Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Value Of A Vote: Vote Pivotality Information And Its Impact On Voter Willingness To Accept, Nicholas J. Sickinger

Honors Theses

A variety of factors influence the decision to participate in a democratic election or not. This paper explores one of these factors: an individual’s perceived pivotality. I explore how people assess the value of their vote when they are informed about the likelihood that their vote will be pivotal. To do so, I conduct an online voting experiment where subjects participate in three different stylized elections: a marginal election, a landslide election, and an uninformed election (where the voter distribution is unclear to participants). I elicit participants’ vote valuations and compare them across election conditions and demographic groups using both …

Deconstructing The Greenium: Exploring Mispricing In The Green Bond Market, Koto Yamada

Honors Theses

This paper investigates the sources and conditions under which the greenium – a yield discount observed for green bonds relative to comparable conventional bonds – appears in global fixed income markets. Using a dataset of over 26,000 bonds issued between 2012 and 2024 across 37 countries and 5,400 firms, I find that the existence of the greenium is highly context-dependent, shaped by factors such as issuer reputation, institutional trust, and green capital allocation across sectors. Repeat green issuers receive yield discounts of up to 57 basis points, particularly in the EU and Nordic countries, where strong climate policies and disclosure …

Drivers Of Heat Pump Installation In Maine: Climate Shocks, Politics, And Incentives, Micah J. Margolis

Honors Theses

Heat pumps are a growing trend as climate adaptation measures around the world and are gaining significant popularity and attention due to a number of environmental and social factors across Maine. Homeowners in Maine face difficult financial and personal pressures when considering a heat pump. Impacting this decision is a high cost of energy, a substantial rebate offsetting the purchase price, as well as summers and winters that are warming beyond record highs and lows. Previous research has looked at specific populations or large regions without considering the long-term personal drivers of this decision. I use data from Efficiency Maine, …

Why Community: The Potentials And Limitations Of Community Engagement In Restorative Justice, Emily P. Chauhan

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the role of community in restorative justice through both the criminologist and practitioner perspectives. Through investigating the limitations of the U.S. penal system, which ranks highest globally in incarceration rates yet fails to ensure public safety, the research investigates restorative justice as a victim-cantered, harm-driven alternative. It emphasizes how restorative justice redefines crime by focusing on healing and accountability rather than punishment of the criminals/harm-doers. This thesis examines how communities are essential to restorative processes and how restorative justice, in turn, helps to build communities. Drawing from case studies, models, and interviews this thesis questions the assumptions …

Off The Grid: Rural Identity, Environmentalism, And Renewable Energy Policy In Rural New England, Joseph A. Grassi

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates how rural identity, environmental values, and place-based resentment interact to shape support for land use regulation in rural New England. Despite their vulnerability to climate change, rural communities often resist renewable energy development—a pattern commonly attributed to economic concerns or NIMBYism. Using an original survey of over 1,400 New England residents, this study tests six hypotheses through multivariate regression and subgroup analysis. Findings confirm that environmental identity is a strong predictor of support for land use regulation; however, this effect diminishes significantly among rural respondents. Place identity alone is associated with greater policy support, but when combined …

Shared Tracks, Divided Rule: The Role Of Polycentrism In Shaping Public Transportation In U.S. Metropolises, Dev Purohit

Honors Theses

American public transportation is notably less comprehensive and efficient relative to peer nations. The reliance on private automobiles and commercial air travel for routes that can be served by high-speed rail is a uniquely American phenomenon. This inefficiency is deeply rooted in governance structures, where centralized decision-making has often failed to address the complexities of metropolitan transit systems spanning multiple jurisdictions. This project explores polycentric governance as a potential mechanism to address these shortcomings by fostering competition, enhancing collaboration, and promoting localized responsiveness within metropolitan transit systems. By developing an empirical inventory to measure governance polycentricity and comparing transit outcomes …

Shouting Down Democracy: The Role Of The Deeply Engaged In American Political Discourse, Annaliese Fleck

Honors Theses

In an age of heightened polarization and increasing incivility in politics, a small but influential subset of Americans, known as the deeply engaged have emerged as dominant voices in political dialogue. This thesis investigates who these individuals are, what drives them, and how their behavior impacts democratic participation in the United States. Through a combination of theoretical analysis and original survey data, this study constructs a profile of the deeply engaged and distinguishes them from the general electorate. Drawing on foundational concepts of free speech, including isegoria and parrhesia, and the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and Karl Popper, this …

When Choice Disappears: Voter Cynicism In The Absence Of Competition, Benjamin J. Kaden

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the democratic consequences of uncontested state legislature elections in the United States, focusing on how the absence of electoral competition influences both voter engagement and political attitudes. While state legislatures wield significant influence over public policy and resource allocation, an increasing number of these elections proceed without meaningful opposition. Drawing on an original survey of 2,775 respondents, this study tests two core hypotheses: first, that uncontested state legislature elections lead to decreased voter engagement, as reflected in voter attitude towards election participation and candidate qualities; and second, that uncontested state legislature elections increase negative attitudes towards government …

Global Rate Pass Through: Impact Of The Global Savings Market On Home Prices In The Uk, Laxmi Namboodiri

Honors Theses

This paper examines how changes in the global savings and investment market impact housing prices and supply in the United Kingdom. I first constructed a global interest rate using principal component analysis. Then, using structural VARs, I estimate impulse response functions to study the dynamics of housing prices and supply in the UK with an impulse in the global interest rate. The model predicts that housing prices and supply will increase immediately and then decrease after a lag. The decrease is primarily driven by the years after the stock market crash as opposed to before.

Asian American Navigation In Higher Education: Do We Belong At Colby College?, Amanda Rose Alpert

Honors Theses

This thesis explores how Asian American students navigate their belonging at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI), specifically a case study at the higher educational institution Colby College. In understanding how Asian American students navigate the spaces around them, this thesis dives into the history of Asian immigration to the U.S., the Asian American politicized label, and the different diasporas and cultural nuances Asian Americans experience that make up the complicated, diverse, and misunderstood label. Through exploring global racializations of Asian bodies and legacies of Western imperialism and colonialism, this gives a basis of how Asian Americans understand themselves as persons living …

The Relevance Of Information On Effective Charitable Giving, Pride J. Jia

Honors Theses

The most effective charities are often more than a hundred times as effective as the average charity. However, top charities are not prioritized, and donation money is not used most effectively. To address this issue, it is crucial to understand why effective charitable giving is not prioritized. One factor identified in previous research is the limited access to cost-effectiveness information among donors. Our research explores whether providing individuals with different forms of information about charities leads to more effective donation decisions. Through an online RCT, individuals are separated into groups exposed to different types of information about two charities and …

A Long Way Home: Postcolonial Migration Between Cameroon And France, Elizabeth Greenberg

Honors Theses

This project grew from an observation that despite exhibiting strong national pride, most young Cameroonians express a fervent desire to emigrate. Through a combination of interviews and a review of past literature, I discovered a unique narrative among upper middle class Cameroonian migrants whose stories are generally underrepresented in migration literature. This study investigates how history and sociocultural dynamics help explain the Cameroonian decision to choose France (specifically the Île de France region) as a migration destination. France is particularly relevant because it previously held control of many parts of Cameroon and is one of the most popular migration destinations …

Mucking Up Public Health: A Geospatial Analysis Of Agricultural Sludge Application And Cancer Prevalence In Maine, Sarah A. Bassett

Honors Theses

This study investigates the impact of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on cancer prevalence throughout Maine. The main contribution of this project is the database constructed to examine cancer rates at a novel aggregation area: watersheds. By using a watershed as the aggregation area, this study gains insight into the threat that spreading sludge as fertilizer on agricultural fields poses to human health through groundwater pathways. Using geospatial analysis and an ordinary least squares regression model, this study estimates the effect of the presence of PFAS in a watershed from 2017 to 2021, in addition to estimating the impact of …

From Colony To Classroom: British Rule And Contemporary Educational Outcomes In India, Yashvita Shukla

Honors Theses

This study analyzes the modern day legacy of British colonial ruling structures on Indian educational outcomes. In directly ruled areas, the British retained total control, while Indian princes in indirectly ruled areas had administrative agency. I find that directly ruled districts have higher literate population shares across both genders over three census years, but no significant difference by 2011 in primary, secondary, and tertiary education, controlling for colonial geographic conditions. Gender-disaggregated results generally find stronger colonial effects for women than men. This thesis challenges earlier findings and implies that the British effort to create an educated administrative class and their …

Are Cities Still Liberal? An Analysis Of Post-Pandemic Political Change In American Cities, Olivia Mundy

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates whether American cities are experiencing a political shift to the right in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as suggested by recent media narratives. Drawing on an original national survey of 2,385 respondents conducted in early 2025, the study examines attitudinal and demographic changes among urban residents, with a particular focus on ideology, trust in local government, economic perceptions, and views on race and immigration. Despite anecdotal evidence of conservative gains in urban elections, the findings show no significant trend toward conservatism among urban residents overall. In fact, urban respondents were slightly more likely than their non-urban …

Institutionalized Ostracism, Danieli Evans

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Belonging is a fundamental need, like food or water. Hundreds of social psychology studies find that people who are ostracized (excluded, rejected, or ignored) experience severe pain and suffering. Ostracism threatens basic needs, triggers the same neurocognitive processing system as physical pain, and impairs functioning. Furthermore, ostracized people may cope in ways that beget “deviant” labeling and further ostracism.

Belonging and ostracism are prevalent themes in social psychology research, but these constructs have received relatively little attention in law. This Article begins to explore the implications of this research for law. I make three contributions: First, I name and describe …

2024 Oregon Statewide Homelessness Estimates, Franklin H. Spurbeck, Jacen Greene, Marisa Zapata

Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative Publications and Presentations

The Point-in-Time (PIT) Count is a census of people experiencing both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness on a single night in January. The federal government requires this at least every other year as a condition of funding it distributes to Continuums of Care (CoCs), networks of government agencies and service providers that manage homelessness services and funding in specific regions. The unsheltered PIT Count is only required during odd-numbered years. Because of the cost and complexity involved, not all CoCs conduct an unsheltered count in even-numbered years. In 2024, all Oregon CoCs submitted sheltered PIT Count data. Only some conducted an …

Exploring The Link Between Relationship Status And Emotion Regulation Strategy Use, Abigail A. Echols

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Romantic relationships affect many areas of life and are important sources of interpersonal emotion regulation, yet little research has investigated whether relationship status influences emotion regulation strategy use and emotion dysregulation. Considering that the types of emotion regulation strategies individuals use significantly affect their well-being, understanding the link between relationship status and emotion regulation strategy use is important. This study compared single, partnered, and recently separated individuals’ emotion dysregulation and use of eleven intrapersonal and eleven interpersonal emotion regulation strategies in general (i.e., trait) and in a specific situation (i.e., state) through retrospective self-report scales and an autobiographical writing task. …

Cultural Barriers To Mental Health Support: Exploring Stigma In Childhood Trauma Survivors In Aruba, Ralitsa I.C. Hart

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study explored whether negative attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help among people in Aruba who reported experiencing childhood trauma were predicted by perceived social stigma and the intensity of the trauma. An online survey measuring childhood trauma, attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help, and perceived stigma was administered to 162 participants using a cross-sectional correlational design. To determine the predictive relationship among these variables, a multiple regression analysis was performed. Results showed that perceived stigma significantly predicted more negative attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help, while the severity of childhood trauma did not. Among the trauma subscales, emotional abuse …

Venezuela's And Mexico's Oil Industries: Policy Making Sets The Course, Camila Gimenez Valero

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The puzzle of Venezuela's crisis is one that researchers often try to understand. How did one of the richest nations in the world become one of the poorest? Venezuela is nowadays seen as a country with political unrest, where people struggle to get by and with a corrupt government. However, this was not always the case. Throughout the 20th century Venezuela had remarkable economic stability. Having discovered the world's largest known oil reserves, the nation's economy quickly developed, and the country also became known for its long-standing democracy. After the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998, Venezuela began to decline …

Investigating The Consequences Of Workplace Violence Among Certified Nurse Assistants, Daniela Florez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Workplace violence is one of the most prevalent issues in healthcare, negatively affecting the physical and emotional well-being of nursing professionals. The present study investigated the role of workplace violence in adverse outcomes for Certified Nursing Assistants. Specifically, the research aimed to examine its association with six key outcomes: (1) turnover intention, (2) burnout, (3) compassion fatigue, (4) secondary traumatic stress, (5) job satisfaction, and (6) work engagement. A cross-sectional approach was used. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire, the Professional Quality of Life Scale 5, the Compassion Fatigue-Short Scale, the Work Well-being Inventory, the Workplace Violence Scale, the …

Measuring Personality And Animal Treatment Attitudes With The Pet Scale, Zackery J. Hilton

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Previous research has looked at the association between personality traits and the proclivity, or history, of committing acts that are characterized as animal abuse or animal cruelty. Much research has also found that individuals who exhibit this type of behavior towards animals also tend to exhibit similar behavior towards other individuals, mainly in the form of domestic or child abuse. Previous studies have measured animal abuse using very explicit and extreme criteria, using acts that are without question blatant abuse or torture; however, there is some grey area where many may argue whether certain acts should be considered abuse, which …

Pregaming Behaviors And Negative Alcohol-Related Consequences In College Students, Natalie M. Lima

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study was conducted to examine the association between pregaming behavior (i.e., frequency and quantity) and negative alcohol-related consequences among college students. Specifically, it sought to replicate previous research demonstrating significant associations between pregaming behaviors and negative alcohol-related consequences in GenZ college students. While there are some recent studies on pregaming, many studies on pregaming were conducted approximately a decade ago, and pregaming behaviors may have changed within this timeframe. This project involved secondary analysis of data collected from a multi-site study in which college students completed an online survey that included questions regarding their demographics, pregaming frequency and quantity, …

Holistic Support For College Students Navigating Food Allergies & Food Insecurity At Higher Education Institutions, Chloe Milliron

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Both food allergies and food insecurity are public health concerns that are becoming increasingly prevalent. However, there has been limited discussion on how to support individuals who experience these two challenges concurrently, particularly at higher education institutions. In this study, I examined the intersection of food allergies and food insecurity among students at the University of Central Florida (UCF). There is a focus on the disparities in access to safe foods, financial responsibility, healthcare, and overall well-being. A total of 221 UCF students completed the survey distributed, which assessed food security status using the USDA’s Household Food Security Survey Module, …

Tidal Flooding Contributes To Eutrophication: Constraining Nonpoint Source Inputs To An Urban Estuary Using A Data Driven Statistical Model, Alfonso Macías-Tapia, Margaret R. Mulholland, Corday R. Selden, Sophie Clayton, Peter W. Bernhardt, Thomas R. Allen

OES Faculty Publications

In coastal urban areas, tidal flooding brings water carrying nutrients and particles back from land to estuarine and coastal waters. A statistical model to predict nutrient loads during tidal flooding events can help estimate nutrient loading from previous and future flooding events and adapt nutrient reduction strategies. We measured concentrations of dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus in floodwater at seven sentinel sites during 15 tidal flooding events from January 2019 to September 2020. The study area was the Lafayette River watershed in Norfolk, VA, USA, which is prone to tidal flooding and is predicted to experience more frequent and intense …

Ensemble Machine Learning Approaches For Bathymetry Estimation In Multi-Spectral Images, Kazi A. Islam, Omar Abdul-Hassan, Hongfang Zhang, Victoria Hill, Blake Schaeffer, Richard Zimmerman, Jiang Li

OES Faculty Publications

Traditional bathymetry measures require a large number of human hours, and many bathymetry records are obsolete or missing. Automated measures of bathymetry would reduce costs and increase accessibility for research and applications. In this paper, we optimized a recent machine learning model, named CatBoostOpt, to estimate bathymetry based on high-resolution WorldView-2 (WV-2) multi-spectral optical satellite images. CatBoostOpt was demonstrated across the Florida Big Bend coastline, where the model learned correlations between in situ sound Navigation and Ranging (Sonar) bathymetry measurements and the corresponding multi-spectral reflectance values in WV-2 images to map bathymetry. We evaluated three different feature transformations as inputs …

Successful Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea Virginica) Recruitment On Intertidal Artificial Substrates In Virginia, Usa, Rochelle D. Seitz, Kathleen E. Knick, Emily Suchonic, Amanda Pysher

OES Faculty Publications

Declines of eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) populations and scarcity of natural oyster shell necessitate quantifying the effectiveness of artificial oyster reef substrates over varying environmental conditions. Oyster castles are often used in intertidal areas with moderate wave energy; however, new concrete, natural-looking substrates, GROW Reef Tiles, are now available. Eastern oyster recruitment and size on oyster castles (OC) and GROW Reef Tiles (GT), with 27% higher surface area on OC, were assessed three times over 25 months in locations with varying salinity. Four sites in the Chesapeake Bay region were examined: Cherrystone Inlet, Mockhorn Bay, Elizabeth River, and …

High Antarctic Coastal Productivity In Polynyas Revealed By Considering Remote Sensing Ice-Adjacency Effects, Hilde Oliver, Jessica S. Turner, Alexandre Castagna, Henry Houskeeper, Heidi Dierssen

OES Faculty Publications

Ocean color-based estimates of Antarctic net primary productivity (NPP) have indicated low nearshore productivity in ice-adjacent waters, contrasting with coupled physical–biogeochemical models. To understand this discrepancy, we assessed satellite records of polynya NPP by comparing field data with two satellite imagery datasets derived using different processing schemes. Our results indicate historical underestimation of chlorophyll a for imagery obtained using default atmospheric correction processing within approximately 100 km of ice-covered coastlines due to adjacency effects. Using radiative transfer modeling, we find that biases in ocean color polynya observations due to adjacency effects correspond to the high albedo of ice and snow. …

Yucatan Hurricane Activity Highlights Common Era Tropical Cyclone Dipole, Richard M. Sullivan, Peter J. Van Hengstum, Elizabeth J. Wallace, Sloan Coats, Jeffrey P. Donnelly, Robert Korty, Shawna N. Little, Martin G. Maas Vargas, Luis Mejia-Ortiz, Eduard G. Reinhardt, Courtney Schumacher, Anne E. Tamalavage, Tyler S. Winkler

OES Faculty Publications

Tropical cyclone (TC) impacts along the western Atlantic and Caribbean margin are not spatially uniform. Proxy based reconstructions of Common Era TC activity highlight this non-uniform distribution at centennial-millennial timescales. However, the sparse geographic scope of these reconstructions impedes our assessment of TC landfalls across broader spatial domains. This work presents a compilation of new and existing TC reconstructions from the Yucatan Peninsula for comparison with a contemporaneous compilation from New England, showing that these regions occupy distal nodes of a low-frequency TC dipole. Increased Yucatan (New England) storminess is closely linked to intervals of Northern Hemisphere warming (cooling) and …

Agu's Scientific Legacy, Eileen E. Hofmann, Tissa Illangasekare, Francis A. Macdonald, Michael J. Mcphaden, Anne Meltzer, Imke De Pater, Susan J. Roberts, Anne M. Thompson

OES Faculty Publications

The AGU community is a resource for insights into how past research has influenced today's science and will continue to inform the Earth and Space sciences of the future. To capture the voices and opinions from this community, three interviews were held at the 2024 AGU Meeting and broadcast on AGUTV. The interviews with Richard Alley, Susan Lozier and Rana Fine aligned with the daily themes for the 2024 AGU Meeting. The interviewees shared insights from their experiences about the importance of science and how science has shaped their careers and society.