Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Coercive Control And Trauma-Coerced Attachment In Commercial Sexual Exploitation: A Mixed-Method Examination, Kendra Doychak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Commercial sexual exploitation (i.e., sex trafficking) can lead to myriad negative consequences for its victims, including exposure to coercive control and the development of trauma-coerced attachments. Scholars have offered theoretical conceptualizations of the relation between coercive environments and traumatic attachments, but this relationship is rarely empirically examined. The current study used data from 68 semi-structured interviews with former victims of sex trafficking to first, formally identify coercive control and second, empirically classify trauma-coerced attachment in this population. Mixed-method analysis were used to identify associations between coercive control and TCA in order to better explain how this abuse dynamic leads to …

Microaggressions, Imposter Phenomenon, And People Of Color: A Quantitative Analysis, Rukiya King

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research has demonstrated the impact of racial and ethnic microaggressions on marginalized groups. However, research has not established the presence of imposter phenomenon as a consequence of microaggressions. Imposter phenomenon has been described as intense and pervasive self-doubt experienced by individuals of marginalized identities. Although imposter phenomenon was first conceptualized as an experience among high achieving women, researchers have demonstrated its presence in other marginalized groups, particularly people of color. However, research on imposter phenomenon has mostly focused on perceived racism and racial identity within people of color. The current study examined the relationship between microaggressions, imposter phenomenon, and mental …

La Voz De Los Sures: Etnografía Glotopolítica Del Activismo Comunitario, Lara Maria Alonso Pinero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The relevance of the strategic use of language and communication in the consolidation and action of a political subject has not yet been sufficiently analyzed. Drawing on a glottopolitical perspective, this research project aims to incorporate the object of study of the political dimension of voice and point out the importance of mastering linguistic and discursive practices in community activism. Based on the case of the Latino community of Los Sures in Brooklyn, NY, in this dissertation I embark on a journey through the communicative practices through which a group of people begins to conceive of itself as a community, …

Investigating Young Adult Cancer Survivors' Perspectives On Their Future And Interpersonal Relationships, Zeba N. Ahmad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For many young adults (YA, aged 18-39) who have recently survived cancer, planning and working towards goals for the future is a fraught process. Prior research consistently identifies the challenges of survivorship, including: rebuilding personal identity, accepting the impact of cancer-related interruptions on personal goals, navigating new roles in significant close relationships, and initiating new relationships as a survivor. However, there is limited research describing the mechanisms underlying these persistent challenges, which poses difficulties when tailoring evidence-based psychological intervention. The present study consolidates both established and newly hypothesized survivorship challenges into a novel conceptual model, hypothesizing that they are interrelated, …

The Politics Of Feminist Citizenship: Violence, Law, And Affect In Post-Revolution Tunisia, Ola Galal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Taking a historical and ethnographic approach, this dissertation examines citizenship as a historical, political, and ethical problem in Tunisia during a turbulent yet hopeful time of transition. It examines changes in the conceptualization of citizenship from one that is construed as a favor to one that is rights-based, and the political, ethical, and material effects of that shift in both official and popular discourses. I home in on the central and sometimes uneasy role feminists play in articulating and consolidating that discursive, legal, and affective transformation in citizenship by mediating between different legal and moral frameworks and attempting to reconcile …

A Pilot Feasibility Trial Of Mindfulness And Modification Therapy For Males Who Use Aggression, Jenny Mitchell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Physical aggression incurs substantial harm to victims and witnesses, particularly when it occurs within close relationships such as family, friendships, or intimate partnerships. Men who use aggression against partners and other adults frequently experience high levels of psychopathology, including depression, posttraumatic stress symptoms, anxious/insecure attachment, paranoia, bipolar disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, personality disorders, and substance abuse, which contribute to use of aggressive behaviors. However, existing treatments for aggression often do not address these symptoms. It is important that treatments for aggression are grounded in theoretical literature and backed by empirical support in order to increase treatment engagement and effectiveness. Treatments …

Mitigating The Harm Of Public Mass Shooting Incidents Through Situational Crime Prevention, Emily Greene-Colozzi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation used environmental theoretical frameworks to understand how public mass shooting incidents are impacted by aspects of the crime situation and opportunity. Predatory, public shootings perpetrated by individuals with evidence of mass intent were examined in the United States between 1966 and 2019. This project progressed in several distinct steps with discrete aims: (1) establish an open source database of public mass shooting incidents meeting definitional criteria; (2) perform statistical analysis, including latent class analysis, regression modeling, and structural equational modeling to assess research questions; and (3) perform comparative case studies and crime script analysis to assess situational crime …

Refusing Rehabilitation: Outlaw Epistemologies And The Carceral-Therapeutic State In Nyc, Nadja Eisenberg-Guyot

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During an historic re-articulation of incarceration in New York City, Refusing Rehabilitation: Outlaw Epistemologies and the Carceral-Therapeutic State explores how gender, race, and class have been transformed at the intersection of criminal legal system reform and the overdose crisis. I take up how multiracial groups of criminalized women—thrown together by the state, not by choice—refuse forms of state control and violence, and imagine together alternative “outlaw” horizons of justice, healing, drug use, and escape from carceral-therapeutic capture. Countering the individualizing mandate of rehabilitation, women in rehab articulate visions of healing grounded in interdependence, collective safety, and an end to structural …

Fathers Are Fathers Are Fathers: How Sociocultural Context And Sexual Orientation Influence The Gendering Of Children, Sarah M. Frantz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Though the body of literature on gay father-headed families indicates there is no significant differences on measures of gender normativity and well-being between children raised with two dads and their peers raised by heterosexual parents, there is a proliferation of anti-LGBTQ+ policies throughout the United States aimed at limiting this community’s rights and silencing their lived experiences. Given that sociocultural and political environments vary greatly state-to-state, it is important to see how the specific context in which fathers live may impact their differential parenting of sons and daughters, their gender beliefs, and the way they feel they would navigate gender …

Intelligence Testing In The New (Langu)Age: Effects Of Item-Type And Assessment Medium Features On Fluid Intelligence Test Linguistic Group Score Differences, Paige R. Alenick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As fluid intelligence tests are an integral part of modern employee selection protocols, assessment designers are tasked to ensure the construct is measured accurately for all test-takers regardless of their demographic traits. Disparities in bilingual and monolingual working memory capabilities, which are critical for successful fluid intelligence test performance, might make it challenging for test designers to accomplish this goal. Best design practice in such cases is to identify assessment conditions that allow for equitable expression of the test construct. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine whether the content of items present on a fluid intelligence test …

Expulsive Greening: A Cross-Sectional Analysis Of Green Gentrification In The Resilience Paradigm, Brooklyn 2010–2020, Rose Jimenez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: This project analyzes the spatial coincidence between gentrification typologies and urban greening in Brooklyn, New York from 2010 to 2020. Assets formed under the NYC Green Infrastructure Program were chosen as a proxy for urban greening to represent the spatial practice specifically within the 21st-century climate change resilience paradigm of development. Methods: First, five indexes measuring variations of economic and demographic conditions related to gentrification were applied to Brooklyn for comparative analysis: NOAA’s Social Vulnerability Indicators of Gentrification Pressure, The NYC Heat Vulnerability Index, The Small Area Index of Gentrification, Typologies of Gentrification and Displacement, and The Housing Risk …

Cpted And The City: The Impact Of Privately Owned Public Spaces On Crime In Manhattan, Julia Von Ferber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Privately-Owned Public Spaces (POPS) are public recreational areas that are maintained and secured by a private owner. POPS contrast their surrounding environments of public streets in urban city centers, creating distinct social environments that influence pedestrian paths and behavior. This dissertation evaluates POPS and how their physical features influence the occurrence of various street crime types through the lens of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). Empirical evidence supports CPTED as a crime prevention strategy framework, primarily in residential neighborhoods rather than city centers. To quantitatively assess CPTED in an urban context, this study examined 255 outdoor POPS with unrestricted …

The Impossible Situation? Impasse As Psychotherapeutic Paralysis, Possibility, And Progress, Leo Cancelmo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychotherapeutic impasse has long been understood in the clinical literature as treatment stagnation and even failure, both from one-person and two-person psychodynamic perspectives. However, there is a dearth of empirical research that delves deeper to understand this complex and rich phenomenon. Using semi-structured interviews with nine psychodynamic therapists speaking about individual adult patients, this study examined experiences of impasse to better understand treatments that become embroiled in a kind of paralysis. Qualitative analyses revealed dyads where patients were conceptualized as struggling chronically with negative feelings about themselves and others, and who experienced traumatic personal histories. Impasse in and of itself …

Predicting Stress In Russian Using Modern Machine-Learning Tools, John Schriner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the Russian language, stress on a word is determined via often complex patterns and rules. In this paper, after examining nearly a century of research in stress rules and methods in Russian, we turn to see if modern machine learning tools can aid in predicting stress. Using A.A. Zaliznyak’s dictionary grammar and over 300,000 word forms, we derived stress codes to aid in predicting which syllable primary stress falls on. We trained an LSTM neural network on the data and conducted eight experiments with added features such as lemma, part of speech, and morphology. While the model performed better …

Serial Position Effect Profiles And Their Neuroanatomical Correlates: Predictors Of Conversion To Alzheimer's Disease, Isabelle K. Avildsen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current study was designed to determine whether targeted, premorbid, neuropsychological measures of the serial position effect (SPE) can detect and explain risk for later development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The study tested the utility of SPE measures in healthy controls (HC) and individuals already diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or AD. Aim 1 was to determine whether these sensitive, valid neuropsychological measures can explain disease risk. SPE of list-learning are highly sensitive cognitive markers that capture important elements of both linguistic and amnestic mechanisms of encoding, learning, and retrieval. Using the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), we …

Ssri-Induced Emotional Blunting: A Study Of Cognitive Changes In Pharmaceutically Treated Depression, Carly Tocco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Objective: In recent years, approximately 12.7% of the American population are on a prescribed antidepressant medication. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are a widely used pharmacological treatment for depressive and anxiety disorders, primarily due to their tolerance levels, mild side effects in comparison to other antidepressants, and broad range of clinical indications. However, there are still numerous concerns about SSRIs’ ability to improve depressive symptoms without adding side effects such as sexual dysfunction, gastrointestinal upset, and a restricted range of emotions. Although patients typically claim that they have less emotional pain while on SSRIs than they do during a depressive …

The Impact Of Cannabis Use On Neuropsychological And Neural Biomarkers Of Treatment Response In Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders, Melanie B. Thies

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cannabis use among patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SSD) is at significantly greater levels than in healthy populations but the impact of cannabis on neural mechanisms of clinical improvement is poorly understood. Cognitive functioning and neural connectivity are disrupted as a result of both SSD and cannabis use, and research indicates that neuropsychological capacity and connectivity of the striatum, a region involved in salience and reward processing, may be integral to effective antipsychotic drug (AP) treatment response. Despite this overlap, no previous research has investigated the effect of cannabis on the brain functions implicated in AP treatment response. The present study …

The Politics Of Media Freedom, Kyong Mazzaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Democratization theories assume that democracy and media freedom go hand in hand. However, in democracies, politicians and individuals who have a stake in political battles often attack journalists. How can political and electoral incentives that are at the heart of democracy create a minefield for journalists? Examining cross-national patterns of censorship and the experiences of journalists in Venezuela, Mexico, and Brazil captured in over 4,600 case narratives, 30 field interviews, and historical documents, I study the circumstances under which political rivalries result in anti-media violence. I show that state and non-state actors are more likely to target journalists as a …

The Role Of Mortality Salience And Social Identity In Police Officers And Students Reporting Misconduct, Anna M. Stenkamp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the past several decades, high-profile police shootings, police brutality, and police misconduct have contributed to a decreased trust in policing in the United States. Beyond the severity and abuse of power, many of these incidents have also revealed that officers have covered up these incidents from the public. The refusal of police officers to both report misconduct or cover it up is well established and known as the “blue wall of silence.” However, no previous studies have examined the psychological processes behind this failure to report fellow officer misconduct. Two psychological theories that may explain this failure are Terror …

Essays On Spillover Effects Across U.S And China, Zhuo Xi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chapter1: With the rapid development and continuous advancement of economic globalization, the links between countries around the world have become increasingly tight. Among them, the United States, as the world's largest economy, its monetary policy is bound to cause significant spillover effects on other economies around the world. By constructing a Threshold SVAR model with monthly data from 1996 to 2019, this paper empirically investigates the spillover effects of US monetary policy on China's economy during different U.S policy regimes. The transmission mechanism of such effects has been tested through different channels including policy channel, trade channel, asset value channel …

Essays In Asset Pricing, Muhammed Yonac

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three essays in asset pricing with the common theme of return predictability.

Chapter 1: This chapter introduces the motivation, results, and structure of the dissertation.

Chapter 2: I examine the relation between the social ties between firms' headquarters locations and co-movements between their fundamentals and stock returns. The evidence indicates that firms in the same industry with socially connected locations exhibit co-movement in fundamentals and stock returns that exceed those without socially connected locations. However, the stock returns reflect the location information with a lag. To exploit this lagged relationship, we form portfolios that buy (sell) …

Credible Messengers: An Exploratory Analysis Of What Makes Them "Credible", Jason Szkola

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The use of credible messengers to deliver violence reduction programs has spread rapidly since it was first used in a criminal justice context by Cure Violence in 2006. Despite the rapid growth in the use of credible messengers and the accompanying evaluations of these programs, there is no clear operationalization of what a credible messenger is, aside from vague definitions contained in the evaluation literature. This research explores what it means to be credible from the perspectives of the Credible Messengers themselves. The research used a mixed method approach wherein qualitative interviews were used to identify traits that the Credible …

Exploring Social And Emotional Functioning In Emerging Adult Survivors Of Adverse Childhood Experiences, Sara Babad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As many as two thirds of adults in the United States have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and 60% of these individuals have experienced multiple, or cumulative ACEs. ACEs are associated with a range of outcomes, including social, emotional, and cognitive changes, health risk behaviors, psychopathology, worse physical health, and early death. Although some ACEs effects have been well-researched, social and emotional changes have received minimal attention in the literature in general. Research on ACEs effects in emerging adults (ages 18 to 25), an already vulnerable population, is also limited. Furthermore, there is debate in the field as to which …

Unexpected Arousal Suppresses Memory And Metamemory Predictions During Associative Face-Name Recognition Task, Sameer Sabharwal-Siddiqi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Successful recognition often depends on probabilistic estimation of memory-signal. Arousal has been shown to offset the influence of heuristic evidence on memory prediction. We conducted three experiments that tested whether arousal also suppresses predictions relevant to memory confidence. Experiments employed associative face-name memory tasks that included retrospective (Experiments 1 and 2) or concurrent (Experiment 3) judgements of confidence. During test, subjects were presented with a masked-affective face on a subset of trials. By timing the masked-affective face to precede a recognition judgement (Experiment 1), we replicated the finding that unexpected arousal offsets the influence of heuristic evidence on expectations of …

Anomalous Self-Experiences And Aberrant Salience In Schizotypy, Victoria Martin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Within this investigation, the self-disorder hypothesis of schizophrenia was assessed via an illusory perceptual paradigm. It has been proposed that alteration of basic (minimal) selfhood may underlie cognitive and perceptual disturbances in psychosis (Sass, 2014). Disturbed corporeality (i.e., anomalous experience of one’s body) is an identified component of basic self-disturbance. As it is difficult to empirically capture the spontaneous occurrence of anomalous bodily experiences as they arise, the Pinocchio Illusion (PI) has been employed to capture variations in the plasticity of bodily self-experience (specifically, body boundary plasticity) (Michael & Park, 2016). The PI paradigm provides for the sensations of arm …

Countertransference And The Patient's Experience: Exploring How Engagement With Affect Is Related To Short-Term Psychotherapy Outcomes, Ariel R. Westerman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Therapist focus on affect in the here-and-now can facilitate a patient’s emotional experience as well as expression of affect, both of which are associated with better outcome over the course of treatment (Diener et al., 2007). A therapist’s use of her own experience of the patient can serve as a signal to intervene in the here-and-now. While “countertransference” was historically seen as an obstacle to a therapist’s neutrality and therefore efficacy (Freud, 1910), shifts in the field toward a two-person psychology model led some to reconsider it as a potential source of clinical data (Winnicott, 1947; Heimann, 1950; Racker, …

A Study Of Entrainment In Speech As A Possible Predictor Of Perceived Trust, Mariana Graterol Fuenmayor

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the possibility of using features of speech as possible predictors of perceived trust. It specifically focuses on entrainment, the tendency of participants in a conversation to unconsciously adapt their manner of talking to become more or less similar to each other. We compile a corpus of interviews conducted in English, with different levels of formality and discussing different topics. With it, we distribute a set of surveys to assess raters’ judgment of the participants, focusing on whether they believe the interviewee is trusted by their conversational partner, and whether they find the interlocutors themselves trustworthy. We also …

An Interdisciplinary Approach To The Epistemic Value Of Moral Ambiguity, Jordan Wylie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Morality is a critical aspect of life––it influences how we think, design political and legal systems, who we connect with, our norms, and the types of stories we tell. Yet, even with the well documented influence of morality on many aspects of life, exactly what makes moral themes so fascinating remains elusive. This dissertation aims to introduce Moral Worldbuilding as a theory for understanding our epistemic drives toward morally ambiguous and morally bad content.

In Chapter I, we introduce the problem of moral badness, which is not well handled by extant moral literature. To combat this, we offer a new …

Workforce Diversity And Health Equity: The Role Of Schools Of Public Health, Adashima Oyo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal to eliminate health disparities and achieve health equity has remained a consistent public health and social welfare challenge for the United States. Schools of public health, despite being disproportionately White, are charged with the important task of training a diverse workforce of master and doctoral-level public health students to protect and promote the overall health of the nation with research, policy, and practice. Experiences and practices related to the recruitment, admission, enrollment, and graduation of students of color, specifically Blacks and Latinx, warrant further research. Positive deviance theory, critical race theory, and organizational culture theory informed this research. …

The Campaign To End U.S. War-Making In Yemen: Strategies Of Congressional Advocacy, 2015–2020, Zachary Laub

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Civil society groups and a handful of lawmakers have pursued a robust campaign to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen in Congress. By framing the conflict as a war of Saudi aggression and pulling legislative levers that enabled them to force floor votes, advocates turned a niche issue into one that galvanized majorities in Congress and generated significant media coverage. Even when vetoes blocked their ability to enact binding war powers and arms transfer legislation, advocates nevertheless exerted political pressure that gave the president and the Saudi-led coalition alike impetus to moderate the war effort. This case …