Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Loneliness And Support For Political Violence Within The United States, Kellen Downey

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Although loneliness is a growing public health issue in the United States, its political effects remain understudied. This paper seeks to understand the relationship between loneliness and the support of political violence by utilizing the Chapman Survey of American Fears (CSAF Wave 11). This survey, which is a component of the 2025 Chapman Survey of American Fears, includes the three-item UCLA Loneliness Scale, as well as two separate items specifically measuring political violence. Using a national survey (N=1,015), I address the following questions: (1) Are lonely individuals more likely to support violence on political grounds? (2) Does strongly identifying with …

The Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Economy In The Mountain West, 2025, Dre Boyd-Weatherly, Sean Curry, Krish Sharma, Kristian Thymianos, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet reports on the artificial intelligence (AI) readiness of five Mountain West metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs): Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ; Salt Lake City-Murray, UT; Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO; Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV; and Albuquerque, NM. Using data from the Brookings Institution's “Mapping the AI Economy” report, the MSAs are benchmarked based on their overall population, employment, talent, adoption, and innovation.

Lindenwood Digest, December 3, 2025, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

December 3, 2025 issue of The Lindenwood Digest.

Campus Events & Announcements: Call for volunteers for Winterfest and the "Late Night Breakfast Rewind" event (December 8). The Office for Research and Creative Activity announced the opening of the PRIDE Fund mini-cycle for student-centered projects.

Administrative & Faculty Updates: Fall 2025 final grades are due December 15; includes specific instructions on entering special grades (AF, N, I, AH, BH). Marketing and Communications announced a freeze on new website/digital requests until January 5, 2026.

Faculty & Staff Recognition: "Q2 Moments" recognition for Dr. Travis McMaken (Communications), Lis Ziegenfuss (Financial Aid), Jim Bosnick …

Compensation Transparency In The U.S. Healthcare Workforce, Brandon Perkins

Honors Projects

This study investigates how perceptions of pay transparency among U.S. healthcare workers relate to work engagement, burnout levels, and intentions to stay with their current institution. A quantitative survey was conducted of 200 clinical and non-clinical employees across academic, nonprofit, for-profit, and government healthcare organizations. Self-reported views of transparency were evaluated in relation to validated measures of work engagement, burnout, stay intentions, and pay secrecy. The results showed that increased perceived compensation transparency was highly connected with greater work engagement and lower levels of burnout. Both engagement and burnout appeared as major indicators of the employees' intentions to stay with …

Exploring The Socioeconomic Determinants Of Abortion: Evidence From Pennsylvania, Guido Giuntini, Allyssa A. Wadsworth, Michael A. Malcolm

Pennsylvania Economic Review

Economic factors play a key role in determining fertility and the number of abortions performed. Using detailed county-level data from Pennsylvania, we used fixed-effects analysis to examine how changes in these economic factors are related to the number of abortions. Our most robust estimate suggests that each percentage point increase in the poverty rate is associated with approximately 5 additional abortions per 1000 live births, but that increases in college education rates are associated with a decline in abortions. We also offer some preliminary evidence on the effects of partisanship, religiosity and proximity to an abortion clinic.

Ctrl + Alt + Inner Speech: A Verbal–Cognitive Scaffold (Vcs) Model Of Pathways To Computational Thinking, Daisuke Akiba

Publications and Research

This theoretical paper introduces the Verbal–Cognitive Scaffold (VCS) Model, a cognitively inclusive framework which proposes the cognitive architectures underlying computational thinking (CT). Moving beyond monolithic theories of cognition (e.g., executive-function and metacognitive control models), the VCS Model posits inner speech (InSp) as the predominant cognitive pathway supporting CT operations in neurotypical populations. Synthesizing interdisciplinary scholarship across cognitive science, computational theory, neurodiversity research, and others, this framework articulates distinct mechanisms through which InSp supports CT. The model specifies four primary pathways linking InSp to CT components: verbal working memory supporting decomposition, symbolic representation facilitating pattern recognition and abstraction, sequential processing enabling …

More Girls In The Classroom Improves Adolescent Mental Health, Monica Deza, Maria Zhu

Population Health Research Brief Series

Mental health challenges are common among adolescents in the United States. This brief summarizes findings from a study using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative survey of middle and high school students conducted in 1994-1995. The analysis included over 17,000 students from 133 schools across the United States. The authors find that the mix of boys and girls in a classroom affects adolescent mental health and school satisfaction. When classes have more girls, both boys and girls experience better mental health outcomes. Boys in classes with more female peers are 10% less …

Early Life And Post-Traumatic Growth Among Urban African Americans, J. Howard Streeter Iii

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Post-traumatic growth (PTG) has received increasing attention in psychological research, yet the PTG experiences of African Americans remain underexplored. Trauma researchers have established the common prevalence of trauma within this population, but there have been very few studies on how African Americans traverse trauma according to PTG. Understanding PTG in this population is essential for clergy, coaches, parents, counselors, and others who work in these communities. The purpose of this quantitative survey study was to determine whether there was a statistically significant relationship between rumination, religious orientation, religious commitment, and stressful life events (SLEs) and PTG among urban African American …

Allan Leslie Combs: Reminiscence And Recommendation, Jonathan B. Bricklin

Journal of Conscious Evolution

The author recalls his first meeting with Allan Leslie Combs, identifying his defining trait of openness through the lens of the Trickster archetype. Drawing on the philosophy of William James, the essay concludes with a recommendation for a future edition of Combs’s book Synchronicity, specifically regarding the inclusion of precognition.

Keywords: trickster, synchronicity, William James, Allan Leslie Combs, precognition, openness

Contests With Ambiguous Prizes, Cary Deck, Aidan Hathaway, Emma Kate Henry, Tigran Melkonyan, Samuel Redinger

ESI Working Papers

This paper examines behavior in contests where the prize value is ambiguous. We develop a theoretical model of bidding in a Tullock contest with an ambiguous prize where contestants account for the ambiguity attitude of their rival. Ambiguity affects optimal behavior via two countervailing channels - a direct effect arising from contestants’ ambiguity about the value of the prize and an indirect effect corresponding to the effect of ambiguity on the opponent’s behavior. Using a controlled laboratory experiment, we elicit individual risk and ambiguity attitudes and compare predicted and observed behavior in contests with an ambiguous prize, a risky prize …

Policy Design For Multiple Funding Flows Into Trump Accounts, Jin Huang, Michael Sherraden, Lissa Johnson

Center for Social Development Research

The law creating the new Trump Accounts explicitly authorizes employers to provide deposits matching contributions that their employees make to the accounts and also authorizes contributions by philanthropic organizations. Both features are essential for build­ing substantial lifetime assets for America’s children. Implementing them successfully – and ensuring that the funds reach every eligible child efficiently – will require an effective policy platform for routing, verifying, and reporting on third-party contributions. This brief discusses why traditional retail IRAs cannot support matching contributions and how to build a policy platform capable of accommodating multiple contribution streams.

The Legal Position Of The Religious Communities In The Republic Of Macedonia, Jovan Jonovski

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The territory of the modern Republic of Macedonia (official name as of recently is Republic of North Macedonia) has historically been exposed to Judaism, Eastern and Western Christianity, Islam, and later to Protestantism. In the People’s /Socialist Republic of Macedonia, the religious communities were kept out of public life and suppressed. The government favored the Macedonian Orthodox Church for strengthening the Macedonian national consciousness. The Republic of Macedonia is a self-declared secular multi-confessional state. The article covers the history of the religious landscape as well as the legal framework and practices of the state toward the Churches, faith communities, and …

Protests, Epistemic Injustice, And The Movement For Black Lives, Sofia De Ferrari

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

Epistemic injustice provides a powerful perspective for understanding media narratives of the Movement for Black Lives (#BlackLivesMatter). To understand the media coverage, I draw on Foucauldian theories and critical race theory, as well as accounts of hermeneutical and recognition injustice, which show how “truth” emerges as a product of knowledge/power/resistance. Special attention is given to the question of violence: what is violent and what isn’t? Who gets to decide? What are the consequences? Media narratives favor the status quo and delegitimize social movements which challenge it. This is achieved by prioritizing the voices of officials and law enforcement in coverage …

Sex, The Body, And Learning Gender: Demons In The World Of The Five Gods, Erin E. Mcbrien

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

“Sex, the Body, and Learning Gender” analyzes the relationship between the physical body, sexual orientation, and gender as characterized within Lois McMaster Bujold’s World of the Five Gods series, with a particular emphasis on her Penric and Desdemona novellas. Using the framework of Bussey and Bandura’s social learning theory, and a close reading of Bujold’s text, this paper explores how the demonic characters within this series are an example of gender as a learned concept rather than a biological imperative. This is further developed by examining how the demonic characters both imprint on and contrast against the more societally-bound sorcerers …

Book Review: Ecologies Of Inequity. How Disaster Response Reconstitutes Race And Class Inequality, Abel Traslaviña-Arias

Critical Disaster Studies

In Ecologies of Inequity: How Disaster Response Reconstitutes Race and Class Inequality, Sancha Doxilly Medwinter gathered diverse stories about how various migrant communities had to overcome not only disaster but also the overlapping networks established by those who were supposed to support them in 2012 in New York City. Medwinter portrays this contested post-disaster landscape through a thorough data recording of 120 individuals affiliated with various groups: racialized migrants or locals, tenants or property owners, local or external helpers, and those from wealthy or impoverished backgrounds. Ecologies of Inequity refer to the spatialized networks of organizational and interpersonal relations …

Upper-Body Post-Activation Performance Enhancement In Mma Athletes: Load-Dependent Effects Across Multiple Explosive Tasks, Jan Strawiński, Dariusz T. Skalski, Magdalena Prończuk, Kinga Łosińska, Ewelina Lulińska, Miłosz Drozd, Maciej Kostrzewa, Adam Maszczyk, Robert K. Roczniok

Baltic Journal of Health and Physical Activity

Background: Post-activation performance enhancement (PAPE) has become a recognized method for acutely improving explosive output, particularly relevant to upper-body performance in combat sports. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effects of bench press conditioning activities (CAs) at different intensities (50 %, 65 %, and 80 % 1RM) on upper-body explosive performance in mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes, with emphasis on training status. Methods: Twenty-nine male MMA athletes were divided into intermediate (n = 14) and advanced (n = 15) groups. Each participant completed three CA sessions followed by a 4-minute recovery and then performed a plyometric push-up …

Shock Transmission In Granular Economies: Impact Of Pass-Through Effects Of Idiosyncratic Microshocks To The Aggregate, Anamarija Cijan, Jože P. Damijan, Črt Kostevc

Economic and Business Review

This paper studies the importance of shocks to the largest firms on the aggregate output. Using firm-level data on eight European countries (2006--2019), we find that shocks to the largest firms explain an important part of aggregate fluctuations. Our paper brings several novelties. Firstly, in addition to the aggregate level, we extend the analysis of the transmission of firm-level shocks to study the shocks at the sectoral level. Secondly, we provide a novel measurement for demand-side shocks within granularity. We show that idiosyncratic shocks affecting the largest 20 firms can explain almost half of the output volatility, which is consistent …

A Psychometric Evaluation Of The Pbss-20 Among Sexual And Non-Sexual Minority College Students, Alex Melville

Master's Theses

This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Protective-Behavioral Strategies Scale-20 in a large national sample of college students containing sexual minority and non-sexual minority students. Specifically, confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the model fit with this sample, invariance testing was used to compare the model among sexual and non-sexual minority students, and construct validity was evaluated. Participants included college students (N = 1,730; M_age = 19.41) from 12 universities across the United States, who were predominantly White non-Hispanic (63.6%), identified as female (70%), and as completely heterosexual (67.6%). Participants completed demographic information and measures of …

The History Of Celiac Disease Legislation, And How Public Perception Can Impact Its Future, Cassandra Smith

Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How Does Neurocognitive Dysfunction And Personality Pathology Impact Older Adults' Use Of The Healthcare System?, Rose Nyounway

Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Pre-Service Teacher Preparation In Over/Underrepresentation Of Students From Culturally Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds In Special Education: A Systematic Review Of State-Level Policies, Enso Yushu Liu

Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How Do People Talk About The Political Parties?, Carol Anne Bredeson, Cassandra Smith, Meghan Rentner

Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Expectations, Trust, And Blame: Marketized Healthcare In Pakistan’S Public And Private Hospitals, Shaheryar Asghar

Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Performance As Political Resistance: Looking At Theatrical Approaches To Advocacy/Public Policy Through The Lens Of The Aids Crisis, Abby Campion

Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Record, Issue 2, Bank Street College Of Education. Archives

The Record

The second quarterly newsletter from the Bank Street Archives

Universal Classroom Design, Michelle Dodson Landry

Women’s Leadership

This research seeks to bridge the gap between K–12 inclusion practices and the realities of higher education by exploring how universal design, institutional support, and educators’ belief systems can create more inclusive environments and support students to have higher grades and more intrinsic mastery of the subject matter. It is not enough to mandate inclusion; we must actively build systems that support all learners, regardless of whether their disability is visible, diagnosed, or self-identified. This study looked at the efficacy of universal classroom design in raising the median grade in a course. The median grade in this course has historically …

Resolving The Energy Efficiency Paradox: Leveraging Benefits For Saudi Arabia’S Building Sector, Fateh Belaïd, Mahelet G. Fikru

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

This article examines the economics of energy efficiency in Saudi Arabia's building sector, centering on the "energy efficiency paradox," the observed under adoption of cost-effective technologies despite their clear benefits—such as reducing energy use and associated emissions. We show that a mix of market barriers and behavioral biases—including split incentives, informational gaps, and the value-action gap—constrains adoption of energy-efficient solutions. Recent modeling suggests that improved air-conditioning labels could save up to 80 TWh of electricity annually, though rebound effects may erode some of these gains. Our analysis shows that tackling market failures is necessary but not enough. Strong building codes …

Lanthorn, Vol. 60, No. 08, December 1, 2025, Grand Valley State University

Volume 60, August 4, 2025 – current

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Organizational Diagnosis Toolkit, Ann Marie Lindley, Catherine Nolan, Connie L. Halvorsen, Franki C. Hand, Isys S. Mccormack, Jennifer A. Hance, Jess Beutler, Kelsey Spaulding Caras, Sara German Jimenez, Stephanie Graves

Capstone Projects

The complexity of organizations requires organizational diagnosis to be an iterative process tailored to the context, needs, and uniqueness of each organization. This toolkit is designed to walk a consultant or leader through a structured diagnostic approach and the various resources that can be leveraged along the way. It is organized into four sections: foundational diagnostic frameworks and models, practical consulting, case-study application, and reflection and learning. It was created by students in the Western Michigan University Organizational Change Leadership masters and doctoral programs as part of the course OCL 6460, "Organizational Diagnosis and Consulting," under the supervision of Professor …

On Servant-Leadership And Aging, Kathleen Patterson, Larry C. Spears

International Journal of Servant-Leadership

In 1986, at the age of 83, Robert Greenleaf wrote what would become his last published essay titled, “Old Age: The Ultimate Test of Spirit—An Essay on Preparation” (Greenleaf, 1986). That last phrase, “An Essay on Preparation,” suggests a preparation for death. And while there is an element of that aspect in the essay, the greater emphasis in Greenleaf’s final essay is upon how each of us can take steps to create a life that each of us can say as we near its end, was well-lived.