REHEARSING "THE SOUTH" SICILIAN CONSTRUCTS OF REPRESENTATION ON THE STAGE 1860-1917
Year of Dissertation:
2013
My dissertation examines how theatre in Sicily after the Risorgimento may have contributed to the construction of a Sicilian identity that is considered different and other to that of northern Italy. I analyze the role that Sicilian theatre and the verismo movement played, between 1863 and 1917, in the building of a regional versus national identity through artistic cultural representations. By considering key works from this period, I posit that old and new stereotypes were reaffirmed and developed, and that native artists participated in the othering of their paesani. I also contend that the touring Sicilian acting companies in the early twentieth century, based in improvisation and folk theatre, furthered the perception of the island as exotic and different.
Case Residuals in Structural Equation Modeling
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Program:
Educational Psychology
From the beginning, lead methodologists in psychometrics and quantitative psychology have been well aware of the problems of fitting structural and confirmatory factor models. The question we approach in our research is how to best detect this misfit and how to identify specific sources of misfit by scrutinizing the data at the case level. Since Anscombe's seminal 1973 paper, detecting problems at the case level in ordinary least-squares regression has become the norm in statistical modeling. In contrast, the usual practice in fitting structural and confirmatory factor models has been to only examine misfit at the variable and sufficient statistic level. This practice ignores a small body of literature that has arisen since the early 1990s about diagnostics of case level and case by variable level misfit. An important paper by Bollen and Arminger (1991) and a follow-up paper by Raykov and Penev (1999), have developed theory behind Individual Case Residuals (ICRs). These papers help lay the ground work for more detailed case and case by variable level diagnostics, without discarding traditional variable oriented procedures. Our goal is to demonstrate uses of multivariate techniques, such as robust Mahalanobis distances, biplots and cluster analysis to analyze the multivariate dataset of ICRs and thereby detect sources of data problems with respect to a target model. We hope to encourage researchers to make better use of case level diagnostics among the various classes of latent variable models, especially with the advent of multivariate tools in packages such as R and SAS.
Late Points of Projections of Planar Symmetric Random Walks on the Lattice Torus
Year of Dissertation:
2012
We examine the cover time and set of late points of a symmetric random walk on Z2 projected onto the torus Z2K. This extends the work done for the simple random walk in [Late Points, DPRZ, 2006] to a large class of random walks. The approach uses comparisons between planar and toral hitting times and distributions on annuli, and uses only random walk methods. There are also generalizations of Green's functions, hitting times, and hitting distributions on Z2 and Z2K which are of independent interest.
THE BRAND, ME, AND THE OTHER: THE INFLUENCE OF EXTERNAL INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS ON CONSUMER-BRAND RELATIONSHIPS
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Research suggests that people form relationships with brands in the same way they do with each other. Despite the contextual nature of relationships, the effects of external interpersonal relationships (e.g., significant others) on consumer-brand relationships remain unexplored. In the current research, I develop and test a theoretical model that explains how external interpersonal relationship dynamics impact consumer-brand relationships. Three studies show that when a product symbolizes an external relationship (e.g., through a gift scenario), changes in that relationship, such as episodes of dissolution (e.g., a break up) or reinforcement (e.g., becoming exclusive), influence the relationship that consumers have with the brand that identifies the product. Specifically, my results show that episodes of dissolution (vs. reinforcement) impact the extent to which individuals feel connected to the brand and, consequently, a series of brand-related behaviors, such as less (more) favorable attitudes, purchase intentions, and recommendation ratings. In the third study, I replicate these effects while ruling out mood as an alternative explanation. Importantly, my findings indicate that implications of interpersonal relationship episodes stretch beyond the original product to any product in a brand's portfolio. Thus, results demonstrate that consumer-brand relationships do not solely mirror human relationships - they also are affected by them. Findings also have important implications for managers promoting and positioning their brands as means of reinforcing desirable social relationships.
Expression, Purification, Circular Dichroism, and NMR Analysis of Triple Transmembrane Domain Containing Fragments of a GPCR
Year of Dissertation:
2013
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest class of signaling molecules in eukaryotes and are important pharmacological targets. Structural characterization of GPCRs is of paramount importance to the discovery of more efficient drugs; however, these studies are hindered by the inherent hydrophobicity, flexibility, and large size of these signaling proteins. Since their flexibility makes crystallization difficult, stabilizing mutations or substitutions are required to facilitate crystal-packing contacts. The size of the receptor/membrane mimetic complex required for solution-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis is too large to enable efficient isotropic tumbling. For these reasons, high-resolution structural information is available for only thirteen of the ~1000 GPCRs identified to date.
STRATEGIC CITIZENSHIP: DUAL MARGINALIZATION AND ORGANIZED TRANSNATIONAL POLITICAL MOBILIZATION AMONG ECUADORIAN AND DOMINICAN MIGRANTS
Year of Dissertation:
2012
What factors define transnational political participation and citizenship for contemporary migrants? This dissertation focused on how and why migrant activists from Ecuador and the Dominican Republic pursued political engagement, how their home country governments influenced migrants' political activities, and how migrant organizations shaped their transnational activities. The study found that transnational political participation among these two populations was driven by a dual marginalization narrative, where migrants draw from their personal experiences to conclude that they are marginalized in both the U.S. and in their countries of origin based on their status as migrants. Ecuadorian and Dominican political organization leaders use this dual marginalization to create a political identity to demand minority-group rights in both home and host countries. Migrant activists make calculated decisions on where to focus their claims for rights, which I refer to as strategic citizenship
An Empirical Analysis of Adult Romantic Attachment and Sexuality
Year of Dissertation:
2012
The purpose of this dissertation was to empirically explore the relationship between adult romantic attachment and sexual functioning in a sexual partner who is viewed as an attachment figure, a target of caregiving or both. Guiding this dissertation was the expectation that underlying the four prototypical patterns of adult romantic attachment is a distinct pattern of positive and negative working models of attachment of self and other that shape the way individuals experience and engage in sexuality.
Negotiating Individualism: Apologies, Social Contracts, and the Romantic Making of the Self
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Abstract
Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will
Year of Dissertation:
2011
In recent decades, with advances in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences, the idea that patterns of human behavior may ultimately be due to factors beyond our control has increasingly gained traction and renewed interest in the age old problem of free will. In this dissertation I examine both the traditional philosophical problems long associated with the question of free will, such as the relationship between determinism and free will, as well as recent experimental and theoretical work directly related to consciousness and human agency. I argue that our best scientific theories indeed have the consequence that factors beyond our control produce all of the actions we perform and that because of this we do not possess the kind of free will required for genuine or ultimate responsibility. I further argue that the strong and pervasive belief in free will, which I consider an illusion, can be accounted for through a careful analysis of our phenomenology and a proper theoretical understanding of consciousness. Indeed, the primary goal of this dissertation is to argue that our subjective feeling of freedom, as reflected in the first-person phenomenology of agentive experience, is an illusion created by certain aspects of our consciousness. After working to establish that free will is an illusion, I proceed to give a novel account of just how that illusion is created. I present my illusionist account using one leading theory of consciousness--the higher-order thought (or HOT) theory of consciousness as developed by David Rosenthal. I maintain that by combining the theoretical framework of the HOT theory with empirical findings in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences, we can come to see that the illusion of free will is created by the particular way our higher-order thoughts make us conscious of our mental states and how our sense of self is constructed within consciousness.
Making Up the Difference: Ecuadorian Women Engaged in Direct Selling
Year of Dissertation:
2009
As economic globalization progresses, employment is becoming more flexible and informalized in many parts of the world. In some developing countries, direct sales (selling branded products from person to person) is an increasingly attractive type of work, especially for women. Direct sales organizations benefit from cultural norms and structural forces that steer women away from full-time jobs in the formal economy, and also from the material conditions that lead to women's need to earn an income. This study examines the work experiences and social worlds of women affiliated with Ecuador's most successful direct sales company, Yanbal, with a focus on the ways in which women make decisions about their work and construct their identities as working women and members of families. The meanings and consequences of the women's work are placed in the context of gender relations, regimes of physical appearance, employment options, and consumption. Employing a combination of qualitative methods (ethnography, content analysis, surveys), the study argues that people's reactions to direct sales as an income-generating activity both shape and are shaped by their gendered economic strategies, behaviors that represent a reconciling of cultural norms of gender and work with material conditions and pressing financial needs. The work addresses questions such as: whether direct selling is empowering for women; how Yanbal can achieve success in Ecuador's challenging economic climate; and how cultural and social norms regulating women's physical appearance are related to ideas about gender, social class, and work. The findings of this study underline the importance of examining a rapidly-expanding type of work, a formal-informal hybrid that appeals mainly to women and helps to promote the expansion of consumer capitalism around the world.