URCW Innovation Journal of Creative and Scholarly Works Volume 7/2019

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I nnov at i on J o ur na l o fCr e a t i v ea ndS c ho l a r l yWo r k s

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Innovation: Journal of Scholarly and Creative Works

2019

Volume 7, 2019

Innovation

The Journal of Creative and Scholarly Works

www.highpoint.edu/urcw/hpu-journal/ journal.urcw@highpoint.edu Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Works High Point University One University Parkway High Point, NC 27268

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Innovation: Journal of Scholarly and Creative Works

2019

Editor-in-Chief

Dr. Joanne D. Altman, PhD Director, Undergraduate Research and Creative Works Professor of Psychology

Student Co-Editor

Paige Wagner High Point University, ‘19 Strategic Communication and Psychology

Student Co-Editor

Taylor Helson High Point University, ‘20 Communication - Journalism

Cover design by Laura Schramm ‘13 Laura Schramm, creator of Innovation’s cover design, was a nonprofit business major and graphic design minor at High Point University. Schramm won the journal cover design competition hosted by the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Works in the fall of 2012. She began by brainstorming different ideas and jotting down anything she thought of in her sketch book. She decided to use light bulbs because they symbolize all majors and the trial and error it takes to come up with that one brilliant idea. Schramm graduated High Point University in May 2013 and today works as a graphic designer in North Carolina. Copyright @ 2019 High Point University

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Innovation: Journal of Scholarly and Creative Works

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2019 Board of Reviewers

Dr. Joanne Altman Director of Undergraduate Research and Creative Works; Professor of Psychology Dr. David Bergen Department Chair; Professor of Human Relations Dr. Vern Biaett Assistant Professor of Event Management Dr. Victoria Brown Assistant Professor of Visual Merchandising Design Dr. Larry L. Carter Assistant Professor of Marketing Dr. Matthew Carlson Assistant Professor of English Dr. Christine Cugliari Associate Professor of Nonprofit Leadership and Management Dr. Deborah Danzis Associate Professor of Psychology Dr. Claudine Davidshofer Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Dr. Robert Hirth Assistant Professor of Management

Ms. Erica Horhn Instructor of English Dr. Emily Gerhold Assistant Professor of Art History; Director of Sechrest Gallery Dr. Adam Graham-Squire Associate Professor of Mathematics Dr. Elizabeth Jeter Assistant Professor of Human Relations Dr. Sadie Leder-Elder Associate Professor of Psychology Dr. Kirsten Li-Barber Associate Professor of Psychology Dr. Stacy Lipowski Associate Professor of Psychology Dr. Sarah Nielsen Assistant Professor of Human Relations

Ms. Janis Dougherty Instructor of Art

Mr. John Linn Assistant Professor of Interior Design

Dr. Daniel Hall Associate Professor of Economics

Dr. Christopher Lootens Assistant Professor of Psychology

Dr. Cynthia B. Hanson Associate Professor of Marketing

Dr. Patrick McConnell Associate Professor of Sport Communication

Dr. Michael J. McCully Director of the International Business Program; Associate Professor of Economics

Mr. Randy Moser Assistant Director of the Professional Selling Program; Assistant Professor of the Practice of Marketing Dr. Robert E. Moses Assistant Professor of Religion Mr. Thaddeus Ostrowski Instructor of Religion and Philosophy Dr. Lindsay Piechnik Associate Professor of Mathematics Dr. Melissa Richard Instructor of English Dr. Sarah Ross Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Frederick Schneid Department Chair and Herman and Louise Smith Professor of History Dr. Kirstin Squint Associate Professor of English Dr. Peter Summers Assistant Professor of Economics Dr. Mark Setzler Professor of Political Science Dr. Bryan Vescio Department Chair and Professor of English Ms. Allison Walker Instructor of English

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Letter from the Editor-in-Chief The office of Undergraduate research and Creative Works (URCW) encourages and supports the establishment of collaborative partnerships between nurturing faculty mentors and enterprising students. Within these partnerships, critical inquiry, brainstorming, debate, and mutual discovery intertwine, leading over time to the production of finished work suitable for presentation, exhibition, and publication. This journal gives students the opportunity to follow their completed work all the way through the professional process to publication. Thus, URCW is pleased to publish the seventh volume of the refereed journal, Innovation: Journal of Creative and Scholarly Works. In this issue, we include thirteen submissions in a range of disciplines from students who have completed independent undergraduate creative or scholarly work. We hope this journal inspires many young scholars to consider publishing their undergraduate academic work before they graduate college. Joanne D. Altman, Director of Undergraduate Research and Creative Works Editor-in-Chief of Innovation: Journal of Creative and Scholarly Works

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Table of Contents The Tug-of-War of Renaissance Bodies Brooke Allen ............................................................................................................... 6 Serving Soldiers, Honoring Heroes Maggie Andrulis ......................................................................................................... 11 Gender Discrimination in the Hiring Process: Examining “Equal” Opportunity Amber Belvin .............................................................................................................. 14 Styrofoam: Past, Present, and Future Mary Green ................................................................................................................. 24 The Role of Academic Identity and Feedback Type in Predicting Academic Motivation Katie James ............................................................................................................... 32 Examination of Top Private, Corporate, and Community Foundations in North Carolina Charlotte Kennedy ....................................................................................................... 44 Persistence in Team Sports Charlotte Kennedy, Haleigh Mana’o, Maggie Addison, & Rebecca Colwell ...................... 58 Prime Graph Labelings Alexis Newton ............................................................................................................ 65 The Carter Administration, The Military Option, and The Iranian Hostage Crisis Zach Quimby .............................................................................................................. 80 Is Sales 'Sold' on Women? Amanda Rackley ......................................................................................................... 90 Dark Personalities, Self-Adornment, and Risky Sexual Behavior: How Do They Correlate? Raniya Shakir ............................................................................................................ 95 Heteroglossia in “The Sound and the Fury” Raegan Thomas .......................................................................................................... 104 Prophets and Graffiti Artists; Concepts of Social Activism and Justice Katrina Zrubek ........................................................................................................... 109

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Innovation: Journal of Scholarly and Creative Works

The Tug-of-War of Renaissance Bodies

2019

Brooke Allen

Brooke Allen submitted this work as a freshman pre-med student, earning a double degree in biology (B.S) and English literature (B.A.), as well as a Spanish minor. Her inspiration for this paper came from an honors course during her first semester, where she learned about Classical and Renaissance bodies, and their defining features and characteristics. She became increasingly interested in the game of tug-of-war that our society embodies in the struggle between innocent and sexuality. Allen mentions Dr. Hedman had the most impactful presence during her first year. He not only assisted her in improving her writing technique and connected her with a research opportunity, but he also demonstrated that he truly cared about her success and character. After graduating from High Point University, she plans to attend medical school in hopes of becoming a pediatric and fetal surgeon. She’d like to connect her passion for service missions to her medical career by serving at a clinic in a small village in the Dominican Republic. Abstract There is a fine line between "too much" and "too little," a push-and-pull between when to look and when not to. In this manuscript, the female representation is analyzed according to Classical and Renaissance interpretations--specifically focused around Cranach the Elder's painting of Venus. The goddess of love is portrayed throughout history as the figure of true womanhood-love, fertility, and nurturance. Yet, Cranach's interpretation varies slightly from the rest. In this manuscript, the irony of the Classical female body is uncovered, along with the inconsistency of the Protestant Reformation and the emergence of Cranach's erotic art.

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n March of 2008, the London Transport pulled the poster, which advertised the Royal Academy’s Cranach the Elder show, stating that it was “overtly sexual.” The Royal Academy was shocked, arguing instead that it was “quite innocent.” Interestingly, the image—a nude painting of the goddess, Venus glancing coyly at the viewer—generated no such comment from Cranach’s close friend, Martin Luther. Luther the Reformer remained a staunch supporter of Cranach’s workshop—much of it “overtly sexual” (Villarreal, n.d.). So how is it that a painting, by an artist bound up in the Protestant Reformation, received no public outcry in 1532? How does Cranach escape the judgment of a Luther-reformed society as he continues to paint seemingly erotic works? Yet, he solicits a complaint in 2008, years after the commencement of the sexual revolution. As the painting is examined within the history of the classical representation and the new Lutheran attitudes toward sexuality, we can catch a glimpse of the important cultural work 6


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Cranach’s Venus is accomplishing. I will argue, perhaps counterintuitively, that the Royal Academy got it wrong—the painting is far from “quite innocent.” Precisely due to its “overtly sexual” nature, Luther would have approved. During the Classical period of Greek and Roman rule, female sculptures and other art forms were rarely found sans clothing. Naked women would draw the attention of and arouse the men, thereby stripping them of their golden characteristic: self-control. To eliminate this erotic exposure, female art would be found with drapery covering their genitalia. The coverage of the female body symbolized modesty—the golden characteristic of women. Although the clothing still clung to curves, the concealing of female genitals suppressed their problematic bodies. In contrast, classical male sculptures most often were depicted nude—with bulging muscles, perfect proportions, and very small genitalia. Therefore, in the Greek culture, the men display themselves to exhibit their self-control, while the women are beautiful when they portray their modesty. A male is ideally beautiful when fully exposed and fully under control; a female is most beautiful when she is covered, concealed, hiding her sexual tendencies or emotions. The beauty of a male is in knowing what he feels—exposure. The beauty of a female is in not knowing—modesty. Yet, even in Greek sculptures, there seems to be an underlying motive behind covering the female body. As female sculptures were formed, sculptors made sure to cover feminine parts with “drapery, where the feminine form is rendered more erotically manifest than by nudity itself” (Jenkins and Turner, 2009, p. 22). The supposed purpose of this modesty was to shield men from erotic excitement when viewing the art, yet by covering female curves, this excerpt explains that the art would be viewed as exponentially sexier. The irony of covering the sexual in order to further entice the viewer is constant throughout the Classical Era: drapery clung to curves, enhanced the figure, and increased the viewer’s desire to see more. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, is the Greek version of Venus. This goddess is consistently sans clothing, but when she is found with clothes, the drapery clings to her curves and enhances her sensuality. In the Knidian statue of Aphrodite, her posture communicates that she does not know that she is beautiful. Her face is turned away from the viewers, and her hand covers her delicate area just enough—but not too much. In Cranach’s Venus, her eyes stare directly at the viewer. This direct gaze reflects her confidence in her nakedness; she wants to be seen. The goddess holds a transparent cloth to shield herself from the viewers. This seemingly pointless addition to the painting could point out the irony of the female depiction in Greek art and the coy dichotomy of female representation. The call to female modesty, at least in presentation, only heightened during the Medieval Era. It was during this time period that Christian virtue became most popular in society. The church expanded, as did the old Platonic idea that the physical flesh was immoral, corrupt, and in need of revival. In Investigating Culture, this is termed “the hatred of the flesh” (Delaney and Kaspin, 2017, p. 213). These beliefs formed the foundation of the beckoning for modesty. Bodies are sinful—especially female ones—and need to be covered. Cranach paints in the end of this period when women were only appropriate when covered, concealed, maybe somewhat effaced. However, this is not the case in his Venus; the goddess is completely exposed (apart from her transparent veil), asking for attention. The nude body of Venus was meant to entice the viewers. Because of her status in mythology, a Greek would celebrate her nudity because of what it stood for—love, fertility, nurturance. These characteristics defined ideal womanhood. An ideal woman in the Classical period was also modest. Their activities were less overt in the community. Nevertheless, a Protestant viewer may feel uncomfortable gazing upon the female figure, for ideal beauty during 7


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this period entailed concealing female sexuality. Yet, this painting of Venus, created amid a surge of Protestant Christianity, which rejected pictures and paintings in general, begs for attention. Some of the presently displayed Venus paintings are displayed along with a moralistic tagline. These additions warn of the dangers of sexual indulgence that really “do more to excuse rather than diffuse the erotic charge of the images” (Plummer & Roper, 2016, p. 84). In Cranach’s interpretation, the painted goddess stands—in classical contrapposto—hoisting a clear cloth in front of herself. Her reddish hair is braided tightly to her head and held in place by a netted headpiece. Her body is bare, apart from two pieces of neck jewelry. These adornments pull the attention of the viewer away from the goddess’ nudity. Although her nakedness—highlighted by Venus’ veil—may be the first noted aspect of the painting, the artist’s attention to detail focuses on the neck and head. The headpiece functions to hold the hair in place and almost conceal it from view, yet, it is netted—hair can still be seen through the covering. The higher of the two necklaces draws attention to Venus’ neck and facial structure. The other hangs teasingly low—just low enough to reveal the goddess’ naked chest. Her bodily appearance is not altogether Classical—her hips and slightly plump mid-region resemble the Greek idealism, but overall, her body is realistic enough to compare to any other woman’s. Her figure does not conform to the idealism of Greek art that elevates her beauty to an unattainable level. It is fair to say that her figure resembles one of a common woman—nothing too special. Her almost prepubescent body creates even more of an issue. Does her prepubescence excuse the temptation to observe her nudity? Simply by observing Cranach’s work in the first place, a medieval man might feel pulled in two directions: “to look or not to look.” This conflict stems from the attention-grabbing veil, which covers, yet highlights her genitals. Cranach makes a theme of painting Venus with a veil masking her pudendum. In another painting, Venus and Cupid, Cranach again draws the viewer’s attention to her most sacred and sensual parts with a transparent veil. While the cloth is meant to act as a medium between the viewer and Venus’ genitals, it brings the eyes immediately to the area. In The Veil of Venus, Werner predicts similarly that “with its sacred and erotic connotations, the veil both masks and unmasks, draws the viewer’s attention and at the same time shows itself to be the medium that mediates between the levels of reality (that of the picture) and the imagination (that of the beholder)” (2007, p. 99). By creating this relentless back-and-forth between concealing and revealing the female body, Cranach plays at the Grecian portrayal of women in art and renders the viewer helpless to the sexual intensity of his paintings. Cranach’s collections of Venuses mimic this irony—why paint the cloth if it does not serve its intended purpose? His failed attempt at modesty simply explicates the irony of the past. He highlights the ineffective way in which the Greeks “covered” the female body. By painting the coy glance, Cranach shows the intention of the goddess—to arouse and entice the viewer. Yet, this lustful look is intentional, the ironic veil is educational, and both are supported by Martin Luther. In his teachings on Genesis, Luther focuses intensely on the subject of male lust, which he viewed as “sinful but also natural” (Plummer & Roper, 2016, p. 86). He calls this lust a “leprosy” which overtakes a man, if not controlled (Wiesner-Hanks, 2005, p. 124). Male lust, according to Luther, is the corresponding consequence of the Fall to women’s birthing pains. Both are something that neither party can no longer live without. Lust plagues men throughout early Biblical times, yet Luther is quick to point out that sexual acts between a man and a wife are explicitly supported by God in Genesis 9:1 in which God commands Noah and his family to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” He also suggests that the lust of a man is justified within the confines of marriage (Wiesner-Hanks, 2005). He exalts those characters in the Bible 8


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who resist lustful inclinations by waiting until later ages to be married. He teaches of Isaac’s abstinence during youth and suggests that resisting the raging lust of adolescence assists a man in remaining in control of himself— “those who do not resist the first flames and do not suppose that there is something for them to endure, plunge into fornication, adultery, and horrible lusts…” (Luther’s Works, 1964, 4:333-334). This excerpt seems to imply that if sexual acts can be avoided during youth—especially the years immediately following puberty—lustful nature can be identified and controlled until marriage. It is possible that this was the precise reason Luther encouraged the works of Cranach, for they presented the viewers with the opportunity to acknowledge their lustful nature and control the sinful inclinations until they could be relieved within the covenant of marriage. Cranach painted during a time when the physical modesty of the Greeks was not modesty at all. It only served to heighten female sensuality. Therefore, Venus almost flirts with the observer, begs him to look a second longer. While it would be sinful to indulge in her beauty, a Protestant observer of the goddess would be utterly conflicted. On one hand, the image of a naked woman is arousing. On the other, it would not be acceptable to lust after her. Yet, throughout Luther’s teachings we can observe his outlook on the push-and-pull paintings. Contrary to many of his Christian contemporaries, Luther supported the use of pictures and says their vividness helps the viewer to understand its veiled religious content (Werner, 3007). This belief stemmed from an early metaphysical philosophy of Plato, which states that a “visual perception proceeds from the visible to the invisible and enables the viewer to form a material idea of an invisible divine being, or of general ideal values” (Werner, 2007, p. 102). This connection between the physical lust that is felt when observing Cranach’s art and the virtue of modesty being taught through the paintings is encompassed by Venus’ veil. It is the mediating point between the desire to look and not to look, and it is the mediating point being the physical lust of the flesh and the virtue of the soul. This relentless irony is still relevant in today’s society. How much skin is appropriate? Too little—prudish. Too much—whorish. Beauty is an unattainable characteristic—slim, but not bony; curvy, but not overweight. The struggle of modesty in today’s world is just an extension of the same dilemma recognized by Cranach and illustrated in his Venus. Is there an escape to this relentless cycle? Could it be that Luther and Cranach meant to expose this push-and-pull in society? It is possible that the answer lies within the irony communicated by Venus’ veil in Cranach’s paintings. Cranach and Luther seem to concede to the cycle, yet at the same time they wish to remain a part of it. It seems that Cranach’s goal was to challenge moral and artistic boundaries with his erotic nudes, and Luther encourages the paintings as educational and even spiritual in that they connect the viewer to the underlying command for control. The “overtly sexual” Venus—whose realistic features seem all to erotic to be displayed in public—allows us to artistically experience the picture and, at the same time, experience the slightly uncomfortable dynamic between the sensuality of a naked body and the “quite innocent” virtue of modesty. Perhaps this is the place we are supposed to settle in—the uncomfortable space where we can acknowledge our faulty human nature yet allow that knowledge to assist us in upholding our values.

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Works Cited Jenkins, Ian and Turner, Victoria, (2009) The Greek Body. 1st ed., J. Paul Getty Museum. Delaney, Carol Lowery, and Deborah Kaspin, (2017). Investigating Culture: an Experiential Introduction to Anthropology. 3rd ed., Wiley-Blackwell. Luther’s Works,(1964). Lectures on Genesis Chapters 21-25; Concordia Publishing House. Plummer, Marjorie Elizabeth, and Lyndal Roper, 2016). “Venus in Wittenberg: Cranach, Luther, and Sensuality.” Ideas and Cultural Margins in Early Modern Germany, pp. 81–98., doi:10.4324/9781315252803. Villarreal, Jose (n.d). “‘Venus’ By Lucas Cranach the Elder Is Too Overtly Sexy For Transport for London.”, artdaily.com/news/23266/-Venus--By-Lucas-Cranach-the-Elder-Is-TooOvertly-Sexy-For-Transport-for-London#.XFIBC89Kj-Y. Werner, Elke Anna (2007). “The Veil of Venus: A Metaphor of Seeing in Lucas Cranach the Elder.” Cranach, by Bodo Brinkmann, Royal Academy of Arts, pp. 98–109. Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E (2005). “‘Lustful Luther’: Male Libido in the Writings of the Reformer.” Sexuality and Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, by Philip M. Soergel, AMS Press, pp. 123–148.

Appendix

File:Lucas Cranach the Elder - Venus - Google Art Project.jpg. (2019, January 2 3). Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Retrieved 12:54, August 9, 2019 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Lucas_Cranach_the_Elder__Venus_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg&oldid=335950178.

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Serving Soldiers, Honoring Heroes Maggie Andrulis Maggie Andrulis, a senior graphic design major, incorporated art and design into her learning and projects because this new way of connecting her passions was fascinating. Being able to apply that passion to an outside project allowed her to see growth in her skills and feel rewarded through the process. Looking back at all that she has accomplished, Andrulis says it wouldn’t have been possible without her mentor, Professor Benita VanWinkle. Professor VanWinkle has encouraged her to take advantage of challenging opportunities and pushed her to excel in everything she attempts. Andrulis will be working as a project manager for a company in Raleigh NC in the Fall.

Abstract At High Point University, there is a program called “Service Learning” where you can participate in a course that involves classroom time as well as going out and working within the community. One of the Service Learning courses offered is “Documentary Photography” that involves putting together a photography show that documents the service throughout the semester. Our class was assigned to work with Patriot Rovers, a local High Point, North Carolina organization that trains service animals to provide to veterans, free of charge, that assist with physical and mental disabilities. The Patriot Rover’s complete this mission by training the service dogs for veterans and naming the puppies after a fallen soldier in their honor. We wanted our exhibit to tell this story and to bring awareness to the importance of service animals. As we established a collection of photographs, the class was divided into committees to tackle the different tasks it would take to put together an exhibit at the High Point Museum, a local history venue run by the city. I was assigned the task of designing the layout of the exhibit. This project taught me about all of the behind the scenes work that goes into creating a cohesive and smart exhibit. It taught me just how I can use my talents as an artist to create something I can share with the world, or at least my local community.

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s an artist, I learn by using my hands and trying things out. I practice, over and over again, making choices to better improve myself as a student, an artist, and a photographer. At High Point University, there is a program called “Service Learning” where one can participate in a course that involves classroom time as well as going out and working within the community. One of the Service-Learning courses offered is “Documentary Photography,” which involves putting together a photography show documenting the service throughout the semester. This course really interested me because I learn by doing, I love photography, and I enjoy serving others. Taking this course changed my life in more ways 11


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than one and I learned so many invaluable skills that have bettered me as a student, an artist, and future professional. Over the course of the Documentary Photography class, I read many different articles and excerpts to learn more about service, service learning, and the topic of our class: service animals. The first reading I did was about ethics and working in the lives of others, which really put into perspective what service learning is. This reading evaluated whether or not participating in service work was ethical and actually beneficial to those being served. I began to relate the documentary work I would be doing to a mission or service project that may or may not actually benefit those being served. Going into this project, one of my fears was that our service would only make an impact for a short amount of time or not at all. I have always been critical of mission projects because on the surface, it seems like people go into impoverished communities with the intention of helping them, only to leave a week later while the people they left behind are still suffering. I did not want to do that to the community I was going to be working with. Our class was assigned to work with Patriot Rovers, a local organization in High Point, North Carolina, that trains service animals to assist veterans who have physical and mental disabilities, free of charge. The project we worked on throughout the semester as our service was documenting the Patriot Rovers’ story so that it could be shared. We wanted to bring awareness to the importance of service animals and were hopeful that our efforts could potentially help with some fundraising for the organization. As a class of 18 students, we spent the beginning of the semester traveling around the local community, taking photographs of the dogs while they went through training. This included seeing them interact with the veteran they would be paired with, taking trips to Home Depot for socialization, and even having the dogs come to High Point University so that they could practice riding up and down the escalators. After we established a collection of photographs, the class divided into committees to tackle the different tasks it would take to put together an exhibit at the High Point Museum, an organization run by the City of High Point to promote local history. I joined the group that would be designing, planning, and laying out the show. I began to imagine what our show would look like and started researching photography exhibits throughout the country to see how they were designed. After much class discussion, we decided to design the show based on the organization’s mission: serving soldiers and honoring heroes. The Patriot Rovers complete this mission by training the service dogs for veterans and naming the puppies after a fallen soldier in their honor. We wanted our exhibit to tell this story. Our class met and went through our collection of photographs to select the final images for the show. Following this, I had a big task to tackle. When designing the exhibit, I began by creating a template for how the images would be laid out. I was putting together the pieces of a puzzle that I was creating as I went along. Once I decided how the images would be laid out, I had to figure out what sizes all of the images would be. Through my research process, I found that most exhibits did not have galleries filled with images that were all the same size in order to give complexity through the gallery due to the diverse emphasis of particular images. At the beginning of this process, I thought it would be a simple task to decide which size each print would be, but it was far from easy. There were a lot of different things that I needed to factor into my decision. Printing images and mounting them can quickly become expensive. I wanted to try to keep the prints smaller to reduce costs, but I had to also make sure that the prints were large enough to fill up the space on the wall evenly. To do this, I printed all of the final images on copy paper and laid them out on my kitchen floor in the order I wanted them to be on the wall. Then, I decided on what sizing I wanted the margins 12


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and from there started assigning sizes to the prints; I was putting together the puzzle of how to fit all of the images on the wall. I spent nearly 15 hours over a period of two weeks deciding on the sizing alone. Upon completion, I gave my classmates the sizing for each image so that they could order the prints. Little did I know, the hardest part was yet to come. A few more weeks passed and we quickly mounted all of the prints to foam core and prepared for hanging the show. Some images had to be printed again, resized, or mounted again because we wanted everything to look professional for the exhibit. Once everything was ready to go, it was time to hang the show. Unfortunately, I had a prior commitment the day the show was hung so I was unable to lead my classmates with my well thought-out vision. As long as I spent trying to make sure the show was designed beautifully, it was not perfect and my classmates decided to move the images around. This was extremely frustrating because as the show designer, I had taken into account hours of discussion with my classmates on the story we wanted our show to tell, and the way they had arranged it did not showcase their concerns the way my design had. So, I had to take a deep breath, relax, and figure out how to convey to my classmates that there was a purpose and meaning to the show design. With the help of a handful of supportive classmates, we quickly rearranged the show to reflect the story of serving soldiers and honoring heroes. We spent hours tediously measuring every margin and making sure the images were at an appropriate eye-level height for children or those in wheelchairs. We made sure every caption on every image was in the same position and all infographic posters were legible and at a height and typeface where they could easily be read. All of the levels on every image were checked to ensure perfect balance and many miles were walked in our beautiful gallery space to routinely take a look at the bigger picture. The opening night reception came quickly and the room was filled with friends, family, veterans, members of the community, and some really adorable puppies. The feeling I experienced watching hundreds of people experience our show and seeing our treasured photographs was insurmountable to the work and struggles faced to put the show together. I learned how to tackle difficult circumstances, how to work through and compromise with different opinions with my peers, what it takes to design a show, and why it is all worth it. Walking through an art gallery now, I have a much deeper appreciation for the design that goes beyond the beautiful art on the wall. This project taught me about the entire behind the scenes work that goes into creating a cohesive and smart exhibit. It taught me how to use my talents as an artist to create something I can share with my community.

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Gender Discrimination in the Hiring Process: Examining “Equal” Opportunity Amber Belvin Amber Belvin, a senior psychology student, was inspired by the amount of “women in the workplace” related news stories. She happened to pick up her topic at an opportune time, as the #MeToo movement and Hillary Clinton were striking up conversations and media coverage. The amount of negative press relating to these media stories directed her attention toward gender discrimination in the workplace. Belvin attributes her motivation and success with this paper to her mentor, Dr. Deborah Danzis. She provided Belvin with valuable feedback on her study and poster materials, helped her locate opportunities to advance her research, and was always a friendly face within the psychology department. After graduation, she hopes to move to the Charlotte area and work with an organization that combines her nonprofit management skills and passion for psychology.

Abstract The purpose of the current study is to extend research by investigating if gender stereotypes are influencing discriminatory decisions in the hiring process today. This study examined the relationship between applicant gender, evaluator gender, and gender-type occupation. One hundred and thirty-nine participants were given a packet containing a job description, for a male-type or a female-type job, and a resume, for a male or female applicant. Participants evaluated applicants on their competency, social skills, estimated salary, and their recommendation to interview or hire. Results showed that the congruency between applicant gender and the gender associated with an occupation had no impact on hiring recommendations. Additionally, results demonstrated that male applicants received higher hiring recommendation ratings and that these effects magnified when the evaluator was male. Since there was no significant difference in the applicants’ competency, it is clear that gender discrimination is still present in society. This information can be used to make evaluators more conscious of their decisions and monitor for any discriminatory practices in their workplace.

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ender discrimination has been a problem for centuries, but there has been debate as to whether or not it is still a prevalent issue in today’s society. Numerous efforts have been put into place to combat the issue, such as the passage of national legislation like Affirmative Action and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1991. With all of these efforts in place, some members of society claim that gender discrimination is not as bad as it once was and that it is no longer a serious problem. If that were true, however, then one would see an even 14


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distribution of men and women in the majority of fields and professions. As of 2016, however, we still see a robust gender gap in certain fields, like STEM and upper level positions. For example, only 27.3% of chief executives and only 25.5% of computer and mathematical occupations were women (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). Furthermore, there were 25,605 filings of gender discrimination claims to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2017. With this uneven gender representation and extensive number of reports of discrimination, it is clear that gender discrimination in the workplace is still a pervasive issue in our society. This is a serious problem as it affects approximately half of the nation’s population and workforce. Examining if gender discrimination is present during the initial stage of the hiring process in college-aged populations will be beneficial as it will demonstrate if and how much stereotypic beliefs have changed over time. Additionally, the study will provide further insight as to whether genders differ in their perceptions of gender roles in order to help researchers address discriminatory practices in the future. There are many reasons as to why gender discrimination may be present in the hiring process. One example is the reliance on stereotypic information to influence one’s decisions. While there are many types of stereotypes, this paper will focus on the influence of descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes. Descriptive stereotypes are based on observations; they describe how groups typically appear, feel and behave (Gill, 2004). Over time, each gender has been assigned its own descriptive stereotype, such as men are moneymakers and women are homemakers (Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000). Meanwhile, prescriptive stereotypes are defined as the behavioral standards that are expected of a certain group, or what members “ought to do” (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Examples of prescriptive gender stereotypes include women being stereotyped as communal, meaning women are seen to be social and service oriented. Key traits composing communal individuals include being kind, sympathetic, selfless, helpful, and concerned for others (Hielman, 2001). Women, however, are not the only gender to be ascribed stereotypic traits. Research has shown that men are stereotyped to be agentic. Key components to this label include being achievement-oriented, assertive, forceful, independent, and aggressive (Hielman, 2001). Because each gender is prescribed with these traits, society has formulated occupations and actions that are considered to be appropriate for each gender’s skills. For example, females are associated with nurturing careers and males are associated with aggressive careers. One area where these associated gender traits may lead to gender discrimination in the hiring process can be seen in leadership positions. For example, a meta-analysis comparing leadership stereotypes to gender stereotypes showed that leadership stereotypes are seen as masculine through three different paradigms (Koenig, Eagly, Mitchell, & Ristikari, 2011). Due to this perception that leaders possess agentic, masculine qualities, it is more difficult for women to attain leadership positions. Some may argue that stereotypes have diminished overtime; however, studies have shown that gender stereotypes are fairly stable (Hosoda & Stone, 2000; Bergen & Williams 1991; Lueptow, Garovich, & Lueptow, 1995). A recent study examining the evolution of gender stereotypes found that the traits composing each gender stereotype remained constant over a fifteen-to-twenty-year period (Hosoda & Stone, 2000). Therefore, it is logical to believe that these stereotypic traits are still utilized today. Furthermore, a 2016 study showed that people attribute women’s dispositional factors, such as their skills, personality and biology, to gender gaps in STEM fields and leadership positions rather than situational factors (Cundiff & Vescio, 2016).

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Gender stereotypes can influence which occupations are seen as an appropriate fit for individuals, also known as sex-type occupations. For example, women make up 75% of the education and health industry while men make up 75% of the agriculture industry (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). There are many models and theories proposing why there are gender gaps in the workforce and there is even more debate over which one is correct. One possible explanation can be found in the sex-matching model. This model states that sex-typed occupations are created when an evaluator creates a mental image of who they would consider to be the typical, successful employee. The employer often bases this fictional employee on observations and descriptive stereotypes in their workplace (Kiesler, 1975). Therefore, in fields dominated by males, like STEM or agriculture, the evaluator will often think of a male for the position. This is problematic for either gender; however, its effect will impact women more than men as there are more fields dominated by men than women. In a study where participants were asked to rate if an occupation was associated with a gender, 49% of occupations were considered to be male (Couch & Sigler, 2001). This was over double the amount of occupations that were considered to be female, which was only 21%. Because the majority of occupations are considered to be male, women will have more trouble than men attaining a job that is not their gender-type. Another potential explanation for gender discrimination in the hiring process can be seen in the trait-matching model. This model is more heavily influenced by stereotypes as the evaluator ascribes traits or a lack of traits to applicants based on their gender stereotypes (Schein, 1973). This theory has been supported by Bosak and Sczesny (2011), as their study showed if female applicants applied for a leadership position, but did not present counter-stereotypic information (i.e. competency for leadership via a written statement), then evaluators hired male applicants with a higher degree of certainty than female applicants. This indicates that evaluators do rely on stereotypic traits and that women are required to provide stronger evidence that they are competent and possess these stereotypical male traits if they want to be considered for a position. However, studies have also contradicted this theory and found that even when researchers held how much an applicant possessed a gender specific trait (i.e. dominance or sensitivity) constant, evaluators still made their hiring decisions based on applicants’ gender alone (Harvie, MarshallMcaskey, & Johnston, 1998). The final theory that would be influential to gender discrimination in the hiring process would be the Role Congruity Theory. This theory is similar to the trait-matching model, as they both stress the attributes society assigns to each gender. Eagly and Karau (2002) claimed that when the requirements of a role, such as a job or form of leadership, is incongruent with the traits ascribed to a person, male or female, then the person is likely to be discriminated against. For example, a man who applies to a daycare center may be discriminated against because males are not associated with sensitivity, but rather aggression. This tendency to discriminate against applicants whose stereotypical gender traits are incongruent with role traits has been demonstrated in children as young as preschool and primary school age (Levy, Sadovsky, & Troseth, 2000). In this study, children chose which gender they thought was best for a specific gender-type occupation (i.e. car mechanic or clothes designer) in addition to what salary they thought each gender would earn in this role. Results showed that children usually chose gender congruent applicants and that those gender congruent applicants received more money than the applicant whose gender was incongruent with the position (Levy et al., 2000). This gender bias was further confirmed in adult populations. For example, Tyler and McCullough (2009) asked 240 undergraduates to evaluate potential applicants for a job as a project manager. Results 16


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showed that when women projected an agentic identity on their resumes, undergraduate students rated the applicant as less liked than the male applicant, not competent for the job, poorer in social skills, and had a lower chance of being offered an interview or job than a male applicant. This supports the Role Congruity Theory - that those who break stereotypes will be negatively evaluated in numerous domains. The last factor that this study will be examining is evaluator gender. Studies have shown that men are more affected by stereotypes than women, as women tend to be more egalitarian (Larsen & Long, 1988). For example, in the previously mentioned study which compared gender stereotypes to leadership stereotypes, it was the male participants who were more likely to consider leadership to be masculine (Koenig et al., 2011). Furthermore, in the study where the female applicants portrayed agentic resumes, it was the male participants who gave the negative ratings (Levy et al., 2000). Lastly, in a study where applicants were applying for a leadership position, males were more likely to hire male applicants when there was no information provided about the female applicants’ leadership competence (Bosak & Sczesny, 2011). However, female participants may also hold biases in their hiring decisions. Studies have found evidence of samegender bias in hiring simulations for both male and female participants. According to Foster, Dingman, Muscolino, and Jankowski (1996) same-gender bias may be an influential factor in hiring decisions, as their study found that 35% of women chose a less qualified female applicant over a more qualified male applicant and 47% of men chose the less qualified male applicant over the more qualified female applicant. This study demonstrates how same-gender bias is affecting both genders, but affects men’s decisions more than women’s decisions. This study raises a concerning point that if these biases continue, then women will continue to be at a serious disadvantage in STEM fields and upper management positions as these are currently male dominated domains where the evaluator is likely to be male. Overall, it is clear that there are gender biases and discriminatory practices in the hiring process, though they may be more subtle now. Numerous factors can affect the likelihood of gender discrimination in the hiring process such as the endorsement of gender stereotypes, the congruency between an applicant’s gender and the traits assumed for a job, and the gender of the evaluator. The purpose of the current study is to extend current research and investigate if gender stereotypes are still creating discriminatory decisions in the hiring process today. Based on the research on descriptive stereotypic male traits of status, salary and prestige, it is hypothesized that male applicants will receive higher hiring recommendation ratings than female applicants. Additionally, based on the influence of same-gender bias and a male’s stronger endorsement of gender stereotypes, it is hypothesized that male participants will provide higher hiring recommendation ratings to male applicants than female applicants. Lastly, it is hypothesized that applicants who are applying to the gender congruent occupation will receive higher hiring recommendation ratings than applicants whose gender is incongruent with the occupation. Method

Participants The sample included 139 undergraduate students from a small liberal arts university in North Carolina. The study was composed of 46 males and 92 females whose mean age was 19.99, with a standard deviation of 1.11. The sample was predominately Caucasian, making up 108 of the participants. The remaining racial and ethnic backgrounds represented in the sample were: 12 African Americans, 7 Hispanic/Latinos, 5 Asians, 4 mixed, 1 Native American, 1 who identified as other, and 1 participant who failed to fill out this demographic information. 17


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Materials Pilot study. The pilot study included 12 participants. The pilot study asked participants to identify if an occupation was associated as male, female, or gender neutral. In addition to this gender-type association question, subjects indicated the level of education required for the position. Lastly, participants rated, on a scale of 1-7, the status associated with the job as well as how important leadership, interpersonal, organizational, and decision-making skills were for the position. A clothing store manager and a sporting goods store manager were selected from the pilot study because the jobs were rated similarly in all of tested skills: For status, the sporting goods store (M = 3.67) compared to the clothing store (M = 3.50). For leadership skills, the sporting goods store (M = 4.92) compared to the clothing store (M = 5.33). For interpersonal skills, the sporting goods store (M = 5.75) compared to the clothing store (M = 5.50). For organizational skills, the sporting goods store (M = 5.08) compared to the clothing store (M = 5.33). For decision-making skills, the sporting goods store (M = 4.83) compared to the clothing store (M = 5.11). These similar ratings demonstrated that the jobs were equal in difficulty. Furthermore, both jobs needed a college education: the sporting goods store (M = 1.42) compared to the clothing store (M = 1.33). Lastly, the gender-type for the occupations were clearly different: the sporting goods store received a low score indicative of a male job (M = 1.25) and the clothing store received a high score indicative of a female job (M = 2.67). The images selected for the applicants’ resumes were also tested to prevent the influence of extraneous variables. The pilot study asked participants to rank, on 3-point scales, the perceived attractiveness of the applicant (attractive, neither attractive nor unattractive, not attractive), the age of the applicant (20-25 years old, 25-30 years old, 30-35 years old), and the degree of professionalism of the applicant (professional, neither professional nor unprofessional, unprofessional). The images selected were both rated as attractive, 25-30 years old, and professional. Job descriptions. The gender-typed occupations were chosen based on the pilot study. In order to narrow the jobs selected for the study, trends in gender-type occupations were examined in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau showed that many female-dominated fields involved work with children and several male-dominated fields involved work with athletics. By combining these statistics with the pilot study results, it was decided that the female job would be a baby clothing and supplies store (i.e. Babies “R” Us) and the male job would be a sporting goods store (i.e. Dick’s Sporting Goods). The jobs were within the same industry and given the same title of “regional director” to allow for similar job descriptions. The job descriptions for regional director of Dick’s Sporting Goods and Babies “R” Us were created by pulling examples from regional director job descriptions on LinkedIn. Job descriptions were identical in responsibilities, qualifications, basic skills, and knowledge. The only difference in the descriptions was a short blurb about the company’s mission as well as a specific mention for a love of either sports (i.e. Dick’s Sporting Goods) or babies and children (i.e. Babies “R” Us) in the basic skills portion. (See Appendix A). Resumes. Resumes were created by pulling skills and experiences from upper management resume examples on Google. Resumes were separated into two conditions: male applicant (John McDonald) or female applicant (Emma McDonald). The resumes were identical in content except for the applicant’s name and photo of the applicant (See Appendix B). Photos were selected from stock photos on the internet after searching for professional businessman or businesswoman. Each image was selected from the previously mentioned pilot study, ensuring that the applicants (i.e. John and Emma) were similar in age, professionalism, and attractiveness. 18


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Overall, there were four conditions combining applicant gender and gender-type occupation (i.e. Emma McDonald and Babies “R” Us, John McDonald and Babies “R” Us, Emma McDonald and Dick’s Sporting Goods, and John McDonald and Dick’s Sporting Goods). Dependent Variable Ratings. The majority of the dependent variables (i.e. competency, social skills, likelihood of recommending applicant for an interview or for hire) were measured with a survey asking participants to rate the applicant on a scale from 1 (would not recommend, not competent, etc.) to 7 (strongly recommend, extremely competent, etc.). The salary recommendation allowed participants to write in how much they believed the applicant should receive if hired. The study provided a range of the average regional director salary in order to limit extreme variability or random guesses. Manipulation checks were in place to see if participants could correctly identify the applicant’s gender as well as what company the applicant was applying for. Demographics were also collected by asking participants to indicate the option that applied to them as well as write in their information, such as their major. Gender-Blind Sexism Inventory (Stoll, Lilley, & Pinter, 2017). Participants took the 11item Gender-Blind Sexism Inventory. It measured participants’ degree of agreement, on a scale of 1-5, on questions on liberalism (“Affirmative action policies benefit women at the expense of men”), naturalization (“Women are naturally more emotional than men”), cultural sexism (“It is important to teach children to behave in gender appropriate ways”), and the minimization of sexism (“Sexism is not a major problem in today’s society”). While this is a new measurement, Stoll, Lilley, and Pinter (2017) established high reliability overall and moderate reliability for each individual frame. This decrease in reliability was attributed to the short number of items. Design The study was a 2 (male evaluator, female evaluator) x 2 (male applicant, female applicant) x 2 (male-type occupation, female-type occupation) between subjects factorial design. The independent variables were gender of evaluator, gender of applicant, and gender-type of occupation. The dependent variables were likelihood of being hired, likelihood of getting an interview, social skills, competency, and starting salary. Procedure The participants filled out a consent form prior to conducting the experiment. Participants were informed that they were acting as a Human Relations Manager and were about to examine a potential employee’s resume. After understanding their role, participants read a job description explaining the company’s business, what responsibilities the job would entail, what skills the applicant should have, as well as the minimum education and work experience requirements. After reading the job description for a regional director of sales (for either the male-type job at Dick’s Sporting Goods or the female-type job at Babies “R” Us), participants examined a resume detailing previous work experience, skillsets, and educational background of either male or female applicant (see Appendix B). After examining the resume, participants filled out a series of ratings about the applicant’s competency, social skills, likelihood of being hired, and likelihood of recommending an interview. In addition to these ratings, participants were given a range of the average salary for an employee in this position and asked to write down what they thought the applicant should be paid if they were hired. To complete the packet, participants filled out demographic information and completed the Gender-Blind Sexism Inventory (Stoll et al., 2017). Because the content of the inventory could have revealed the nature of the study and influenced

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participants’ scores, it was placed at the end of the packet. Once the packet was completed, a debriefing statement was read to participants. Results A 2 x 2 x 2 between subjects ANOVA revealed a main effect of applicant gender, F(1,134) = 4.34, p = .039. Male applicants (M = 5.59, SD = 1.03) were recommended for hire significantly more than female applicants (M = 5.26, SD = 1.44). There was also a significant interaction between applicant gender and evaluator gender, F(1, 134) = 3.94, p = .049. A simple effects test using .05 alpha showed that male participants evaluating male applicants gave significantly higher hiring recommendations than all other conditions: male evaluator/male applicant (M = 6.00, SD = 0.83), male evaluator/female applicant (M = 5.09, SD = 1.54), female evaluator/male applicant (M = 5.37, SD = 1.06), and female evaluator/female applicant (M = 5.35, SD = 1.40). The ANOVA revealed there was not a significant interaction between applicant gender and job type (i.e. Babies “R” Us or Dick’s Sporting Goods) on an applicant’s hiring recommendation rating, F(1,135) =.87, p = .350. Additionally, there was no significant difference in competency ratings, F(1,134) =.00, p = .990, perceived social skills, F(1,134) = .27, p = .610, or recommendation for an interview, F(1,134) = .15, p = .696. Lastly, there was no significant difference in recommended salary for applicant gender, F(1,133) = .20, p = .656, but the ANOVA showed that male participants recommended significantly larger salaries than female participants F(1,133) = .4, p = .004. Discussion This study hypothesized that male applicants would receive higher hiring recommendation ratings than female applicants. This prediction was based on the endorsement of long-standing descriptive gender stereotypes, such as men being the breadwinner and women being the homemaker. The current study supported this hypothesis, as male applicants received significantly higher hiring recommendation ratings than female applicants. This difference in hiring recommendation ratings indicates that gender discrimination in the hiring process is still present in today’s society. A possible explanation for this discrimination can be due the endorsement of the prescriptive stereotypes that males portray agentic identities and women portray communal identities (Hielman, 2001). The components of being agentic, such a being aggressive and results driven, are often desired skills in the workforce. If women are stereotyped to be lacking these traits, then their odds of being hired are lowered (Schein, 1973). The second hypothesis the study tested was an interaction between applicant gender and evaluator gender. Based on the same-gender bias studies, it was hypothesized that male evaluators will give higher hiring recommendation ratings to male applicants over female applicants (Foster et al., 1996). The study supported this hypothesis as the results revealed that the bias to hire male applicants over female applicants magnified when males were the evaluator. This study is consistent with previous research and supports the argument that men are more susceptible to endorsing gender stereotypes (Larsen & Long, 1988). Implications of this result portray a problematic situation for working women as only 27.3% of women make up chief executives and other higher positions of power (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). Since men are often in upper management, they are more likely to be the one in charge of hiring or interviewing. If men continue to make important hiring decisions without being made aware of their gender’s tendency towards same-gender biases and stereotype endorsement, then gender discrimination practices will persist and keep working women at a disadvantage. 20


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The third hypothesis the study tested was based on the role congruity model. The model states that when the requirements of a role, such as a job or form of leadership, is incongruent with the traits ascribed to a person, male or female, then the person is likely to be discriminated against (Eagly & Karau, 2002). With this information, it was hypothesized that applicants who are applying to the gender congruent occupation will receive higher hiring recommendation ratings than applicants whose gender is incongruent with the occupation. This hypothesis was not supported as there was no significant applicant gender difference in hiring recommendation ratings for either gender-type occupation. A possible reason as to why this hypothesis did not produce significant results may be attributed to the job that was assigned for each gender. While the fields (i.e. childcare and sports) were gender-typed, the industry (i.e. retail) from which the jobs came from was the same and contained similar duties. Perhaps the retail industry diminished the gender-type fields’ effects, as research shows that women make up roughly half (i.e. 47.8%) of retail trade (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). Furthermore, the level of leadership required for the position may have impacted the results. Previous research has shown that leadership positions are perceived to possess agentic and masculine features (Koenig et al., 2011). Since the position of regional director required strong leadership skills, participants may have based their decision on the leadership requirement rather than the gender-type field. The dependent variables that were measured, but not tested in the hypotheses, further revealed insights to gender discrimination research. The study showed that there was no significant difference between the male and female applicants’ perceived levels of competency, social skills, or recommended salary. Meaning, participants believed that both applicants were equally capable of fulfilling the jobs’ duties. More revealing was that there was no significant difference in the applicant’s recommendation for an interview. However, when pushing applicants through to the final step of recommending for hire, the male applicants received a significantly higher rating. This finding is consistent with previous research, as Biernat and Kobrynowicz (1997) found that women tend to make it to the “short list,” but when hiring, males are chosen over the female applicants. Based on the equal ratings in all dependent variables one can assume that this difference in recommendation to hire was based on participants’ gender biases and discrimination. This result further demonstrates hypothesis one’s conclusion: gender discrimination in the hiring processes is still present today. While this study found significant results that contributed to gender discrimination research, there were two limitations: uneven gender representation in the data pool and job selection. The first limitation was that the data pool had twice as many female evaluators as there were male evaluators. Seeing as this was one of the primary variables, it would be wise for future studies to have an equal representation in participant gender. The second limitation was the type of job that was selected. Future studies should examine a potential job that does not require strong leadership skills and is more gender-typed. This will help differentiate whether discrimination is based on leadership stereotypes or blatant sexism as well as explore if certain industries mediate gender discrimination. Lastly, while this is not a limitation of the study, it is important to mention how future research should explore how race impacts gender discrimination in the hiring process. The current study only included white applicants, however, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that women who are in upper management roles are typically Caucasian or Asian, while African American and Latino women are underrepresented (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). This discrepancy in management showcases that certain female races may be experiencing even more discrimination in the hiring process than the applicants in this study.

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Therefore, future studies should include additional conditions to see how race impacts gender discrimination in the hiring process. Overall, this study found that gender discrimination in the hiring process is still prominent in today’s society. This study is important because it strengthens research on how gender biases and endorsement of stereotypes influence hiring decisions. Furthermore, it provides support to the idea that male evaluators are more likely to make discriminatory decisions. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2016, women composed 47% of the workforce (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). If one does not recognize the potential biases society places on women, then many women will be unrightfully surpassed in starting or advancing in their careers. This not only affects women, but it is also a loss for society at large as poorly qualified candidates are chosen based on their gender rather than their education and previous work experience. This information can be used to make Human Relations departments and other evaluators, particularly males, aware of the habitual stereotypes and biases society holds. Furthermore, which conditions create the most biased decisions. With this knowledge, evaluators can consciously monitor for any discriminatory practices with their peers or themselves and make serious efforts to lessen these biases. References Bergen, D. J., & Williams, J. E. (1991). Sex stereotypes in the United States revisited: 19721988. Sex Roles, 24, 413-423 Biernat, M., & Kobrynowicz, D. (1997). Gender- and race-based standards of competence: Lower minimum standards but higher ability standards for devalued groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(3), 544-557. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.72.3.544 Bosak, J., & Sczesny, S. (2011). Gender bias in leader selection? Evidence from a hiring simulation study. Sex Roles, 65(3-4), 234-242. doi:10.1007/s11199-011-0012-7 Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor (2017). Women in the labor force (BLS Reports No. 1071) Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/womensdatabook/2017/home.htm Cialdini, R. B., & Trost, M. R. (1998). Social influence: Social norms, conformity, and compliance. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The Handbook of Social Psychology (Vol. 2; 4th ed., pp 151-192). New York, NY McGraw-Hill. Couch, J. V., & Sigler, J. N. (2001). Gender perception in professional occupations. Psychological Reports, 88(3), 693-698. doi:10.2466/PR0.88.3.693-698 Cundiff, J. L., & Vescio, T. K. (2016). Gender stereotypes influence how people explain gender disparities in the workplace. Sex Roles, 75(3-4), 126-138. doi:10.1007/s11199-016-05932 Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role Congruity Theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109, 573–598. Eagly, A. H., Wood, W., & Diekman, A. B. (2000). Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal. In T. Eckes & H. M. Trautmer (Eds.), The Developmental Social Psychology of Gender (pp. 123–174). Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum. Foster, N., Dingman, S., Muscolino, J., & Jankowski, M. A. (1996). Gender in mock hiring decisions. Psychological Reports, 79(1), 275-278. doi:10.2466/pr0.1996.79.1.275

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Gill, M. J. (2004). When information does not deter stereotyping: Prescriptive stereotyping can foster bias under conditions that deter descriptive stereotyping. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 619-632. Harvie, K., Marshall-Mcaskey, J., & Johnston, L. (1998). Gender-based biases in occupational hiring decisions. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28: 1698–1711. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1998.tb01341.x Heilman, M. E. (2001). Description and prescription: How gender stereotypes prevent women's ascent up the organizational ladder. Journal of Social Issues, 57(4), 657-674. doi:10.1111/0022-4537.00234 Hosoda, M., & Stone, D. L. (2000). Current gender stereotypes and their evaluative content. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 90(3,Pt2), 1283-1294. doi:10.2466/PMS.90.3.12831294 Kiesler, S. (1975). Actuarial prejudice toward women and its implications. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 5, 201-216. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1975.tb00676.x Koenig, A. M., Eagly, A. H., Mitchell, A. A., & Ristikari, T. (2011). Are leader stereotypes masculine? A meta-analysis of three research paradigms. Psychological Bulletin, 137(4), 616-642. doi:10.1037/a0023557 Larsen, K. S., & Long, E. (1988). Attitudes toward sex-roles: Traditional or egalitarian? Sex Roles, 19, 1-12. doi:10.1007/BF00292459. Levy, G. D., Sadovsky, A. L., & Troseth, G. L. (2000). Aspects of young children's perceptions of gender-typed occupations. Sex Roles, 42(11-12), 993-1006. doi:10.1023/A:1007084516910 Lueptow, L. B., Garovich, L., & Lueptow, M. B. (1995). The persistence of gender stereotypes in the face of changing sex roles: Evidence contrary to the sociocultural model. Ethology and Sociobiology,16, 509-530 Schein, V. E. (1973). The relationship between sex role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics. Journal of Applied Psychology, 57, 95-100. Stoll, L. C., Lilley, T. G., & Pinter, K. (2017). Gender-Blind Sexism Inventory. Psychtests, doi:10.1037/t59294-000 Tyler, J. M., & McCullough, J. D. (2009). Violating prescriptive stereotypes on job resumes: A self-presentational perspective. Management Communication Quarterly, 23(2), 272-287. doi:10.1177/0893318909341412 U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2017). Charge statistics (Charges filed with EEOC) FY 1997 through FY 2017. Retrieved from https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/charges.cfm

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Styrofoam: Past, Present, and Future

2019

Mary Green

Mary Green, a sophomore mathematical economics major with a minor in communications, got her inspiration from a simple transition. As Smoothie King switched to non-Styrofoam cups, Chick-Fil-A stuck with their trademark Styrofoam. This got her thinking about the use of this product and its inability to be easily disposed. Green feels that the most fulfilling part of doing undergraduate research has been the knowledge she has gained about her specific topic, as well as a better understanding of research techniques and presentation skills. Her mentor, Dr. Daniel Hall, impacted her view of having a growth mindset and using experiential learning across her major and minor. He also helped her realize a passion for the relationship between the environment and economics. After Green graduates from High Point University, she plans to either pursue a career in a field of work in her major or minor, further her education in graduate school, or work in data science. Abstract Many people are aware that Styrofoam is not easily disposed of and cannot be recycled. Fewer are aware there are other environmental and health damages associated with its use. When discussing Styrofoam, it is important to understand its origin and practical and economical uses. The goal of this research is to examine what has been done in the past, what is currently being done, and what should be done in the future regarding Styrofoam. Many cities have worked to ban Styrofoam because of negative environmental and health implications. In addition to bans, people are working to find alternative ways of “recycling� and putting Styrofoam to good use. Do the benefits of reduced damages of these approaches outweigh the abatement costs? Abatement costs refer to the economic impacts of recycling and handling Styrofoam or replacing it altogether with more environmentally friendly alternatives. It is neither efficient nor cost effective for every business to be completely environmentally friendly. Total damages and total abatement costs of all policy alternatives must be considered as well as other alternatives. Reviewing past circumstances, critiquing current approaches, and creating future solutions will help the environment and economy.

I

s banning polystyrene (Styrofoam) efficient environmentally as well as economically, or is a full ban not viable at this point in time? If a ban is not the answer, recycling and permits as alternative policies could be more efficient options. Financial, political, social, and environmental factors should be taken into account. Evaluating environmental policies is key to improvements and development. Reviewing past circumstances, critiquing currents issues, and creating future solutions will help the environment and economy. While evaluating Styrofoam, it is important to understand its origin. Using a previously patented process from Carl Munters, Dow Chemical Company developed Styrofoam in 1941. 24


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Deriving from polystyrene is the material, Styrofoam, created through an expansion-based method in which resin is heated and molded into shape. Its uses span many areas including docks, boats, insulation, and crafts. Styrofoam continues to be used for drink cups and packing material. Its creation came with many valuable attributes that benefit society including how it is water-resistant, lightweight, and buoyant (Cansler). Styrofoam is extremely cheap, which is one of the reasons it can seem attractive for businesses, and consumers indulge in this single-use convenience. Styrofoam is not only lightweight, but resistant to compression, which makes it a good packaging material that reduces breakage. However, when Styrofoam breaks, the beads get everywhere. When a child opens a gift packaged with Styrofoam the parent wants to take the packaging away before that happens. Picture that on a much larger scale with the environment, but it is also important to consider the necessity of the packaging to avoid breaking the gift (Barrett). It is desirable because of its low price, weightlessness, chemical stability, and sterility (Cansler). Soon, challenges would follow these benefits. The desirable properties of Styrofoam create the undesirable pollution. Many people are aware that polystyrene foam is not easily disposed of and cannot be recycled. In addition to the fact polystyrene foam is not environmentally friendly, it contains chemicals which affect the health of those using the products (Daneman). In production, Styrofoam has been shown to correlate cancer with workers in the industry. In disposal, Styrofoam will not biodegrade and accumulates in landfills. Scientists are working to minimize overall damages (Cansler). The damages that Styrofoam causes are major, but the costs to remedy the damages are high. Do the practical purposes outweigh the problems? While people are working to lessen the environmental and health damages, the production is not predicted to lessen. Foam trays are predicted to increase from 31.7 billion in 2009 to 52.8 billion in 2021 (Statista). This predicted increase in production conflicts with the desire to decrease damages. Therefore, in order to address the damages, the production amount needs to be considered and improved. Improvement starts with first reducing the amount of Styrofoam in market circulation, then further measures can be taken to minimize environmental damages. Taking into account the environment and economy, is overall production reduced best through a ban, recycling plan, or a limited and falling supply of Styrofoam production permits? Research shows that a cap-and-trade permit policy is the best current course of action. Environmental and Economic Costs While there can be many damages that accompany the use of Styrofoam, the costs of these damages are not mirrored in the private costs. It creates issues when the cost does not include the overall damages Styrofoam causes to the environment. Research by the Green Dining Alliance and St. Louis University shows, “when considering the cleanup costs, carbon emissions, environmental costs, and potential health effects, the hidden cost of Styrofoam comes out to seven billion dollars, annually.” Twenty-five million Styrofoam cups are used a year and discarded. Additionally, America creates 3 million tons of Styrofoam and 80% will be trashed, and landfills are composed of about 2.5 million tons of Styrofoam annually. It takes more than 500 years for Styrofoam to decompose. Less than one percent of Styrofoam can be recycled. Composed of benzene, styrene, and pentane, Styrofoam should not contact fatty foods, hot drinks, or alcohol because of health implications. The cost of disposing of Styrofoam products and the damage done to the environment are both factors to consider about the worth of using Styrofoam (“The ‘Real Cost’ of Styrofoam Shows More than Meets the Eye”).

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While the environmental impacts are important to consider, the economic impacts are also crucial. Styrofoam supports the economic livelihood of many people. Thousands of jobs are built around Styrofoam, and a ban would cause these jobs to vanish. The banning of Styrofoam would hurt school systems as well as small businesses and restaurants. Additional costs would be handed off to the school systems as many schools use inexpensive foam trays for lunch. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, “In California, the impact of banning foam would estimate to an overall loss (measuring the direct, indirect, and induced effects) of nearly $1.4 billion in output, $335 million in earnings, almost 8,000 jobs, and would also increase consumer spending on disposable foodservice products by about $376 million per year.” Money and jobs would be lost in the process of the ban (“Economic Impact”). Along with an entire industry and communities’ livelihoods resting on Styrofoam, the world market value of polystyrene is only expected to increase. World Polystyrene Market trends upward according to research reports by Markets and Markets, Mordor Intelligence, and Intelliroi; the value increasing from twenty-two dollars in 2014 to over twenty-eight dollars around 2019 or 2020. This would make a full ban of polystyrene detrimental to the economy, especially as the value of the product is increasing. A careful transition away from polystyrene needs to take place to keep a good economic situation intact (“Polystyrene (PS): Production, Market, Price and Its Properties”). Styrofoam is a cumulative pollutant, which means Styrofoam accumulates in the environment at the same rate it is emitted into the environment, as opposed to noncumulative pollutants that dissipate over time. To find a way to reduce pollution, it is necessary to weigh the total damages and the total abatement costs. Abatement costs refer to the economic impacts of recycling and handling Styrofoam or replacing it altogether with more environmentally friendly alternatives. It is neither efficient nor cost effective for every business to be completely environmentally friendly. With cumulative pollutants, it is hard to see long-term impacts and connect causes and effects as well as relay them to the public (Field and Field). It is usually the nature of people to not look at the possible future negative impacts. This creates the issue of being unable to convince people of the environmental and economic impacts the future will carry with heavy burden. Further Benefit-Cost Analysis of Bans Styrofoam (polystyrene) is being banned in more than one hundred cities in the United States as well as in major companies. Dunkin Donuts and McDonald’s committed to remove their Styrofoam products within the next couple years. A ban on Styrofoam was set in China in 1999 only to be left unfollowed, and fourteen years later the ban was lifted. While some companies are concerned for the environment and willingly get rid of Styrofoam products, not all companies see the worth. Enforcing bans and proposing alternatives may be the best way to combat this environmental issue (Barrett). The advantages of banning Styrofoam include reducing environmental and health damages, but the abatement costs can be overpowering. Looking at major bans, Smoothie King is one among many companies making a conscious effort and switching away from Styrofoam. Benefits follow Smoothie King’s switch. Along with creating a cleaner menu, Smoothie King eliminated their Styrofoam cups. These changes support the company’s goal to promote mindfulness. It is a change that is better for the environment, but it is a more expensive switch for the company. The question is whether more people will want to buy smoothies from them because of the company’s environmental consciousness. Smoothie King believes that their customers should not second guess whether or not they are making the 26


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right decision with buying smoothies from their company. Smoothie King reviews their environmental impacts and target demographic and makes the decision that people will be willing to buy their smoothies because of their focus on “cleaner” ingredients and recyclable products (Klein). To Smoothie King, the positive environmental benefits outweighed the high cost of switching, although this is not always the case unless the mission or morals of the company are swayed by public opinion. Switching from Styrofoam to recyclable plastic created brand image benefits for Smoothie King. Smoothie King’s change was not seen positively by everyone and using Styrofoam substitutes can cause problems. The switch to plastic cups can decrease the quality of the product because Styrofoam’s properties keep the product cold for longer. Banning Styrofoam reduces environmental damages, but bans come at a high cost and remove the benefits of the properties of Styrofoam. While there are some good reasons to ban Styrofoam, many reasons are politically driven. Are the economics of the ban being ignored? According to writer Michael Shindler, a ban “does not decrease overall litter but causes a shift in litter to other materials.” Some alternatives such as paper products can create even more pollution than Styrofoam. The bans do not end up reducing that much waste but end up increasing costs because of product substitutes. Many times, the intentions of the ban are rhetoric driven and become part of the bandwagon without much research conducted which may cause issues impacting the future environment and economy (Shindler). Another problem with banning Styrofoam is that Styrofoam cannot always be easily replaced by a substitute such as plastic because it does not serve the necessary purpose and it is not practical yet. When switching to an alternative, the costs are very high, especially with how inexpensive Styrofoam is. Axel Barrett, founder and editor of BioplasticsNews.com, predicts an alternative called Polylactic acid is the next best material to use, but it is expensive. Currently, there is only one major Polylactic acid producer, NatureWorks, but another factory will be functional soon in Thailand. Therefore, right now the cost of enforcing a policy to switch to Polylactic acid as a full-time alternative is not viable. It is appropriate environmentally speaking because it is a bioplastic, but it fails to be economically sound because of the lack of availability and compatibility with packaging systems. There are not enough suppliers to meet the demand of the consumers in the industry of Polylactic acid (Barrett). According to a report through a partnership with the Green Dining Alliance, St. Louis Earth Day, and St. Louis University MBA program students, the demand of Styrofoam in California alone is 520 kilotons per annum (Kt/a) (“The ‘Real Cost’ of Styrofoam Shows More than Meets the Eye”). Adding up the total capacity of the top seven manufacturers of Polylactic acid, the total comes to 350 Kt/a (“Polylactic Acid Properties, Production, Price, Market and Uses”). With the current production, the substitute can only meet 67% of the demand in California alone, if the price differences are ignored. Therefore, the suppliers of Polylactic acid would not come close to meeting nationwide or global demand. When supply falls short of demand, there becomes a shortage of the product. Polylactic acid will only be worth the costs if enough people are willing to invest and improve the technology of production and distribution.

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Styrofoam Recycling While no one wants Styrofoam in landfills, bans still get overturned; so, recycling methods could be the solution. A barge from New York containing 3,100 tons of waste including Styrofoam attempted to drop off their waste in a landfill in North Carolina. This failed, and the barge was forced to look for another disposal site, which was unsuccessful (Martinelli). The American Chemistry Council advocates for a type of recycling plan as opposed to a ban to get consumers positively involved and continue with some pilot projects that already exist. According to the USA Today article by Matthew Daneman, Andrew Moesel of the New York State Restaurant Association states, “the restaurant industry ‘“generally likes to be on the cutting edge of environmental protection, make it more green. But (alternatives) have to be affordable. Our concern has always been the bottom line, especially with mom-and-pop and ethnic-type restaurants. If you're running a small Chinese restaurant, you can run through 500 cartons a day.”’ It may be a difficult shift at first, but as more cities switch to alternatives of Styrofoam it should be a better economic situation (Daneman). As substitutes get produced and used more widely, there will be economies of scale and learning-curve effects. The more people entering the industry of alternatives of Styrofoam will lead to the costs of the substitutes lowering and some of the lost jobs coming back. In switching to alternatives, there are short-run costs but also dynamic long-run effects that may be more positive. As this USA Today article shows, a recycling plan may be possible, and substitutes will not be feasible until a less expensive alternative becomes available. Further possible solutions are being investigated. One of which includes Agilyx, a chemical recycling company creating a Styrofoam process that results in a high-quality synthetic crude oil which makes Styrofoam a renewable resource. Economic reasons prevent this form of recycling from being a viable option. According to Agilyx Vice President of Operations Brian Moe, this recycling of Styrofoam does not fit cohesively with the current waste system. No company seems capable to take on the full responsibility of the costs attached with Styrofoam recycling because of the high costs associated with chemical recycling (Martinelli). According to Catherine Solyom in the Edmonton Journal, “The technology does exist, says Tamer Boyaci, an assistant professor at the Desautels faculty of management at McGill University -- the problem is the cost. ‘It's not viable because this type of plastic is very light and takes up a lot of space, so it has a low scrap value. People are not interested in collecting it.’” It takes more than one organization or group to solve this issue (Solyom). Widespread interest must be involved in order to gain speed on the issue. Many different solutions have been proposed by many researchers from various fields. For example, concerned teens worked to create a way to recycle Styrofoam. They developed a process of recycling to produce activated carbon as a result. Activated carbon is a key component in purifying water, which could help the many communities in need of clean drinking water. Not only is this a way to recycle Styrofoam, but it also gives clean water to over 2.1 billion people in a cost-effective way. The teens may have successfully helped solve two environmental problems. Their methods could become a widespread solution through more research and development (McCarthy). Unfortunately, this solution does not get rid of all the environmental damages, and the development and installation of the water purifier still have their own costs. On the other hand, the method allows for the benefits of Styrofoam and its desirable properties to be used as well as the more expensive costs of substitutes to be avoided. It is easier to develop better handling and recycling procedures than to require everyone to entirely remove Styrofoam from their company because of the industry support and the cheapness and convenience of Styrofoam. 28


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More ways to recycle Styrofoam are being created. Studies show mealworms can digest polystyrene, which would be a way to dispose of Styrofoam in a suitable way. Burning polystyrene at high temperatures is another possible solution in which only water and carbon dioxide result from the reaction, and electricity can be created (Shindler). In Canada, efforts to recycle polystyrene are now funded. Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) is funding GreenMantra Technologies in constructing a recycling plant that converts polystyrene into ink, insulation, and more. This started in 2018 and will continue to make strides in recycling in Canada because of SDTC’s $2.2 million investment (Greenwalt). Their recycling methods can be used as an example to other nations. Contrasting from bans and recycling, there are several policies that could help with the Styrofoam issue. Moral suasion could be a policy enforced to reduce and ultimately eliminate the use and production of Styrofoam. Moral suasion appeals to people’s morals and prompts them to act accordingly. Researchers and professors Ernesto Dal Bó and Pedro Dal Bó conclude, “In our experiment, the interaction of moral suasion and the presence of punishments appears important to sustain cooperation when moral messages or punishments alone could not do so.” The study found effective yet temporary results. This may not be the ultimate solution (Dal Bó and Dal Bó). Deposit-Refund Systems use both a tax and a subsidy. The system rewards people for disposing of the item in an environmentally friendly way. Differing from moral suasion, this monetary incentive-based system could be used in order to promote more environmentally friendly use of Styrofoam which may work better than merely swaying actions with morals. The government could also provide subsidies for those companies that invest in trying substitutes. This would provide higher incentives for more research and development in substitutes making the future full transition away from Styrofoam viable because of more availability and understanding of the alternatives (Field and Field). Cap-and-Trade Permits Cap-and-trade policies could be used to allow tradeable permits for production while only having a certain number of permits available to keep production to a minimum (Field and Field). It is necessary to encourage a transition away from Styrofoam while allowing enough time and incentives for the switch. This policy also allows for a smoother transition without using too much taxpayer money in the process. When analyzing supply and demand for permits, the supply of permits Styrofoam production is shown as a vertical line, displaying constant quantity. As quantity of permits is reduced, the supply of permits shifts left and the price is increased, reducing Styrofoam use to only the higher valued uses (Field and Field). Possibly differing from the opinion on other policies besides a full ban of Styrofoam, environmentalists may approve of the cap-and-trade policies if it would allow them to purchase their own production permits and tear the permits up. Since everyone has the right to buy the permits, the environmentalists could reduce some of the production. Styrofoam producers would approve of the cap-and-trade over the full ban as well because it would allow them to keep producing. With the margin between their old supply curve and their new curve, producers could use the money left over in their budget to invest in Styrofoam substitutes which would ultimately lower abatement costs. This may help with a more gradual transition away from Styrofoam with expiration dates on the production permits instead of an abrupt disruption of the Styrofoam industry involving the suppliers and consumers. This policy suggestion is a good balance between the environmental and economic impacts. The number of permits available would be set at the efficient number where the marginal damages 29


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equal the marginal abatement costs of Styrofoam. It would ultimately be cost effective if the producers allocated their funds to investing in biodegradable substitutes (Field and Field). The Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program is used to “identify and evaluate substitutes in end-uses that have historically used ozone-depleting substances.” An additional incentive for investing in substitutes may be allowing companies more permit credits for submitting substitutes to the SNAP program of the Environmental Protection Agency (“Overview of SNAP”). If the producers can only produce a limited amount of Styrofoam, there will be a higher incentive for advancements in substitutes that will lead to better profits and company likeability. Providing an economically sound and smooth transition away from Styrofoam, this policy for Styrofoam would be fair for both environmentalists and consumers as well as producers. The prime situation would allow the policy to use horizontal equity, treating people in similar situations in the same way. Cap-and-trade is a centralized policy, making it easier for regulatory agencies to set and enforce production limits (Field and Field). Starting on the supply side of the economy, this policy would reduce the entire amount of Styrofoam in circulation within the market. Conclusion The economics of banning Styrofoam now are not very promising. The costs seem to outweigh the benefits of a full ban occurring worldwide. The technology is not fully developed for creation of sustainable alternatives. Not enough people are concerned to invest in the costly issue and create viable solutions. These alternative biodegradable substitutes sound beneficial in theory for the environment and can ultimately result in a solution. As production and investments increase, the industry of biodegradable substitutes for Styrofoam will become a stable economy. Right now, a full ban is not economically sustainable, but the future of biodegradable substitutes may be the solution. Mealworms, creation of electricity, production of crude oil, and water purification systems are all ways Styrofoam can be recycled. The environmental costs of Styrofoam are extremely high, but the economic costs of removing Styrofoam altogether outweighs the environmental costs at this point in time. The best policy, until a full ban can be completed, is a retiring capand-trade system in which suppliers earn permits for recycling Styrofoam or utilizing some substitutes. This cost-effective policy will ultimately lead to a better world with both economic and environmental impacts in mind. The future looks promising as technology improves, scientific research continues, and environmentalists and economists invest. The world needs more improvements, investors, and involvement. Once concern is paired with action regarding a cap-and-trade policy with permits, the outlook of the benefits overpowering costs to society will improve.

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Works Cited Barrett, Axel. “The Future of Polystyrene.” Bioplastics News, 8 Aug. 2018, bioplasticsnews.com/2018/08/08/future-of-polystyrene/. Cansler, Clay. “Styrofoam, a Practical and Problematic Creation.” Science History Institute, Science History Institute, 2018, www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/styrofoam-apractical-and-problematic-creation. Dal Bó, Ernesto, and Pedro Dal Bó. “‘Do the Right Thing:" The Effects of Moral Suasion on Cooperation.” Science Direct, Elsevier, Sept. 2014, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272714001091#s0035. Daneman, Matthew. “More Cities Ban Polystyrene Foam, Citing Environment.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 21 Dec. 2013, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/21/polystyrene-foam-ban/4141835/. “Economic Impact.” GoFoam, GoFoam, 2018, gofoam.org/economic-impact/. Field, Barry C, and Martha K Field. Environmental Economics: An Introduction. The McGrawHill Companies, 2017. Klein, Danny. “Smoothie King Is Ditching Sugar, Styrofoam Cups.” QSR Magazine, Journalistic, Inc., Oct. 2017, www.qsrmagazine.com/health-wellness/smoothie-kingditching-sugar-styrofoam-cups. Martinelli, Katherine. “Is the 30-Year-Long Styrofoam War Nearing Its End?” JSTOR Daily, ITHAKA, 9 Oct. 2018, daily.jstor.org/is-the-30-year-long-styrofoam-war-nearing-its-end/. McCarthy, Joe. “These 3 Teens Figured Out a Brilliant Way to Recycle Styrofoam.” Global Citizen, Global Poverty Project, Inc, 7 June 2018, www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/teens-recycling-styrofoam-carbon-water-purificatio/. “Overview of SNAP.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 14 June 2017, www.epa.gov/snap/overview-snap. “Polylactic Acid Properties, Production, Price, Market and Uses.” Plastics Insight, Plastics Insight, 2018, www.plasticsinsight.com/resin-intelligence/resin-prices/polylactic-acid/. “Polystyrene (PS): Production, Market, Price and Its Properties.” Plastics Insight, Plastics Insight, 2018, www.plasticsinsight.com/resin-intelligence/resin-prices/polystyrene/. Shindler, Michael. “Polystyrene Bans Are Indefensible.” Edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell, The American Spectator, 2 Aug. 2018, spectator.org/polystyrene-bans-are-indefensible/. Solyom, Catherine. "Styrofoam Dilemma: Cheap but Forever; Ubiquitous Plastic Too Expensive to Recycle." Edmonton Journal, Mar 10, 2009. ProQuest, http://libproxy.highpoint.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/250604353?ac countid=11411. Statista; Transparency Market Research; PR Newswire; Market volume of foam trays worldwide in 2009 and 2021 (in billion units); Statista, 2019 “The ‘Real Cost’ of Styrofoam Shows More than Meets the Eye.” Green Dining Alliance, Green Dining Alliance, 10 Oct. 2017, greendiningalliance.org/2016/12/the-real-cost-ofstyrofoam/.

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The Role of Academic Identity and Feedback Type in Predicting Academic Motivation Katie James Katie James submitted this paper as a recent graduate of High Point University. She is currently attending the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to obtain her Master of Science and Educational Specialist degree in school counseling. During her time at HPU, James studied psychology and human relations. As an aspiring counselor, she has always had an interest in what motivates people to pursue certain professions, especially with the variety of obstacles that can stand in the way of success in every profession such as necessary skills, levels of education, licenses, and sometimes limited job opportunities. She credits Dr. Kirsten Li-Barber, the skills she helped to develop, and the knowledge she shared, as what’s helped most in James’ graduate studies. After receiving her master’s degree, she hopes to be a licensed professional counselor and a professional school counselor. Abstract James Marcia (1966)’s original research on the four major identity statuses (achieved, moratorium, foreclosed and diffused) have helped explain developmental outcomes related to university performance and early career success (Allen, 2011; Crocetti et al., 2013; Mancini et al., 2015), with findings pointing to the role of achieved identity being positively associated with both academic success and career performance. The current study attempts to expand on this existing body of literature by examining the role of identity status on day-to-day academic experiences (e.g., motivation to pursue an academic or career goal), and the potential moderating role of feedback regarding one’s academic aptitude using a two-part experimental study. Participants included an initial sample of 103 undergraduate university students (N = 76 female) between the ages of 18 and 27 years (M=19.49; SD = 1.39) Two were dropped due to missing data. The majority identified as Caucasian (84.2%). In part one, participants completed a measure of career aptitude and in part 2 met individually with the researcher who either delivered false or positive feedback regarding their “fit” for their current major followed by a questionnaire on academic motivation. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the identity dimension “reconsideration of commitment” emerged as the most consistent predictor of motivation, while feedback predicted motivation related to a student’s ability to make a choice about their major. Findings support the use of questionnaires assessing academic identity development to help predict student academic motivation.

S

tudent attrition is a major concern for many higher education institutions (Ascend Learning, 2012). Mestan (2016) found in a survey of undergraduate students in liberal arts institutions that career direction and purpose were the top-cited reasons for students who chose to either remain or drop out of a college program. Tinto (1975, 2005) theorized that lack of commitment to an academic program is also related to student dropout rates. This has prompted some researchers to investigate specific internal and external factors that may influence a 32


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student’s decision to continue within an academic program, change programs, or dropout of college altogether. Identification with a chosen academic track (Chittum & Jones, 2017; Matsushima & Ozaki, 2015) and feedback regarding performance and aptitude (Senko & Harackiewicz, 2005) have been identified as related to future levels of motivation and persistence within a program. Understanding the unique contributions that each make toward explaining a student’s motivation to succeed in an academic setting could provide valuable insight into understanding a student’s aptitude for success and retention within an academic program. Literature Review James Marcia’s (1966) theory of identity statuses provided a method for operationally defining and quantifying the elements believed to be associated with identity development. According to Marcia, identity development occurs in reaction to crisis, or an individual being forced to make important choices about their lives. The degree to which an individual has both engaged in active exploration and commitment results in the development of a global identity, which is oftentimes characterized as being either “Achieved,” (commitment resulting from active exploration of alternative options), “Foreclosed” (strong commitment in the absence of adequate exploration), “Moratorium” (active exploration without strong commitment), or “Diffusion” (lack of a desire to engage in active exploration and low levels of commitment). Contemporary research has operationalized the definitions of commitment and exploration as well as defined a third identity dimension of reconsideration of commitment (Crocetti, Rubini & Meeus, 2008). Reconsideration of commitment is when a person compares their present, yet unsatisfactory commitments and potential alternatives. Research focusing on factors associated with academic success in college students has uncovered linkages between aspects of an individual’s identity development and his/her predictive success in an academic setting. Specifically, the connection seems to be related to a student’s overall academic motivation. Academic motivation is considered one of the biggest predictors of academic success (Sarra, Fontanella & Di Zio, 2018), and is linked to identity development. Identification with success in academics is associated with the desire for learning for the sake of mastery of new skills (Komarraju & Dial, 2014), and strong identification with a specific academic program is also associated with greater motivation to continue within that program (Perez, Cromley & Kaplan, 2014). Identity status has also been found to predict academic motivation. In general, students whose identity development was “Achieved” or “Searching Moratorium” tend to report greater success in both academic and interpersonal domains (Osborne & Jones, 2011), whereas individuals who are high in reconsideration of commitment were perceived to be at increased risk for negative outcomes (Beyers & Luyckx, 2016), and academic identity statuses have been consistently linked with motivation to succeed. Endorsing a strong academic identity overall has been associated with higher levels of motivation and goal setting behavior in comparison to possessing a weaker identification with an academic program (Komarraju & Dial, 2014; Osborne, 1997; Pop, Negru-Subtirica, Crocetti, Opre & Meeus, 2016), as well as retention in specific academic programs (Perez, Cromley & Kaplan, 2014). Another factor that may influence the relationship between academic motivation and identity status is a student’s assessment of performance. Student assessments, such as receiving academic grades, has been consistently linked with academic success (Rinfret et al., 2014; Stephan Caudroit, Bioché & Sarrazin, 2011), and receiving a poor grade or negative assessment of one’s ability in a specific academic domain could decrease a student’s motivation for continuing 33


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within, or attempting success in their field of study altogether. The construct of motivation has also been, in turn, conceptualized as a broader umbrella construct comprised of multiple different forms. Guay, Vallerand and Blanchard (2000) differentiated the construct of motivation into four main types: Intrinsic motivation (motivation to engage in behavior due to the inherent qualities of that activity), external regulation (engaging in a behavior for perceived rewards or avoiding a negative outcome), identified regulation (motivation is centered on one’s ability to autonomously choose a behavior themselves), and a fourth dimension termed amotivation, which is a lack of either intrinsically or extrinsically oriented motivation. Research has already documented the role of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on academic success (Whitehead, 1984; Vallerand & Bissonnette,1992; Boiche & Stephan, 2014) in that students who are intrinsically motivated to learn tend to do better academically versus those who are driven by more externally motivated reasons. In addition, the construct of amotivation has received particular attention as it has been found to be a strong predictor of academic success (Cannard, Lannegrand-Willems, Safont-Mottay & Zimmermann, 2016; Leroy & Bressoux, 2016). While some evidence does exist linking identity dimensions to motivation (Walker, Green & Mansell, 2006; Osborne & Jones, 2011), to date, no known study exists examining the role of feedback on motivation to be academically successful, or research examining the contribution of both identity dimension and feedback together in one study. The purpose of the current study is to examine the contributions of commitment, exploration, reconsideration of commitment, as well as the role of feedback regarding potential for career success, on students’ motivation to continue in an academic program. We hypothesized a few relationships based on the existing literature pertaining to identity statuses and the relationship to motivation. First, high commitment and in-depth exploration would be predictive of higher intrinsic motivation to complete an academic program. Reconsideration of commitment has been linked in previous literature with lower levels of psychological adjustment (see Beyers & Luyckx, 2016); therefore, we hypothesize that this dimension would also be related to lower levels of both intrinsic motivation as well as higher levels of amotivation. Guay, Vallerand, and Blanchard (2000) also conceptualized the construct of identified regulation motivation as a component of extrinsic motivation, although currently no research exists linking this motivation type to identity statuses; therefore, we have no specific hypothesis regarding this particular type of motivation. With respect to feedback, we hypothesized that there would be an interaction between the dimensions of commitment and indepth exploration where lower levels of commitment and exploration combined with negative feedback would predict lower levels of motivation, but at higher levels of commitment and exploration, feedback would not significantly predict a change in motivation levels. Method

Participants A total of 103 undergraduate university students (N = 76 female) were initially recruited to participate in the study. Two participants were removed from the dataset due to missing data. Of the 101 remaining, 84.2% were Caucasian between the ages of 18 and 27 with a mean age of 19.49 (SD = 1.39). The sample included 50.5% sophomores, 24.8% freshmen, 15.8% juniors, and 8.9% seniors who all have declared an academic major prior to the beginning of the study. Approximately half were assigned to the positive feedback group (N = 50) and the remainder

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were assigned to the negative feedback group. There were no significant differences in age, race or gender between the two feedback groups, p > 0.05. Materials Holland Codes Assessment. The Holland Codes Assessment is a 42-item career inventory that generates six subcategories of personality types (MnCareers, 2015). This measure was used to provide face validity to the feedback given in the second part of the study; therefore, the assessment was not scored. Ultrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale. The Ultrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS; Crocetti et al., 2008) is a 26-item assessment of identity dimensions. The U-MICS has two subscales: relational identity and educational identity. Both subscales are composed of three additional subscales of identity dimensions: commitment, indepth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment. Commitment refers to assimilating goals, values and beliefs into one’s identity. In-depth exploration refers to the contemplation of existing and alternative commitments, goals, values and beliefs. Reconsideration of commitment refers to the comparison of present, yet unsatisfactory commitments and potential alternatives. For the purpose of this study, only the educational identity subscale was used. Confirmatory factor analyses of the subscales and U-MICS as a whole have suggested the measure has moderately high validity and reliability (see Crocetti et al., 2008; Crocetti, Schwartz, Fermani & Meeus, 2010). The items on the U-MICS were minorly adjusted for the purposes of this study with the term “education” replaced with “academic major.” For example, instead of “My education gives me security in life,” the item was administered saying “My academic major gives me security in life.” Situational Motivation Scale. The Situational Motivation Scale (SIMS; Guay, Vallerand & Blanchard, 2000), a state motivation scale that generates four motivation subscales: intrinsic motivation (engaging in behaviors for their own merit and the internal satisfaction that results from doing them), identified regulation (engaging in behaviors not for its own sake but because they value having been able to choose the behavior themselves), external regulation (obligation to engage in a behavior for rewards or the avoidance of negative consequences or punishment), and amotivation (lacking intrinsic or extrinsic motivation and not experiencing selfdetermination, purpose, or expectations). The items on the SIMS were slightly modified for the purposes of this study (e.g., the original publication of the SIMS (Guay, Vallerand & Blanchard, 2000) stated the item “Because I think that this activity is interesting” and this was changed to say “Because I think this major’s content is interesting.”). Procedure Data collection was completed across two different sessions. In the first session, groups of participants completed a copy of the Holland Codes Inventory as well as the U-MICS. Packets were presorted to either a positive or negative-feedback follow up session, and a numerical code was added at the end of session one to link the data from the two sessions. In session two, participants met with the researcher one-on-one to discuss the results of their Holland Code inventory. Based on the feedback group they were assigned to, participants were either given fictitious positive or negative feedback about their performance (see Appendix A). Participants were then asked to complete a feedback questionnaire regarding their reaction to their scores and a copy of the Situational Motivation Scale. Participants were then fully debriefed and excused. 35


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Results Validity Check A one-way ANOVA was used to check the validity of feedback type manipulation using the question “On a scale of 1 to 10, how pleased were you with the results?” Results indicated a significant group difference, F(1, 99) = 331.04, p < 0.001, with those in the positive feedback group reporting higher feelings of satisfaction than the negative feedback group. Analyses A series of hierarchical regression analyses were run. In the first model, demographic variables such as gender, ethnicity, GPA, academic year, and age were added. In the second model, the three identity dimensions of commitment, in-depth exploration and reconsideration of commitment were included. In the third model, feedback type was included. In the fourth model, interaction terms were added for feedback by each identity dimension. Correlations Pearson correlations were used to examine the existence of a relationship between academic identity status and academic motivation levels. Results indicated that the dimension commitment was positively correlated with intrinsic motivation (r = 0.44, p < 0.001), identified regulation motivation (r = 0.45, p < 0.001), and negatively with amotivation (r = -0.35, p < 0.001). In-depth exploration was positively correlated with intrinsic motivation (r = 0.43, p < 0.001), and identified regulation motivation (r = 0.34, p < 0.001). Reconsideration of commitment was negatively correlated with intrinsic motivation (r = -0.50, p < 0.001), identified regulation motivation (r = -0.49, p < 0.001), as well as positively correlated with external regulation motivation (r = 0.22, p < 0.05) and amotivation (r = 0.64, p < 0.001). See Table 1. Regressions Given the results of the correlations, we continued to an examination of the predictive relationship between identity status and feedback type on academic motivation. To examine the contributions of each of the dimensions of identity on levels of motivation, a series of hierarchical multiple regressions were performed. In the first step, demographic variables (e.g., gender, ethnicity, GPA and age) were added. In the second step, the three identity dimensions were included, followed by feedback type in the third step. The fourth and final step included the interaction terms of feedback type with each of the identity dimensions. Tests for multicollinearity and tolerance indicated no evidence of multicollinearity among the predictor variables, and tolerance was within acceptable ranges (tolerance < 1.0, VIF < 2). The results of the regression analyses are displayed in Tables 2-5. For intrinsic motivation, both in-depth exploration (β = 0.26, p < 0.01) and reconsideration of commitment (β = -0.44, p < 0.001) were found to be significant, F(8, 94) = 8.56, p < 0.001, accounting for a combined 38% of the variance (∆F = 19.79, p < 0.001). Inclusion of the feedback variable (∆F = 1.74, p > 0.05) and interaction terms (∆F = 0.43, p > 0.05) did not significantly change the model. Identified regulation motivation was predicted by commitment (β = 0.26, p < 0.05), in-depth exploration (β = 0.22, p < 0.05), and reconsideration of commitment (β = -0.32, p < 0.01), F(8, 96) = 6.97, p < 0.001, and together accounted for an additional 35% of the variance (∆F = 16.97, p < 0.001). Feedback type was also significant, F(9, 96) = 7.66, p < 0.001, with positive feedback being associated with higher levels of identified regulation motivation (β = 0.24,p < 0.01). Feedback 36


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type accounted for an additional 5% of the variance (∆F = 8.47, p < 0.01). The addition of interaction terms did not significantly change the model (∆F = 1.94, p > 0.05). For external regulation, neither the demographic variables, F(5, 94) = 0.63, p > 0.05, identity dimensions, F(8, 94) = 1.08, p > 0.05, feedback type, F(9, 94) = 0.96, p > 0.05, nor the interaction terms, F(12, 94) = 1.74, p > 0.05, were significant. For the fourth and final dependent variable of amotivation, reconsideration of commitment (β = 0.56, p < 0.001) was found to be a significant predictor, F(8, 90) = 7.44, p < 0.001. The inclusion of the identity dimensions accounted for an additional 37% of the variance (∆F = 17.59, p < 0.001). The inclusion of the variable feedback type (∆F = 0.73, p > 0.05) and the interaction terms (∆F = 2.23, p > 0.05) did not significantly change the models. Discussion Previous research (Walker et al., 2006; Osborne & Jones, 2011) has indicated a potential link between identity development and academic success and motivation. Individuals highly committed to a chosen major or actively exploring options have been found to have higher chances of academic success and continued motivation to pursue their academic goals compared to individuals higher in reconsideration and lower in commitment (Pop et al., 2016). In this study, we examined the predictive value of identity formation and feedback on different forms of motivation for academic success. Our results indicated that the identity dimension of commitment was positively associated with identified regulation motivation, meaning the more students are committed to their academic major, the more likely they will be motivated to complete their academic program due to the autonomy of selecting their own major. Contrary to previous research and our hypothesis, commitment was not a significant predictor of intrinsic motivation, suggesting that being committed to a specific academic program did not necessarily mean that one was also intrinsically motivated to complete that program. In-depth exploration was positively associated with intrinsic motivation and identified regulation, meaning the more someone explores possible commitments and alternatives, the more likely a person is to be motivated to complete their academic program due to the inherent qualities of the major as well as by the autonomy of selecting a major and the overall notoriety of completing the program. Reconsideration of commitment was negatively related to intrinsic motivation, indicating that the more a student contemplates ending or altering commitments, the less likely he/she is motivated to complete his/her academic program due to the inherent qualities of that major. Reconsideration of commitment was also negatively related to identified regulation, meaning the more a student tends to contemplate ending or altering his/her commitments, the less motivation the student derives from the notoriety and autonomy of selecting that major for themselves. Lastly, levels of amotivation were significantly predicted by reconsideration of commitment with higher levels of reconsideration of commitment, predicting higher tendencies for students to have a lack of desire to complete their academic program. Feedback emerged as a significant variable for identified regulation motivation. A closer examination of the contribution of feedback indicated that students who were randomly assigned to the positive feedback group scored higher on identified regulation motivation compared to students in the negative feedback group. This could potentially be a result of positive feedback validating their pride in the fact they made an academic major selection they are being told they will do well in.

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With college student retention and academic success as a major concern among universities (Ascend Learning, 2012), it is important to consider how identity dimensions influence motivation as motivation has been linked to academic performance and success (Whitehead, 1984; Vallerand & Bissonnette, 1992; Bioche & Stephan, 2014). The current study illustrates how identity dimensions can be used to predict academic motivation. Our findings showed that of the identity dimensions studied, reconsideration of commitment was the most consistent in predicting different types of academic motivation, suggesting that knowing the extent to which a student is reconsidering their academic program could be enough to predict levels of academic motivation. Feedback was not a consistent predictor of academic motivation. This suggests single-episode, immediate feedback about students’ fit and potential for career success with their academic program may not influence academic motivation overall. The identity dimensions of commitment, in-depth exploration and reconsideration of commitment in combination with feedback did not significantly impact academic motivation, meaning that students with low levels of commitment or in-depth exploration are not at a greater risk for deficits in motivation as hypothesized. However, the current study only assessed motivation levels after a single-episode of feedback; therefore, it is unknown what the impacts of frequent feedback episodes over time. Moreover, the type of feedback given addressed a student’s overall fit with and competency to be successful with the major he/she had selected. Future research may want to assess whether these findings are exacerbated when feedback occurs more often and over longer periods of time; additionally, future studies may want to utilize different types of feedback such as poor test scores, specific criticism on academic majorrelated performance. It is also possible the relationship between identity and academic success could be mediated by motivation given that identity dimensions were able to predict levels of academic motivation. Future studies may want to assess the moderating effects of motivation when addressing the link between identity dimensions and academic success. There are several limitations that should be addressed. First, the study was limited by sample size and homogeneity of the sample. Many of our students were freshmen and sophomores in college (N = 76), and it is possible their motivation levels, as well as their reaction to the feedback they received regarding their success in their program may be characteristically different than juniors and seniors in college who do not have the flexibility to change their academic program and still graduate as planned. Additionally, the majority of our sample contained Caucasian females attending a private university and many came from upper-middle class socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds. This could have impacted our findings as identity development patterns could be different for a sample of participants with high SES backgrounds compared to those who come from lower SES backgrounds (Manstead, 2018). Feedback may also be less important in high SES students’ evaluations of their academic success because they have a support system and resources to fall back, potentially explaining why feedback was not consistently a significant predictor of all types of academic motivation. Future research could expand on the relationship between identity development and academic motivation and success by exploring the potential role of socioeconomic status and availability of resources as potential moderators. The current study attempted to expand on the existing body of literature regarding student identity and motivation by examining the role of identity status on academic motivation and the potential moderating role of feedback regarding one’s academic aptitude. Feedback did not have a significant influence on student motivation, suggesting students who have selected an academic major may be resilient to negative feedback. The current study does seem to indicate a 38


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connection between identity and motivation. The findings from this study serve to underscore the value of college personnel assisting students in exploring options for academic majors, as well as emphasizing the need to help students become fully engaged and identify with their chosen academic major to maximize their chances of success. References Ascend Learning, LLC (2012). Student attrition: consequences, contributing factors, and remedies. ATI Nursing Education, 1-11. Beyers, W. & Luyckx, K. (2016). Ruminative exploration and reconsideration of commitment as risk factors for suboptimal identity development in adolescence and emerging adulthood. Journal of Adolescence, 47, 169-178. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.10.018 BoichÊ, J. & Stephan, Y. (2014). Motivational profiles and achievement: A prospective study testing potential mediators. Motivation and Emotion, 38, 79-92. doi: 10.1007/s11031-013-9361-6 Cannard, C., Lannegrand-Willems, L., Safont-Mottay, C. & Zimmermann, G. (2016). Brief report: Academic amotivation in light of the dark side of identity formation. Journal of Adolescence, 47, 179-184. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.10.002 Chittum, J. R. & Jones, B. D. (2017). Identifying pre-high school students’ science class motivation profiles to increase their science identification and persistence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(8), 1163-1187. doi: 10.1037/edu0000176 Crocetti, E., Rubini, M. & Meeus, W. (2008). Capturing the dynamics of identity formation in various ethnic groups: Development and validation of a three-dimensional model. Journal of Adolescence 31, 207-222. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2007.09.002 Crocetti, E., Schwartz, S. J., Fermani, A., & Meeus, W. (2010). The Utrecht- Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS). European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 26(3), 172-186. doi:10.1027/1015-5759/a000024 Guay, F., Vallerand, R. J., & Blanchard, C. (2000). Situational Motivation Scale. Motivation and Emotion, 24(3), 175-213. doi:10.1037/t12678-000 Komarraju, M. & Dial, C. (2014). Academic identity, self-efficacy, and self-esteem predict selfdetermined motivation and goals. Learning and Individual Differences, 32, 1-8. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2014.02.004 Leroy, N. & Bressoux, P. (2016). Does amotivation matter more than motivation in predicting mathematics learning gains? A longitudinal study of sixth-grade students in France. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 44-45, 41-53. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2016.02.0 Matsushima, R. & Ozaki, H. (2015). Relationships between identity and academic motivation. Psychological Reports: Mental & Physical Health, 117(1), 217-229. doi: 10.2466/07.10PR0.117c16z7 Manstead, A. S. (2018), The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour. British Journal of Social Psychology, 57, 267-291. of university students. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 89, 140-150. doi:10.1111/bjso.12251 Marcia, J. E. (1966). Development and validation of ego identity status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3(3), 551-558. MNCareers (2015). Holland Codes Career Assessment. CAREERwise Education. Osborne, J. W. & Jones, B. D. (2011). Identification with academics and motivation to achieve in school: How the structure of the self-influences academic outcomes. Educational Psychology Review, 23, 131-158. doi: 10.1007/s10648-011-9151-1 39


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Osborne, J. W. (1997). Identification with academics and academic success among community college students. Community College Review, 25(1), 59-67. Perez, T., Cromley, J. G. & Kaplan, A. (2014). The role of identity development, values, and costs in college STEM retention. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(1), 315-329. doi: 10.1037/a0034027 Pop, E. I., Negru-Subtirica, O., Crocetti, E., Opre, A. & Meeus, W. (2016). On the interplay between academic achievement and educational identity: A longitudinal study. Journal of Adolescence, 47, 135-144. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.11.004 Rinfret, N., Tougas, F., Beaton, A. M., Laplante, J., Manguelle, C. N. & Lagacé, M. C. (2014). The long and winding road: grades, psychological disengagement and motivation among female students in (non-)traditional career paths. Social Psychology Education, 17, 637,656. doi: 10.1007/s11218-014-9271-9 Sarra, A., Fontanella, L. & Di Zio, S. (2018). Identifying students at risk of academic failure within the educational data mining framework. Social Indicators Research. doi: 10.1007/s11205-018-1901-8 Senko, C. & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2005). Regulation of achievement goals: The role of competence feedback. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(3), 320-336. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.97.3.320 Stephan, Y., Caudroit, J., Bioché, J. & Sarrazin, P. (2011). Predictors of situational disengagement in the academic setting: The contribution of grades, perceived competence, and academic motivation. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 81, 441-455. doi: 10.1348/000709910X522285. Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of Educational Research, 45(1), 89-125. Tinto, V. (2005). Forward. In A. Seidman (Ed.), College student retention: Formula for student success (pp. ix–x). Westport, CT: American Council on Education/Praeger. Vallerand, R. J. & Bissonnette, R. (1992). Intrinsic, extrinsic, and amotivational styles as predictors of behavior: A prospective study. Journal of Personality, 60(3), 599-620. Walker, C. O., Greene, B. A. & Mansell, R. A. (2006). Identification with academics, intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and self-efficacy as predictors of cognitive engagement. Learning and Individual Differences, 16, 1-12. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2005.06.004 Whitehead, J. (1984). Motives for higher education: A study of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in relation to academic attainment. Cambridge Journal of Education, 14(2), 26-34.

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Table 1 Results of Correlation Analyses Between Identity Dimensions and Types of Motivation 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. Commitment 2. In-Depth 0.37*** Exploration 3. Reconsideration of -0.41*** -0.16 Commitment 4. Intrinsic 0.44*** 0.43*** -0.50*** 5. Identified Reg. 0.45*** 0.34*** -0.49*** 0.61*** 6. External Reg. -0.05 0.03 0.22* -0.25* 0.13 7. Amotivation -0.35*** -0.17 0.64*** -0.46*** -0.65*** M 19.07 18.09 5.75 22.12 23.69 SD 3.59 3.54 2.97 3.97 2.98

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6.

7.

0.27** 9.23 5.39

6.44 4.14

Table 2 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis Predicting Intrinsic Motivation

Step 1 Academic Year Age Gender Race GPA Step 2 Commitment (A) In-Depth Exploration (B) Reconsideration of Commitment (C) Step 3 Feedback Type (D) Step 4 AXD BXD CXD *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001

Intrinsic Motivation F ∆F

B

β

R2

∆R2

-0.48 -0.07 -1.35 0.10 0.44

-0.12 -0.2 -0.15 0.03 0.11

1.12

1.12

0.06

0.06

0.16 0.30 -0.59

0.13 0.26** -0.44***

8.56***

19.79***

0.44

0.38

0.88

0.11

7.87***

1.74

0.46

0.01

-0.17 -0.12 0.17

-0.10 -0.08 0.09

6.12***

0.43

0.47

0.02

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Table 3 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis Predicting Identified Regulation Motivation Identified Regulation Motivation B β F ∆F Step 1 Academic Year -0.23 -0.07 0.76 0.76 Age -0.28 -0.11 Gender -0.20 -0.03 Race -0.16 -0.06 GPA 0.17 0.06 Step 2 Commitment (A) 0.24 0.26* 6.97*** 16.68*** In-Depth Exploration (B) 0.19 0.22* Reconsideration of -0.32 -0.32** Commitment (C) Step 3 Feedback Type (D) 1.43 0.24** 7.66*** 8.47** Step 4 AXD -0.38 -0.29 6.42*** 1.94 BXD -0.09 -0.08 CXD -0.29 -0.20 *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001

Table 4 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis Predicting External Regulation Motivation External Regulation Motivation B β F ∆F Step 1 Academic Year 0.10 0.02 0.63 0.63 Age 0.37 0.08 Gender 0.10 0.01 Race 0.76 0.16 GPA -0.06 -0.01 Step 2 Commitment (A) 0.12 0.08 1.08 1.80 In-Depth Exploration (B) 0.16 0.10 Reconsideration of 0.49 0.27* Commitment (C) Step 3 Feedback Type (D) -0.36 -0.03 0.96 0.10 Step 4 AXD -0.17 -0.08 1.74 3.78 BXD -0.16 -0.08 CXD -1.36 -0.50** *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001

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R2

∆R2

0.04

0.04

0.39

0.35

0.44

0.05

0.48

0.04

R2

∆R2

0.03

0.03

0.09

0.06

0.093

0.001

0.20

0.11

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Table 5 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis Predicting Amotivation Amotivation B β F ∆F Step 1 Academic Year -0.27 -0.06 0.85 0.85 Age 0.36 0.11 Gender -0.79 -0.09 Race 0.79 0.21 GPA -0.21 -0.05 Step 2 Commitment (A) -0.12 -0.10 7.44*** 17.59*** In-Depth -0.05 -0.04 Exploration (B) Reconsideration of 0.76 0.56*** Commitment (C) Step 3 Feedback Type (D) -0.61 -0.08 6.67*** 0.73 Step 4 AXD 0.10 0.06 5.79*** 2.23 BXD 0.26 0.18 CXD -0.39 -0.19 *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001

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R2

∆R2

0.05

0.05

0.42

0.37

0.43

0.01

0.47

0.05

Appendix A Both groups were given the same fictitious story as follows: “Our research team has partnered with a company called RIASEC that has a conducted a great deal of research in what makes employees successful. They collected data from 5,000 employers across all major fields, asking them the top five non-technical competencies that all successful employees possess. Once they established the top five, they gathered 10,000 employees that were deemed successful by those employers and measured them in those competencies. A profile for each field was then created from the average scores of employees working in that field to create a national average score in each area. For example, a teacher may need higher communication scores than an accountant. Another thing RIASEC discovered was that performance of the few measures you took the other day significantly predicted their scores in the competency areas, meaning we don’t have to give you hours of tests to determine your aptitude in those areas! These are your results from the study.” The positive feedback group was given a feedback report and told: “You scored really well on this assessment. As you can see, your competency in every area is at or about the national average. Based on this, we think you definitely made the right choice in selecting your academic program and that you will be very successful. Congratulations!” The negative feedback group was also given a report and were told: “Unfortunately, your scores all fell below the national average in every competency area. This could be because the competency score required in these areas for your intended field are not a match for your scores. We suggest thinking about other fields and discussing with career services about other majors because we do not think you will be successful based on your scores here.”

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Examination of Top Private, Corporate, and Community Foundations in North Carolina Charlotte Kennedy Charlotte Kennedy, a senior nonprofit leadership and management major, became interested in the operation and impact of foundations after taking a Fundraising and Resource Development course. She wanted to conduct research specific to North Carolina that would allow her to better understand the issues facing North Carolinians, as well as learn how operating nonprofits request grants matching foundations’ program areas. Kennedy would like to thank Dr. Christine Cugliari for her passion for research, student development, and fostering Kennedy’s passion. This support has allowed her to grow into a strong candidate in the field. Kennedy hopes to stay in North Carolina, either in the Triad or Charlotte area, and pursue a career in development, marketing, and/or communications in a nonprofit organization or foundation.

Abstract Philanthropy is defined as the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes. Foundations are non-governmental entities and philanthropic vehicles that vary in type, size, and mission. Most foundations grant resources to operating nonprofits in which the request for funding fits the foundations’ mission and objectives. Three common types of foundations are community foundations, corporate foundations, and private foundations. With needs varying depending on the community, each foundation is managed uniquely, and the purpose of this paper is to synthesize communalities based on interviews conducted from 10 of the top granting foundations in North Carolina. Based on these interviews and prior and post research, four implications were discovered. First, foundations can make an incredible impact by sharing the stories featuring their grantee organizations. Second, the emphasis of local relationships and local community understanding was prevalent throughout all of the foundations interviewed. Third, the phrase “the allocations of scarce resources to meet unlimited needs” was reinforced throughout this study (Worth, 2014). Lastly, trust is the currency of nonprofits.

P

hilanthropy is defined as the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes. Foundations are non-governmental entities and philanthropic vehicles that come in various types, sizes and missions. Most foundations grant resources to operating nonprofits in which the request for funding fits the foundation’s mission and objectives. Three commonly accepted types of foundations are community foundations, corporate foundations and private foundations. Table 1 depicts 20 significant granting foundations in North Carolina (“Top Giving Foundations: NC”).

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This list consists of nine private foundations, seven community foundations, and four corporate foundations. Within these 20 foundations, 10 interviews were conducted and consisted of five private foundations, three community foundations, and two corporate foundations. This sample provides a relatively accurate proportion to significant foundations in North Carolina depicted in Table 1. Interestingly, foundations across the country have seen significant growth over the past 50 years. The number of foundations has increased over 200% between 1970 and 2009. (Fernandez & Hager, 2014). However, of the 10 interviews conducted, five foundations were established between 1970 and 2009, while the other five foundations were established between 1920 and 1969. This growth is partially due of rapid changes in society and needs of various communities. With needs varying dependent on community, each foundation is managed uniquely. The purpose of these interviews was to uncover similarities and differences between each type of foundation in North Carolina and between individual foundations within the same type. Throughout the interviews, there were several similarities discovered that will be explained in further detail later in this paper. First, the value of stories is significant to the mission, vision and execution of nonprofits and foundations. Foundations are able to highlight these stories and spread them to a broader audience than what is typically available for an individual nonprofit organization. Second, local relationships are extremely valuable for all types of foundations. Although community foundations have a reputation of doing their best to be connected to their community, some private and corporate foundations utilize district or network officers to provide their foundation with local intelligence about the needs of individual communities. Thirdly, economics, or the allocations of scarce resources to meet unlimited needs, is seen throughout philanthropy and nonprofit organizations. Smaller grassroots nonprofits and even some foundations have a limited amount of staff, so many times the resources – financial, infrastructure, and human capital – do not cover the needs. Specific tasks are often pushed to the side or remain at the bottom of the to-do list. Fourth, trust is the currency of nonprofits. Trust is seen in the stories that are developed from the work of organizations and foundations, in the local relationships that are cultivated, and through financial and human capital resources. All foundations go through a phrase of developing their own story and building relationships across communities. Self-reflection and analysis are key to staying current to their community’s needs and issues. Methods This study used a qualitative research approach to investigate 20 annual giving foundations in North Carolina. The foundation list was gathered from GrantDomain and The Grantsmanship Center, where 40 foundations were listed, and the list was limited to strictly the top 20. A tentative plan was created which allowed for some aspects – timeline, topic and deadline – to be more detailed, yet also readily changeable. Joseph Maxwell (2005) states this method provides more flexibility during the process of the investigation and allows for revisions of the plan. An example of this was narrowing down the number of interviews to 10 people instead of 20 because of time constraints. Triangulation of data was created by the incorporation of professional resources (i.e. 990 forms, organizations’ websites, LinkedIn, and annual reports), grounded research and interviews. Ultimately, triangulation reduces the risk of the author’s conclusions reflecting biases or limitations from one source, and it allows the author to have a broader perspective and understanding of the topic (Maxwell, 2005). 45


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The interviews were all conducted over the phone and recorded using a recording device. Later, the recordings were transcribed and coded by the author. Most interviews lasted around 30 to 40 minutes. Ten interviews were conducted between October 15 and December 1, 2018. These interviews were semi-structured and intended to be conversational with grounded research questions being the base. Interviewees were thoughtfully selected based on their tenure at the organization and perceived understanding of various aspects within their foundation. Several of the interviewees happened to be in their respective communications department; however, the author did not specifically target that department. The Value of Stories In all three foundation types, stories are valued and seen as significant ways of sharing impactful programs or data of the foundation and –for some more importantly-- the stories of the grantee partners or nonprofits which the foundation supports. Private Foundation One uses stories as a method to create future collaborations between organizations and individuals to tackle a common problem (personal communication, November 16, 2018). Private Foundation Two uses media to highlight stories about their grantee partners (personal communication, November 16, 2018). Corporate foundations can publish a story to highlight an organization through their larger followings using media platforms. They tend to have a larger impact and number of followers on social media, creating an advantage for the organizations that are highlighted. In addition, community foundations can highlight smaller grassroots organizations that are doing unique and important work within their own community. Stories provide communities and individuals insight into the intricate work nonprofit organizations conduct on a daily basis. Private Foundation One believes stories are more about how can I use this information to either inspire or possibly create a collaboration or, or even just have somebody who's reading it and saying, Oh, I'm doing work very similar. I wonder if I'm also eligible for this grant (personal communication, November 16, 2018). Stories open up possibilities for other organizations to learn what a foundation is passionate about and if they can see themselves possibly applying for a grant. Private Foundation Two created and published a creative video about one of its grantee partners (personal communication, November 16, 2018). The grantee organization received attention from the White House and was able to leverage six million dollars through an initiative during the Obama Administration. This private foundation centers its communication around “lifting up the stories of our partners, like engaging the public, other funders, and our grantee partners in conversations about what the issues are, what the solutions are, and what the opportunities are in [our community]” (Private Foundation Two, personal communication, November 16, 2018). In the same vein, corporate foundations also highlight nonprofit organizations through their heavily followed social media and local media presence. Corporate Foundation One will match donations for every dollar someone donates to an organization, typically up to a specific amount. This foundation also believes partnerships “really go beyond just like here’s some money. We really make an effort to highlight those (partnerships) in various channels” (personal communication, November 26, 2018). Corporate foundations tend to be funded or be endowed by large corporations (Brown, Helland, & Smith, 2006). From Table One -- The Bank of America Charitable Foundation, The Duke Energy Foundation, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, and Lowe’s Charitable Foundation -- all have corporations that are spread across multiple states. With large communities based around the corporations’ large service areas, corporate foundations attempt to 46


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reach their grantee partners through their local markets’ channels (Corporate Foundation One, personal communication, November 26, 2018). As for community foundations, stories can change an organization’s and/or the foundation’s capacity. With a story written in a newspaper or through an online email newsletter, stories share the work that an operating nonprofit does because of funding provided by a community foundation. In addition, Community Foundation One said, “If you've ever been in our building, if you’ve ever tried to connect to us, we take your information out, we send it out and let everyone know… this is what we're trying to do. Can you please assist?” (personal communication, November 2, 2018) Community foundations can provide resources such as manpower to share the stories of established and newer organizations. Some foundations can provide media assistance with a larger reach, a stronger relationship component and better knowledge of the community. Overall, all three types of foundations rely on stories to share the work they and operating nonprofits conduct in their community. Stories can change lives and organizations as illustrated by the six million dollar grant awarded to an organization that improves the lives of women by teaching them construction skills in an area of the country, which not only needs those skills but also has work available. Without the video and communication efforts of Private Foundation Two, that organization might not have been recognized by the White House (personal communication, November 16, 2018). Stories show the importance of local knowledge and the good work of local operating organizations. Local Importance Although first instinct might be to associate community foundations with building relationships more than private and corporate foundations, after further research, the majority of all three types of foundations share the benefits of developing reliable relationships with local staff, board members, and their community. Private Foundation One “invest in people. We don’t invest in projects…[We] find the best people who become the leaders in the field and who can … move the needle” (personal communication, November 16, 2018). Several other foundations of various types agreed the people they invest money with are just as important, if not more important, than the project itself. Without the right passionate and determined staff, nonprofit organizations have the potential to fail at creating the significant impact they normally outline in their grant application. To truly move the needle, diligent staff at both a foundation and grantee organizations are paramount to the success of the program, the infrastructure and the research the foundation is funding. When foundations are spread across several states or even a state as diversified as North Carolina, network officers strive to develop relationships across their area. Private Foundation Three believes, “it's just a process of trying to stay connected” (personal communication, November 26, 2018). Staying connected is not always the easiest task when dealing with a community that can be spread across several states. However, various types of foundations utilize different methods of connecting with smaller organizations that are doing innovative work that aligns with the mission, program areas and objectives of the foundation. One method Private Foundation Two utilizes is funding small convenings of local nonprofits across their community. Organizations and the foundation mutually benefit from this convening because the organizations get a chance to learn more about each other and the foundation. A network officer from the foundation is able to gain more local intelligence and develop existing relationships with established organizations and cultivate relationships with smaller grassroots organizations 47


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that are doing work that interests the foundation. Private Foundation Two stated, that organizing a meeting “is one way we can help support like grassroots organizations with smaller budgets…It's one of the many tools we use for learning and establishing relationships” (personal communication, November 16, 2018). Another method used by all three types of foundations to establish new relationships, develop existing relationships, and stay current with the needs of communities are site visits. Site visits allow staff to develop a face-to-face relationship with an organization. They can be utilized before, during, or after funding is allocated. Site visits allow operations, capacity and execution to be seen and evaluated. At least one interviewee from each type of foundation stated they invite board members to site visits. Site visits provide a chance, “to increase… one on one interaction between board members and the grant recipients, so it’s not just the staff. Those have been very well received and [the board] really enjoy[s] getting out and seeing everybody” (Private Foundation Five, personal communication, November 26, 2018). These visits provide an opportunity for the staff and board to remain connected with their mission as well as develop new relationships with grantees and/or maintain relationships with established nonprofit organizations. In addition, these relationships can be leveraged when a foundation or organization has an idea they believe the other can support. For example, Private Foundation Four states, “We had that local intelligence…we love it because we [have] local on the ground people telling us [this project] is totally legit…we have ‘developed a relationship of trust’” (personal communication, November 16, 2018). Both corporate foundations that were interviewed also valued relationships with regards to local expertise. Both have a national foundation team that sets the strategy, program areas and objective emphasis for the foundation. Corporate Foundation One enlists the help of local volunteer boards across their larger community to distribute grants specific to their local markets. “The local markets, who live in those communities, who work in those communities, who partner with nonprofits in those communities can take that strategy and apply it to the most pressing issues in those communities” (Corporate Foundation One, personal communication, November 26, 2018). With the work done by these local volunteer boards, the corporate foundations create a more personal impact on each community. This, again, is mutually beneficial to everyone involved. Corporate Foundation Two spoke more on the individual trust placed in their district managers. The district manager’s “job is to bring those local interests to bear and to see if we can’t find a way that those fit in with our foundation focus areas” (Corporate Foundation Two, personal communication, November 28, 2018). The board of trustees gives the district managers a lot of responsibility. The district manager conducts countless site visits to develop a rapport with each organization – similar to private and corporate foundations. Relationships are valuable for any type, size and mission of nonprofit organizations and foundations too. Community foundations are best known for building relationships within the community and being “a catalyst for change in the community by participating in and, at times, leading these broader conversations about new policies” (Graddy & Morgan, 2006, pg. 609). Community Foundation One interviewee believes, “community foundations are more grassroots, so you’re going to learn everything about your community, really be a part of it, and you are going to build those strong relationships” (personal communication, November 2, 2018). These relationships can provide impact on their community through social capital and financial capital. Although community foundations are known for relationships and being a force in a specific city or county, there are also community foundations that are stretched across several cities, 48


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counties and states. Within some larger community foundations, they typically have affiliate community foundations that run the grants for that particular city or county but have the assistance and overhead help of the larger community foundation. It works for us because community grantmaking often times depends on local knowledge and local expertise. So, if we’re relying on the most urgent needs in a community to make grant decisions, then our local boards can help guide that (Community Foundation Two, personal communication, November 16, 2018). All three types of foundations value and need local expertise to make the greatest impact on a particular region. Although local expertise provides insight, there will always be a struggle with allocating scarce resources to meet the unlimited needs in the community. “The allocation of scarce resources to meet unlimited needs” The amazing thing about grantmaking is the significant impact that resources — dollars, volunteering, and expertise --- can provide a nonprofit organization and in turn build up various communities all over the country and the world. The phrase, ‘allocation of scarce resources to meet unlimited needs’ is seen in the grantmaking process. Private Foundation Five states, “last time I checked, we were approving between 80 – 85% of the [grants] submitted to us” (personal communication, November 26, 2018). Although all foundations surveyed are unable to provide full financial support to all of the organizations that request funding, they typically are able to provide other resources. “We realized we can’t be everything to everyone” (Corporate Foundation Two, personal communication, November 28, 2018). This epiphany was followed by many years of strategic development and slowly changing the way their corporate foundation funded organizations. They changed from “checkbook philanthropy – commonly spontaneous, unplanned giving” to a more institutional philanthropic approach (Raiborn, Green, Todorova, Trapani, & Watson, 2003, pg. 48-49). They focused in on their mission—tying in closely to the mission of the corporation, being cognizant of who and what they invested in, and how the grant related back to their national strategic plan. By creating a narrowed focus and developing strategic thought, they were able to home in on specific issues at a national level and in turn create a larger impact on specific program areas. The national level was able to provide consistency and vision for the local volunteer boards in local markets that were carrying out their strategies and objectives in local grantmaking. Corporation Two was able to allocate their limited resources more effectively with a more strategic approach to grantmaking. Private Foundation Three claims, Well I think, you know, most all foundations realize that they individually don't have enough money to effect all the change that they ideally would like to. So that requires collaboration with other private funders, with foundations, with also even public funders (personal communication, November 16, 2018). In addition to the specialization, Corporation Foundation Two has become strategic in collaborating with various nonprofits that share common mission and objectives that tie into their program areas. Having a national reach like a larger corporate foundation allows stories and values of these nonprofits to be shared. Stories can bring light to various organizations that might not have as far of a reach as a larger corporate foundation. Interestingly, a corporate foundation typically is highlighted on its corporation’s social media (see Table 2). Most corporate foundations are heavily tied into their parent corporation because employees sit on the board or other committees within the foundation; yearly budget changes are based on the corporation, and the industries and program areas the corporate foundation supports. The use 49


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of corporate social media accounts allows for the foundation to widen its reach to all who follow that particular corporation. Even if they are not the most philanthropic, they might be able to appreciate various programs or projects a corporation supports in their community. Obviously, the number of followers varies per corporation; however, if you go to their Twitter pages, within the first 10 or 20 tweets, you will see at least one tweet relating to the philanthropic work the corporation’s foundation is providing. Corporations can utilize their corporate foundation counterpart to “devote resources to winning over new customers with corporate volunteering CSR [Corporate Social Responsibility] programs” (Mattila, 2013, pg. 576). These volunteering programs create trust and positive attitudes toward the company. For example, if you see someone from Bank of America volunteering to pick up litter off the streets or clearing out a facility for local veterans, you might consider opening an account next time you need a new savings, money market, or guidance on financial planning if you appreciate their volunteerism. As proven by the social media and volunteerism, most types of foundations can either leverage or provide “items such as volunteer time, goods, used equipment, meeting space, and employee expertise” (Raiborn et al, 2003, pg. 48). Community Foundation One stretches its human capital by speaking with nonprofits. “Every grassroots organization comes to us, and we value that because that gives us time to realize what they're trying to do, and we can help build that capacity within our organization” (Community Foundation One, personal communication, November 2, 2018). This again shows that resources can be more than financial. Although resources are still limited to the capacity of both the foundation and organization, most foundations are willing and able to serve nonprofits in the area. Ideally, nonprofit leaders will be able to create “processes by which to identify and understand the interests and expectations of key stakeholders and to create constructive strategies by which to engage them” (Herman & Renz, 2008, pg. 412). By spending time conducting an internal evaluation on internal communication, communication with grantees, funding sources, overhead expenses and operating money, organizations can determine ways to improve efficiency and increase their impact on their respective community. The 20 foundations listed in Table 1 account for $580 million annual giving (“Top Giving Foundations: NC”). Note that just because this is giving in North Carolina does not mean the giving is going exclusively to North Carolina. For example, community foundations can have Donor Advised Funds that are earmarked to be allocated to dolphin rehabilitation programs in the Gulf of Mexico. Private foundations might be based in North Carolina and even have a program area specific to North Carolina with other program areas outside of North Carolina. These corporations are spread throughout North Carolina and have locations throughout North America. The numbers of overall annual giving can be misleading and require further study. With an unlimited need, foundations turning organizations away, and foundations funding at various levels of the original grant requested, there will constantly be scarce resources even if those resources exceed half a billion dollars. These needs will remain unlimited. Private Foundation Four made an interesting point about allocations of resources. The trick to philanthropy is to figure out what they need, what you could do that is in your lane, and then you give them enough money... An error a lot of funders make is we're going to cut you back some, but we'll give you just enough money to fail (personal communication, November 26, 2018). This point of providing “just enough money to fail” is quite interesting and should be examined further. Is allocating funds based on reaching as many organizations or individuals that 50


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submit an amazing and innovative program, research topic, or request more important than narrowing in on a few grants and fully funding their programs with a better chance of reacting their expected outcomes? Individuals on the staff and board of the foundations read every grant differently. Every foundation is different with regards to allocations. Every organization is unique with how much it values and appreciates the relationship with the foundation from which it receives funding. This ties directly into trust is the currency of nonprofits. “Trust is the Currency of Nonprofits” An intrinsic belief held by nonprofits--whether it is stated or not—is that trust is the currency of nonprofits (Worth, 2014). Trust is seen in every aspect of nonprofit organizations and foundations. Organizations trust foundations to be unbiased and critical of their grant proposals, the programs, and their overall mission. Foundations, in turn, trust organizations to be stewards of awarded grant funds. Organizations in the same community may partner together on a specific program or project, form coalitions or even share office space. Staff at nonprofits must trust the board of directors and execute the vision the board of directors set for the organization. In addition, staff must be diligent and trusting of each other and provide and be open to constructive criticism. A communications director mentioned the feedback and trust he was granted by his supervisor. He was new to the job, and the supervisor provided him freedom and “allowed me to make mistakes and recover from them. And it really helped me”. The supervisor also provided "very candid feedback” (Private Foundation One, personal communication, November 16, 2018). The benefit of this freedom is that the staff member was able to attempt something innovative or new to him. Whether he succeeded or not, he received feedback. Feedback is critical in any position. Feedback is how one learns from positive or negative experiences and how a person develops in one’s professional career. This quote can also be applied to the relationship between a foundation and an organization. Trust is a two-way street. In this situation, an organization can provide the foundation with constructive criticism of their grant-making process and overall relationship with the organization. Vice versa, foundations can provide organizations with guidelines that require data collection by the organization about the program or project funded. This encourages the organization to be more mindful of the impact its programs or projects are truly having and provide a more accurate evaluation. This takes trust and open-mindedness from the foundation. An example of this is seen when the Private Foundation Two’s board went on a site visit. The make-up of the board varied drastically from the mission of the organization, and while several of the board members were on the site visit, someone told them they could not be doing the kind of work they wanted, in the places they wanted, looking how they looked. The honesty and trust that individual had in the foundation and in its board members to provide that kind of feedback and constructive criticism allowed the board to come to terms with the individual’s analysis. They “diversified the board [and staff] and started inviting practitioners from around the region to join in and guide the work” (Private Foundation Two, personal communication, November 16, 2018). Candid feedback was extremely beneficial, and the Private Foundation Two board members saw it was prudent to listen and respond. The board members changed, and the new board and staff of the organization continued to make strides towards their mission. Organizations like the North Carolina Network for Grantmakers (NCNG) and North Carolina Center for Nonprofits (NCCN) provide resources such as conferences and workshops. NCNG has specific learning communities for “subgroups of members that convene around a 51


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common or shared funding interest or job function” (North Carolina Network for Grantmakers, 2017). Interestingly, 80% of interviewees are members of the NCNG and 70% of interviewees were members of NCCN. Private Foundation One states, “when you meet one foundation you meet one because they're basically like people and some don't play well with others and other people are really good about collaboration and partnerships” (personal communication, November 16, 2018). To no surprise, most foundations are familiar with each other because of these networks and learning communities. These open forums create opportunities to network and learn more about the other granting organizations and operating nonprofits in North Carolina. Community Foundation One states, “we come into a room and we'll listen to the mission of a new organization and what they're trying to do. And this allows us to think of possible foundations or foundation or grants in this case that we work with that they might be eligible for” (personal communication, November 2, 2018). Other interviewees strive to build a network so organizations that might not have received funding will be provided a foundation with which their mission better aligns. Although North Carolina is very diverse, different regions tend to have similar struggles, which is reflective in popular program areas for these North Carolina foundations like childcare, education, healthcare, and capacity building. Some organizations may be focused on specific program areas and may possibly offer an organization for more than just financial resources. Knowing the other foundations is beneficial for the other foundations, other operating organizations requesting funding, and the clients of those organizations too. Trust is also seen on an internal level between the board and the staff of the foundations. Each of Private Foundation One’s programs have their own board liaison in charge of understanding a specific program more deeply than a board member might normally. In addition, trust is placed in board members to represent and provide deeper knowledge at board meetings about their board liaison. Ihm and Shumate (2018) state, “board members are a governing body of individuals responsible for the affairs and conduct of the organization” (as cited in Herman & Renz, 2000). They have the responsibility to drive and support the mission and program areas of the foundation. Private Foundation One’s “board definitely drives [their] mission…they're trying to create the biggest impact” (personal communication, November 16, 2018). With the board trying to create the biggest impact, it is vital the staff does their very best to recommend the programs and grants that provide the greatest impact to their constituents. For Corporate Foundation One the national board and staff have faith in the local boards that Tailor their giving to impact … the issues that are of the greatest importance in those communities within our broader [strategies]…Every local market has a small bucket of discretionary funds that they can use for things that are important in their community and where it's important to them to have a seat at the table (personal communication, November 26, 2018). Corporate Foundation One provides the broader strategy in which grants and funding are supposed to be allocated as well as the discretionary funds for the local boards to decide where the money is most needed in their communities. The national board and staff trust the local market volunteer board will be good stewards with the funds. Corporate Foundation Two operates a little differently in that the Board of Trustees trusts the managing director to make decisions on grants that are requested for less than $10,000. We have a couple of tiers of grantmaking that we do. If it's anything underneath $10,000 that basically resides with me and it is basically my decision… if it meets the corporate focus areas and the various criteria that we need for it to be, then that's basically a decision I can make on my own. Once we get at $10,000 and above and there is really no upper limit on it--that's 52


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been set-- but that goes to our board of trustees and they oversee those decisions for all seven states (Corporate Foundation Two, personal communication, November 28, 2018). Interestingly, for a smaller foundation, $10,000 could be a large portion of their allocations for one grant cycle. Trusting that the individual district manager will make informed and impactful judgments is key to the success of the larger foundation as a whole. The Community Foundation Three board is made up of very diverse individuals. Different social classes and different neighborhoods allow for a better view of the community and all voices being heard at the table. Community Foundation Three is the “go-to organization for things around philanthropy, advice on giving” and people will “come to us just for suggestions and networking” (personal communication, November 27, 2018). Organizations trust this foundation and seek it out when they need assistance. As previously mentioned, foundations can typically offer more than financial assistance and provide expertise in the nonprofit field and be a resource and network for other people. Overall, trust drives nonprofits. Implications Overall, each foundation is unique. The value of stories is seen throughout the foundations in North Carolina. For a smaller organization, to be able to leverage six million dollars for a program was only possible because of a story a foundation published. Stories can be seen and heard over various channels and an organization and foundation must find the right combination of media to develop stronger relationships and trust of organizations and individuals. The local relationships are seen in every foundation. The majority of foundations with a larger area tend to have affiliate or smaller boards, foundations, and district managers that are more knowledge about a specific city or county. Board members are “ambassadors for the foundation and the community…They help pave the way to building relationships around the advancement areas” (Community Foundation Three, personal communication, November 27, 2018). An organization’s and community’s trust in one another are developed by utilizing local expertise, local relationships, and local community members who understand the needs of that specific community Resources will always be scarce when needs are unmeet; however, most foundations interviewed were willing to work with organizations and be a resource for them. Organizations must trust the foundation and be open to constructive criticism. Most foundations are not going to tell an organization how to do their job, but instead will provide best practices or an efficient way of completing a task if the organization requests assistance or grant money from them. Trust drives nonprofit organizations and foundations. As Community Foundation Three stated, “community leadership is by engaging with public in public and private partnerships” (personal communication, November 27, 2018). Trust between various types of nonprofits provide common resources and relationships that will better communities across counties, states, regions, countries and the world. Commonalities are seen not only in missions and program areas, but also in the foundations’ actions in evaluation and re-evaluation in various aspects of their work. At least one interviewee from each of foundation type discussed re-evaluation. One discussed the transition of the board and staff, diversifying in order to better match the foundation’s focus on racial equality. A second discussed how its foundation did not originally have a strategic giving plan, and they reevaluated their granting process and focused on what story they were trying to tell. A third interviewee spoke on the evolution and growth in resources and staff their foundation has seen and how the identity of the foundation has changed over the last 20 years. To “truly move the 53


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needle�, as several interviewees mention, a refocus and reevaluation of objectives within program areas, evaluations of grantees, impact, outcomes, and deeper understanding of their respective community needs are key in a foundation remaining permanent and sustainable to serve and benefit future generations. The significance of this research can be applied both academically and practically. Academically, to have qualitative data specific to the nonprofit field specific to North Carolina foundations is important because of their expertise in the field and understanding of the nonprofit organizations in the state as a whole. In addition, this research provides application to potential further studies and propels the research within the nonprofit sector in North Carolina and outside of the state to continue to investigation the sector and learn from other organizations. Research is a way for organizations to collaborate and learn from others. Practically, this research provides working professionals in nonprofit organizations within North Carolina the understanding of opportunities working with various types of foundations can provide. In addition, this research provides a strong understanding of the commonalities that North Carolinians face and how diverse the state and the organizations in the state must be if they intend to hit their target populations. Further research is endless with this topic. A quantitative analysis on North Carolina nonprofit organizations and the amount of funding they have received from North Carolina Foundations is imperative to understanding the true impact within this state. For private foundations, an examination into the type of resources provided and the history and establishment of an organization would provide a better understanding of impact these specific businesses and products had on the community. Are private foundations trying to make up for damage done from their product or business, or instilling strength in other areas in which their founders were inclined? For example, whether the funding of the organization is based off from a governmental settlement, textile or tobacco wealth, or another form of funding. Further research on the use of analytics and evaluation practices of North Carolina Foundations and their grantee partners would also be imperative to truly understanding funding strategies and allocation processes. Investment-mission alignment is another interesting further study. For example, if an organization or fund’s mission or purpose is to help protect the oceans, then investing in an oil company might not allow that organization to have investment-mission alignment. This would be interesting further research in terms of how many North Carolina Foundations have investments that are mission aligned and how many do not. Overall, foundations across North Carolina are unique. There are several important similarities between foundations and across the various types of foundations. In some cases, a private foundation can operate more like a community foundation than one of its counterpart private foundations. The value of stories, the importance of local perspective, the allocation of scare resources, and trust is the currency of nonprofits both at the foundation and operating organization levels are all important to some significant granting foundations in North Carolina.

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References North Carolina Network of Grantmakers (2017). Learning communities. Retrieved from http://ncgrantmakers.org/Membership/Learning-Communities Fernandez, K., & Hager, M. (2014). Public and private dimensions of grantmaking foundations. Public Administration Quarterly, 38(3), 405-439. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24372037 Graddy, E. & Morgan, D. (2006). Community foundations, organizational strategy, and public policy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 25(4), 605-630. doi:10.1177/0899764006289769 Herman, R. D., & Renz, D. O. (2000). Board practices of especially effective and less effective local nonprofit organizations. The American Review of Public Administration, 30(2), 146160. doi:10.1177/02750740022064605 Herman, R. D. and Renz, D. O. (2008), Advancing nonprofit organizational effectiveness research and theory: Nine theses. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 18(4), 399415. doi:10.1002/nml.195 Ihm, J. & Shumate, M. (2018). How does a board of directors influence within‐ and cross‐sector nonprofit collaboration? Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 1-18. doi:10.1002/nml.21343 Mattila, A. (2013). Corporate volunteering programs and consumer perceptions: An information processing. The Journal of Service Marketing, 27(7), 572-578. doi:10.1108/JSM-062012-0096 Maxwell, J. A. & Wooffitt, R. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Raiborn, C., Green, A., Todorova, L., Trapani, T., & Watson, W. E. (2003). Corporate philanthropy: When is giving effective? The Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance, 15(1), 47. doi:10.1002/jcaf.10217 Shumate, M., Cooper, K. R., Pilny, A. and Pena‐y‐lillo, M. (2017), The Nonprofit Capacities Instrument. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 28: 155-174. doi:10.1002/nml.21276 The Grantsmanship Center. Top Giving Foundations: NC. Retrieved from https://www.tgci.com/funding-sources/NC/top Worth, M. J. (2014). Nonprofit management: Principles and practice. Los Angeles: SAGE.

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Table 1 Twenty Significant granting Foundations in North Carolina TOTAL ANNUAL GIVING FROM Foundation for the Carolinas $290,450,840 The Bank of America Charitable Foundation $175,299,678 The Duke Endowment $63,251,758 Golden LEAF Foundation $45,790,656 The Winston-Salem Foundation $38,467,988 The Duke Energy Foundation $32,636,336 The Burroughs Wellcome Fund $31,540,554 Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust $22,753,821 Oak Foundation $22,376,545 Triangle Community Foundation $20,469,359 Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, Inc. $17,239,231 Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation $15,542,092 Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, Inc. $14,998,062 Lowe’s Charitable and Education Foundation $12,504,498 The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, Inc. $12,488,032 High Point Community Foundation $11,087,172 The Joseph M. Bryan Foundation $9,898,178 Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, Inc. $9,219,635 North Carolina Community Foundation $9,071,087 The Cannon Foundation, Inc. $7,732,758 Note. This table has information that in some cases is several years out of date. However, these Foundations are still significant and relevant philanthropic vehicles in North Carolina. It was retrieved from The Grantsmanship Center Website cited in the References section of this paper. FOUNDATION NAME

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Table 2 Twitter Follower Table Corporate Foundations

Corporation

Number of Twitter Followers

The Bank of America Charitable Trust

Bank of America

514,000

The Duke Energy Foundation

Duke Energy

109,000

Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation

Lowe’s

264,000

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina

13,100

Note. Twitter followers as of December 10th, 2018.

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Persistence in Team Sports Charlotte Kennedy, Haleigh Mana’o, Maggie Addison, Rebecca Colwell All four authors are graduates with a degree in nonprofit leadership and management. The inspiration for this paper came from a semester-long project in which the authors discussed interests and came up with a topic. Most of the authors had experience in sports and understood the love, struggle, and growth that being part of a team provides. With a strong belief in perseverance, the authors examined the relationship between a team’s performance and their desire to persevere. They felt learning about and presenting their topic to fellow students and professors was the most fulfilling aspect of this research. The authors are all working in the nonprofit field, in varying departments from development to management. They would like to thank Dr. Sarah Nielsen for providing an environment for open dialogue and opportunities for questions to be raised, researched, and discussed. Abstract Examination of literature surrounding the persistence in team sports seems to show three influencing factors of persistence. In this paper, persistence is defined in two ways: 1) the commitment to a team over time regardless of outside factors and 2) the determination to keep playing hard during a game despite being behind. These three factors are self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and performance. While it was originally thought that both performance and efficacy equally affected persistence, it was found that performance, persistence, and efficacy all affect one another in a cyclical manner. Past performance, whether it be successful or unsuccessful, impacts both self-efficacy and collective efficacy (Feltz, 1988; Fransen et al., 2015); past successful performance in a task will increase one’s self-efficacy as well as the collective efficacy regarding the task. It is also shown that greater levels of efficacy, both self and collective, are predictors of successful performance. Finally, successful or even average performance increases one’s persistence. 58


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I

n today’s world, sports have become an integral part of society and the lives of many individuals. Sports no longer serves strictly as entertainment. It is now common to see children at very young ages participating in sports at a more competitive level. Additionally, we see more people at an older age continuing to participate. Team sports can be used to teach children skills and lessons that can be used in the classroom and society. Skills such as teamwork, commitment, hard work, inclusion of others and persistence are all crucial parts of a working in a group, especially in the context of team sports. In this paper, persistence is defined as perseverance in games and perseverance throughout the season in team sports. As the popularity and participation in sports has increased, so has the competition. This increase in competition has seen no age limit. We see children as young as seven years old on competitive travelling teams. With children participating so heavily in at least one, potentially more, sports teams, we begin to run into burnout at a young age. This is physical or emotional exhaustion from the sport, reduced sense of accomplishments, and devaluation of the sport (Raedeke & Smith, 2001). Burnout goes hand in hand with reduced persistence, or one’s reduced commitment to their sport. Persistence in games and throughout the season in team sports is crucial for the team’s success and can be used to better the team and individuals. Through our research, we have found three factors that contribute to a player’s persistence in team sports: self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and the performance of team goals (Cumming, Smoll, Smith, & Grossbard, 2007; Feltz 1988; Greenlees, Graydon, & Maynard 1999). Although these factors contribute to a player's persistence, we wanted to understand the degree to which efficacy and performance affect persistence in team sports. Literature Review

Self-Efficacy It has long been understood that a player’s self-efficacy directly affects their skillful performance in recreational play, practice and official games. However, though there is a general consensus regarding the effects of self-efficacy on performance, there is little research done to support its role in a player’s persistence in the sport. Articles by Bandura (1997), Jackson and Martin (2010), Feltz (1988), and Singh, Bhardwaj, and Bhardwaj (2009) not only provide further explanation into the correlation between a certain level of self-efficacy and one’s performance, but extend this research to make predictions about its impact on players’ persistence. Before delving deep into the subject of self-efficacy, it is important to define the term itself. According to Albert Bandura (1997), a psychologist and Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University, self-efficacy is “the belief a person can successfully perform a certain skill” (p. 278). In her article regarding the relationship between self-efficacy and one’s performance in sports, Feltz (1988) uses the self-efficacy theory first proposed by Bandura in the 1970s and revisited in 1997, to suggest four sources that directly comprise one’s self-efficacy in a sports setting: performance accomplishments, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and physiological arousal. First, performance accomplishments seem to be the most important factor in one’s self-efficacy. If one has repeatedly experienced success in a task, that will raise his/her self-efficacy for that task. It is specifically those tasks that are challenging, completed independently, and/or performed during childhood with minimal failures that carry the greatest efficacy values. Vicarious experiences can affect one’s self-efficacy if the person has never performed a certain task. In this way, the person will rely on the model’s abilities to perform the task in order to make judgments about their own capabilities. Verbal persuasion can effectively 59


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raise one’s self-efficacy as long as the persuasion and/or praise is within realistic and believable bounds. Finally, physiological arousal – one’s excitement or adrenaline spikes – can affect selfefficacy in the same way that pain or fatigue can cause self-efficacy (Jackson & Martin, 2010). While Feltz focuses largely on Bandura’s theory to describe the concept of self-efficacy, she also references Susan Harter and John G. Nicholls’ models to assert the idea that a player’s perceived competence directly impacts their future persistence in the sport (Feltz, 1988). Feltz (1988) also explored the Harter’s model which discusses children’s mastery of a task results in either successes or failures that are evaluated by significant others. When they have successfully completed a challenging task, they not only feel a stronger belief in themselves, but also stronger self-satisfaction. Competence is strengthened only if significant others also reinforce their approval of the success. This combination of intrinsic pleasure and competence then leads to increased motivation to be competent. However, a history of failure results in a low perceived competence which will result in discouragement and a decreased motivation to continue attempts. Feltz (1988) suggests that by using this theory, one could predict a maintenance of interest and longer persistence in the sport among young athletes who perceive themselves to be highly competent and desire to master their sport. Self-belief and intrinsic pleasure are proven motivators for young athletes in two separate studies performed by Kaplan, Atkins, and Reinsch (1984) and Desharnais, Bouillon, and Godin (1986) in which they found patients with higher perceived self-efficacies were more likely to adhere to exercise regimens. In the study carried out by Desharnais and his colleagues (1986), they examined the ability of self-efficacy and outcome expectancy to predict adherence to exercise in an 11-week physical fitness program. They found that out of efficacy and outcome expectancy, self-efficacy best distinguished the “adherers” from the “dropouts” (Feltz, 1988). Having this distinction supports the original claim that efficacy ties into performance as seen by the adherers perform while the dropouts quit or pursue other interests. While studies show that self-efficacy affects future performance (Singh, Bhardwaj, & Bhardwaj, 2009), research also suggests that one’s view of his/her competency is largely affected by past performances, whether they be failed performances or successful ones. In addition, though little research exists to support the idea that self-efficacy affects overall adherence to goals, the research that Feltz (1988) examines seems to show that self-efficacy has a positive impact on a person’s persistence in sports. Next, examine a group of individuals with a common belief and efficacy. Collective Efficacy Albert Bandura (1997) defined collective efficacy as a group’s shared belief in its conjoint capability to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainment in 1997. Since then, we have learned that collective efficacy is much more complex than that and can be influenced by a number of things in order to impact a group's performance and persistence. After researching the effects collective efficacy has on persistence, we have discovered that there are a multitude of factors that influence collective efficacy including previous performances and leaders as motivators (Fransen, Decroos, Vanbeselaere, Broek, De Cuyper, Vanroy, & Boen, 2015; Greenlees, Graydon, & Maynard, 1999). In 2015, Fransen et al. conducted two studies to determine the relationship between team confidence and performance. They did this through two field studies, each consisting of ten male soccer teams, where they measured team confidence before the game, at the start of halftime and at the end of halftime. In the second study, they also added an evaluation of team 60


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confidence at the end of the game. They looked at four factors which could affect collective efficacy – effort, persistence, preparation and unity. They also measured performance by assessing players’ subjective perceptions of the team’s performance during halftime and after the game. They found through both studies an association between players’ collective efficacy during halftime and the team’s perceived performance during the second half. They also found that prior performance does indeed impact collective efficacy through their finding that if the team performed well in the first half their confidence in their ability to continue to perform went up before going into the second half. This also points to the fact that collective efficacy is amenable to change and that this variance is usually seen more frequently at the individual level. Although change at the individual level is more frequent, the collective level of efficacy is an important topic to delve into. Similar to how Fransen et al. (2015) found a relationship between collective efficacy and performance, Greenlees et al. (1999) also found that collective efficacy during halftime would be a significant predictor for the team’s performance in the second half, as well as how collective efficacy affects the team’s persistence through the amount of effort exerted. Greenlees et al. (1999) did a study in which three people, one participant and two confederates, would work together to cycle for 2000 meters. Before starting the participants had to fill out a questionnaire regarding their collective efficacy, motivations in participating, and perceptions of team mates. Effort was measured through performance time. The study took place in four different sessions for each group. Those who were assigned to the “high collective efficacy group” were told that they were in the top 5% of teams and that they were very close to the winning time. The other groups were told they were in the bottom 20% and that there was a considerable time gap between them and the leading group. They found that the groups with controlled higher collective self-efficacy had a significantly faster times than of the other groups. This shows that individuals with a higher sense of collective efficacy will exert more effort in order to persist longer for their group or team. Fransen et al. (2014) performed a study that used similar ways of measuring the factors of collective efficacy – effort, persistence, preparation and unity. This study separated 104 basketball players into 26 groups of four and focused on the impact athletic leaders have on their team members sense of collective efficacy. Each group had a confederate team captain. The goal of each team was to have the highest team score of free throws. Half of the teams had a leader which exhibited high levels of team confidence, while the other half had a leader with low levels of team confidence. They found that the level of team confidence by the leader transferred to the members’ collective efficacy. They also found that the team leaders’ perceived confidence in their team had a larger impact of members than the perceived confidence of other team members. Collective efficacy can be influenced by a leader’s sense of confidence in the team as well as previous performances. If coaches or motivators increased collective efficacy, there would be an increase in individual effort. Leaders confidence in the team will feed into the member’s own sense of collective efficacy which can influence their performance (Fransen et al., 2014). Beyond this, coaches should strive to think of a more individualized approach to enhance a player’s sense in team confidence considering variances in collective efficacy tend to be at the individual level (Fransen et al., 2015). Individuals with high levels of collective efficacy with exert more effort causing their team to perform with a higher level of persistency.

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Performance After researching more about how performance affects persistence in team sports, there were several articles that supported these predictions. Cumming, Smoll, Smith, and Grossbard (2007) examined the likelihood of a home team winning a basketball game based upon halftime results from over 45,000 NCAA and 12,000 NBA games. A home team that was slightly, meaning one or two points behind was more likely to win. They supported their research with a controlled laboratory experiment testing how much additional effort subjects gave after feedback was given at the half point. The experiment noticed the change in effort based upon the increase in key presses. Those that were far behind pressed six more keys, slightly behind pressed 16 more keys, tied pressed roughly seven more keys, slightly ahead were roughly three more keys, and lastly the control group was given no feedback and they pressed five additional keys. The slightly behind group performed a lot stronger after they were given feedback than the other groups in the study. This experiment provided empirical data to support their first study examining basketball games and performance before and after halftime. Through their experiment, Cumming et al. (2007) were able to gather data from over 60,000 basketball games that ultimately strengthened the validity of their conclusions. The second study assesses the effects of previous game results on subsequent game outcomes from a total sample of 4,495 NCAA Division I Men’s regular season basketball games. They determined the higher the point differential the team lost by in the previous game the more likely the team was to win the subsequent game. If the point differential was greater than 10 points, then there was a 53.9% chance that the losing team would win the next game. Another conclusion drawn from this study was supporting the “over confident winner” hypothesis, which states that the greater the point differential in the previous game, the greater the likelihood of a loss was in the subsequent game (Clay & Bro, 2015). Winners that won by 10 points or more only won their next game by 44.6%. This examination into the performance between games is important because the performance is over a longer duration. Performance can change, not only following a ten-minute halftime, but also over a period of days, even if a team’s level of performance has previously dropped. Another recent study (DiMenichi & Richmond, 2014) examined the relationship between past performance, perseverance, and current performance by exploring the idea that being “gritty” is not just affected by traits, but also by a person’s state. DiMenichi and Richmond (2014) defined grit as “a person’s perseverance in the face of adversity,” which is synonymous with the definition of persistence. They split roughly 50 people into three groups. The first group was told to write about a difficult time they persevered and then succeeded. The second was asked to write about a difficult time they persevered and subsequently did not succeed. Lastly, the third group, the control group, was asked to write about the plot of a recent movie they watched. After they wrote their respective stories, they filled out the Grit Scale. This scale is from Angela Duckworth’s (2016) research on grit and the scale is a survey that prompts the taker with twelve questions that ask how alike the person is to a certain personal characteristic. The results showed that individuals who reflected on failures actually reported the highest grit scores; meanwhile, individuals who reflected on a difficult time in which they succeeded exhibited the lowest grit scores. This information on grit ties into the overall topic of persistence in team sports because grit is persistence in face of opposition. When a team’s performance dips in a half or in a game and they lose, they develop grit and persistence and seem to perform stronger. This data about grit is valuable because it provided empirical evidence to defend the position of why teams can come back from not doing as well as they originally anticipated. 62


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Overall, performance plays a role in the persistence of teams because whether a home team is down by one or two points at half, a team lost their prior game by a large amount, or an individual reflects on previous failures, people become more persistent. They rebound quickly and win the game by performing stronger in the second half. In addition, they might win their next game or push each other harder in practice in hopes to accomplish their goals and perform to the higher level they believe they can perform at. Conclusion The purpose of this literature review was to examine how self and collective efficacy and performance influence the persistence of individuals and teams in team sports. While it was originally thought that both performance and efficacy equally affected persistence, it was found that performance, persistence and efficacy all affect one another in what seems to be a cycle-like manner. Past performance impacts both self-efficacy and collective efficacy (Feltz, 1988; Fransen et al., 2015); repeated success in a task will increase one’s self-efficacy for that task. Additionally, if a team performs well in the past, their collective efficacy will increase for future performance. While it is shown that performance impacts efficacy, it is also shown that efficacy affects performance (Greenlees et al., 1999; Singh et al., 2009). Greater levels of efficacy, both self and collective, are predictors of performance. Both efficacy and performance influence each other, whilst also influencing persistence (Clay & Bro, 2015; Feltz, 1988; Greenlees et al., 1999). Though there is little research demonstrating that self-efficacy has a direct influence on persistence, it does increase one's performance, which in turn affects persistence. Collective efficacy affects the team’s persistence through the amount of effort that the team exerts (Greenlees et al., 1999). Studies show that individuals with higher collective efficacy will exert more effort in order to persist to meet a team goal (Fransen et al., 2014). Performance affects persistence in a few ways. The first is that failure in the past, or being behind at halftime, increases persistence in a team to overcome their deficit and succeed (Clay & Bro, 2015). However, failure in the past or a decrease in performance can also decrease efficacy and persistence (Feltz, 1988; Clay and Bro, 2015). In contrast, past success in a task can increase one's persistence because of the belief in oneself (Feltz; 1988). The current study found that efficacy, performance and persistence are all interrelated and affect one another. For a team to be successful, it must possess collective efficacy, be able to persist, and utilize past performances as learning experiences and motivation to persist. Although the present study discovered that all these factors are interrelated, the depth and understanding of these relationships is lacking. Further research should examine how performance and efficacy are related. While our research suggests that they are causally related, the effect of efficacy on performance and performance on efficacy is still to be determined. Like the chicken and the egg, it may not be possible to determine what comes first in the cycle. In this case, further research should be done on the depth and extent of the relationships, to better understand which factors play a more prevalent role in one another. These findings could revolutionize the sports world at all levels and ultimately change how coaches lead teams in order to be successful.

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References Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W. H. Freeman. Berger, J. & Pope, D. (2011). Can losing lead to winning? Management Science, 57(5), 817827. Clay, D. C. & Bro, A. S. (2015). Previous game success as a determinant of future game performance and outcomes in men's NCAA basketball. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 46(5), 441-455. Cumming, S., Smoll, F., Smith, R., & Grossbard, J. (2007). Is winning everything? The relative contributions of motivational climate and won lost percentage in youth sports. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 19(3), 322-336. doi:10.1080/10413200701342640 Desharnais, R, J. Bouillon, and G. Godin. (1986). Self-efficacy and outcome expectations as determinants of exercise adherence. Psychol. Rep. 59:1155-1159. DiMenichi, B., & Richmond, L. (2015). Reflecting on past failures leads to increased perseverance and sustained attention. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 27(2), 180-193. doi:10.1080/20445911.2014.995104 Duckworth, A. (2016). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. London: Vermilion. Feltz, D. (1988). Self-confidence and sports performance. Exercise & Sport Sciences Reviews, 16(1), 423-457. Fransen, K., Decroos, S., Vanbeselaere, N., Broek, G., De Cuyper, B., Vanroy, J., & Boen, F. (2015). Is team confidence the key to success? The reciprocal relation between collective efficacy, team outcome confidence, and perceptions of team performance during soccer games. Journal of Sports Sciences. 33. 219-231. doi:10.1080/02640414.2014.942689 Fransen, K., Vanbeselaere, N., Cuyper, B. D., Coffee, P., Slater, M. J., & Boen, F. (2014). The impact of athlete leaders on team members’ team outcome confidence: A test of mediation by team identification and collective efficacy. The Sport Psychologist, 28(4), 347-360. doi:10.1123/tsp.2013-0141 Greenlees, I., Graydon, J., & Maynard, I. (1999). The impact of collective efficacy beliefs on effort and persistence in a group task. Journal of Sports Sciences, 17(2), 151-158. Jackson, S., & Martin, S. (2010) Self-efficacy and fears of pain and injury in gymnastics and tumbling: Does a previous injury matter? (Unpublished master's thesis). Denton, Tex.: University of North Texas. Kaplan, R. M., Atkins, C. L., & Reinsch, S. (1984). Specific efficacy expectations mediate exercise compliance in patients with COPD. Health Psycho! 3(1), 223-242. Raedeke, T., & Smith, A. (2001). Development and preliminary validation of an athlete burnout measure. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 23(4), 281-306. Rottensteiner, C., Tolvanen, A., Laakso, L., & Konttinen, N. (2015). Youth athletes' motivation, perceived competence, and persistence in organized team sports. Journal of Sport Behavior, 38(4), 432-449. Singh, T. D., Bhardwaj, G., & Bhardwaj, V. (2009). Effect of Self-Efficacy on the Performance of Athletes. Journal of Exercise Science and Physiotherapy, 5(2), 110-114.

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Prime Graph Labelings

2019

Alexis Newton

Alexis Newton, a recently graduated mathematics and English major, found an interest in number theory after taking a class with Dr. Jenny Fuselier. Some projects had been suggested to her, and the one that stuck out was a combination of number theory and graph theory. Newton wanted to explore prime numbers, a mathematical topic she had already studied extensively, in a very visual way through the concept of prime graph labeling. She is now attending Wake Forest University's mathematics and statistics graduate program to obtain her master’s in math. After that, she hopes to continue and pursue her Ph.D. in mathematics, with a focus in number theory. Newton presented her research at the Southeastern sectional meeting of the Mathematical Association of America during her senior year at HPU. She has a tenacity with which she approaches her undergraduate projects and research, and she carries that attitude with her while approaching her master thesis. Abstract In mathematics, number theory is a field primarily concerned with the study of whole numbers, oftentimes with a focus on prime numbers, while graph theory is the study of the properties and applications of graphs. For this paper, we combine number theory and graph theory in the form of prime graph labeling. A graph labeling is a way of labeling all vertices of the graph with integers, subject to certain conditions. A wide variety of labelings have been studied in the field since the 1960s. A prime graph labeling of a vertex set V={1,2,…,|V|} is where every vertex can be labeled such that adjacent vertices have no common factors, which we say is relatively prime. Graphs admitting prime labelings are called prime graphs. In an extension of the work by Diefenderfer et al., consider the unicyclic graphs created by “attaching” copies of pendants to the cycle vertices of an n-cycle. This type of graph is called an m-hairy n-cycle. For example, the graph the 2-hairy 4-cycle, denoted C4 ⋆ S2, is a cycle graph with four vertices, C4, where a star with two edges, S2, is “attached” to each cycle vertex on the graph. Diefenderfer et al. have results showing multiple types of m-hairy n-cycles, including Cn ⋆ S3, Cn ⋆ S5, and Cn ⋆ S7, are coprime. Notice that they focus on Cn ⋆ Sm, where m is odd. In counterpoint to that, we consider Cn ⋆ S4 and prove that Cn ⋆ S4 is coprime for all n∈N, n≥3.

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The Carter Administration, The Military Option, and The Iranian Hostage Crisis Zach Quimby Zach Quimby is a junior majoring in history and political science. In the spring semester of his sophomore year, Quimby took a course titled History Detectives. This sparked his interest in the topic, as it incorporated both of his majors. Throughout this entire experience, the most fulfilling aspect for Quimby has been the opportunity to work first-hand with archival documents. He would like to thank Dr. Larry Simpson for helping him to improve his writing skills, which has positively impacted his work across disciplines and classes. After Quimby graduates from High Point University, he hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in American Politics with concentrations in Public Administration and Public Policy. With this, he’d like to teach and inspire America's future leaders and conduct research in his concentrations. Abstract In December 1974, Jimmy Carter launched his campaign for the presidency, prioritizing approaches to the country’s problems that were substantially different than those of his Republican predecessors. Particularly, Carter promoted a much more humanitarian platform when it came to foreign policy. After narrowly defeating Ford in 1976, Carter ascended to the White House, and brought his humanitarian priorities along with him. By November 1979, Carter faced one of his greatest foreign policy dilemmas, the Iran Hostage Crisis, which tested his commitment to humanitarian ideals. For five long months, Carter remained steadfast in his determination to retrieve the release of the hostages diplomatically. With no success, he ordered the execution of an unsuccessful rescue mission in April 1980. This study will argue that although Carter was faced with a significant impasse, his overly idealistic humanitarian approach quickly became ineffective; and that he should have more seriously considered launching a rescue mission or acting more forcefully much earlier than he did. Utilizing recently declassified documents from the Jimmy Carter Library along with memoirs from many of the key decisionmakers, this work presents a cohesive analysis of the Carter administration’s thinking throughout the Iranian Hostage Crisis.

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n December 12, 1974, Jimmy Carter, a soft-spoken governor and peanut farmer from Georgia, announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. From the start, his platform’s priorities on major issues diverged considerably from those of his

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Republican predecessors. Particularly, Carter presented a strikingly different foreign policy agenda, which has often been characterized as more “open and humanitarian.” 1 As he said himself, “as long as I am President, the Government of the United States will continue throughout the world to enhance human rights. No force on Earth can separate us from that commitment.” 2 Following the relatively close election of 1976, Carter ascended to the presidency. Whenever the administration was faced with an international dilemma, its initial reaction was to resolve the impasse diplomatically while retaining respect for human rights. His administration cut aid to many dictatorial regimes, lowered loans to countries violating human rights, and created the new position of Undersecretary of State for Human Rights. 3 In several ways, the Carter administration was successful in accomplishing many of its more open foreign policy objectives. Nonetheless, by November 1979, it faced an unexpected entanglement that would test its devotion to these humanitarian principles: the Iranian Hostage Crisis. In response to this challenge, the United States initially attempted to resolve the impasse diplomatically, which was consistent with the worldview of the administration. After five frustrating months of negotiations, Carter acknowledged that his approach was not solving the problem and ordered a military mission to rescue the hostages. Looking back at the American response, a number of questions still remain; this paper will address two. First, it will analyze why the Carter administration did not respond militarily until several months into the crisis. From this, it will become evident that the President’s hesitance to respond this way was primarily due to the uniqueness and difficulties of the situation, his fear of Soviet or Arab intervention, his devotion to humanitarian principles and worldviews, and his concern for the lives of the hostages. Secondly, this work will examine why the Carter administration finally made the decision to attempt a rescue mission. Carter’s change in approach was largely due to the escalating events leading up to April 1980, the domestic political situation and international standing of the U.S., and the introduction of greater belief that Soviets may not respond as harshly to a rescue mission. 4 In the end, this study will argue that, although Carter was faced with a significant dilemma, his overly idealistic approach quickly proved ineffective; he should have more seriously considered launching a rescue mission or acting more forcefully much earlier than he did. To analyze the Carter administration’s response properly, this paper relies on a variety of sources. First and foremost, this study pulls from numerous declassified government documents obtained from the Jimmy Carter Library. 5 These sources are essential for piecing together the puzzle that was the Iran Hostage Crisis. In addition, the study brings in quotations and details from several memoirs of essential personnel, including Carter, National Security Advisor

1

Michael G. Krukones, “The Campaign Promises of Jimmy Carter: Accomplishments and Failures,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1985): 140. 2 Jimmy Carter, "Universal Declaration of Human Rights Remarks at a White House Meeting Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Declaration’s Signing,” Speech, Washington, D.C., December 6, 1978, The American Presidency Project, accessed April 16, 2018 at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=30264.

Krukones, “The Campaign Promises of Jimmy Carter,” 140. As this paper evaluates Carter’s Iran policy from more of a diplomatic perspective, it does not devote considerable space to a discussion of how domestic politics impinged on the foreign policy making process. 5 The author wishes to thank Dr. George L. Simpson, Professor of History at High Point University, for the access to the Jimmy Carter Library sources and for his assistance in editing this paper. 3 4

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Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Gary Sick, an Iran expert at the Department of State. These sources provide a more personal and cohesive presentation. Finally, a few secondary sources help provide additional context for this paper. A Test Arises Jimmy Carter characterizes Sunday, November 4, 1979 as a “date that [he] will never forget” 6 and one that “marked the beginning of the most difficult period of [his] life.” 7 Early that morning, the President received a call from Brzezinski, who reported the initial details of an ongoing situation at the US Embassy in Tehran, Iran. That day, students from the nearby Tehran University staged what began as a peaceful protest outside the compound’s gates. Nevertheless, before long, their nonviolent demonstration turned violent with Iranians storming the embassy. In the end, a mob of around 3,000 people seized the building and took 66 Americans hostage. The administration’s initial reaction to the news was one of cautious yet hopeful optimism. Carter recalls that, at first, he was not particularly concerned: We were deeply disturbed, but reasonably confident that the Iranians would soon remove the attackers from the embassy compound and release our people. We and other nations had faced this kind of attack many times in the past, but never, so far as we knew, had a host government failed to attempt to protect threatened diplomats. We had a firm pledge from both the Iranian Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister to give our staff and property this protection. During the past week or two, even Khomeini’s [the leader of the ongoing Iranian Revolution] forces had helped to dispel crowds of demonstrators near the American Embassy. 8

At the time, Brzezinski shared a similar view, citing the earlier February 14 storming of the embassy by radicals, when the Iranian government had quickly stepped in and restored order. 9 This precedent helped to diminish fear and squash the initial surprise of the incident throughout the administration. Within a day, Carter began to realize that this situation was quite different from earlier events and that the assurances made by the Iranian government, no matter how sincere they appeared, would not help him. The following day, the administration acknowledged that the situation was quickly becoming a unique crisis. On November 5, in a move that subverted the expectations of many, the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, condoned the takeover of the Embassy. Initially, Khomeini had ordered Ibrahim Yadzi, the Iranian foreign minister, to “go and kick [the students] out.” 10 Khomeini’s outlook changed, however, after Ahmad, his son, visited the embassy and saw that the event was in fact quite popular, leading the Ayatollah to see this as a golden political opportunity. 11 For Carter and American officials, Khomeini’s action brought a swift end to their cautious optimism and forced them to reevaluate the situation at hand. The administration began to see that this hostage crisis was unlike the most memorable ones of the past. In this particular instance, the host government, which was in the midst of revolution, was approving of the embassy takeover, and it refused to help American officials as they sought to 6

Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith, Memoirs of a President (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1995), 466. Ibid, 467. 8 Ibid, 466. 9 Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle, Memoirs of the National Security Advisor, 1977-1981 (Toronto, Canada: McGraw Hill Ryerson Ltd, 1983), 470. 10 Mark Bowden, Guests of the Ayatollah (New York, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006), 93. 11 Ibid, 94. 7

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secure the release of their people. As a result, there was no set of historical guidelines from past examples for Carter and his advisors to follow, leaving them in uncharted waters. The Refusal to Act Militarily In this new period of uncertainty, Carter and those around him considered many options to bring the hostages home. Quickly after the embassy’s seizure, Carter formed an Iran working group through the State Department, led by Henry Precht, the Director for Iranian Affairs. 12 On November 7, a U.S. delegation that included Ramsey Clark and William Miller went to talk with Khomeini, but it was hastily denied access to the revolutionary leader. The U.S. House of Representatives, meanwhile, sent an ineffective letter “urging [the] prompt release of the hostages.” 13 By November 6, the administration began considering the option of a rescue attempt. As Carter recalls, unique logistical concerns were the main issue blocking a quick decision to mount a rescue attempt. The greatest problem was “the inaccessibility of the American Embassy compound,” which was “located more than 600 miles from the nearest operating aircraft carriers and deep within the heavily populated urban center of Tehran. 14 Moreover, even though the US government had surveillance of the compound, it was impossible for officials to know the exact location of the hostages within the embassy. 15 These obstacles presented a significant difficulty in the administration’s consideration of a rescue mission but were not the sole challenges it faced. Without doubt, Khomeini’s actions proved to be one of the most serious hardships that they faced when considering responding militarily. Ultimately, the administration determined that Khomeini was the “only possible key to the release [of the hostages].” 16 In discussing the possibility of a rescue attempt or military response, the reaction of Khomeini and the Revolutionary Council, the group established by Khomeini to oversee the revolution, weighed heavily on the minds of the American decision makers. With Iran in the midst of revolution and its leader acting much like a loose cannon, the uncertainty of what Khomeini’s potential reaction might be proved to be an insurmountable difficulty to American officials. In essence, Carter and his advisors had great uneasiness about the success of any military action because of the numerous difficulties that it presented. Furthermore, the crisis occurred within a Cold War context, and the Carter administration feared Soviet intervention in the event that the U.S. government reacted militarily or more forcefully. Part of this concern dated back to the Russo-Iranian “Treaty of Friendship” signed in Moscow on February 26, 1921. This agreement explicitly gave the USSR the right to invade Iran in the event of outside foreign intervention. On November 5, 1979, the day following the embassy’s seizure, Iranian authorities announced the repeal of two of the treaty’s major articles, annulling Moscow’s claim that it had a right of intervention. 17 This did not completely eliminate 12

Carter, Keeping Faith, 466. Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division of the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, “The Iran Hostage Crisis: A Chronology of Daily Developments,” March 1981, 35-37, accessed April 16, 2018 at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31210003841689;view=1up;seq=9. 14 Carter, Keeping Faith, 467. 15 Ibid. 16 The Hostage Situation, January 9, 1979, Secret, NSA-6, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Iran, 1979-1980, Box 30, Jimmy Carter Library (henceforth JCL). 17 W. Michael Reisman, “Termination of the U.S.S.R.’s Treaty Right of Intervention in Iran,” Faculty Scholarship Series, Yale Law School, Paper 717 (1980): 144-154. 13

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the Carter administration’s fear of Soviet interference, however, as many throughout the U.S. and Europe (including the USSR) still saw the treaty as valid as Tehran’s move represented a unilateral abrogation of an agreement that had not previously been breached. As a result, the Carter administration remained cautious in contemplating any military response for fear of provoking an aggressive Soviet response. In a letter to Brzezinski, Richard Lehman, a top analyst from the Central Intelligence Agency, articulated the view that, The Soviet Union’s primary national goals are to strengthen itself and to weaken the U.S. It will exploit any opportunity open to it in the pursuit of these goals, restrained only by its calculations of risk. It is not in the interest of the United States to become, or to be perceived as becoming, weaker than the USSR. 18

Similarly, in a later memorandum, an unnamed U.S. official argued that “the Soviets are sure to try to exploit any U.S. military actions to improve their own relationship with Iran.” 19 From such statements, it becomes clear that the Carter administration saw events through Cold War lenses and considered how the Soviets could potentially strengthen themselves or weaken the U.S. in response to any particular military action. Beyond Moscow, Carter also feared intervention from the Arab side, particularly from the Saudis and Iraqis. Hence, many military options died quickly out of concerns that they could stoke a broader and more harmful international conflict. In particular, administration officials believed that any bombing attacks or mining of Iranian ports could result in “largely hostile reactions from the Arab states.” 20 They acknowledged that although some Arab countries, such the Saudi ruling family, had a more favorable view toward the U.S., the more dominant perceptions in the Arab world were more hostile concerning any American action. 21 In short, Soviet or Arab intervention (or a combination of both) led him to veer away from any military response and, instead, steer towards diplomacy as his go-to foreign policy tool. President Carter’s acknowledgement of the difficulties and potential consequences of military action led him to rededicate the United States to the humanitarian principles that had defined his foreign policy agenda throughout his presidency thus far. From the start, Carter and many of his advisors instinctively relied on diplomatic tactics to get the hostages released. Their commitment to a more open and humanitarian approach remained the primary strategy for rescuing the hostages for the next five months. At the State Department, Gary Sick characterized the combination of the Iranian Revolution and Hostage Crisis as “political and strategic disaster[s].” 22 Nevertheless, he provided this context of the administration’s diplomatic response: The U.S. campaign of persuasion and pressure that was mounted in the days and weeks following the hostage seizure was probably the most extensive and sustained effort of its kind ever to be conducted in peacetime. No nation in the world had more resources at its 18

Richard Lehman, The U.S. Stake in Iran (Central Intelligence Agency), enclosure in Memorandum From Brzezinski to President Carter, November 13, 1979, Secret, NSA-6, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Iran, 19791980, Box 30, JCL. 19 Memorandum, Probable Arab and Soviet Reactions to Possible US Military Moves Against Iran (Bombing and Mining), April 21, 1980, Secret, NSA-6, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Iran, 1979-1980, Box 31, JCL, 4. 20 Ibid, 1. 21 Ibid, 3. 22 Gary Sick, All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter with Iran (New York, New York: Random House, Inc: 1985), vii.

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command than the United States, and all of those resources were mobilized to bring the maximum political, economic, diplomatic, legal, financial, and even religious pressure on the revolutionary regime. 23

Obviously, Sick’s perspective on their diplomatic effort is subjective. Nonetheless, he does make a compelling case: that the diplomatic efforts of the Carter administration were “extensive” and, most definitely “sustained.” All the same, one might wonder if such “sustained” diplomatic efforts were in fact counterproductive. A prime example of Carter’s reliance on diplomatic tactics lies in his concern for the lives of the hostages, the final major factor that turned him and his administration away from military recourse. As Carter later declared, “in order to minimize injury to the hostages, the United States has acted at all times with exceptional patience and restraint in this crisis.” 24 Throughout the ordeal, Carter, because of his humanitarian principles, was always concerned about the lives of the hostages. Thus, he deemed many military options as both dangerous to the people involved and therefore sought to avoid such confrontations. It’s Time: Carter Changes Paths In late April 1980, President Carter finally turned to military action. The plan, which was intended to be a rescue mission rather than any type of attack, was a complete failure. On April 25, 1980, Carter was forced to face the nation. He solemnly made the following remarks: Late yesterday, I cancelled a carefully planned operation which was underway in Iran to position our rescue team for later withdrawal of American hostages, who have been held captive there since November 4. Equipment failure in the rescue helicopters made it necessary to end the mission. As our team was withdrawing, after my order to do so, two of our American aircraft collided on the ground following a refueling operation in a remote desert location in Iran. . .. There was no fighting; there was no combat. But to my deep regret, eight of the crewmen of the aircraft which collided were killed, and several other Americans were hurt in the accident. 25

Carter had to recall the unfortunate details of his failed rescue attempt, which left eight Americans dead and zero hostages rescued. Critics naturally asked, “Why had all of this happened?” First, why did the mission fail? What could have been more carefully planned? Secondly, and certainly more puzzling, why would Carter, after many months of relentless open and humanitarian tactics, so suddenly change his path and decide to respond with a rescue mission? In the days following the debacle, Carter and his administration attempted to explain why they decided to launch Operation Eagle Claw, the official name for the rescue attempt. On April 25, the White House circulated a memo to all senior staff and deputies outlining the major reasons for their decision [or at least the ones they wanted the public to believe]. The rationales focused on unsuccessful diplomatic efforts, “heightening tensions in [the] already volatile and

23

Ibid, 217. Announcement by the President, The White House, April 7,1980, enclosure in Memorandum From Jack H. Watson (White House Chief of Staff) to the Cabinet, April 7, 1980, NSA-6, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Iran, 1979-1980, Box 31, JCL. 25 Jimmy Carter, "Address to the Nation on the Rescue Attempt for American Hostages in Iran," Speech, Washington, DC, April 25, 1980, The American Presidency Project, accessed April 14, 2018 at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=33322. 24

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vital region” and the concern for the “physical and psychological effect[s] on the hostages.” 26 Over the following days, the media questions focused largely on the resignation of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who quit because of Carter’s move away from diplomatic efforts, and the specific details of the operation’s failure. As time progressed, and especially as the event began to be examined with greater hindsight, the major questions shifted to hypothesizing when and why Carter kicked diplomatic relations to the curb and ordered an operation that went against all that he had been saying for five months. Making the Call In fact, the decision to turn to a military option had started to take root about a month before the actual rescue operation. On March 22, 1980, President Carter convened his key advisors at Camp David to discuss the logical next steps. That day, in a meeting that lasted more than five hours, General David C. Jones, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, gave the group the “first comprehensive and full briefing on the rescue mission.” 27 The decision to rescue the hostages was not decided in that meeting, but many were convinced that taking this step was the right move as a result of it. In the coming weeks, Brzezinski especially put forth great effort to persuade Carter that a more forceful operation was necessary. In a memorandum given to the president entitled “Getting the Hostages Free,” Brzezinski maintained that the only two options were to rescue the hostages or to apply greater force. 28 Within a few weeks, Carter was becoming increasingly convinced that it was time to change his approach. On April 7, the President presided at a National Security Council meeting where he acknowledged that we should have acted more forcefully sooner and took responsibility for the shortcoming. 29 Later that day, the president announced that the U.S. was “breaking diplomatic relations with the government of Iran.” 30 By April 11, Carter had made the final call to launch a rescue mission. 31 The truly puzzling question of why the President made the decision to respond in a strikingly different way than he had for so long still remains to be addressed. Primarily, President Carter decided to act more aggressively because of the escalating events leading up to April 1979 and the failure of his diplomatic attempts to bring the hostages home. Simply put, Carter was becoming fed up with the little-to-no cooperation he received from Khomeini. The tensions between the two had really begun to escalate when the Ayatollah condoned the embassy’s seizure. Their hostile relationship escalated as the crisis lingered, particularly as Khomeini repeatedly “committed himself to trying the hostages for espionage.” 32 As noted earlier, the Iranian leader soon became identified as the “only possible key to [getting the hostages] released.” 33 Nonetheless, the Ayatollah continuously threw all of Carter’s attempts out of the

26

Memorandum by Al McDonald (White House Staff Director), April 25,1980, NSA-6, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Iran, 1979-1980, Box 31, JCL. 27 Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 487. 28 Ibid, 492. 29 Ibid, 491. 30 Announcement by the President, April 7, 1980. 31 Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 1977-1981, 487. 32 Trials of Hostages, November 20, 1979, Top Secret, NSA-6, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Iran, 1979-1980, Box 30, JCL. 33 The Hostage Situation, January 9, 1980, Secret, NSA-6, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Iran, 1979-1980, Box 30, JCL.

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window while keeping his threats coming. By March and April, conditions were still continuing to deteriorate. In early April, Carter publicly addressed the deteriorating situation declaring, The militants controlling the embassy have stated they are willing to turn the hostages over to the government of Iran, but the government has refused to take custody of the American hostages. This lays bare the full responsibility of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the revolutionary council. 34

Khomeini’s endless roadblocks presented serious frustration for Carter. No matter how harsh or severe his diplomatic tactics were, Khomeini would not budge. After five months of this, complemented by increasing tensions leading up to April, Carter was disgusted and finally realized the need to change his approach. In addition, Carter was compelled to step up his game because of his deteriorating domestic political standing. On the one hand, he faced dismal approval ratings from the American people. Despite the initial rise in the President’s approval in the few months following the embassy’s seizure, by August, Carter’s support had fallen to a miserable 21 percent. 35 Although this factor reflected other shortcomings of his presidency, a large portion of the blame can be attributed to his ineffective response to the ongoing crisis in Iran. Most certainly, Carter acknowledged that his poor perception among Americans was not helping him in the 1980 presidential arena. For Carter, a man who “had always intended to seek reelection,” 36 this bleak situation made his chances of getting a second term equally dismal. With the Iran situation increasingly worsening, the people closest to Carter urged him to take a different approach or face imminent defeat in November. At this point, Carter, because of his response’s ineffectiveness, put the U.S. on the brink of international humiliation. For many, Carter’s decision to order a rescue attempt appeared to be based more on an effort to protect our national standing and improve his domestic appeal than to secure the lives of the hostages. In a press conference on April 29 with Carter, one reporter boldly inquired this: After so many months of restraint, why did you undertake a mission that involved, endangered so many lives, a mission that you said was not feasible all along? And with all due respect, has national pride taken precedence over the safety of the hostages, that is the need to end this problem?” 37

For months, Carter had put human lives at the top of his diplomatic agenda. In this rescue mission, as the reporter highlighted, it appeared that our international standing had taken a higher importance. As Brzezinski notes, in the April meetings where the administration finalized plans for a potential rescue operation, Walter Mondale, Carter’s Vice President, stressed that a “rescue mission offered us the best way out of a situation that was becoming intolerably humiliating.” 38 In essence, throughout the final weeks leading up to Carter’s decision, his awful standing in the

34

Announcement by the President, April 7, 1980. “Carter Rating in Two Polls Lowest Ever,” The Washington Post, August 5, 1980, accessed April 14, 2018 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/08/05/carter-rating-in-two-polls-lowest-ever/20d084b27708-4251-b62f-45ac55bd490b/?utm_term=.eca171f94a8b. 36 Carter, Keeping Faith, 203. 37 Jimmy Carter, "The President’s News Conference: Rescue Mission for American Hostages in Iran," News Conference, Washington, DC, April 95, 1980, The American Presidency Project, accessed April 14, 2018 at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=33342. 38 Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 493. 35

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presidential race and the perception of our country, domestically and around the world, played a considerable role in changing his mind. Finally, the Carter administration made the call to attempt a rescue mission because of a new development concerning the perceived Soviet response. As Carter more seriously considered various military options, administration officials gave greater weight to potential foreign reaction. Although Carter was most seriously considering the rescue mission option, he also discussed the possible results of mining Iranian ports or executing bombing attacks. In the end, intelligence inclined Carter to select an attempt at rescuing the hostages as he received the following prognostication: If the Soviets were sure that the US military action was limited to securing the release of the hostages or punishing Iran, they would adopt a more restrained military response. If this were the Soviet perception, the USSR would be unlikely to seek a direct military confrontation in the event of US mining operations or bombing attacks. 39

For Carter, this opinion helped to calm some of his fears. If he opted to select one of these options, particularly the rescue mission, it was more likely that Moscow would not see this as a threat to the USSR and respond too forcefully. In the end, the perception that harmful Soviet reaction might not be a result of a potential rescue mission assisted the President in opting to order the military operation. Conclusion Ultimately, Carter’s decision to divert from his diplomatic tendencies marked a considerable change in his presidency. In the beginning, i.e. directly following the embassy’s seizure, his more open, humanitarian tactics were justified for numerous reasons. Primarily, the hostage situation was distinctly unique. Since Carter lacked a set of guidelines for resolving the crisis, he logically resulted to what he knew best: diplomacy. In addition, many of his initial reasons for opting to avoid a military response were plausible. For example, as Carter heard and contemplated the various military options available, he remained cautious because of his consideration for the lives of the hostages and of potential deleterious consequences that could result from the resort to using force. As the situation lingered on, Carter’s continued reliance on diplomatic tactics proved ineffective. It did not take long for administration officials correctly to determine that Khomeini was the key to the hostage’s release. Nonetheless, they came up short in determining an effective way to handle him. For five months, Carter tried to deal with a rogue, revolutionary leader in the way that one would deal with a sensible statesman. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Carter took the wrong approach and continued with it even after its inadequacy had become evident. After Khomeini condoned the taking of the hostages that Carter should have realized that a more forceful approach had to be taken in order to effectively resolve the crisis successfully. By the time Carter decided to launch a rescue mission in April, his reasonings became difficult definitively to pinpoint. With tensions rising and efforts floundering, Carter faced dozens of reasons to reconsider his administration’s response. As with any similar study, it is impossible to determine the exact reasons why someone decides to do something. Without doubt, 39

Probable Arab and Soviet Reactions to Possible US Military Moves Against Iran (Bombing and Mining), April 21, 1980.

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this applies to Carter and his response to the Iranian Hostage Crisis. This paper addresses only some of the most significant and the most reported factors that contributed to the President’s actions. Irrefutably, there were other elements that pushed Carter to make that final call on April 11. Conclusively, the decision-making process that surrounded the Iran Hostage Crisis marked a notable change from Carter’s foreign policy goals outlined in his 1976 campaign. Moreover, the President’s failed response to the ongoing affair likely cost him a second term in office.

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Is Sales 'Sold' on Women?

2019

Amanda Rackley

Amanda Rackley, a senior marketing major, used to think of sales as a “Boy’s Club,” but through her classes and studies at High Point University, she has come to realize that the sales industry has been misrepresented. She was also able to see how important and universal selling really is. The sales industry has been male-dominated for a while and she was curious to see how that was changing, as well as the potential for women in modern selling. Rackley finds being able to watch her paper develop from an honors project to a publication that she is very proud of to be the most fulfilling aspect of her undergraduate research. She credits Professor Mark Michael with being her number one supporter and allowing her to expand her knowledge and understanding of the sales profession and the opportunities within it. After graduation, Rackley plans to work in the field of marketing. Abstract The sales profession, like many business professions, is historically male-dominated. Despite the fact that more women are working now than ever before, the sales industry has seen a very minimal increase in the percentage of female sales professionals. The purpose of this research was to examine why the percentage of women working in sales has been increasing at such a slow rate, how women would be valuable assets to sales teams, and to argue how the lack of female representation within the industry could be putting companies at a disadvantage. The slow growth rate of women joining the salesforce can be attributed to at least one of two practices: either women are not pursuing careers in sales or hiring managers are choosing not to hire women. The lack of female salespeople is important to acknowledge due to the shift from results-based selling to consultative selling. The relationship-based selling approach has created a new professional environment in which women could thrive due to several skills that evidence suggests may be biologically-based, such as listening and emotional intelligence. The potential benefit of more saleswomen is increasingly important to consider due to recent findings that have shown how women in sales tend to outperform male counterparts and high gender diversity boosts companies on an organizational level.

T

he sales profession, like many business professions, has been male-dominated for a number of years. This predominantly-male history has endured even in its terminology with the continued use of the term “salesman” to describe any person, male or female, who works in sales. For many, the image that comes to mind when describing someone in sales is the pushy, smooth-talking, used car salesman whose main goal is to close the deal no matter what the customer may need or want. Though the role and tactics of salespeople have changed

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over the past few decades, this negative stereotype still holds a prominent place in peoples’ minds. Sales’ male-dominated history has helped to create the perception that sales is a “Boys’ Club”. A Boys’ Club can be defined as “power circles of men, mostly white, who control, formally or informally organizations or silos within them” (Segal, 2016). This Boys’ Club image is somewhat perpetuated by the sales taking place outside of office environments such as at bars or on the golf courses, locations that are typically not frequented by or welcoming to women. Whether this descriptor is accurate in the modern selling world or not, the used car salesman image, along with the persisting Boys’ Club mentality, has helped to dissuade women from pursuing sales careers. Despite the fact that women now make up half of the workforce, the sales industry has not seen a significant rise in the percentage of female workers. A LinkedIn study revealed that in the past 10 years, the percentage increase of women in sales was only 3%; the current percentage being 39% as compared to 36% 10 years prior (Mandelbaum, 2017). The slow growth rate of women joining the salesforce is indicative that at least one of two practices is occurring: either women are not pursuing careers in sales, or hiring managers are choosing not to hire women. Although the Boys’ Club mentality is still present in the sales profession, several companies are making conscious efforts to address it (Crush, 2017). The continuation of the Boys’ Club can be attributed to several different factors; one of which is the prevalence of unconscious biases in hiring. Biases such as the “like-me” bias are keeping women out of the industry. It is very common that hiring managers will hire people who look like them and, where sales is concerned, men tend to hire more men. The like-me bias can also affect the way in which jobs are advertised. Companies tend to use masculine language, consciously or not, which can deter qualified female applicants. Sales job descriptions often include masculine terms such as relentless, sports-minded, and aggressive. Changing these terms to more gender-neutral alternatives like team player, energetic or dynamic can help hiring managers to make sure they are not missing out on qualified salespeople due to gender-biased phrasing. For example, one hiring manager found that changing the language in job ads and showcasing more women on their website shifted their job application gender breakdown from 80:20 male-female to a 50:50 male-female split (Crush, 2017). In addition to avoiding masculine wording, it is important to craft job descriptions so they will appeal to a wide array of candidates. A Hewlett- Packard study revealed that women will only apply for a position only if they feel they meet 100 percent of the qualifications while men will apply even if they think they only meet 60 percent of the criteria (Vioria, 2018). Increasing the female salesforce will not happen without conscious effort. Men and women apply to jobs based on different criteria and respond to different language. There are several practices such as altering language on job advertisements, showcasing more women on websites, and being aware of the potential for unconscious biases that could help to bring qualified women into the salesforce. The lack of female salespeople is not solely the result of the actions of hiring managers and job advertisements. A large part of the issue is that women have not yet considered their potential within the male-dominated industry. The sales industry has been evolving with more emphasis on establishing and maintaining relationships than solely closing a deal. This new environment provides women with more advantages and potential for success. With the rise of consultative selling, the modern buyer is looking to build a lasting relationship, something which women typically do quite well. Women build relationships differently from men; they tend to share stories and pull out the details, while men tend to get straight to the point. The ability to 91


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take time and share stories can help salespeople to build rapport with customers and establish trust. Research has also suggested that men focus more on getting results and task completion, whereas women like to take time to consider the long-term implications (“Could the Best Man”, 2017). A common misconception is that success in sales is dependent solely on being a smoothtalker when, in fact, one of the most crucial skills in the sales profession is the ability to listen. Salespeople with strong listening skills are better able to pinpoint customers concerns, provide solutions that fulfill customers’ needs, and offer appealing strategic solutions. According to Forbes, “74% of customers are more likely to purchase an offering if they perceive that they are being listened to” (Fatemi, 2018). Women have a biological advantage in this regard. Studies have shown that the Heschl’s gyrus, the section of the brain that is associated with listening, is larger in women’s brains as compared to men (Fatemi, 2018). Women are predisposed to be better listeners which could give them a natural advantage in selling. Women would make a good addition to the salesforce for several reasons. For example, women are more likely to achieve formal education and excel in social intelligence. One type of social intelligence is emotional intelligence or (EI) (Fatemi, 2018). The American Psychological Association conducted studies and found women tend to outperform men on emotional intelligence tests. Increased EI allows a person to better understand and respond to a person’s feelings and potential objections. A study of Fortune 500 companies uncovered that salespeople with high emotional intelligence outperformed people with moderate EI by 50% (Fatemi, 2018). Women tend to be better listeners and focus on long-term relationship building: two elements which are fundamental to sales success, yet there is a lack of representation of women in sales. Lack of gender diversity in the sales industry is not only a problem for qualified career women, but it puts companies at a disadvantage as well. Studies have shown that not only do women in the salesforce tend to outperform their male counterparts, but companies with high gender diversity tend to outperform competitors. According to a study conducted by Gartner Inc., women attain quota at a slightly higher rate than men. The study revealed 70% of women reached quota as opposed to only 67% of men (Barnes, 2017). The research conducted by the Gartner study also found that women tend to stay in their roles a year longer than men (Barnes, 2017). Gender diversity is not only fair but it is a good business strategy. According to a Gallup study, gender-diverse business units in the retail industry had 14% higher average comparable revenue. The same study found that gender-diverse sales teams within the hospitality industry had 19% higher average quarterly profit (Badal, 2014). The positive impact of gender diversity in the workplace is also supported by a McKinsey & Company study which found that gender diversity increases a company’s chances of outperforming the median in their industry by 15% (Hunt, Layton, & Prince, 2015). Not only do companies with a high level of gender diversity have the ability to achieve better business results but having more women in charge helps to further increase diversity. Studies show that female-led teams are 50% female while male-led teams are typically only 25 % female (Patel, 2016). In addition, female managers have a higher probability of eliciting respect and pride from their employees, communicating their vision more effectively and approaching problem solving in creative and flexible ways (“Could the Best Man”, 2017). Companies that are focused on increasing gender diversity in the workplace are taking advantage of the positive impact that female professionals can bring to previously maledominated industries.

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Is the sales industry sold on women? Not yet, but it should be. In order to better compete in the modern selling era, the sales industry needs to focus on recruiting qualified female professionals into the salesforce. There are more women in the workforce than ever before, yet the salesforces are not capitalizing on the benefits of a new pool of qualified candidates. Hiring managers looking for qualified applicants may be inadvertently alienating talented women through masculine language in job advertisements, lack of female representation or unconscious biases. It is important to acknowledge due to the potential positive impact women could be having in the salesforce. While the percentage of female sales professionals is only around 39%, saleswomen are proving extremely valuable, with studies showing that women are outperforming their male counterparts in multiple categories (Barnes, 2017). Outside of the sales profession, the influx of working women has helped gender-diverse companies to outperform competitors on an organizational level. Women have the potential to achieve great personal and organizational success within the sales industry, if given the opportunity. The Boys’ Club model of the sales industry has been successful in the past, but the world is changing. The workforce is diversifying, consumers are evolving, competition is increasing, and the sales industry needs to adapt.

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References Badal, Sangeeta. (2014, January 20). The Business Benefits of Gender Diversity. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/166220/business-benefits-gender-diversity.aspx Barnes, Hank. (2017, July 11). Women in Sales – A missed Opportunity? Retrieved from https://blogs.gartner.com/hank-barnes/2017/07/11/women-in-sales-a-missed-opportunity/ Cabrera, Christopher. (2014, October 24). With Big Data Comes Big Opportunity: Ensure Against Gender Pay Gaps. Retrieved from https://www.xactlycorp.com/blog/big-datacomes-big-opportunity-ensure-gender-pay-gaps/ Could the Best Man for the Account Based Sales Job Be a Woman? (2017, November 9). Retrieved from http://www.nomorecoldcalling.com/best-man-account-based-sales-jobwoman/ Crush, Peter. (2017, September 6). Debunking the sales ‘boys’ club’. Retrieved from https://www.raconteur.net/business/debunking-the-sales-boysclub Fatemi, Falon. (2018, January 29). 3 Definitive Advantages Women Have In Sales. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/falonfatemi/2018/01/29/3-definitive-advantages-womenhave-in-sales/ Hisaka, Alex. (2014, June 24). Trends of Women in Sales Infographic. Retrieved from https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/blog/t/trends-of-women-in-sales-infographic Hunt, Vivian., Layton, Dennis., & Prince, Sara. (2015, January). Why diversity matters. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/ourinsights/why-diversity-matters Mandelbaum, Ava. (2017) Trends of Women in Sales. Retrieved from https://www.badgermapping.com/blog/women-in-sales/ Nair, Praseeda. (2017, March 7). Sales is still a boys’ club. Women in sales explain why. Retrieved from http://www.growthbusiness.co.uk/sales-still-boys-club-women-salesexplain-2549946/ Patel, Sujan. (2016, February 8). Why Women Are a Powerful Addition to Your Sales Team [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/sujan-patel/the-business-case-forgender-diversity-infographic.html Segal, Jonathan. (2016, May 3). The Boys’ Club Perception Test. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/274623 Vioria, Rakhi. (2018, January 17). Why We Need More Women In Sales. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2018/01/17/why-we-needmore-women-in-sales/#5f439a7430ce

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Dark Personalities, Self-Adornment, and Risky Sexual Behavior: How Do They Correlate? Raniya Shakir Raniya Shakir submitted this piece as a senior studying psychology and has always been intrigued by the concept of “dark personalities.” Her idea of sexual behaviors and how that would be presented in people with dark personalities was sparked by a Close Relationships course. The opportunity to do undergraduate research has given her the chance to explore other areas of interest within the field of psychology. The most fulfilling part of taking part in undergraduate research is knowing that she has been able to contribute new ideas and research to the field. She would like to acknowledge Dr. Deborah Danzis as her mentor on this project. Dr. Danzis has given her a chance to freely express her ideas, as well as become more confident in her ability to work independently on further research. After graduation, Shakir plans on getting her master’s in clinical psychology and working as a clinician.

Abstract Physical attractiveness plays a key role in many aspects of a person’s life, especially when creating first impressions. Many people with darker personality traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy, use first impressions to their advantage to physically attract others. Narcissistic and psychopathic individuals are known for having impersonal and short-term relationships. The tendency to maintain short-term relationships, combined with dark personality traits, may lead an individual to engage in sexual behaviors that are deemed risky. This study examined whether people with psychopathic and narcissistic traits partake in self-adornment, and whether those tendencies correlate to engaging in risky sexual behaviors. The sample consisted of 216 undergraduate students. Participants answered a questionnaire comprised of four measures, one for each variable. Results showed there was a positive correlation between psychopathy and selfadornment. In addition, there was a positive correlation between narcissism and self-adornment. The results also showed that there was a significant positive correlation between psychopathy and risky-sexual behavior. People who exhibit the darker personality characteristics of psychopathy and narcissism are more likely to engage in self-adornment techniques. Furthermore, due to the impulsive nature and lack of interpersonal relationships seen in these types of individuals, they are also more likely to take part in risky sexual behaviors.

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hysical attractiveness plays a key role in many aspects of a person’s life. It is especially important when it comes to creating first impressions that may form the basis of a relationship (Gangestad & Scheyd, 2005 as cited by Holtzman & Strube, 2012). Many people with darker personality traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy, may use first impressions to their advantage to physically attract others. Narcissistic and psychopathic individuals are known for having impersonal and short-term relationships. They are often 95


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characterized as being manipulative, coercive, impulsive and aggressive (Holtzman & Strube, 2012). These traits may also lead them to engage in sexual behaviors that are deemed risky. This study examines whether people with psychopathic and narcissistic traits manipulate their physical appearance through self-adornment, as well as if psychopathic traits and self-adornment correlate with engaging in risky sexual behaviors. There has not been an abundance of research relating the manipulation of physical attractiveness and personality traits; however, there has been previous research on general physical attractiveness and its relation to narcissism and psychopathy. Previous research has primarily focused on the dark triad, which consists of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. Because there is no extant literature on Machiavellianism and selfadornment, it was not addressed in the present study. For the purposes of this study, only narcissism and psychopathy will be examined due to their underlying similarities. Although these two constructs share many similarities, their differences lie in the motive behind their actions. Individuals with psychopathic tendencies use manipulative tactics in order to get what they want from others, whereas narcissistic individuals focus solely on self-gratification. Narcissists are known to be grandiose, self-absorbed, and exploitative. Narcissists are often described as having superficial charm and social skills, which results in others being initially attracted to such individuals. Their manipulative tendencies are not ideal for long-term relationships but have proven to be most effective during first encounters (Back, Schmukle, & Egloff, 2010). Back et al. (2010) examined the impressions that narcissists made at zero acquaintance and investigated what behaviors and aspects of physical appearance made them more attractive at first sight. They conducted a study that consisted of two groups, one in which they took photographs of individuals who reported high narcissism and presented the images to people whom they had never met and the other in which they had observers watch a muted video of the narcissistic individuals. This was done to test how many people would be attracted to those individuals based solely on their appearance. Back et al. found that there was a correlation between attractiveness ratings and narcissism. Observers who saw still images of the narcissistic individuals rated them higher in attractiveness than when they saw a muted video of the individuals. Back et al. concluded that narcissists can impress strangers by their physical appearance alone; the more information the observers perceived about the narcissistic individual, the lower score they would get. This is an indication of how physical appearance alone can influence perception of personality by observers. In a meta-analysis linking narcissism and physical attractiveness, done by Holtzman and Strube (2010), they found evidence that narcissists groom themselves to bolster their grandiose self-image. In other words, narcissists manipulate their physical appearance in order to make themselves more attractive and to maximize positive feedback. They maintain a behavior of altering their appearances that allows them to receive attention from others and preserve and enhance their self-image (Holtzman & Strube, 2010). Vazire, Naumann, Rentfrow, and Gosling (2008) would agree that narcissists are more likely to wear expensive clothing and keep a neat appearance as a way to satisfy their need for attention. These tendencies coincide with the manipulative and self-absorbed characteristics of narcissists. In addition to narcissism, psychopathy is also widely accepted as being a major factor in dark personalities. Psychopathy is characterized by impulsivity, lack of empathy, and coercion. In a sample of 245 undergraduate students, Paulhus and Williams (2002) evaluated the differences and similarities between each dark triad personality. Their research found that although the personality constructs are not one and the same, they have similar underlying 96


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characteristics in the way in which they present themselves. For example, narcissists and psychopaths exhibited the most self-enhancement. Self-enhancement techniques are already an established practice in narcissists, but this is something that was found to be novel in psychopaths (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). This suggests that the two personality constructs share deceptive and grandiose qualities. Further investigating the attributes of narcissism and psychopathy, Holtzman and Strube (2012) provided the first empirical evidence that examined those constructs as associated with self-adornment. Holtzman and Strube identified self-adornment as being able to manipulate qualities that impact attractiveness, such as clothing or makeup. The aim of their study was to examine which personality traits are associated with physical attractiveness. In order to separate the different components of attractiveness, they took two photos of their male and female participants. In the first picture, participants were photographed the way they came to the study; that is, adorned with makeup, hair, and clothes all done. They were then photographed a second time in which they wore grey sweats, removed all makeup and jewelry, and pulled back hair (unadorned). Prior to taking the photos, the researchers obtained self-reports on personality from the participants. The photos were then shown to strangers who rated the physical attractiveness of the person in the photo; one group rated the adorned photos and a different group rated the unadorned photos. Holtzman and Strube concluded that psychopathy and narcissism were strongly correlated to self-adornment. It can be speculated that those who are high in psychopathic and narcissistic traits manipulate their physical appearance to make themselves more attractive, perhaps because it gives them more satisfaction and enables them to obtain more short-term romantic partners. The relationship between personality and physical attractiveness was also examined by Fulton, Marcus, and Payne (2010), who took into consideration the likelihood that psychopathic individuals might engage in risky sexual behaviors. The aim of their study was to investigate the relationship between risky sexual behavior and psychopathic personality traits in college students. Fulton et al. (2010) found that there was a clear correlation between psychopathic personality traits and self-reported risky sexual behavior. In addition, people that have low selfcontrol strength, which is often seen in psychopathic tendencies, have greater difficulty restraining their sexual behavior (Gailliot & Baumeister, 2007, as cited by Fulton, Marcus, & Payne, 2010). In Kastner and Sellbom’s research (2012), they examined the associations between psychopathic personality traits and sexual risk-taking behaviors in a sample of undergraduate students using multiple questionnaires. They concluded that, among the variables they examined, psychopathy was found to be the biggest predictor of risky sexual behavior. Their findings were an extension of Fulton et al.’s (2010) work, which helps to create a link that lies between psychopathic traits and engaging in risky sexual behavior. It has been established that people high in narcissism and psychopathy engage in more frequent self-adornment. There is also evidence that such individuals engage in riskier sexual behavior. Therefore, it may be the case that these behaviors are linked. It is a possibility that perhaps individuals with these dark personality traits engage in self-adornment with the specific purpose of seeking sexual gratification. It has been established that psychopathy and narcissism are characterized by manipulative, coercive and selfish tendencies. As a result, people who represent these traits are more likely to manipulate their physical appearance as a way to attract people at zero-acquaintance and appear more physically attractive. Previous research has shown that individuals who exhibit dark personality proclivities, such as psychopathy, are involved in more short-term relationships to 97


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satisfy their impulsive and risk-taking behaviors. Although these constructs are associated with Machiavellianism within the dark triad, the current study focuses only on psychopathy and narcissism, due to the lack of literature linking Machiavellianism to self-adornment and risky sexual behavior. The current study examined the variables of narcissism, psychopathy, selfadornment and risky sexual behavior. Understanding the relationship among these variables will allow us, as a society, to pick up on certain cues that may be present in some individuals and use it as a precaution prior to engaging in any kind of relationship with them. It is hypothesized that both narcissism and psychopathy will be positively correlated with self-adornment/enhancement tendencies. It is further hypothesized that psychopathy will be positively correlated with risky sexual behavior. Method Participants The sample consisted of 216 undergraduate college students, 172 females and 44 males. The average age was 19.38, SD = 1.15. The ethnicity of the sample consisted of approximately 90% Caucasian, 4% African American, 3% Asian, and 3% as other. Materials The Narcissistic Personality Inventory 16 (NPI-16; Ames, Rose, & Anderson, 2006). This measure consists of 16 items that were developed from the original 40 item Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Its validity and reliability were tested among undergraduate students and showed close parallels to the NPI-40 (as discussed in Ames, Rose, & Anderson, 2006). The NPI-16 measures narcissistic traits that an individual may have, such as grandiosity, selfishness and arrogance. Each item consists of a pair of statements, in which the participants choose the one they most closely identify with (sample items: select which describes you more – “A. I am more capable than other people or B. There is a lot I can learn from other people”). The intention is to assess non-clinical narcissism, rather than Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP; Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995). This scale measures psychopathy in non-clinical subjects. It consists of 26 items that are self-reported on a 4-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree (sample items: “I often admire a really clever scam” and “I quickly lose interest in tasks I start”). The validity and reliability of the measure were examined with 487 undergraduate students, with alpha reliabilities ranging from 0.59 to 0.87. Sexual Risk Survey (SRS; Turchik & Garske, 2009). The SRS was altered by the researcher to include a Likert-scale for measurement. The SRS consists of 23 items asking participants to record how many times they have engaged in certain sexual behaviors in the last six months. The SRS was validated with college students and showed an internal consistency of α = .88 and test–retest reliability α = .93 (Turchik & Garske, 2009). For the purpose of this research, the measure was modified to include a 6-point scale on the frequency that each participant engaged in the given statements (sample items: “engaged in sexual behavior with a partner but not had sex with” and “engaged in vaginal intercourse without a condom”). Due to this modification, not all of the items were able to be used due to phrasing and wording. The modified version consisted of 21 items (see Appendix A). Self-Adornment Scale. The researcher created a questionnaire based on Holtzman and Strube’s (2012) empirical research. In their work, Holtzman and Strube defined self-adornment as voluntarily altering your physical appearance with makeup, clothes, hairstyle, and jewelry 98


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(2012). These factors were taken into consideration when creating the questionnaire (see Appendix B). Each item measures the likelihood and the frequency in which the participant engages in behaviors geared towards enhancing their physical appearance (sample items: “I spend a lot of time getting ready every morning” and “I only wear clothes from expensive brand names”). Procedure This study was correlational, examining relationships between psychopathy and self-adornment, narcissism and self-adornment, and psychopathy and risky sexual behaviors. The participants were first given consent forms to read and sign. Consent forms were collected, and the participants then received the packet of questionnaires with a demographic sheet to fill out first. The demographic sheet consisted of information such as age, gender and ethnicity. Once the demographic sheet was completed, the participants proceeded to the questionnaires, comprised of the NPI-16, the Levenson Self-Report Scale, the Sexual Risk Survey, and the Self-Adornment Scale. Once each participant completed the packet of questionnaires, the participants were debriefed and then free to leave. Results Pearson product correlation tests were done to examine the relationship between the variables. The results, seen in Table 1, show there was a positive correlation between psychopathy and self-adornment (r = .24, p = .000). In addition, there was a positive correlation between narcissism and self-adornment (r = .17, p = .011). The results also show that there was significant positive correlation between psychopathy and risky sexual behavior (r = .32, p = .000). Though not specifically hypothesized, out of scientific interest, there was also a positive correlation between risky sexual behavior and self-adornment (r = .16, p = .020) and narcissism and risky sexual behavior (r = .25, p = .000). Table 1 Correlations Between Personality, Self-Adornment, and Risky Sexual Behavior Narcissism Psychopathy Risky Sexual Behavior Note. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01

Self-Adornment .17* .24** .16*

Risky Sexual Behavior .25** .32** N/A

Discussion One of the goals of this study was to examine the relationships between psychopathy and self-adornment, and narcissism and self-adornment. The hypotheses that the two personality constructs would be positively correlated with self-adornment was supported by the present study. This is an indication that people who exhibit the darker personality characteristics of psychopathy and narcissism are more likely to engage in self-adornment techniques. This aligns with Holtzman and Strube’s (2012) findings mentioned earlier, that individuals with dark personalities create appearances that act as social lures. Of the three dark triad traits that were measured by Holtzman and Strube, they found psychopathy to be the most significant personality construct related to self-adornment. Likewise, the present study found that of narcissism and 99


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psychopathy, psychopathy had the more significant correlation with self-adornment. Although narcissism was not as strongly correlated as psychopathy to self-adornment, there was still a significant correlation between the two. One of the key characteristics of narcissistic individuals is their grandiose sense of self; anyone who scores high on narcissism may not report high on self-adornment tendencies because they do not believe they need to do anything to make themselves look better since they think they are already the best they can be. Furthermore, due to the impulsive nature and lack of interpersonal relationships seen in people with darker personalities, they are also more likely to partake in risky sexual behaviors. The hypothesis that psychopathy would be positively correlated with risky sexual behaviors was supported by the findings of the current study. Consistent with the current study, Kastner and Sellbom (2012) suggested that individuals who have high scores on psychopathic traits are also more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors. Their findings support the fact that psychopathic tendencies are the biggest predictor of risky sexual behavior. It can be speculated that self-adornment is used as a means to an end for some people. It is a possibility that self-adornment is being used to purposely attract potential partners. Since individuals with psychopathic tendencies are known for their sensation-seeking behaviors, selfadornment could be used as a way to quickly and efficiently attract others as a way to satisfy their sexual desires. On the other hand, narcissists are more likely to engage in self-adornment techniques due to their grandiose sense of self. Their motives behind self-adorning is not for the purpose of attracting others to them, but to make others envious of them. However, future research should further examine the relationship that lies between narcissism and risky sexual behavior. It may be a possibility that risky sexual behavior is linked to narcissism due to the underlying similarities that narcissism and psychopathy share with each other. Possible limitations of the study could include the narrow age range of the sample. An older sample could be more useful in examining the correlations with risky sexual behavior because a younger sample may be more inexperienced sexually. If it is possible to obtain a larger sample with a bigger age range, then there would be a variety of answers when it came to the Sexual Risky Survey, because the older participants would have more knowledge or experience about the things mentioned in the survey. Furthermore, the Self Adornment Scale was specifically created for this study. Although it was able to present accurate reports in support of the hypotheses, its validity and reliability have still not been determined. In order to do so, future research would need to implement a larger sample size. Additionally, the scale would need to be used across different studies in association with different variables. A further limitation of this scale is the language used within the items. For example, item 1 states “I spend a lot of time getting ready every morning.” Using the word “every” may confuse the respondent because it may reflect differences in the frequency in which they engage in a given behavior. In addition, the gender specific items may force the respondent to give an answer to an item which does not apply to them. For example, not all men have facial hair and not all women wear make-up, therefore the forced response on these items may cause deflated scores on self-adornment. Research examining the relationship between self-adornment and dark personalities is still lacking, and future research should focus on examining these variables. Future research should focus on finding a causal link between the variables and answer the question of “Do psychopaths and narcissists self-adorn in order to engage in risky sexual behavior?” Further research in this area may create practical implications. Now, more than ever, sexual assault and preventing victimization is a topic of popular discussion. The findings of this research will allow us, as a 100


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society, to distinguish between characteristics that may be present in some individuals and use it as a precaution prior to engaging in any kind of relationship with them. Many relationships form on first impressions; identifying manipulative tendencies at zero acquaintance will help us to avoid entering risky situations and possibly reduce victimization. References Ames, D. R., Rose, P., & Anderson, C. P. (2006). The NPI-16 as a short measure of narcissism. Journal of Research in Personality, 40(4), 440-450. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2005.03.002, © 2006 by Elsevier. Reproduced by Permission of Elsevier. Back, M. D., Schmukle, S. C., & Egloff, B. (2010). Why are narcissists so charming at first sight? Decoding the narcissism–popularity link at zero acquaintance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(1), 132–145. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016338 Fulton, J. J., Marcus, D. K., & Payne, K. T. (2010). Psychopathic personality traits and risky sexual behavior in college students. Personality and Individual Differences, 49(1), 29–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.02.035 Holtzman, N. S., & Strube, M. J. (2012). People with dark personalities tend to create a physically attractive veneer. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(4), 461–467. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550612461284 Holtzman, N. S., & Strube, M. J. (2010). Narcissism and attractiveness. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(1), 133–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2009.10.004 Kastner, R. M., & Sellbom, M. (2012). Hypersexuality in college students: The role of psychopathy. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(5), 644–649. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.05.005 Levenson, M. R., Kiehl, K. A., & Fitzpatrick, C. M. (1995). Assessing psychopathic attributes in a noninstitutionalized population. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(1), 151158. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.68.1.151 Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 556–563. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00505-6 Turchik, J. A., & Garske, J. P. (2009). Measurement of sexual risk taking among college students. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 38(6), 936–948. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-0089388-z Vazire, S., Naumann, L. P., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2008). Portrait of a narcissist: Manifestations of narcissism in physical appearance. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(6), 1439–1447. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2008.06.007

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Appendix A Instructions: Please read the following statements and reflect on how frequently you’ve engaged in the stated behaviors. On a scale from 0-5, record how often you believe to have done the following: 0 = Never 1 = Very Rarely 2 = Rarely 3 = Occasionally

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

4 = Frequently

5 = Very Frequently

________ Engaged in sexual behavior with a partner, but not had sex with him or her. ________ Left a social event with someone you just met. ________ “Hooked up”, but not had sex with someone that you did not know well. ________ Gone out to bars/parties/social events with the intent of “hooking up” and engaging in sexual behavior, but not having sex with someone. ________ Had an unexpected or unanticipated sexual experience. ________ Willingly engaged in a sexual encounter that you later regretted. ________ Had vaginal intercourse without a condom. ________ Had vaginal intercourse without protection against pregnancy. ________ Given or received fellatio (oral sex on a man) without a condom. ________ Given or received cunnilingus (oral sex on a woman) without a dental dam or “adequate protection.” ________ Had anal sex without a condom. ________ You or your partner engaged in anal penetration by a hand (“fisting”) or other object without a latex glove or condom, followed by unprotected anal sex. ________ Given or received analingus (oral stimulation of the anal region, “rimming”) without a dental dam or “adequate protection.” ________ Had sex with someone you know but was not involved in any sort of relationship with them (i.e., “friends with benefits”). ________ Had sex with someone you don’t know well or just met. ________ You or your partner used alcohol or drugs before or during sex. ________ Had sex with a new partner before discussing sexual history, IV drug use, disease status, and other current sexual partners. ________ From your knowledge, had sex with someone who has had many sexual partners. ________ From your knowledge, had sex with a partner who had been sexually active before you were with them but had not been tested for STI’s/HIV. ________ Had sex with a partner that you did not trust. ________ From your knowledge, had sex with someone who was also engaging in sexual behaviors with others during the same time period.

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Appendix B Instructions: Please read the following statements and on a scale from 0-4, record the number that you believe you best identify with for each statement. The last two questions are gender specific, so please read carefully and score accordingly. 0 = Never 1 = Rarely 2 = Sometimes 3 = Very often 4 = Always

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

________ I spend a lot of time getting ready every morning. ________ I only wear clothes from expensive brand-names. ________ I am constantly checking my hair or makeup to make sure it’s perfect. ________ I always have a hairstyle that others will find more attractive on me. ________ If someone compliments my clothes, I make sure to wear that or similar items again. 6. ________ I like to replicate the looks of what other people consider to be the “hottest” celebrities. 7. ________ When I get ready for the day, I do it with others in mind and not for myself. 8. ________ My facial hair (males) or makeup (females) is always done in a way that I believe will be more appealing to others. 9. ________ (FEMALES ONLY): I don’t like to go out in public without having done my makeup. 10. ________ (MALES ONLY): I like to make sure that my facial hair is trimmed a certain way.

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Heteroglossia in “The Sound and the Fury” Raegan Thomas Raegan Thomas, a junior English literature major with a double minor in religion and creative writing, found her inspiration after taking an English course in which she learned about the term “heteroglossia.” This interest was further sparked by reading The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner. Thomas’ most fulfilling aspect of her undergraduate research was the prospect of contributing to a topic in her field that not many authors had tackled before her. Dr. Matthew Carlson encouraged Thomas to submit her research to the journal, thus allowing her to share her passions with others. After she graduates from High Point University, Thomas would like to pursue a career in writing devotionals for women while working at a faith-based nonprofit organization. Abstract Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian literary theorist, may not have focused on the modernist literature written during his lifetime, but his terms are applicable to that movement. Bakhtin describes his term heteroglossia as “the basic distinguishing feature of the stylistics of the novel” and claims “authorial speech, the speeches of narrators, inserted genres, the speech of characters are merely those fundamental compositional unities with whose help heteroglossia can enter the novel; each of them permits a multiplicity of social voices and a wide variety of their links and interrelationships” (1079). Although Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury was published before Bakhtin defined heteroglossia, the novel exemplifies Bakhtin’s idea by not conforming to a unitary language. By providing perspectives and voices from all three Compson brothers, Faulkner uses the fragmented languages of characters to create a multi-layered novel. Each brother is speaking a different language when talking about his sister, Caddy. A Bakhtinian outlook implies different languages are to be celebrated as they are without being forced into one singular voice in a text. Faulkner achieves multiplicity by splitting the voices into different sections. In a family that does not understand one another, heteroglossia is the only way the story can be told.

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ikhail Bakhtin, a Russian literary theorist, may not have focused on the modernist literature written during his lifetime, but his terms are applicable to that movement. According to Stacy Burton, “Though Bakhtin himself wrote little about contemporary fiction, his concepts enable readers to reaccentuate — thus to understand differently — modernist texts such as The Magic Mountain, To the Lighthouse, and The Sound and the Fury” (51). Although Burton’s analysis of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury focuses on Bakhtin’s term “chronotope,” which refers to time and space in literature, there is another Bakhtinian concept that characterizes Faulkner’s multi-layered novel: heteroglossia. Bakhtin 104


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describes heteroglossia as “the basic distinguishing feature of the stylistics of the novel” and claims “authorial speech, the speeches of narrators, inserted genres, the speech of characters are merely those fundamental compositional unities with whose help heteroglossia can enter the novel; each of them permits a multiplicity of social voices and a wide variety of their links and interrelationships” (1079). Although Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury was published before Bakhtin defined heteroglossia, the novel exemplifies Bakhtin’s idea by not conforming to a unitary language. By providing perspectives and voices from all three Compson brothers, Faulkner uses the fragmented languages of characters to create a multi-layered novel. Each brother is speaking a different language when talking about his sister, Caddy. Faulkner divided the brothers into their own chapters, with a fourth omniscient voice in its own language to end the novel. A Bakhtinian outlook implies different languages are to be celebrated as they are without being forced into one singular voice in a text. Faulkner achieves multiplicity by splitting the voices into different sections. In a family that does not understand one another, heteroglossia is the only way the story can be told. The voices are not uniform but are used in conjunction and depend on one another. Faulkner organizes his novel by starting with Benjy’s voice, the youngest of the Compson children. Although it is in present narrative time (April 7, 1928), Benjy’s memories switch from the past to present, and the constant stream of consciousness adds another level of complexity for readers. We hear Benjy’s voice by reading his inner thoughts, but the other characters do not speak his language since he is non-verbal and mentally handicapped. Caddy’s voice is heard best in Benjy’s section, but is still not clear. Benjy and Caddy resemble a mother-son relationship rather than a brother-sister connection due to their mother’s lack of care, which prompts Caddy to assume the maternal role. Benjy recalls, “Caddy knelt and put her arms around me and her cold bright face against mine. She smelled like trees. ‘You’re not a poor baby . . . You’ve got your Caddy. Haven’t you got your Caddy’” (6). When Caddy speaks to Benjy, she uses soft tones and maternal language. Caddy treats Benjy with motherly affection, but she does not understand what her youngest brother is trying to say, nor does he understand his sister beyond her smell and calming tone. In her efforts to communicate with Benjy, Caddy demonstrates patience in interpreting what he is trying to say: “Why, Benjy. What is it.” She said. “You mustn’t cry. Caddy’s not going away. See here.” She said. She took up the bottle and took the stopper out and held it to her nose. “Sweet. Smell. Good.” I went away and I didn’t hush, and she held the bottle in her hand, looking at me. “Oh.” She said. She put the bottle down and came and put her arms around me. “So that was it. And you were trying to tell Caddy and you couldn’t tell her. You wanted to, but you couldn’t, could you. Of course Caddy wont. Of course Caddy wont.” (28) Benjy struggles to speak verbally and uses action as his language. Despite the lack of verbal understanding, Benjy worships Caddy because she is one of the few who showed him affection, patience and compassion. As an attempt to decipher Caddy, Minrose Gwin’s essay “Hearing Caddy’s Voice” argues, “We are like Benjy ‘trying to say’ Caddy, but we, like Faulkner himself, always fail. Faulkner’s feeling of failure, I believe, derives from his frustrations at ‘trying to say’ Caddy, trying to write the female subject through a male consciousness and always failing” (425). The phrase “trying to say” explains the miscommunication between the characters. Benjy is unable to verbally express what he wants. Gwin suggests Faulkner struggles with understanding Caddy; however, my argument does not focus on whether Faulkner understands the female character, but how he

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constructed a novel where characters are speaking different languages, attempting to understand someone they worship in unique ways. The language of Quentin’s section is even more confusing than Benjy’s section. It is the only section set in the past (June 2,1910), which distinguishes it from the others. This temporal difference only amplifies Quentin’s isolation since he is already physically separated from his family while at school. Quentin’s thoughts are interrupted, punctuation is rarely used in his flashbacks, and present and past blend together. Unlike Benjy, Quentin is competent and can distinguish the present from the past, but he is also emotionally and mentally unstable. Quentin had a different relationship with Caddy. He lies to his father and says he committed incest with her (53). Quentin’s lying is “another language” because it creates confusion about what occurred between characters. Since Quentin’s language comes from a unique connection he shared with his sister, Quentin is like a foreigner in his family. He speaks a different language from the rest of his family in his guilt-ridden, depressed state. The connection Quentin and Caddy share may not have been sexual, but they did discuss another difficult topic: suicide: “I held the point of the knife at her throat it won’t take but a second then I can do mine I can do mine then” (100). This discussion creates a connection other characters do not understand. Quentin obsesses over Caddy; as connected as he is to his sister, he cannot comprehend the idea of Caddy losing her virginity. His inability to understand contributes to his demise. Quentin places Caddy as the priority in his life, but her sexual encounter with Dalton Ames creates psychological distress for Quentin. Caddy’s maternal language from Benjy’s section disappears, and her female sexuality changes Quentin’s language. Gwin states, “this is the maternal space expanded to monstrous proportions, becoming enormously threatening and deconstructive to the male, just as Caddy’s maternal space now threatens Benjy because it has become also the space of female sexuality” (430). Quentin’s inner thoughts reveal the repercussions of Caddy’s sexuality. Her sexuality not only threatens Benjy, but Quentin and Jason as well. The penultimate chapter in The Sound and the Fury, written from Jason’s point of view, occurs the day before Benjy’s section: April 6, 1928. Described by his mother as a “true Bascomb,” Jason does not have much in common with his siblings. His language is toxic and hate-filled. Even as a child, he opposed his siblings, especially Caddy. As grownups, Caddy and Jason still do not trust one another: “‘Don’t you trust me?’ I [Jason] says. ‘No,’ she [Caddy] says. ‘I know you. I grew up with you’” (134). He harbors hatred and resentment against Caddy for costing him a future career and for having to take in Caddy’s illegitimate daughter. Due to his resentment, Jason is out for revenge, which takes the place of deception. According to Thadious Davis, “Jason is a master of deception, even of deceiving himself. He cannot be taken at his word. His vehement statements against family and tradition are his chief misrepresentations of the truth” (400). Jason deceives himself by repressing his internal emotions. Noel Polk describes the difference between Jason’s language and his brothers: If Benjy is nonverbal and trying to say, and if Quentin is extremely verbal and trying not to say, trying to maintain order by keeping his words inside his head, Jason is intensely, loudly, desperately, gloriously oral. He keeps himself talking loudly so that he won’t have to listen to the voices that threaten him. . . . [H]e is always able to stop himself just short of speaking that which he most fears, and thus manages to maintain a kind of control over his syntax— and so his psyche— that his brothers utterly fail at doing (446). Although Jason’s stream of consciousness and flashbacks are easier to comprehend than Quentin’s or Benjy’s points of view, he is an unreliable narrator due to his hatred. Jason lies like 106


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his older brother, but he does not do it out of protection and instead confuses other characters for selfish desire and ambition. He speaks another language because his voice is not coming from adoration, like Benjy, or from a deep emotion, like Quentin. His voice comes from betrayal and manifests in revenge. Jason’s “worship” of Caddy is not from love and is described better as an obsession. He obsesses over Caddy and allows the past to take over his thoughts. Jason justifies his deceptions by blaming Caddy for all his problems, and he allows it to take control of his life. Similar to how Quentin fixated on Caddy, Jason’s revenge against Caddy is his priority, which incidentally distinguishes his voice even more so from the others. Faulkner creates a different language for each brother in form, time and vocabulary. All three brothers are impacted by Caddy, and yet Faulkner does not provide her perspective. The fact that we do not hear Caddy’s story makes her even more complicated, confusing and ambiguous. Benjy, Quentin and Jason all circle around Caddy, speaking different languages. She is the answer and translator, but out of reach to translate for the reader. Gwin describes Caddy as something beyond just a character: [She is] the text which speaks multiplicity, maternity, sexuality, and as such she retains not just one voice but many. They make Benjy bellow and Quentin despair. They drive Jason to hatred. Their power is mammoth because they are ‘not one’. . . To hear Caddy within the margins of Quentin’s text will require listening to a language which transgresses the bounds of consciousness, a language which must be listened to in much the same way that Caddy listened to Benjy – beyond sound, syntax, between the lines. (430-31) Gwin does not name Bakhtin in her essay, but the idea of Caddy possessing multiple voices and invoking different voices/languages from her brothers coincides with Bakhtin’s term, heteroglossia. Caddy is the reason for the division among the brothers and the reason why they speak different languages in trying to understand her. According to Richard Pearce, “Faulkner claims that in The Sound and the Fury he simply wanted to tell the story of a little girl . . . He certainly cared about Caddy. He created a character doomed by her natural, selfless, and spontaneous love” (80). Faulkner constructed a character he and his narrators attempt to decipher in multiple voices. However, the last chapter from the omniscient third-person point of view does something completely different than the previous three. The last chapter is set on Easter Sunday, April 8, 1928, and is told from a zoomed-out unnamed narrator who follows Dilsey’s point of view. Davis suggests why Faulkner does this: “The Gibsons, as household servants, allow an intimate, yet relatively objective, access to the Compsons’ story . . . Faulkner depends, then, upon the blacks’ difference in thought, language, and emotion to conclude his novel” (402). Dilsey serves as the surrogate mother when Mrs. Compson fails to properly care for her children, so she is connected to the family but provides an outsider’s perspective. This new voice is disconnected but yet still involved. As Dilsey herself says, “’seed de first en de last. . . I seed the beginning en now I sees de endin’” (194). Similar to the concluding narrator, Dilsey witnesses the rise of the Compson family and their downfall. This voice does not “worship” Caddy, but it does have a religious element because of its godlike, omniscient connection to Easter Sunday. With the zoomed-out perspective, it is as if a multilingual figure is looking down on the scene and provides the last voice connecting the fragmented languages from the previous chapters. The text suggests that this person is Dilsey. It could also be interpreted as Faulkner’s authorial voice, tying up loose ends in the concluding section. No matter whose voice the section belongs to, it is undeniably an objective third party. Regardless, it cannot be left out in the discussion of heteroglossia in Faulkner’s novel due to its change in voice, syntax and third-person vocabulary. 107


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We are presented with different languages throughout the novel, but without access to the translator, Caddy. Without her perspective, we can only attempt to understand the Compson story in reading the multiple languages conjunctively. From afar, we see how the different languages complement one another instead of melting together in Faulkner’s layered text. All four sections cannot blend into one nor do they work alone. The sections as separate entities are incoherent, but alongside one another, heteroglossia illuminates the family’s dysfunction and is the only way to capture the Compson family authentically. Bakhtin’s heteroglossia distinguishes Faulkner’s novel since the reader is taught how to use the different languages together, not as separate fragments. Works Cited Bakhtin, Mikhail M. “Discourse in the Novel.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed., edited by Vincent B. Leitch, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010, pp. 10761106. Burton, Stacy. “Bakhtin, Temporality, and Modern Narrative: Writing ‘the Whole Triumphant Murderous Unstoppable Chute.’” Comparative Literature, vol. 48, no. 1, 1996, pp. 39-64. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1771629. Davis, Thadious M. “Faulkner’s ‘Negro’ in The Sound and the Fury.” The Sound and the Fury, 3rd ed., edited by Michael Gorra, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2014, pp. 393-409. Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. 3rd ed., edited by Michael Gorra, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2014. Gwin, Minrose C. “Hearing Caddy’s Voice.” The Sound and the Fury, 3rd ed., edited by Michael Gorra, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2014, pp. 423-31. Pearce, Richard. “Can a Woman Tell Her Story in Yoknapatawpha County—Even with All Those Yarns?” The Politics of Narration: James Joyce, William Faulkner, and Virginia Woolf, Rutgers University Press, 1991, pp. 77-89. Polk, Noel. “Trying Not to Say: A Primer on the Language of The Sound and the Fury.” The Sound and the Fury, 3rd ed., edited by Michael Gorra, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2014, pp. 444-56.

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Prophets and Graffiti Artists; Concepts of Social Activism and Justice Katrina Zrubek Katrina Zrubek is a freshman majoring in business administration and Spanish, as well as minoring in marketing and sales. She became fascinated with the general misconception of prophets after taking a religion course taught by Dr. Amanda Mbuvi. Zrubek made the mental connection between prophets and vandals who convey a message on top of the former institution’s original intended message and created her research based upon this idea. She enjoys seeing her idea supported by other sources and elaborated on with different focuses. Zrubek credits Dr. Mbuvi with the encouragement it took for her to fully explore the prospect of undergraduate research. Dr. Mbuvi taught her how to expand upon her ideas and make them meaningful for a wider audience. After she graduates, Zrubek hopes to become a marketing manager or team leader at a larger corporation where she can continue to explore the impact of marketing in society. Abstract This paper explores the role of two historic figures in society: Hebrew prophets and graffiti artists. During their time, prophets and graffiti artists are largely considered pests. Although graffiti artist Banksy came over 2,000 years later, graffiti artists can be considered the 21st Century version of the prophets. The similarity of their works can be seen in the context of their respective societies. Both foster a sense of compulsion to take on a signature quality or style, act as intermediaries, protest against immoral behavior, share the marks of their society, and work to bring about change. After analyzing various sources and the roles these figures fill, it is my conclusion that prophets and graffiti artists are responsible for leading the justice and social activism movements of their times. Thus, it can be said that these figures share the qualities required to bring about change. Drawing this comparison would aid in the understanding of leadership concepts in activist movements.

T

he function of a billboard is to reach the public eye and convey a message. Just as often, however, the message is distorted by vandals to promote a different point of view. There has always been an unspoken battle over what captures the public eye. It is fought between the initial institutions and structures that proclaim one message and the “rebels” and “revolutionaries” that proclaim another. It is my belief that Hebrew prophets, in their own time, were these independent protagonists or “rebels.” Further, in the context of our own time, the prophetic tradition can be seen most clearly in works of graffiti. This comparison aids our understanding of social activism and justice initiators. These two different roles, in two different 109


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societies, managed to generate the same effect on the public. Therefore, what can be said about messages --whether they are listened to or largely ignored-- is that they bring about change. There is no universally agreed upon definition of a Hebrew prophet. Nowhere in the Bible is there an account of what it was to be a prophet. 1 Since contemporary readers do not have ancient sources outlining the roles of prophets, we encounter challenges in trying to define a role that we have not experienced in the same way as the ancients. The perspective we have on the prophets comes from examining their works. In order to better understand prophets as a group, scholars study the work of those individuals that the Bible identifies as prophets. “The prophet Miriam, 2” “the prophet Jeremiah, 3” and many others have been defined through distinguishing marks or features. Wilda Gafney writes that prophets are vessels of divine communication who can act as an intercessor, wonder worker, oracle maker, and interpreter. 4 Similarly, Jack Lundbom recognizes that every prophet was unique and had a blend of defining qualities that set the prophets apart from the ordinary people. They also shared a message that was “a total life statement of radical obedience to the living God.” 5 Rabbi Barry Schwartz defines prophets as people who are “driven by a higher calling” and “act on their ideals for the common good” at crucial moments. 6 Abraham Heschel adds to the common understanding by saying: “The prophet is a person, not a microphone. He is endowed with a mission, with the power of a word not his own that accounts for his greatness--but also with a temperament, concern, character, and individuality” and so on. 7 The most commonly accepted definition of the prophets is “a person called by God to speak words of judgment and words of promise to Israel, often with a call to repentance.” 8 The prophetic interpretations that we will use as a comparison to the works of Banksy will be Lundbom’s distinguishing marks, Schwartz’s defining moments of the prophets, Gafney’s perception of their roles, and Abraham Heschel’s manner of the prophets. This paper will proceed from the understanding that the prophets were people who existed in the time of the Hebrew Bible and communicated messages of social activism and justice given by God. For the purpose of this paper, graffiti will be defined as intentional illegal works of written or publicized art --meant to convey a message--and known to be separate from simply “vandalism.” Graffiti artists are just as notorious as prophets for communicating through distinctive messages. Specifically, Banksy, a “guerilla street artist known for his controversial and politically themed stencil pieces” will be compared to the Hebrew prophets. 9

1

Lundbom, The Hebrew Prophet, (7). Harper Collins Study Bible, (Exodus. 15. 20). 3 Harper Collins Study Bible, (Jeremiah 38. 9). 4 Gafney, 24. 5 Lundbom, (8-9). 6 Schwartz, (xvii). 7 Heschel, (viii). 8 Kaminsky, et. al. (295). 9 Biography, “Banksy.” Biography.com 2

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The prophetic moment of each prophet can be compared with the unique style of each graffiti artist. Schwartz works to “identify the prophetic moment that animates and defines each [prophet].” 10 For example, Moses professed the way for freedom. Nathan was driven by righteousness, Elisha by healing, Jeremiah by hope, Elijah by humility, Miriam by Joy, and so on. 11 Banksy’s artwork is characterized by striking images with stencils. 12 He once wrote: “all graffiti is low level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They’ve been used to start revolutions and to stop wars.” 13 His work became predominantly recognized by his use of pre-cut images rather than freehand drawings. The way that Banksy uses stencils as his personal touch is similar to the characterized attributes of all the prophets listed above. The “unique touch” is what contributes to the value-laden history of the prophets and of graffiti. Thus, the first quality that both prophets and graffiti artists share is their unique or signature styles. Second, prophets and graffiti artists both have an active role as an intermediary between the people and a higher power. Their goal is to communicate between two entities just like the graffiti on a billboard was meant to be seen by the public. Gafney wrote that “prophecy is the proclamation and/or performance of a divine word by a religious intermediary to an individual or community.” 14 This quotation can be interpreted to say that both graffiti artists and prophets use their works as a means of "Bansky Who?" by supernative is communicating. Both figures communicate the struggles of the licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 002 15 people. Heschel states, “the prophet’s theme is, first of all, the very life of a whole people, and his identification lasts more than a moment. He is one not only with what he says; he is involved with his people in what his words foreshadow.” 16 Prophets identify themselves with their people because they are invested in their wellbeing. We see instances where Isaiah, Moses, and other prophets spoke directly to God concerning the wellbeing of their people. 17 Graffiti artists act in a similar manner. Our modern age does not know the true identity of Banksy; in concealing his identity, he associates himself with the “average” of the population. He uses his work to convey messages to a greater invisible being: society. His work conveys the struggles of humanity and people from the bottom up. Prophets’ and graffiti artists’ shared goal is then to represent the people (a common, lower power), to God and government positions (a higher power). Their roles in society are therefore to be the instigators of change by relaying the problems of the people.

10

Schwartz (xx). Schwartz (Contents). 12 Biography, “Banksy.” Biography.com 13 Ellsworth-Jones, Will. “The Story Behind Banksy.” 14 Gafney, (25). 15 Dickens, Luke. 16 Heschel, “The Prophets,” (6). 17 Harper Collins Study Bible, (Exodus. 19. 8), (Isa. 29:9-11). 11

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Abraham 18 and Banksy act as intermediaries to challenge higher powers thus they share the path of “protestors” and “rebels.” Banksy’s famous “Let them eat crack” piece critiques the upper class by engaging political struggles. He took Marie Antoinette's quote “Let them eat cake,” and changed it to “Let them eat crack.” The piece captures Wall Street's views towards the middle and lower classes. 19 Banksy’s intention was to show the corruption, greed, and amoral behavior that flow freely in Wall Street. In the same way, Abraham, in an attempt to save the cities Sodom and Gomorrah, says, “let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” 20 and thus begins the remarkable exchange. Abraham prevails in establishing the right moral principle as he is able to talk the Lord down from fifty righteous men to ten. These two instances further illustrate the abilities of both these men to act as intermediaries for the people by challenging higher powers. Third, the “distinguishing marks” that set prophets apart from ordinary people can also be used to describe a graffiti artist. Lundbom identified these six marks as: being divinely called, speaking a divine word, possessing the divine vision, performing mighty works, having a divine spirit, and praying. At first "Let Them Eat Crack" by heathzib is licensed under CC glance, these marks seem unique to prophets; street artists, however, have similar criteria. The comparable marks are: awareness of a cause, powerful words, artistic mind, profound images, rebellious spirit, and hope for change. Graffiti artists and prophets are set apart in their communities by their distinguishing marks, the first of which is a “calling.” Graffiti artists are constituent and moved to represent those in their communities. In the same way, prophets are called by God to do His will. “Graffito” is an Italian word meaning “deep scratch” which is inherently difficult to remove. 21 “Prophet” means “one who is called.” 22 Prophets and graffiti artists both leave indelible historic marks through their works. Being called also insinuates a prophetic action, meaning that this inspires, motivates, and even obligates them to take action. “Yahweh said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.” 23 The response to the call is their works of prophecy and art. “Hear” in Hebrew can also mean to “obey.” 24 Further, prophets and graffiti artists are not only called by a higher power, but answer their respective calls by doing their own forms of work. 25

18

Harper Collins Stuy Bible, (Genesis 20:7) “for he is a prophet” in reference to Abraham. Lynch, Sean, and Ryan Gallagher. 20 Harper Collins Study Bible, (Gen. 18. 27). 21 “Graffiti - Dictionary Definition.” Vocabulary.com, www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/graffiti. 22 Lundbom, (9). 23 Harper Collins Study Bible, Amos 7:15 24 Lundbom, (17). 25 Duckworth, Angela “Purpose.” 19

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The second distinguishing mark of prophets and graffiti artists is meaningful words. As divine messengers, they find creative ways to convey the word of God (or their cause). Advertisements put a great deal of emphasis on words through slogans and rhetoric. To catch the public’s attention, the rebels must match this ability. In many senses, these figures need to use their words to express something greater than they mean on their own. For example, Nathan used the parable of the sheep in order to explain to him what David had done to Uriah. As messengers, prophetic speeches and street artwork are their ways of conveying the given ordinances. Follow your dreams. "Bansky in Boston" by Parick The divine vision is the next distinguishing mark Haney is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 that Lundbom identifies in the prophets that can also apply to graffiti artists. They both “have vision in the broad sense; that is, they have the capacity to perceive things ordinary people cannot perceive.” 26 God gave the prophets a vision that no one else can see. Prophets are enlightened by visions, “to a person endowed with prophetic sight, everyone else appears blind.” 27 Prophets use their greater understanding to express God’s will. The distinguishing marks “divine vision” and “meaningful words” work hand in hand to convey the higher message. Prophets use their vision to guide their actions. Jeremiah received a vision from God that prophesied the destruction and fall of Jerusalem. He used this vision to speak God’s words to the people, then purchased a field to demonstrate God’s promise of restoration. 28 Graffiti artists also have a vision that becomes reflected in their work. Their unique perspective is exhibited in their artwork for other people to see. Further, the vision that these two characters are endowed with allows for them to better communicate their message. The fourth distinguishing mark is “mighty works” which is an extraordinary talent for both figures to possess. In the world of graffiti, mighty works are large-scale, profound murals. For prophets, mighty works are performing miracles. Prophets and graffiti artists are miracle workers because they both have the ability to strongly impact or change one’s life through their works. A strong spirit is the fifth distinguishing mark of both prophets and graffiti artists. Banksy’s spirit can be seen in his anonymity and his revolutionary works. With his level of talent, he could easily be making money as a top-level artist. However, he prefers the freedom of the street art though it is illegal. 29 Many people are hateful of graffiti, and thus graffiti artists such as Banksy demonstrate their strength in spirit by continuing their works. Banksy demonstrated his spirit as a street artist by using rats in his art. “They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted, and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant, and unloved, then rats are the ultimate role models.” 30 The comparison can be made between graffiti artist and rats because

26

Lundbom, (20-21). Heschel, (17). 28 Harper Collins Study Bible, Jeremiah 32:25-44. 29 Ellsworth-Jones, Will. “The Story Behind Banksy.” 30 Lynch, Sean, and Ryan Gallagher. 27

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they are considered “pests.” 31 These sentiments were also expressed towards the prophets. Jeremiah was harassed, hounded, and thrown into prison. 32 Though they have a remarkable amount of power and influence, the work that they do is not easy. Prophets and graffiti artists share a kind of work that requires dedication and a strong spirit that can easily go unappreciated. The final distinguishing mark is prayer. The graffiti artist’s relationship to religion is ambiguous, thus allowing me to construct this comparison. Secular artists are still able to work in the same meaningful manner as a prophet. Prayer is the hope that God will intervene in a supernatural way to make our wish come true. 33 Prophets diligently demonstrate this form of communication and commitment. In the secular world, however, graffiti artists are only able to show the intervention aspect through their own means. Prophets and graffiti artists do their work while praying and hoping for a change. If there was no hope for change, their work would be done in vain. Their practices are rooted in the belief that the Girl and balloon. "BANKSY @ HK" by ceciyam is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 persecutor will have pity and repent allowing the people to prosper. My comparison falls short in the sense that graffiti artist’s messages are not intended to reach the heavens. Rather, they demonstrate hope for the prospect of their cause. Prayer and hope are therefore a form of commitment to graffiti artists’ and prophets’ tasks. The final key point is that prophets and graffiti artists speak directly to the people through their works with hope of bringing about change. Social activism and justice are the main goals of both figures. Heschel wrote on what it was like to be standing in the shoes of a prophet. “The prophets remind us of the moral state of the people: few are guilty, but all are responsible. If we admit that the individual is in some measure conditioned or affected by the spirit of society, an individual’s crime discloses society’s corruption.” 34 Prophets very clearly fit this definition because they speak the word of God and exhort the people to repent for their sins. Graffiti artists on the other hand, are the ones that have to convey this to their society. People blame Banksy for “vandalizing public property,” but pay no attention to the message itself. Blaming the prophet or the street artist does not fix the issues that these figures draw attention to. Their works draw viable connection to the moral state of the people. 31

The term “pest” is fitting for this context because “the prophets take us to the slums. The world is a proud place, full of beauty, but the prophets are scandalized, and rave as if the whole world were a slum” (Heschel, 3). Aside from their method of work, prophets have a history of being accused by authorities for “not seeking the welfare of the people, but their harm” (Jeremiah 38:4). Often in the relationship between prophet and king the prophet “not only rivaled the decisions of the king and the counsel of the priest, he defied and even condemned their works and deeds” (Heschel, Prophet, Priest, and King, 260). Schwartz notes that “the prophets took it upon themselves to critique leaders and men alike. Many assailed society in the role of gadfly” (xvii). This assimilates the role of “pest” because they are persecuted, rejected, criticized, and not taken seriously when conveying God’s messages. 32

Schwartz, (131). Small, Jeffrey. “The Purpose of Prayer in a Modern World.” 34 Heschel, (16). 33

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By understanding graffiti and artists through a variety of sources, we come to see the roles of each of them in society. Schwartz helps us to identify the unique characteristics that prophets and graffiti artists share. Gafney provided us with enough insight to claim that they both act as intermediaries for the people. The works of Banksy can be linked with Lundbom’s distinguishing marks and finally, Heschel’s manner of the prophets helps us to see why prophets and graffiti artists do what they do. An additional point of consideration is the condition of prophecies and works of graffiti as to their state of permanence or ephemerality. There is a strong history of painting over works of graffiti, especially in times of repression. The fact still stands that the painted-over-piece was created, even if only for a short amount of time. The impression on those few who were able to see it still stands. It makes little difference of the extent of time for which it exists because it cannot be undone simply covered. The same holds true for Prophecy. Even Jeremiah’s message was destroyed “as Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a penknife and throw them into the fire in the brazier, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire.” 35 Simply destroying the message does not get rid of its significance or its real-life implication. In another instance, when Isaac gave his blessing to IF Graffiti changed anything. "P1180434.JPG" by niky81 is licensed under CC BY-SA Jacob, Esau asked in distress “have you only one blessing father? Bless me also, father!” 36 Jacob responds, however, admitting that it cannot be undone. This comes to show that there is something real in demonstrating this kind of reality where the ancients held this realistic view of the blessing. On an incomprehensible level, the message was real, and it had power that was able to alter the current reality. It is right to say that there is an added layer of complexity for prophets that the graffiti artists do not have in the power of their work. Still, the takeaway is that though the medium of the messages (the scroll and graffiti) can be painted-over or destroyed, their higher essence still remains. Potential counterarguments to what I have said may be that prophets of ancient Israel were not marginalized or considered outsiders, and therefore they do not “rebel” or “revolt” but “guide.” To this, I say that though they were recognized as having institutional power, the work of many was more commonly in accordance with the “just” side of society rather than the religious or political establishment of the time. “From the beginning of the monarchy, the king was at any moment in peril of rebuke, even rejection, by the prophets, who reminded him that the king’s sovereignty was not unlimited, that over the king’s mishpat stood the pishpat of the Lord-

35 36

Harper Collins Study Bible, Jeremiah 36:23-25. Harper Collins Study Bible, Genesis 27

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an idea that frequently clashed with the exigencies of government.” 37 Despite this apparent “right” they have to critique their king, “cursing “a ruler of your people” was a crime in biblical law (Exod. 22:27), just as offending the dignity of a sovereign is regarded as an act of high treason in Roman and modern law.” 38 Their activities were “illegal” like the graffiti in the sense that the prophets persisted in calling out their leaders. Thus, some would say that their change is conservative insofar as to return to orthodoxy because they would often rival “the decisions of [both] the king and the counsel of priests, [they would defy] and even condemn their words and deeds.” 39 Additionally “while the prophets did not go so far as to call for the abolition of the monarchy, they insisted that the human pretension to sovereignty was dangerous, a fake and a caricature, “for dominion belongs to the Lord, and He rules over the nations,” says the psalmist (22:29).” 40 Thus, though the time of the prophets may rise and fall with the monarchy, they were not both equally accepted positions. Prophets have always assessed the present from God’s perspective, to say that they are accepted like any other role like king or priest is to not give due diligence to their work. The role of prophets as recognized by the institutional powers is controversial and not always in accordance with the priests and kings. Prophets go against the institution if it is in accordance with God’s will and the good of the people. Further, the method in which the prophets fulfilled their conventional responsibilities is more similar to that of a “rebel” or “revolutionary” as like the graffiti artist. All in all, prophets and graffiti are two movements that have been able to make profound impacts on their societies. Their histories are “not value-neutral, but value-laden. To the prophets, theology is the prelude to advocacy.” 41 Through critique of society and their works, Banksy and graffiti artists strongly resemble the Hebrew prophets. Prophets and graffiti artists both have the intention of challenging oppression, empowering people, and calling for accountability. These figures resemble the process of arriving at social activism and justice. They not only emulate ideals but also the pursue their beliefs. The admirable qualities of these “rebels” can be seen in the work that they do. Prophets and graffiti artists advocate for change by doing the work that others see difficulty in doing. The comparison between Banksy and Hebrew prophets is relevant to our times because of the insight it provides into our social movements. These figures foster qualities that enable them to capture the public’s attention, something important in social sciences, histories, business, and the arts. That is why they have the potential to lead profound movements.

37

Heschel, Prophet, Priest, and King, 259. Heschel, Prophet, Priest, and King, 259. 39 Heschel, Prophet, Priest, and King, 260. 40 Prophet, Priest, and King, 260. 41 Schwartz, (XX). 38

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2019

Works Cited

Banksy. Wall and Piece. Century, 2006. Banksy. “Migrant Birds” Widewalls. https://www.widewalls.ch/flying-to-freedom-10-streetartists-who-love-to-paint-birds/banksy-migrant-birds-clacton-on-sea/. 2014 Banksy. “If Graffiti Changed Anything” Widewalls. https://www.widewalls.ch/10-banksy-streetartworks-in-london/if-graffiti-changed-anything/. 2011 Banksy. “Let Them Eat Crack” Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/denial_land/2930975001 2008 Banksy. “Follow Your Dreams” Musings on Rhetoric. http://sugoihcontemprhetoric.blogspot. com/2013/10/analysis-of-visual-banksy-street-art.html. 2011 Banksy. “Girl and Balloon” Widewalls. https://www.widewalls.ch/murals/banksy-girland-balloon/ 2002. Banksy. “Laugh now but one day we’ll be in charge” Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/pin /84442561735106823/ 2002. Biography, “Banksy.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 14 Mar. 2018, www.biography.com/people/banksy-20883111. Dickens, Luke. “Pictures on Walls? Producing, Pricing and Collecting the Street Art Screen Print.” Taylor and Francis Online, 2010, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13604810903525124?src=recsys&. Duckworth, Angela Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Duckworth-Scribner, 2016. Ellsworth-Jones, Will. “The Story Behind Banksy.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Feb. 2013, www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-behind-banksy-4310304/. Gafney, Wilda C. Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2008. Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Prophets. “Prophet, Priest, and King” (254-262) Prince Press. Third Printing- May 2000. (1969). Kaminsky, Joel S., and Joel N. Lohr. The Hebrew Bible for Beginners a Jewish and Christian Introduction. Abingdon Press, 2015. Lundbom, Jack R., The Hebrew Prophets: An Introduction, Fortress Press, 2010. Lynch, Sean, and Ryan Gallagher. “The Greatest Banksy Artwork of All Time Rats, -Present.” Complex, Complex, 6 Oct. 2017, www.complex.com/style/greatest-banksy-artwork/rats. Schwartz, Rabbi Barry L., “Path of the Prophets; The Ethics-Driven Life,” Jewish Publication Society, University of Nebraska Press, 2018. Small, Jeffrey. “The Purpose of Prayer in a Modern World.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 Dec. 2011, www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-small/ purpose-of- prayer_b_1009186.html. The Harper Collins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version, Including the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books -Student Edition. HarperOne, 2006.

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