Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Redeeming The Monster: The God Of War Subreddit's Narrative Of Rebirth For Hegemonic Masculinity, Mario Sanders

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In a 2019 documentary on the development of the video game God of War (2018) for the Playstation 4, Cory Barlog, the game’s creative director, openly discusses his desire to give the toxic, hypermasculine protagonist, Kratos, a “second chance” after nearly a decade since the franchise’s previous installment. In giving Kratos his second chance, Barlog decided to make him a father, claiming that becoming a father changes one’s perspective on everything. Video games scholars have argued that games are a noteworthy element of players’ identities and interactions due to their promotion of the manufacture of player narratives. The following research …

The Prospector, August 12, 2020, Utep Student Publications

The Prospector

Headline: College in the Age of Coronavirus

Activation Of Trpa1 Nociceptor Promotes Systemic Adult Mammalian Skin Regeneration, Jenny J. Wei, Hali S. Kim, Casey A. Spencer, Donna Brennan-Crispi, Ying Zheng, Nicolette M. Johnson, Misha Rosenbach, Christopher Miller, Denis H. Y. Leung, George Cotsarelis, Thomas H. Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

Adult mammalian wounds, with rare exception, heal with fibrotic scars that severely disrupt tissue architecture and function. Regenerative medicine seeks methods to avoid scar formation and restore the original tissue structures. We show in three adult mouse models that pharmacologic activation of the nociceptor TRPA1 on cutaneous sensory neurons reduces scar formation and can also promote tissue regeneration. Local activation of TRPA1 induces tissue regeneration on distant untreated areas of injury, demonstrating a systemic effect. Activated TRPA1 stimulates local production of interleukin-23 (IL-23) by dermal dendritic cells, leading to activation of circulating dermal IL-17–producing γδ T cells. Genetic ablation of …

Effects Of Situation Descriptions On The Construct-Related Validity Of Construct-Driven Situational Judgment Tests, Philipp Christopher Schaepers, Jan-Philipp Freudenstein, Patrick Mussel, Filip Lievens, Stefan Krumm

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Despite the common belief that situation descriptions in SJTs are central to the measurement of targeted constructs, recent studies demonstrated that omitting situation descriptions had only minor effects on SJT performance and validity. However, these results might be due to the fact that traditional SJTs often fail to assess well-defined constructs. So, we aimed to examine the relationships between construct-driven SJT scores with and without situations and self- and peer-rated personality dimensions (N = 158). Results revealed almost no difference in construct-related validity between both versions. The conscientiousness facet emerged as the only exception, for which the SJT scores without …

Life, Liberty Or The Pursuit Of Happiness In A Post-Covid 19 Era, Aurobindo Ghosh, Amit Haldar, Kalyan Bhaumik

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A multi-generational pandemic has afflicted economies and convulsed worldwide health systems putting policymakers on prongs of an unthinkable trinity of choice: life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness? These inalienable rights guaranteed by the US Declaration of Independence seem farcical with three of largest four democracies in the world accounting for the highest infections. In this opinion piece, we re-evaluate the clichéd debate between life and livelihood. Second, we investigate the implementation hurdles faced by the frontline medical policymakers expediting testing regimes and vaccine development to avert an unfolding catastrophe. Medical professional are opting for mitigation strategies like isolating infections …

The Role Of Situations In Situational Judgment Tests: Effects On Construct Saturation, Predictive Validity, And Applicant Perceptions, Philipp Schäpers, Patrick Mussel, Filip Lievens, Cornelius J. König, Jan-Philipp Freudenstein, Stefan Krumm

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Recent theorizing and empirical evidence suggesting thatsituational judgment tests (SJTs) are more context-independent than previouslythought has sparked a debate about the role of situation descriptions in SJTs.To contribute to this debate and add to our understanding of how SJTs work,this paper conceptually embeds SJT performance in a situation construal modeland examines the effects of situation descriptions on the construct saturationand predictive validity of SJT scores, as well as on applicant perceptions.Across two studies (N = 1,092 and 578) and different SJTs, personality andcognitive ability were equally important determinants of SJT performance regardlessof whether situation descriptions were presented or omitted. The …

When Doing More Requires Knowing More: Explaining The Intention To Seek Procedural Information About Recycling, Sonny Rosenthal, Yan Wah Leung

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This study examines the relationship between the intention to recycle more and the intention to seek procedural information, in this case, information about how to recycle. In contrast to prior research that used information seeking as a predictor of behavior change, this study considers behavioral intention as a predictor of intention to seek information. Regression analysis of survey data from Singapore residents confirms that prediction, explaining 27% of the variance in intention to seek procedural information. Moderation analysis suggests the effect of intention to recycle more is stronger among individuals with low recycling self-efficacy. An alternative analysis suggests the greater …

Post-Secondary Employment And Education Outcomes Of Young Adults Reporting Both Vision And Hearing Impairments In The High School Longitudinal Study Of 2009, Emily M. Lund

JADARA

This article reports the post-secondary education and work activities of 43 young adults who reported a history of both hearing and vision disabilities (i.e., deafblindness [DB] in Wave 4 of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009. Most of the sample reported having worked, attended post-secondary education, or both since completing secondary education. Approximately half of the sample still lived with their parents, and most reported receiving financial support from their parents. Thus, although engagement in work and education was relatively high, most participants had not achieved financial independence.

Satisfaction With Life Scale In American Sign Language: Validation And Normative Data, Josephine F. Wilson, Jared Embree, Deb Guthmann, Steven R. Sligar, Janet C. Titus, Kathryn C. Taylor

JADARA

The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) is a brief instrument that assesses a person’s global life satisfaction. Using state-of-the-science techniques, the SWLS was translated into American Sign Language (ASL). A national sample of 350 deaf and hard of hearing individuals who preferentially use ASL completed the ASL version of the SWLS (SWLS-ASL) online. The individuals in this sample had a mean SWLS score of 23.4, well within the range of mean scores reported for samples from general populations of hearing individuals. No significant differences were identified in SWLS-ASL scores due to gender, cultural identification (identified as culturally Deaf or not), …

Surveying Silicon Valley On Cycling, Travel Behavior, And Travel Attitudes, Kevin Fang

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report presents the results from a March 2020 survey of Santa Clara County residents about their current travel behavior, overall thoughts on travel, and opinions about various forms of transportation in particular. While the instrument inquired about all modes of transportation, the survey was particularly focused on attitudes and behavior related to cycling. A total of 1,009 responses were included in the analysis. Overall, the study confirms that private motor vehicle travel dominates, with approximately 90 percent of respondents reporting that they drive in an average week and own cars. However, the results also show greater use of alternatives …

A Visible Light Communications Framework For Intelligent Transportation Systems, Hovannes Kulhandjian

Mineta Transportation Institute

In this work, we developed a visible light communication (VLC) framework that can be used for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). ITS has been motivated by the need for reducing traffic congestion and offering better user experience in navigation and location-specific services. Recently, VLC has drawn a great deal of attention in the research community, including the development of new applications for ITS. It would be of great use to enable the traffic lights to be able to talk to the vehicles in their proximity and convey important information about the traffic condition. In this project, we developed a framework that …

Implicit Bias And Voluntarily Childfree Adults, Virginia Elizabeth Powell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative study aimed to determine if there is a negative bias towards voluntarily childfree adults or an association of negative views and attitudes with voluntarily childfree adults, controlling for other participant characteristics such as race, religion, or sexual orientation. At this stage in the research, voluntarily childfree adults are generally defined as legal adults who have the intention to remain childfree for the rest of their lives, due to reasons other than fertility issues. A negative view or bias is defined as any attitude which is not a desirable interpretation of behavior or lifestyle. A negative bias against voluntarily …

Psychopathy Assessment And Related Constructs: Differences And Distinctions For Primary And Secondary Psychopaths, Simon Saleem

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the assessment of psychopathy from the perspectives of two self-report scales that differ substantially their construction and conceptual approach to the fundamental clinical subtyping of psychopaths: primary versus secondary psychopathic presentations. The self-report scales used in this study were the Levenson Self-Report of Psychopathy Scale (LSRP; Levenson et al., 1995) and the Perkins’ Alienation Scale-Short Version (PAS; Perkins & Harper, 1998). It was hypothesized that the presence of psychopathy would demonstrate significant presence in the distribution of undergraduate students and additionally, that these measures would demonstrate construct validity and replicate previously established relationships between psychopathy measures and …

Protecting Healthcare Workers From Violence, Terry L. Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Growing violence in the community increases the risks of injuries to healthcare workers. This project assessed the levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and acknowledgment of professional accomplishments in healthcare workers in the community who were responsible for the care of confused and combative clients. The community healthcare workers were assessed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey-Medical Personnel. An intervention was then presented, which focused on self-awareness, including mood assessments, soothing rhythmic breathing, compassionate focused imagery, and the creation of a safe place to process criticism compassionately. The participants were resurveyed after 30 days by repeating the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human …

Thriving On A Faith-Based Campus: An Exploratory Study On Sense Of Belonging, Spirituality, And The Student Experience For Students Of Color, Hannah Felice

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While enrollment for students of color has increased by nearly 15% over the past 20 years, universities have struggled to retain and graduate students of color in comparison to their White peers, including Christian universities. Looking to foster success for all students, higher education has sought to better understand the factors that impact student retention and graduation, particularly for students of color. Thriving has been shown as an effective metric for understanding the student experience through a more holistic framework as it pertains to the student success. The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of thriving as …

A Needs Assessment: Exploring The Unknown Needs Of The Homeless Unaccompanied Youth Within A West Texas Independent School District, Amy Grace Weiss

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT This exploratory study aims to explore the unknown needs among the unaccompanied youth population within a small urban community in West Texas. This cross-sectional study surveyed a convenience sample of 10 unaccompanied youth attending school within an independent school district. Data were collected using a social worker’s case load during the spring semester of 2020, during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Findings showed a certain level of need within this community, such as emergency shelters and further research on food insecurity for this population. This implies the need for practice and policy on multiple levels to help this population who …

Can A Brief Online Intervention Change Low-Income Caregivers’ Reported Use Of Spanking? A Randomized Controlled Trial, Hilary L. Richardson

Dissertations

Spanking is commonly used by parents (64-94%) in the United States as a strategy for managing undesirable child behaviors. Research has found that the use of spanking is particularly high among young mothers, low-income parents, and African American families. Decades of literature on the use of spanking has identified abundant detrimental outcomes for children such as increased externalizing behaviors, decreased long-term compliance, and less guilt following misbehavior, as well as serious outcomes in adulthood such as depressed mood and alcohol/drug use. There is also a risk for spanking to escalate to physical abuse. Thus, safer, more effective discipline strategies are …

Establishing Auditory Discrimination And Echoic Stimulus Control With An Auditory Matching Procedure, Clare Christe

Dissertations

A generalized auditory matching repertoire is considered an early milestone in the development of verbal behavior (Greer & Keohane, 2006). Previous literature has demonstrated that the auditory matching (AM) protocol can improve echoics in individuals with developmental delays (Brown, 2005; Choi, Greer & Keohane, 2015; Du, Speckman, Medina, & Cole-Hatchard, 2017). However, some children experience difficulties with the match-to-sample (MTS) format of the AM protocol, if they are unable to perform delayed MTS tasks.

One alternative to MTS is the go/no-go procedure (Serna, Dube, & McIlvane, 1997), which requires the student to make a simple discrimination (i.e., same/different) between two …

Essays On Climate Change-Related Extreme Events, Alvin E. Harris

Dissertations

There are increasing and urgent calls for global economies to join in the fight against the impacts of climate change (World Bank, 2020). With reports such as the World Bank (2020) of climate change costing billions of dollars in losses for economies, the purpose of my dissertation is to examine the effects of climate change-related extreme events and their potential economic effects in three areas: agriculture, migration, and the labor market.

My first essay focuses on the factors that influence farmers’ perception of risk and adaptive strategies against the effects of climate change-related extreme events. I examine whether farmers’ social …

An Evaluation Of Different Measures Of Social Problem-Solving: Using Ecological Momentary Assessment, Dana B. Goetz

Dissertations

The present study recruited a sample of undergraduate college students and examined the extent to which three measures of social problem-solving measured the construct of social problem-solving. A self-report measure (i.e., Social Problem-Solving Inventory-Revised Long), analogue task (i.e., the Means-Ends Problem-Solving task), and ecological momentary assessment (i.e., a diary card on real-life events) were compared. It was hypothesized that the three measures would assess different aspects of social problem-solving. The analogue task would theoretically be a measure of ability to generate solutions to a problem, the diary card would theoretically measure implementation of solutions in real-life, and the self-report measure …

Ethnic Identity, Stress, And Anxiety In Latinx University Students At Predominantly White Institutions, Anel Arias

Dissertations

Research indicates that ethnic minority-related stressors contribute to poor mental health outcomes in Latinx university students. There are inconsistent results of the moderating role of ethnic identity in ethnic minority stress and mental health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine whether ethnic identity moderates the relationship between ethnic minority stress and trait anxiety in Latinx university students attending predominantly White institutions (PWI). The secondary purpose of this study was to explore the effects of ethnic minority stress on trait anxiety symptoms.

Participants were 256 Latinx (67.6% women, n = 173; 31.3% men, n = 80) undergraduate and …

Impact Of A Diversion Program On Mentally Ill Inmates In A County Jail System, Janet Lawler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT The United States incarcerates more people in correctional facilities than any other country in the world. Studies show 15% of the prison populations have a mental illness diagnosis and 20% of local jail populations have a mental illness diagnosis. These individuals are often arrested because of a misdemeanor crime committed as a direct result of their diagnosis; however, instead of receiving mental health services they are taken into custody, further damaging an already tenuous existence. Traditionally, correctional facilities are geared toward punishment and protection of society, not treatment of mental illness and rehabilitation. Recent trends see a combination of …

Prostitution During The Pandemic: Findings Show Need For Nordic Model, Debra K. Boyer

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

The impact of COVID-19 on sexually exploited individuals provides an opportunity to advance the Nordic Model approach and create lasting change. Although subject to gender-based violence and denied safety net services, commercially sexually exploited women are seldom seen as a “vulnerable” group in the pandemic. Interviews from social service agencies in Seattle, Washington show women are experiencing more physical and sexual violence from sex buyers and women who have exited prostitution are finding their stability and security in jeopardy. Advocates can make the case to address disparities with safety net guarantees and structural change with the adoption of the Nordic …

On Exiting From Commercial Sexual Exploitation: Insights From Sex Trade Experienced Persons, Andrea Heinz

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

As a woman who exited after seven years in licensed commercial sexual exploitation in Canada, I share my reflections on my experience, which led to the development of the Insights from Sex Trade Experienced Persons (InSTEP) Model. The model was constructed based on interviews with “service providers” in the sex trade. Twelve exited women share their experiences inclusively. InSTEP is geared toward a population of quasi-autonomous providers who have alternate economic options. Three levels are introduced in the InSTEP model to describe the continuum of agency among service providers; Level 1: trafficked/controlled; Level 2: quasi-autonomous; Level 3: autonomous. The InSTEP …

2020 August, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for August of 2020.

Episodic Memory And Hippocampal Volume Predict 5-Year Mild Cognitive Impairment Conversion In Healthy Apolipoprotein Ε4 Carriers, Margaret Abraham, Michael Seidenberg, Dana A. Kelly, Kristy A. Nielson, John L. Woodard, J. Carson Smith, Sally Durgerian, Stephen M. Rao

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Objective: The Apolipoprotein (APOE) ε4 allele increases the risk for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia, but not all carriers develop MCI/dementia. The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine if early and subtle preclinical signs of cognitive dysfunction and medial temporal lobe atrophy are observed in cognitively intact ε4 carriers who subsequently develop MCI. Methods: Twenty-nine healthy, cognitively intact ε4 carriers (ε3/ε4 heterozygotes; ages 65–85) underwent neuropsychological testing and MRI-based measurements of medial temporal volumes over a 5-year follow-up interval; data were converted to z-scores based on a non-carrier group consisting of 17 ε3/ε3 homozygotes. Results: At follow-up, …

Quantifying Errors Of Bias And Discriminability In Conditional-Discrimination Performance In Children Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Courtney Hannula, Corina Jimenez-Gomez, Weizhi Wu, Adam T. Brewer, Tiffany Kodak, Shawn P. Gilroy, Blake A. Hutsell, Brent Alsop, Christopher A. Podlesnik

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Antecedent- and consequence-based procedures decrease errors during conditional discrimination training but are not typically guided by error patterns. A framework based in behavioral-choice and signal-detection theory can quantify error patterns due to (1) biases for certain stimuli or locations and (2) discriminability of stimuli within the conditional discrimination. We manipulated levels of disparity between sample (Experiment 1) and comparison (Experiment 2) stimuli by manipulating red saturation using an ABA design with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Lower disparities decreased discriminability and biases were observed for some participants during the low-disparity conditions. These findings demonstrate the use of these …

A Comparative Analysis Of The Attitudes Toward The U.S.-Mexico Border Policy: Evaluating Perspectives On Border Security And Building A Wall In The Rio Grande Valley, National Hispanic And General U.S. Populations, Dongkyu Kim, Mi-Son Kim, Natasha Altema Mcneely

Political Science Faculty Publications

Recently, there has been a surge of national attention toward the U.S.-Mexican border in South Texas, known as the Rio Grande Valley (RGV). Despite the attention and potential impact, which the wall would directly have on the RGV community, there has been no systemic attention paid to the opinions of the RGV residents regarding the proposed wall and other related immigration policies. This article, therefore, aims to fill this gap by comparing immigration policy attitudes in the borderland communities to both the national Hispanic and the general national populations. By utilizing original data from an RGV public opinion survey we …

An Attention-Based Rumor Detection Model With Tree-Structured Recursive Neural Networks, Jing Ma, Wei Gao, Shafiq Joty, Kam-Fai Wong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Rumor spread in social media severely jeopardizes the credibility of online content. Thus, automatic debunking of rumors is of great importance to keep social media a healthy environment. While facing a dubious claim, people often dispute its truthfulness sporadically in their posts containing various cues, which can form useful evidence with long-distance dependencies. In this work, we propose to learn discriminative features from microblog posts by following their non-sequential propagation structure and generate more powerful representations for identifying rumors. For modeling non-sequential structure, we first represent the diffusion of microblog posts with propagation trees, which provide valuable clues on how …

Insights Into Accounting Education In A Covid-19 World: Singapore, Themin Suwardy

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The author reported on COVID-19 in accounting education in Singapore. As part of this compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be …