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Execution or Creative Intuition: The Fine Arts in the Philosophy of Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson
No full textThis thesis seeks to understand the extent to which theses philosophies can be reconciled and what, if any, are the major points of divergence. Maritain and Gilson provide signposts for how to formulate a Thomistic philosophy of art. A perfect reconciliation of the two philosophies would help to form a comprehensive Thomistic philosophy of art. This thesis concludes that though the two philosophies are very compatible in different areas, any synthesis would require a lot of undue manipulation of their thought because Maritain relies on epistemology and Gilson on metaphysics. The points of contention that make it impossible to reconcile their thought shows the diversity of possible interpretations and formulations of a Thomistic philosophy of art. More importantly, their differences indicate areas that need further study and thought if a more cohesive philosophy of art can be formulated. Finally, it is clear that because both authors approach this subject form different directions, a richer understanding of the subject can be had by reading both of them together.AestheticsPhilosophyArt, Beauty, Gilson, MaritainPhilosophyDegree Awarded: Ph.L.--Philosophy. The Catholic University of Americ
Three Essays on Gender and Development
No full textThis dissertation consists of three essays on gender and development. The first essay of this dissertation is the first to evaluate the gendered effects of child grants on patterns of time allocation across SNA (System of National Accounts) production work, household maintenance, care work, leisure, self-care, and other non-work activities. SNA production work includes paid market work, subsistence and informal work, job search, and other production activities which standard labor market indicators generally fail to capture. In this essay, I use data from the 2010 South Africa Time Use Survey on grant-eligible single parents aged 20-54 years to estimate a system of equations describing the time allocation of single parents. I address the endogeneity of the key grant receipt parameter using a probit model with an originally-constructed instrumental variable, regional median travel time to the welfare office. I find that single fathers living in grant recipient households reduce SNA production work by 22.5 percent (61.5 minutes per day) and single mothers by 61.5 percent (116.3 minutes per day). Single parents primarily redistribute their reduced SNA production work time to household maintenance and care work. Single fathers increase their time in household maintenance and care work by 72.2 percent (81.8 minutes per day) and single mothers by 62.8 percent (142.1minutes per day), respectively. This rise in household maintenance and care work leads to an overall increase in total work time, especially of single mothers. Single mothers living in grant recipient households increase their total work time by 5.4 percent, which is an increase of 25.8 minutes per day. A series of robustness checks confirms the results. The second essay of this dissertation focuses on measuring the impact of unpaid elder caregiving in the US on labor force participation. The essay also explores the association between unpaid elder caregiving and time use of the caregivers. The need for better understanding and measuring unpaid eldercare has become an urgent and pressing issue given the trend towards population aging. This study takes into account the diversity of eldercare arrangements and focuses on those who provide unpaid eldercare on a frequent basis (daily or several times a week). Using 2011-17 American Time Use Survey data for a subsample of individuals aged 25-61-years old, the essay examines the effect of frequent eldercare provision on labor force participation using a bivariate probit IV approach. The study also examines the time allocation pattern of frequent eldercare providers using multivariate regression method. The findings suggest that frequent eldercare provision reduces labor force participation, especially among male caregivers. Additionally, frequent eldercare provision is associated with more time spent on domestic chores and significantly less time on market work and self-care. Robustness and sensitivity checks confirm these findings. Finally, the third essay of this dissertation evaluates the relationship between sex-based attitudes of mothers and stunting among children in India. India is in a major malnutrition crisis, topping the list of countries with the largest number of stunted children. In this essay, I examine the relationship between three distinct attitudes of mothers (pro-boy, egalitarian, and pro-girl) and stunting among boys and girls of age 0-14 years in India using the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2004-05. I estimate a probit model to assess the association between mothers’ attitudes and childhood stunting. The findings suggest that having egalitarian attitudes is not associated with stunting among their children. However, mothers with pro-girl attitudes are 8 and 10 percentage points less likely to observe stunting among their girls and boys, respectively. Additional analysis by wealth categories shows that stunting among girls reduces by 15 percentage points when they have mothers with pro-girl attitudes, and they live in wealthy households. Robustness tests conducted with “severely stunted” as the dependent variable confirm the findings.Economicsaging, child grants, gender, labor force participation, stunting, time useEconomicsDegree Awarded: Ph.D. Economics. American Universit
Autonomous Driving Robot
No full textA presentation that was delivered in the Fifth University Research Day at the Catholic University of America in 2020
Device for Automatic Detection of Concussions Using Eye Tracking and Image Processing
No full textA presentation that was delivered in the Fifth University Research Day at the Catholic University of America in 2020
Time costs in the demand of cigarettes
No full textDrug addiction can be conceptualized as a reinforcer pathology, characterized by an overvaluation of drug reinforcers compared to non-drug reinforcers, and a propensity to prefer smaller, immediate rewards (delay discounting). The value of a reinforcer can be characterized using demand functions, which describes the consumption of a reinforcer as a function of its cost. In humans, cost is typically operationalized in terms of monetary value. However, time is also an important cost that determines the consumption of a reinforcer. Yet, there is a lack of attention in characterizing the demand for a reinforcer using time as a cost. If time acts as a cost, more dependent smokers would be more willing to wait for a cigarette than a less dependent individual. This contradicts predictions based on delay discounting research, which leads to the hypothesis that more dependent individuals would be less willing to wait due to steeper discounting rates. In a series of four studies, the present dissertation describes the preliminary development of the Cigarette Purchase Task-Time (CPT-T), a measure of cigarette demand with time as a cost, and investigates whether more dependent smokers are more, or less willing, to wait for a cigarette. Implications and limitations of the results are discussed.Behavioral sciencesBehavioral psychologyAddiction, Behavioral economics, Delay discounting, DemandPsychologyDegree Awarded: Ph.D. Psychology. American Universit
BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER TRAITS AND EMPATHY: THE MODERATING ROLE OF EMOTION REGULATION
No full textResearch on empathic abilities in individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) offers mixed findings. Studies have demonstrated that individuals with BPD, in comparison to healthy controls, are better at detecting emotions in others (i.e., empathic accuracy) but worse at regulating their affective reactions to others’ emotions (i.e., personal distress). However, the majority of findings are inconclusive. Since emotion regulation plays a crucial role in empathic processes, the present study explored whether emotion regulation strategy use moderates the relationship between BPD trait severity and empathy. All participants answered a questionnaire assessing BPD trait severity. Before watching a distressing video, 122 participants were randomized to either an expressive suppression, cognitive reappraisal, or uninstructed control condition. Instructions to either suppress or reappraise emotions were presented immediately before the video. The video entailed a mock text conversation between a student and a crisis counselor involving grief and suicide. Before and after the video, participants completed two measures of empathy: a measure of personal distress followed by an empathic accuracy task. Moderation analyses indicated that, for individuals with high BPD traits, reappraisal led to greater personal distress after the video compared to suppression. Reappraisal also led to higher empathic accuracy, for those with high BPD traits, compared to the control condition. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of exploring emotion regulation strategies as moderating factors in the relationship between BPD traits and empathy. These results also suggest that cognitive reappraisal may be a poor strategy to use for individuals with more BPD traits compared to suppression when it comes to reducing distress, but an adaptive strategy when it comes to increasing empathic accuracy.Clinical psychologyBPD, Emotion Regulation, Empathy, Personal Distress, Reappraisal, SuppressionPsychologyDegree Awarded: M.A. Psychology. American Universit
CATHERINE DE’ MEDICI AND THE ART OF SELF-DEFINITION IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE
No full textCatherine de’ Medici (1519-1589) was defined in part by the powerful men in her life: her uncle Pope Clement VII (1523-1534), her husband Henri II (1519-1559), King of France, and later her sons Francis II (1544-1560), Charles IX (1550-1574), and Henri III (1551-1589). Despite attempts by others to elide her individual identity and hold her power in check, Catherine created politically effective representations of herself, her position, and her authority through commissioning and displaying art. The artistic sphere was not inherently political, which allowed Catherine to redefine her identity outside of male influence and to take ownership of the multiple, intersecting roles she occupied as a wife, widow, and mother. By creating an identity that included this assemblage of roles, Catherine created her own independent narrative that asserted her political authority and individual identity. Catherine was not the first early modern woman to creatively define herself outside of societal expectations. While breaking from tradition in certain ways, in others she utilized approaches similar to those that Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), Regent of the Netherlands, had used in Mechelen a generation earlier and encouraged her female descendants, specifically her granddaughter Christine de Lorraine (1565-1637), and the next generation to do the same, including the future queen of France Marie de’ Medici (1575-1642). These three generations of women collectively show the power of self-created female identity and also reveal that Catherine, while unique in many ways, was not the only elite woman of the sixteenth century to sidestep societal constructs to define herself and her role through art. In so doing, she advanced her socio-political position to personal and familial benefit.Art historyart collection, art display, Catherine de' Medici, France, portrait, RenaissanceArtDegree Awarded: M.A. Art. American Universit
How to deter financial misconduct if crime pays?
No full textA presentation that was delivered in the Fifth University Research Day at the Catholic University of America in 2020
Informant Discrepancies of Parent and Teacher Report of Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms and Adaptive Skills of Children with Psychosocial Deficit
No full textA presentation that was delivered in the Fifth University Research Day at the Catholic University of America in 2020
ALFRED STIEGLITZ’S EQUIVALENTS: LANDSCAPE IN THE AVIATION AGE
No full textBetween the years 1922 and 1935, American photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) photographed over 300 images of clouds from his family’s property at Lake George in upstate New York. About an hour’s drive north of Albany, Lake George experienced highly changeable weather systems and, so, was a fitting site for this extensive series, known as the Equivalents. This thesis focuses on Set XX (1929), a sequence of nine photographs. Whereas a few sets include poplar trees or an indication of the ground, this set focuses almost exclusively on the sky. The clouds themselves are unnaturally angled to the un-pictured horizon and—from photograph to photograph––they shift diagonally on their vertical axis. Scholars consider the Equivalents Stieglitz’s most important late work and have read the images either symbolically or formally, but they have not considered the specific understanding of clouds in the early twentieth-century America. Reading Set XX in relation to developments in meteorology and aviation in the 1920s, this thesis argues that the photographs represent the experience of flight. Throughout his career, Stieglitz worked to champion photography as art, and ironically, drawing upon science enabled him to rival the aesthetic of landscape painting. Whereas nineteenth-century landscape paintings prioritized the horizon line and pictured their subject from a terrestrial perspective, Stieglitz used aeronautic thinking to picture humanity’s ascension into the sky. By invoking and reimagining the genre of landscape, Stieglitz posited photography as equivalent or perhaps even superior to painting.Art historyArt criticismMeteorologyAlfred Stieglitz, Clouds, Equivalents, Flight, Landscape, PhotographyArtDegree Awarded: M.A. Art. American Universit