Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

On Healing Hearts: A Saudi Woman Perspective On The Experience Of Baby Loss, Art, And Compassion, Alaa Saeed Alkhalaf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation, “On Healing HeARTs: A Saudi Woman’s Perspective on the Experience of Baby Loss,” investigates how Shia Saudi bereaved mothers create meaning and make sense of their experience of baby loss. It explores the importance of art and compassion in the healing process. Using a multi-method design that includes art-based methods and autoethnography, I narrate my own experience of baby loss. The study relies on theories of sense-making and constructivism to interpret my findings. Looking at the experience from a unique cultural lens enables the readers and health providers to comprehend how certain cultural factors contribute to both the …

The Place And Role Of Pharmacy Benefit Management (Pbm) Companies In Us Healthcare System, George Mattis Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On average, prescription drugs cost US consumers more than any other developed country in the world. US drug makers claim that intermediaries in the prescription drug supply chain, companies called pharmacy benefit managers (PBM), are forcing them to increase their drug prices. PBMs counter that the discounts they receive from drug makers are channeled to insurers. This thesis will examine the role that PBMs play in the prescription drug supply chain and determine what effect they have on drug prices. This thesis will utilize a comparative static model, Structure, Conduct, Performance (SCP) framework to analyze the pharmaceutical manufacturing and the …

Anger Bias In The Evaluation Of Crowds, Diana Mihalache

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although people are good at classifying emotions, they also make mistakes. These errors tend to be negatively biased and potentially serve a protective function. Research on biases in emotion perception has largely focused on perception of individual faces and little is known about biases in evaluations of crowds. In the first investigation, I conducted six experiments, evaluating anger bias—a tendency to judge facial expressions as angry—in the context of single faces and emotionally homogenous crowds. I found that observers were biased to classify faces as angry, especially when evaluating crowds. This amplified bias emerged in the context of perceptual uncertainty …

The Hotelling Valuation Principle: Does User Cost And Reserve Differentials Improve Validity?, Brian K. Hicks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Hotelling Valuation Principal (HVP) implies that the value per unit of an in-ground exhaustible natural resource is equal to the current price less the cost of production. The assumptions required for this principle include a certain and homogenous reserve stock, unconstrained extraction, and constant costs. Extensive research has empirically investigated the HVP. This paper expands the HVP framework and relaxes the theory’s assumptions to account for reserve differentials. The results show that the original net price model is more closely aligned with developed reserve value, than total reserve value. In addition, this paper develops two- and three-factor net price …

Parental Self-Efficacy, Parenting Stress, And Mental Health Among Latina Mothers Of Young Children, Thania Galvan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Parenthood can increase the risk for mental health concerns, especially for Latina mothers. Poor maternal mental health can result in significant negative maternal and child outcomes, particularly if a mother’s mental health needs go unmet. In an attempt to better understand the factors that impact Latina mother’s mental health, this study explored the relations among parental self-efficacy, parenting stress, and mental health. It also explored mother’s self-reported resource availability and sociocultural factors as potential modifiable points of interventions in these relations.

Methods: The study was conducted using data from 132 Latina mothers that participated in a larger project examining stress …

So What, Now What? Using Social Media Activism To Inform Power-Conscious Prevention Of Gender-Based Violence, Andrea R. Thyrring

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We will not end gender-based violence by responding to it. Experts and national organizations agree that effective primary prevention programs are essential to stopping harmful behaviors before they start (DeGue et al, 2014; American College Health Association, 2016; American College Health Association, 2018; Townsend, 2017; Schneider & Hirsch, 2018; McMahon et al, 2019), so much so that primary prevention to address gender-based violence on college campuses has been mandated by state and federal policy (SB 19-007, 2019; Institutional Security Policies and Crime Statistics, 2020). In order to be effective, primary prevention programs should be tailored to the community in which …

The Social Determinants Of Diabetes And Coronary Heart Disease In South Asian American Immigrants, Mishal Ayaz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An astounding 20% of South Asian Americans have diabetes (Matthews and Zachariah 2008). Conventional risk factors for coronary heart disease includes: age older than 65, sedentary lifestyle, cigarette smoking, hypertension, elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL), cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes, all factors beyond health care (italicized for emphasis) (Mathews and Zachariah 2008). But conventional risk factors alone are not sufficient to predict the alarmingly high rates of coronary heart disease (“CHD”) for South Asian Americans. In fact, the only conventional risk factor more prevalent in this community than others is diabetes. So, the question remains, what factors are contributing to the …

“But I’M Not Racist”: How Implicit Racial Bias, Feedback And Racial Affective States Impact Clinical Judgment In Mental Health Treatment, Dhriti Tiwari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Implicit bias has gathered research interest in healthcare, yet remains less directly examined in the mental health field (Merino et al., 2018). Mental health providers can continue to be influenced by implicit bias despite higher ratings of cultural competence (Boysen, 2010). The purpose of this study was to supplement the limited research examining the impact of implicit bias on the clinical judgment process. The study aimed to examine whether: 1) implicit race bias scores were related to diagnostic impressions, 2) feedback about implicit bias was related to diagnostic impressions, and 3) racial affect mediated the relationship between receiving feedback and …

Coming Together Over Table: The Role Of Food In Georgian Conflict Resolution Practices, Raisa Wells

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conflict resolution efforts seek to de-escalate conflict dynamics to bring conciliation and/or reconciliation to a conflict. One strategy to de-escalate a conflict is to use food during conflict resolution efforts. So, what specifically does consuming food and beverage do to break down conflict escalation cycles? Food-sharing brings several aspects to conflict that the literature suggests address how and why conflict escalates. This paper focuses on three prevalent aspects: how food-sharing signals vulnerability and trust building, perceived commonality, and a change in the conflict from competition to cooperation by providing new norms, changing the tone, and shifting frames. Because of the …

“It's Like A Phantom Limb. It Feels Like It’S There. It's Supposed To Be There, But It's Not.”: Birthmothers’ Metaphors Of Ambiguous Loss, Melodee Lynn Sova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Birthmothers are a population with unique experiences and challenges. Among those challenges is the difficulty understanding and managing a loss for which they do not have a readily available coping strategy. As a birthmother, the author of this dissertation was uniquely situated to connecting with, and understanding the ways in which, birthmothers expressed their narratives. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the ways in which birthmothers make sense of their experiences with ambiguous loss by examining the metaphors they employ when narrating their adoption story. The use of metaphor in the birthmother narrative was especially important because metaphor …

From Reform To Resignation: Explaining Why Some Protest Movements Escalate Demands, Sooyeon Kang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the unresolved puzzles in the civil resistance and contentious politics literatures relates to the fact that some movements that begin as reformist (seeking redress in a certain policy space) escalate to maximalist claims (demanding the ouster of a national leader or the entire regime) – a process I call “demand escalation.” For instance, in the summer of 2019, thousands took to the streets of Hong Kong to protest a proposed extradition bill that would allow criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China to face trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party. However, even after Hong Kong’s …

Trainee Attitudes Toward Social Class As Predictors Of Clinical Decision Making: Exploring The Effects Of Classism In Psychotherapy, Jeremy J. Coleman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the effects of classist beliefs on trainee attitudes toward their client based on perceived social-class status. This study sought to determine whether classist attitudes contribute to meaningful differences in clinical decision making. A sample of mental health trainees (n = 147) attending graduate-level programs in the U.S. were recruited and randomly assigned to one of two clinical vignette conditions. Both vignette conditions included identical data regarding a hypothetical client’s presenting concerns (e.g., sleep disturbance, worry, rumination, loneliness), but differed on indicators of client socioeconomic status (SES). Results showed statistically significant between-group differences on ratings of clinical …

Psychological Factors That Impact White Counseling Trainees’ Responses To Cultural Ruptures, Emma Freetly Porter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the field of counseling and clinical psychology, the last several decades have been characterized by a strengthened recognition of the importance of cultural factors in psychotherapy. While this has been impactful, there is evidence that cultural ruptures, microaggressions, and racial/ethnic disparities in psychotherapy outcomes persist. Aversive racism theory, which provides explanations for the racist tendencies typically associated with progressive White individuals, postulates that a conflict between explicit egalitarian beliefs and implicit negative racial biases impedes White individuals from adequately addressing and acknowledging underlying biases. Therefore, it was hypothesized that psychological factors, such as defense mechanisms, professional selfdoubt and self-compassion, …

The Productivity Wage Gap, Monopsony, And Labor Share Decline: An Analysis Of Wage Suppression Perpetuated By Power, Alexandra Coulter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that wage suppression along with the decline in the labor share is caused by a rise in monopsony power realized as a significant increase in the profit share. It attributes the rise in monopsonistic behavior to the development and expansion of the modern corporation. This thesis investigates the reasons for wage suppression, identifies causes of the declining labor share left as exogenous in mainstream models, examines traditional economic wage determination and search models, and evaluates the political economy implications. This work reviews literature on imperfect competition, the corporation, contracts, search and match models, and the motivation of …

The Experiences And Mental Health Impact Of Islamophobia On Muslim Americans Following The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study, Hadeel Ali

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study was to understand the phenomenon of Muslim Americans’ lived experiences of Islamophobia prior to and two years into Donald Trump’s presidential administration. 14 participants from multiple regions in the United States completed a semi-structured interview via telephone. The data analysis revealed seven major themes: 1) Muslim Americans experience different dimensions of Islamophobia, 2) Muslim Americans experience various forms of Islamophobia, 3) Variables that impact the prevalence of Islamophobia, 4) Islamophobia impacts various areas of Muslim Americans’ lives, 5) Muslim Americans may react differently to experiences of Islamophobia, 6) Islamophobia impacts the …

Stories Of Return: A Collection Of Repatriation Narratives, Lydia Degn-Sutton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the museological phenomena of repatriation beyond NAGPRA and the incorporation of Indigenous curatorial methods into museum collections practices. The project explores repatriation and collections caretaking practices at ten settler institutions through narratives of experience collected from museum staff. The findings of this research suggest that repatriation beyond NAGPRA and the Indigenization of collections care are situated processes that should be understood contextually and historically. This thesis argues that, in some cases, repatriation beyond NAGPRA and the integration of Indigenous perspectives, practices, and protocols into museum collections stewardship demonstrates a willingness by institutions to go beyond the minimum …

Maternal Hpa Axis Function During Parenting Is Associated With Reduced Brain Activation To Infant Cry And More Intrusive Parenting Behavior, Andrew Erhart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research indicated that maternal cortisol function and maternal brain response to infant stimuli are separately related to differences in parenting behavior. Evidence from animal models have demonstrated that chronically high cortisol concentration alters brain structure and function, suggesting that studying these two mechanisms together may further improve understanding of parental behavior in human mothers. First time mothers of infants aged 1-7 months old (M age = 3 months) were recruited to participate. Mother’s cortisol concentration was measured during a naturalistic interaction with their infant and their behavior was coded for maternal sensitivity and nonintrusiveness. In a separate session using …

Child Abuse And Revictimization: Improving Models Of Revictimization Risk, Julie M. Olomi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Child abuse (CA) puts women at risk for later victimization by a different perpetrator, referred to as revictimization (RV); however, how this risk is conveyed is not well understood. CA is associated with a diverse set of negative sequelae (e.g., posttraumatic symptomology, emotion regulation difficulties), many of which could plausibly affect risk for RV. To date, most empirical studies of RV have mainly compared groups of women with and without abuse and RV histories using variablecentered approaches. This approach has led to a focus on differences between abused and non-abused women on a few CA-related variables tested at a time. …

Employee Ownership And Moral Hazard: How Broad-Based Equity Sharing Can Lower Agency Costs And Reduce Inequality, Colin Clinton Hudson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Providing incentives to top managers by offering equity has become the norm; this practice, however, does not hold for all levels of employees. After tax incentives for employee ownership were introduced through the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, there has been little legislative support to encourage companies to implement broad-based equity sharing programs. Moreover, decades of neoliberal policies have incentivized the pursuit of short-term profits and speculation, which contribute to economic instability and explain the growing gap between productivity and real wages observed since the late 1970s. Developments in the literature contend that employee ownership aligns the goals …

Fatty Fatty Two-By-Four—Can’T Get Through The Dressing Room Door?: An Examination Of Excess As Queer Failure, Miranda Dottie Olzman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Failure and fat are not linear. It is taught, learned, reminded, and internalized. Our bodies have memories that are built through repeated moments. And for me, failure has been a part of my body’s map since I was born. This project is the culmination of many failures. In this dissertation, I am examining queer failure in multiple contexts including body size, as well as religion to create a corpulent critique. I do this by examining the lineage of queer failure as well as queer temporality as it is linked to failure (Edelman; Muñoz; Halberstam; Love) with fat queer bodies serving …

The Institutional Design Of Arms Control: To What Extent Does Institutional Design Increase The Longevity Of Arms Control Agreements?, Jessica Budlong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The technical institutional design of arms control agreements remains a rather unexplored area of arms control. But the increasing uncertainty of future arms control efficacy requires a re-examination of the agreements’ institutional design to determine which components contribute positively to their longevity. This research examines the role of dispute settlement bodies as specific outside consultative bodies, verification regimes, membership as at least one nuclear-armed state party to the agreement, and technology transfer mechanisms in arms control agreements. It found that membership and a lack of technology transfer mechanisms are necessary to positively impact the longevity of an arms control agreement, …

Ruptured Lives: Narrative Accounts Of Us American Adult Converts To Evangelical Christianity Over The Life Course, Nichole Baumer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within the last few decades, there have been significant discussions regarding the rupturing effect that conversions to Christianity have in indigenous contexts. Individuals who have converted to Christianity from indigenous religions frequently speak of a disruption between their pre-conversion and post-conversion selves and social worlds. Anthropologists have yet, however, to study in-depth the narratives of people living within societies like the US, where Christianity is the hegemonic religion, to see whether or not the same phenomenon can be documented in contexts where individuals are often converting from one form of Christianity to another. Through the lens of narrative analysis, I …

U.S. International Trade And National Security In The Trump Era: Mercantilism, Liberalism, Or Economic Nationalism?, Brett D. Barkey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study will explore the Trump administration’s views of national security as expressed through its international trade policy and ask whether the U.S. is now a mercantilist, a liberal, or an economically nationalist nation. This study will define mercantilism, liberalism and economic nationalism turning for assistance to the writings of Alexander Hamilton, Adam Smith, and Friedrich List.

The study will then explore how those concepts may have been revealed in America’s international trade policy as the U.S. navigated the economic and national security events of the 20th century, and on to 2016 as President-elect Trump prepared to take office. Next …

Moderate Effects Of Anxiety And Physical Activities On The Relationship Between Body Image And Covid-19 Fear, Yutong Guo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Improving psychological well-being has been a hot topic in counseling psychology research. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s lifestyle has been changed that caused series mental health problems. Using a sample of 576 participants from different universities. This study examined whether Covid-19 correlated with Body image a) whether anxiety moderated this relationship. b) whether physical activities moderated this relationship. c) how does different kind of body image avoidance being influenced. Pearson’s correlation test and linear regression analyses were conducted. The result indicated that COVID-19 fear has significantly positive relationship with body image. physical activities level has significantly increase the relationship …

Preconception Stress, Affect-Biased Attention, And Negative Affectivity: Assessing Pathways And Early Markers Of Psychopathological Risk In Infancy And Childhood, Danielle A. Swales

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The developmental origins of mental health likely begin early in life and perhaps even prior to conception. Research is needed to elucidate pathways of risk and resilience in the development of psychopathology. The goal of the current dissertation was to explore how both preconception and postnatal experiences influence negative affectivity, a robust and transdiagnostic risk factor for later psychiatric symptoms. The present dissertation accomplished this goal by completing two independent studies, each of which are presented in the format of standalone journal articles. Study one focused on evaluating how preconception experiences, specifically maternal symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), impact …

Airbnb Release Of Latent Economic Value And Return To Equilibrium, Daniel Joseph Trujillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We empirically consider Airbnb’s effect on a new variable in Short Term Rental (STR) research, second homes, employing a model pre-Airbnb diffusion (2009), and post-Airbnb diffusion (2019). In doing so we test our hypothesis that second home use will be converted to short-term rentals with the advent of Airbnb. We do so through a natural experiment examining housing stock. We create a schema to segregate tourist and non-tourist counties based on economic variables and deploy these in our research framework observing a shock to housing supply. Notably, we observe a structural change in the use of second homes resulting in …

Mechanisms Of Sensory Adaptation In The Primate Visual System, Boris Isaac Peñaloza Rojas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Under ecological conditions, the luminance impinging on the retina varies within a dynamic range of 220 dB. Stimulus contrast can also vary drastically within a scene, and eye movements leave little time for sampling luminance. In addition, the amount of information reaching our visual system far exceeds the brain’s information processing capacity. Given the limited dynamic range of its neurons and its limited capacity in processing visual information in real-time, the brain deploys both structural and functional solutions that work in tandem to adapt to the surroundings. In this work, employing visual psychophysics and computational neuroscience, we study the mechanisms …

Spiritual Care Of Gay Men In Committed Relationships: An Evidenced-Based Intercultural Approach, Marc J. Coulter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sexual minorities have historically been targets of homophobia, heterosexism, discrimination, and persecution particularly within traditional, conservative religious organizations. As a result, many people who identify as male and gay reject traditional forms of religion and seek alternative spiritual beliefs and practices affirming their sexual orientation, often self-identifying as “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR). Some white, gay male couples in committed relationships also reject traditional views of sexual fidelity and negotiate open, consensual, non-monogamous sexual relationships with their primary partner. Gay couples seeking behavioral health assistance to navigate relational difficulties may encounter clinicians who fail to acknowledge the harmful influence of …

Shapes Of Commitment: Forms Of State Support To Nonviolent Mass Resistance, Maria A. Lotito

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nonviolent mass movements are an important and increasingly ubiquitous element of interstate politics in the 21st century. Diverse states - democratic, autocratic, rich, and developing – all have supported movements in some form. Explaining the convergence of such state actors on support for usually pro-democratic mass resistance challenges our existing scholarly frameworks. Using a new dataset, I reconcile the differing explanations of foreign assistance to movements that political science would offer with deep descriptive analysis pursued inductively. First, I propose a conceptual foundation for external support, couching an individual state’s support as the manifestation of an outcome-oriented foreign policy and …

Decolonizing Interfaith Interaction: Common Humanity And Colonial Legacies, Teresa A. Crist

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Among various formations of interfaith interaction in the United States, practitioners strive to build relationships across religious difference through appeals to commonality. Problematically, relying on commonality to unite religiously diverse groups can ignore the colonial history behind what is considered common across humanity, and may serve to make interfaith interaction ineffective. The interfaith project is itself connected to the colonial legacy of Western epistemology, which tacitly normalizes Protestant Christian norms and conceptions of “Religion” and human subjectivity. This dissertation explores whether interfaith interaction, while trying to relieve the religious oppression caused by the normalization of Christianity, may in fact support …