College of Humanities and Social Sciences

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The Use of Morphophonological Cues in Noun Processing: The Case of the Arabic Definite Article
(2023) Aldakheelallah, Hind; Lukyanenko, Cynthia A C
Listeners use a variety of cues in the speech signal to aid them in identifying nouns. For instance, English speakers use the phonological distinction between a and an to facilitate processing of following nouns (Nozari & Mirman, 2016; Gambi et al., 2018). Listeners’ use of cues is also modulated by the identity of the talker: listeners are less likely to use cues in nonnative talkers’ speech (Bosker et al., 2014; Schiller et al., 2020). Using visual-world eye-tracking, the current study explored native listeners’ use of morphophonologi-cal cues on the Arabic definite article in native- and foreign-accented speech. The Arabic definite article /ʔal-/ provides at least three morphophonological cues to the identity of a following noun. First, the coda /l/ assimilates to following coronal consonants but not to noncoronal consonants (Coronal condition: /ʔaddulfin/ “the dolphin” vs. s/ʔalbab/ “the door”). This assimilation carries two additional sub-phonemic cues depending on the coronal onset: coarticulation associated with emphatics (Emphasis condition: /ʔaˤsˤsˤaruχ/ “the rocket” vs. /ʔassullam/ “the ladder”) and longer pre-voicing associated with voiced stops (Voicing condition: /ʔattut/ “the berries” vs. /ʔaddud/ “the worms”). In two experiments, participants saw picture-pairs accompanied by auditory instructions in Modern Standard Arabic to click on one of them. In Informative trials, the two pictures’ names differed in their initial consonants (/ʔaˤsˤsˤaruχ/ “the rocket” vs. /ʔassullam/ “the ladder”). In Uninformative trials, initial consonants were the same (/ʔaˤsˤsˤaruχ/ “the rocket” vs. /ʔaˤsˤsˤaqr/ “the falcon”). In Experiment 1, participants listened to native-accented Arabic and in Experiment 2, they listened to foreign-accented Arabic. If listeners use the available cues, they should look at the target image earlier and/or longer in informative than uninformative trials. If foreign-accented speech disrupts language processing, cue use will be more evident in Experiment 1 than in Experiment 2. Fixation latency and proportion looks-to-target were measured and analyzed. As predicted, in Experiment 1, mixed effects models showed shorter latencies and higher accuracy in informative than uninformative trials in the Emphasis condition and shorter latencies in the Coronal condition. In Experiment 2, models revealed shorter latencies in the Emphasis condition and higher accuracy in the Coronal condition. No statistically significant effects were found in the Voicing condition for either experiment. These results suggest that native listeners use some of the morphophonological cues on the Arabic definite article to facilitate noun processing. However, the cue use depended on the condition and the identity of the talker. Moreover, unlike previous findings that listeners do not rely on phonological cues in foreign-accented speech, the current results show that foreign-accented speech reduces phonological cue use but does not completely block it. Thus, the current study provides some insights on the use of small phonemic and sub-phonemic article-related cues in noun processing including morphophonological processes of assimilation and coarticulation as well as adds to our understanding of the effects of foreign-accented speech on online language processing in general and on Arabic processing in specific.
The Economics of Cybersecurity Information
(2023) Hodgins, Mark W; Leeson, Peter T
The digital economy is a ubiquitous part of U.S. society that relies on an ever increasing supply of data to connect people and organizations. The wealth of underlying data imposes cybersecurity requirements, which are far from guaranteed. Sensational headlines of costly cyberattacks are published on a recurring basis. Multiple causal factors exist for why failure may occur, yet the prevailing belief is that the market is full of poor security products because suppliers shift risk to consumers without their knowledge or recourse. Is the leading theory that the cybersecurity market fails due to information problems accurate? This dissertation critically evaluates the conventional wisdom. In order to determine whether the current beliefs are misguided, a thorough understanding of the specific arguments and supporting evidence is necessary. The first essay reviews the theoretical and empirical claims of information asymmetry. My analysis decomposes the consumer’s alleged information challenges into several categories, which are high search costs from a lack of technical expertise, low incentives to expend effort to improve their acumen, and the lack of quality indicators. Persistent information challenges ostensibly incentivize suppliers to engage in moral hazard by reallocating resources away from cybersecurity and towards observable product attributes. The multitude of software vulnerabilities and data breaches is widely cited as evidence of adverse selection. Evaluating the prospects of market failure necessitates an understanding of who the predominant cybersecurity consumers are and what information seeking incentives and abilities they possess. The second essay focuses on the identity of a consumer class that the market failure narrative broadly neglects, the business consumer. I find that firms, universities, and other organizations are the predominant consumer and that individuals procure the majority of their cybersecurity indirectly through them. I argue that business consumers possess strong incentives to invest in cybersecurity information due to operational and financial losses from a cyberattack. Moreover, my research finds that business consumers possess unique abilities, through the labor market and contracting, to acquire cyber information. In contrast to conventional wisdom, today’s software vendors invest significantly in cybersecurity activities, which would only occur if consumers could acquire relevant information and credibly punish bad security. Given the results of the second essay, corporate shareholders should possess strong incentives to control agency costs associated with cybersecurity production. The third essay applies institutional economics to analyze the extent to which firms invest in corporate mechanisms that ameliorate cybersecurity information problems. Empirically, I evaluate the proxy statements of vendors and businesses consumers over time, finding that the vast majority modified their board of directors’ governance to improve cybersecurity monitoring. I also show how a competitive market for management leads to employment outcomes that are reflective of cybersecurity performance. Together, corporate governance and the market management help align the incentives of board directors and firm management with the shareholders.
Three Essays on Developmental States
(2023) Gautreau, Marcel Dumas; Jones, Garett
The concept of the Developmental State emerged to explain the rapid growth of a number of countries in East Asia in the postwar period. Arguing for the distinctive features of developmental states, its proponents emphasized the role of government intervention and industrial policy as well as the significance of strong states and particular social coalitions. This dissertation addresses the developmental state literature in the light of contributions by Public Choice, Austrian, and Development Economists The first chapter, “Rolling The Dice on Liberalism” considers Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis, Olson’s “Stationary Bandit” model, Bueno de Mesquita’s “Selectorate” theory, and Albertus and Menaldo’s work on Autocratic Constitutions. It argues that there are two primary obstacles for any authoritarian regime’s willingness to engage in reforms, market-based or otherwise. The first is the possibility of overthrow by internal or external forces. The second is a time inconsistency problem in existing democratic states. One administration may be willing to engage with authoritarian regimes engaging in partial liberalization, while the next one may be satisfied with nothing less than regime change. Worse still, an authoritarian leader may step down under an expectation of amnesty from his immediate successors, only for a later administration to insist on a human rights tribunal. We argue that Fukuyama’s long-run prediction of a common marketization of the world should not be considered disproven by recent waves of populism and militarism around the world, on the grounds that authoritarian regimes face increasingly powerful incentives to engage in institutional upgrading. The second chapter, “And the Economists Fled to Japan” investigates the connections between Developmental State Theory and the German Historical School of Economics, from the perspective of the Austrian School of Economics, and in particular the Misesian critique of the dynamics of interventionism. The particular fallacies, motivations, and crises attributed to interventionism by Mises in Human Action do not readily describe the rationales for industrial policies pursued in countries like South Korea or Taiwan. The bundle of policies pursued by Developmental States, are informed by a heterodox economic lineage that can be traced back to the German Historical School of Economics. The paper further calls for a thorough reevaluation of the Misesian narrative on the historical setting of the Austrian School, which paints the GHS as the first of the school’s irreconcilable enemies. Mises identifies the Austrians with the Marginalist revolution, and through it associates the school with philosophical liberalism and pro market schools of thought with their origins in the British Isles. In fact, the GHS should be properly understood as a precursor to the Austrian School, and we argue for an Austrian re-integration, or at least re-evaluation, of pre-Schmollerian GHS thought, for example as practiced by Joseph Schumpeter. This will allow the Austrian School to more effectively recognize its place in the social sciences, and address interventionist arguments that do not come from a Keynesian or Marxist perspective. The third chapter, “Freedom, Unity, Capitalism” explores how Bashar al-Assad attempted to liberalize the economy of the Syrian Arab Republic. The term he used, “social market economy,” originally referred to the reforms implemented in post-National Socialist West Germany. He was likely inspired by the transformations of China and neighboring Lebanon. We find that Bashar al-Assad faced constraints similar to developmental states like Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, and replaced appointees based on his kin network with foreign-educated Syrians of a more technocratic inclination in an attempt at what has been called “authoritarian upgrading”. His early reforms, however constrained the reach of the patronage networks on which his Ba’ath Party relied not only for graft, but as a channel for Syrians to report social and economic grievances. This compromised his ability to appropriately gauge the threats to the security of the Syrian state.
MENGER VS. CHARTALISM ON THE ORIGINS OF MONEY: THEORY AND HISTORY
(2023) Watson, Michael Vernon; White, Lawrence H.
The dissertation begins by rebutting the Chartalist criticism that Menger’s theory of money cannot explain credit existing before money. The second chapter is an application of the first to late 4th Millennium BC Mesopotamia which Chartalists claim falsify the Mengerian account. The third chapter argues the evidence from Mesopotamia from the early 3rd Millennium BC to 330 BC supports a Neo-Mengerian account on the origins of money and defends the application of standard price theory to Ancient Mesopotamia. The first chapter begins discussing how credit-theory proponents, such as A. Mitchell Innes and his contemporaries, argue Carl Menger's timeline for the origin of money, accepted by most economists, is wrong. Rather than credit coming into existence after money has emerged as a means of eliminating a barter system’s need for a double coincidence of wants, credit-theory proponents argue credit precedes barter. Thus, Menger is historically said to be false. What the followers of A. Mitchell Innes miss, however, is that barter may occur intertemporally—credit may be extended and repaid in goods rather than in money. The incorporation of intertemporal barter into Menger's account on the emergence of money strengthens his story: goods which are more portable, uniform, durable, and divisible will be more suitable for intertemporal transactions than goods that are not. Further, the origin of money is not necessarily grounded in a commodity, but in a scarce good with nonmonetary value. The second chapter is an application of the first chapter to the late 4th Millennium BC. Chartalists, followers of Karl Polanyi, proponents of the credit-theory of money, and others argue the evidence from Mesopotamia in the 4th Millennium BC falsifies the Mengerian account on the origins of money. As a result, Menger’s account is conjectural and ahistorical without much, if any, historical evidence. Following Denise Schmandt-Besserat’s seminal interpretation on the purpose of clay tokens in Mesopotamia, Chartalists argue such tokens were accounting tools, which preceded any common medium of exchange, did not emerge out of any market or voluntary exchange, and best fit the state and credit theories of money articulated by Georg F. Knapp and A. Mitchell Innes. However, Menger’s account is not contradicted by Schmandt-Besserat’s thesis once more recent ‘Neo-Mengerian’ scholarship is brought to attention. Specifically, when the crux of Menger’s story is on the marketability and the original nonmonetary use of the thing which becomes money, rather than his historical timeline. Finally, the third chapter surveys the scholarship on Ancient Mesopotamia. Chartalists and the scholarship in the tradition of Karl Polanyi believe Menger’s theory of money and standard price theory is inapplicable to Ancient Mesopotamian history, especially before the 2nd Millennium. Here the evidence between 2700 BC to 330 BC is considered regarding what Neo-Mengerian monetary theory and standard price theory would expect to find. The history, especially newer scholarship, confirms the traditional Mengerian account and the universal applicability of standard price theory to wherever there exists constrained choice.
ENVIRONMENTALIST IDENTITY: A MIXED METHODS STUDY
(2023) Munson, Sammi; Broeckelman-Post, Melissa
Self-identified environmentalism in American adults has been rapidly declining over the past three decades. The following dissertation will attempt to better understand some of the reasons why in a two-part mixed methods study. In Study One, semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals who identified as caring for the planet, N = 36. Major findings indicate that most individuals are influenced by a respected entity early on, and that environmentalism is rooted as a personal identity. Additionally, these individuals have high empathy and perform a wide breadth of pro-environmental behaviors. Last, it was found that those who care for the planet are largely disenchanted with the word choice of environmentalist. Study Two was informed by the results of Study One. Survey data was collected from a nationally representative sample of American adults, N = 484. A multiple regression was performed to investigate major antecedents of environmentalist identity. Findings indicate that pro-environmental behavior, felt responsibility, affective assessment, empathy, and gender all play a significant role in the formation of environmentalists. Implications are discussed.
Racial Dynamics and Psychosocial Outcomes of Marching Arts Participation
(2023) Young, DaSean L; Goldstein, Thalia R
The Marching Arts (MA) are extracurricular activities that have been largely under-examined in the psychological and educational literature, despite large amounts of participation by adolescents and emerging adults. As such, this dissertation assessed psychological and social dynamics related to participation several marching arts activities. In study one, we assessed longitudinal psychosocial change over time in marching arts students participating in Drum Corps. We found evidence of dynamic, curvilinear psychosocial change in this sample, which provided evidence that marching arts participation is related to psychological change in the participants. In study two, we assessed inclusivity in the marching arts from the perspective of students of color, using online survey methods. We found evidence of variability in students of color’s experiences in the marching arts and that such variability was related to their psychological well-being, which provided evidence to suggest that the marching arts are dynamic intergroup contexts, but also highlighted a need for further examination into the development of intergroup connections in marching arts programs. As such, in study three, we examined predictors of cross-race friendship development using longitudinal social network analysis methods and Stochastic actor-oriented models. We found evidence that race was not a significant predictor of friendship development and that one’s well-being did not moderate that lack of relationship. Additionally, we mostly found evidence that one’s friends do not significantly influence their well-being, except marginally significant evidence to suggest cross-race peers are influential in the development of belonging to the band. Study three further provided evidence that marching can be an inclusive context, though it is unclear the mechanism through which student participation changes their psychological well-being. We suggest future research continue to examine marching arts activities’ relationship to adolescent and emerging adult development., with specific focus on identifying mechanisms.
Mitigating the Unfortunate Aftermath of Negative Performance Feedback through Emotion Regulation: The Role of Supervisor Empathic Concern and Recipients’ Mindfulness
(2023) Gorab, Aiva K; Dalal, Reeshad S
Given the common disconnect between the intended goals and the actual consequences of negative feedback (NF), this study draws on affective events theory (AET; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) and the transactional model of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Folkman & Lazarus, 1988) to examine employee qualities that may be useful in bridging this gap. Specifically, the current research investigates (1) the role of supervisor empathic concern (SEC) and (2) the moderating role of NF recipients’ mindfulness. Using a vignette-based experiment, 466 working adults were randomly assigned to receive NF with either expressed or absent SEC. The results of mediational analyses supported the hypotheses which predicted that SEC (a) enhances NF acceptance and (b) diminishes supervisor-directed counterproductive work behavior (CWB) intentions through increased guilt and reduced anger. In addition, mindful awareness and mindful acceptance both moderated the positive relation between NF-elicited anger and supervisor-directed CWB intentions, such that this relation was weaker (less positive) for employees high (vs. low) in mindful awareness and mindful acceptance. Counter to expectations, however, NF recipients who were higher (vs. lower) in mindful awareness did not show differential experience of anger (less vs. more) and guilt (more vs. less) depending on expressed as opposed to absent SEC. The limitations, practical implications, and future research avenues are discussed.
Microeconomic Systems as a Computational Science: A Computational Platform for Microeconomic System Simulation and Human-Subject Experimentation
(2023) Kunath, Stephen; McCabe, Kevin
This dissertation investigates how economics experiments are conducted and details a new computational framework for the description and provisioning of experiments. In addition to the text of this dissertation a novel computational economics platform called mTree has been developed. mTree provides economists with the ability to describe microeconomic systems using a simple set of constructs in the Python programming language. An mTree microeconomic system can be used to run computational simulations of a microeconomic system as well as host and conduct human-subject experiments using the same underlying codebase. This represents capabilities not offered by other frameworks.The first chapter provides background on various issues surrounding economics experiments. One criticism of experimental techniques is that they lack generalizability to non-laboratory settings. The chapter describes the source of this criticism and suggests that an underlying and unaddressed problem relates to the manner of description of microeconomic systems. A further task of the chapter concerns the additional challenge of ensuring replicability of experiments and that using a richer description of underlying microeconomic systems can provide more than a procedural and protocol-oriented description of an experiment. It concludes by suggesting that the tools available from computer science can be employed to provide improved frameworks and description languages for economic systems. The second chapter suggests that microeconomic systems align well with work in the field of computer science investigating distributed systems. Arguably, a microeconomic system is in fact a distributed computation problem that presents many of the same challenges faced by computer scientists. From this a new computational framework for describing microeconomic systems is offered utilizing capabilities of a computing technique called an actor system. This new framework is called mTree and can be used for describing microeconomic systems as well as conducting simulations of the microeconomic system as well as human-subject experiments utilizing the same underlying codebase. The final chapter provides several examples of microeconomic systems implemented in the mTree framework. These examples include a variety of microeconomic systems for use with human-subject experiments. The examples include both computer simulation code of the microeconomic system as well as human subject experiment implementations of the examples. The various microeconomic systems provided in this chapter are meant to serve as both a tutorial on the use of the mTree framework as well a set of reusable components for future experiments and simulations.
Maybe I Wasn’t So Crazy After All: Affirmation Through Workplace Television For Women. A Grounded Theory Expansion Of CCO And Institutional Positioning
(2023) Schwager, Lane; Nicotera, Anne M
In CCO scholarship the concept of institutional positioning is considered from an institution to institution level, overlooking the contributions of individuals within those institutions. As a result, necessary conceptual expansion has halted. The purpose of this constructivist grounded theory dissertation was to explore how the representations of working women on television have been interpreted by women and how those interpretations may expand CCO theory and the concept of institutional positioning to consider how individuals interact with the institutional environment through media consumption. Through seven themes, unrealistic expectations; structures that perpetuate silence; casual sexism; support between women; confident, unapologetic women; small- scale risks, and; realism in workplace television, a grounded theory of workplace affirmation through television was proposed. As a result, this study proposes a potential pathway to reconceptualize how CCO theorists have considered the environment that surrounds organizations and effects organizational communication by including the role of individual positioning and the permeable boundaries of organizations.
Defining Coercion During Plea Negotiations
(2023) Luna, Samantha; Redlich, Allison
For guilty pleas to be considered valid, courts are tasked with ensuring that pleas are entered knowingly, intelligently, voluntarily and with a factual basis of guilt (see Boykin v. Alabama, 1969; Brady v. United States, 1970). Despite voluntariness being an integral requirement for the acceptance of guilty pleas, what constitutes voluntariness, and its antithesis coercion, remains relatively unclear, largely subjective, and contested. This ambiguity in our understanding of coercion has consequences for the integrity of our criminal justice system. Most notably, without a clear understanding of coercion in plea negotiation settings, the legal requirements for voluntariness cannot be properly applied to guilty pleas. This is especially problematic, given that currently used “hard-bargaining tactics” (see, Alkon, 2017) to obtain guilty pleas (e.g., overcharging and threatening enhancements) have come under fire for being coercive and for contributing to wrongful convictions (e.g., see Dervan, 2012). This dissertation tested a theoretical definition of coercion during plea negotiations that was developed by synthesizing philosophical, legal, and psychological theory, and examined evaluators’ assessments of plea coercion claims. More specifically, two studies were conducted to answer four main research questions. Study 1 was an experimental plea negotiation study that involved defendant participants (and confederate defense attorneys) negotiating with mock, confederate prosecutors in theoretically coercive and non-coercive situations. This study addressed two research questions: (RQ1) How do theoretically coercive situations impact the plea decision-making of guilty and innocent defendants? and (RQ2) Do perceptions of coercion, fairness, evidence strength, and probability of conviction at trial mediate relations between theoretical coercion, defendant guilt, and defendant plea decisions? Study 2 involved participants listening to summarized oral arguments and half of participants also watching a recorded plea negotiation in its entirety. Participants then evaluated a defendant’s post-sentencing request to withdraw their plea. This study addressed the last two research questions: (RQ3) How does the presence of theoretical coercion impact evaluators’ assessments of a defendant’s request to withdraw their plea post-sentencing? and (RQ4) Does the ability to view a recorded plea negotiation improve evaluators’ assessments of plea coercion? Findings from this research shed light on how theoretical elements of coercion interact to impact plea decision-making and evaluations of coercion. In addition, this research advances our understanding of which plea tactics and coercive elements may place innocent defendants at the greatest risk for false guilty pleas. An empirically tested definition of coercion will also contribute to the academic and legal literatures and to a greater understanding of coercion. Finally, this research provides insight into how evaluators (similar to judges) perceive plea negotiations and whether a proposed policy reform of recording negotiations (Turner, 2020; Wilford & Khairalla, 2019) improves the ability to discern coercion/voluntariness.
Understanding the Utility of Complementary Alternative Medicine in the Promotion of Women’s Psychological Wellbeing
(2024) Volgenau, Kristina Marisa; Adams, Leah M
This dissertation is a two-part study that focuses on identifying accessible, affordable, and culturally inclusive strategies to promote women’s psychological well-being (PWB) across their lifespans. Research has demonstrated that Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM), defined as non-traditional modalities of care, often with origins outside of Western practice, that can be used together, with, or in place of formal medical or psychological treatment are becoming increasingly popular, especially among women. Despite growing popularity, empirical evidence is limited regarding the effectiveness of these strategies for improving PWB. An understanding of how CAM may uniquely support the PWB of women from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds is particularly limited. Therefore, Study 1 leveraged a nationally representative sample of 1,395 menopausal women to explicitly investigate how CAM may support Black, Asian, and White women's PWB during this transitional time of life. A psychological network analysis was employed to examine similarities and differences in the interrelationships between CAM use and PWB across the different groups. Results highlight a stronger relationship between Psychological Methods of CAM, such as meditation, mental imagery, and relaxation techniques, and PWB among menopausal women, with less evidence for associations between other forms of CAM (i.e., herbal remedies, physical methods, nutritional supplements) and PWB. Networks varied across the women, suggesting that these relationships between CAM use and PWB differ across racial groups. Study 2 examined the impact of CAM on PWB in the context of college women’s daily lives. Women (n = 352) completed a baseline assessment including demographic information, attitudes and practices regarding CAM use, and indicators of PWB. A subset (n = 40) of women who endorsed active CAM use completed eight days of daily assessments of their CAM use and PWB. In the full sample, results replicated previous literature by identifying that a positive philosophical orientation towards CAM and a higher distrust for traditional medication were associated with CAM use. Retrospective reports of CAM use in the sample were related to facets of positive mental health (i.e., higher gratitude, satisfaction with life, and meaning in life), a novel finding that extends beyond previous examinations of CAM use and symptoms of poor mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety). In the daily sample, same-day multilevel analyses demonstrated that higher frequency and duration of CAM use were associated with higher negative affect while lagged analysis showed that using CAM on a given day was related to higher levels of gratitude that night and higher levels of positive affect and gratitude the subsequent day, highlighting the dynamic relationships between CAM and PWB. Future directions, along with clinical and methodological considerations of the findings are discussed.
WHAT MAKES INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS RESILIENT: AN EXPLORATION OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENT NARRATIVES ABOUT SOCIAL SUPPORT, BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS, RESILIENCE, COVID-19 AND WELLBEING
(2023) Hingle, Aayushi; Broeckelman-Post, Melissa
International students face unique challenges impacting their journey while studying in the United States. The purpose of this research was to better understand the support needs of international students, its impacts on their wellbeing, and to understand better how they demonstrate resilience, despite all the challenges they face. Fifty-three participants answered semi-structured questions sharing their experiences as international students. The results show international students felt an overall sense of wellbeing and flourishing when they fulfilled their basic psychological needs. Their resilience was impacted by the different types of social support they received, and findings explored how they navigated these different support systems on campus. Additionally, COVID-19 impacted participants in unique ways; due to the different intersections of their identities, they navigated these stresses differently. Lastly, participants who were able to find the support and resources necessary for success thrived in their adjustment and journey as international students. The participants' experiences confirmed the essential role of universities in the adjustment of international students. Based on these findings, recommendations are made for universities, international offices, and international students.
Opening the Gate: A Qualitative Analysis of National Communication Association Journal Editor Gatekeeping Practices
(2023) Stewart, Briana M; Broeckelman-Post, Melissa
Journal editors facilitate the process that determines what work is or is not published. They also have a role in creating and maintaining the canon. As such, editors have the potential to bring diverse and underrepresented backgrounds to journals and the field. I conducted in-depth interviews with 22 previous, current, and future editors of National Communication Association-sponsored journals to understand their roles in enabling and constraining research backgrounds, perspectives, and approaches to the field of communication. Conversations revealed that editors are making conscious efforts to not only publish diverse scholarship but also recruit diverse author backgrounds to journals. Editors also revealed that they have a significant amount of power over their journals and even within the field of communication but are aware of these power dynamics. Finally, editors acknowledged the limiting rules and structures set forth by the National Communication Association and their publisher, Taylor & Francis. Overall, findings from this study indicate that despite editors’ power and potential to act as gatekeepers who limit the diversity of scholarship in the field, many are making conscious efforts to counteract these choices. Notably, the NCA and Taylor & Francis structures, rules, and regulations had greater power in limiting and impacting editors’ ability to diversify scholarship.
Essays in Applied New Institutional Economics & Public Choice
(2023) Hazlett, Peter Keane; Leeson, Peter T
This dissertation comprises three chapters that apply theoretical works from new institutional economics and public choice to explain various institutions of human behavior. The first chapter explores the law and economics of Puritan organization. Puritan congregations in 17th century New England instituted many rules and regulations surrounding daily life. These norms are well explained by Iannaccone’s (1992) model of religious clubs. This model is extended by recognizing norms are costly to enforce, and groups will act to minimize these costs. This chapter argues Puritans organized in compact settlements to lower the monitoring costs associated with enforcing their prohibitions and stigmatizing norms. Using an originally constructed data set of 327 New England towns, this study finds more religious towns were more compactly settled and vice versa. This theory explains why centralized land demarcating institutions were often found in New England but not in other American colonies. The second chapter argues that the effects of monetary policy on income inequality will depend on both the prevailing economic and political equilibria. Monetary policy and institutions are far from exempt from political influences. This study analyzes monetary institutions not as being run by either benevolent technocrats or a wealth-maximizing Leviathan, but as the outcome of competition between interest groups trying to capture wealth transfers. While interest groups gaining from specific monetary policies and institutions can easily identify themselves, losers often cannot. As a result, losers have a more difficult time fighting back, and both the organization of money production and monetary policy are shaped by political competition between rent-seekers. This framework is used to analyze modern developments in monetary policies and institutions, namely (1) the Fed’s reaction to the 2007 financial crisis, (2) the Fed’s reaction to the COVID crisis, and (3) the establishment and development of the euro. The final chapter develops a theory of bureaucratic rent creation. Under political competition, bureaucrats who wish to maintain their jobs and salaries must continue to stimulate demand for their agency’s services in order to secure funding. This paper suggests that one way a bureau can do so is by creating avenues for private entities to collect rents through entrepreneurial action. The Federal Student Aid office in the U.S. Department of Education and their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) can serve as an example. By getting students to fill out a FAFSA application, colleges obtain the detailed financial information of students and families. Colleges can then use this information to price discriminate. The bureau’s derived benefits from this behavior are two-fold: (1) Private interests groups can lobby political sponsors to continue funding the agency. Using data obtained from lobbying reports filed with the federal government, this study finds that there is a positive relationship between lobbying expenditures and the implementation of regulations that enhance the value of the rents associated with the FAFSA. (2) The source of the rents can be used as a performance indicator to meet the demands of political sponsors. Drawing from the 5-year strategic plans from the Department of Education and the Federal Student Aid office, this study finds that these bureaus can benefit from engaging in such behavior.
Books in Public: Recognition of Evaluative Discourses in Popular Reading
(2023) Aust, Erin Jean; Albanese, Denise
Independent bookstores and online spaces like Goodreads.com have been celebrated as spaces that enable readers to form a community to evaluate books and discuss emotional impacts of reading, allowing space to bring embodied experiences to bear on reading and potentially open new avenues of discourse. Yet, at the same time, these spaces are marked by a reluctance to engage publicly as well as a continued deference to or centering of a perceived literary elite. This dissertation first argues that, regardless of how powerful reading seems to be, actual reading practices have largely been oriented toward authorities. While these spaces seem like a way to evade this orientation, the context of consumer capitalism in which these spaces inevitably must exist ensures that utterances of intimacy and embodiment, utterances that look challenging to the rational-critical discourse of literary aesthetics, still reproduce self-alienation and preclude the possibility of poetic world-making, the act of calling into being new publics and discourses.
“THINGS HAVE CHANGED AROUND HERE”: PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME AND SAFETY IN RURAL SOUTHEASTERN KENTUCKY
(2023) Kanewske, L. Cait; Gill, Charlotte
Although a sizable portion of the United States population resides in rural areas, until recently the state of scholarship concerning rural crime as a whole was scant, poorly developed, and dated (Donnermeyer et al., 2006; Donnermeyer, 2007; Weisheit & Donnermeyer, 2000). However, the last several years have seen a reawakening of interest in issues of rural crime and safety. Contrary to common misconceptions of rural areas as relatively crime-free, research indicates these areas likely experience higher rates than urban areas of certain crimes, including substance use/misuse and substance use-related crime, domestic abuse and intimate partner violence, and certain types of juvenile delinquency (Kuhns et al., 2007; Weisheit et al., 2006). Given the sparse but evolving state of rural crime scholarship, there is great value in conducting a nuanced investigation into the crime- and safety-related concerns of rural residents, and their thoughts on how these problems are best addressed.Using qualitative analysis of 54 interviews conducted with residents of three southeastern Kentucky counties (Bell, Clay, and Harlan), this dissertation investigates four research questions: 1) What are the primary crime and safety concerns of residents in this rural area? 2) What are residents’ specific concerns pertaining to substance use and substance use-related crime in this rural area? 3) According to residents, why do individuals (including juveniles/youth) become involved in substance use and other risky/criminal behavior? And 4) What do residents identify as the primary protective factors insulating individuals (including juveniles/youth) from involvement in substance use and other risky/criminal behavior? Analysis shows that residents are exceptionally concerned with substance use (particularly methamphetamine use and opioid misuse), drug-related theft, domestic violence, and child abuse. Regarding risk for criminal involvement, residents describe an interlocking constellation of factors: hopelessness, apathy, and boredom engendered by community decline, ready availability of the substances in neighborhoods, cultural attitudes permissive towards substance use, pervasive substance use among family members, friends, and neighbors, few opportunities for gainful employment, chemical dependency, and absence of accessible substance use intervention services. Conversely, when speaking about protective factors, residents describe a corresponding constellation of factors insulating individuals from criminal behaviors: engagement in prosocial recreational activities, strong prosocial peer, neighbor, and family relationships, participation in the legal economy, commitment to and success in education, and personal resilience. These risk and protective factors rarely occur in isolation; rather, they are component parts of entire sprawling webs of factors operating in and across community-level, group-level, and individual-level domains. A particularly important finding of this dissertation is that collective efficacy and social disorganization appear to operate in dual ways in this rural community as strong social ties among friends, families, and neighbors are both primary risk and protective factors for substance use and criminal involvement.
Nudging Vaccination in Latin America: Insights from Three Field Experiments in Behavioral Economics
(2023) Martinez Villarreal, Deborah; Stratmann, Thomas
In this dissertation, I address the impact of various principles of behavioral economics on vaccination rates and attitudes toward vaccines in Latin America with an experimental economics methodology. Each experiment was implemented with government entities in the respective study locations. With the insights generated by these studies, I seek to provide evidence-based recommendations to aid governments in optimizing resource allocation toward effective health promotion. In chapter one, I test the effect of norm nudges on increasing HPV vaccinations for parents of girls and adolescents in Bogota, Colombia, where only a minority of the population is vaccinated against HPV. Norm nudges provide social information describing the prevalence of a behavior and/or its degree of social approval. I use a text message campaign to target parents with daughters between 9 and 17 years old who need the first dose of the HPV vaccine. I compare five norm nudges, a control group, an experimental control group, and a policy control group. Two norm nudges contain social information communicating how other people’s behavior is changing over time, i.e., dynamic norm nudges. The results are based on actual HPV vaccinations from administrative data from the Secretariat of Health in Bogota. The results find that the trending norm, one of the two dynamic designs, increases average vaccination by 1.39 percent compared to the control group vaccination rate of 5.57 percent. It represents a difference in HPV vaccination rate equivalent to 25 percent compared to the control group. This study contributes to the growing literature on the applications of dynamic norm nudges on behavior change. In chapter two, I examine the effectiveness of dynamic norm nudges on increasing second-dose HPV vaccinations for trendsetters. I follow the definition of trendsetters by Bicchieri and Funcke (2018). They define trendsetters as the initiators of norm abandonment. In this context, trendsetters are parents who vaccinated their daughters with the first-dose HPV vaccine between 2017-2020. The results are based on actual HPV vaccinations from administrative data from the Secretariat of Health in Bogota. The paper tests three variations of dynamic norm nudges that include trending norms, qualitative dynamic norms, and quantitative dynamic norms. Contrary to chapter one, the results indicate that dynamic norms do not increase second-dose HPV vaccination rates of trendsetters. However, injunctive norms have a statistically significant marginal increase in second-dose HPV vaccinations of 5.22 percent compared to the control average of 15.2 percent. This difference is equivalent to a 34 percent difference. The study contributes to the literature on the effect of norm nudges on minority behaviors and identifies the elements that make dynamic norm nudges effective in this context. In addition, the study contributes to the literature on the specific conditions under which norm nudges are effective. In chapter three, I test the hypothesis that online interventions grounded in the principles of behavioral economics, that is, nudges, impact COVID-19 vaccine attitudes. I test the hypothesis with a field experiment in cooperation with the government of Guanajuato, Mexico. Contrary to public health communications interventions, the behavioral economics approach assumes that individuals suffer from limited attention and cognitive resources that constrain information processing. This study’s approach uses elements of gamification, heuristics, altruism, and framing to support the visual and message intervention to simplify the cognitive processing of information, thereby making information more salient. The results show that the online behavioral intervention has a positive effect on vaccine attitudes of 0.207 points on a 9-point scale from 1-9, where 1 is completely against, and 9 is completely in favor of the vaccine. Since recent studies show that vaccine attitudes have declined, low-cost interventions like the one studied in this chapter may hold the promise of containing a continued decline.
Resisting Through 2020: Political Strategies of Black Women Receiving Government Assistance In the U.S. During Floyd, Trump, and COVID-19
(2023) Gaddy, Ashley; Smith, Paul
The year 2020 in the United States is one that TIME magazine mentioned “will go down in history books”. Edits and revisions have already occurred in scholarly publications to include the historic events that shaped the lives of so many. On February 11, 2020, the World Health Organization announced coronavirus (COVID-19), May 30, 2020, the conversation about systemic racism extended beyond COVID-19 as the world watched the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, all while Donald Trump served as president. This work focuses on Black women receiving government assistance in the U.S. and looks at the ways these three factors, Trump/Trump’s Administration, COVID-19, and what scholars have called “The Summer of Racial Reckoning”, impacted how women thought about their bodies, reproduction, and motherhood while also addressing the chronic stressors that occurred in their everyday lives. However, instead of focusing the research question solely on the negative impacts on these women, this qualitative work uses a Black Feminist Intersectional methodology to center their resistance and social transformation. Through interviews and Isoke’s bottom-up approach to structural intersectionality, this project spotlights the everyday resistance strategies: faith, sacrifice, centering self, and community support, used by these women to persist through the systemic oppressions these factors had on their bodies. Persistence, resistance, and dissent are then defined as emic categories to show how the strategies implemented by Black women partook in all of them; concluding that Black women receiving government assistance in the U.S. spent their lives consistently participating in politics.
Context-Dependent Mechanisms in Numerosity-Time Interactions
(2023) Stanfield-Wiswell, Candice T; Wiener, Martin
Humans use magnitude information from the environment, like numerical quantity and time intervals, to make predictions and plan actions. Evidence shows magnitude dimensions interact and bias each other congruently: larger numerical quantities are perceived as lasting longer in duration than smaller quantities. However, because those studies required subjects to discriminate between stimuli, it is unclear if the congruency effect is due to decisional bias. To determine whether this phenomenon is dependent upon making comparisons, we investigated contextual changes in numerosity-time tasks across four experiments. First, a non-comparison bisection task was employed to reduce decisional bias. Subjects judged whether a dot quantity was small or large (seven log-spaced quantities 10–90) or whether a duration was short or long (seven log-spaced intervals 750–2250 ms). An incongruent effect was observed, with larger numerosities perceived as quicker in duration than smaller numerosities, contrary to previously reported findings. Other factors known to interfere with processing were tested: neither eye fixations nor memory affected judgments. Next, we verified the congruency effect using a discrimination task with the same stimuli, confirming the decisional bias hypothesis. To further test the hypothesis and eliminate decisional bias, subjects performed a time reproduction task using a continuous keypress paradigm. A version of the congruency effect emerged: durations were significantly over-reproduced and under-reproduced as numerosities increased and decreased, respectively. Overall, our findings indicate that contextual changes in task design induce response bias, modulating the effect direction.
Crisis and Stability: Examining the Effects of Remittances on the Macroeconomy
(2023) Dauod, Suria; Ramirez, Carlos D
Remittances, money sent from migrant workers to families in their home countries, have increased considerably since the 1990s and represent a large source of international capital flows for many developing countries. Generally, remittances are a remarkably stable source of income and are countercyclical to the recipient-country, to compensate for lower economic growth. This dissertation examines the effects of remittances on the macroeconomy of developing countries, and its role in managing risks of crises and promoting growth and stability. Chapter one considers the role of remittances as a source of stable foreign exchange reserves, and how they can enhance stability in the macroeconomy. I ask the question: can the flow of remittances help to decrease the likelihood of a financial crisis? To evaluate this question, I identify a financial crisis as a banking and currency crisis and estimate the effect of remittance flows on each crisis using logit and probit techniques. I find robust evidence for a sample of remittance-recipient countries that remittances have a statistically significant effect on financial crises. By increasing the foreign exchange reserves of a central bank, remittances improve the capacity of the central bank to manage the risk of a financial crisis. Thereby, remittances decrease the likelihood of a banking and currency crisis occurring. The academic literature has devoted much attention to discerning the institutions and policies affecting economic growth. Chapter two considers the nature of this problem and develops a case study to highlight the role remittances can play in boosting growth. This chapter, co-authored with Carlos D. Ramirez and published in Applied Economics Letters (2022), examines the effects of remittances on output for Lebanon, a case with a unique setting: remittances to Lebanon are primarily from workers located in oil-producing Gulf States and thus influenced by oil prices. This setting enables us to estimate a structural vector autoregression (VAR) model using the price of oil as an instrument. Our results suggest that the adoption of policies that facilitate remittance flows should be encouraged, as they likely stimulate economic growth. Chapter three investigates the impact of remittance flows on monetary policy decisions in a small-open economy – Lebanon. Lebanon maintains a fixed exchange rate, with its currency pegged to the US dollar, and remittances comprise approximately a quarter of its gross domestic product. I study whether the policies of the Lebanese central bank are endogenous to remittance flows. To address this question, I perform a VAR analysis and evaluate orthogonalized impulse response functions of remittances on Lebanon's money supply (M1). The results indicate that there is a causal relationship between the money supply and remittance inflows in Lebanon: as remittance levels increase, M1 levels decrease. The findings suggest that monetary policy in Lebanon is endogenous, and remittances influence the decisions of the central bank.

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