Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Two Essays On Innovation And Growth In China, Qiugu He

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation studies China’s economic growth from a perspective of industry dynamics. In chapter 1, I introduce the background and policies relating to China’s economic growth after 1978. In chapter 2, I find that the elasticity of the average R&D expenditure of firms on competition is -0.29 in weak-IPR (intellectual property right) provinces, and -0.06 in strict-IPR provinces. Next, I use the Schumpeterian growth model to explain this finding: When the market becomes more competitive, a firm prefers imitation to innovation to a larger extent, as a means of getting new technology. Due to enforcement of IPR laws, the imitation …

The Impact Of Kiasu Mindset On Students’ Achievement Goal Orientations And Learning Strategies In Singapore, Haelim Choi

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Kiasuism, defined as the fear of losing out, has been a well-known and widespread phenomenon in Singapore. Despite the long history of Kiasuism in Singaporeans, there has been a dearth of research in this topic. The current research investigated the influence of the Kiasu mindset on Singaporean students’ achievement goal orientation and learning strategy, and also explored the impact of social comparison as a moderator. Study 1 showed initial evidence of a positive relationship between Kiasu mindset and performance goal orientations (i.e., approach and avoidance). Study 2 replicated this finding and further revealed a positive association of Kiasu mindset with …

The Weight Of Scope, Pace, And Practices Of Organizational Change During Evaluations Of Acceptance Of Organizational Change, Lewis Schneider

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Understanding organizational change and the factors associated with it has become paramount as organizations face an increased need to adapt to stay competitive. Because of this necessity of organizational change, employee acceptance of this change is even more important to garner than ever before. The negative effects of organizational change, however, make this task difficult to accomplish. Although the literature points to scope of change, pace of change, and organizational practices as factors that can affect acceptance of organizational change, until this study, it was unknown which of these variables held the most weight in affecting attitudes towards change. In …

Through A Trauma-Informed And Culturally Sensitive Lens: A Qualitative Study Of Effective Engagement With Native American Communities, Katie Hawkins

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The focus of this project was on county and tribal professionals’ views on effective social work engagement with tribal communities in a large rural county located in central California. The importance of this topic is recognized by existing literature, as well as by the findings of this study, which indicate that Native Americans are an understudied group that have unique cultural, historical and service based needs. Additionally, the NASW Code of Ethics (2017) endorses social work practice, research, policies and programs that are attentive to different cultures and that challenge social injustices. The findings of this research project support these …

Treatment Access For Dual Diagnosis Substance Use And Mental Health Disorders, Pedro Banuelos

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In 2018, of 1.3 million Latinx adults in the United States facing concurrent issues with substance use disorders (SUD) and mental health disorders (MHD) 93% remained untreated for either diagnosis. This is concerning since Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) data reveals that this population is at greater risk for suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts. They also face structural barriers such as employment, housing, legal involvement, and insurability that further impede access to treatment.

This study’s purpose was to examine barriers to accessing treatment for Latinx populations confronting co-occurring SUDs and MHDs. This study used a qualitative design …

Secondary Trauma And/Or Potential Impacts Related To Military Family Members, Andressa Young

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Military members who have experienced combat deployments are at a greater risk for mental health issues. This can often affect the families who are placed in the role of being a buffer for these returning military members. Furthermore, the prevalence of mental health issues within the military community being at an all-time high has created a parallel prevalence for the family members who are impacted by these military members dealing with mental health issues. This research project examined data and information that was collected both from individual military family members and from persons who directly provide supportive services to military …

Exploring Interventions Related To Caregiver Burnout, Vanessa Leanete Gonzalez, Jakob R. Mccarthy

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The aging population is rapidly growing within the United States and with advanced age comes an increased likelihood for the need of assistance in completing various activities of daily living. The caregiving literature has thoroughly documented causes and manifestations of caregiver burnout, but there is little mention of interventions for this population. This study utilized a cross-sectional survey of current caregivers to identify sociodemographic factors and descriptive characteristics related to how each respondent fulfills caregiver duties. The survey also measured personal affect, as operationalized by the Negative and Positive Affect Scale (NAPAS) and level of burnout, as measured by the …

Examining Formerly Homeless Senior’S Experiences Transitioning Into Permanent Housing, Elizabeth N. Collins

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study used a post-positivist approach and asked seniors to reflect on positive and negative factors regarding their adjustment to living in permanent housing. This study aimed to provide an understanding of the unique experiences of seniors and gain additional insight into formerly homeless individuals’ experiences adapting to life in permanent housing. The participants for this study were recruited from a non-profit organization in Northern California. This qualitative study collected data in the form of six semi-structured individual interviews. Interviews were conducted over the phone, audio recorded, and then transcribed for data analysis. Findings from this study indicated that the …

Understanding The Motivations Of Esports Fans: The Relationship Between Esports Spectator Motivations And Esports Fandom Engagement, Joshua Barney

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research study examined the motivations people have to watch esports and how these motivations are related to engagement in esports communities, fan identity, sense of community, messages shared in communities, and spectating preferences. Previous research regarding esports and why people watch it was used to create three categories for esports spectating motivations: skill-based motivations, entertainment-based motivations, and relationship-based motivations. Quantitative analyses were performed after collecting survey data from college students at UNLV and additional fans from esports communities. The results showed that there were positive relationships between the various motivations and all aspects of esports fandom engagement, showing how …

Covid-19: A Black Swan?, Ben M. Uehlinger

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

A Black Swan, as termed by Nassim Taleb, is an unexpected, high magnitude event that is often rationalized in hindsight. 9/11 and the Financial Crisis of 2008 are two examples of these tail probability events. Though COVID-19 has been regarded as momentous and unexpected, Taleb does not credit it as a true Black Swan. This paper aims to compare COVID-19 to these recent Black Swans in terms of predictability and significance. Cointegration was tested across 11 major sectors. Further economic indicators were explored with the goal of discussing the broader context of each event. It was concluded that COVID-19 was …

A 3-Dimensional Approach To Projectile Point Classification, Kayden Dennis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Typologies have long been used by archaeologists to answer questions about the past, ranging from issues of site chronology to tool function. However, current methods are hampered by subjective misclassifications as well as a loss of the range of variability among different tool forms due to a process that forces them into singular types. This thesis looks to create a simple and reliable technique of projectile point classification. It is also the author’s goal to use a classification system that monitors cultural transmission over time. This objective is addressed with an Archaic projectile point sequence from the Albertson site in …

Tripdecoder: Study Travel Time Attributes And Route Preferences Of Metro Systems From Smart Card Data, Xiancai Tian, Baihua Zheng, Yazhe Wang, Hsao-Ting Huang, Chih-Cheng Hung

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we target at recovering the exact routes taken by commuters inside a metro system that are not captured by an Automated Fare Collection (AFC) system and hence remain unknown. We strategically propose two inference tasks to handle the recovering, one to infer the travel time of each travel link that contributes to the total duration of any trip inside a metro network and the other to infer the route preferences based on historical trip records and the travel time of each travel link inferred in the previous inference task. As these two inference tasks have interrelationship, most …

A Smarter Way To Manage Mass Transit In A Smart City: Rail Network Management At Singapore’S Land Transport Authority, Steven M. Miller, Thomas H. Davenport

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

There is no widely agreed upon definition of a supposed “Smart City.” Yet, when you see city employees — in this case city-state employees — working in what are obviously smarter ways, “you know it when you see it.” One such example of a smarter way to work in a smart city setting is the way that employees of the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in Singapore are using a new generation of data driven, AI-enabled support systems to manage the city’s urban rail network. We spoke to LTA officers Kong Wai, Ho (Director of Integrated Operations and Planning) and Chris …

More Kawaii Than A Real-Person Live Streamer: Understanding How The Otaku Community Engages With And Perceives Virtual Youtubers, Zhicong Lu, Chenxinran Shen, Jiannan Li, Hong Shen, Daniel Wigdor

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Live streaming has become increasingly popular, with most streamers presenting their real-life appearance. However, Virtual YouTubers (VTubers), virtual 2D or 3D avatars that are voiced by humans, are emerging as live streamers and attracting a growing viewership in East Asia. Although prior research has found that many viewers seek real-life interpersonal interactions with real-person streamers, it is currently unknown what makes VTuber live streams engaging or how they are perceived differently than real-person streamers. We conducted an interview study to understand how viewers engage with VTubers and perceive the identities of the voice actors behind the avatars (i.e., Nakanohito). The …

Algorithms For Algorithms: Teaching Problem-Solving In Computer Science, James Riswick-Estelle

Theses and Dissertations

Increased demand from society for computer scientists and software engineers has placed considerable stress on university-based computer science and engineering programs. Given technology's central role in society, the education of those developing and maintaining that technology is critical. Behavior-based teaching methods may assist in addressing increased demand on universities and improve the quality of education they provide. The present study included two experiments of non-concurrent multiple baseline design. The experiments included 29 total participants to evaluate different algorithm-writing teaching methods at the undergraduate level. Algorithms describe a problem's key features and outline the step-by-step process required for solving that particular …

The Effects Of A Process Analysis Diagnostic Tool On The Accuracy Of Identifying Process Level Disconnects, Vincent Alexander Bello

Theses and Dissertations

Research in the area of Organizational Behavior management (OBM) has demonstrated the effectiveness of behavior analytic interventions on performance in workplace settings. Despite the utility of these procedures, functional assessments used to identify variables maintaining performance deficits have been underutilized and underreported in the OBM literature. Research on functional assessment has been particularly scarce in the area of behavioral systems analysis (BSA), a subfield of OBM that focuses on changing organizational performance through the individual, process, and organizational levels. Without empirical validation of preintervention assessment in BSA, it is unclear to what extent these assessments contribute to the effectiveness of …

Building Resilient Teams: Compositional And Compilational Approaches, Regina Agassian

Theses and Dissertations

Recent events surrounding the pandemic that started in 2020 have placed a premium on team resilience in the workplace. This thesis integrates team resilience and team composition research. Collective self-concept, need for closure, propensity to trust, and decision-making style are hypothesized to predict different facets of team resilience: minimizing, managing, and mending strategies (Alliger et al., 2015). These relationships are approached through the lens of team composition and appropriate operationalizations of team-level aggregation are explored to determine which team composition models are appropriate for predicting relationships between specific individual attributes and team resilience. Archival data from an experimental study was …

Want More Positive Outcomes? Leader Cultural Intelligence And The Facilitation Of A Quality Feedback Environment, Mara Lou Hesley

Theses and Dissertations

The world continues to change, forcing organizational leaders to adapt (House et al., 2014). Leaders with the ability to adapt to a cultural situation that involves people from diverse cultures, otherwise known as culturally intelligent leaders, are predicted to be the most successful in this ever-changing environment (Earley & Ang, 2003; Ang, et. al., 2007). With diversity increasing, (Olson, Green, & Hill, 2008), feedback can no longer be delivered in a “one size fits all” manner (Earley, 1986; Earley & Stubbledine, 1989). Leaders who prioritize being culturally intelligent should contribute to the creation of feedback environments that are personalized and …

The Moderating Effect Of Proactivity In Role Accumulation And Work-Family Enrichment, Sarah Jensen

Theses and Dissertations

Research exploring the dynamics between work and family has primarily focused on the conflict that can arise between them, and there continues to be a gap in the more positive aspects of this dynamic. Work-family enrichment helps to view these roles as allies, and focus’ on how people can use resources found in one role to benefit another; with a greater number of roles leading to a greater opportunity for resources. The implication of these and similar findings give employees and organizations a necessary perspective towards improving well-being and performance. Trait affectivity, and more specifically, proactive behavior, has been cited …

Politically Directed Accumulation In Rural China: The Making Of The Agrarian Capitalist Class And The New Agrarian Question Of Capital, Qian Forrest Zhang, Hongping Zeng

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We study the formation of the agrarian capitalist class in the pig farming sector in a Chinese county. We propose a new framework for analyzing the dynamics of accumulation and class formation in agriculture that focuses on the role of the state and public resources. In what we call “politically directed accumulation,” local states in China, driven by a political logic of maximizing fiscal resources and improving performance record, select actors who either have accumulated non-agrarian capital or possess political capital to serve as their agents (political selection) and then capitalize their farming operations by transferring to them public resources …

In Memory Of Edward Diener: Reflections On His Career, Contributions And The Science Of Happiness, W. Ng, William Tov, R. Veenhoven, S. Rothmann, M. J. Chambel, S. Chen, M. L. Cole, C. Consiglio, A. Constantini, J. A. D. Datu, Z. Di Blasi, S. L. Gumbau, A. Huber, S. M. Kelders, J. Kilbert, H. H. Knoop, C.-H. Mayer, M. Nel, M. Salanova, M. Schotanus-Dijkstra

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Prof. Edward (Ed) Diener (1946-2021), a pioneer in positive psychology, passed away on the 27th of April 2021 at his home in Salt Lake City, Utah (Salt Lake City Tribune, 2021). As one of the most influential psychologists of the discipline, Ed Diener pushed the boundaries of our understanding of positive psychological functioning, subjective well-being, and happiness (Layous, 2020). As one of the Top 200 most cited researchers across all disciplines and fields, he will be most remembered for founding the scientific study of subjective well-being (SWB) and happiness (Bakshi, 2019). Diener developed the concept of subjective well-being by exploring …

Fake News, Epistemic Coverage And Trust, Shane Ryan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article makes the case that a deficit or absence of trust in media sources to report on newsworthy items facilitates acceptance of fake news. The article begins by identifying the sort of fake news that is of interest for the purposes of this article. Epistemic coverage is then explained-in particular, how an individual's expectations about their epistemic environment can lead them to accepting or rejecting claims. The article explains that when an individual believes that mainstream media report on what is deemed newsworthy, it follows that an individual will have grounds to dismiss a newsworthy claim that has not …

Singapore: Value Creating Elites Lead The World, Christine Henderson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Singapore country scorecard for the 2021 Elite Quality Index (EQx2021), a global ranking of countries built on the notion of ‘elite quality’. Elite quality is a macro-level feature of the political economy that measures the value creation aggregate of all elite business models. Elites are dominant coalitions with the strongest capacity for coordination in societies and operate the highest impact business models. Elite business models can either create sustainable value or extract value from others, primarily from non-elites (i.e., through rent-seeking). Value creation activities include innovation, trade or production; value extraction includes barriers, discrimination or monopolies. The higher the value …

Angrybert: Joint Learning Target And Emotion For Hate Speech Detection, Md Rabiul Awal, Rui Cao, Roy Ka-Wei Lee, Sandra Mitrović

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Automated hate speech detection in social media is a challenging task that has recently gained significant traction in the data mining and Natural Language Processing community. However, most of the existing methods adopt a supervised approach that depended heavily on the annotated hate speech datasets, which are imbalanced and often lack training samples for hateful content. This paper addresses the research gaps by proposing a novel multitask learning-based model, AngryBERT, which jointly learns hate speech detection with sentiment classification and target identification as secondary relevant tasks. We conduct extensive experiments to augment three commonly-used hate speech detection datasets. Our experiment …

Comparing The Efficacy Of Two Affirmation Interventions To Reduce Stereotype Threat Effects On Women’S Math Performance, Alicia Macchione

Master's Theses

Research demonstrates when math-based gender stereotypes are activated (i.e., men are better at math than women), women display comparatively poorer math performance than men, a phenomenon referred to as stereotype threat. The current thesis project evaluated two self-affirmation interventions designed to reduce the effects of stereotype threat on women’s math performance. Participants completed a math test under one of four conditions: control (no explicit stereotype activation), stereotype threat (activation of gender performance stereotype) or stereotype threat combined with one of two self-affirmation manipulations. Women in the affirmation conditions either read about women’s greater verbal or relational ability and were asked …

Mitigating Negative Perceptions Due To Gender Norm Violation Through Adherence To Another Prevalent Gender Norm, Kelsey Drea

Master's Theses

In many cultures, the tradition of women adopting their husband’s surname is long-standing. This behavior became an established custom with English women around the 11^th and 12^th centuries (Embleton and King, 1984). In the United States, this practice was inherited from English common law, wherein a wife’s legal identity was considered tied to that of her husband’s. Despite the pervasiveness of such customs in naming conventions in Western cultures, recent social movements intended to foster greater parity between the sexes have led many women to defy this tradition and legally keep their own surname following marriage (MacClintock, 2010). …

The Effects Of Sexual Surrogacy On Satisfaction, Happiness, And Well-Being, Ryan Liu-Pham

Master's Theses

The study tested the effects of sexual surrogacy, which I define as the desire to fulfill sexual needs with a surrogate target (e.g., celebrity crushes), on sexual satisfaction, relationship, happiness, and well-being. To examine this topic, I conducted a cross-sectional experimental study. After being asked about sexual desire toward either their current partner or a celebrity crush with a sexual desire behavior inventory, participants were asked to answer questions about their sexual satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, happiness, and well-being. I predicted that desire toward both surrogates and interpersonal targets will predict higher levels of sexual satisfaction, happiness, and well-being but that …

Proposed Subtypes Of Anger Rumination: Brooding And Reflection And Their Associations With Aggression, Fayth Walbridge

Master's Theses

Rumination maintains, exacerbates, and is related to several maladaptive outcomes including negative affect (e.g., sadness, anger), symptoms of depression, and aggression in samples of nonclinical and clinical populations across developmental periods (e.g., McLaughlin & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2011; Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991; Nolen-Hoeksema, 1996; Thomsen, 2006; Peled & Moretti, 2007; Yang, et. al., 2014). Recently, the construct of sadness rumination has been conceptualized as two distinct subtypes, reflection and brooding (Treynor, Gonzalez, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2003). Brooding is considered maladaptive because feelings and situations are viewed through a negativistic lens and reflection is viewed as adaptive and uses a problem-solving approach (Lopez, 2010; Burwell & …

The Effects Of Using Behavioral Skills Training In Teaching Non-Aba Professionals To Implement Discrete Trial Training: A Meta-Analysis, Lindsey Bernard

Master's Theses

This quantitative meta-analysis evaluated the effectiveness of behavioral skills training (BST) for training non-applied behavior analysis (ABA) professionals to implement discrete trial training (DTT), as well as examining the methodological rigor of these studies using WWC design standards. Results indicate that BST produces large effects and the majority of studies either met design standards with reservations or met design standards. As a result, researchers and practitioners may be optimistic that BST is an effective approach to training non-ABA professionals to implement DTT.

Effects Of Adolescent Motivation And Personality On Adherence And Success In A Voluntary Residential Bootcamp Program, Lydia Sigurdson

Master's Theses

The Youth ChalleNGe Program is a voluntary program for adolescents who have dropped out of high school and is intended to address various needs of at-risk youth. As a result, individuals are motivated to enroll for an array of reasons. Though prior research on the Youth ChalleNGe Program has sought to identify individual factors that determine program outcomes, no study has considered motivation for enrollment as a predictor of program success. Further, personality traits related to goal setting and self-regulation may impact the relationship between motivation and program outcome. Archival data was gathered from 710 participants in the Youth ChalleNGe …