The focus of this study is to examine the motivation behind organizing conservative and counter-conservative events and the meaning students attribute to their involvement. Furthermore, the study also addresses the extent to which such coordination is related to group influence. In other words, how do participant relations within and outside of their organization shape their decision to organize political events on campus? This study explores how students understand and interpret their actions. Data for this study will be collected by conducting structured interviews with 10 participants (n = 10). The intended population is college students from a Southern California college campus. Half the participants will identify or have identified with a conservative campus organization while the other half with a counter-conservative organization at the time of a campus political event. Convenience and snowball sampling will be used to recruit participants. This methodology follows what sociologist Max Weber (1914) referred to as,“Sociology is a science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences.” An interpretive understanding of the meaning and drive behind the formation of these political events is crucial to developing an explanation for what triggers social action. By studying the dynamics by which the group members interact and interpret one another, we can understand the role of in-group cohesion and out-group bias in politically-related communication. My study aims to contribute to the following 1) increase our knowledge of the motivations and meanings college students place on organizing events with controversial speakers, as well as protesting them, 2) how students weigh the consequences of their actions, especially as it relates to social relations (stigma or approval), campus climate, safety and property damage, and economic costs (e.g. security, police, taxes).

The purpose of this study is to investigate the ways an individual resists dehumanization and/or disempowerment in the face of marginalizing societal forces, and it theorizes about the relationship among vulnerability, shame, and resiliency for women and queer-identified persons resisting dehumanization/disempowerment. Using autoethnography and other qualitative research methods (i.e., surveys and interviews), the author explores the lived experiences of shame and vulnerability in herself and others. The author applies resiliency theory and an intersectional lens to illuminate vulnerability, shame, and the ways they play themselves out in individual lives and in institutional systems. The author offers the reader insights for how individuals might positively address shame in their own lives and how doing so creates possibilities for future thriving. Shame gives rise to a wide array of disorders, including depression, addictions, and eating and sexual disorders, as well as emotional problems linked to trauma, gender, race, illness, old age, infertility, and gender. In our society, shame manifests itself through alienation, lack of motivation, and feelings of meaninglessness. While guilty people feel they have done something bad or wrong, shame-filled people feel that who they are is bad and wrong. Not only does shame trigger depression, it can also cause domestic violence along with self-esteem issues. Finding out if clients suffer from depression, anxiety other mental illness is beneficial in finding out how those cognitive deficits are looked at in order to seek help and seek recovery.  This population of people have undergone tremendous obstacles in their lives and by using a resilience theoretical lens and a qualitative personage to demonstrate the similarities and differences in how shame affects this group of people.