Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“We’Re Not Gay One Month Out Of The Year…We’Re Always Who We Are.” Exploring Connections Between Organizations, Pride Branding, And Lgbtq+ Publics, Sam Goodman

All Theses

LGBTQ+ visibility has increased in American society; moral acceptability of these identities increased significantly over the last 20 years alone and several US Presidents deemed June to be Pride Month in recognition and celebration of these individuals. To major companies and organizations, LGBTQ+ identities – which constitute more than 11 million US adults – are a growing and richly diverse market segment with considerable buying power and cultural influence. As companies attempt to engage with this segment, they increasingly attempt to engage with Pride Month and events related to Pride – including but not limited to having same-sex representation in …

Can The Olympics Spur Local Socioeconomic Development? Evidence From Brazil, Alex Matandos

All Theses

Countries pledge ever increasing budgets and commitments to host the Olympics. The region whose bid emerges victorious puts in motion the reallocation of inputs, labor, and capital to build all the promised infrastructure to run the event, while the remaining areas in country remain largely unaffected by the intervention. This quasi-experiment scenario is proper for the usage of the Synthetic Control Method but few papers have exploited it. This paper fills the gap by being the first to offer an analysis at local level for a developing economy on the impact of the Olympics. Using Rio de Janeiro's winning bid …

The Evacuation Simulation Of Wheelchair Users In A Building Fire: An Initial Dynamic Characterization Of Structural Egress Components, Haley Hostetter

All Theses

People with disabilities are one of the most vulnerable groups involved in building fires. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, in the United States alone, an estimated 700 home fires involve people with physical disabilities each year while over 1700 involve those with mental health disorders. Despite this, the current body of literature shows few studies focused on the evacuation of disabled people. This is a direct result of past and present social injustice on people with disabilities and has resulted in high injury and death rates during fires. To combat this, enrich the literature, and improve their experiences in …

Climbing The Masculine Hierarchy: Examining Constructions Of Masculinity Through Incel Identities, Alyssa Jewel Davis

All Theses

In a gender-segregated digital space known as the Manosphere, a group of men calling themselves “Incels,” or involuntary celibates, express feelings of hostility and hatred towards women. Incels hold a low position on a masculine hierarchy where the men who hold the most power in society are those who have access to women’s emotional and sexual services. Incels are characterized by feelings of entitlement to women’s services and aggrievement by their inability to access them. As a result, they often appear to fantasize about or engage in acts of violence to compensate for their lack of masculine privilege. However, there …

Mind Broadening: Cognitive States And Traits Associated With Intrapersonal Creativity And Diverse Cultural Experiences, Jessica J. Stephens

Psychology Dissertations - Archive

An experience with a different culture (cross-cultural experience; CCE) can provide opportunities to think about new and unfamiliar concepts and to solve problems using cross-cultural knowledge and inspired thinking. This could be because a CCE disrupts rigid thinking and compels open, unique, and integrative thinking. To test this, three experiments were executed. Each tested the influence of a temporary mindset of deculturation, which describes thoughts related to suppressing one’s dominant culture while adapting to a new culture, on generative forms of creative thinking. Two of these experiments also evaluated the influence of the temporary mindset, acculturation, which describes thoughts of …

What Is The State Of The Literature About Robotic Animal Use Among Older Adults Receiving Hospice Or Palliative Care?, Allyson Miles

Social Work Theses - Archive

Objective: This review aims to assess the extent of the literature on robotic pet use among older adults receivinghospice or palliative care. Introduction: In 2015, in the U.S, an estimated 1,426,00 individuals received hospice; among this population, 94.6% were aged 65 or older (National Center for Health Statistics,2019). According to the literature, a social robot is defined as something that interacts with individuals socio-emotionally during the intervention (Hudson et al., 2020). Social robots, including robotic pets, are promising technological interventions that can benefit the psychosocial health of older adults and people with dementia. Although there are previous reviews on robotic …

The Effects Of Digital Civic Engagement Training On The Political Knowledge And Internal Political Efficacy Of Social Work Students, Christian Andrew Mason

Social Work Theses - Archive

It is an ethical obligation for social workers to be civically engaged because the issues central to the profession, like poverty, are public issues. One widely used method to examine civic engagement is the civic voluntarism model developed by Verba et al. (1995). Furthermore, an emerging arena for civic involvement is the digital environment and its potential use as a training ground. This study was a pilot study to determine if a brief training in digital civic engagement for social work students could lead to an increase in the internal political efficacy and political knowledge of social work students. While …

Building A Community Of Mentors In Engineering Education Research Through Peer Review Training, Karin Jensen, Lisa Benson, Kelsey Watts, Gary Lichtenstein, Evan Ko, Rebecca Bates

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

Peer review of scholarship is critical to the advancement of knowledge in a scholarly discipline. Despite this, scholars receive little or no training in effective and constructive peer review. The process of peer review has been routinely criticized in higher education for lack of quality reviews and reviewers, and reviews that are personal and not constructive. As a discipline, engineering education research (EER) benefits from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and perspectives of scholars, and as such relies on peer review of scholarship to generate, interpret, and translate knowledge. Supported by funding through the National Science Foundation, this project is developing, implementing, …

Crime Reduction And Reformation In South Carolina: An Analysis Of Sb 1154, Matthew Torres

All Theses

This thesis evaluates the policy response to the criminal justice crisis of South Carolina, Senate Bill (SB) 1154, dubbed the Omnibus Crime Reduction and Sentencing Reform Act of 2010. SB 1154 adopted a series of “common sense” reforms, including new charges constituting as violent crimes, redefined sentences in the form of reduced penalties and harsher penalties for nonviolent and violent crimes respectively, mandated supervision of individuals on probation or parole, and credit programs for early release of inmates among other provisions intended to reduce inmate population, recidivism and violent crime rates.

I examine three key factors: inmate, imprisonment and violent …

Your Discomfort Is Valid: Big Feelings And Open Pedagogy, Liz Pearce, Silvia L. Lin Hanick, Amy R. Hofer, Lori Townsend, Michaela Willi Hooper

Publications and Research

This article explores the affective reactions of 13 community college students engaged in an open pedagogy textbook creation project. The instructor and first author, a human development and family services faculty member and department chair at a community college in Oregon, received feedback from her students that the project impacted them differently than past learning experiences. Student engagement with research and the diverse personal experiences of their classmates fostered both personal challenges and growth. This article groups these experiences into themes and explores different theoretical lenses, including scaffolding (constructivism), transformative learning, threshold concepts and safe spaces/brave spaces. We discuss the …

Editorial: Helping Scientists To Communicate Well For All Considered: Strategic Science Communication In An Age Of Environmental And Health Crises, Brianne Suldovsky, Marcia Allison, Marina Joubert, Ingrid E. Lofgren, Scott Mcwilliams

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

From documenting evidence-based science communication training programs to examining issues of intersectionality and inclusivity in science communication, each of the 12 articles in this special issue offers a unique perspective on science communication, public engagement, and inclusivity. The case studies of training programs provide helpful lessons learned that have broad applicability. The descriptions of how social scientific and rhetorical approaches have been used to enhance inclusive science communication offer new insights into more effective science communication practices. Our hope is that, taken together, these articles will inspire improvements in our collective ability to more effectively and equitably apply scientific research …

The Experiences Of Sexually Abused Women With Disabilities Who Consulted Services In Zimbabwe: The Intersection Of Disability, Gender, And Poverty, Tafadzwa Oswell Rugoho, Michael Ashley Stein, Pamela Wright, Jacqueline E. W. Broerse

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Women have experienced sexual abuse, and very few of them report to the police or seek other services, such as medical attention. This study aims to gain insight into the barriers women with disabilities face when accessing police, health, and counseling services after experiencing sexual abuse. Barriers such as long distances, physical barriers at service sites, communication barriers, gender issues, lack of confidence in the service providers, and an overall lack of resources were reported. In a study undertaken in Zimbabwe, women with disabilities encountered intersecting barriers such as the intersection of disability, and gender, poverty, unemployment, and low levels …

Association Of Psychosocial Adversity And Social Information Processing In Children Raised In A Low-Resource Setting: An Fnirs Study, Laura Pirazzoli, Eileen Sullivan, Wanze Xie, John E. Richards, Chiara Bulgarelli, Sarah Lloyd-Fox, Talat Shama, Shahria H. Kakon, Rashidul Haque, William A. Petri Jr., Charles A. Nelson Iii

Faculty Publications

Social cognition skills and socioemotional development are compromised in children growing up in low SES contexts, however, the mechanisms underlying this association remain unknown. Exposure to psychosocial risk factors early in life alters the child’s social milieu and in turn, could lead to atypical processing of social stimuli. In this study, we used functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure cortical responses to a social discrimination task in children raised in a low-resource setting at 6, 24, and 36 months. In addition, we assessed the relation between cortical responses to social and non-social information with psychosocial risk factors assessed using …

Association Of Caregiver Attitudes With Adolescent Hpv Vaccination In 13 Southern Us States, Lavanya Vasudevan, Jan Ostermann Ph.D., Yunfei Wang, Sayward Harrison, Valerie Yelverton, Laura J. Fish, Charnetta Williams, Emmanuel B. Walter

Faculty Publications

Background and objectives: HPV vaccination coverage is lower than that of other adolescent vaccines in the southern US. This study sought to characterize caregiver attitudes associated with adolescent HPV vaccination in the southern US and to inform interventions to promote HPV vaccination. Methods: From December 2019 – January 2020, caregivers of adolescents (ages 9–17 years) living in thir- teen southern US states were recruited from a nationally-representative online survey panel. Caregivers (N = 1,105) completed a cross-sectional survey that assessed general adolescent vaccine attitudes as well as those associated with the HPV vaccine and HPV vaccination decision-making. The primary study …

Alt-Right Of The_Donald And Authoritarian Communists On Reddit: Internet Memes To Build Community, Joshua Hendricks

Master's Theses

This project infuses Lacanian psychoanalysis further into the rhetorical study by exploring authoritarian discourses on Reddit. I analyze the alt-right community that found a home on the subreddit r/The_Donald and chart their discourse as it shaped from the quarantine to the establishment of an independent forum called TheDonald.win. I selected memes and the comments around them to build the analysis. The second aspect of this thesis examines authoritarian communist discourse on Reddit. The leftist community splintered when r/socialism banned a community member because the person made catgirl art. The ban sent shockwaves through the leftist community on Reddit and generated …

A Bioarchaeological Investigation Of The Courtney-Anderson Cemetery, Lauren Scott

Master's Theses

Located in Perry County, Mississippi, the Anderson Family Cemetery represents an abandoned turn-of-the-century Piney Woods cemetery. The cemetery is located on land once owned by the Courtney and Anderson families, who farmed the area until it was taken under eminent domain by the United States government in 1942. The purpose of this thesis is to present three osteobiographies created from human remains and material culture recovered from three graves excavated from within the cemetery in 2022 to explore the lifeways of rural Piney Woods families of Mississippi at the turn-of-the-century.

Among the graves explored, one did not contain evidence of …

Intrapersonal And Interpersonal Predictors Of Hope In Adolescents, Megan M. B. Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

Hope is a variable that is defined in research as a positive outlook on one's future and a plan to achieve that future. Hope has been found to be positively correlated with self-esteem, optimism, and life satisfaction, and negatively correlated with suicide ideation and suicidality. However, there is a lack of research on predictors of hope in adolescents. Adolescents compose the age group that could arguably use the goal-oriented and positive outlook that hope provides the most. This study identified predictors of hope (i.e., depression, maternal and paternal support) in adolescents so as to know how society can give adolescents …

How A Racial Minority Status Impacts The Feeling Of Safety In Therapy, Bayleigh Serage

Theses and Dissertations

With the lack of adequate mental health care in racial minority communities (NAMI, 2021), more research is needed for clinicians to understand the racial minority client experience. This study aimed to explore the racial minority client's perception of safety during therapy. The MFT- PRN was utilized in order to assess safety for racial minority clients at the start of therapy and later on as the alliance changes. The study hypothesized that racial minority clients would initially report a lower feeling of safety in therapy and would show lower feelings of safety after four sessions of therapy when compared to demographic …

Forest Carbon Incentive Programs For Non-Industrial Private Forests In Oregon (Usa): Impacts Of Program Design On Willingness To Enroll And Landscape-Scale Program Outcomes, Rose A. Graves, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Ryan D. Haugo, Andres Holz

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Privately-owned forests in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) are important potential carbon sinks and play a large role in carbon sequestration and storage. Non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners constitute a substantial portion of overall forest landownership in productive regions of the PNW; however, little is known about their preferences for non-market incentive programs aimed at increased carbon storage and sequestration, specifically by limiting timber harvest, and how those preferences might impact the outcome of forest carbon programs. We simulated landscape-scale outcomes of hypothetical forest carbon incentive programs in western Oregon (USA) by combining empirical models of NIPF owners' participation with spatially …

What Is The Current State Of Literature Regarding The Effectiveness Of Buprenorphine For Opioid Use Disorder Among African American Men?, Tamiko L. Stanley

Social Work Theses - Archive

Purpose: This scoping review aims to explore the comparative effectiveness of buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (OUD) among African American men. Methods: The Arksey & O’Malley scoping review method was used to identify relevant articles and extract data related to the research question. Results: The author identified 16 studies that have met all inclusion criteria. Results indicate that buprenorphine treatment is associated with positive substance use and health outcomes for African American men. Discussion: Issues remain with access to MOUD treatment for African American men, despite the positive impact buprenorphine can have on health outcomes. As social workers, advocating for …

Empathy: The Unspoken Language Of Humanity: A Systematic Review Protocol, Yasmin Khaled Al-Zubi

Social Work Theses - Archive

Prolonged exposure to violence may result in habituation or desensitization, which has negative impacts. Desensitization to real-life violence is a reduced initial arousal response to real-life violence. Real-life violence includes physical abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, intimate partner violence, peer violence, and community violence. Children who have been exposed to violence-related adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are more likely to achieve violence desensitization, by definition. As a result of ACEs, children are at risk of mental health complications, health-related problems, and risk for maladaptive behavior. Children who have reached violence desensitization are more likely to exhibit externalized symptoms such as aggression …

How Word Choice Influences Collegiate Recovery: A Quantitative Analysis On The Impact Of Identifying Terms On Self-Compassion, Stigma, And Recovery Capital, Morgan Humberger

Social Work Theses - Archive

Purpose: This study seeks to better understand how word choice when referencing people with a substance use disorder is associated with self-compassion and overall recovery capital while in a collegiate recovery program. The main domains to be explored are: 1. how students personally identify, 2. how they prefer to be identified by individuals not in recovery, and 3. how they prefer to be identified by other people in recovery and how their preferences are related to self-reported levels of self-compassion and recovery capital. The information gained from this study can inform collegiate recovery staff, university administration, and peers on how …

Positive Ageing And Death Or Dying: A Scoping Review, Robin Otto

Social Work Theses - Archive

This scoping review aims to examine the extent and how research that utilizes successful, active, productive, and healthy ageing framework(s) include death or dying. An examination of peer-reviewed academic articles published between 1980 and 2021 were reviewed following Joanna Briggs Institute's methodological standards for scoping reviews and conforming to Arskey and O'Malley's five-stage framework. The initial search resulted in 1,759 articles for review, and following the rigorous screening, 35 studies were included for the final review. A thematic analysis was the qualitative method employed to identify how research utilizes the concepts of death and dying in the context of four …

Piloting An Index Of Segregation At The Census Tract Level: Associations With Place And Racial/Ethnic Disparities In Life Expectancies, Katherine F. Kitchens

Social Work Theses - Archive

This study considers residential segregation as a critical driver of racial/ethnic health disparities and introduces an index of segregation, the Representation Index, that measures segregation degree at the neighborhood level with a metric capturing the overrepresentation of a racialized/ethnic group in a census tract in relation to that group’s representation at the city level. Using Dallas, Texas as a pilot city, the index is used to investigate the association between Latinx, non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic Black, and Asian-American groups’ over-representation at the neighborhood level with neighborhood rates of life expectancy at birth. This study aimed to expose the possibility of neighborhood …

How Do Social Work Students Demographic Identities Impact Ally Behavior?, Jayme Dooley

Social Work Theses - Archive

The purpose of this study is to explore the potential correlation between a national sample of social work students’ demographics and their Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual (LGB) and Transgender (T) ally behavior. The sample consisted of 784 final respondents after missingness was accounted for. The main demographic categories analyzed were age, gender, sexual orientation, race, and religion. The data used for this analysis is secondary from a national survey produced by the thesis chair. The findings from this research suggest a link between non-heterosexual orientations and non-cisgender male identifying individuals showed increased ally behavior. Whereas, identifying as Evangelical Christian showed a …

Female Labor Force Participation And Intimate Partner Violence Among Married Women In Nepal, Nibedita Shrestha

Social Work Dissertations - Archive

Nepal has the highest rate of female labor force participation (FLFP) in South Asia (Ghosh, Singh, & Chigateri, 2017), alongside high levels of violence against women (Yoshikawa et al., 2014). The explanation for the co-occurrence of high levels of female labor force participation alongside significant amounts of intimate partner violence (IPV) has not been adequately explored. Studies on how the working status of a woman in Nepal makes her vulnerable to violence are few and far between (John, 2020). Theoretical models to account for this phenomenon are crucial to formulating interventions that are protective of working women. The current study …

The Influence Of Social Agents On Learning, Developing, And Growing Through Athletic Participation: A Theory Of Athlete Development, Rikishi T. Rey

Communication (PhD) Dissertations

Sports can significantly influence the lives of those who play them. Psychosocial outcomes such as values, skills, self-esteem, and goal setting are some of the referenced benefits associated with playing sports and are the result of athletes being exposed to situations in an environment that is favorable to learning. Due to the abundant nature of sports in the United States, there is a growing need to understand how to effectively create environments that are conducive to positive outcomes. However, such results and experiences are often anecdotally supported rather than scientifically driven. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation was two-fold. First, …

Tiktok As Art: Visual Culture Art Education In An Afterschool Art Program, Chloe C. Morrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research and the objective were to investigate the firsthand experience of

visual culture art education in an after-school art program. The after-school

program was focused mainly on an underserved population. We focused our

concentration on the social media app TikTok. The author investigated visual

culture theorists and discovered ideas from Terry Barrett and his use of

denotations and connotations and their relationship to art. The participants were

members of the Boys and Girls Club of Nacogdoches who analyzed TikTok

videos using annotations and denotations, then in return created their own

individual videos inspired by an original TikTok video. The …

Mock Jurors' Recommended Sentences For Perpetrators Who Have Traumatic Experiences, Katherine West

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Experiencing trauma can result in neurological and biological changes, precipitating long-term damage to the brain and body. A considerable proportion of incarcerated persons have reported that they have experienced some type of trauma (Stensrud, Gilbride, & Bruinekool, 2018). Using scenarios of hypothetical crimes of varying degrees of seriousness, this study explores whether disclosure of the perpetrator’s traumatic childhood experiences has an influence on the severity of the sentence that mock jurors would recommend for that perpetrator. The mock jurors’ trait empathy, Belief in a Just World, and their own traumatic experiences were assessed to determine whether these characteristics could account …

Cyberchondria And Covid-19 Health Threats Related To Attentional Bias And Safety Behaviors, Jacqueline J. Charles

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cyberchondria is described as excessively searching online for health information that ultimately increases worry and anxiety about one’s health (Starcevic et al., 2019). Research has demonstrated an increased attentional bias in anxious individuals for threat-related stimuli. Attentional bias for health information exacerbated by the frequent exposure to health threats during the COVID-19 pandemic may contribute to additional health-seeking behavior. The current study aimed to explore the potential relationship between COVID-19 health threats and cyberchondria level on attentional bias toward illness-related stimuli (symptom words) and the intent to perform safety behaviors while controlling for Trait Anxiety and Health Anxiety. Participants ( …