Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Psilocybin And Death Anxiety: A Dual-Mechanism Approach To Existential Distress, Annabelle Swain

University Honors Theses

This literature review looks at how psilocybin, the active compound in "magic mushrooms," can help people deal with death anxiety; the deep fear of dying or losing control that shows up in lots of mental health struggles. While traditional treatments like SSRIs and talk therapy work for some people, they don't always get to the root of the problem. Psilocybin works differently. It changes brain activity, especially in networks tied to repetitive, self-focused thinking, as well as creates powerful, emotional experiences that help people rethink how they see life and death. This paper covers recent research showing how one or …

Link Between Adverse Childhood Experiences And Parenting Styles Of African American Fathers, Tatianna P. Johnson

Dissertations

African American fathers may be more susceptible than fathers of other races to having a negative parenting style due to their high levels of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). ACEs are traumatic experiences during childhood that can affect a person’s mental and physical health, income and adult parenting style. African American adults tend to have experienced multiple levels of ACEs at a higher rate than White and Asian adults (Maguire-Jack et al., 2021). ACEs can lead to adults experiencing higher levels of alcoholism, depression, health-related issues, mental illness, substance use, and academic problems. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to …

The Impact Of Culture And Language On Internal Communication And Patient Care In Small To Medium-Sized Black Immigrant-Owned Healthcare Practices In Texas., Chisom Nwosu

Dissertations

This qualitative phenomenological study explored how cultural competency in small to medium-sized Black immigrant-owned healthcare practices in Texas affects internal communication and patient care. Through semi-structured interviews with nine clinical and administrative leaders in Dallas and Houston, five themes emerged: culturally competent leadership, intentional communication structures, language and interpretation practices, patient-centered cultural sensitivity, and the use of technology for adaptation. Findings suggest that culturally aware leadership and inclusive communication strategies foster team cohesion and improve patient trust and care. Participants reported adapting workflows to meet religious, language, and communication needs through human and technological tools. The study underscores embedding cultural …

Leaning Into The Messiness Of Authentic Engagement: Fostering Reciprocity In Foundation Strategy, Learning, And Evaluation, Sonia Taddy-Sandino, Jennifer Ho, Kim Ammann Howard, Clare Nolan

The Foundation Review

Over the last several years, numerous foundations have endeavored to forge deeper relationships with grantees and challenge the status quo in strategy development and evaluation design. Encouraged by efforts such as the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project and the Equitable Evaluation Initiative, some funders are seeking to redefine how they engage grantees and field partners by navigating the nuances of power dynamics, mutual interests, and genuine collaboration. While there are encouraging signs of progress, there are also plenty of examples of foundation and nonprofit leaders getting stuck or reverting to the modus operandi. Competing agendas, the lack of sustained political will, and …

Perceived Obligations Of Older Partners In Living-Apart Together Relationships, Allison M. Martin

Human Development and Family Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Older and middle-aged adults are increasingly in Living-Apart-Together (LAT) relationships characterized by committed romantic relationships without marriage and cohabitation. Because of assumptions that older adults will receive family caregiving as they grow older and need caregiving, it is not clear how people are likely to perceive obligations to provide caregiving assistance. As adults move into old age and incidence rates of Alzheimer’s Disease or Related Dementia (ADRD) increase, questions about the availability of family members to provide needed assistance are complicated by LAT relationships. The purpose of this study was to examine perceived obligations to provide assistance to older adults …

Pediatric Occupational Therapists’ Perception On How Nature-Based Play Affects Fine Motor Development, Abbi M. Rosenow

Human Development and Family Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study aimed to explore the benefits of nature-based pediatric occupational therapy and the influence of nature and nature-based play on fine motor development. It was hypothesized that nature and nature-based play would positively impact a child’s fine motor skills, and that nature-based occupational therapy would offer unique benefits to a child’s therapeutic experience. To examine these relationships, a survey was distributed to pediatric occupational therapists across the United States. The survey was designed to gather insights into how occupational therapy supports fine motor development, how nature-based play/therapy enhances these skills, and the perceived benefits of incorporating nature into therapeutic …

Testing A Culturally Grounded Training For Black And Latine Clinicians: Creating Communities In Pcit For Providers Of Autistic Youth, Harlee Onovbiona

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Black and Latine families of autistic youth continue to face mental health disparities, some of which have been attributed to poor access to services, discrimination, and poor culturally responsive care. Black and Latine families call for more family-centered treatments that are in accordance with their values and culture with options for treatments to be delivered by clinicians with similar racial and ethnic backgrounds. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is a widely known evidenced-based treatment (EBT) that has been used with Latine, Black, and neurodiverse children to improve the parent-child relationship and reduce challenging behaviors. Although considerable efforts have been made to …

Popular Culture As Conduit: Navigating Integrated Marketing Communication In An Age Of Hyperconsumerism, Abbey N. Mccann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the discipline and practice of integrated marketing communication, acknowledging the limitations inherent in analyzing a field deeply embedded in the structures of hyperconsumption. This inquiry adopts a constructive hermeneutic approach, interpreting the dialectical tensions that define integrated marketing communication. These tensions include that between commercial imperatives and cultural critiques, which are further complicated by the influence of popular culture and shifting political climates. As popular culture increasingly intersects with sociopolitical discourse, brands are compelled to navigate these dynamics publicly. This evolving landscape reshapes consumer perceptions and brand strategies, reinforcing integrated marketing communication’s role as both a cultural …

High Flying Adored: How Ceo Narcissism Influences Firms’ Responses To Above-Aspiration Performance With Risky Organizational Change, Korcan Kavusan, Daniel Mack, Matthew P. Mount, Gokhan Ertug

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research Summary: Research on performance feedback presents conflicting views on how above-aspiration performance influences organizational change. Some studies argue that it constrains change due to a lack of organizational motivation, while others suggest that it enables change by expanding managerial discretion. Reconciling these perspectives, we suggest that managers’ narcissistic tendencies can fundamentally alter how a firm responds to above-aspiration performance. We theorize and find evidence that high-narcissism CEOs respond to above-aspiration performance with more acquisitions—attention-generating actions that align with their self-enhancement motives, while under similar conditions low-narcissism CEOs avoid acquisitions, due to their uncertainty and risk. Our findings highlight the …

Centering Community Voice In Strategic Design: The Build Health Challenge Model, Melissa Monbouquette, Jessica Mulcahy

The Foundation Review

It is commonplace today for philanthropies to require grantee partners to have a community engagement strategy to ensure that the institution reflects the community that it serves. It is also incumbent on foundations to embrace the same intent. Alongside participatory practices, listening is an opportunity to level the power dynamics inherent to philanthropic practice.

The BUILD Health Challenge® (BUILD) is an innovative funder collaborative designed to support local cross-sector action to address the root cause of health inequities. Established in 2015, BUILD supports participants from across the U.S. to engage in partnerships including residents, community-based organizations, health departments, and health …

Bridging Generations: Intergenerational Transfers And Time Use In A Changing World, Christine Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

This Special Issue brings together nine papers that examine how families allocate time and money across generations. Spanning aging societies in East Asia to informal settlements in the Pacific, the contributions employ diverse methodological approaches, from natural experiments and policy variation to administrative data linkage and cross-generational panel surveys. The findings converge on a central insight: intergenerational transfers of time and money are not merely cultural practices, but systematic responses to changing economic environments and institutional frameworks. Family decisions are critical to the provision of long-term care, investment in children’s human capital, and the transmission of preferences, opportunities, and well-being …

Is R&D Rivalry Slowing The Growth Of Productive Firms?, Yoshiki Ando, James Bessen, Xiupeng Wang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The reallocation of jobs to more productive firms is a substantial component of aggregate productivity growth, yet job reallocation rates have declined substantially in the United States. This paper explores the hypothesis that greater technological rivalry has exacerbated adjustment costs, slowing reallocation. Using microdata at the US Census and estimates of technological rivalry in firm growth regressions, we find that technological rivalry slows firm responses to productivity shocks. Firms do not expand as rapidly in the face of higher obsolescence risk. Estimating counterfactual firm growth from 1997-2018, we find that growing technological rivalry accounts for most of the decline in …

A Multi-Scale Approach For Integrating Species Distribution Models With Landscape Connectivity To Identify Critical Linkage Zones For African Savanna Elephants (Loxodonta Africana), Lei Song, Amy E. Frazier, Anna Bond Estes, Lyndon Despard Estes

Geography

The populations of African savanna elephants have declined by an estimated 60 % since the 1970s, which can be attributed to a mixture of poaching and habitat loss. Human activities and environmental changes have caused unprecedented loss and fragmentation of elephant natural habitats, resulting in the isolation of elephant populations. Preserving habitat connectivity is thus increasingly important to conserve remaining elephants' populations and maintain ecological functions. A major challenge in large-scale connectivity modeling is data availability constraints. To tackle this issue, we developed an integrated modeling approach that leverages multiple, publicly available occurrence datasets, which vary in format and quality, …

Not All Political Ties Are The Same: Firms' Ties To The Government And Pollution, Wen Helena Li, Ilya R. P. Cuypers, Gokhan Ertug, Hari Bapuji, Wei Liu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Complementing research on the implications of political ties for firms’ strategic decisions and financial performance, recent studies are increasingly focusing on the environmental consequences of firms’ political connections. We contribute to this stream of work by integrating insights from the literature on political ties and the multifaceted nature of governments to explore how the level of government influences the pollution implications of firms’ political ties. Specifically, we theorize and demonstrate that, in China, firms' achieved political ties with high levels of the government reduce pollution, while such ties with low levels of the government increase it. Furthermore, we examine how …

I See Sick People: Beliefs About Sensory Detection Of Infectious Disease Are Largely Consistent Across Cultures, Joshua M. Ackerman, Theodore Samore, Daniel M. T. Fessler, Norman P. Li, Et Al

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Identifying cues to contagious disease is critical for effectively tracking and defending against interpersonal infection threats. People hold lay beliefs about the types of sensory information most relevant for identifying whether others are sick with transmissible illnesses. Are these beliefs universal, or do they vary along cultural and ecological dimensions? Participants in 58 countries (N = 19,217) judged how effective, and how likely they were to use, cues involving each of the five major sensory modalities in an imagined social interaction during a flu outbreak. Belief patterns were strongly consistent across countries (sight > audition > touch > smell > taste), suggesting a largely …

Evaluating Demand-Responsive Scheduling In Public Transportation Service Offerings To Retirement Communities, Steven D. Silver

Mineta Transportation Institute

This project addresses alternatives to fixed schedule local transportation service offerings to members of retirement communities. The project design measures the effects of the contrast between fixed schedule (Fixed) service and demand-responsive services (DRT) in retirement communities in Santa Clara County that are closely matched in demographic profiles and geographic location. The research team investigates the effects of scheduling alternatives in a diary format with a within-person variable of four recent trips. The measure of public transportation usage under the Fixed schedule and DRT service offerings is supplemented by a measure of subjective well-being (STS) for each trip—in other words, …

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, And Access Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2025, April Anderson-Zorn, Emily Baldoni, Karmine Beecroft, Chad E. Buckley, Susan Franzen, Tom Hardy, Ellie Harman, Laura Killingsworth, Heather Koopmans, Maddi Loiselle, Joshua Newport, Ryan Peters, Seth Peterson, Lindsey Skaggs, Caitlin Stewart, Maria Tudela, Eric Willey, Angela Yon

Milner Library Publications

Report of Milner Library's activities and initiatives related to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in Fiscal Year 2025. Compiled by the IDEA Committee.

Health And Weather In Unfavourable Environments: Exploring The Historical Dynamics Of Colonial Medical Meteorology In Nineteenth-Century Tropical Asia, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Medical meteorology had a long precedent in medical thought across Eastern and Western traditions. This article considers the tradition of medical meteorology that was favoured by Western doctors in the nineteenth century, which was often applied within colonial contexts to the understanding of new climates and how they might impact on human health. Looking at British-held tropical and sub-tropical colonies of the Straits Settlements and Hong Kong respectively, medical meteorology was stimulated by the new pathological and atmospheric conditions that European explorers and settlers now inhabited in the name of the British Empire. They brought with them concepts of disease …

Revealing Building Operating Carbon Dynamics For Multiple Cities, Winston Yap, Abraham Noah Wu, Clayton Miller, Filip Biljecki

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Achieving carbon neutrality is a critical yet elusive goal for many cities, hindered by limited understanding of the relationship between building emissions and their surroundings. To address this challenge, we present a generalizable open science framework that integrates building energy-consumption data, multi-modal geospatial inputs and graph deep learning to quantify building operating emissions and their links to urban form and socio-economic factors. Applying this approach to five cities with diverse climates and planning contexts—Melbourne, New York City (Manhattan), Seattle, Singapore and Washington DC—we demonstrate that our models explain 78.4% of the variation in building operating carbon emissions across cities, achieving …

Full Circle: Historiography, Missiology, And Theology In Lin Yutang’S From Pagan To Christian, Teng-Kuan Ng

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) is renowned for bridging the Chinese and Western worlds through his prolific writings, but the vital role of religion in his intercultural endeavors remains underappreciated. This article situates his seminal work of religious reflection, From Pagan to Christian (1959), within the context of World Christianity, defined as both movement and method. Lin’s departure from the Christianity of his youth into Chinese religions—and back again to the church in his later years—presents timely insights for the study of religious change and pluralism in global modernity. Analyzing the text’s decolonizing, dialogical, and polyphonic dimensions, this article brings Lin’s spiritual …

Direct And Indirect Experiences, Risk Perceptions, And Vaccine Booster Intention: A Mediation Study In Singapore Using Secondary Risk Theory, Sonny Rosenthal, Agnes S. F. Chuah, Hye Kyung Kim, Shirley S. Ho

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This study examined how direct experiences with COVID-19 infection and vaccination and indirect experience through government and media information predict individuals' intention to receive a COVID-19 booster dose. Drawing on secondary risk theory, we conducted a nationally representative door-to-door survey of 1000 adult Singapore residents in mid-2024. We used structural equation modeling to test whether risk perceptions and efficacy beliefs mediate the effects of experience and information exposure on booster intention. Booster intention was positively related to perceived susceptibility to infection, vaccine effectiveness, vaccination self-efficacy, and prior vaccination, and negatively related to perceived severity of and susceptibility to booster side …

International Comparison Of Weather And Emission Predictive Building Control, Christian Hepf, Ben Gottkehaskamp, Clayton Miller, Thomas Auer

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Building operational energy alone accounts for 28% of global carbon emissions. A sustainable building operation promises enormous savings, especially under the increasing concern of climate change and the rising trends of the digitalization and electrification of buildings. Intelligent control strategies play a crucial role in building systems and electrical energy grids to reach the EU goal of carbon neutrality in 2050 and to manage the rising availability of regenerative energy. This study aims to prove that one can create energy and emission savings with simple weather and emission predictive control (WEPC). Furthermore, this should prove that the simplicity of this …

Evaluation Of Prerequisite Discrimination Skills For Obtaining Assent From Individuals With Intellectual Disabilities: A Translational Study, Jessica J. Helen Detrick

Dissertations

Assent can be defined as an individual’s affirmative agreement to participate and should be obtained by those who cannot consent (i.e., children and adults deemed as “incapable”) when conducting research or providing services. Federal policies recommend considering age, maturity, and psychological state to determine if a participant can assent. Beyond these considerations, there is little guidance. However, practitioners and researchers still have an ethical obligation to obtain assent. Morris and colleagues (2021) conducted a literature review of assent procedures documented within behavior-analytic journals and found few studies. Of the procedures identified, many would likely be difficult to implement with participants …

Mexican Americans’ Attitudes Toward Mexican Immigrants In The United States, Sandra Daisy Espinoza Montes

Dissertations

The United States (U.S.) has often been described as a nation of immigrants. Among the 40 million immigrants in the U.S., Mexican-descent individuals comprise 25% of the overall immigrant population, positioning them as the largest immigrant group in the country. Additionally, Mexican Americans constitute 63% of the Latinx population, making them the largest minoritized ethnic group in the U.S. Considering that Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans have a significant presence in the country, scholars have called for additional research on attitudes towards Mexican immigrants (Byrne & Dixon, 2016; Flores et al., 2022). However, much of the existing literature on attitudes …

Understanding Residential Development In A High-Quality Transit Area (Hqta): An Application Of Deep Learning, Dohyung Kim

Mineta Transportation Institute

Considerable research addresses the dynamics between land use and public transportation, including the impacts of transit systems on urban development and vice versa. However, this research has underestimated the heterogeneity of contributing factors to urban developments near transit by property type: vacant lot and occupied property. That is, what drives development in vacant lots differs from what drives development in already-occupied property. A lack of comprehensive data that differentiates development records based on the type of property is one explanation for this research gap. This project fills this research gap by employing a deep learning algorithm and separately examining the …

Developing An Integrated Risk Assessment Framework To Quantify The Resilience Of Critical Railway Infrastructure: Characterization Of Risks And Hazards To The U.S. Rail Network Through Empirical Data And Past Events, Haizhong Wang, Brian M. Staes, Benyamin Ghoreishi

Mineta Transportation Institute

To improve understanding of the impact of natural hazards on the U.S. railway system, this project developed a comprehensive, geospatially precise dataset that maps historical hazard events to specific rail segments. The project provides insight into when, where, and how much damage natural hazards have inflicted on rail infrastructure across the country. While a rail-specific hazard database did not previously exist, this research combines data from the Geological Survey (USGS) Flood Events Database, Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC), the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Weather Service (NWS) forecast zones. …

Roadside Asset Extraction From Mobile Lidar Point Cloud, Yushin Ahn, Riadh Munjy, Stephen Choi

Mineta Transportation Institute

Mobile LiDAR systems are powerful tools that help us map roads and their surroundings in 3D with great speed and precision. The data provided by these systems support urban planning efforts, digital mapping, transportation infrastructure maintenance, and more. This report presents a comprehensive workflow for roadside asset extraction using Mobile Terrestrial Laser Scanning (MTLS) data, focusing on road lane detection, cross-section slope analysis, and point cloud classification. Roadside asset extraction is the identification and classification of roadside features like signs and poles. The dataset, acquired using a high-resolution mobile LiDAR system, contains over 5.7 billion points (pieces of data) across …

The Impact Of Mindfulness Therapy To Reduce Disruptive Behavior In High School, Wendy Nell Peters

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this project was to determine the impact and effectiveness of Gina Biegel’s mindfulness techniques for stressed teens method on adolescent anxiety and the disruptive symptoms that lead to high school adolescents being assigned to detention. This project described a quantitative correlational design research project that investigated a small adolescent sample size, with a goal of decreasing the number of local high school adolescent students who are repeat detention offenders, by implementing Gina Biegel’s mindfulness techniques for stressed teens method on those high school adolescents who were assigned to detention. This was achieved by collecting demographic data from …

Perceived Leadership Behaviors And Workplace Motivation: The Predictive Role Of Generational Cohorts In The U.S. Construction Industry, Leslie D. Klinegardner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which perceived leadership behaviors predicted workplace motivation among construction workers across generational cohorts in the Greater Houston, Texas area. Grounded in self-determination theory, the research explored how transformational, transactional, and passive-avoidant leadership behaviors predicted the satisfaction and frustration of psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The analysis also considered whether leadership behaviors and generational cohort served as significant predictors of workplace motivation outcomes. The study followed a quantitative, predictive, cross-sectional design using survey methodology. Data were collected using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and the Basic Psychological Need …

Predicting Case Clearance For Victims Of Anti-Transgender Homicide In The United States, Brittaney Alyssa Mann

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a shortage of research exploring case clearance of anti-transgender bias homicides. This study will comparatively examine the similarities and differences in anti-transgender bias homicide cases with and without arrests at the victim, situational and incident levels occurring in the United States between 2013 and 2023. Data are extracted from the Bias Homicide Database (BHDB), the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). This project will address the gap in understanding case clearance of anti-transgender bias homicides, provide policy implications, and ideas to further the discipline’s understanding of the topic. Keywords: LGBTQIA+ victims, bias …