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A Middle Way in Psychology
No full textIn this paper, I argue that psychology can support the concept of no-self in Mahayana Buddhism. Psychologists tend to separate the self into the mind and the behavior, with differing perspectives on the roles each plays in our human experience (APA, 2022). I respectively delineate this dichotomy as the subjective self and the objective self, distinguishing the subjective self as the notion that the self is a completely private experience and the objective self as the notion that the self is public and knowledgeable to outsiders. These selves are each preserved through contrasting methodologies. The subjective self is studied through the idiographic method and the objective self is studied through the nomothetic method. Despite this tendency of separation, incongruencies in how psychologists conceptualize the self have impacted the methodology through which they subsequently study it. Allport (1961) focused on preserving the subjective self, but ultimately studied it nomothetically. Skinner’s (1953) research in behaviorism focused on supporting the objective self through the nomothetic method, but now his methods are utilized to support the notion of the subjective self (APA, 2022). To address this inconsistency in psychological studies, I introduce the Mahayana Buddhist concept of the no-self. The no-self in Buddhism asserts that no self initially existed (Rahula, 1959), which upon first glance is contrary to psychology’s notions of the subjective self and objective self. However, further examination of Mahayana Buddhism reveals the ways in which it ultimately takes ownership of the subjective and objective in the Acela Sutta and the logic of the nonduality of duality and nonduality. Therefore, because psychology tackles the same dualities which Mahayana Buddhism outlines, I argue that the discipline supports its notion of the no-self. Examining psychology through the lens of Mahayana Buddhism shines light on how religion can provide insights into how the self is conceptualized within psychology. This finding has implications for contemporary issues that surpass the bounds of academia
Kelly Adirondack Center Spring 2022 Newsletter
Full text linkThe Spring 2022 Kelly Adirondack Center Newsletter shares information on our spring birding programs and recent advances in digital preservation at the Adirondack Research Library. We also remember Anne Weld and Patty Prindle, two ARL volunteers who passed away in February.https://digitalworks.union.edu/arlpublications/1004/thumbnail.jp
Meatheads Redefined: An Analysis of the Union College Football Team
Full text linkThis thesis explores the experiences and representations of the male football player. It provides an anthropological study of Union College football players and a film analysis of the sports film genre, revealing critical insights about relationships among bodies, diet preferences, and gendered stereotypes. These insights move beyond the “meathead” stereotypes that society constructs for the male football player. This thesis combines Anthropology and English to reveal that questions about hegemonic masculinity arise in the minds of the very athletes who embody the stereotypes of ‘the man.’ Moreover, sports films’ popularity lies in themes that entice men to acknowledge their emotions. Through the utilization of literary skills, I deeply analyze the men in my ethnographic research and question how they speak and act. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates how the two disciplines merge to create a cultural analysis of the men of the Union College Football Team and, by extension, of the hegemonic constructions of masculinity more broadly
Women Are More Likely to Use Tentative Language, I Think: A Literary and Statistical Analysis of Ulysses by James Joyce and Debate Speech
Full text linkLanguage and its utilization can provide valuable information about individuals and their cultural norms. Negotiation is a major factor of the gender wage gap, perpetuated by gender bias. This paper seeks to discover—does language influence gendered cultural norms? Or reflect it? This thesis is divided into eight sections that engage the relationship between gender and language in literature and debate speech. Through critical literary and statistical analysis of the “Penelope” and “Proteus” chapters of Ulysses by James Joyce, it is evident that the female chapter’s invalidation found in literary criticism is from the reception of her speech, and not the language itself. This paper further statistically explores gender and language through a more tangible lens—presidential debate speech. The results find that female candidates, like Joyce’s female persona, are subject to more negative reception, despite a small magnitude of significant difference across the linguistic characteristics of the designated male and female speech. The results point towards the importance of a social culture free from gender biases that can strain the labor market and society
Investigating the Thermodynamics and Seismic Profile of the Europan Hydrosphere through Pure-Water Modeling and Saltwater Experiments
Full text linkWe explore the properties of the hydrosphere on Europa involving both a modeling technique and experimental methods. We perform a computational analysis of the thermodynamic properties for an ideal, pure-water Europan ice shell using a Python programming framework called SeaFreeze. We create four models assuming surface temperatures of either 50 K or 140 K and ice shell thicknesses of either 3 km or 30 km. We observe mostly linear trends for the density and seismic wave velocities with respect to depth and find that surface temperature has the greatest effect on the models. Simultaneously, we experimentally investigate the phase diagram of different saltwater concentrations in an attempt to further constrain the ice shell properties. We determine the freezing temperatures of 5%, 10%, and 20% by-weight NaCl-water solutions under constant pressures from 0 MPa to 70 MPa. We find increasing the salt concentration, the pressure, or both decreases the freezing point temperature with a depression at our most extreme conditions of about -20 °C from that of pure water at zero pressure. Based on our experimental results, we expect that adding NaCl to the pure-water models would lower their ice-water boundary temperatures. Areas of future development include continuing to explore the phase diagrams of different saltwater concentrations, including MgSO4, KCl, and varying combinations of all three salts, extending the pure-water SeaFreeze models to analyze Europa’s subsurface ocean layer, implementing various new techniques to make our experiments more precise, and finally applying our results to the other icy moons, such as Ganymede or Callisto
Luke Sandmann Senior Thesis Portfolio
No full textPerception, Imagination, and Desire in Aristotle’s De Anima:
Advisor: Krisanna Scheiter
Readers of Aristotle have been perplexed by a seemingly inconsistent triad presented in Aristotle’s treatise on the soul. In short, Aristotle seems to claim that all animals that perceive necessarily have the capacity for desire. Next, those that desire have the capacity for imagination. The perplexity arises when Aristotle seems to say that not all perceptual organisms have the capacity for imagination. All three of these claims cannot be true. I take a nuanced approach to the reconciliation of this seeming inconsistency by interpreting Aristotle as attributing imagination to all animals. I do so by providing a comprehensive analysis of Aristotle’s account of imagination, concluding that all perceptual organisms require imagination to explain appearances. In instances where Aristotle denies imagination to “grubs”, we can rest assured that these animals are simply in the early stages of cognitive development. Thus, I find the triad reconciled by an attribution of perception, desire, and imagination to all perceptual organisms.
Passion, Taste, and Hume’s Sensible Knave:
Advisor: Maité Cruz Tleugabulova
This paper looks to offer an answer to the long-standing question of Hume’s Sensible Knave. The Sensible Knave is a character introduced by Hume in his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. This individual is offered by Hume in anticipation of a challenge to his theory of justice. Hume believes that justice is an artifice implemented for the purpose of a functional society. We come to approve of it through education as a moral virtue that is learned. The Sensible Knave recognizes this and takes advantage of all the scenarios in which they can commit injustice for self-interested profit without being caught. Therefore, they seem to pose no threat to the fabric of justice. This is a problem for Hume because he is a sentimentalist; we come to know an act or character as virtuous due to the pleasure it invokes in us. Therefore, if the Knave does not feel inclined by his moral sentiment to commit himself to justice, has he found a loophole in Hume’s theory? Hume answers that he has sacrificed the superior pleasure of moral integrity for material amusements. Critics state that Hume cannot account for this claim, as sentimentalism seems to be a subjective theory—who is judge that one pleasure is superior to another? My paper looks to show that Hume can, in fact, account for this claim through his articulation of the True Judge. The True Judge is a theoretical persona with fine-tuned taste by which we can confirm or deny sentiments. With this articulation in place, Hume can preserve his theory of justice
Corrective Feedback Timing in Kanji Writing Instruction Apps
Full text linkThe focus of this research paper is to determine the correct time to provide corrective feedback to people who are learning how to write Japanese kanji. To do this, we developed a system that is able to recognize Japanese kanji that is handwritten onto an iPad screen and check for errors such as wrong stroke order. Previous research has achieved success in developing similar systems, but this project is unique because the research question involves the timing of corrective feedback. In particular, we are looking at whether immediate or delayed corrective feedback results in better learning
Impact of Movements on Facial Expression Recognition
Full text linkThe ability to recognize human emotions can be a useful skill for robots. Emotion recognition can help robots understand our responses to robot movements and actions. Human emotions can be recognized through facial expressions. Facial Expression Recognition (FER) is a well-established research area, how- ever, the majority of prior research is based on static datasets of images. With robots often the subject is moving, the robot is moving, or both. The purpose of this research is to determine the impact of movement on facial expression recognition. We apply a pre-existing model for FER, which performs around 70.86% on a given collection of images. We experiment with three different conditions: No motion by subject or robot, motion by one of the human or robot, and finally both human and robot in motion. We then measure the impact on FER accuracy introduced by these movements. This research relates to Computer Vision, Machine Learning, and Human-Robot Interaction
Physician Burnout and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of U.S. Primary Care Physicians
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic greatly altered the work-lives of physicians, yet research has failed to describe how it has affected burnout in U.S. primary care physicians. In this thesis, I study burnout prevalence and contributing factors in U.S. primary care physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. I performed a systematic review of research on primary care physician burnout and the COVID-19 pandemic, then cross-referenced this review with qualitative interviews of primary care physicians. Burnout was found to be in high prevalence in two of its three dimensions, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Main sources of emotional exhaustion included a changing work environment, increased workload, inefficiencies of telehealth, worse patient prognosis due to delayed care, and pandemic-related costs. Main sources of depersonalization included telehealth’s effects on workflow and ability to provide quality care to patients. Lack of personal achievement was worsened in some instances due to telehealth hindering the delivery of quality care, but in most instances, it improved due to increased feelings of purpose, pride, and camaraderie. Qualitative interviews echoed similar themes of increased emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, yet improved feelings of personal achievement. Recommendations include giving physicians more control over telehealth in their workflow and increasing access to healthy coping mechanisms. Targeting areas that induce the most significant stress and frustration can most effectively prevent and manage burnout in these physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic
Crítica social y esperanza para las próximas generaciones: Representaciones de seropositivos en Todo sobre mi madre (1999) y Positivo (2016)
No full textThis thesis criticizes the progression of the HIV/AIDS pandemic from post-Franco Spain to contemporary Venezuela through the analysis of a domestic film from each country. From Spain, the comedy-drama film Todo sobre mi madre (1999) by Pedro Almodóvar is a reflection of an earlier stage of the epidemic, when the country was challenged to recreate its political and social identities. Almodóvar’s film highlights the struggles of the LGBTQ community to transgress stereotypes (not limited to HIV) and find hope in future generations to solve the lingering social inequalities. From Venezuela, the short film Positivo (2016) from De Tovar Films is a contemporary student production about the daily lives of HIV-positive youth in unstable conditions. The work contrasts the experiences of the two generations regarding both HIV and a country with an underdeveloped healthcare system and reduced personal liberties.
The two films suggest that the social change needed to correct the cycle of HIV spread (particularly in underrepresented groups) will stem from today’s youth. Although there are examples of significant medical and social progress between the events of Todo sobre mi madre and Positivo, the settings of both films are only a small representation of countries that have fallen behind in HIV education, prevention, and treatment. I argue that the “next generation” that Almodóvar believed could execute the necessary social and public health changes is the very same student group that refuses to let Venezuela’s need for improvement fade to the background