In the United States of America, the nonprofit sector has grown substantially over the last five decades. Despite this, social issues like houselessness appear to be as pervasive as ever. This research seeks to analyze the relationship between the growth of nonprofits focused on the housing crisis and the unhoused population. I hypothesize that the growth of housing-focused (HF) nonprofit organizations will not result in lower numbers of homeless individuals. My underlying theory is that nonprofits, constricted by the structure of the sector, are frequently unable to address structural causes of houselessness. The reliance nonprofits have on wealthy donors is a primary factor. This power dynamic is part of a greater system often referred to as the nonprofit industrial-complex. The growth of HF nonprofits is collected using Candid and measured using nonprofit revenue data from the Internal Revenue Service. Houselessness is measured using data from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. To test this hypothesis, I run a multivariate regression analysis between my two variables across two cities: Seattle, Washington and New York City, New York from 2012 to 2020 (a nine-year period). I control government funding, housing costs, poverty and unemployment. I expect to find increasing numbers of unhoused individuals despite HF nonprofit growth. This research does not advance a casual relationship, but contributes to the theoretical discussion as to whether nonprofits create transformative social change and provides rigorous empirical evidence supporting this theory.

 My research paper investigates whether the Supreme Court is influenced by public opinion. It is important to be aware of whether the Court is inclined to uphold laws that have been passed by legislative majorities or overturn them. Is the Supreme Court restrained or does it have a tendency for judicial activism? The question that guides my work is: During the period of approximately the last six decades, has the Supreme Court been influenced by public opinion when deciding politically important (i.e., salient) cases? My theory is that the Supreme Court is influenced by public opinion when deciding cases that are salient due, in part, to the Court’s inherent political nature. Justices ascend through a partisan appointment process that is predicated on the sharing of power between the President and the Senate. Consequently, justices and their institution cannot uncouple from the political ecosystem. Specifically, I posit that fear of non-implementation constrains a justice’s decision-making. Non-implementation would occur if the Court’s ruling was not enforced by either a lower court or a non-judicial authority. And the potential consequence of recurring non-implementation is to degrade the Court’s legitimacy. To test my hypothesis systematically, I will use multivariate regression analysis to examine the relationship between the ideological direction of Supreme Court case decisions and prevailing public opinion, while accounting for the influences of other factors. My analysis incorporates data from (approximately) 5,000 individual Supreme Court cases, extending from 1958 to 2018. I predict that public opinion does influence Supreme Court decision-making when rulings will ‘resolve’ the national debate around issues that have significant public policy implications.

This paper uses national data collected through China’s population census to estimate the effect of housing prices on fertility rates between 2000-2020 across 31 provincial-level administrative regions in mainland China. I theorize that higher housing price would lead to a decrease in fertility rates. I take housing price as a proxy for the overall costs of living. As houses become more expensive, younger generations are forced to save money for years to afford buying a house. When individuals’ income remains unchanged, higher housing prices lower people’s purchasing ability. This lowered purchasing ability leaves people less financially capable of raising a child and results in individuals being less willing to have a child. This paper employs a multivariate regression model and controls for other relevant variables. I expect to find that with the continuous increase in housing price, there is a steady decrease in fertility rates in each administrative region. Furthermore, since a more rapid rise in commodity prices is associated with fast economic development especially in Beijing and Shanghai, the fertility rates in these two regions would be the lowest, corresponding with a weak per capita purchasing power of individual households. This analysis of the relationship between housing price and fertility rate is important because it explains why there is a fertility decline despite robust economic growth in a developing country. This paper calls for changes in maternity policy to accommodate possible decline in workforce and productivity in China and its aging society in the next 20 years.

Recent years have seen a great expansion in the public consciousness of human impacts on global environment, as well as wider acceptance of the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Although individual willingness to take pro-environmental action is a crucial component to real progress on the climate dilemma, it is a phenomenon whose antecedents are complex and diffuse. While much of the literature on this topic focuses on the identity characteristics which may account for individual pro-environmental behaviors, in this research project I build on research in environmental psychology and other disciplines to hypothesize that spending time in nature impacts the pro-environmental behaviors of individuals. I argue that, because it facilitates deeper connection and measurable psychological changes toward cooperative behaviors, time in nature is likely an influence on future actions on behalf of the natural world. I further theorize that although time in nature may impact Democrats and Republicans differently, there is an effect regardless of partisanship. To test this hypothesis, I employ a multivariate regression analysis which tests the relationship between time spent in nature and pro-environmental behaviors while controlling for possible confounding variables including income, education, gender, and partisanship. To investigate the effects of partisanship, I also run a model testing whether time in nature influences the behavior of Democrats and Republicans differently. I expect to find in each case that the relationship between time in nature and pro-environmental behaviors is statistically significant. Such findings could serve to emphasize the importance of access to natural spaces for the future of environmental attitude formation and activism.

Inequitable work environments can heavily influence women’s professional choices, contributing to a widened gender gap in male-dominated fields. Past work has established that leaders' desire to use power for good produce better business outcomes, but we examine how leaders' use of power may influence gender equity in male-dominated work environments. I hypothesize that encountering a male-leader who is motivated to use power for good reduces women’s gender bias concerns. Women participants recruited through the online platform Prolific (N = 98) completed a survey in which they read leadership and team culture evaluations of two male leaders of male-dominated work teams (order counterbalanced). After reading the evaluations, participants rated how much they would worry about gender bias if they worked for each leader. The evaluations were identical except that in the experimental condition, participants read that 95% of the leader’s employees reported he used power for good compared to 43% in the control condition. I analyzed the data with a dependent samples t-test revealing women had reduced gender bias concerns after reading about the leader who used his power for good compared to the control condition. The results suggest that perceiving that a leader desires to use power for good reduces women’s gender bias concerns in male-dominated work environments. Signaling that the use of power for the good of others is a desirable institutional value may help establish gender equity and reduce climate threats. Future work should examine potential interventions that train leaders to better demonstrate their desire to use power for good of others in order to promote gender equity in male-dominated fields.

This research analyzes how vagal nerve stimulators have been used for treatment of Crohn’s Disease through literary review of existing research in order to assess what is working and begin to remedy what can be improved in order to increase the likelihood of remission for patients. The analysis of this research includes assessment of the design of current vagal nerve stimulators, materials used, algorithmic architecture behind the device, as well as methods of testing and measuring results. The methods used to determine success of remission include patient surveys, measurements of mucosal metabolites, assessment of cytokine levels, and others. Could vagal nerve stimulators be improved to work better with the brain, and therefore increase the remission rate to nearly absolute? From the analysis, it seems so -- however, there are enhancements that need to be made in materials, technology, and communication. The continuing advancement in vagal nerve stimulation therapy could potentially lead to a consistent, low-risk, accessible cure for Crohn’s Disease. 

The national sense of uncertainty and chaos surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic has been compounded by the spread of COVID-19 misinformation on social media. This has fostered an Infodemic as users struggle to separate fact from fiction in their news feeds and develop conflicting perceptions of reality. This project studies the relationship between the exposure to COVID-19 (re)tweets with misinformation or questionable levels of veracity and governmental trust during the Coronavirus pandemic. I create a continuous User Engagement Index to compare the differences in user engagement for COVID-19 twitter posts that were created/shared by influencers on the right, who tend to be problematic as they have a history of sharing or dog whistling COVID-19 misinformation, to influencers on the left who tend to post neutral content in terms of veracity. Furthermore, I created an ordinal Public Confidence index in which I compare changes in the User Engagement index for posts from the right and left to changes in public opinion survey data to gauge the levels of trust in government institutions. I conduct two separate multivariate regression analyses to evaluate the relationship between the User Engagement Index and a Public Confidence Index. I then assess whether the spread of COVID-19 (re)tweets that are likely epistemically problematic negatively impacts an exposed user’s trust in government. I theorize that exposure to misinformation fosters political cynicism and epistemic confusion, which both fuel a decline in public trust. The findings of this study will help us better understand the cultivation of polarized perception gaps that may inhibit collective action and a unified response during times of crisis and uncertainty. This erodes trust and undermines democratic governance and institutions.

The purpose of this study is to test the relationship between xenophobic rhetoric and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) political mobilization. The COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China, has led to undeserved blame and hatred towards Asian Americans during COVID’s early stages. As a result, discrimination against Asian Americans had increased by over 150 percent during the pandemic’s first year. I theorize that the increase of xenophobia will fuel mobilization based on feelings of victimization. Expectations from the study stem from a theory of mobilization that AAPI members will strive for political action instead of a withdrawal from politics when racial targeting is solely Asian-oriented and relies on negative, inaccurate stereotypes. In order to test the effects of discrimination, I will employ regression models to examine whether xenophobic tweets from former President Donald Trump lead to increased mobilization and solidarity among Asian-Americans in online settings from late 2019 until the suspension of his Twitter account in January 2021. I expect to find that xenophobic tweets with high exposure levels to these tweets–measured by the number of likes and retweets–lead to increased popularity in Google-searching terms related to AAPI mobilization (e.g., Asian American Resources, Stop Asian Hate, etc.).

Colin Kaepernick kneeling on the football field in August of 2016 was not the first instance of athlete activism in history but was incredibly meaningful to our current politics. Two years later, in September of 2018, Nike released their Dream Crazy advertisement featuring Colin Kaepernick. Evidence shows that this campaign had significant economic consequences for Kaepernick and Nike, leading one to believe that there could have been political consequences as well. Therefore, I ask: to what extent did Colin Kaepernick’s campaign with Nike mobilize public support for and against racial justice in the United States? I hypothesize that there is a positive relationship between exposure and donations; as exposure to the campaign increases so do donations to both racial justice efforts and counter-racial justice efforts. I reason that people’s actions are grounded in emotions and morals; with the polarization of the United States growing, a political act like Kaepernick’s taps into people’s allegiances and identities and they will act accordingly. To test this hypothesis and answer my research question I have gathered Google search term data from August 2018-October 2018 to gauge how much attention the Nike advertisement got. Then I gathered donation data from seven political campaigns representing the left and right sides of the political spectrum from August 2018-October 2018 as a measurement of political activism. The campaigns were chosen based on their salience on each side of the Black Lives Matter conversation and include Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Preliminary results suggest that there may be a positive relationship between exposure and donations. This matters because it exemplifies the power that big brand names and celebrity athletes have on the political playing field. The consequences of this participation and influence are vast, it can create polarized divides and mobilize action.

Workplace diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts are well-intentioned but often too focused on meeting metrics instead of making structural changes that are directly aligned with the commitment to D&I. To examine people’s perception of company training towards D&I efforts, the current study investigates whether knowing a company is dedicated to implementing D&I initiatives influences their perception on the necessity of other systemic interventions. We expose each participant to a company that implements D&I training (diversity training company) and a company that does not (no diversity training company). Then, we measure their perception of each company's need for structural changes. We hypothesize that participants presented with the diverse training company will rate the company’s future diversity efforts as less necessary. The finding of this research provides evidence that the presence of D&I training may have unintended consequences of preventing organizations from making other important systemic changes.