Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item Increasing Charitable Giving Using Subsidies: Theory and Experiments(2024) Higgs, Zed; Uler, Neslihan; Agricultural and Resource Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation combines theoretical analysis with economic experiments to advance our understanding of why people give. In particular, this dissertation focuses on the use of subsidies for giving---e.g., rebates and matches---as a tool for increasing charitable giving. The research included in this dissertation provides important guidance to charitable organizations seeking to design fundraisers optimally to maximize charitable receipts. Furthermore, this research also provides important guidance to policy-makers seeking to better understand the interplay between tax policy and charitable giving. The results of this dissertation can contribute to more effective fundraising campaigns and more efficient tax policy. Chapter 1 challenges the well-established result among existing experimental studies that donations are significantly more responsive to matches than to rebates. In previous experimental studies the budget sets available to subjects under rebates are constrained relative to those available under matches, biasing estimates of the rebate-price elasticity. We conduct a novel experiment that removes the constraint under rebates, producing equal budget sets for price-equivalent rebates and matches. Contrary to previous studies, we find dramatically smaller differences in donations under price-equivalent matches and rebates. More importantly, we find no statistical difference between our estimated rebate- and match-price elasticities. Furthermore, we show that the constraint under rebates affects the entire distribution of observed behavior, not only the behavior of individuals for whom the constraint is binding. This chapter contributes to theories of charitable giving and has important implications for tax policy. Chapter 2 studies how donor uncertainty affects their response to match subsidies in the context of charitable giving. It explores whether donors are responsive to exogenous changes in the probability of receiving a match. I develop a theoretical model of giving that incorporates uncertainty around matches. I demonstrate the model is capable of explaining the discrepancies in match-price elasticities of giving observed across previous field experiments and observational studies. I then derive testable hypotheses from the model, and design and run an economic experiment to test these hypotheses. The results of my experiment provide clear evidence that donors are responsive to changes in the probability of receiving a match. As a result, the same donor may respond differently to match subsidies depending on the setting. This work identifies an important aspect of donor decision making, contributing to a better understanding of why people give. It has important implications for theories of giving, the optimal design of fundraisers, and tax policy. Chapter 3 builds on Chapter 2 to continue studying how donor uncertainty affects their response to match subsidies in the context of charitable giving. It explores whether donors are responsive to endogenous changes in the probability of receiving a match resulting from changes in fundraiser characteristics. The results provide strong evidence supporting the notion that changes in fundraiser characteristics can affect donors' beliefs about the probability of receiving a match, in turn affecting their donation decisions and the observed response to match subsidies. The effectiveness of a match subsidy varies depending on the characteristics of the fundraiser, so that the optimal fundraising strategy varies across fundraisers. This chapter provides new guidance for fundraisers interested in increasing charitable donations through the use of match subsidies.Item INDIGENOUS INVOLVEMENT IN ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION: AN ANALYSIS OF VIRGINIA’S SOVEREIGN NATIONS INVOLVEMENT IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM(2023) Brooks, Nicole L; Shaffer, L. J.; Rose, Kenneth A.; Environmental Science and Technology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Indigenous involvement in conservation and restoration practices, specifically those funded by government entities (e.g., EPA, USGS, NOAA), is not well documented in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Increased Indigenous involvement in conservation and restoration projects globally, raises questions regarding this apparent environmental practice gap in the Eastern United States (McAlvay, 2021; Poto, 2021; Turner, 2010). Currently, government-led restoration projects in the Chesapeake Bay, led by the Chesapeake Bay Program, lack a strong Indigenous presence or contribution despite 7 federally-recognized Sovereign Nations in the surrounding watershed. To understand this gap, a literature review was first conducted to provide an initial context for viewing the contemporary Indigenous involvement in Chesapeake Bay restoration. The review was the basis for a detailed analysis of Virginia’s Sovereign Nation involvement in the Chesapeake Bay Program that used a series of interviews, participant observations, and a social network analysis. Interview participants were classified into one of three representative categories: Sovereign Nation, government organization, and non-government organization. Questions about working relationships between organizations were assessed to understand the political-ecological dynamics driving the interactions in the Chesapeake Bay restoration social network, specifically among the representative categories. Results showed a lack of a consistent and intentional relationship between the Sovereign Nations of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay Program. According to the federal trust relationship, this infers that the lack of a strong Sovereign Nation involvement in the Chesapeake Bay Program may be contributing to a continued state of Environmental Injustice. To begin to address this low-level of involvement, the Chesapeake Bay Program should devote significant effort to building intentional relationships with the Sovereign Nations, including a more formal and official representation within the Chesapeake Bay Program.Item Optimizing stratified sampling allocations to account for heteroscedasticity and nonresponse(2023) Mendelson, Jonathan; Elliott, Michael R; Lahiri, Partha; Survey Methodology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Neyman's seminal paper in 1934 and subsequent developments of the next two decades transformed the practice of survey sampling and continue to provide the underpinnings of today's probability samples, including at the design stage. Although hugely useful, the assumptions underlying classic theory on optimal allocation, such as complete response and exact knowledge of strata variances, are not always met, nor is the design-based approach the only way to identify good sample allocations. This thesis develops new ways to allocate samples for stratified random sampling (STSRS) designs. In Papers 1 and 2, I provide a Bayesian approach for optimal STSRS allocation for estimating the finite population mean via a univariate regression model with heteroscedastic errors. I use Bayesian decision theory on optimal experimental design, which accommodates uncertainty in design parameters. By allowing for heteroscedasticity, I aim for improved realism in some establishment contexts, compared with some earlier Bayesian sample design work. Paper 1 assumes that the level of heteroscedasticity is known, which facilitates analytical results. Paper 2 relaxes this assumption, which results in an analytically intractable problem. Thus, I develop a computational approach that uses Monte Carlo sampling to estimate the loss for a given allocation, in conjunction with a stochastic optimization algorithm that accommodates noisy loss functions. In simulation, the proposed approaches performed as well or better than the design-based and model-assisted strategies considered, while having clearer theoretical justification. Paper 3 changes focus toward addressing how to account for nonresponse when designing samples. Existing theory on optimal STSRS allocation generally assumes complete response. A common practice is to allocate sample under complete response, then to inflate the sample sizes by the inverse of the anticipated response rates. I show that this practice overcorrects for nonresponse, leading to excessive costs per effective interview. I extend the existing design-based framework for STSRS allocation to accommodate scenarios with incomplete response. I provide theoretical comparisons between my allocation and common alternatives, which illustrate how response rates, population characteristics, and cost structure can affect the methods' relative efficiency. In an application to a self-administered survey of military personnel, the proposed allocation resulted in a 25% increase in effective sample size compared with common alternatives.Item HUMAN FLOURISHING: VALUES AND VIRTUES(2023) Chung, Eun Ae; Lin, Jing; Klees, Steven; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the quest to understand what human flourishing is, while ancient philosophers have all pointed to virtues as a vital component, today, they have been notably left out of the conversation. The purpose of this study is to explore the possible ways the virtues of Justice, Humanity and Transcendence could be potentially understood through the analysis of individuals’ values. The variations of these understandings are examined by country and world regions. Furthermore, to provide more context, the study seeks to determine the relationships between these virtues and individual sociodemographic factors, such as sex, education level and socioeconomic status, as well as country level factors, such as GDP per capita, the average years of schooling at the country level, and gender inequality. Finally, the study also examines the relationship between the virtues and subjective well-being (happiness and life satisfaction), which is claimed to be an important component of human flourishing. In doing so, the overarching goal of this research is to contribute to the growing dialogue on human flourishing and make a case for how human flourishing could be understood in various ways, depending on individual values and context. This exploratory quantitative research study highlights patterns and trends of values in relation to the three virtues as well as exceptions. Furthermore, the findings of the study show the importance of acknowledging differing definitions of human flourishing as well as including context and environment of individuals when discussing an important topic as human flourishing.Item Building Flood Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems(2023) Snider, Natalie L.; Dennison, William C.; Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Historic driving forces of economic development, continually growing population and expanding inequities, are already challenging the resilience of the social-ecological system (SES) on multiple fronts, including socially, economically and environmentally. Existing and increasing threats from climate change will exacerbate the challenges in managing for resilience. The dynamic nature, involvement of multiscale feedback mechanisms between the natural and social sub-systems, possible existence of multiple states of the social-ecological system and inability to ever gain full control or understanding make it a challenge for institutions and actors to define and manage the system boundaries, its components and feedbacks. This complexity requires a transdisciplinary approach that integrates those most impacted into building knowledge and solutions across the environmental, economic and social fields. Similarly, institutions managing these systems will need to develop new approaches and strategies to integrate social, ecological, economic and political aspects of the SES and expand the participation of individual actors in the system, including a redistribution of power to successfully achieve resilience outcomes. The Social-Ecological Resilience Framework, proposed here, seeks to build resilience in the SES through purposeful interventions to maintain or change the forms, functions or both. This framework relates the key terms of sustainability, adaptation, transition and transformation, under the overall umbrella term of resilience. Within this framework, resilience is defined as the ability of the system to sustain, adapt, transition or transform in the face of acute or systemic change. Each subsequent term is then defined by the level of change in forms and functions: (1) sustainable maintains the same forms and functions, (2) adaptation changes the forms while maintain the functions, (3) transition changes the functions while maintaining the forms and (4) transformation changes both forms and functions. The framework can be used to manage the changes that society is experiencing in these systems. Adaptive management and social learning are two examples of approaches for managing the SES under the overarching construct of the Social-Ecological Resilience Framework. Adaptive management, an iterative decision-making process to address uncertainties and adapt to future conditions, should be combined with social learning, a participatory process where knowledge, skills and values are gained or modified through social interactions and collective learning. This dissertation demonstrates the framework and these approaches through five case studies focused on building resilience to flood impacts. Flooding is the costliest natural disaster in the world. However, the calculation of disasters costs typically only includes the cost of flood damages to infrastructure. But flooding is also putting a toll on society’s ability to provide social services, maintain important social factors, such as community cohesion, impacting both physical and mental health, exacerbating inequities and deteriorating the environment and ecosystem services, all with significant costs. In China’s Sponge Cities Program, the key takeaway is that defining the SES, both geographically and in terms of important forms and functions relevant to achieving the resilience goals, should be identified early to be able to address any barriers to success. The key takeaway of the Coastal Structures case study is that roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined for institutions and actors, by which they can collectively achieve both institutional goals of reducing the societal impacts of flooding and the actors’ goals of reducing their own impacts to well-being. In the Honduras case study, the key takeaway is that building institutional support requires a redistribution of power dynamics to facilitate bottom-up approaches that can increase the utility of resilience actions to solving more than one social, ecological or economic problem within the SES. In Indonesia’s case study, by identifying the key forms and functions for each resilience goal, the range of possible vulnerabilities can be better defined, and timelines of potential changes and strategies to safeguard that positive outcomes are achieved can be developed. And finally, in Louisiana, the key takeaway is that institutions should not be defining the future of the SES without all the key actors engaged or represented. Institutions should support building a common vision of a resilient future through an integrated adaptive management and social learning program. The dissertation discusses a proposed Social-Ecological Resilience Framework (Chapter 1) to define key terms that integrates the notion of resilience, sustainability, adaptation, transition and transformation in relationship to each other and in relationship to the form and function of the SES. Several case studies from around the world demonstrate various aspects of operationalizing the framework. Technical aspects of adaptive management are developed and applied to a case study in Louisiana (Chapter 2). Lastly, social learning is then integrated into adaptive management using the same case study (Chapter 3). Both of these two chapters discuss actions to build resilience in the SES at a localized scale. Managing a social-ecological system (SES) can be an arduous task, and many institutions, such as governmental, non-profit, and research entities, may feel overwhelmed by the complexity and scope of this challenge. It's tempting to concentrate on a particular aspect of the system that seems more manageable or familiar. Nevertheless, without adopting a systems-thinking approach and examining the interactions within and beyond the SES, there is a risk of unintended and cascading consequences and missed opportunities to tackle multiple vulnerabilities collectively. Although this dissertation focuses on flood-related risks, the underlying themes and methodologies are relevant to any disaster, whether caused by nature or humans. Ultimately, our shared efforts to shape a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable world for present and future generations can benefit from these approaches.Item DEVELOPMENT OF A CORE OUTCOME SET FOR STUDIES INVESTIGATING SAFETY, EFFICACY, AND IMPLEMENTATION OF COVID-19 VACCINES: A COLLABORATION WITH AFRICAN AMERICAN/BLACK COMMUNITIES IN BALTIMORE CITY, MARYLAND(2022) Datar, Reva; Howard, Donna; Public and Community Health; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Background: Since it was declared a global pandemic in March 2020, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has claimed over one million lives in the United States. Since COVID-19 vaccine rollout efforts began in Baltimore City, Maryland in December 2020, approximately 63.4% of all residents have been fully vaccinated (i.e., received their first and second doses in a two-dose series or received a single-dose vaccine). Despite efforts to implement equitable vaccine distribution in Baltimore City, prominent disparities in COVID-19 vaccine uptake persist, with poorer, predominantly Black neighborhoods frequently reporting lower levels of vaccine uptake than affluent, predominantly White neighborhoods. Guided by key principles of community-based participatory research, this dissertation explores community experiences with COVID-19 vaccines and develops a core outcome set (COS), inclusive of community-important outcomes, for use in studies evaluating the safety, efficacy, and implementation of COVID-19 vaccines. Methods: In March 2022, semi-structured interviews were held with vaccinated and unvaccinated Black residents of a community in Baltimore City reporting 40% vaccination uptake. Data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis with subsequent subgroup analyses and thematic network analyses. To assess the extent to which outcomes measured in COVID-19 vaccine studies published between December 2019 and March 2022 aligned with factors of vaccine hesitancy, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted. Results from the qualitative analyses and the SLR informed the development of a candidate list of outcomes used in the first round of a Delphi study held in June 2020. After two rounds of Delphi survey distribution, a face-to-face consensus meeting was held with community members and community health workers to prioritize outcomes of interest to all relevant stakeholders and finalize the COS.Results: Thematic analysis yielded four emergent themes relating to COVID-19 vaccine uptake decision making: (I) Safety and efficacy of vaccines, (II) Perceived importance of COVID-19 vaccines in relation to pre-existing community needs, divided into two subthemes, a) Environmental injustice and (b) Personal health concerns, (III) Access to trustworthy, understandable information, and (IV) Physical access to vaccines. Participants acknowledged that physical access to COVID-19 vaccines was not a major barrier to uptake, however finding trustworthy and understandable information about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines were common areas of concern. Of all primary outcomes (N=20) identified in the 56 articles included in the SLR, 85% (n=17) corresponded with factors of vaccine hesitancy. The final COS included 19 outcomes across four “domains:” “Is the vaccine safe?”; “Does the vaccine work in my body?”; “Does the vaccine work in the community?”; and “Outcomes identified during consensus meeting.” Conclusion: The findings from this dissertation suggest that although community-important outcomes related to safety and efficacy of vaccines are often addressed in clinical studies, outcomes measuring institutional trust, economic and health impacts, community acceptance of the vaccines, and trustworthiness of vaccine information are underutilized in studies of vaccine implementation. As these social factors function as barriers to vaccine uptake, particularly among underserved communities, they should be regarded as indicators of equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. The findings from this dissertation provide a framework with which public health researchers can begin to rethink measures of equity in vaccine rollout efforts.Item A MORE-THAN-HUMAN PERSPECTIVE ON OLDER ADULTS’ USE OF AND PARTICIPATION IN DESIGN OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES(2022) Pradhan, Alisha; Lazar, Amanda; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Till date, research on aging in HCI has largely adopted human-centered approaches, such as user-centered and participatory design. However, recent research is beginning to question this “humanistic” focus in aging. Through this dissertation, I provide a case of adopting posthumanist entanglement perspective to understand the ‘more-than-human’ aspects of aging. Posthumanist entanglement perspectives [71]—previously adopted by HCI researchers in different contexts varying from creative design to technical areas such as machine learning and neural networks—attunes to the agency of nonhuman world in addition to the human world to account for how humans and their socio-material worlds are entangled. In Study 1, I investigate older adults’ ontological perceptions with respect to a popular emerging technology to examine the phenomena of “ontological uncertainty” (here, ontologies refer to how things exist and what categories they belong to). Although some researchers adopting entanglement perspectives in HCI argue that ontological uncertainty is posed by emerging technologies such as AI, IoT [71], we lack an understanding of when this uncertainty emerges, and why this matters. Here, the first study of my dissertation focuses on older adults’ use of emerging AI-based voice assistants, and contributes by providing an empirical understanding of the different factors that contribute to ontological uncertainty (e.g., location in house, time, user’s desire for companionship), and provides recommendations for designing voice technologies with ontological categorization in mind. In the next two threads of my work, I attune to the agency of nonhuman entities and how they shape reality associated with older adults’ use of emerging technology (Study 2), and when older individuals engage in designing emerging technology (Study 3). My analysis from Study 2 reveals how nonhuman actors such as materials and norms play a role in shaping older adults’ preference and use of voice technologies. My findings also reveal the salient ways in which voice assistants play an active role in mediating relations between older adults and their larger social world. These mediations are shaping our social practices around what it means to live alone, to give company, or to give and receive care. Finally, my analysis from Study 3— which adopts a posthumanist perspective to understand older adults’ engagement in design workshops— reveals the nuanced ways in which designs materials (both expected and unexpected) act in relation to older adults: from facilitating creative brainstorming, to limiting creative brainstorming, to leading to clashing of ideas, and contributing to non-participation in the design activity. My findings also reveal how older adults went beyond focusing on just the technology idea to account for the physical objects or the environment associated with both technology use and non-use, thus bringing to attention that technology cannot be seen, used, or designed in isolation, and exists within specific configurations of actor-networks. Overall, my thesis contributes by providing insights on the new directions that HCI researchers working on aging can take in terms of: a) taking into account the ways in which the nonhuman entities act and hold them accountable for undesired realities, b) designing emerging technologies that support meaningful relationships between older adults and their world, and c) move beyond designing technology in isolation to instead purposefully situate older adults in designing meaningful configurations of human and nonhuman entities (including technology).Item Demand-Driven Climate Mitigation in the United States: Challenges and Opportunities to Reduce Carbon Footprints from Households and State-Level Actors(2022) Song, Kaihui; Baiocchi, Giovanni; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Subnational and non-governmental actors have great potential to push for bolder climate actions to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. A consistent and accurate quantification of their GHG emissions is an important prerequisite for the success of such efforts. Although an increasing number of subnational actors have developed their climate mitigation plans with medium- or long- term goals, whether these progressive commitments can yield effectiveness as planned still remains unclear. This dissertation research focuses on two large groups of climate mitigation actors in the U.S. – households and state-level actors – to improve the understanding of potential mitigation challenges and shed light on climate policies. This dissertation consists of three principle essays. The first essay reveals a key challenge of emission spillover among state-level collective mitigation efforts in the U.S. It quantifies consumption-based GHG emissions at the state level and analyzes emissions embodied in interstate and international trade. By analyzing major emission transfers between states from critical sectors, this essay proposed potential policy strategies for effective climate mitigation collaboration. The second essay addresses unequal household consumption and associated carbon footprints in the U.S., with a closer look at different contributions across income groups to the national peak-and-decline trend in the U.S. This analysis further analyzes changes in consumption patterns of detailed consumed products by income groups. The third essay proposed a framework to link people’s needs and behaviors to their consumption and associated carbon footprints. This framework, built on existing models that connect carbon footprints with consumer behaviors, extends to people’s needs with simulation over time. Such an extension provides a better understanding of carbon footprints driven by various needs in the context of real-world decision-making. Based on this framework, this essay selects a basket of behavioral changes driven by changing fundamental human needs and analyzes associated carbon footprints. The dissertation identifies opportunities and challenges in demand-driven climate mitigation in the U.S. Its findings provide implications for effective climate actions from state-level actors and households.Item Protection for whom? A critical examination into the governance of women athletes through policies(2022) Posbergh, Anna; Jette, Shannon L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Women’s sport remains a contested realm that frequently features standards and regulations implying women are “lesser than,” “different from,” or “derivative of” men (Cahn, 2015, p. 222). As such, a range of protective policies have been introduced as techniques to ensure the safety and health of women, defend “fair competition” in women’s sport, and/or prevent women from violating social and medical boundaries that identify them as women. However, because protective policies rely on divergent rationales in their creation and justification, they elicit different impacts for individuals who are categorized (or wish to be categorized) as women. Previous scholarship has analyzed the underlying issues of science, race, gender, and nationality in individual protective policies and indicated the potential for specific policies (i.e., female eligibility policies) to elicit dangerous health, social, and mental consequences on black and brown women from the Global South. However, there a paucity of research that investigates protective policies as a broad category to understand their similarities, differences, and nuances. To fill this gap, I examine multiple protective policies to conduct a critical, qualitative inquiry into how protective policies are created in elite women’s sports. I focus on how such policies regulate women’s bodies and how different versions of “woman” are constructed by interpreting and selectively drawing from myriad forms of evidence to determine who is protected (and who is excluded), how “protection” is understood, what evidence is mobilized, and how protective policy consequences are justified.I investigate three policies as case studies: the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) 2014 consensus statement on relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S), World Athletics’ 2019 policy on female eligibility, and World Athletics’ 2019 policy on transgender eligibility. These three policies are selected for analysis because they reflect the range of science-supported protective policies. While all seek to protect women, each adopts a different stance on the importance of sex differences, in the process demonstrating the social construction of “sex” and malleability of scientific evidence. Guided by feminist, critical race, and Foucauldian-inspired governmentality studies approaches, I center the relevant discourses, knowledges, and power relations within policy rationales to better understand how protective policies regulate (women’s) bodies and maintain social norms. Each case study analysis consists of two data sets: the actual policy texts and nine semi-structured interviews with policy authors, scientists, and other relevant administrators involved in the creation, drafting, and implementation of the three policies. I analyze the data through thematic analysis followed by Foucauldian discourse analysis, informed by a governmentality studies perspective. Using this two-step analytic framework, I first determine what was said in document texts and by participants, followed by a deeper level of analysis and contextualization of how dominant discourses, knowledges, and power relations were created and mobilized to protect (some) women athletes. My findings are organized into four empirical chapters. In the first empirical chapter, I examine the document texts to provide a broad examination into the contexts surrounding their creation, as well as the unproblematized logics that inform their dominant discourses, ways of knowing, and power hierarchies. Based on my analysis, I bring to light the implications of the logics underpinning the documents, including the use of elite medical discourses, the construction of “suspicious” athletes, biologizations of race and gender, and individual diagnoses that lack attention to broader social, political, and cultural dimensions. In the second empirical chapter, I focus on the interviews, or “expert knowledge,” with those involved with researching, drafting, and implementing the three case studies to understand how they draw from (certain) forms of evidence, interpret and/or circulate dominant discourses and knowledges, and navigate the (often) contentious process of creating protective policies (see Wells, 2020). In the third and fourth empirical chapters, I examine both sets of data (policy and interview). In the first of these two empirical chapters, I provide an overview of the “start-to-finish” process behind creating and implementing protective policies and investigate the “tensions” that emerge at each step in the process: from explaining why protective policies exist, to finding or constructing appropriate forms of evidence, to determining the necessity of a separate women’s category, to methods of governing. In the latter empirical chapter, I more closely parse through these “tensions” behind and within the rationales and strategies of protective policies to reveal the complexity reality of such documents, particularly with consideration to (protected) participation, (controlled) unfairness, and (felt) policy implementation. This dissertation is significant as it elucidates how, if, and when women’s rights and bodies are protected through policies. As sport shapes and is shaped by society, this research illuminates on a societal scale how science and policy shape dominant ways of knowing, particularly regarding gender, sex, race, and human rights. Especially in a time when legal protections of women’s autonomy, bodies, and rights are in question, this project provides insight into how protective policies enact a range of measures to safeguard (some) women’s bodies through regulation, discipline, or even exclusion. By investigating how sociocultural and scientific knowledges intersect to determine who qualifies as “woman,” who is considered in need of “protection,” and how protection is implemented, the findings from this dissertation will hopefully inform organizational and administrative efforts to create more equitable, compassionate, and inclusive policies, both in sport and society.Item Overcoming Opioid Stigma through Communication: An Extension of the Model of Stigma Communication(2022) Ledford, Victoria Ann; Nan, Xiaoli; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines how stigmatizing messages about opioids influence beliefs, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors. Uniting the model of stigma communication (MSC) and intergroup emotions theory (IET) along with persuasion and stigma research, this study proposed a new identity-based model of stigma message effects: the integrative model of identity-based stigma communication (I-MISC). The experimental study among 1,444 U.S. MTurk participants tests the proposed mediators and moderators put forth in the I-MISC and offers theoretical and practical implications related to stigma communication theory and opioids stigma communication. The I-MISC argues that stigma messages can lead to stigma-related outcomes through dual affective and cognitive pathways. In other words, stigma messages can cause harm because those messages trigger negative emotional reactions or belief-based perceptions. More specifically, the I-MISC situates stigma beliefs and negative affect or emotions as these dual mediators that can operate in tandem or separately to influence stigma outcomes. Affective mediators explored in this study include negative affect, anger, frustration, fear, disgust, anxiety, sadness, and sympathy. Cognitive mediators explored in this study include stigmatizing beliefs about opioids related to beliefs about dangerousness, immorality, and responsibility. In addition, experience with Opioid Use Disorders (OUDs) was explored as a moderator of the relationship between stigma messages and emotional responses. Five outcomes of the stigma process were considered: attitudes, social distance, behavioral regulation, support for opioid-related policies, and stigma message sharing. Results of a 4 (stigma message feature: mark, label, responsibility, peril) x 2 (stigma level: high, low) x 3 (opioid context: prescription opioids, fentanyl, heroin) between subjects online experiment offered preliminary support for the I-MISC. Mark and peril messages exerted the strongest effects, with null findings for label and responsibility messages. Mark and peril messages each exerted indirect effects on all five study outcomes, through primarily a combination of cognitive and affective pathways, leading to less positive attitudes, more desired social distance, increased behavioral regulation, less support for helpful opioid-related public policies, and more stigma message sharing. Affective mediation varied based on an individual’s experience with OUDs. This research suggests the importance of removing stigmatizing communication about opioids in health and news media messaging.