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Browsing by Subject "Conflict"

Now showing 1 - 14 of 14
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    Approaches and Moral Considerations of a Liver Transplant Team to Conflict About the Treatment of Complications
    (2018-05) Scheiner, Nathan
    Research on the approach to disagreement among patients and providers has generally focused on internal medicine providers. High levels of emotional intelligence and empathy among individual internists appear to confer increased adherence to treatment plans and satisfaction among patients. These qualities may help maintain long-term physician-patient relationships. In the few studies examining surgeons, emotional intelligence, but not empathy, results in increased patient satisfaction only. Some therefore suggest that the clearly defined and short-term relationship between surgeon and patient subverts the need to foster deep empathetic understanding and trust for long-term follow-up. Transplant surgery may be a unique surgical sub-specialty for its use of scarce resources, and because patients are followed over the long-term by interdisciplinary teams of providers. I present the results of a qualitative study suggesting transplant teams may function more like internal medicine teams than other surgical sub-specialties, because transplant social workers and nurses foster trust and empathy, reducing conflict among and between team members and patients. I analyzed the narratives of six liver transplant team members at a large academic medical center in the Midwest. I define the sources of conflict perceived by transplant team members, which extend beyond treatment non-adherence, and their underlying moral understandings. I also describe the importance of trust-building, and the role of the transplant team as a moral community, which functions to examine and decide upon conflicts that arise over broad contexts. These results suggest interdisciplinary transplant teams take on some of the emotional work typically performed by individual internal medicine physicians.
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    College student peer bullying behaviors: a social cognitive perspective
    (2015-01) Knudson, Laura Jean
    Peer bullying is a "hot topic" issue in the media. The bulk of the research on peer bullying comes from K-12 literature and is understudied within higher education. Higher education bullying is often related to faculty-graduate student relationships or faculty, staff, and administrator workplace issues, and not peer-related. The following research questions guided the study: a) How do students describe bullying or harassing behaviors that they experience from peers? b) How do students address bullying or harassing behaviors that they experience from peers? What university resources do they use, if any? and c) To what extent do students perceive that resources, either from the university or elsewhere, are appropriate and adequate? Twenty-one undergraduate students at the University of Minnesota were interviewed to learn more about how they experience bullying-type behaviors by peers while in college. A model based on the social cognitive theory that considers the college student development process and the higher education environment was useful for developing the interview protocol used to study the bullying behaviors. Data analysis using an open coding method revealed findings in four areas: a) certain common behaviors exist; b) structured social contexts serve as a primary location; c) confusion exists in distinguishing conflict and bullying, including a lack of norms about inclusion/exclusion; and d) there is sensitivity to holding people accountable for negative behaviors. The findings lead to implications for higher education professionals in setting expectations, encouraging the use of campus resources, capitalizing on peer relationships, and training faculty and staff to handle bullying situations.
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    Ecological and sociological aspects of human-tiger conflicts in Chitwan National Park, Nepal
    (2008-07) Gurung, Bhim Bahadur.
    The human-tiger conflict has become a major threat to long-term tiger survival and well being of local people living around tiger reserves. Mitigation of this conflict is considered most critical in multiple use forested areas where tiger ecological needs and human livelihood needs overlap. My thesis seeks to gain a better understanding of this conflict. I investigated ecological and sociological aspects of man-eating cases in and around Chitwan National Park Nepal, with an ultimate aim of guiding mitigation policies and management. Additionally, I investigated the impact of grazing restrictions on livestock husbandry practices, and also evaluated the people's perceptions and tolerance towards tigers in Madi Valley, within the Chitwan National Park. I obtained three decades of man-eating cases (1979-2006), each case was re-examined by visiting victim's families, or person present at the time of the incidents. Likewise, tiger's responsible for killing these people were also re-investigated by visiting Park veterinarian and zoo records. The site of each human kill and tiger removal was visited to measure habitat conditions when kills were made and where man-eating tigers occurred. A total of 36 tigers killed 88 people from 1979-2006. The trend of human loss increased from an average of 1.21 persons per year prior to 1997 to 7.22 per year since 1998. The rising trend is due to primarily increasing number of people killed in the buffer zones surrounding the Park. I classified the sex, age classes, condition of man-eating tigers, and also evaluated prey base at kill sites, and aggressiveness of tigers when people came to remove victims for cremation. Nearly half of the people killed were grass/fodder cutters. In chapter 3 the impact of grazing restriction on livestock husbandry practices is examined. Household survey data and secondary information measured the impact of changing access policies. Households needed to reduce their holdings of unproductive livestock and to switch to stall feeding. Higher stall feeding required local people to gather more fodder and increased human activities in the recovering forest may contribute to increase man-eating. In chapter 4 local people's beliefs about the importance of tiger and their tolerance levels is assessed from head of the household surveys. The value and tolerance levels are analyzed based on household demographics, resource use, and interaction with tigers. Local people highly value but only have moderate tolerance for tigers. Higher valuing and tolerance for tiger were significantly influenced by household's wealth. Furthermore, poor people were found to live closer to forest, use more forest resources, have high livestock depredation resulting in lower valuing and tolerance levels for tigers. To mitigate the conflict I recommend radio-collaring problem tigers (particularly in the buffer zone) to collect tigers behavioral and movement patterns to create 'no go' zone, continue long term tiger monitoring program by extending the cooperation of the local communities, implement a tiger conservation awareness to educate local people on tiger biology, and improve compensation program to increase local tolerance towards tiger.
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    Ecology, conservation and climate-fire challenges on Uluguru Mountain biodiversity hotspot, Tanzania
    (2010-12) William, Christopher Mungo Peter
    In this research, I investigate the relationship between short-term climate variability and the fire ecology of the Uluguru Nature Forest Reserve (UNFR). I investigate the influence of relief, altitude, the Indian Ocean Dipole or Dipole Mode Index (DMI), and Niño 3.4 on short (November-December) and long rains (March, April, May) in the UNFR. Fire events correlate weakly with amount of annual local rainfall, suggesting that fire occurrence in the UNFR results from a combination of factors, such as rainfall anomalies, topography, type of vegetation (fuel), timing and use of fire by local people as a farm preparation tool, and teleconnections. A thorough understanding of fire behavior across time and space is necessary to design a successful UNFR management plan; the resulting plan must address both anthropogenic and climatic drivers of fire.
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    Faculty Perceptions of conflict with administrators: An analysis of the Associations between the nature of conflict and positive and negative outcomes
    (2013-06) Hancks, Meredith
    This study examines the perceptions of faculty members regarding conflict experiences with administrators. It is driven by the question, To what extent are faculty perceptions of positive and negative outcomes of faculty-administrator conflict associated with domain, nature and disciplinary context of the conflict, where domain refers to the administrative or academic area of the conflict situation and nature refers to whether the conflict is task-based or interpersonal. The analysis is based on quantitative study of survey results. The results indicate that task nature of conflicts has greater association than relationship nature with positive and negative outcomes of conflict. These findings suggest that working to remedy task-related conflicts in these domains might improve the outcomes of conflict experiences between faculty and administrators. 
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    Family conflict: the adolescent experience of parent-adolescent conflict and argument.
    (2012-01) Buzzetta, Chris Anthony
    This study explored the embodied teen experience of parent-teen conflict and argument. Using a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, data were collected from eight teens living within 150 miles of Minneapolis, MN. Teens self-identified as (a) living in a family with everyday conflict, (b) not seeing a psychologist or counselor, (c) not having been in any drug or alcohol treatment programs, (d) not knowing the researcher ahead of time, and (e) being between the ages of 13 to 19 at the time the interview took place. The interview data were unstructured conversations with teens that were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a phenomenological text analysis procedure. From these data, the following themes emerged: (a) feeling powerless, small, devalued, and oppressed; (b) experiencing irritation, frustration, hypocrisy, pettiness, and defiance; (c) wanting freedom and autonomy and the battle for control; and (d) needing safe space and "me" time. Each theme and the whole embodied essence of this experience were interpreted through teens' as well as the researcher's lenses. The interpretations provide insight for teens, parents, and parent educators that may help improve parent-teen relationships and provide strategies to use in the classroom setting.
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    Foreign Fighters in the Syrian Conflict
    (Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, 2014-08-20) Samit, Harry
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    Group composition effects on inter-pack aggressive interactions of gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park
    (2013-09) Cassidy, Kira A.
    Gray wolves (Canis lupus) are group-living carnivores that defend group territories and direct aggression against conspecifics. Here, I document 292 inter-pack aggressive interactions during 16 years of observation in Yellowstone National Park (YNP). I recorded pack sizes, compositions, and spatial orientations related to residency to determine their effects on the outcomes of aggressive interactions between groups. This represents the first attempt at directly observing aggressive interactions over an extended period and subsequently using pack characteristics to determine which groups had an advantage over their opponents. Relative pack size (RPS) was the most important factor in the odds of a pack being able to successfully displace their opponent. However, when RPS was fixed, packs with more old (>6.0 years old) members or with more adult males also had higher odds of winning. I discuss these results with respect to the adaptive value of sociality and the relative importance of certain individuals during inter-group interactions. While the importance of RPS in successful resource- and territory-defense suggests the evolution and maintenance of group-living may be due to larger packs' success during inter-pack interactions, group composition--which can change irrespective of group size--is also an important factor highlighting that some individuals are more valuable than others during inter-pack conflicts.
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    The making of the 2008 Korean Candlelight Vigil: a study of politics, media, and social movements
    (2013-02) Shin, Wooyeol
    The purpose of this thesis is to explore the process of constructing the collective identity of the protesters of the 2008 Korean Candlelight Vigil and the role of media in the identity construction process. This thesis locates the 2008 Korean Candlelight Vigil as the process of the symbolic power struggle among various actors in order to construct the meaning of the protesters and their movement in the public sphere in Korea. I examines (1) how the process of developing the relationships among social actors - such as the state, the civil society, and the media organizations - has influenced the flow of information in the public sphere in Korea, (2) how this process was connected to the emergence of the 2008 Korean Candlelight Vigil, (3) how the protesters used the media as a tool of collective action, (4) how the protesters self-identified in their media messages, and (5) how the news media engaged in the production of meanings for the 2008 Korean Candlelight Vigil. To understand these questions, a discourse analysis of the newspaper ads funded and designed by the protesters during the 2008 Korean Candlelight Vigil was conducted. In-depth interviews with five protesters were also used to describe the process of this newspaper ad campaigns. In addition, this thesis investigated frames in the news stories about the 2008 Korean Candlelight Vigil in the two national newspapers, The Hankyoreh and the Dong-A Ilbo, which have been viewed as representing the two ideological camps, the liberal-progressives and the conservatives, respectively. The findings of this study show that the 2008 Korean Candlelight Vigil was an effort to change power relationships through constructing and transforming the social meanings, which have been deeply embedded in the history, culture, and collective memory of Korea. The sociopolitical positions of the newspapers provided interpretive frames through which they defined details of the movement. Both The Hankyoreh and the Dong-A Ilbo connected the collective identity of the protesters with values and norms that their readers have shared and been concerned about: in the liberal-progressive Hankyoreh, the movement was defined as the ideal of liberal progressivism, and in the conservative Dong-A Ilbo, it was portrayed as a threat to conservatism. In addition, during the whole process of the movement, a mutually beneficial relationship existed between the protesters and the liberal-progressive newspapers. This symbiotic relationship could have provided the movement's source of values and actions and ultimately led to the construction of a unified actor that we can call the 2008 Korean Candlelight Vigil.
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    Mixing business with pleasure: the impact of blended relationships on emotion work in organizations.
    (2011-03) Fitzpatrick-Timm, Stacy Lynn
    The current study examined status-different blended relationships in the workplace. Relational Framing Theory was applied as a means of understanding the two primary functions of workplace blended relationships. Two hundred and twenty-four subjects, employed both full and part time, were asked to complete an online survey about their experience and management of emotional stress during a conflict with a superior. Results indicated that employees maintained four types of blended relationships in the workplace. Furthermore, intensity of emotional stress experienced during conflict and the preferred emotion work strategy in response to this stress was dependent upon the type of blended relationship maintained. This study provides insight into how employees view their blended relationships and how work and social functions of workplace relationships are managed.
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    New Spaces: On Territoriality in an Expansive Era
    (2024) Graefe, Carl
    New Spaces: On Territoriality in an Expansive Era introduces the concept of a territorial supply shock to the study of international relations (IR). The field of IR has long operated under the notion that the amount of space that international actors have to interact with and in is static. This assumption of fixed territorial supply ignores three significant additions to the supply of territory in the world: the Earth’s poles, the deep oceans, and Earth orbit. New Spaces conducts basic research into how the general notion that territorial supply is dynamic, and the three new spaces impact the study of international relations. Using an innovative combination of computer simulation and historical case study, New Spaces uncovers the counterintuitive notion that interstate cooperation rather than competition is the modal political outcome in these new spaces. The findings present in new spaces have potential to significantly impact IR theory in areas of territorial conflict, conceptualizing the state, and international cooperation. Additionally, the insight gained from the addition of the study of the poles, the oceans, and outer space adds significant new data to the archive used to test theories of international relations. Finally, the methodology employed in New Spaces provides two innovations. The first is to offer a demonstration of multimethod research built around a generative approach to social science that has much to offer those handling complex and new questions for IR. The second is a more thorough treatment of the international system as a complex socio-environmental system, knitting together aspects of IR that are often studied separately.
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    Seeking justice during war: accountability in conflicted democracies.
    (2012-08) Lynch, Moira Katherine
    In the past several years, the transitional justice literature has generated theories concerning varying human rights accountability outcomes in states transitioning from authoritarianism and violent conflict. Most of these theories are based on transition and post-conflict dynamics. However, a subset of these cases, democracies that have experienced internal conflict, cannot accurately be explained by these theories. Human rights trials and truth-seeking measures are overwhelmingly conducted during the violence in conflicted democracies, thus it is not appropriate to theorize accountability outcomes in these cases based on transition or post-conflict dynamics. Yet, these cases continue to be included in large N datasets and research that formulates explanations on why some countries implement accountability mechanisms while others do not. I assert that it is necessary to consider these cases in a different light. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland and Spain, I argue that the causal mechanisms that shaped prosecutions and truth-seeking measures in these cases were rooted in the pre-conflict milieu. Vertical, horizontal and external relations of accountability, including political competition, civil society pressure, judicial independence and pressure from international institutions, prompted accountability mechanisms in all three countries. The variation across the cases in terms of the prosecution record and the use of truth-seeking measures is explained by the extent to which these relations of accountability were available and operating efficiently prior to the conflict. The efficiency of these relations, in turn, was shaped by the presence/absence of entrenched emergency laws.
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    Three Essays In Development Economics
    (2020-05) Bloem, Jeffrey
    Although the world has witnessed a remarkable reduction in global poverty, vexing challenges persist. Whereas globally poor individuals of the previous generation overwhelmingly lived in poor countries, today the global poor are largely split between two groups: (i) poor, fragile, and conflict-riddled countries or (ii) fast-growing but increasingly economically unequal countries. Answers to questions about what can be done to promote inclusive economic development and reduce poverty will differ critically across these contexts. My research aims to make valuable contributions toward answering important contextualized questions by evaluating policies, testing new theories, and credibly using quantitative data.
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    Why Disagreement Obstructs Constructive Dialogue: The Role of Biased Attribution of Moral Motives
    (2014-09) Reifen Tagar, Michal
    Diversity of opinions is often celebrated as an opportunity to learn from one another and to improve decision-making by widening the scope of considerations informing decisions, and, on the societal level, is lauded as the foundation of liberal democracy. Yet, constructive dialogue across lines of disagreement is often lacking, especially around the more charged and contentious issues of disagreement. The goal of the current research project was to examine the proposition that biased attribution of moral motives plays an adverse role in the relation between disagreement and tolerance of ideational opponents. In particular, it was expected that people impugn the moral motives of those with dissimilar opinions, especially when the issue of contention is held as a moral conviction, and that this biased perception in turn leads to greater intolerance of such opponents. The pattern of results accrued across four studies supports this expectation. Across diverse issues of disagreement, to the extent that participants held their positions with high moral conviction, they were more likely to see their ideational opponents as less morally motivated than themselves, and this biased attribution, in turn, led to more negative attitudes and emotions toward the other, to greater distrust and desire for social distance, and less willingness to work together; all this occurring above and beyond the simultaneous mediating role of biased attribution of ability. These negative outcomes effectively obstruct the likelihood of engagement and constructive dialogue that could advance shared understanding, and ultimately individual and societal progress and well-being. As such, the pattern of results that emerged from the current research suggests that biased attribution of moral motives in the context of moral disagreement deserves greater attention in future studies of interpersonal, organizational, and intergroup relations, as well as democratic processes.