Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    CHILDREN’S CONCEPTIONS OF FAIRNESS: THE ROLE OF MENTAL STATE UNDERSTANDING AND GROUP IDENTITY
    (2021) D'Esterre, Alexander; Killen, Melanie; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Children’s everyday experiences occur against a backdrop that is rich in social information andwhich requires decisions involving considerations about fairness, intentionality, and social groups. With age, children improve in their ability to utilize intentional information in their judgments and have been shown to demonstrate preferences for fairness over group benefit. What has not been fully investigated is how children coordinate and weight these considerations at different ages. Moreover, mistaken intentions and a tendency to benefit the in-group over others can be seen even in adulthood – suggesting that these issues are not so easily overcome and have the potential to affect the evaluations and behaviors of individuals more than have been previously considered. Research designed to carefully investigate the impact of these social and cognitive factors on children’s fairness concepts can provide insight into the ways in which biases may begin to form and potentially inform our understanding of the underlying mechanisms present in prejudicial attitudes. The present dissertation contains a series of three empirical papers that are designed to investigate children’s responses to unintentional and intentional transgressions based on their cognitive ability to infer beliefs of others and their relationship to the group identity of the target. Empirical Study 1 demonstrated the value of using a morally-relevant theory of mind measure embedded directly into the context when predicting children’s responses to unintentional and intentional transgressions. Empirical Study 2 investigated the ways in which children’s assessment of fair and unfair advantages were influenced by the group identity of the character who created the advantage. Empirical Study 3 explored the types of retributive justice that children would endorse in light of various types of intentional and unintentional transgressions, revealing differences based on group identity and the impact that the retributive justice would present to the functioning of the group. The results of these studies together suggest that children’s fairness concepts are heavily influenced by the context in which children find themselves and are far from static. Better understanding the relationship between these factors will provide increased insight into the ways in which prejudice and bias may develop in childhood and suggest potential areas for intervention.
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    OBSERVED BEHAVIOR OF PLATOON DYNAMICS DURING HIGH-RISE STAIRWELL EVACUATIONS
    (2012) Baker, Matthew Daniel; Milke, James A; Fire Protection Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This research analyzes the phenomena of grouping or platooning during the evacuation of seven stairwells within four different high-rise buildings. The purpose of this research is to investigate the changes occurring to platoons as they descend the stairs in order to incorporate the results into computer egress models. Platoons are found to travel in three distinct patterns: elongation, compression, and equilibrium. Also, platoons are found to remain unchanged, add new occupants, merge with other platoons, or fragment during their descent within a stairwell. The results demonstrate that a trend exists between patterns of platoon elongation leading to fragmentation and platoon compression leading to platoons merging. The majority of the platoons identified are found to consist of one person and remain unchanged as they descend between floors. Finally, a qualitative comparison between the platoons analyzed and the platoons identified in the behavioral computer egress model Pathfinder, is presented.
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    The Gender Dynamics of Dissent in Organizations
    (2012) Severance, Laura; Gelfand, Michele J.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Contemporary approaches to organizational behavior tout dissent as critical to organizational success. However, dissenters often incur penalties for expressing opinions that differ from the majority. The current work examines dissent as a gendered phenomenon, taking into account how the social context (i.e., female-dominated, male-dominated, and mixed gender work groups) affects both backlash incurred by female dissenters as well as group performance. Study 1 demonstrated that female dissenters incurred more backlash than did male dissenters and that female participants reacted especially negatively to female dissenters. Study 3 demonstrated that female dissenters expected to receive the most backlash for speaking up in female-dominated groups relative to male-dominated and mixed gender groups. Study 4 demonstrated that women were actually most likely to dissent in female-dominated groups (relative to male-dominated and mixed gender groups), although this did not translate into differences in group performance. However, dissenter communication style emerged as a key moderator of objective (i.e., group performance) and subjective (i.e., backlash toward the dissenter) outcomes as a function of group composition. Specifically, in female-dominated groups, women's use of impolite communication tactics (e.g., interrupting) were related to decreased performance and increased backlash. Further, women were able to anticipate these backlash consequences. Overall, this work advances the understanding of gendered dissent dynamics in the workplace and how these influence not only female employees but also the organizations in which they are embedded.
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    Genetic Management of Groups
    (2010) Smith, Brandie Rachel; Dietz, James M; Ballou, Jon; Behavior, Ecology, Evolution and Systematics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Genetic diversity is essential for the long- and short-term survival of populations and individuals. Some of the most intense genetic management occurs in captive populations where breeding programs involve specific breeding recommendations for every individual in the population. The current strategy used by captive breeding programs worldwide to minimize loss of genetic diversity pairs individuals according to a mean kinship (MK) value. MK requires both knowledge of the population's pedigree and control over which pairings are made. This strategy is practical for many of the large species managed in captivity, but is unrealistic for species for which there is insufficient information or over which we have less control. These include certain species of captive animals that are not maintained individually (e.g., herds of antelope) and populations in the wild. Populations such as these, where detailed pedigree information is unknown, ages and individuals are difficult to identify, and/or specific pairings cannot reliably be made, are referred to as "groups". I propose a strategy for managing groups that involves manipulating population structure, migration rates, and the tenure of breeding males. I found that group management does carry a genetic cost relative to MK-based management, and that cost will need to be weighed against the financial costs of managing animals at the individual level as opposed to the population level. Group management is better than no management and may provide an option for genetic management of currently "unmanageable" captive populations (e.g., tanks of fish), global captive populations, and wild populations. I also tested the robustness of an MK-based management strategy. A kinship-based breeding strategy is modeled with all breeding recommendations being followed. However, this idealized scenario does not always occur. I found genetic diversity does decrease as breeding recommendations are not followed. This includes the breeding of overrepresented (High MK) animals that are recommended to not breed and the reduced success of Low MK animals that are recommended to breed. The robustness of MK is dependent upon the species being managed. These results should be factored into any cost/benefit analysis of individual and group management strategies.
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    Social Exclusion and the Choice of Important Groups
    (2009) Fishman, Shira; Kruglanski, Arie W.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Social connections are fundamental to our existence. As a result, social exclusion is a painful and distressing experience. When belonging is thwarted, people seek inclusion which can be achieved through group membership. Thus, excluded individuals and/or those whose need to belong is particularly strong will be particularly motivated to join groups. Moreover, to the extent that the need to belong is satisfied by closeness with other group members, and closeness is a feature of group cohesion, excluded individuals or ones with a strong need to belong are likely to be attracted to highly cohesive groups. Finally, the subjective importance of a group to its members should determine the degree of perceived cohesion. Importance of a group is defined as the group's centrality to individuals' social identity. The more central a given dimension is to one's identity, the greater the attraction to individuals sharing that dimension (Byrne, 1961). Hence, the more important the group, the greater the attraction of the members to each other, defining group cohesion. Ultimately then, the greater the individuals' prior experience of exclusion or the greater their need to belong, the greater their motivation should be to join important (vs. less important) groups. These notions are investigated in the present dissertation. A review of the literature on social exclusion and the similarity-attraction hypothesis is presented followed by two studies showing that, both in the lab and in the real world, individuals who have been socially excluded want to join and/or feel more connected to important groups.