Certain topics, such as politics, can cause higher degrees of apprehension. Political minority groups can experience greater apprehension when communicating with majority groups. One minority group in academia with the potential to self-censor is the conservative student.

This study used state-based communication apprehension (McCroskey, 1984) and political communication apprehension (PCA, Jones-Carmack, 2019) as theoretical backings to explore how conservative opinion expression and self-censorship in academic settings might change over time. …