Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute
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Visual plant imagery and consumer behavior
No full textAlthough research suggests a positive effect of plant life on wellbeing, little to no attention has been devoted to the impact of visual plant life imagery on consumer behavior. The current research aims to fill this gap. If natural environments have a positive impact on mood and productivity, this suggests that natural environments may also positively impact consumer decisions. Because most marketing efforts happen virtually and not in-person, the current work examines whether visual exposure to plant imagery has a positive effect on consumer behaviors in different contexts.
Essay 1 explores the effect of visual plant imagery on real estate listings. We propose that exposure to biophilic images (i.e., images depicting plant life) reduces cognitions associated with resource scarcity, which mitigates feelings of anxiety and results in higher property valuation. Study 1 analyzed a large, unstructured data set of 40,294 sold homes associated with 569,828 digital images. We first built a biophilic image classifier using a two-stage deep learning algorithm (Faster R-CNN) to classify the home images. Subsequent econometric analyses indicate that homes depicted with more biophilic images exhibit higher transaction values. The effect is stronger in areas of greater resource scarcity, in support of our theoretical framework. Studies 2 and 3, which consist of highly controlled experiments, replicate the key results from Study 1 and provide evidence of the underlying psychological process.
Essay 2 examines the effect of plant imagery in advertisements. We propose that incorporating plants as part of the visual elements in advertisements activates perceptions of brand/product warmth, which subsequently enhances advertisement effectiveness. In Study 1, an empirical analysis of 69,569 Instagram posts by 48 apparel brands shows that posts with plant imagery have more consumer engagement. Study 2 directly manipulated the presence of plants in an advertisement for a product and measured consumer perception of warmth and advertisement effectiveness to test the proposed underlying mechanism. Study 3 tested the moderating role of product warmth, where we found that the positive effect of visual plant imagery on advertisement effectiveness is diminished when the product itself is already perceived as warm.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
The castaways: affect, alienation, and authorship in American sitcoms of the 1960s
No full textThis dissertation reassesses a novel style of American sitcom that emerged in the mid-1960s in which serene depictions of suburbia that had dominated the genre in the late 1950s and early 1960s suddenly were populated by witches, Martians, genies, and other powerful alien characters. These programs were not only new in concept, they would make situation comedy the most popular genre on American TV. The central question guiding this study is: why did that specific new mode of comedy emerge at that particular moment?
Much of the preceding scholarship interprets these sitcoms as reflections of the broad cultural disruptions of the era, including civil rights, feminism, consumerism, and the Cold War. What those readings overlook is a socioeconomic transition as crucial but less in the news: the transformation in the structure and control of American broadcasting. By the early 1960s, the three national networks had consolidated authority over the industry’s other functional parties—local broadcasters, advertisers, and independent program producers—just as television became the most powerful mass medium in the nation.
This dissertation argues that the conceptual genesis of the programs was not in response to those broad societal changes but as projections of the shared anxieties experienced by their creators within their changing industry. While the programs resonated with audiences due to their culturally relatable themes and characters, they were conceived as personal expressions of their creators' struggles to maintain a sense of self-respect as they lost their former places of authority in the medium they helped create. Through intertextual analysis of the sitcoms alongside their creators’ published memoirs through the lens of Affect Theory, this dissertation explicates how the producers’ immediate concerns were encoded in the emotional reactions of their programs’ protagonists to the powerful outsiders who suddenly appeared in those characters’ lives.
By recontextualizing these sitcoms within their creators’ historical industrial conditions, this study adds to current scholarship on the interconnectedness of creativity and media industry dynamics. It also reveals how the industry structures and relationships of a handful of television executives in the mid-twentieth century established the model of media control still in place today.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
The Missing vox populi: navigating the lives of the commoners in classical literature
No full textFor thousands of years, people have read and enjoyed classical works of literature, and for the most part, these stories have focused on the lives of the rich and the famous. That is, throughout these stories, we see petty kings dot the Trojan landscape and engage in epic battles in Homer’s The Iliad, and a motley assortment of plutocrats fight over the hand of Penelope in Odysseus’ absence. Virgil, too, tells of a Trojan prince in the Aeneid, who emigrates out of a burning city and falls in love with a widowed queen, only to leave her and then grapple with indigenous kings over territorial claims in Italy. While the lives of the aristocrats certainly dominate the scenes in the epics, there are a host of references both in the text as well as the subtext that suggest how integral the commoners were at that time. In this research, I argue that navigating the lives of the plebeian characters through classical works of literature can reveal the missing voices of these underprivileged people of this period, as well as provide a new way to approach the literature and history of classical civilization.M.A.Includes bibliographical reference
On the prevalence and magnitude of resurgence during delay and denial tolerance training
No full textResurgence is the recurrence of target behavior (e.g., severe destructive behavior) during a worsening of reinforcement conditions (e.g., increases in response effort or decreases in reinforcement rate for appropriate behavior). Previous studies have examined the prevalence and magnitude of resurgence of severe destructive behavior during functional communication training with discriminative stimuli (i.e., multiple schedules). We conducted a systematic review of the literature to analyze the magnitude and prevalence of treatment relapse during functional communication training with delay-and-denial tolerance training, including during shaping of the complex communication response, introduction of tolerance responses, and increases in delays. Similar to previous studies with discriminative stimuli, resurgence occurred in nearly all participants (87%) and in about one-third of transitions. Resurgence was less likely to occur during response-effort manipulations (i.e., complexity training, tolerance-response training) and was most likely to occur during increases in delays that ended following the passage of time rather than a response criterion. These results highlight the importance of further evaluation of resurgence across different applications of functional communication training.M.A.B.A.Includes bibliographical reference
Characterizing adaptive versus maladaptive social media use: an idiographic approach
No full textParents, popular media outlets, and other stakeholders have been sounding alarm bells on the relationship between adolescent social media use and mental health concerns. Yet, scientific research on this topic has yielded mixed findings to date. As a result, health professionals are left with minimal evidence-based recommendations as to how to engage healthfully with social media to mitigate any potential negative mental health problems. This study investigated the daily relationships between adolescents’ social media use behaviors (how often they check social media and how much time they spend on it) and fluctuations in their mood during and after use. This study also applied an idiographic approach, using dynamic structural equation modeling to identify person-level relationships between these constructs over time. Findings demonstrate that most adolescents (N=6) do not self-regulate their social media use in relation to their mood during use—and most importantly, they do not use it less when they feel more negative mood during use. That said, some adolescents (N=13) did alter their social media use behaviors in different ways depending on their mood. These results highlight next steps for possible intervention points to help adolescents maximize mental health benefits from social media use, while minimizing possible harms. Findings also begin to shed light on considerations around how and for whom social media use behaviors may be adaptive or maladaptive.M.S.Includes bibliographical reference
Perceptions about how racism contributes to the development of borderline personality disorder
No full textDue to the high risk and subjective pain associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD), it is important to understand the contributing factors to this disorder in order to mitigate the effects of these factors and treat BPD effectively. Research around the contribution of racism to different mental health disorders has been growing, but to date, no research has examined the effects of racism on the development of BPD. The present study seeks to address this by using Linehan’s (1993) biosocial theory as the theoretical framework. Eleven adult participants who self-identified as people of color and who met the study’s criteria for BPD completed open-ended surveys that inquired about participants’ experiences with emotional vulnerability, environmental invalidation, racism, and borderline personality disorder. Using an exploratory grounded theory approach, two researchers analyzed each of these responses together and co-developed a codebook of axial codes based on chunks of relevant data, or open codes, found within the responses. Once the axial codes were determined, they were grouped into five themes derived from the axial codes. The five themes derived from the data were: emotional vulnerability, invalidation, experiences of racism, consequences of racism, and positive outcomes. Notably, all eleven respondents endorsed experiences within these themes, with the variation among axial codes illuminating the different ways in which racism seems to contribute to the development of BPD. The responses analyzed in this study suggest that racism can be invalidating in several ways. The study provided insight into how different aspects of emotional vulnerability interact with racism and may lead to the development of several BPD symptoms. Though this study is a beginning step in finding empirical support for the theoretical idea that racism contributes to the development of BPD, the qualitative data found in this study suggests associations between different factors within these variables. The suggestion of these associations can provide direction for future research that aims to further understand the association among emotional vulnerability, racism, and BPD, which can eventually inform treatment that addresses and mitigates the effects of racism among people diagnosed with BPD.Psy.D.Includes bibliographical reference
Labor-management partnership in US public education: re-examining effects, contingencies, and teacher and student outcomes around COVID-19 and beyond
No full textWhile labor-management partnership (LMP) has been a staple in Industrial Relations (IR), theoretical and empirical questions still remain regarding how, and through which organizational levels, different worker and organizational outcomes may be achieved (i.e., mutual gains), and further, LMP’s ability to address the consequences of a crisis like COVID-19 involving similar outcomes. Mainly drawing from pluralist and unitarist perspectives on worker voice, and from social exchange theory, I develop multiple single level and multilevel models on how LMP may be implemented across levels and operate to reach these outcomes, and further assess the challenges that may be faced. Using four separate but related studies in the setting of US public education around COVID-19, I primarily examine 1) the distinct and complementary impact between dimensions of LMP and managerial (principal) collaborative leadership for school level teacher voice, 2) the direct and mixed-level associations between dimensions of district and school level LMP and student and teacher outcomes at the district and school levels, and 3) the potential for LMP to mitigate negative consequences of COVID-19 involving similar outcomes. Results show support for complementarity and the effects of district level LMP quality on school level implementation and on school level teacher work-related voice and voice about COVID-19. Results also show some support for effects on district and school level student performance and pandemic-impacted performance. Theoretical implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
Essays on place-based policies
No full textEach of the three essays in this dissertation investigates the impact of place-based policies using modern causal inference estimators. The first essay utilizes the synthetic control method to examine the effects of five of New Jersey's Urban Enterprise Zones (Bayonne, Gloucester City, New Brunswick, Roselle Borough, and The Wildwoods) on local payroll employment. The program offers reduced local sales tax, tax credits for newly hired employees, subsidized unemployment insurance costs, worker training assistance, and taxfree purchases on capital equipment and facilities. My results suggest that enterprise zones may not be effective job creators for treated areas, particularly for those zones that were added long after the program's inception. My second essay investigates the impact of Atlantic City's casino monopoly on its metropolitan economy using synthetic difference-indifferences.
I find that commercial casinos had an immediate impact on the Atlantic City Metropolitan Area (Atlantic County, NJ) in the first five years through an increase in employment (26 percent), wages (9 percent), personal income (5 percent), and house prices (19 percent). The casinos' positive impact on the metropolitan labor market was persistent and increasing through the early 1990s, but I find evidence that the city's 1992 monopoly expiration negatively impacted local wages and personal income through 2000. My third essay investigates the impact of South Carolina's recruitment of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner assembly plant on the state's aerospace industry. I use a control group composed of candidate states that failed to attract the assembly plant and find that the Boeing project produced gains in employment, wages, and establishments within South Carolina's aerospace industry in the subsequent decade. At best, the direct cost per job generated by the plant is comparable to the average aerospace industrial recruitment deal according to Slattery & Zidar (2020). However, when I examine the impact of the plant on the economy of the Charleston metropolitan area, I find a substantial local multiplier effect which suggests a much lower cost per total job generated by the recruitment deal.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
Captains and kings: one Native family’s journey through American history
No full textThis dissertation details the three-hundred-year history of the Lenape family known as the Killbucks. When William Penn’s settlers arrived in Pennsylvania, hoping to buy land directly from the Native inhabitants, they treated with an oft-mythologized sachem named Tamanend. Far from a pliant collaborator, the real Tamanend used his power to curtail colonial settlement in a manner belied by nationalist artwork. He thought always of Lenape posterity. In tracing this line of descendants through the longue durée, we can see not only a history of a particular Lenape or Delaware family, but also history as understood through the lens of family. His descendants, many of them political or military leaders, had to navigate American colonialism, always within the particular paradigms established by the previous generations. Some chose to fight, some chose to adapt, and others chose avoidance. These choices allow us to see not only how one family survived, but also how the very concepts, notions, and practices of family adapted and endured over centuries. Through a history of the Killbuck family, we can see how some Native, particularly Delaware, individuals, families, and nations survived the onslaught of Euro-American imperialism, through adaptation, resistance, and cultural syncretism, sometimes altering the very conceptions, experience, and understanding of family from generation to generation.
Tamanend left his people in a strong geopolitical position when he died at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Unfortunately, his successors were either plied by alcohol or murdered, losing much of that leverage. The next generation of Killbucks, led by a sachem named Netawatwees, had to scramble to recoup the Delawares’ losses and recover their strategic position vis-à-vis the Euro-American settlers. Bitter fighting in the Seven Years’ and American Revolutionary Wars led only to further land encroachment and the deposing of Netawatwees’ heir, Gelelemend. Gelelemend converted to the Moravian Church, forever altering the trajectory of his descendants’ lives. His children and grandchildren’s lives would be dominated by mission life on the frontier, as they struggled to maintain their existence and culture in the tumult of Manifest Destiny. Gelelemend’s choice even led to his great-grandson John Henry becoming a missionary to Alaska, where he tried to spread the Gospel to another generation of America’s Indigenous inhabitants. Whereas Tamanend had once opposed Euro-American settlement, his descendant John Henry helped to bring settlement and Christianity to the Alaskan borderlands.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
Investigation of a 3-D shock wave boundary layer interaction associated with an unswept fin
No full textShock wave boundary layer interactions (SBLI) are a problem prevalent in supersonic aerodynamics that can create unwanted loads on vehicle surfaces. SBLI are often generated on the surfaces of supersonic vehicles and have critical effects on their performance. One such geometry that can generate SBLI is an unswept fin, present in airbreathing engine inlets and aircraft wing- and tail-fuselage junctions. To study this complex phenomenon, multiple parallel-to-flow planes of Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry (SPIV) are used to quantify the flow field about an unswept fin SBLI. The use of SPIV allows for the resolution of three-components of velocity within a planar measurement space, which can also retain a high vector density compared to other methods such as plenoptic and tomographic particle image velocimetry. The fin is placed in a Mach 2.75 flow and generates a 34° out-of-plane oblique shock wave with turbulent boundary layer separation. The data obtained here are collected along four planes to investigate the spanwise growth and evolution of flow features. With laser reflections being a common issue in obtaining near-wall PIV data, these data also explore a slight modification to a pre-existing experimental setup, designed to improve near-surface measurements by offsetting laser flashes away from the cameras’ field of view. Both the fin and flat-plate are machined from acrylic instead of aluminum. Due to its transparent property, the acrylic flat-plate serves as a buffer allowing the laser sheet to pass through so that the inevitable reflections occur within the thickness of the flat-plate. Furthermore, the laser can penetrate the acrylic fin instead of reflecting off of it. This paper presents work examining the undisturbed boundary layer and its interaction with the fin-generated shock wave using this modification to the experimental set up.M.S.Includes bibliographical reference