Becoming Ourselves: Black Women’s Autobiographical Interrogation of Tropes of Identity

A central premise of this project is that Black female identity has historically been seen as a fixed identity. Much of the imposed rigidity on Black female identity has been informed by conservative strategies for survival. Such conservative strategies include respectability politics, as racial leaders have found utility in upholding the principle that if they or others work hard, they can uphold the race. Only by maintaining these standards of respectability have Black women been deemed as worthy and able to uphold and reinforce positive images of Blackness. Many of the stories written by Black women generally fall into the limited tropes of respectability and struggle. Additionally, Black women’s autobiographies often mirror each other given certain parallels in their experience. However, my thesis aims to illuminate a divergent consciousness among Black women writers through their autobiographies. With this divergent consciousness, these writers interrogate the politics of respectability and create new possibilities for Black female identity as I will explore throughout this thesis. In Chapter I, I study Hurston’s memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road, in order to affirm the work that she did as a Black woman and writer, especially while taking into account the waves of criticism that she endured throughout her professional life. In Chapter II, I explore Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name as her narrative of sexuality and a shared girlhood builds on the experiences that Hurston conveys in Dust Tracks. In Chapter III, I consider the concept of the “angry Black woman” as explored in Brittney Cooper’s memoir, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower. Indeed, I will use various key personas for each of these writers as frameworks and lenses for examining their autobiographical writing. These personas include “cosmic Zora,” “sister outsider,” “the angry Black woman,” and the Black woman in process as advanced in Michelle Obama’s recent memoir, Becoming, which I will place in dialogue with Cooper’s work in the third chapter of the thesis

High-resolution Measurement of Seawater Carbonate

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the chemistry of seawater has been significantly changed by the absorption of fossil fuel CO2 (carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere. When CO2 is absorbed by seawater, it sets off a series of chemical reactions: carbonic acid (H2CO3) is formed, which then dissociates to H3O+ and bicarbonate (HCO3-). The H3O+ reacts with carbonate ions (CO32-), forming additional bicarbonate. The overall reaction is the production H3O+ and the consumption of carbonate, a process referred to as ocean acidification.While pH and local variability is relatively straightforward to measure in the field, carbonate concentration is difficult to measure directly. In order to address this limitation, our laboratory has developed a range of hand-held sensors to measure fine-scale carbonate changes in the field

A Review of Psychosocial Risk Factors for Pediatric Atopy

Pediatric atopy is increasing in prevalence and creates a significant financial and quality of life burden for children and families (e.g., frequent clinic visits, academic, and social challenges). Thus, it is important to understand modifiable risk factors related to disease onset or exacerbation in young children. The existing research base suggests that while a genetic link has been identified, specific family psychological factors (e.g., parent stress) also appear to play a significant role in the development of pediatric atopy. The function of psychological stress in the clinical expression and exacerbation of allergic diseases in young children is hypothesized to be due to neuroendocrine and immunologic systems. Specifically, stress-related activation of the sympathetic and adrenomedullary (SAM) system as well as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis from both the intrauterine environment and early childhood experiences may increase risk of childhood atopy above and beyond genetic risk. Consequently, prevention and intervention strategies aimed at reducing children's early exposure to stress and psychological difficulties in parents may prove beneficial in preventing or reducing the likelihood that their children will develop atopy

The Relationship Between Moral Foundations and Substance Abuse Attitudes

Individuals who abuse substances are often morally judged and disregarded in society. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between moral values and attitudes towards substance abuse. Participants were recruited from introductory to psychology courses at Belmont University and given a modified version of the Perceived Substance Abuse Scale and a scale to measure how they value certain domains of morality (harm, ingroup, purity, authority, reciprocity) using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. We expect to find positive correlations between the harm, purity, ingroup, and authority domains of morality with negative attitudes towards substance abuse. We also expect there to be no significant correlation between the reciprocity domain of morality and substance abuse attitudes

A Validation Study of the Adolescent Behavior Checklist Using Clinical and Non-Clinical Samples.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the discriminant validity of scores from the Adolescent Behavior Checklist (ABC), an adolescent self-report measure of ADHD symptomatology for adolescents ages 11-17 years (n = 60). Validity was assessed through correlational, univariate, and discriminant function analyses using three groups: (1) adolescents diagnosed with ADHD; (2) adolescents currently experiencing a mood and/or anxiety disorder; and (3) adolescents with no major psychological disorder. Convergent and divergent validity of the ABC factor scores was demonstrated through correlational results with: (1) parent- and adolescent-report of ADHD symptoms during structured psychiatric interviews; and, (2) scores on questionnaires measuring related and non-related constructs. Univariate analyses indicated that the ADHD group obtained significantly higher scores than did the normal adolescents across all ABC factors. Additionally, the ADHD group scored significantly higher than did the psychiatric controls on the following ABC factors: Conduct Problems, Impulsivity/Hyperactivity, and Social Problems. Results from discriminant analyses supported the reliability of ABC scores in correctly classifying subjects into groups. When compared to the Youth Self-Report, the ABC was found to be somewhat better at classifying subjects, especially when used in a multi-informant discriminant analysis. Therefore, overall results from the current study suggest that the ABC is a valid and useful self-report screening measure for ADHD symptoms and related difficulties

Negative Arousal and its Influence on Memory Recall

Research suggests that “positive” stressors, such as energy from exercising or excitement, arouse the body and improves memory (Winter et. al, 2007). Although exercise is physically arousing and enhances retention, less is known about more “negative” stressors such as frustration. Past research has shown that acute stress enhances memory, despite elevated cortisol levels and heart rate (Henckens et. al, 2009). Frustration is described as an emotional reaction to stress (Fillauler et al, 2019), but is unknown how it affects memory processing. Since frustration often accompanies stressful experiences, it is important to further understand the effects of frustration, independently, in affecting memory responses. We used a character searching task known as “Where’s Waldo” that varied in difficulty level to elicit frustration in participants, and a list of twenty words that the participant had to attempt to recall. We predicted that frustration will increase heart rate and therefore, increase memory recall ability. We found that as participants got more frustrated through each character searching task, their ability to memorize and recall the list of words in the allotted time got better. The frustration they experienced influenced their heart to beat faster which made their memory recall ability better. Our intention was to invoke a feeling of frustration which can be a strong emotion. That strong emotion can be what is needed to help reach a physically arousing threshold that allows the brain to retain the information and be able to recall it

Applying an Attentional Set to Perceived and Remembered Features

Previous research has examined our ability to attend selectively to particular features of perceptual objects, as well as our ability to switch from attending to one type of feature to another. This is usually done in the context of anticipatory attentional-set control, comparing the neural mechanisms involved as participants prepare to attend to the same stimulus feature as on the previous trial (“task-stay” trials) with those required as participants prepare to attend to a different stimulus feature to that previously attended (“task-switch” trials). We wanted to establish how participants maintain or switch attentional set retrospectively, as they attend to features of objects held in visual short-term memory (VSTM). We found that switching, relative to maintaining attentional set retrospectively, was associated with a performance cost, which can be reduced over time. This control process was mirrored by a large parietal and frontal amplitude difference in the event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and significant differences in global field power (GFP) between switch and stay trials. However, when taking into account the switch/stay GFP differences, thereby controlling for this difference in amplitude, we could not distinguish these trial types topographically. By contrast, we found clear topographic differences between preparing an anticipatory feature-based attentional set versus applying it retrospectively within VSTM. These complementary topographical and amplitude analyses suggested that anticipatory and retrospective set control recruited a qualitatively different configuration of underlying neural generators. In contrast, switch/stay differences were largely quantitative, with them differing primarily in terms of amplitude rather than topography

Puzzling It Out: The Current State of Scientific Knowledge on Pre-Kindergarten Effects - A Consensus Statement

Scientific research has established that if all children are to achieve their developmental potential, it is important to lay the foundation during the earliest years for lifelong health, learning, and positive behavior. A central question is how well our public pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs are doing to build this foundation.Forty-two states and the District of Columbia, through 57 pre-K programs, have introduced substantial innovations in their early education systems by developing the infrastructure, program sites, and workforce required to accommodate pre-K education. These programs now serve nearly 30 percent of the nation's 4-year-olds and 5 percent of 3-year-olds

Staged developmental mapping and X chromosome transcriptional dynamics during mouse spermatogenesis.

Male gametes are generated through a specialised differentiation pathway involving a series of developmental transitions that are poorly characterised at the molecular level. Here, we use droplet-based single-cell RNA-Sequencing to profile spermatogenesis in adult animals and at multiple stages during juvenile development. By exploiting the first wave of spermatogenesis, we both precisely stage germ cell development and enrich for rare somatic cell-types and spermatogonia. To capture the full complexity of spermatogenesis including cells that have low transcriptional activity, we apply a statistical tool that identifies previously uncharacterised populations of leptotene and zygotene spermatocytes. Focusing on post-meiotic events, we characterise the temporal dynamics of X chromosome re-activation and profile the associated chromatin state using CUT&RUN. This identifies a set of genes strongly repressed by H3K9me3 in spermatocytes, which then undergo extensive chromatin remodelling post-meiosis, thus acquiring an active chromatin state and spermatid-specific expression